M. Mysl'. 1983. 319 p.
The monograph of R. A. Belousov, Doctor of Economics, Head of the Department of Management of Socio - Economic Processes of the Autonomous Non - Governmental Organization under the Central Committee of the CPSU, is one of the few works in our historical and economic science in which the system of planned management of the USSR economy has been studied throughout the existence of Soviet power. Considering the problem in such a broad framework allowed the author to reveal the dynamics of the development of basic principles, methods and organizational forms of management. Planned management, the author emphasizes (p. 4), acts as the most important link connecting the economy and politics. At all stages of the development of Soviet society, the Communist Party was guided by democratic centralism as the most important principle for building the entire system of governing bodies of the socialist economy; the principle of combining a single state plan with commodity-money relations and economic calculation was always followed.
Based on the extensive factual material in the book, the thesis about the decisive role of the organizational factor in realizing the advantages of socialism is substantiated. R. A. Belousov not only carefully analyzes the structure of the economic apparatus, but also gives a detailed description of the cadres of Soviet economic managers. It also shows that an important method of management under socialism, which creates additional productive power and makes it possible to identify, promote and promote the best workers on an objective basis, is socialist competition.
The monograph quite correctly identifies three major stages in the development of the theory and practice of economic management. The first chronologically covers the period from the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution to the second half of the 1920s. At this time, there was an intensive process of searching for effective forms of managing the national economy. At the same time, the most important elements were created first, and then the system of state management of the economy and the corresponding network of organizational relations. The second stage dates back to the late 20s-mid 60s. It is associated with profound structural changes both in the material and technical base of all branches of the national economy, and in the socio - economic forms of its development. The third, modern stage began in the mid-60s.
Describing the difficulties of restructuring and improving the system of planned economic management at the present stage, R. A. Belousov writes: "Planning traditionally remains focused on regulating the production and distribution of scarce material goods, instead of turning the whole front to problems of efficient use of them, because the accumulated wealth must be managed very skillfully. It is precisely in turning to these problems that the essence of improving the methods of planned management now lies. Among such methods, we should highlight the rise to a qualitatively higher level of analysis of final results and costs, planning and incentives," save " (p.240).
The main advantage of the book is the historical approach to the consideration of theoretical problems of planned management of the USSR economy. This is the methodological value of the monograph, because the theory that can answer the demands of the working people, teaches V. I. Lenin, "is a theory based on a detailed and detailed study of Russian history and reality" 1 . The monograph not only contains a detailed historical sketch of improving the methods of managing the economy of the USSR, but also characterizes the development of economic theory. The author shows how the erroneous ideas that economic planning cancels the operation of the objective laws of the political economy of socialism were overcome, how views on economic calculation developed, and so on.
Thus, the monograph contains interesting and important observations on the development of economic thought. The author's comments that the economic calculation of the nel is correct are correct.-
1 Lenin V. I. PSS. Vol. 1, p. 307.
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It should be identified, as is often done, with commodity-money relations. "Self-financing relations," he writes, " are indeed closely related to commodity - money relations, but they are more extensive in their economic content and more complex in their structural relationships, which is quite natural, since self-financing covers not only circulation, but also the sphere of production, as well as distribution. In such conditions, the level of monetary income of an individual employee is determined not only by the quantity and quality of his personal labor contribution, but also by the results of economic activity of the entire team, the degree of intensity and rationality of using the resources allocated to him" (p.252).
Self-financing relations, which develop in unity with the planned ones, are regulated not only and not so much by the law of value as by the basic economic law of socialism. Through the self-financing mechanism, it is possible to purposefully use the relations of planned distribution and circulation as a method of increasing production efficiency. Unfortunately, the problem of self-financing is discussed in detail in the book only in relation to the current stage of development of the Soviet economy. It would be important to show how the party in the first years of the pre-war five-year plans tried to consistently implement the principles of self-financing. The author only mentions that the slogan of introducing self-financing was put forward at that time.
The development of economic theory in the early 1930s deserves special analysis, when at the turn of the first and second five-year plans, incorrect theoretical statements were criticized, as if socialism abolished the law of value and self-financing. During the second five-year plan, important economic experiments were conducted to introduce full economic accounting into practice. From the point of view of the formation and improvement of planned management of the USSR economy, the second five-year plan has not been sufficiently studied, and yet it was then that the most important principles were laid, which were developed at the present stage of economic construction.
R. A. Belousov did not use historical and economic studies on particular problems of the topic with the necessary completeness, and this led to some one-sided assessments found in the monograph. Thus, describing the reason for the liquidation of the Supreme Economic Council in 1932, he puts the problem of personnel in the first place. Many employees of the Supreme Economic Council, the book says, have become accustomed to the established order of things, to the management system that hindered "the successful implementation of industrialization. The style of work of industrial management personnel in the new conditions began to act as a carrier of familiar, but inefficient forms and methods of work and therefore needed a radical restructuring" (p. 133). This interpretation of the reasons for the transition to a branch-based industrial management system is clearly incomplete.
The point of view has already been established in the literature that industrialization required strengthening the unified technical policy in the context of industrial sectors, and this was the main reason for the deep sectoral specialization of the economic management apparatus. The reform of 1932, which eliminated the Supreme Economic Council, which by that time was already a conglomerate of branch commissariats, only consolidated and legally formalized the order that had developed in practice.
R. A. Belousov writes about the sovnarkhozy created in 1957 that they "in many respects resembled similar structures of the early 1920s in terms of the organizational structure of management" (p. 217). The external resemblance did exist. However, with the exception of a few months in the winter of 1917/1918, when the central economic apparatus was just being created, our economy did not know a purely territorial management principle until 1957. Before the reform of 1932, the system of local sovnarkhozy was supplemented by branch chapters, departments and centers of the Supreme Economic Council. In the first 15 years of Soviet power, the territorial principle of industrial management was always combined with the sectoral one. At the same time, the latter was the lead. With the success of the industrial development of the USSR, the Supreme Economic Council's headquarters and centers increasingly acquired a dominant role in the system of economic management.
The author compares the centralization of government at the end of the 1920s and the period of "war communism", noting that during the civil war it was not provided with appropriate discipline, information, or personnel. "It is no accident that such 'centralization' was accompanied by a decline in the efficiency and absolute level of industrial production" (p.106). One gets the impression that the decline in production occurred as a result of centralization, and yet this is precisely the case.
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centralization prevented the collapse of production and helped the young Soviet Republic survive. The separation from previous historical works on the problem is also reflected in a number of other places in the book.
R. A. Belousov's monograph as a whole is a valuable and important work on the history of economic management in the USSR.
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