Industrial Branch Ministries 



Soviet industry is organized on a branch-of-indus- 

 try concept; the branch is defined by its products, 

 such as communications equipment industry, defense 

 industry, and machine tool and tool building indus- 

 try. Each branch is managed by an industrial minis- 

 try of the Council of Ministers. Currently there are 

 about 30 union-level industrial ministries in the 

 USSR Council of Ministers. The research institutes 

 and design organizations subordinate to the indus- 

 trial ministries at the union and republic levels 

 constitute what probably are the most important So- 

 viet resources for applied R&D. As already noted, 

 the ministerial branch system includes half of all 

 scientists and engineers in the Soviet Union and gar- 

 ners more than three-fourths of all the expenditures 

 for R&D. To be sure, the branch sector of science 

 is not just "industrial." There are other branches, 

 such as construction, trade, and justice, though the 

 bulk of this sector consists of industrial scientif- 

 ic organizations. Some non-industrial branch R&D is 

 done by branch VUZy and branch academies as well as 

 specialized branch scientific institutions. 



The internal organization of a typical industrial 

 ministry is illustrated in Figure 9-7 . A collegium 

 consisting of the minister and his deputies consti- 

 tutes the top management of a ministry. The scien- 

 tific-technical council of the ministry is composed 

 of leading scientists and engineers; the council de- 

 liberates branch technology policy and monitors the 

 technical performance of facilities. There are also 

 ministry- level functional administrations concerned 

 with such matters as planning, finance, and supply. 

 Of these subdivisions, the technical administration 

 is charged with overseeing the development and im- 

 plementation of technology policy within the minis- 

 try and, specifically, with the formulation of the 

 technical chapters of the ministry plan. 



The basic units of Soviet industry traditionally 

 have been and, to a large extent, still are research 

 institutes, design bureaus, and production enterpris- 



57 



