551 



and planning and management reform in the formulation of the Plan. 

 Yet the Plan Directives and the leadership speeches at the Congress 

 were disappointing as blueprints of the future course of reform in the 

 Soviet economy. 



In the debate on planning and management, Party General Secre- 

 tary Leonid Brezhnev identified himself with a variety of differing 

 positions. He appeared to bless a conference chaired by Academician 

 Fedorenko in April 1970 which featured more professional techniques 

 in planning. 45 He also supported the extension of market simulating 

 enterprise reforms, such as the Shchekino chemical plant experiment, 

 to all industrial enterprises. At the same time, by rhetoric, if not by 

 direct support, he aligned himself with traditional views of manage- 

 ment by criticizing labor disciplining and supporting the revival of 

 the revolutionary subbotnik (an unpaid "voluntary" Saturday work- 

 day by workers organized by the Party). 46 Thus, Brezhnev was not 

 to be tacked down to any firm commitment on the system of planning 

 and management, 



The evidence of the Congress or the pre-Congress deliberations did 

 not suggest that Soviet leaders were undertaking serious changes in 

 planning and management. Although the leadership was pushed by the 

 logic of rationalization to develop better models for forecasting and to 

 favor market simulating enterprise reforms, it apparently found the 

 political-economic cost of change unacceptable. At some point, the cost 

 of not changing may be perceived by the Soviet leadership to be 

 greater than the cost of change. Whether the need for change is fully 

 perceived by the leadership is unclear. 



Alec Nove has suggested that the apparent setbacks of the reformers 

 or economic modernists are only temporary. Time, he claimed, is on 

 their side, and the search for a synthesis between a market and 

 planned economy must begin again. 47 An important article written by 

 Soviet Academician T. S. Khachaturov shortly after the 24th Party 

 Congress provides some substantiation of Nove's view. 48 Khacha- 

 turov's article, which argued in favor of planning and management 

 reforms, may have indicated the beginning of a policy swing of 

 the Brezhnev leadership back to reform. If it did, it may yet result in 

 significant changes during the Ninth Five- Year Plan. 



How do the discussions of economic reform relate to Soviet foreign 

 economic relations? While Soviet reformers have not emphasized the 

 international implications of the reforms, it is clear that a more ra- 

 tional economic decision-making structure would facilitate the integra- 

 tion of the Soviet economy into the international economic system. 

 Rationalization of Soviet prices would encourage the importation of 

 goods produced inefficiently by domestic industries. At the same time, 

 by fostering efficiency in domestic enterprises, the Soviet Union may 

 be able to expand its exports to Western markets. Moreover, economic 

 reform would remove many of the features of Soviet central planning 



45 Pravda, Apr. 14, 1970 ; Ekonomika i matematicheskie tnetodu, vol. VI, No. 4, 1970, 

 pp. 631-638. 



« Pravda, Apr. 14, 1970 : Jan. 13, 1970. 



47 See Netie Zuerrher Zeitunq. April 5. 1970 : and T. Kirstein. "The Controversy over the 

 Market and the Plan in the Soviet Union." Neue Zuercher Zeitung, March 31, 1971. 



** Pravda, May 15, 1970. T. S. Khachaturov is a member of the Academy of Sciences 

 and editor of one of its publications, Voprosy ekonomiki (Problems of Economics). 



