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9th Five-Year Plan - 1971-1975

In the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-75), a slowdown in virtually all sectors became apparent. There was a smooth process of winding up the Kosygin reform.The collapse of the reform was facilitated by the final victory of conservative, technocratic tendencies in the country's leadership in 1972-1973. Uninterested in the decentralization of governance, she decided to return to a proven, rigid administrative structure. Gross indicators again began to play a leading role in economic life. An important role in the fate of the reform was played by the fact that its relevance weakened. Due to the increase in oil and gas exports in the context of the global fuel and energy crisis, a stream of "petrodollars" literally fell on the USSR. The system of material incentives for agricultural labor was not thought out. The guaranteed wages of collective farmers were not related to the results of their labor activity. Agriculture became more and more unprofitable.

Due to the deterioration of the international situation, the USSR was forced to join the next round of the arms race. The militarization of the national economy is intensifying. About 20% of the gross national income is spent on the needs of the "defense industry". This leads to serious imbalances in the industrial structure. The production of military equipment at machine-building enterprises reached 60 to 80% of all their products.

In 1972-1973, there has been a change in economic priorities. This turn was explained by a complex of objective and subjective, external and internal reasons. In connection with the aggravation of Soviet-Chinese relations, the development of the Far East (which prompted the forced construction of the BAM) acquired strategic importance, the role of the military-industrial complex and the armed forces increased.

Due to the increase in the early 1970s on the world market of oil and energy prices (due to the energy crisis in the West in 1973-1974), the Soviet leadership chose to take the easy path, which gave the fastest result - the path of exporting raw materials and energy resources. The term "petrodollars" means the surplus profits received by the USSR from the sale of energy resources to Western countries. Only for the 1970s. The USSR received about 170 billion "petrodollars", the export structure acquired the so-called. "Colonial character": in 1985, almost 55% of the export accounted for fuel and raw materials.

Premier Kosygin had noted that contemporary developments in science and technology require that enterprise guidance have a time-horizon longer than is provided by annual plans. "Proper importance has not been attached to long-range plans," he said.5 He called for "as a basic form of planning, a five-year plan with breakdowns of the more important assignments by years". The recommendations of the All-Union Conference on Improving Planning and Economic Management, held in May 1968, included this proposal, along with the stricture that the five-year plans be worked out within the framework of a system of long-range plans., The emphasis on long-range plans was reinforced in the Party government decree on science and technology adopted in October 1968; the decree instructed the Gosplan, the State Committee for Science and Technology and other agencies concerned to work out 10-15 year forecasts of scientific and technical developments to be used in planning. Speaking at the 24th Party Congress in the Spring of 1971, both Brezhnev and Kosygin stressed the importance of longrange plans. The Ninth Five-Year Plan embodies the approach called for by Kosygin in 1965. It included, for the first time in Soviet planning experience, specific detailed targets for individual years in the plan.

National income grew only 28 percent during the period, and gross industrial production increased by 43 percent. The 37 percent growth rate for the production of consumer goods was well below the planned target of 45.6 percent. Problems in agriculture grew more acute during the period. The gap between supply and demand increased, especially for fodder.

The Ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-75) was developed on the basis of the Directives of the Twenty-fourth Congress of the CPSU (1971) and approved in the same year by the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The main task of the five-year plan is to ensure a significant rise in the material and cultural standard of living of the people on the basis of high rates of development of socialist production, increasing its efficiency and accelerating the rate of growth of labor productivity. The plan provides for a broad and diversified program for increasing the material well-being and cultural level of the Soviet people: increasing the income of the population by raising wages and payments from social consumption funds; improvement of living conditions; increasing the level of material security of large families, pensioners and students; improving the working conditions of women mothers; development of the service sector, health care system and organized recreation of workers; all-round development of public education and socialist culture, including completing the transition to universal secondary education; further convergence of the living standards of the urban and rural population.

The main way of solving the tasks stipulated in the plan is the all-round intensification of social production. The national economic inter-sectoral and intra-sectoral proportions are significantly improving in order to increase the well-being of the people and accelerate the rate of technical progress. As in the previous five-year plans, priority development is given to the branches of industry that determine technical progress in the entire national economy - machine building, the chemical and oil, gas, and electric power industries. Measures have been taken to further improve agriculture: to increase the level of mechanization of production processes, to develop land reclamation and irrigation, to expand chemicalization, and to transfer the development of animal husbandry to an industrial basis. Significantly more attention than in the previous five-year plans, paid to economic and organizational measures that ensure the successful implementation of tasks: improving management, planning, creation, development and strengthening of production associations in industry and agro-industrial complexes. Much attention is paid to the development of new industries - nuclear engineering, the production of automation and computer technology, etc. Socialist competition was further developed, and the movement for the adoption of counter-plans revived and filled with new content.

During the four years of the five-year plan (1971–74), the national income increased by 24%, industrial output by 33.2%, and the average annual agricultural output by 15%. The volume of capital investments in the national economy amounted to 387 billion rubles. The production fixed assets in the national economy increased by 40%. In industry, about 1,700 large enterprises and facilities have been commissioned, as well as a large number of new workshops and production facilities at existing enterprises. Among those built are the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station with a capacity of 6 GW, the Volga passenger car plant, the world's first nuclear power plant using fast neutrons, a blast furnace with a volume of 5000 m 3at the Krivoy Rog metallurgical plant. The construction of a complex of enterprises for the production of trucks (KamAZ), the Baikal-Amur railway was carried out. highways (BAM) and many other major enterprises and facilities.

More than 15,000 new types of industrial products were mastered. The technical level and quality of products, including consumer goods, have increased; many products have been awarded the State Quality Mark. The structure of industrial production has been improved. The share of mechanical engineering, the chemical industry, and the electric power industry in all industrial production rose to 35 percent in 1974, compared with 31 percent in 1970. Industry has achieved a high rate of output of progressive and efficient types of products that reduce material and labor costs for the production of a social product. So, over the years, the production of mineral fertilizers increased by 45%, synthetic resins and plastics - by 49, chemical fibers - by 42, instruments and automation equipment - 2 times, computer technology - 3.2 times, metal-cutting machine tools with numerical control - 2.8 times. At the same time, the output of products, which constitutes the foundation of the economy, increased. So, electricity generation. increased by 32%, steel production - by 18, cement - by 21, oil - by 29, gas - by 32%.

Significant progress has also been achieved in the growth of production of consumer goods. Over the years, the production of fabrics has increased by 1 billion m 2, knitwear - by 157 million pieces, hours - by 10.4 million pieces, radio receivers and radios - by 1 million pieces, refrigerators - by 1.3 million pieces, passenger cars - by 800 thousand pieces. pcs., or 3.7 times. production of household chemicals increased by 42%. The production of food products increased at a rapid pace: meat products - by 30%, animal oil - by 31%, vegetable oil - by 35, canned food - by 31%. A large range of work has been completed on the implementation of a computer control system for various purposes and computer centers. By the end of the five-year plan, more than 2,700 automated control systems (ACS) and 2,600 computer centers were in operation. The increase in the output of industrial products was accompanied by a continuous improvement in their quality, the development of new types of products. During these years, mass production of 14.2 thous. new types of industrial products, and 5.8 thousand obsolete samples were discontinued. The state quality mark was awarded to 23.3 thousand items. In industry, 84% of the increase in production was obtained due to an increase in labor productivity (in the 7th five-year plan - 62, in the 8th - 73%), in agriculture, on the railway. In transport, the entire increase was due to the growth of labor productivity.

A set of measures was implemented to improve the welfare and cultural level of the population. Increased wages, stipends, pensions and benefits while maintaining the stability of retail prices. Increased wages and salaries for 47 million workers and employees, or half of their total number. About 30 million people received additional payments and benefits from public consumption funds. The early redemption of government bonds began. Real income per capita increased by more than 19%. Residential buildings with a total usable area of ??434 million m 2 were built , as a result of which the living conditions of about 45 million people were improved. The introduction of general secondary education has been completed.

The training of skilled workers and specialists of higher and secondary qualifications has improved. Healthcare, consumer services, and the recreation industry were further developed. The network of cultural institutions, theaters, cinema and clubs expanded.

Great successes were achieved in the development of the economy of the Union republics. The complexity of their development has increased with the strengthening of the process of further specialization in those industries for which there are the most favorable conditions. The outstripping development of the eastern economy was carried out. regions of the country; they ensured high growth rates in the energy industries, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, chemical, timber, woodworking, pulp and paper industries, and further development of grain farming, cotton growing and animal husbandry. The largest oil industry base in the country has been created in Western Siberia. The construction of the BAM that began will include new and richest natural resources in the country's economy and will form the basis for further development of the economy of Eastern Siberia and the Far East.

The inclusion in the arms race and the return to rigid centralization of economic management led to the transition to the formation of a single national economic complex, to the deepening of the process of the all-Union division of labor. This led to the emergence of imbalances in the economy of the Union republics. The allied leadership by administrative methods tried to equalize their economic potential. At the same time, the potential, capabilities and needs of the republics themselves were not taken into account, which caused public discontent in them and the growth of opposition moods. All-Union financial resources were distributed without taking into account the contribution of each specific republic, some of which did not send collected taxes to the all-Union budget at all (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania).

Although financial injections from the center into the Russian economy were significantly less than into the economies of other republics, anti-Russian sentiments began to grow in them. In a number of republics, the desire to secede from the USSR (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) intensified.

Under the conditions of detailed and petty care of ministries and departments, giant enterprises turned out to be absolutely inflexible and incapable of improving equipment and assortment, and were weakly amenable to re-profiling. At best, it took 6 - 8 years from invention to implementation, when it was already hopelessly outdated. Attempts to transfer industry to an intensive path were unsuccessful. To advance along the extensive path required the development of new territories and the expansion of mining, primarily oil and gas.

In the mid-1960s. discovered and began to develop the West Siberian oil and gas region. 1970-1980 oil production increases 10 times, and gas - 15 times. A network of giant pipelines is being built. The share of fuel raw materials in exports is increasing (over 40%). "Petrodollars" poured into the budget in a powerful stream. The relative cheapness of fuel and high prices for it on the world market contributed to the emergence of a raw material orientation of the economy. The country, thoughtlessly "eating up" natural resources, again returned to the extensive path.

To bring industrial production closer to cheap sources of raw materials, territorial production complexes (TPK) are being created, which included enterprises with a common raw material and energy base. In the 1970s. the Sayan TPK arose, which consisted of several metallurgical and electrical giant factories specializing in the processing of non-ferrous metals. The power for them was provided by the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP. There were also West Siberian, Pavlodar-Ekibastuz, Kansk-Achinsk TPK. For communication between them in 1974-1984. The Baikal-Amur railway line, nicknamed "the construction site of the century", began to be built. These gigantic construction projects, absorbing huge funds, reinforced the existing imbalances in the national economy. Putting them into operation led to a deterioration of the environmental situation in this region.

Agriculture was influenced by the same trends. There was a constant enlargement of agricultural production units. Economic strategists have come to the conclusion that in the era of scientific and technological progress, it is necessary to abandon mixed farms in which grain, vegetables and livestock are grown simultaneously. In their opinion, it was necessary to create large specialized production on an industrial basis. As a result, farms began to focus on a certain type of product, grain, livestock, horticultural and other farms arose. This primarily applies to the farms of the Non-Black Earth Region, the "development" of which began in the mid-1970s. In 1974, a state program for the development of the Non-Black Earth Region was adopted. Colossal investments were made here for the construction of large industrial complexes. This finally allowed to complete the electrification of the villages of the Non-Black Earth Region. Much less funds were allocated for the development of the social sphere (schools, hospitals, clubs). The consolidation of small settlements into supposedly comfortable settlements is being carried out again. Many small villages fell into the category of "unpromising". Young people, as a rule, leave for cities, and old men and women remained there to live out their days.