Gosplan
고스플란
Gosplan, the State Planning Committee of the Soviet Union, was the central agency responsible for drafting and administering the national economic plans that governed the USSR from its establishment in February 1921 until the country's dissolution in 1991. Originally an advisory body, it assumed comprehensive planning authority with the adoption of the First Five-Year Plan in 1928, becoming the institutional backbone of the command economy by setting output targets and allocating resources across all sectors. Using the method of material balances, Gosplan sought to match inputs with outputs, but the absence of market price signals and systematic falsification of enterprise data meant it could never accurately model the real economy it purported to direct.
In depth
Establishment and Early Years
Gosplan was established on 22 February 1921 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars as the State General Planning Commission (Gosplan RSFSR) under the Council of Labor and Defense of the Russian Republic. After the formation of the USSR, it was reorganised on 13 July 1923 as the State Planning Committee (Gosplan USSR). Its initial staff numbered only about 40 economists and engineers, and through 1925 it played a primarily advisory role, producing annual 'control figures' (контрольные цифры) rather than binding directives.
The Five-Year Plan System
With the introduction of the First Five-Year Plan in 1928, Gosplan's role was fundamentally transformed. Plans became orders rather than forecasts, and Gosplan became the institution that translated the Communist Party's general objectives into concrete sectoral output targets and resource allocations. It developed the method of material balances (балансовый метод), which sought to match inputs and outputs across the economy in physical units (tonnes of steel, quantities of cement) rather than in monetary terms.
War and Post-War
During the Second World War, Gosplan played a central role in planning the evacuation of industrial plants to the east and the conversion of production to military needs, under the direction of the State Defence Committee. After the war it coordinated resource allocation for new technological sectors, including the atomic project. In 1949 the Leningrad Affair led to the purge of Gosplan chairman Nikolai Voznesensky and a sweeping personnel shake-up throughout the agency.
Late Period and Dissolution
In 1955 Gosplan was split into separate commissions for long-term and current planning, later reunited. From the 1970s input-output modelling based on Wassily Leontief's work was introduced, but computational limits and systematic false reporting at the enterprise level continued to undermine plan accuracy. Under Gorbachev, Gosplan's rigidity was identified as a central obstacle to economic reform. On 1 April 1991 it was converted into the Ministry of Economy and Forecasting of the USSR, and abolished with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December of that year.
Chairmen
Notable chairmen included Gleb Krzhizhanovsky (1921–1923, 1925–1930), Valerian Kuibyshev (1930–1934), Nikolai Voznesensky (1938–1949), and the last chairman, Yuri Maslyukov (1988–1991).
Sources
- Wikipedia (RU) founding date, structure, historical periods, chairmen, and balance method
- britannica.com advisory origins, 1928 transformation with First Five-Year Plan, role changes through Soviet history
- lib.ranepa.ru RANEPA centenary exhibition: 300 staff by 1923, network of planning bodies by 1925, balance method, wartime and Comecon roles