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USSR: Measures of Economic Growth and Development, 1950-80

Central Intelligence Agency · 1982-12-08 · 399 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Joint Committee Print, dated December 8, 1982, gathers studies that the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Intelligence prepared for the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress. It gives estimates of Soviet gross national product for 1950 to 1980, with indexes of industrial production, agricultural production and consumption, and explains the methods and data behind them. The foreword says official Soviet statistics inflate growth and that the CIA measures offer a more accurate picture. The document contains no UFO material.

  • p. 18 …Power, United Nations International Comparisons Project, Phase I (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975) ICP…
  • p. 19 …Oleg 1-Ioeffding, Soviet National Income and Product in 1928, Columbia University Press, New York, 1954…
  • p. 21 …In theory, the Soviets " Basic Principles of the System of Balances of the National Economy, United…
  • p. 50 …Lawrence Grose, Real Output Measurement in the United States National Income and Product Accounts, US Department…
  • p. 166 …The subsidies on housing, recreation, and the press were allocated to the housing, recreation, and other…
  • p. 181 …Duke University Press, 1972), pp. 155-194; with Wade Robertson, “Industrial Production in the USSR," Soviet…
  • p. 183 …tons, square meters, units of production, or some other convention- al measure. Examples of this type…
  • p. 210 …For example, the production of commodities pub- lished in physical units includes intraplant turnover, but the…
  • p. 222 …bulbs Units Narkhoz Machine tools sector ml Meta? cutting machine tools Rubles Narkhoz Forge presses sector…
  • p. 249 …Hardt, eds., Soviet Economic Statistics, Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1972 Treml and Hardt U…
  • p. 261 …Khrushchev stat- ed that “figures for average yield (of grain) which you read in the press…
  • p. 308 …central press. 8 Because the official data have again been made available to the United States…
  • p. 320 …Power, United Nations International Comparisons Project, Phase I (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975) ICP…
  • p. 321 …2 For details, see United Nations, Comparisons ofthe System of National Accounts and the System of…
  • p. 328 …Judging from a mass of anecdotal evidence from the Soviet press concerning the poor quality of…
  • p. 342 …Although the average size of a dwelling unit increased between 1950 and 1978-by 17 percent…
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
Table 4 (continued)
Soviet Industrial Production Indexes
l970=l00
1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Industrial materials 100.00 105.66 110.76 116.88 123.12 130.19 134.88 138.77 142.62 144.11 147.77
Ferrous metals 100.00 103.79 107.25 111.57 116.30 121.45 124.70 125.60 128.38 128.45 128.02
Nonferrous
metals
100.00 107.02 112.72 119.56 126.92 132.89 137.08 141.26 145.90 150.22 '15l.43
Fuels 100.00 104.81 109.78 115.11 120.73 127.83 132.54 138.12 142.47 146.70 150.14
Electric power 100.00 108.12 115.80 123.62 131.88 140.58 150.29 155.65 162.90 167.68 175.26
Chemicals and
_ petrochemicals
100.00 108.06 115.28 125.71 137.67 151.03 158.26 166.55 172.49 172.88 181.90
Wood, pulp, and
P3lJ¢1'
100.00 102.80 104.83 107.66 109.59 113.59 113.45 113.98 113.44 110.16 113.22
Construction
materials
100.00 106.67 112.27 119.01 124.61 130.24 134.76 137.37 140.73 141.19 142.59
Total machinery 100.00 108.12 115.61 125.25 135.96 146.38 154.50 163.21 172.39 182.04 189.96
Including:
Producer
durables
100.00 1 10.05 117.97 128.34 139.60 151.03 160.70 171.22 182.05 193.00 200.39
Consumer
durables
100.00 112.62 128.14 144.86 159.91 173.85 184.68 197.98 214.65 224.14 232.72
Consumer non-
durables
100.00 103.43 105.60 107.40 113.32 117.99 119.42 123.40 124.11 127.29 127.47
Light industry 100.00 104.48 105.26 108.24 111.11 114.30 119.05 122.06 125.21 127.41 129.96
Processed food 100.00 102.55 105.89 106.69 115.17 121.09 119.73 124.52 123.19 127.18 125.38
Total industry 100.00 106.06 111.40 117.88 125.51 133.24 138.45 143.92 148.93 153.36 157.77
sectors used for computing output for the branches
and total industry appear in appendix table A-2.
Major Trends in Industrial Production
The postwar period of Soviet industrial growth falls
naturally into three phases: an immediate postwar
boom, a period of stable—but slowly declining—-
overall growth, and then a prolonged slowdown. These
three phases are clear and pronounced for total
industry and for industrial materials (figure 5). Ma-
chinery conforms to this pattern except in the middle
phase. Its growth slows initially in the 1960s, as do the
other groups, but growth then improves in the mid-
1960s where it remains on a plateau until the third
phase begins. Consumer nondurablcs also do not
exhibit a stable middle phase, showing instead large
growth fluctuations around a steadily declining trend.
The postwar industrial boom lasted through the 1950s
with annual industrial growth ranging between 8 and
12 percent per year. As the Soviet economy rebuilt
from the massive destruction of World War II, expan-
sion focused on those industries most vital to the
nation’s investment programs—-construction materials
and machinery. Production of consumer nondurablcs
generally grew more slowly even though production
was at a low absolute level.
The early 1960s marked the beginning of a new phase
in Soviet industrial development as growth slowed
sharply in practically every branch. For the next
decade and a half, the growth of total industrial
192
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 399 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.