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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. 184 …Metalwares, metal structurals, light industry and processed food industry machinery and equipment, and mineral chemicals are…
  • p. 271 …meals, fish meal, and vitamin and mineral supplements as well as ground hay and other materials…
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
Table 2
Commodities Included in CIA and Soviet
Indexes of Agricultural Production
Components of CIA
Index
Addditional Components Used in
Soviet Gross Output of Agriculture
A. Crops
l. Grain
2. Technical crops
a. fiber crops: cotton
and flax
b. sunflower seed
c. soybeans
d. other oil seeds
e. sugarbeets
f. tobacco and
makhorka
g. tea
3. Potatoes
4. Vegetables
5. Fruits, berries,
and nuts
1. Byproducts of grain crops (straw,/
chaff, and so forth)
2. Technical crops
a. other fiber crops
b. essential oil raw materials
c. medicinal plants
d. chicory root
e. seeds and planting material for
technical crops
f. other technical crops (hops, tea,
and so forth)
g. Other oilseeds
3. Feed crops
a. root crops
b. hay
c. green fodder
d. silage crops
e. other feed crops
f. seeds of feed crops
4. Crops for green manure
5. Flowers and decorative plants
6. Expenses for starting and caring for
perennial plantings
7. Unfinished production (change in
value during the year of expenses for
sowing winter crops and soil
preparation)
B. Livestock
l. Meat (slaughter
weight)
a. beef and veal
b. pork
c. mutton and kid
d. poultry
e. other meat
2. Change in number of
livestock
3. Milk
4. Eggs
5. Wool
7. Silk cocoons
1. Weight gained by livestock during
the year (liveweight)
2. Offspring and increase of working
livestock (horses, camels, donkeys and
mules) and of reindeer
3. Fur-bearing animals (hides and
offspring)
4. Change in number of bee colonies
5. Fish breeding (young fish and fish
catch)
6. Other animal products (hair, horns,
feathers, manure, beeswax, silkworm
@225)
Procurement, which buys agricultural commodities
from state farms, collective farms, and individual
private sector producers. Other state purchasing orga-
nizations are the Central Union of Consumer Cooper-
atives, and the Ministries of the Food Industry, Meat
and Dairy Industry, Light Industry, and Trade. The
second major sales channel for farm products is the
system of collective farm markets where producers
sell agricultural commodities at prices determined
largely by the interplay of supply and demand. Prices
paid in collective farm markets normally exceed
procurement prices, because products sold through
this channel are of higher quality or because a given
product is scarce or unavailable in state retail stores.
For example, in 1970 the average collective farm
market price for milk was almost double that paid by
procurement organizations.
In practice, average realized prices could not be
obtained for each commodity in the index. Surrogates,
some more satisfactory than others, had to be used in
a number of cases. Although average realized prices
for all grain, vegetables, and meat can be estimated,
the prices needed to value each individual type of
grain, vegetable, and meat are missing. Data on
average collective farm market prices for individual
commodities are especially scarce and must be esti-
mated in many cases. Soviet literature provides rela-
tively ample data on list procurement prices "‘ for
individual commodities but obtaining USSR-wide
averages of prices actually paid in a given year is
difficult. In the case of honey and some oilseeds, we
had to substitute RSFSR list procurement prices. ‘°
L
Collective farm procurement prices paid in 1970 are /-
" List procurement prices are paid by procurement organizations
for products of standard quality. Prices for at given product are
differentiated by region in the USSR. In Belorussia, for example, in
1970-72 there were 113 price zones for milk; the milk prices ranged
from 170 to 620 rubles per ton (N .I. Goryachko, Obosnovaniye
sistemy zakupochnykh tsen, Minsk, 1978, p. 20). List prices
exclude adjustments made at the time of sale for product quality.
Grain with moisture content above standard levels, for example,
will be purchased at prices below list prices. List procurement
prices also exclude bonuses paid for sale above the plan quota.
'° Although the RSFSR prices are only for state and collective
farms and exlude the private sector, this is not a source of
significant error. The private sector produces almost no oilseeds,
and the price for honey was made the same for all producers in
1970 (Zakupki sel'skokhozyaystvennykh produktov, no. 9,
1970, p. 1).
258
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 above. 399 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.