Documents / FOIA release
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.
“Gross”60+ pages
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421 harvesting. The “bunker weight” ’° yield of the crop (that is,‘ the grain as it weighed directly after combin- ing before preliminary cleaning and drying and before handling and transportation losses occur), is usually below the biological yield. Similarly, the clean, dry, standard-weight portion of the crop is usually less than the bunker weight. In 1954, the bunker weight concept was adopted for official grain output statis- tics. However, bunker weight statistics for the 1955- 58 period and output data for 1950-54 restated in bunker weight were not published until December 1958.“ In addition, in 1958 the Central Statistical Administration published instructions for estimating the grain crop. These instructions were never publicly disseminated, but are believed to represent an alter- ._ ation in the bunker weight measuring system adopted only four years earlier. Published yield statistics suggest that bunker weight grain output statistics before and after 1958 are inconsistent. During 1958-62, the average yield of grain is reported to have increased to 10.9 centners per hectare——an increase in average annual yields of 27 percent over 1954-57. Although grain output in pre-1958 statistics probably was understated by offi- cial manipulation of the data, the jump in yields that occurred in 1958 appears to be at least partly due to a change in statistical methodology that was never explained." To test the consistency of official grain statistics before and after 1958, official production data for 1950-62 were compared with output data estimated from weather data, seeding and harvesting reports, procurement data, statements by Soviet officials, and the like.” The comparison in table 4 of estimated and ” Soviet statistical handbooks use the term “gross harvest” (valovoy sbor). Statistical handbooks prior to 1963 contained the phrase “barn yield” (ambarniy urozhay) in parenthesis, but later issues omit the reference to barn yield. ‘° The USSR never published details of the conversion of biological yield data to bunker weight for pre-1954 data. One Soviet publica- tion stated that annual reports of farms were the basis for recalculating yields. Farms had collected bunker weight data for 1950-54 and earlier. (N.N. Zhivilin, Sovremennaya organizatsiya statistiki zemledeliya, Moscow, 1960, p. 102.) “ For a complete discussion of the 1958 change in grain statistics, see CIA/RR ER 64-33, Production 0fGrain in the USSR, October, 1964, p. 19-22. " Ibid., p. l5-17. actual crops in 1950-1962 shows that for 1950-54, estimated production is equal to or larger than offi- cially reported output. After 1958, however, official production exceeds our estimates by a large margin. The comparison Suggests that either 1950-54 grain output statistics are deliberately understated or that statistics following 1958 are exaggerated." Our grain balance calculations, which begin in detail in 1960, indicate that grain output as shown in official statistics for 1960-62 are reasonably consistent with the sum of grain uses estimated on a bunker weight basis.“ We tend to accept the hypothesis, therefore, that grain statistics for 1950-54 (bunker weight) are deliberately understated. We attempt to compensate for this understatement by making no deduction from official data for waste and losses in 1950-54. For other years a weather-related discount is used to eliminate excess moisture and waste. These estimates and a full discussion of grain waste are in section V, below. The treatment of corn in official Soviet grain statistics has also changed. Before 1955, immature corn (in the milky-waxy stage of ripeness) was included in statis- tics for grain. Between 1955 and 1962, Soviet statisti- cal handbooks reporvted totals for grain output with and without immature corn." Since then, farms have accounted separately for fully ripe corn and corn in the milky-waxy stage of ripeness. Even so, corn statistics are still not entirely consistent with the bunker weight measure for other grain crops. Ripe corn is converted to grain according to the average yield of grain from the cobs as measured by threshing of samples and is expressed in terms of a standard “ The differences in 1955 and 1957 are small but the change in sign from negative to positive indicates some change in reporting or a sudden improvement in agrotechnology. The comparatively large discrepancy in 1956 is attributed to excessive postharvest losses resulting from inadequate transportation and storage facilities in the new lands areas to handle the bumper crop produced there. “ CIA/A (ER) 75-68 The Soviet Grain Balance, I960-73 Septem- ber 1975, p. 24. " To make this calculation total corn output was stated in terms of dry corn equivalent. From this total, output of fully ripe corn was subtracted. The remainder was the dry corn equivalent of immature corn. This figure was subtracted from total grain output to derive total output excluding immature corn. The grain equivalent of immature corn was apparently not a component of total grain output prior to 1954 (Narkhoz, I962 p. 268). 264 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.