ABSTRACT

The traditional Soviet-type economies growth strategy featured, inter alia, stress on rapid industrialization; priority of investment and other resources for heavy industry, with relative neglect of light industry and agriculture; faster growth of investment than of national income; autarkic tendencies; and the nationalization of industry and forced collectivization of agriculture. In conformity with the adopted strategy, the growth rates of industrial output are the pulse of economic performance. From 1960 to 1970 the Sets could be classified as follows according to their investment dynamics in industry: Bulgaria, Romania, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, the USSR, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. One of the most adverse consequences of traditional industrialization policy and the planning system is their depressing effect on performance and the erosion of morality at all levels of public life. The burdens of the industrialization rush could have been significantly lightened without impinging on the objectives of the system's directors.