Rates of Growth under the Five-Year Plans [1953]

It is well known that the basis of the high rate of growth in the U.S.S.R. was an ambitious investment programme; moreover, an investment programme giving priority to expansion of the productive capacity of industries producing means of production. While the overall growth-rate of the metal-fuel-power group has been fairly constant, there has been considerable variation in the growth-rates of the individual items, especially oil and steel. As is well-known, however, there was a large disparity between the rates of growth of different sectors of industry; and in the pre-war period from 1928 to 1940 the output of capital goods registered more than double the rate of increase of that of consumer goods. The new (Fifth) Five-Year Plan for 1951-5 is characterised by two main features: a slower general rate of growth than in previous quinquennial plans, and a narrowing of the divergence between the rates of growth of the two main departments of industry.