Introduction

The impact of Liberman’s article ‘Planning, profits and the bonus system’, published in the Pravda of 9 September 1962, was almost immediate and unexpected. In this article, Liberman advocated in particular that profits should be adopted as the main ‘indicator of success’ in any assessment of an enterprise’s performance, and also as a criterion for awarding bonuses. As early as November 1962, Khrushchev was already making explicit references to Liberman’s arguments before the plenum of the central committee, and the 1965 reform was inspired to a large extent by his arguments.