Soviet Economic Growth

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THE rates of economic growth projected in the Sixth Five-Year Plan of the Soviet Union are impressive. National income in 1960 is planned to be 160 percent of that in 1955, an increase of about 10.5 percent per year. Although these figures are slightly lower than those claimed for the preceding Five-Year Plan, they are three times those for the United States in the period 1950-55. Similarly, it is planned that by 1960 real wages in the Soviet Union will be 130 percent of the 1955 level, slightly less than the increase claimed for the previous five-year period but still far above the rate in Western capitalistic countries. If these Soviet figures reflect reality the consequences are fateful in terms either of military potential or of winning in a race of competitive coexistence. But are the planned rates attainable? Have the even higher rates of increase claimed in the past been accurate?

It is, of course, quite impossible in a brief space to discuss adequately the validity of Soviet statistics. The publication of a statistical abstract for the Soviet Union by the State Statistical Publishing House in Moscow in the summer of 1956 has, however, raised this complex question once again.^[i] Far more data are included than have been available since before World War II. Likewise, numerous data which have been previously available only in percentages of uncertain bases are now stated in terms of absolute figures. Preliminary examination indicates a rather close correspondence between the figures published in the new statistical abstract and those built up by statisticians in the United States through the laborious process of putting together data gleaned from a variety of Soviet sources.^[ii] This proves only that figures now published are generally consistent with those previously derived from heterogeneous sources. It does not prove that these data were correct. The new statistical abstract does little to correct the strong inflationary bias in the statistics of past performance of the Soviet economy, but there is evidence that statistics for more recent years come closer to reality...