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The Evolution of Management and Organization of Soviet Industrial Ministries (1965-1985)
NRU Higher School of Economics
,
2025.
No. N/A.
This study discusses the evolution of the management and organization of Soviet industrial ministries—sizeable structures designed to manage enterprises of specific industries. The ‘Soviet style’ enterprise management included operational (day-to-day) control over the volume of production, control over the cost of production, control over the technical level of production, and control over labour productivity. The evolution of the management and organization of Soviet industrial ministries during the period 1965–1985 involved four stages: the re-installation of the system of industrial ministries in 1965 and setting the basic organizational design of such bodies; the unsuccessful attempt to allow greater independence to ministries in setting production plans and financing the technical development or production, as well as greater independence in determining wages of employees of managed enterprises (1968–1970); the attempts to decrease the load on industrial ministries via amalgamation of management enterprises into ‘production associations’ (1973–1978); and since 1979, when there was a visible degradation of industrial ministries owing to the hypertrophy of controlling functions and efforts without noticeable improvement in production, technical, and financial parameters of managed enterprises and ‘production associations,’ and the rapid cancellation of decisions owing to the impossibility of implementation. It is noteworthy that many actions of ministries—especially, the correspondence with the Council of Ministers—were executed in complete secrecy. Therefore, Russian and Western literature devoted to the functioning of industrial ministries lacks relevant details.