CPW REPORT NO. 28-A (MAR. 17 - 31, 1952)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-04864A000200100012-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 18, 1998
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: March 31, 1952
• Content Type: REPORT

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FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
FOIAb3b1
DATE PUBLISHED
INDUSTRY:
CPVV Report No. 28-A
(Mar. 17 - 31, 1952)
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
CONTENTS
INDUSTRY ............. 1
IDEOLOGY ............. 4
al-a''= " L A great deal of what should have been done but was
not is revealed in a lengthy budget message by Finance Minister Shchetinin before the
Ukrainian Supreme Soviet (Mar. 27). The Ministries of the Local, Building Materials,
Civilian Housing Construction, and Furniture Industries are said to have fallen short of
their 1951 .targets. Looking into the rising costs of production at some of the indus-
trial enterprises, the Minister asserts that financial mismanagement, violations of
"expenditure discipline," and an attitude of indifference to lower production costs are
among the major contributing factors. Back of it all, it is inferred, is the lukewarm
attitude of the management toward profitable operations (rentabelnost) which ca-Is for a
systematic reduction of production costs. An extreme case of cost variations is cited
in connection with the Ministry of the Local Industry where the production of a child's
bicycle in one plant is several times higher than the cost of producing an identical
bicycle in another plant. Another example is that of the Southern Power Construction
Trust (Trust Pivden-Energo-Bud), the largest of its kind in the Ukraine. InstpPrl 'f'
lowering production costs and saving 3 million rubles ,according to plan, the Trust
showed an overexpenditure of 14 million.
Overpayment to workers, according to Shchetinin, contributes to "unprofitable operations"
and should be discontinued at once. In the Lvov Furniture Trust, for example, the total
payroll amounted to 103.E of the plan whereas the average output per worker was only
95.5%. The Ministry of Civilian Housing Construction of the Ukrainian SSR has not only
"failed to fulfill its 1951 construction plan" but also "completed the year with great
losses." Serious dereliction of duty is also charged to the Ministry of Health Service
for its failure to provide proper medical service for the population. In such large
areas as Drogobych, Rovno, Kherson, and Dnepropetrovsk Oblasts the planned network of
medical establishments in the rural areas "was not completed" in 1951.
Reviewing the Ukraine's industrial activities primarily from a financial point of
view, Shchetinin judges the success or failure of a particular industry or enterprise
by the way its appropriations are utilized. Most of his references to industrial
shortcomings are therefore made in such terms as "improper utilization of allocations",
overexpenditure or use of appropriations for purposes "not originally planned." Thus
some unnamed Republican and local organs of Soviet administration are said to bE tolerat-
ing cases of financial abuse, and violations of "State and expenditure" discipline.
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There were cases of wrong utilization of allo-
cations in the local budgets and squandering of
allocations for capital repair of schools, hospi-
tals and clubs and the construction of new adminis-
trative buildings.
i7lainian version:
Po mistsevykh budgetakh dopuskayut nepravilr-
vykorystane assygnovan, dopuskayut vytrachanye
koshtiv assygnovannykh na kapitalny remont shkil,
lel-gren, klubiv, na nove budivnitstvo, v tomu
chasli administrativnykh budynkiv.
Abuses, of a more serious nature, including theft, are said to be prevalent in the
distribution of consumer goods at the rayon level. Not only is the qualit of
disregarded, as heretofore, but the quantity appears y goods
squandering and pilfering y ppears to be adversely affected by
(rozstraty i kradizhki). Such practices have already cost
the State over 8.5 million rubles in overexpenditures, in addition to the 9-million ruble
loss incurred by the food distribution organizations.,
Finance Minister Fadeyev's report before the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (Mar. 27) is
somewhat milder in tone. The chief target of his attack, however, is also the abuse of
the average consumer. Referring to the assortment of consumer goods, the Minister
reveals that in 1951 the Ministry of the Local Industry was short 65 varieties of mass
consumption goods and the Industrial Cooperative System (promyslovaya kooperatsia) 42,
including furniture, household dishes and utensils, and others. The supply of inferior
quality goods (dostavka nedobrokachestvennykh i~deliy) is almost taken for granted in
a number of local trading organizations, while their losses and unnecessary overexpendi-
tures are an additional burden on the budget (dopolnitelno obremenyaut budzhet). k1roduc-
;ion of inferior consumer goods is also attributed to the Republican Ministry of Light
Industry. The losses it sustained in 1951 alone through quality reduction (ot ponizhennoy
sortnosti) amounted to 21.8 million rubles.
r'-Estimate padding" (nezakonnoye zavyshenie smetnykh raskhodov), as revealed by both
Fadeyev and Deputy Afanassyev on the same day, is being practiced by the planning
organizations (proyektnie organizatsii) of the various industries on a large scale.
Afanessyev in fact intimates that entire krais, oblasts, and autonomous republics are
involved in it. Cases of payroll account padding (nezakonno povyshennie stavki zarabotnoy
platy) are particularly frequent, and the result is a top-heavy administrative machine.
Fadeyev points out that a checkup on the personnel of 38 auto-transport organizations in
Leningrad alone revealed that the "approved number of administrative staff members"
(utverzhdenniy administrativno-upravlenehekiy apparat) was exceeded by 440 officials
drawing a total salary of 279,000 rubles.
In a summarized talk for economics students (Mar. 26), Arutelyan suggests two basic
methods which, if used simultaneously, will raise the output and lower production costs.
They are the "extensive and intensive" (ekstensivniy i intensivniy) methods of produc-
tion. The extensive method, though elaborated under 10 different
eliminate bottlenecks and machine stoppages points, is designed to
by improving the maintenance of the equip-
ment and fixing responsibility on shops, teams, and individual workers for its proper
operation.' The intensive method, continues Arutelyan, is nontechnical in nature but just
as important and offers "almost unlimited possibilities" for the development of the
national economy. Its salient point is "fostering feelings of Soviet patriotism and a
Communist attitude toward labor."
The Ministry of the Lumber Industry (Ministerstvo Lesnogo Khozaistva) has been the object
of official attacks for some time. It is repeatedly referred to at the current Supreme
Soviet sessions of the RSFSR, the Ukraine and elsewhere as having lagged behind the plan
last year and showing little improvement in 1952. The Ministry's planning, according to
Deputy Afanassyev, "does not always call for...the proper expenditure of State funds"
(ne vsegda predusmatrivayet...pravilnoye raskhodovanie gosudarstvennykh sredstv).
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The i e.rformance of the Ukrainian "',-tuber industry, particularly in the Transcarpathian
region, is also discussed in disjraging terms in Shchetinin's budget message. The
outp',t of semimanufactures in a nuoer of lumber enterprises, he says, has actually
decreased by 15%. This, in turn, has adversely affected the production of the building
materials industry which incidentally is also working behind plan.
SOVETSKAYA RODINA (Mar. 18) declares bluntly that the lumber production and floating
plan, having failed last year, is still "not progressing satisfactorily" this year. The
paper intimates that the reason for the breakdown of the winter haulage plan -- performance
less than 50% -- is the "inadequate care" taken of the lumber-floating workers. The
trade union and Party organizations are -therefore urgently requested to take a better
look into the lumberjacks' living conditions and supply them with sufficient food,
newspapers, books and "other means of political education and propaganda."
In an otherwise stereotyped collective letter to Stalin, the Donets Basin coal miners
promise to make a better showing in the future and produce more and better coal. As
discussed in previous CPIN reports, collective letters to Stalin, despite their optimistic
accounts of current or past achievements, are often actually prompted by failings and are
designed to forestall official condemnation. The miners' reference to the many shortcomings
(mnogo nedochetov) in their work which will presumably be eliminated is further amplified
in the following assertion:
We are profoundly conscious of the fact that...the
Motherland has a right to demand of us mere coal ...and
particularly a definite qualitative improvement in the fulfillment
Russian version:
of the State plan.
My glubok soznaem,'hto...Rodi.na vprave trebovat
of nas bolshego uvelichenia dobychi uglia....i osobenno
rezkogo uluchshenia kachestvennikh pokazateley vypolne-
nia gosudarstvennogo plane.
Commenting editorially on the miners' "eagerness" to increase production and their
"challenge'' to the Kuznets Basin miners do emulate their example, PRAVDA (Mar. 18)
halls upon all the Party organizations of the mining areas to encourage their
Socialist competition and "eliminate the elements of formalism in this undertaking"
(ustranyat elementy formalizma v etom dele). The triple purpose of Socialist competi-
tion, the paper reiterates, is greater production, higher quality ana lower costs.
Kazakh SSR, says KAZAKRSTANSKAY PRAVDA(Mar. 29), i;.the largest non 'roes metallurgical
base in the Soviet Union but the performance of its mining industry leaves much to be
desired.
Many mining brigades are not fulfilling their ore
extraction plans owing to bad labor organization.
Machines regularly remain idle...the excavator part
is not working at full capacity...
The editorial does not offer any additional details beyond the remark that "due
importance" is not attached to the utilization of machinery. East Kazakhstan, South
Kazakhstan, Karaganda, and Taldy Kurgan Oblasts are urged to "improve their manage-
ment" of the mining industry and see to it that mining equipment is utilized to full
capacity. Passing reference to the shortcomings on the Emba oilfields is made by the
same paper on Mar. 20. Technical deficiencies are said to "impede the raising of the
fuel output," and well-drilling is behind the plan:
...it is first` of all necessary to eliminate the under-
estimation of the importance of drilling works, to get
rid of idleness and breakdowns.
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not by tackling the seamy side of life but by making the behavior of our "positive heroes"
(polozhitelnie geroi) appear in a ridiculous light.' Such false and artificial comical
situations have nothing in common with the reality of life (s zhiznennoy pravdoy).
Bolshakov also wants to knom why many producers persistently refrain from depicting the
personal life of workers and collective farmers, their multifarious spiritual desires and
interests:
Reading certain scenarios, one would think that the
entire life of the worker is spent in the plant among
machines And mechanisms while the life of the peasants
is confined to the machinery on the field.
Rissian version:
nhitava inie stsenarii, mozhno podumat, chto vsia
zhizn rabochego protekayet na zavode sredi stan-
kov i mekhanizmov, a zhizn krestyan -- na pole sredi
mashin.
The fact that only two paintings were awarded Stalin Prizes is a sorry commentary on
the progress of that branch of art, according to Bespalov, chairman of the USSR Art
Committee (Mar. 18). Painting could have been more progressive and expressive if
the Soviet artists would only make an effort to overcome the "substantial shortcomings"
(sushchestvennie nedostatki) in their work. The recent All-Union Art Exhibition in
Moscow, says Bespalov, has revealed instances of ".haste and incompleteness" (speshki,
nedorabotannost) in most of the exhibits. The most important drawback in the artists'
work is their superficial familiarity with Soviet reality: they are unable ...to depict
the Soviet man as he really is. That is why most of the paintings are devoid of any
specific content (bezsyuzhetnie), are uniformly dull and "spiritually impoverished"
(dukhovno obednennie). The. Soviet artist, the article concludes, "cannot and must not ...
live on past successes" (rte mozhet i ne dolzhen ... zhit proshlymi uspekhami); he must
not lag behind the ever-growing demands of the Soviet people.
A report from Moscow (Mar. 23) speaks of the recent conference of the Capital Party
Committee to look into the affairs of the city's 91 colleges. It is disclosed that a
number of professors resort to "oversimplification and vulgarization" (uprcshchenchestvo
i vulgarizatsia) in the treatment of the theoretical questions. A number of colleges
are said to be using the wrong approach to the teaching of social and economic sciences.
This is because in numerous instances the scientific qualifications of the instructors
are patently inadequate for their jobs.' The report does not offer any specific details
as to the ideological errors committed by the professors in question, but states that the
Ministry for Higher Education was subjected to serious criticism for its shortcomings in
the "guidance" of the social science departments of the Moscow universities.
Ideological aberrations of a different nature are dealt within two broadcasts from the
Ukraine. VILNA UKRAINA (Mar. 18) reminds its readers that "remnants of capitalism
still linger in the memories of some people". These
people, Stalin is quoted as
having said, are far more dangerous in the sphere of national questions than in any
other sphere: "In our country... there is no room for the emergence of bourgeois
ideology, including bourgeois nationalism." The paper calls for a "decisive struggle
against all manifestation of bourgeois ideology and above all Ukrainian bourgeois national-
ism. Discussing the political Education in the enlarged collective farms, RADYANSKA
UK,RAINA (Mar. 21.) says that the cultural achievements of the Great Russian people are
not sufficiently extolled and that not enough lectures are given on remnants of
Ukrainian nationalist ideology, "the worst enemy of the Ukrainian people."
Remnants of capitalism in the people's minds is also the subject of a talk by Prof.
Konstantinov of the All-Union Society for the Propagation of Political and Scientific
Knowledge (Home Service, Mar, 29). Discoursing at some length on the "hideous aspect"
of bourgeois democracy anc right-wing Socialism, the professor admits that these twin
evils have not been entirely eliminated in the Socialist Motherland:
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