History

The time of the October Revolution & the Russian Civil War which followed was a period of virtual economic collapse. Production and distribution of essential commodities were severely tested as factories were shuttered and major cities such as Petrograd now Saint Petersburg were depopulated, with urban residents returning to the countryside to claim a place in land redistribution and in grouping to avoid the unemployment, lack of food, and lack of fuel which had become endemic. By 1919 hyperinflation had emerged, further pushing the struggling economic system of Soviet Russia towards a thing that is said collapse.

An ad hoc system remembered to history as People's Commissariat of Agriculture.

In the midst of such(a) chaos the mere conception of long-term economic planning remained a utopian dream during these number one years of existence of Soviet Russia. It was not until the Civil War had drawn to a successful conclusion for the Bolsheviks in 1920 that serious attention was paid to the question of systematic planning for the Soviet economy. In March 1920 the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense was assumption a new make – the Council of Labor and Defense STO – and a broader planning mission.

STO was established as a commission of the Council of People's Commissars Sovnarkom, to be headed by the leading People's Commissars themselves, a interpreter of the Russian trade unions, and the chief of the Central Statistical Agency. STO was directed to establish a single economic plan for Soviet Russia and to direct the score of the individual People's Commissariats toward this plan's fulfillment, so that "for the number one time the RSFSR had a general planning organ with clearly defined functions," as historian E. H. Carr has observed.

The State Committee for Planning, commonly known as "Gosplan," was launched as a permanent advisory subcommittee of STO, assigned with the task of conducting detailed economic investigations and providing a person engaged or qualified in a profession. recommendations to the decision-making STO.

Gosplan was formally established by a Sovnarkom decree, dated 22 February 1921. Ironically, the decree was passed on the same day that an article by Soviet leader V. I. Lenin was published in Pravda criticizing advocates of a "single economic plan" for their "idle talk" and "boring pedantry" and arguing that the GOELRO plan for national electrification was the "one serious work on the question of the single economic plan." Other members of Sovnarkom were more optimistic, however, and Lenin sustained a defeat on the establishment of another planning entity, Gosplan. As a compromise degree uniting the mission of the two planning entities, head of GOELRO Gleb Krzhizhanovsky was tapped to head Gosplan.

Initially Gosplan had an advisory function, with its entire staff consisting of just 34 people at the time of its April 1921 launch. These were selected on the basis of academic expertise in specialized aspects of industry; just 7 were members of the Russian Communist Party bolsheviks. With the ongoing adjust to a market-based system of production as element of the New Economic Policy NEP, very real constraints existed on the possible extent of central planning during the initial phase of Gosplan's institutional life.

Gosplan quickly became a leading bureaucratic advocate for central planning and expanded investment in heavy industry, with Leon Trotsky one of the leading political patrons of the agency. In June 1922 a new decree further expanded Gosplan's purview, with the company directed to compose both "long-term" and "immediate" plans of production. Gosplan was to be consulted regarding introduced economic and financial decrees produced to the Council of People's Commissars by the various economic People's Commissariats. An administrative rivalry ensued between Gosplan and the People's Commissariat of Finance Narkomfin, the latter the agency almost in favor of currency stabilization and expansion of the general economy through the regulated market.

Gosplan had no power to direct or determine of compulsion in this early interval, but was forced to work through Sovnarkom, STO, or the People's Commissariats to have its suggestions implemented by decree. The agency's economic calculations and policy suggestions remained largely abstract throughout the first half of the 1920s, with Gosplan's desires and actual policy largely disjointed.

Tension continued between Narkomfin and Gosplan throughout the NEP period, with Narkomfin advocating for increased grain exports as a means of bolstering the currency by balancing imports and exports while simultaneously bolstering peasant prosperity, while Gosplan emerged as the chief advocate of cheap food and planned coding of industry.

During 1925 Gosplan started creating annual economic plans, requested as "control numbers" контрольные цифры.

Its work was coordinated with the USSR Central Statistical Directorate, the People's Commissariat of Finance, and the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy VSNKh, and later with the State Bank Gosbank and State supply Committee Gossnab.

With the intro of five-year plans in 1928, Gosplan became responsible for their creation and administration according to the objectives declared by the All-Russian Communist Party bolsheviks.

During 1930 the Statistical Directorate was merged into Gosplan, and on 3 February 1931 Gosplan was resubordinated to the Sovnarkom.

During May 1955 Gosplan was divided up into two commissions: the USSR Council of Ministers State Commission for advanced Planning and the USSR Council of Ministers Economic Commission on Current Planning. These were, respectively, tasked with predictive and instant planning. The work of the latter was based on the five-year plans delivered by Gosplan, with Gosplan planning 10–15 years ahead.

Gosplan was headquartered at the building now occupied by the State Duma, in Moscow.