1 “Contemporary Problems of Soviet Economic Science, ” Questions of Economics, April, 1959, p. 34.

2 It was actually impossible for Strumilin to say all that he thought of the official index, and his suggestions for revisions do not make much sense. Strumilin's suggestions are dis cussed in “Research on the Soviet Economy” in this writer's Essays on the Soviet Economy (New York, 1962).

3 A relatively great deal of evidence on the operations of the kolkhozy including evidence on the amount of work performed in them is provided, but the data on payment for the work to the kolkhoz peasants in money and kind are absent. * The best one can obtain in the way of price data is to calculate the prices of some foods in a few years in state and co-operative and in kolkhoz trade. For this it is needed (a) to divide the returns for some products in rubles in commission trade of the consumers' co-operatives by the amounts sold by them in physical units (in 1960 Yearbook, p. 696) and thus obtain the prices realized in this type of trade; (b) from the prices obtained the prices in regular state and co-operative trade can be calculated with the help of the relationships given in the upper parts of pp. 718-19; and (c) from the same prices realized by the consumers’ co-operatives on a commission basis, the prices in kolkhoz markets can be calculated with the help of the relationships given in the lower parts of pp. 718-19. However, even the results thus obtained are somewhat doubtful, since the data for the commission sales are averages for all such sales, whereas the price relationships are those for 101 cities only. It would of course be simple to print the actual data rather than the relationships. The speculation is that the users will not take the trouble. But a very few do, even among those without calculating machines. Agriculture USSR, statistical handbook (Moscow, 1960), p. 117, contains a noteworthy “Index of Average State Procurement Prices Paid to Kolkhozy, Kolkhozniki, and Workers and Employees” since 1952 in terms of that year, but the prices in 1952 are unknown. s See, for example, the data on such a very specific item as production of coal intended for coke production, 1960 Yearbook, p. 259.

6 For example, production of pig iron, steel, rolled steel, crude petroleum and natural gas in ibid., pp. 244-45, 264, and 267.

7 See, for example, the 1960 Yearbook, p. 227 (growth in industrial production), p. 272 (output of electric power), or p. 685 (turnover in state and co-operative trade). s The peasants in the annexed territories presumably do not smoke a great deal of this stuff.

9 In somewhat greater detail the downward revisions through 1958 were discussed in N. J., “Some Thoughts on Soviet Statistics: An Evaluation, ” International Affairs (London), January, 1959, reprinted by the United State War Academy.

10 For some details see N. J., “Soviet Statistics, ” Review of Economic Statistics, February, 1950.

11 See the section on agriculture for further comments on the revisions of the estimates of farm output.

12 The other meats are those of poultry, rabbits, horse, and deer.

13 No effort is made to list all respective pages. The same is true of numerous other citations. i*

14 It suffices to quote the 1960 Yearbook, pp. 374-76, 411-12, 415, 418-23, and others, where valovoi sbor is each time qualified in parentheses as ambarnyi urozhai (barn harvest). In the very comment devoted to gross crop production in “Short Methodological Explanations“ (ibid., pp. 882-84) the phrase valovoi sbor is three times qualified as ambarnyi urozhai in the manner specified. There is no point in concealing that until some time early in 1961 this writer believed that the crop estimates as published since 1958 were those of real barn crops is

15 The same Gozulov discussed the ambarnyi urozhai in detail in Courier of Statistics, October, 1961, pp. 72-73. Only those who are familiar with the subject and do not need additional information can realize from his discussion that excessive dockage, foreign matter and moisture, separated in cleaning and drying, are parts of the ambarnyi urozhai in this misused concept. The subject is hushed up. is

16 Here cited from Fortune, October, 1961, p. 109.

17 The natural base year for the retail trade would be 1928, used in all other indices. Moreover this year's data for total retail trade and not only those for the state and cooperative trade must in fairness be used (private trade was still substantial in 1928).

18 After the weakness of excessive starts and inadequate entries of capacities was to some extent overcome, V. E. Dymshits, deputy director of the Gosplan USSR, boasted in his speech at the 22nd Congress (see Pravda, October 28, 1961) of the great percentage rises in the entries of capacities in 1958-61 as compared with 1954-57, probably the worst years in this respect, but he did not supply the absolute figures for either of the periods. is

19 This is not so frightening as it seems at first glance. Most figures have already existed for some time. They were duly appraised by one analyst or another, and those working subsequently act according to this appraisal. But when a new type of figure shows up, it should not be used without a check.

20 On this claim see “The Summit of Falsehood” in N. J., Essays on the Soviet Economy

21 M. Eidelman, “An Attempt at Preparing an Accounting Interbranch Balance of Output and Distribution of Output in the National Economy USSR, ” Courier of Statistics, No. 7, 1961, p. 29.

22 The word “accounting” (otchetnyi) means that the balance covers past developments. The alternative is “planned” for developments yet to come.

23 The comments by Barry, L. and Efimov, A. (“Methods of Constructing an Interbranch Balance, ” Planned Economy, No. 5, 1960, pp. 25–39)Google Scholar are also helpful.

24 Eidelman's data are moreover only in percentages of figures, which are not disclosed.

25 For example, the expenditure of rolled steel per diesel locomotive is equal to 119.7 tons (direct expenditure) and 156.5 tons (total expenditure).

26 Eidelman, op. cit., pp. 9-10.

27 i960 Yearbook, p. 145.

28 Eidelman, op. cit., p. 9, said that the work took about a year.

29 State ownership of most means of production helped a great deal, of course. Not less t h a n 95 per cent of the total official retail trade, for example, is in the hands of a few state or co-operative organizations.

30 At a special conference in Budapest in June, 1961, the Hungarian representative reported that his country had a balance for 1959 embracing 95 branches. See Planned Economy, September, 1961, p p . 92-93.

31 1960 Yearbook, pp. 84-91. See also comments by A. Belyakov in Courier of Statistics, No. 10, 1960, a n d by L. Volodarskii, deputy director of the Central Statistical Office (CSO), in Planned Economy, No. 10, 1960.

32 The index for agriculture including livestock (1928 = 100) for 1959, for example, is less than half that exclusive of livestock.

33 Planned Economy, No. 3, 1961, p. 5.

34 The rubles are those introduced since January 1, 1961.

35 “Interpreting Soviet Statistics: Penny Plain, Twopence Coloured, ” Soviet Survey, October-December, 1958, reprinted in Soviet Society: A Book of Readings, eds. Alex Inkeles and Kent Geiger (Boston, 1961).

36 The rate of growth in freight shipments would be even smaller if transports by animal power were considered, as they certainly should be.

37 Courier of Statistics, No. 10, 1960, p. 4. An obviously official report on the census, although signed by A. Belyakov.

38 Since Grossman's book is mentioned, an error should be pointed out. Grossman, op. cit., p. 107, said that “Naum Jasny steadfastly asserted that Soviet statistics are falsified … (whether in value, index, or physical terms).” On the next page he quotes my “Soviet Statistics, ” The Review of Economics and Statistics, February, 1950. In this very article (p. 93) one may read: “Statistics of industrial output in physical terms in general seem to be correct, except for cases in which outputs of large-scale industry in earlier years are compared, without qualification, with output of all industry in later years, shoes without leather are called leather shoes, etc., and, last but not least, the territorial distortions.“ My acceptance of the official estimates of industrial output in physical terms as correct has been repeated in my publications on many occasions stretching from 1950 to 1961. My estimates of rises in Soviet industrial output as well as in those in national income, which are among the highest, frequently the highest, of those made in the West, are based or oriented, so far as industrial output is concerned, on the data in physical terms. Specifically, with reference to estimates of growth in Soviet national income in 1948-50 my estimates happened to have been almost twice as high as those of Professor Grossman.

39 Among the several recalculations of the Soviet index of industrial production by Western scholars may be mentioned Demitri B., Shimkin and Frederick A. Leedy, , “Soviet Industrial Growth: Its Cost, Extent and Prospects,” Automotive Industries, January 1, 1958 Google Scholar, and N. M. Kaplan, and R. D. Moorsteen, , “An Index of Soviet Industrial Output,” The American Economic Review, June, 1960 Google Scholar.

40 For details on some problems discussed here, see Mrs. Luba Richter, , “Some Remarks on Soviet Agricultural Statistics,” American Statistician, June, 1961 Google Scholar. She was also consulted on the present paper. See also Gale Johnson and Arcadius Kahan, Comparison of the U.S. and Soviet Economics, Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, 1959, Part I.

41 It is worthy of note that almost all of the numerous citations of Soviet sources by Mrs. Richter are to publications released in either 1959 of 1960.

42 For many data on farm output newly given in the 1958 Yearbook, estimates by this writer were made in 1947 and published in The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR (Stanford, 1949), as well as in some later publications. A partial comparison with the new output estimates is made in one of the Essays on the Soviet Economy. See also Alec Nove, “Jasny's ‘Socialized Agriculture’ Revisited, ” Soviet Studies, October, 1960. Here the remark seems sufficient: It was worth living to see one's analysis substantiated to the extent present in this case—after having been called a hireling of Wall Street and what not in the Soviet press for these very estimates. The readers outside the USSR had reasonably correct figures exactly ten years ahead of the readers in the USSR. What are correct statistics compared with having “socialism“!

43 Gross farm output in 1927/28 was officially estimated at 14.5 billion rubles and that in 1940 at 23.3 billion rubles—both at 1926/27 prices (see N. J., The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR, p. 775). The increase from 1940 to 1950 was given at 14 per cent in Questions of Economics, No. 8, 1953, p. 55.

44 See B. Gukhman in Economic Life, 1929, p. 114. “Average” means recalculated to average weather conditions. There is ample evidence that Gukhman was in charge of the Gosplan's statistical personnel.

45 Commercial farm production from Agriculture USSR, statistical handbook, 1960, p. 23; industrial production from the 1960 Yearbook, p. 225.

46 Whatever machinations with crop production have taken place were fully or largely limited to yields per hectare. The estimates of sown acreages seem to have been fairly accurate.

47 This writer wishes to acknowledge defeat on this point. In calculating the gross farm output in 1937 in The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR, he operated with the then existing, rather than the new estimates, for output of potatoes, sunflower seed, and flax fiber in that year. It really seems that the knowledge of such extensive falsifications could have been obtained only by field observation on the spot or by way of espionage.

48 The hay crop in those years was not revealed.

49 it seems never to have been said that adjustments in statistics for the “padding“ were being made, although this was the duty of the statistical offices. so

50 Agriculture USSR, statistical handbook, 1960, pp. 266-67 and 334-36. si

51 RAND Memorandum RM-2452, September, 1959.

52 Powell's Memorandum, p. 3, and 1958 Yearbook, pp. 618-19.

53 Holland Hunter, , Soviet Transportation Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957), p. 328 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 The figures are averages of monthly employment. Employment of all those entered in the employment lists on each workday during the month is counted. Those on all kinds of leave (annual, sick, maternity, etc.) are retained on the lists. Differences in sex and age are not considered. One of the services of the 1959 census was that it provided the numbers of physical persons involved in the calculations in those terms (see 1960 Yearbook, p. 25). For workers and employees, for example, the census figure is 62.96 million, while the year-round employment in this year was only 58.90 million.

55 For the first time the table appeared in Agriculture USSR, statistical handbook, 1960, p. 450.

56 The calculation also does not check for 1950-55, but there the discrepancy is much smaller.

57 These index figures since 1940 are as given, for example, in the 1960 Yearbook, p. 716. The index for 1932-40 is implied in the indices for growth of retail trade at current and constant prices (pp. 681 and 678). ss

58 ee, for example, editorial in Questions of Economics, November, 1954, p. 1. s9

59 N. J., “Peasant-Worker Income Relationships: A Neglected Subject, ” Soviet Studies, July, 1960, p. 13.

60 Political Economy (Moscow, 1954), p. 462. 61

61 In N. J., Soviet Industrialization, 1928-52 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 446, the 1940 real wages and real incomes of the peasants are estimated at 52 and 60 per cent respectively of those in 1928.

62 See, for example, M. M. Lifits, Deputy Minister of Trade, Soviet Trade (Moscow, 1948), p. 43.

63 This means, of course, that a rise of 360 per cent was reduced to one of 130 per cent.

64 e* Official, here cited from N. J., The Soviet Price System (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1952), p. 23.

65 The consideration of the turnover and prices in kolkhoz markets would make the picture less dismal, but these factors are greatly insufficient to cause a fundamental difference.