Soviet planner hints at split in hierarchy

Press, 19 August 1983, Page 6

Soviet planner hints at split in hierarchy

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet planning chief, Nikolai Baibakov, said yesterday that the Kremlin would be cautious in making economic reforms to revitalise the Soviet Union’s industry. Mr Baibakov told a news conference that a series of recent laws had showed that the Government wanted to improve low productivity rates and try out new industrial management methods. “But, given the size and scope of our economy we have decided to approach this task rather cautiously.” Although a central tenet of the new methods was to give greater autonomy to factory managers, the leadership also intended to strengthen centralised control of the entire economic structure, he said.

Mr Baibakov appeared to be trying to dampen speculation at home and in the West that the President, Mr Yuri Andropov, was

planning radical and fast changes in the next two years. Some diplomats detected in his remarks divisions in the leadership over the need for a radical overhaul.

Mr Andropov said on Monday that his Administration would make big decisions about the shape of planning and management by the start of the next fiveyear plan, in 1986. He said that he had been unhappy with the way the economy had been going' in the last few years, and many diplomats took his comments to mean that he proposed farreaching reforms. Mr Baibakov, head of the planning committee, Gosplan, adopted a much less critical tone yesterday. He said that the economy was running reasonably well, and implied that the recent laws would be enough to bring about improvements in the coming years. Western diplomats said that Mr Baibakov may have

been trying to put Mr Andropov’s brief comments into perspective and showing that the Kremlin would avoid economic upheavals. Some said that the apparent disparity between the two men’s remarks could indicate a fundamental divergence of opinion in the leadership over the pace of change.

Mr Baibakov, aged 72, was made Gosplan chief in 1965 by Mr Andropov’s predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev. Some Western analysts believe that he belongs to an “old guard" of Brezhnev appointees who have been resisting Mr Andropov’s calls for a serious economic shake-up. The recent measures passed by the leadership include a labour law giving workers more responsibility for raising productivity, tough punitive measures against drunks and slackers, and a series of experimental management reforms.