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History of planning

The history of planning: who invented Gosplan, who tried to fix it, and who argued it was impossible

Twenty-two profiles, from the GOELRO plan to the administrative market. Open planning does not start from a blank page: almost every one of its ideas has already been proposed, tested or refuted. Here is who did it, what worked, and what we take from it.

The USSR Gosplan existed for seventy years, and throughout those years it was argued over — first inside the agency itself, then in academic institutes, then on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The dispute was not about slogans but about quite technical questions: can a plan be calculated, where do the data come from, who answers for the gap between plan and outcome, why does an enterprise hide its reserves, and how does a price differ from a report.

The section is organised as the six camps of this dispute. The founders of the 1920s divided the plan into a “forecast” and a “directive”. The participants in the industrialisation debate decided at what cost to build. The mathematicians — from Leontief to Fedorenko — tried to turn the plan into a calculation. The cybernetists and reformers of the 1960s looked for feedback. The critics argued that without a market calculation is impossible. Finally, the researchers of the administrative market showed how Gosplan actually worked.

Every profile follows the same order: the period and biography, the main ideas, the fate of those ideas in practice, what worked and what did not, criticism, legacy — and two honest lists: what open planning takes and what it does not repeat. Sources are given on every page, and contested points are flagged in the text.

Graph of ideas

Twenty-two authors on a timeline and six kinds of links between them: development, debate, direct reply, parallel path, institution, shared fate.

Everyone compared with everyone

The same nine questions put to every author and to open planning: who sets the goals, where the data come from, how results are checked.

Founders: the plan as forecast and the plan as directive

The 1920s: GOELRO, the first control figures and the dispute between the “geneticists”, who saw the plan as a continuation of real trends, and the “teleologists”, for whom the plan was a will directed at a goal. The dispute ended not with an argument but with arrests.

1872–1959

Gleb Krzhizhanovsky

Power engineer, head of the GOELRO commission (State Commission for the Electrification of Russia), first chairman of Gosplan, member of the USSR Academy of Sciences

Read the profile1877–1974

Stanislav Strumilin

Economist and statistician, one of the authors of the first five-year plan, founder of labour economics and time-budget research in the USSR, member of the USSR Academy of Sciences

Read the profile1874–1939 and 1874–1940

Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman

Gosplan economists, authors of the “genetic” approach to planning, developers of the first control figures and of the balance method; convicted in the Menshevik Union Bureau trial

Read the profile1892–1938

Nikolai Kondratiev

Economist, founder of the Conjuncture Institute, author of the theory of long cycles (Kondratiev waves), critic of the first five-year plan; shot in 1938

Read the profile

Industrialisation: at what cost to build

The debate over the pace and sources of accumulation, and the mobilisation economy that won the war and failed to restructure after it.

1886–1937

Yevgeni Preobrazhensky

Bolshevik economist and publicist, secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) in 1920–1921, one of the leaders of the Left Opposition, author of The New Economics

Read the profile1888–1938

Nikolai Bukharin

Theorist of the Bolshevik party, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1924–1929, full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, chief defender of NEP (New Economic Policy) and balanced growth

Read the profile1903–1950

Nikolai Voznesensky

Chairman of the USSR Gosplan in 1938–1941 and 1942–1949, deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) and of the USSR Council of Ministers, member of the State Defence Committee (GKO), full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences

Read the profile

Balances and optimal planning

Input-output balance, shadow prices and the system of optimal functioning of the economy: an attempt to replace bargaining between ministries with calculation — and the reasons calculation never became Gosplan’s practice.

1905–1999

Wassily Leontief

American economist of Russian origin, creator of input-output analysis, laureate of the 1973 Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences

Read the profile1912–1986

Leonid Kantorovich

Mathematician, creator of linear programming and of the theory of objectively determined valuations, winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Economics

Read the profile1892–1970

Viktor Novozhilov

Economist and statistician, author of the theory of differential costs and of the norm of effectiveness of capital investment, winner of the Lenin Prize in 1965

Read the profile1894–1964

Vasily Nemchinov

Statistician and economist, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, founder of the first laboratory of economic-mathematical methods and initiator of the Central Economic Mathematical Institute (TsEMI), author of the idea of a self-financing (khozraschyot) system of planning

Read the profile1917–2006

Nikolai Fedorenko

Economist, member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, first director of the Central Economic Mathematical Institute (1963–1985), head of the development of the System of Optimal Functioning of the Economy (SOFE)

Read the profile

Cybernetics and reforms: the search for feedback

OGAS, profit as an indicator, Chile’s Cybersyn and modern computer planning projects: how a technical project differs from a political decision.

1923–1982

Viktor Glushkov

Mathematician and cyberneticist, founder and director of the Institute of Cybernetics of the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences, author of the project for the National Automated System for Computation and Information Processing (OGAS) to manage the economy

Read the profile1897–1981

Evsei Liberman

Economist, professor at Kharkiv University, author of the article “Plan, Profit, Bonus” (1962), whose ideas formed the basis of the 1965 economic reform

Read the profile1926–2002

Stafford Beer

British operational research specialist, founder of management cybernetics, author of the viable system model and scientific director of Project Cybersyn in Chile

Read the profileCockshott — b. 1952

Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell

Scottish computer scientist (University of Glasgow) and economist (Wake Forest University), authors of the book Towards a New Socialism (1993) — a project for a planned economy based on labour values and computing technology

Read the profile

Critics: the debate over the possibility of calculation

Mises, Hayek, Lange and Kornai: arguments without an answer to which any planning model remains an act of faith. These profiles are here so that the section does not turn into an apology.

1881–1973

Ludwig von Mises

Austrian and American economist, one of the founders of the neo-Austrian school, author of the argument that economic calculation under socialism is impossible

Read the profile1899–1992

Friedrich Hayek

Austrian and British economist and philosopher, representative of the Austrian school, laureate of the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics

Read the profile1904–1965

Oskar Lange

Polish economist, statistician and statesman, author of the model of market socialism, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Read the profile1928–2021

János Kornai

Hungarian economist, researcher of the socialist system and transition economies, author of the concepts of the “economics of shortage” and “soft budget constraints”, professor at Harvard University

Read the profile

The administrative market: how Gosplan actually worked

Not a command system but an economy of approvals: bargaining between ministries, a veto for every participant, and the monetisation of that bargaining after 1991. The main warning for any modern model.

b. 1949

Vitaly Naishul

Economist, one of the authors of the theory of the administrative market, author of a samizdat project for privatization through personal (name-registered) vouchers, president of the Institute of the National Model of Economy

Read the profileb. 1944

Simon Kordonsky

Sociologist, one of the authors of the theory of the administrative market, author of the concepts of the resource state and the estate structure of post-Soviet Russia, tenured professor at the HSE University

Read the profile

Lessons across the debate

A plan is neither just a forecast nor just an act of will

Gosplan’s first dispute — between the “geneticists” Bazarov and Groman and the “teleologist” Strumilin — was about whether a plan continues real trends or sets a goal in defiance of them. Both sides were half right: goals are needed, but their feasibility is tested against facts. Open planning is teleological in the goals that society sets and “genetic” in verification and revision based on data. Nobody in that dispute asked who chooses the goals.

The data belong to those who bargain

Kantorovich, Nemchinov and Fedorenko built methods that could have replaced bargaining between ministries with calculation, but the source figures on capacities and costs were held by the ministries — the very participants in the bargaining. Naishul described the result: the plan turned out to be a compromise announced in November. Hence our two-column rule and a measurement record that is not written by the contractor.

Calculation runs up against power, not computing capacity

Glushkov’s OGAS, the system of optimal functioning of the economy and Chile’s Cybersyn all show the same thing: a technical solution that makes data transparent devalues the bureaucratic leverage of those who are supposed to implement it. That is why in our model the tools are secondary and the separation of circuits is primary: without it any system turns into a departmental one.

Knowledge is dispersed — the market belongs inside a framework

Mises and Hayek argued that without market prices for resources calculation is impossible, and that knowledge of local conditions cannot be gathered at the centre. Lange answered with a trial-and-error model, Cockshott and Cottrell with computing power. From this debate we take a practical conclusion: the centre sets the framework and the limits, while allocation within it goes through auctions and contracts that themselves reveal information.

A soft budget eats up any incentive

Kornai showed that an enterprise that knows it will be rescued stops counting money — and shortage reproduces itself at any prices. The rule “payment only for a verified result” works only if it is written down in advance what happens in case of failure: the fate of the deposit, who completes the work, and that every rescue is formalised as a separate public decision.

An indicator becomes a target — and stops measuring

Gross output targets, padded reports and end-of-month storming, Liberman’s article on profit, the 1965 reform and the Shchekino experiment show how quickly a contractor adapts to an indicator. Hence our limits on metrics: several indicators, deferred payment, human audit, rules that cannot be changed retroactively — and savings that stay with whoever achieved them.

Bargaining never disappears — it has to be made visible

Naishul and Kordonsky showed that behind the façade of commands an administrative market was at work, with a veto for every participant, and that after 1991 this bargaining simply switched to money. The main risk of open planning is to repeat this: to route the bargaining through auctions while leaving verification departmental. Objections and exceptions must be recorded publicly, and verification must not depend on the contractor.

A dispute about the plan must not cost a life

Kondratiev, Groman, Bazarov, Preobrazhensky and Bukharin paid for disagreement with arrest, the camps or execution, and Voznesensky, who had headed Gosplan himself, was shot in the “Leningrad Affair”. After that, economic debate remained dangerous for a long time. For us this is not only history but also a design requirement: the calculation methodology is public, an opponent has the right to an alternative calculation on the same data, and a negative pilot result is also a result.

Combined timeline

  1. 1872

    Gleb Krzhizhanovsky — Born in Samara

  2. 1874

    Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman — V. A. Bazarov (in Tula) and V. G. Groman are born

  3. 1877

    Stanislav Strumilin — Born in Podolia Governorate

  4. 1881

    Ludwig von Mises — Born in Lviv (Lemberg), Austria-Hungary

  5. 1886

    Yevgeni Preobrazhensky — Born in Bolkhov, Oryol Governorate

  6. 1888

    Nikolai Bukharin — Born in Moscow

  7. 1892

    Nikolai Kondratiev — Born in the village of Galuevskaya, Kostroma Governorate

  8. 1892

    Viktor Novozhilov — Born in Kharkov

  9. 1894

    Vasily Nemchinov — Born on 14 January

  10. 1897

    Evsei Liberman — Born on 2 October in Slavuta, Volhynia Governorate

  11. 1899

    Friedrich Hayek — Born in Vienna

  12. 1903

    Nikolai Voznesensky — Born in the village of Teploye, Tula Governorate

  13. 1904

    Oskar Lange — Born in Tomaszów Mazowiecki

  14. 1905

    Wassily Leontief — Born in Munich (some older sources give 1906)

  15. 1906

    Ludwig von Mises — Doctor of law of the University of Vienna; begins work at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce

  16. 1912

    Leonid Kantorovich — Born in Petersburg

  17. 1912

    Ludwig von Mises — The Theory of Money and Credit

  18. 1914

    Stanislav Strumilin — Graduates from the economics department of the St Petersburg Polytechnic Institute

  19. 1915

    Viktor Novozhilov — Graduated from the Faculty of Law of Kiev University

  20. 1917

    Nikolai Kondratiev — Deputy minister of food of the Provisional Government; elected to the Constituent Assembly

  21. 1917

    Nikolai Fedorenko — Born on 11 May in the village of Preobrazhenka, Zaporozhye Region

  22. 1919

    Yevgeni Preobrazhensky — The ABC of Communism, with N. I. Bukharin

  23. 1919

    Nikolai Bukharin — The ABC of Communism (Azbuka kommunizma), with Ye. A. Preobrazhensky; candidate member of the Politburo

  24. 1920

    Gleb Krzhizhanovsky — Becomes head of the State Commission for the Electrification of Russia (February)

  25. 1920

    Gleb Krzhizhanovsky — The Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopts the GOELRO plan (22 December)

  26. 1920

    Nikolai Kondratiev — One of the organizers and director of the Conjuncture Institute (October)

  27. 1920

    Yevgeni Preobrazhensky — Elected secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) (until March 1921)

  28. 1920

    Ludwig von Mises — The article “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth” opens the socialist calculation debate

  29. 1921

    Gleb Krzhizhanovsky — Decree establishing Gosplan (22 February); Krzhizhanovsky becomes its first chairman

  30. 1921

    Stanislav Strumilin — Begins work at Gosplan

  31. 1921

    Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman — Groman and Bazarov begin work at Gosplan

  32. 1921

    Nikolai Bukharin — Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology (Teoriya istoricheskogo materializma), setting out the theory of equilibrium

  33. 1922–1923

    Stanislav Strumilin — Leads the first large-scale time-budget surveys of workers and peasants

  34. 1922

    Nikolai Kondratiev — The World Economy and Its Conditions during and after the War (Mirovoe khozyaystvo i ego kon’yunktury vo vremya i posle voyny)

  35. 1922

    Viktor Novozhilov — Began working at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute

  36. 1922

    Ludwig von Mises — The book Die Gemeinwirtschaft: Untersuchungen über den Sozialismus (in the English and Russian translations, Socialism)

  37. 1923

    Gleb Krzhizhanovsky — Cedes the post of chairman of Gosplan to A. D. Tsyurupa

  38. 1923

    Yevgeni Preobrazhensky — Signed the “Declaration of the 46” and became one of the leaders of the Left Opposition

  39. 1924

    Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman — TsSU begins compiling the balance of the national economy of the USSR for 1923/24

  40. 1924

    Yevgeni Preobrazhensky — Article The Fundamental Law of Socialist Accumulation (Osnovnoy zakon sotsialisticheskogo nakopleniya); Bukharin's reply in Pravda

  41. 1924

    Nikolai Bukharin — Member of the Politburo; article in Pravda against the law of primitive socialist accumulation

  42. 1925

    Gleb Krzhizhanovsky — Reappointed chairman of the USSR Gosplan (November)

  43. 1925

    Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman — Control figures for 1925/26: first version in July, corrected version in October after a poor harvest

  44. 1925

    Nikolai Kondratiev — The Major Economic Cycles (Bol’shie tsikly kon’yunktury); the Gosplan presidium approves the long-term plan for agriculture and forestry

  45. 1925

    Nikolai Bukharin — Report of 17 April with the call to the peasantry “enrich yourselves”

  46. 1925

    Wassily Leontief — Critique of the balance of the national economy of the USSR in Planovoe Khozyaystvo; leaves the USSR

  47. 1926–1927

    Stanislav Strumilin — Leads the drafting of the first variants of the five-year plan at Gosplan

  48. 1926

    Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman — The Balance of the National Economy of the USSR for 1923/24 is published under the editorship of P. I. Popov; Popov is removed from the leadership of TsSU; Bazarov’s article On the Methodology of Constructing Long-Term Plans

  49. 1926

    Yevgeni Preobrazhensky — Publication of The New Economics: An Attempt at a Theoretical Analysis of the Soviet Economy (Novaya ekonomika. Opyt teoreticheskogo analiza sovetskogo khozyaystva)

  50. 1926

    Stafford Beer — Born on 25 September in London

  51. 1926

    Oskar Lange — Graduates from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków

  52. 1927

    Stanislav Strumilin — Polemic with Kondratiev on the realism of plan targets

  53. 1927

    Nikolai Kondratiev — Critical Notes on the Plan for the Development of the National Economy (Kriticheskie zametki o plane razvitiya narodnogo khozyaystva); campaign against the “ideologist of the kulaks”

  54. 1927

    Yevgeni Preobrazhensky — Expelled from the party; in January 1928 exiled to Uralsk

  55. 1927

    Friedrich Hayek — Together with Mises, founds the Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research

  56. 1928

    Stanislav Strumilin — Appointed deputy chairman of the USSR Gosplan (7 August)

  57. 1928

    Nikolai Bukharin — Notes of an Economist (Zametki ekonomista) in Pravda on 30 September; campaign against the “Right deviation”

  58. 1928

    Wassily Leontief — Dissertation The Economy as a Circular Flow at the University of Berlin

  59. 1928

    János Kornai — Born in Budapest

  60. 1929

    Gleb Krzhizhanovsky — Elected academician and vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences; the Fifth Congress of Soviets approves the optimal variant of the first five-year plan

  61. 1929

    Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman — Stalin calls the TsSU balance “a game with figures” and rejects Bazarov and Groman’s treatment (27 December)

  62. 1929

    Nikolai Bukharin — Elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences; removed from the Politburo on 17 November

  63. 1930

    Gleb Krzhizhanovsky — Relieved of the leadership of Gosplan (November); founds the Energy Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences

  64. 1930

    Stanislav Strumilin — Relieved of the post of deputy chairman (8 December)

  65. 1930

    Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman — Arrests of Groman, Bazarov and other economists

  66. 1930

    Nikolai Kondratiev — Arrested in the Working Peasant Party case (19 June)

  67. 1930

    Yevgeni Preobrazhensky — Readmitted to the party after breaking with the opposition; expelled again in 1933

  68. 1931

    Stanislav Strumilin — Elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences

  69. 1931

    Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman — Menshevik Union Bureau trial (1–9 March); Groman sentenced to 10 years

  70. 1931

    Wassily Leontief — Moves to the United States, works at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Harvard

  71. 1931

    Friedrich Hayek — Professor at the London School of Economics

  72. 1932

    Nikolai Kondratiev — Sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment; Suzdal political isolation prison

  73. 1934

    Ludwig von Mises — Moves to Geneva; professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies

  74. 1935

    Nikolai Voznesensky — Chairman of the Leningrad City Planning Commission

  75. 1935

    Ludwig von Mises — English translation of the 1920 article in Hayek’s collection Collectivist Economic Planning

  76. 1935

    Friedrich Hayek — Editor of the collection Collectivist Economic Planning

  77. 1936

    Wassily Leontief — First article on the input-output method, with a table for the US economy

  78. 1936–1937

    Oskar Lange — The article “On the Economic Theory of Socialism” in The Review of Economic Studies

  79. 1937

    Yevgeni Preobrazhensky — Shot by sentence of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR

  80. 1937

    Nikolai Bukharin — Expelled from the party and arrested on 27 February

  81. 1938

    Nikolai Kondratiev — Sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and shot (17 September)

  82. 1938

    Nikolai Bukharin — Sentenced at the third Moscow trial, shot on 15 March

  83. 1938

    Nikolai Voznesensky — Appointed chairman of the USSR Gosplan on 19 January

  84. 1938

    Evsei Liberman — Arrested; in 1939 sentenced and released and rehabilitated in the same year

  85. 1938

    Oskar Lange — Begins work at the University of Chicago

  86. 1939

    Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman — Bazarov dies in Moscow (16 September)

  87. 1939

    Leonid Kantorovich — Talk at Leningrad State University and the booklet Mathematical Methods of Organizing and Planning Production in a print run of 1,000 copies

  88. 1939

    Viktor Novozhilov — Article Methods of Comparing the National Economic Effectiveness of Plan and Project Variants (Metody soizmereniya narodnokhozyaystvennoy effektivnosti planovykh i proektnykh variantov)

  89. 1940

    Vasily Nemchinov — Appointed director of the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy

  90. 1940

    Ludwig von Mises — Emigrates to the United States

  91. 1941

    Nikolai Voznesensky — First deputy chairman of the Sovnarkom; on 16 August the military-economic plan for the eastern regions is adopted

  92. 1941

    Wassily Leontief — Book The Structure of American Economy, 1919–1929; start of work with the Bureau of Labor Statistics

  93. 1942

    Nikolai Voznesensky — Returns to the post of chairman of Gosplan on 8 December; member of the GKO

  94. 1942

    Leonid Kantorovich — Manuscript Economic Calculation of the Most Expedient Use of Resources (Ekonomicheskiy raschyot naiboleye tselesoobraznogo ispol'zovaniya resursov) completed; sent to Gosplan and rejected

  95. 1943

    Nikolai Voznesensky — Elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences

  96. 1943

    Leonid Kantorovich — Hostile discussion of the work at Gosplan; Kantorovich sets the economic subject aside for a time

  97. 1944

    Friedrich Hayek — The Road to Serfdom

  98. 1944

    Simon Kordonsky — Born in Oirot-Tura (now Gorno-Altaisk)

  99. 1945

    Friedrich Hayek — The essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society”

  100. 1945

    Oskar Lange — First ambassador of the new Poland to the United States (until 1947)

  101. 1946

    Viktor Novozhilov — Article Methods of Finding the Minimum of Costs in a Socialist Economy (Metody nakhozhdeniya minimuma zatrat v sotsialisticheskom khozyaystve)

  102. 1946

    Vasily Nemchinov — Elected Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences; received the Stalin Prize

  103. 1947

    Nikolai Voznesensky — Publication of the book The Economy of the USSR during World War II (Voennaya ekonomika SSSR v period Otechestvennoy voyny); member of the Politburo

  104. 1947

    Friedrich Hayek — One of the founders of the Mont Pelerin Society

  105. 1947

    Oskar Lange — Returns to Poland

  106. 1948

    Vasily Nemchinov — Spoke at the August session of VASKhNIL against Lysenko's position; dismissed from the post of director of the academy

  107. 1949

    Nikolai Voznesensky — Removed from his posts on 5 March; arrested in the “Leningrad Affair” on 27 October

  108. 1949

    Viktor Novozhilov — Start of the campaign in Voprosy Ekonomiki against advocates of calculating the effectiveness of capital investment

  109. 1949

    Vasily Nemchinov — Became head of the Council for the Study of Productive Forces of the USSR Academy of Sciences

  110. 1949

    Ludwig von Mises — The treatise Human Action

  111. 1949

    Vitaly Naishul — Born in Moscow

  112. 1950

    Nikolai Voznesensky — Sentenced to death on 30 September and shot (on 1 October, according to most sources)

  113. 1950

    Friedrich Hayek — Moves to the University of Chicago

  114. 1952

    Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell — Paul Cockshott born in Edinburgh on 16 March

  115. 1954

    Nikolai Voznesensky — Rehabilitated by the USSR Supreme Court on 30 April

  116. 1955

    Evsei Liberman — Article “Economic Accounting and Material Incentives” in the journal Voprosy Ekonomiki

  117. 1955

    János Kornai — Dismissed from the newspaper Szabad Nép; moves to the Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

  118. 1956

    Evsei Liberman — Doctoral dissertation “Ways of Increasing the Profitability of Socialist Enterprises”

  119. 1957

    Gleb Krzhizhanovsky — Awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labour

  120. 1957

    Viktor Glushkov — Glushkov becomes head of the Computing Centre of the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences (December)

  121. 1957

    Oskar Lange — Chairman of the Economic Council attached to the Council of Ministers of the Polish People’s Republic (until 1962)

  122. 1958

    Stanislav Strumilin — Lenin Prize

  123. 1958

    Vasily Nemchinov — Set up the first laboratory of economic-mathematical research in the USSR

  124. 1959

    Gleb Krzhizhanovsky — Dies in Moscow on 31 March

  125. 1959

    Wassily Leontief — The Central Statistical Administration of the USSR compiles the first reporting inter-branch balance, for 1959

  126. 1959

    Leonid Kantorovich — The book The Best Use of Economic Resources is published

  127. 1959

    Viktor Novozhilov — Measuring Costs and Their Results in a Socialist Economy (Izmerenie zatrat i ikh rezul'tatov v sotsialisticheskom khozyaystve)

  128. 1959

    Stafford Beer — Book Cybernetics and Management

  129. 1959

    János Kornai — Overcentralization in Economic Administration published in Oxford

  130. 1960

    Leonid Kantorovich — All-Union conference on the application of mathematical methods in economics; move to Novosibirsk

  131. 1960

    Vasily Nemchinov — Conference on the use of mathematical methods in economics and planning; creation of a scientific council of the USSR Academy of Sciences

  132. 1961

    Oskar Lange — Deputy chairman of the Council of State of the Polish People’s Republic (until 1965)

  133. 1962

    Viktor Glushkov — The Institute of Cybernetics of the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences is established (December); Kosygin assigns Glushkov the task of building OGAS (November)

  134. 1962

    Evsei Liberman — On 9 September Pravda publishes the article “Plan, Profit, Bonus”; a nationwide debate begins

  135. 1963

    Vasily Nemchinov — TsEMI of the USSR Academy of Sciences created on the basis of the laboratory

  136. 1963

    Nikolai Fedorenko — Appointed first director of the Central Economic Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences

  137. 1963

    Viktor Glushkov — Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of 21 May on improving the management of the introduction of computer technology

  138. 1964

    Leonid Kantorovich — Letter by Strumilin, Ostrovityanov and others in Pravda against Kantorovich's book; elected a full academician

  139. 1964

    Vasily Nemchinov — Article Socialist Economic Management and Production Planning (Sotsialisticheskoe khozyaystvovanie i planirovanie proizvodstva) in Kommunist; died on 5 November

  140. 1964

    Nikolai Fedorenko — Elected a full member (academician) of the USSR Academy of Sciences

  141. 1964

    Viktor Glushkov — The project is submitted to the government (June) and considered by the Presidium of the Council of Ministers (November); its further development is entrusted to the TsSU

  142. 1964

    Evsei Liberman — Experiment at the garment enterprises Bolshevichka and Mayak: working to retail orders, evaluation by sales and profit

  143. 1965

    Leonid Kantorovich — Lenin Prize, together with V. S. Nemchinov and V. V. Novozhilov

  144. 1965

    Viktor Novozhilov — Lenin Prize, together with L. V. Kantorovich and V. S. Nemchinov

  145. 1965

    Vasily Nemchinov — Posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize together with L. V. Kantorovich and V. V. Novozhilov

  146. 1965

    Viktor Glushkov — According to A. V. Kuteynikov, the preliminary draft design of the EGSVTs is presented in March and rejected in May; the Kosygin–Liberman reform begins

  147. 1965

    Evsei Liberman — September plenum of the CPSU Central Committee and resolution No. 729 of 4 October: the start of the economic reform

  148. 1965

    Oskar Lange — Dies in London

  149. 1966

    Nikolai Fedorenko — Work on SOFE begins at TsEMI; Gosplan starts creating ASPR

  150. 1967

    Viktor Novozhilov — Monograph Problems of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Optimal Planning (Problemy izmereniya zatrat i rezul'tatov pri optimal'nom planirovanii)

  151. 1967

    Evsei Liberman — On 16 August the Shchekino experiment begins

  152. 1967

    Oskar Lange — Posthumous publication of the article “The Computer and the Market”

  153. 1968

    Nikolai Fedorenko — On the Development of a System of Optimal Functioning of the Economy (O razrabotke sistemy optimal'nogo funktsionirovaniya ekonomiki)

  154. 1968

    János Kornai — The “New Economic Mechanism” launched in Hungary

  155. 1969

    Evsei Liberman — By April 32,000 enterprises have been transferred to the new conditions; in October the CPSU Central Committee approves the Shchekino experience

  156. 1970

    Viktor Novozhilov — Died on 15 August in Leningrad

  157. 1970

    Viktor Glushkov — A Politburo meeting chaired by M. A. Suslov adopts a cut-down version: a Main Directorate for Computer Technology under the GKNT and VNIIPOU

  158. 1971

    Nikolai Fedorenko — Becomes academician-secretary of the Department of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences

  159. 1971

    Viktor Glushkov — The 24th Congress of the CPSU includes OGAS and the network of computer centres in the directives of the ninth five-year plan

  160. 1971

    Stafford Beer — Letter from Fernando Flores (July); first visit to Santiago on 4 November and Allende’s approval of the project on 12 November

  161. 1971–1981

    Vitaly Naishul — Works at a research institute attached to the USSR Gosplan (according to his 2007 interview)

  162. 1972

    Stafford Beer — Book Brain of the Firm; the project receives the name Cybersyn (March); the telex network helps the government survive the truck owners’ strike (10 October – 2 November)

  163. 1973

    Wassily Leontief — Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

  164. 1973

    Stafford Beer — Prototype of the operations room (January); publications about “Big Brother”; the coup of 11 September ends the project

  165. 1973

    Ludwig von Mises — Dies in New York

  166. 1974

    Nikolai Fedorenko — Harsh article against TsEMI's leadership in Planned Economy (Planovoe khozyaystvo); Fedorenko's letter to the CPSU Central Committee

  167. 1974

    Stafford Beer — Book Designing Freedom

  168. 1974

    Friedrich Hayek — Nobel Prize in economics, shared with Gunnar Myrdal; lecture “The Pretence of Knowledge”

  169. 1975

    Leonid Kantorovich — Nobel Prize in Economics, together with T. Koopmans

  170. 1975

    Nikolai Fedorenko — The bureau of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU examines shortcomings in TsEMI's work

  171. 1975

    Viktor Glushkov — The monograph Macroeconomic Models and Principles of Building OGAS (Makroekonomicheskie modeli i printsipy postroeniya OGAS) is published

  172. 1977

    Viktor Glushkov — The OGAS project is declassified, according to B. Peters

  173. 1977

    Simon Kordonsky — Graduates from Tomsk State University

  174. 1979

    Stafford Beer — Book The Heart of Enterprise

  175. 1979

    János Kornai — The article “Resource-Constrained versus Demand-Constrained Systems” in Econometrica

  176. 1979–1985

    Vitaly Naishul — Joint work with V. M. Konstantinov and Yu. M. Rodny on the technology of planned management

  177. 1980

    János Kornai — Economics of Shortage

  178. 1981

    Evsei Liberman — Died on 11 November in Kharkiv

  179. 1982

    Viktor Glushkov — Glushkov dies on 30 January; the promotion of OGAS fades away

  180. 1982

    Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell — Cockshott defends his doctoral thesis in computer science at the University of Edinburgh

  181. 1985

    Nikolai Fedorenko — Leaves the post of director of TsEMI; the second stage of ASPR is put into operation

  182. 1985

    Vitaly Naishul — Samizdat book Another Life (Drugaya zhizn') with a project for dividing property through personal money

  183. 1986

    Leonid Kantorovich — Article in Kommunist calling for wider use of optimization methods; death on 7 April

  184. 1986

    János Kornai — The article “The Soft Budget Constraint” in Kyklos; begins work at Harvard

  185. 1986

    Vitaly Naishul — TsEMI preprint The Technology of Planned Management (Tekhnologiya planovogo upravleniya), with V. M. Konstantinov

  186. 1987

    Nikolai Kondratiev — Rehabilitated together with A. V. Chayanov (16 July); first, unpublished rehabilitation in 1963

  187. 1988

    Yevgeni Preobrazhensky — Posthumously rehabilitated; readmitted to the party in 1990

  188. 1988

    Nikolai Bukharin — Rehabilitated on 4 February, reinstated in the party and the Academy of Sciences

  189. 1988

    Wassily Leontief — Elected a foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences

  190. 1988

    Friedrich Hayek — The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism

  191. 1988

    Vitaly Naishul — Problems of Creating a Market in the USSR (Problemy sozdaniya rynka v SSSR), with a sector-by-sector reform and centralized auctions (published in 1989)

  192. 1988

    Simon Kordonsky — Candidate of philosophical sciences, Novosibirsk State University

  193. 1989

    Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell — Cottrell begins teaching at Wake Forest University

  194. 1989

    Simon Kordonsky — Article Social Structure and the Braking Mechanism (Sotsial'naya struktura i mekhanizm tormozheniya) in the collection Understanding (Postizhenie)

  195. 1990

    Vladimir Bazarov and Vladimir Groman — Posthumous rehabilitation of Bazarov

  196. 1990

    Vitaly Naishul — The Highest and Final Stage of Socialism (Vysshaya i poslednyaya stadiya sotsializma) and The Sufferings of Privatization (Stradaniya privatizatsii)

  197. 1992

    János Kornai — The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism; founding of Collegium Budapest

  198. 1993

    Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell — Publication of the book Towards a New Socialism and of the article Calculation, Complexity and Planning in the Review of Political Economy

  199. 1994

    Stafford Beer — Book Beyond Dispute on the Team Syntegrity method

  200. 1995

    Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell — Article Testing Marx: Some New Results from UK Data

  201. 1996

    Vitaly Naishul — On the Norms of Modern Russian Statehood (O normakh sovremennoy rossiyskoy gosudarstvennosti) in the newspaper Segodnya

  202. 1999

    Wassily Leontief — Dies in New York on 5 February

  203. 2000

    Simon Kordonsky — Markets of Power: Administrative Markets of the USSR and Russia (Rynki vlasti: administrativnye rynki SSSR i Rossii); becomes head of the Expert Directorate of the President (until 2004)

  204. 2002

    Stafford Beer — Died on 23 August in Toronto

  205. 2003

    János Kornai — Article with Maskin and Roland, “Understanding the Soft Budget Constraint”

  206. 2004

    Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell — Len Brewster’s review in the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics

  207. 2006

    Nikolai Fedorenko — Died on 1 April in Moscow

  208. 2006

    Simon Kordonsky — Reissue of Markets of Power; begins work at the HSE University

  209. 2007

    Vitaly Naishul — Interview with Neprikosnovenny Zapas: after 1991 the administrative market was “monetized”

  210. 2007

    Simon Kordonsky — Collection of articles The Resource State (Resursnoe gosudarstvo)

  211. 2008

    Simon Kordonsky — Monograph The Estate Structure of Post-Soviet Russia (Soslovnaya struktura postsovetskoy Rossii); tenured professor at the HSE

  212. 2009

    Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell — The book Classical Econophysics; Cockshott’s reply to Brewster’s criticism

  213. 2021

    János Kornai — Dies in Budapest

  214. 2021

    Simon Kordonsky — Collection How Russia Works: Articles and Interviews from Various Years (Kak ustroena Rossiya. Stat'i i interv'yu raznykh let)

  215. 2023

    Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell — Cottrell retires from Wake Forest University

  216. 2024

    Simon Kordonsky — Alexander Piatigorsky Literary Prize