Soviet Attempts to Offer Material Incentives to Workers in the Chemical Industry (1965–1970)

Abstract

The article analyzes USSR economic experiments aimed at increasing labor productivity by providing material incentives to workers and focuses in particular on such reforms during the late 1960s. The effectiveness of these experiments, their potential to transform the Soviet planned economy, and the impact of the political and economic context on their implementation are assessed. The author examines key initiatives (specifically, the Karpov, Shchеkinо and Bashkir programs) in order to understand their design, implementation, and consequences. The study is based on archival materials of the Ministry of the Chemical Industry, the USSR Council of Ministers, and the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee, as well as on documents from enterprises and periodicals. The analysis indicates that these economic experiments, despite their loudly proclaimed success, were undermined by political and bureaucratic factors. Their implementation was often merely formal, and any positive outcomes were due more to technological modernization than systemic change. The article also questions the claim that mass layoffs were the decisive reason for discontinuing the experiments and instead maintains that they were curtailed because of the exhaustion of resources and changing economic conditions.