Fifty years ago, on February 22, 1921, at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, chaired by V. I. Lenin, it was decided to create the State General Planning Commission - the world's first planning body on a national scale. This was caused by the fact that the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which considered the issue of the Soviet Union in December 1920, was considering the following issues: The President of the RSFSR instructed the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Council of Labor and Defense (SRT) and the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council to complete the development of this plan and approve it as soon as possible. The need to carry out planning activities for the restoration of the country's industry and agriculture in connection with the end of the civil war required the creation of a permanent state planning body. G. M. Krzhizhanovsky recalled that V. I. Lenin at one time proposed to turn the GOELRO "directly into a permanent planning commission under the Council of People's Commissars."1 In a letter to G. M. Krzhizhanovsky dated November 6, 1920, he emphasized: "Strictly speaking, the GOELRO should be a single planning body under the Council of People's Commissars..." 2 In the late 1920s and early 1921s, Lenin continued to search for the best forms of organizing a single center for planning the national economy.

The issue of a single economic plan and a national planning body was supposed to be discussed on February 18, 1921 at a meeting of the SRT. V. I. Lenin had a new solution to this issue - to create a special General-purpose commission, which would include GOELRO 3. On February 17, V. I. Lenin, with the participation of Krzhizhanovsky, is working on a draft of the main point of the SRT resolution on the creation of such a commission and on a preliminary list of its members. Both of these documents were sent out in the evening to the members of SRT4 . The minutes and transcripts of its meeting of February 18 were not kept, and no official documents about it, unfortunately, have been preserved. There are only a few pages from the notebook on which V. I. Lenin wrote down some of the statements of the speakers and the plan of his final speech .5 The discussion of Lenin's draft resolution of the SRT on the General Planning Commission was stormy. Some economists and business executives present at the meeting - V. Milyutin, Yu. Larin, N. Osinsky-objected to the recognition of the GOELRO plan as the main plan for the restoration of the entire national economy and to V. I. Lenin's proposal to immediately begin practical implementation of the GOELRO plan. The final decision on the organization of the General Planned Commission was not made, and the issue of it was postponed to the meeting of the SRT on February 21. In the following days - on February 19 and 20 - the newspaper Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn published articles by V. Milyutin, Y. Larin and L. Kritsman outlining their positions. And on February 21, V. I. Lenin finished the article "On the Unified Economic Plan", published on February 22 in Pravda, in which he reasonably criticized the point of view of these individuals.

The meeting of the SRT, scheduled for February 21, did not take place, and the question of the tasks of the General Planning Commission was postponed to the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars. It was held on February 22 with the participation of 47 people. On it, the "Regulations on the State General Planning Commission", introduced by V. I. Lenin, was approved together with the list of members of the commission proposed by him in the amount of 27 people. Among them were prominent uche-

1 G. M. Krzhizhanovsky. Thinker and Revolutionary, Moscow, 1969, p. 26.

2 V. I. Lenin. PSS Vol. 52, p. 1.

3 See E. B. Genkin. State activity of V. I. Lenin in 1921-1923, Moscow, 1939, p. 165.

4 See Lenin's Collection XX, p. 19.

5 See ibid., pp. 20-22.

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G. M. Krzhizhanovsky was appointed Chairman of the Commission. In the first paragraph of the regulation, it was noted: "A general Planning Commission is established at the SRT both for the development of a single national economic plan based on the electrification plan approved by the VIII Congress of Soviets and for general monitoring of the implementation of this plan."6
In the last days of February and in March 1921, with the direct participation of V. I. Lenin, the final composition of the members of the General Planning Commission and the structure of its staff were clarified, and working conditions were discussed. On February 25, Vladimir Ilyich sent a letter to G. M. Krzhizhanovsky setting out a specific program for all these problems .7 In a short time, draft resolutions were prepared and agreed upon: "Basic provisions of the organization of the General State Commission under the Labor and Defense Council (Gosplan)", "Conditions for ensuring the fruitful work of members of the State General Central Commission" and "List of members of the State Plan". They were discussed at a meeting of the SRT on April 1, 1921 and signed by V. I. Lenin8 . The first document states that the management of the Commission's activities is carried out by the Presidium of the State Planning Committee, headed by the Chairman. The Presidium creates sections and working groups within the State Planning Committee to prepare cases, and engages consultants on various issues. Initially, the following sections were created: energy, mining and manufacturing, transport and agriculture; sub-commissions: planning assumptions for the next year, accounting and distribution of economic values, labor and labor organization. The document also defined the procedure for conducting office work, discussing cases, and crediting. The list of members of the State Planning Committee was expanded further by major specialists in the field of industry and agriculture. The issue of the composition of the Gosplan Presidium was also resolved.

"On April 1, 1921," it was noted in the materials of the report on the work of the State Planning Committee for 1921-1923, " the real planned work of the State General Planning Commission begins..."On April 9, 5, the first meeting of the presidium of Gosplan 10 was held. The chairman was G. M. Krzhizhanovsky. Among those present were economist S. G. Strumilin, head of the People's Commissariat of Land of the RSFSR S. P. Sereda, civil engineer I. G. Aleksandrov, power engineer N. N. Vashkov, petrochemist I. M. Gubkin, power engineer P. S. Osadchiy, electrical engineer M. A. Shatel, specialist in agricultural engineering V. Z. Esin. In his opening speech, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky focused on the history of the birth of the GOELRO plan and highlighted the immediate tasks of the Commission. In conclusion, he said: "We believe, comrades, that in carrying out the tasks assigned to the State Planning Committee, only in the very process of our joint work will we approach the organizational forms of the State Planning Committee that will best meet the productivity of its work... I have no doubt, however, that the consciousness of the responsibility of the historical moment we are living through, the need to work quickly so as not to waste precious time, and the clear idea that when there is an extreme shortage of qualified workers, we have to be extremely careful in using the forces of these workers-all this will help us to get out of the inconsistencies that are inherent in any new business... Remember, comrades, that we live in such a hot and effective time when we must hurry so as not to be late. " 11 At the meeting, the decisions of the SRT signed by V. I. Lenin on April 1 were read out, as well as the list of members of the General Planning Commission with their distribution into sections and sub-commissions. The members of the sections were prominent scientists. The Energy Section consisted of 12 members: G. M. Krzhizhanovsky (Chairman), N. N. Vashkov, G. O. Graftio, K. A. Krug, M. A. Shatelen and others. The industrial section consists of 15 people, among them: N. A. Dolgov (Chairman), I. M. Gubkin, L. K. Ramzin. The transport section consists of 10 people: I. G. Alexandrov (Chairman), V. M. Sverdlov, V. M. Tolstopyatoe, A. A. Neopikhanov and others. The agricultural section consists of 12 people, among them: S. P. Sereda (Chairman),

6 Ibid., p. 25.

7 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. vol. 52, pp. 80-82.

8 "Historical Archive", 1959, N 2, pp. 4-8.

9 TSGANKH SSSR, f. 4372, op. 1, d. 148, l. 35.

10 Ibid., d. 38, ll. 1-1 vol.

11 Ibid., l. 14.

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D. N. Pryanishnikov, V. R. Williams, M. I. Pridorogin, and V. Z. Esin. Three sub-commissions were established: accounting and resource allocation and labor organization (Chairman-S. G. Strumilin), foreign trade (Chairman - P. S. Osadchy), current affairs (Chairman - G. M. Krzhizhanovsky).

Recalling the first meeting, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky wrote: "Opening on April 5, 1921, the solemn meeting of the first officially approved Presidium of the State Planning Committee, I dwelt in detail on the connection of the work of the State Planning Committee with the work of the GOELRO. I sent a transcript of this speech to Vladimir Ilyich and immediately received instructions of a very decisive nature from him: "I return your speech. Its main drawback: too much about electrification, too little about current economic plans... Immediately take on your current business plans with all your might. Fuel today. For 1921. Now, in the spring. Collect junk, garbage, and dead materials. Using them to exchange for bread " 12 . A few days later, on April 12, V. I. Lenin again wrote to G. M. Krzhizhanovsky:"The question of the main features of the state plan, not as an institution, but as a plan, is urgent." 13 He asks you to submit to him: "summary results: 3 figures (firewood, coal, oil)" and a plan for 1922. The next day - a new letter in which V. I. Lenin suggests "calculating what purchases abroad are necessary in order to overcome the most acute need at all costs ..." 14 .

Our country was going through a difficult time then. There was famine in the Volga region. The fuel crisis took an unprecedented acute form, which immediately affected industry and transport. In those circumstances, at first Gosplan had to deal with the most urgent issues of fuel and food plans, along with purely organizational measures. "The State Planning Committee," says the report on the work of the State Planning Committee for 1921-1923, " immediately after its establishment was entrusted with the task of eliminating the fuel crisis in the spring of 1921 and drawing up a new real fuel distribution plan for 1921."15 The Fuel sub-section, as an integral part of the Energy section, focused all its attention on the problems of "establishing truly real distribution and production programs and rationalizing fuel supply" 16 . A large and complex work was carried out by the State Planning Committee to resolve the food issue. "The first food plan," the report for 1921-1923 notes, " was developed by the section and approved by the Council of Labor and Defense on September 28, 1921. This was the first plan presented by Gosplan. " 17 Soon, at a meeting of the presidium, the question was discussed (speaker - S. G. Strumilin) about the supply of bread to Moscow and Petrograd in accordance with the approved state food plan 18 . Emergency measures were taken to organize self-supply of enterprises, the problem of assigning personnel to production was solved so as not to stop factories and factories. A special planning commission organized under the People's Commissariat of Food provided great assistance to Gosplan19 .

The state planning system was gradually improved, the structure of the State Planning Administration was improved, and new specialists were involved in its work. An industrial planning commission (Promplan)was formed under the Supreme Economic Council20 . With the active participation of Gosplan, the People's commissariats created their own planning bodies: Electroplan, Toppplan, Stroyplan, Zemplan, Prodplan, Transplan, Finplan, Svyazplan, Vneshtorgplan21 . They were created for "proper relations between individual economic commissariats and service stations, establishing a precise division of functions between the primary planning commissions and the state commission when developing a national economy plan" 22 .

On May 25, 1921, Lenin wrote to G. M. Krzhizhanovsky: "Every member of the State Planning Committee is responsible for such and such a side or part of this work. And vice versa: for each side or part of the economic work of 1921, from the point of view of the current plan, a namesake is responsible, in the sense of study. Send this to me obligingly-

12 G. M. Krzhizhanovsky. Edict. soch., pp. 28-29; V. I. Lenin. PSS. vol. 52, pp. 128-129.

13 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 52, p. 141.

14 Ibid., pp. 142-143.

15 TSGANKH SSSR, f. 4372. op. 1, d. 148, l. 8.

16 Ibid., l. 11.

17 Ibid., l. 19.

18 Ibid., op. 13, d. 27, l. 22.

19 Ibid., op. 6, d. 83, l. 26.

20 Ibid., op. 9, 25, ll. 156-157.

21 Ibid., op. 1, d. 54, ll. 7-8.

22 Ibid.

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telno"23 . "Thoughts on the" plan "of the state economy" - this is the title of V. I. Lenin's letter to G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, dated July 4, 1921. It requires members of the State Planning Committee to monitor individual large enterprises and assign 30 enterprises to each employee. "Please do your best," the letter says, " to watch the 30th untiringly... To watch unflagging means to be responsible with your head for the rational use of fuel and bread, for maximum harvesting of both, maximum transportation, fuel economy... " 24 . V. I. Lenin's advice was the basis for the further work of the State Planning Committee. Speaking at the IX All-Russian Congress of Soviets in December 1921, V. I. Lenin said that "our planning institutions did not work in vain and that the moment of execution of our plans was approaching." 25
In the first year of its existence, the State Planning Committee was not able to fully develop a single national plan in the form that it was done later. The situation at that time raised, first of all, other problems that needed to be addressed immediately. But, as V. I. Lenin repeatedly emphasized, the current work of the State Planning Committee did not remove from it such an important task as the development of a national plan. As early as 1921, the State Planning Committee began drawing up plans for certain sectors of the national economy - fuel, food, transport, and foreign trade. These plans were adopted in 1922 and were successfully implemented... Now the State Planning Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (Gosplan of the USSR), created by V. I. Lenin, is a scientific and practical planning and economic body of the Soviet state that develops drafts of national long-term and current plans and verifies their implementation.

23 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 52, p. 210.

24 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 44, p. 64.

25 Ibid., p. 318.

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