Academy of Science Experts Call for Return to Soviet-Style Five Year Plans to Boost Recovery

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 2 – Despite a Higher School of Economics study that found Russian industry since the onset of the pandemic has gone “from panic and pessimism to new growth” (iq.hse.ru/news/439965287.html), scholars at the Academy of Sciences says that recovery requires the re-introduction of state planning and five year plans (newizv.ru/news/economy/02-02-2021/akademiki-ran-predlozhili-vernut-sovetskie-pyatiletki-chtoby-preodolet-koronakrizis).

            Were that to happen, it would represent perhaps the greatest reversal of economic reforms in Russia since the end of Soviet times and put Russia on course to be far more like the arrangements in China than in Western countries. But it is as yet unclear how much support there is for such a return to that past.

            Today, Russian officials reported registering 16,643 new cases of infection, yet another decline, and 539 new deaths from the coronavirus, a slight increase (novayagazeta.ru/news/2021/02/02/167562-covid) as progress continued in major cities and some regions but not in others (regnum.ru/news/society/3176513.html).

            Russian scholars, commentators and officials celebrated the publication of findings in The Lancet, the British journal of record on medical issues, which show that Russia’s Sputnik-5 vaccine is more effective than those produced by AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson (novayagazeta.ru/news/2021/02/02/167572-nezavisimaya-ekspertiza-podtverdila-effektivnost-rossiyskoy-vaktsiny-sputnik-v and  newizv.ru/news/society/02-02-2021/amerikantsy-podtverdili-sputnik-v-effektivnee-vaktsin-astrazeneca-i-johnson-johnson).

            Russia’s biggest problem with the pandemic now, however, is its inability to produce enough vaccine fast enough and to get it into the arms of the population. The Chumakov Center said it would produce “the first 100,000 doses” only in March (echo.msk.ru/news/2783944-echo.html), St. Petersburg officials said they had been able to inoculate only 1.34 percent of the population (regnum.ru/news/3180327.html), and Leningrad Oblast has run out of all the 10,000 doses it has received so far (https://regnum.ru/news/3180119.html).

            Officials did announce that they have begun inoculating workers at the Vostochny cosmodrome in Amur Oblast (regnum.ru/news/3180293.html). Meanwhile, however, resistance to restrictions appears to be growing, with a St. Petersburg-Yekaterinburg flight delayed because a passenger refused to wear a mask (regnum.ru/news/3179600.html).