Pressures and Constraints in the Soviet Planning of Technology Imports

Abstract

Changes in Soviet perceptions, policies and procedures have facilitated the rapid growth of technology imports referred to at the beginning of the last chapter. At the same time, this growth has been subject to constraints. Probably the only binding constraint on total imports that has been in operation continuously since 1955 has been the limitation on Soviet purchasing imposed by the Soviet hard-currency balance of payments. (The Western strategic embargo, which has certainly been an important limitation on the composition of technology imports, is discussed in Chapter 12.) As a result, the flows of technology acquired commercially from the West, both in embodied form and in the form of licences and know-how, have remained small in relation to other flows of inputs into Soviet production. In this chapter I suggest a simplified picture of the way in which, in Soviet planning, pressures for technology imports, and constraints on them, operate.