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The Soviet Concept of the Territorial-Production Complex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Richard E. Lonsdale
Richard E. Lonsdale*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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Extract

In a society with virtually all phases of the economy subject to planning an interest in regional economic planning almost inevitably arises. Such an interest has been evident in the USSR since the early 1920s, although not always to the same degree. Out of this interest evolved the notion of the economic complex, broadly conceived as a regional grouping of integrated economic activities. Inasmuch as these complexes were frequently thought of as geographic entities, the expression “territorial-production complex” (territorial'no-proizvodstvennyi kompleks), as well as some essentially synonymous terms, came into use. Interpretations vary somewhat, but, to judge from the frequency of reference to the concept in the professional journals of the geographers, economists, and planners, the idea seems to be a basic one among those concerned with regional planning.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , September 1965 , pp. 466 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1965

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References

1 Other terms used to convey much of the same meaning include “productionalterritorial combination,” “productional complex,” and the shorter but less precise “industrial complex” and “regional complex.” But interpretations of these expressions differ, and not all would agree that they are nearly synonymous.

2 Recognition of the functional basis for organizing space is, of course, not confined to the Russians. The distinction between “functional” and homogeneous or “formal” regions is discussed in Richard Hartshorne, Perspective on the Nature of Geography (Chicago, 1959), pp. 129 ff.

3 Several Soviet writers have traced the Russian interest in economic regions back a century or more, emphasizing the “genuinely Russian” origin of many regional concepts. For example, N. N. Kolosovsky claimed that in the “science of regionalization,” Russia and the Soviet Union held first place in the world. “This special Russian science, numbering two hundred years in its development before the Soviet period, has achieved much in the the Soviet period, when it was rebuilt on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theory” (, I (Moscow, 1959), 37-58.

4 (Moscow, 1952), p. 59.

5 (Moscow, 1957), p. 91.

6 et al. (Moscow, 1960), p. 359. This book is available in English translation: Soviet Geography: Accomplishments and Tasks, ed. Chauncy D. Harris (New York, 1962).

7 CCCP, I, 108-21.

8 Shabad, Theodore, “The Soviet Concept of Economic Regionalization,” Geographical Review, XLIII, No. 2 (1953), 217–18.Google Scholar

9 , p. 351.

10 (Moscow, 1932), p. 166. The observations of Pokshishevsky in 1932 are discussed at some length in a study by the Institute for Research in Social Science, University of North Carolina, An Examination of Soviet Theory and Practice in City and Regional Planning (Chapel Hill, 1952), pp. 136 ff. (typescript).

11 , XXXVIII, No. 7 (1961), 32. This paper is available in English translation in Soviet Geography: Review and Translation (New York), Vol. III, No. 1 (1962).

12 An extensive list of the published works of the 1920s and 1930s is provided in CCCP, I, 247 ff.

13 For a complete list of Kolosovsky's published works see No. 47 (1959), pp. 175-82.

14 p. 7.

15 (Moscow, 1958), p. 144. This book, a collection of Kolosovsky's more important writings, has been translated into English by Lawrence Ecker; the single typescript copy of the translation is available at the American Geographical Society library in New York. An abridged translation of the article cited above appears in the Journal of Regional Science, Vol. Ill, No. 1 (1961).

16 , p. 69

17 p. 139.

18 Ibid., p. 140

19 Ibid., p. 150.

20 Kolosovsky arranged his 30 complexes into five higher-order groupings or “families“: heavy industry, petroleum and hydroenergy, industry and agriculture, processing industry, and northern industry. The last family included complexes situated in thinly populated northern areas where lumbering and mining were dominant. Some complexes tended to be transitional in nature between certain pairs of families. He observed that the 30 complexes could be listed in such a way that the transitional types linked together the five families to form one continuous series. Kolosovsky thought it was possible some unexplained “law” might be operating to explain this orderly sequence in the types of complexes. See his pp. 164-74.

21 , No. 41 (1957), p p . 29-30.

22 See , No. 57 (1962), p p . 288-96.

23 There are many views on economic regionalization not directly associated with the production complex theme, but discussion of these is beyond the scope of this paper.

24 , II (Moscow, 1963), 80.

25 Ibid., p. 73.

26 paper presented at the Third Congress of the Geographical Society of the USSR, Kiev, February 1960; the quotation is from the English translation in Soviet Geography: Review and Translation, I, No. 8 (1960), 7.

27 , No. 4 (1962), p. 90. This paper is available in English translation in Soviet Geography: Review and Translation, Vol. III, No. 9 (1962).

28 , No. 6 (1961), pp. 13-14. This paper is available in English translation in Problems of Economics, Vol. IV, No. 8 (1962).

29 (Moscow, 1959), pp. 328 ff.

30 a paper presented at the Third Congress of the Geographical Society of the USSR, Kiev, February 1960; the quotation is from the English translation in Soviet Geography: Review and Translation, I, No. 7 (1960), 29.

31 Some recent statements by Soviet geographers indicate a possible liberalization of official attitudes on this matter.

32 Weber, Theory of the Location of Industries, trans. Carl J. Friedrich (Chicago, 1929), p. 196.

33 Isard, Methods of Regional Analysis (New York, 1960), p. 377.

34 See Clarence J. Glacken, “Changing Ideas of the Habitable World,” in Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, ed. W. L. Thomas, Jr. (Chicago, 1956), p. 72.