Individual Accounts of Savings Achieved

a form of recording the performance of production and office workers in meeting their socialist obligations in the competition for savings and thrift in production; one of the forms of brigade and individual economic accountability. The special feature of individual accounts of savings achieved is that they reflect only those savings whose amount is directly influenced by the labor of the particular production worker or the members of the particular brigade (such as reducing losses from defective goods, reducing expenditures for equipment repair, decreasing operating costs, and saving fuel, raw materials, and tools).

The concept of individual accounts of savings achieved originated during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 in the metallurgical, machine building, and other plants of the Urals that were filling orders for the front. The accounts became particularly widespread after 1948, when socialist competition to speed up the turnover of circulating assets was begun on the initiative of the Moscow workers.

In the early 1970’s, with the All-Union Inspection of the Use of Production Reserves and Economy Measures (from November 1970 to December 1971), the movement to initiate individual accounts of savings achieved expanded even further.

Individual accounts of savings achieved are made up in the form of booklets figured for a year; monthly entries are made on inserted pages. Entries in the individual accounts are made by workers responsible for summarizing the results of socialist competition (production workers, brigade leaders, foremen, and trade union organizers). The broad distribution of individual accounts of savings achieved is very important in the further development of socialist competition for creating above-plan savings, raising labor productivity, improving quality indexes, and raising the overall sophistication of production.