Industrial development of Siberia and the Soviet Far East

During the 1980s the Soviet leadership will be forced to cope with a growing energy shortage in the western industrialized core of the USSR by accelerating the extraction of fuel and raw materials east of the Urals. The major issue of Soviet policy is and has been the debate over the appropriate nature and pace of economic development for the eastern regions--whether to maintain concentration on the fuel energy complex or to attempt balanced development across industries and between eastern and western regions. Although official declaratory policy continues to call for balanced "comprehensive" development, the energy-fuel focus has, if anything, increased. Given the general investment constraint the Soviet leadership is now facing, combined with the Soviet leadership's resistance to reform and change, it is unlikely that there will take place the major shift and restructuring of investment for regions east of the Urals that a balanced economic development would require.