The Budget’s Place in the Economic and Financial System

Abstract

It is easier to describe budget quantities, or the procedures for adopting the budget, than to say precisely what the Soviet budget itself actually is. We might state that the budget is the financial dimension of the annual economic plan, but from one angle this belittles the budget’s status (because there is a process of interaction in the composition of the physical and financial dimensions) while from another it exaggerates it (as the authorities also envisage revenues and expenditures which are not included within the budget). It would also be correct to describe the budget as the most flexible instrument of financial management in the hands of the authorities, but then it must be made clear that all its instruments are in some degree flexible, and all are interrelated: in particular, the banking system and the system of price-formation are needed to support the budgetary system, and vice versa, while the political system upholds everything.