Gosplan, the Soviet state planning committee, and its regional and republic-level counterparts.
The central office that turned political goals into production targets and material allocations.
By the late 1950s, Gosplan maintained about 6,000 material balances covering 11,000 items. Some decisions, especially on materials, were passed down to republic gosplans and local economic councils in 1958 and 1959. But decisions on interrepublic supply and other major planning matters stayed with Gosplan. It also took on new production tasks when the State Committee for Science and Technology asked it to include certain output in the state plan. A CIA report describes Gosplan as integrated with Gosbank, the state bank, though the record does not show that Gosbank set Gosplan's targets or gave it orders, and it does not show they were a single institution.
It shows how a planned economy can look decentralized on paper while the most important choices remain in one central office.