The SED Politburo introduces a change in economic policy in the absence of Walter Ulbricht.
The course resolved upon by the party leadership in 1967 of organising "breakthroughs to the front of the scientific and technological revolution" has financially overtaxed the GDR economy. As a reaction to supply problems both in production and for private consumers and the rise in foreign debt in the West to some two billion valuta marks (= is equivalent to D-mark), it decides on a "planned proportional development of the economy".
The terminology is taken from the Stalinist "Political Economy" and is directed both against the New Economic System (NÖS) and the structural policies of Ulbricht and his strategy of "prioritised development of leading industries". It signals the unconditional return to the Soviet model.less
