Washington, DC: CIA Directorate of Intelligence; Office of Soviet Analysis, 1985. — 96 p.In October 1961 Nikita Khrushchev boasted at the 22nd Party Congress that by 1981 the Soviet Union would have a higher standard of living than any capitalist country. He also predicted that the USSR's industrial output would be twice the 1961 level of the entire nonsocialisl world. These goals were reflected in the Party Program ratified by that Congress. Soviet economic performance at the time was robust, and the prospect of catching up with the United Stales did not seem unattainable.In February 1986 Mikhail Co'hachev will preside over the 27th Party Congress. A new Party Program will be ratified that will outline a program  to revitalize an ailing economy that still trails far behind that of the United States. This comparison of the US and Soviet economies presents briefly the information we consider most important to an understanding of what has happened in the interval between the two Party Programs.