The GOELRO economic development plan is adopted by the 8th Congress of Soviets of the Russian SFSR.
GOELRO (Russian: ГОЭЛРО) was the first Soviet plan for national economic recovery and development. It became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans drafted by Gosplan. GOELRO is the transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for "State Commission for Electrification of Russia" (Государственная комиссия по электрификации России).
The Commission and Plan were initiated and supervised by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin's belief in the central importance of electrification to the achievement of communism is represented by his statement that
Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.
The commission was established by the Presidium of the VSNKh on February 21, 1920, in accordance with February 3, 1920, VTsIK resolution on the electrification plan development. The director of the commission was Gleb Krzhizhanovsky. About 200 scientists and engineers participated, including Genrikh Graftio, Ivan Alexandrov, Mikhail Shatelen and others. By the end of 1920 the Commission devised the "Russian SFSR Electrification Plan" («План электрификации Р.С.Ф.С.Р»), that was approved subsequently by the 8th Congress of Soviets on December 22, 1920, and accepted by the Sovnarkom (Soviet government) on December 21, 1921.The Plan represented a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. Lenin's stated goal for it was "...the organization of industry on the basis of modern, advanced technology, on electrification which will provide a link between town and country, will put an end to the division between town and country, will make it possible to raise the level of culture in the countryside and to overcome, even in the most remote corners of land, backwardness, ignorance, poverty, disease, and barbarism."