Strategic planning in Russia: “to postpone it is impossible to implement”

The article anylises the problems and the prospects related with the practical implementation of the system of the strategic planning in the Russian Federation. The author shows that the country in fact has met a dilemma. On the one hand the complexity of socio-economic problems facing the country requires a transition to the strategic planning system as the key institutional condition for the effective management of economic and social processes in the long-term period. On the other hand the structural backwardness of the Russian economy which made so significant the negative influence of external factors, at present minimizes the possibility of foreseeing and forecasting the socio-economic situation in the country which is a necessary premise for the practice of strategic planning. The article proves that such contradiction has occurred largely due to the inflexibility of certain provisions of the Federal law on strategic planning which complicate the practical adaptation of the suggested model of the strategic planning to the diversity of the socio-economic situation in the country and its regions. The author offers alternative options for legal and institutional solutions, allowing not to postpone the implementation of the principles of the strategic planning, but to bring this practice into line with economic and other realities which would be inherent for the development of Russia in the coming period.