Abstract: The subject of this research is the social practices implemented in Soviet planning and the prospects of their application in modern Russia. Planned economy was one of the paramount achievements of the XX century. It allowed avoiding a number of negative social occurrences, such as unemployment and social inequality. However, namely planning was proclaimed the cause of dissolution of the Soviet Union, which justified an unambiguously negative attitude to such management approach in both, academic and administrative environments. At the same time, the Western economic literature does not have a definite assessment, which encourages considering the prospects for implementation of this practice once again. Methodological base includes the systemic method for ensuring a comprehensive analysis of planning as a management technique and social practice; the problematic-chronological methods identifies the transformation trends of this technique. The article provides information on the origin and evolution of the Soviet-type economic planning. It is underlined that the political leaders used this technique for their purpose, setting the unattainable tasks and using economic failures to find and blame the “enemies”. The conduced analysis demonstrates that the cause of inefficiency of planning as a management technique was technocracy, formalism and social indifference. Thus, the system of planning under the modern circumstance must develop as a method of coordination of the citizens’ needs and interests of government administration.