The 1973 Soviet economic reform was an economic reform initiated by Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers. During Leonid Brezhnev's rule of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the Soviet economy began to stagnate; this period is referred to by some historians as the Era of Stagnation. After the failed 1965 reform Kosygin initiated another reform in 1973 to enhance the powers and functions of the regional planners by establishing associations. The reform was never fully implemented, and members of the Soviet leadership complained that the reform had not even been fully implemented by the time of the 1979 reform.