A counterplan is a component of debate theory commonly employed in the activity of parliamentary and policy debate. While some conceptions of debate theory require the negative position in a debate to defend the status quo against an affirmative position or plan, a counterplan allows the negative to defend a separate plan or an advocacy. It also allows the aff. to run disadvantages against the neg.
Most forms of debate begin from some resolution or statement of advocacy. As the affirmative plan affirms the resolution in theory or at least within the sphere of its distinct existence, it is reasonable to assume that the negative team must advocate the negation of the resolution, usually either through the defense of the status quo or a counterplan distinct from the resolutional advocacy. However, in many circles, the affirmative ability to select their specific plan gives the negative justification to select another topical plan, so long it is 'competitive' with the plan. Advocates of this view, which has become increasingly popular in national circuit high school debate, believe that once the affirmative selects its specific plan so long as it is topical, it abandons any further tie to the resolution and cedes the remaining ground of advocacy to the negative. Moreover, they argue that if topical ground is exclusively affirmative, then the negative could be allowed to attack other potential examples of the resolution that might not be as advantageous as the affirmative plan. This conception is related to the debate paradigm and argumentation theory concept of hypothesis testing.
Counterplan (Russian: Встречный) is a 1932 Soviet film directed by Sergei Yutkevich and Fridrikh Ermler. The film’s title-song called "The Song of the Counterplan", composed by Dmitri Shostakovich, became world famous and was adapted into "Au-devant de la vie", a notable song of the French socialist movement of the 1930s.
This film could be considered as a Stalin propaganda film. The plot involves an effort to catch "wreckers" at work in a Soviet factory.
In the economy of the Soviet Union and other communist states of the Soviet Bloc, the counterplan (Russian: Встречный план) was a plan put forth by workers of an enterprise (or its structural unit) to exceed the expectations of the state plan allocated for the enterprise/unit. It was an important part of the socialist competition.
According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the idea of the counterplan was put forth by the workers of the Karl Marx Plant, Leningrad, in June 1930, during the First Five-Year Plan.
Since the 1960s, counterplans, in the form of socialist obligations, to execute state plans (annual, quarterly, monthly) ahead of schedule were common in the Soviet Union and other communist states.