Drawing on the example of the pulp and paper mill in the town of Sovetsky (Leningrad Oblast), the paper analyses the problem of translating technical inventions and efficiency proposals into innovations at the Soviet industrial enterprises in the first decade after the Great Patriotic War (WWII). Opened in 1926 as a Finnish company, in 1944 the mill found itself located in the territory ceded to the USSR. Resuming its operation demanded addressing numerous technical and organizational problems and the mill staff’s inventive activities helped to address these problems. It is concluded that technical inventions and efficiency proposals of the workers and engineers were aimed at reducing production costs and resource saving, i. e. the tasks dictated by planned economy. These proposals and improvements were based on instant solutions and experience of their authors rather than on time-consuming technological developments. These “little innovations” seldom left the enterprise where they were born and only sometimes were transferred outside this enterprise. However, only few of these inventions were put into practice due to the shortage of resources and the lack of motivation for profit. Therefore, on the whole, the process of translating inventions into innovations was inefficient.