The most important role in the creation of socialist property is played by:

1. land nationalization;
2. nationalization of industry;
3. nationalization of banks.

Consider their features.

Land nationalization

Remark 1

The beginning of the nationalization of land in Russia should be considered the adoption of the Decree on Land on October 26 (November 8), 1917, in accordance with which the victorious class began to carry out socialist reforms. In accordance with the Decree, land, its subsoil, water and forest resources were included in the composition of objects that were subject to "nationalization", the Institute of "private ownership" of land was abolished, and the land, in accordance with the Decree, was transferred to public (state) property.

In accordance with the Decree, more than 150 million hectares of land confiscated from landowners, monasteries, churches, state and other lands were transferred to the peasants free of charge. The total area of ​​land that was owned and used by peasants after the adoption of the Decree increased by almost 70 percent. Also, under the Decree, the peasants were exempted from rent payments to former owners and from the costs of acquiring new landed property.

In the context of the military intervention and civil war that had begun, the Soviet state began to unite the rural poor around specially created organizations (committees of the poor), the main tasks of which were to be:

• redistribution in favor of the poorest villagers of land, inventory and livestock;
• assistance to food detachments in the seizure of "surplus" food;
• carrying out the agricultural policy of the Soviet state in the countryside.

For their services, the poor could receive a certain remuneration in the form of basic necessities and grain, which were sold at significant discounts and generally free of charge.

In August 1918, a plan was developed to fight for new crop grain, based on an alliance between the “poorest and starving peasantry” and the middle peasantry, designed for direct product exchange of requisitioned industrial goods for bread.

Specifically, this direct product exchange was expressed in a system of surplus appropriations, which confiscated from the peasantry not only the surplus, but also the stocks of grain necessary for sowing.

Thus, the nationalization of land, water and forest resources was carried out in the interests of people working on the land. Later it will become the economic basis for agricultural cooperation.

Nationalization of industry

Remark 2

In carrying out nationalization in industry, the first step was the adoption of the Decree on workers' control, according to which the workers themselves were to learn to manage. But the adopted Decrees did not always keep pace with the natural course of events.

The workers, left to their own devices, quite rarely possessed the necessary technical knowledge, appropriate industrial skills and discipline, knowledge in the field of organizing technical accounting, without which it was impossible to carry out the normal operation of the enterprise.

There were cases when workers simply appropriated after the capture of the enterprise its funds, sold equipment and supplies, used the money received for their own interests.

There are several stages in the nationalization of industry:

At the first stage (November 1917 - February 1918), nationalization was characterized by rapid pace, a broad initiative of local authorities.

During the first stage, more than 800 enterprises and individual industries were nationalized.

This period of nationalization was called the “Red Guard attack on capital” stage, the pace of nationalization significantly outpaced the pace of creating management systems for state-owned enterprises.

In November 1917, the nationalization of large-scale industrial enterprises began, and those private enterprises whose production was extremely important for the Soviet state, and those whose owners pursued a policy of sabotage, were the first to fall under the nationalization process.

The second stage of nationalization took place between March and June 1918. During this period, the center of gravity of the economic and political work of the RSDLP was the shift of attention from the expropriation of private property to the strengthening of already won economic positions, the organization of a system of socialist accounting and control, and the organization of management systems for socialist industry. The main feature of the second stage of nationalization is the socialization of not only individual enterprises, but also entire industries, as well as the creation of the necessary conditions for the nationalization of all large-scale industry. So, on May 2, 1918, the Decree on the nationalization of the enterprises of the sugar industry was adopted, on June 20 - the Decree on the nationalization of the enterprises of the oil industry. The conference of representatives of the nationalized plants of the machine-building complex, held in May 1918, decided to nationalize the transport machine-building plants. In total, more than 1,200 industrial enterprises were transferred to the state during the second period.

The third and final stage of nationalization began in June 1918 and ended in June 1919. Its main characteristic is the strengthening of the organizing, leading role of the Council of People's Commissars and its territorial economic bodies in carrying out nationalization.

So, in the autumn of 1918, the state owned more than 9,500 industrial enterprises. Since the summer of 1919, the pace of "nationalization" has increased dramatically, which was caused by the need to mobilize all available production resources during the civil war and intervention.

Remark 3

As a result of the nationalization of industry, the basis for the industrialization of the economy of the young socialist state was created.

Nationalization of banks

One of the most important measures to create the socialist economy of the young Russian state was the process of "nationalization" of banks, which began with the nationalization of the State Bank of Russia and the establishment of state control over private commercial banks.

The nationalization of the banking sector was determined by the provisions of two legislative acts - the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of December 14 (27), 1917, according to which all private commercial banks were transferred to the ownership of the state, and the state monopoly on the organization of banking was also established. The Decree of the Council of People's Commissars, issued on January 23 (February 5), 1918, completely and free of charge transferred the capital of private commercial banks to the State Bank.

Finally, the process of merging the nationalized private commercial banks with the State Bank of Russia into a single People's Bank of the RSFSR was completed by 1920. In the process of nationalization, such links of the banking system of tsarist Russia as mortgage banks and mutual credit societies were liquidated. The nationalization of banks created the conditions for the Soviet state to successfully fight hunger and ruin.

The nationalization of the tsarist banking system and private commercial banks gave impetus to the creation of a modern banking system in the Russian Federation.

The Bolsheviks knew how to make the oil magnates and the industry work in the interests of the whole country, in the interests of every citizen

99 years ago, on June 20, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted a decree "On the nationalization of the oil industry." It should be noted that the position of I.V. Stalin, who tirelessly supported the demand of the Baku government for nationalization.

1. Oil producing, oil refining, oil trading, auxiliary drilling and transport enterprises (tanks, oil pipelines, oil depots, docks, pier facilities, etc.) with all their movable and immovable property, wherever it is located and in whatever it was not concluded.

2. Small enterprises named in paragraph 1 are excluded from the operation of this decree. The grounds and procedure for the aforementioned withdrawal are determined by special rules, the development of which is entrusted to the Chief Oil Committee.

3. Trade in oil and its products is declared a state monopoly.

4. The management of nationalized enterprises as a whole, as well as the determination of the procedure for the implementation of nationalization, is transferred to the Main Oil Committee under the Fuel Department of the Supreme Council of the National Economy (Glavkoneft).

5. The procedure for the formation of local bodies for the management of nationalized enterprises and the limits of their competence are determined by special instructions of the Chief Oil Committee upon their approval by the presidium of the Supreme Council of the National Economy.

6. Pending the acceptance of the nationalized enterprises as a whole into the management of the Main Oil Committee, the former boards of the named enterprises are obliged to continue their work in full, taking all measures to protect the national property and the uninterrupted course of operations.

7. The former board of each enterprise must draw up a report for the entire year 1917 and for the first half of 1918, as well as the balance sheet of the enterprise for June 20, according to which balance the new board checks and actually accepts the enterprise.

8. The Main Oil Committee has the right, without waiting for the submission of balance sheets and until the complete transfer of nationalized enterprises to the control of Soviet authorities, to send its commissars to all the boards of oil enterprises, as well as to all centers of extraction, production, transport and trade in oil, and the Chief Oil the committee may delegate its powers to its commissioners.

9. All rights and duties of the councils of congresses of oil owners are transferred to the appropriate local bodies for the management of the nationalized oil industry.

10. All employees of enterprises and institutions that come under the jurisdiction of the Main Oil Committee are ordered to remain in their places without interrupting the work assigned to them.

11. Pending the issuance by the Chief Petroleum Committee of the instructions, orders and rules provided for in the decree, local economic councils, and where there are none, other local organs of Soviet power, are given the right to issue them for their region.

12. This decree shall enter into force immediately upon publication.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
V. Ulyanov (Lenin),

Managing Director of the Council of People's Commissars
V. Bonch-Bruevich,

Council Secretary N. Gorbunov

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

Evgeny Agliullin:

Now it’s time to do the same, you don’t even need to practically add anything, everything has been written for a long time

"The Truth About the Soviet Era"

nationalization of industry.

In general, both the causes and the course of the nationalization of industrial enterprises after October 1917 are distorted in the official Soviet history. They are presented as a natural process arising from the theory of Marxism. In fact, this step of the Soviet state was taken despite intentions of the government and completely contrary to theory, which assumed the passage of a rather long stage state capitalism. Even the idea of ​​workers' control literally on the eve of October presupposed the formation of a joint conference of employers and workers. It is also indicative that before March 1918 the State Bank issued very large funds in the form of loans to private enterprises. Having taken power with the complete collapse and sabotage of the state apparatus, the Soviet government could not even conceive of taking on the function of managing the entire industry.

This problem also had an important international dimension. The fixed capital of the main branches of industry was owned by foreign banks. In the mining, mining and metalworking industries, 52% of the capital was foreign, in steam locomotive building - 100%, in electrical and electrical companies 90%, all 20 tram companies in Russia belonged to Germans and Belgians, etc. No theories could predict the consequences of the nationalization of such capital - there was no experience in history.

Of course, all state-owned railways and enterprises automatically became the property of the new state. In January 1918, the sea and river fleet was nationalized. In April 1918 foreign trade was nationalized. These were relatively simple measures; there were departments and traditions to manage and control these industries.

In industry, events did not go as planned - a process of two types began - “ spontaneous" and " punitive” nationalization. The English historian E. Carr created a grandiose work - "History of Soviet Russia" (until 1929) in 14 volumes with a meticulous study of documents. He writes about the first months after October: “The same discouraging experience awaited the Bolsheviks at the factories as with the land. The development of the revolution brought with it not only the spontaneous seizure of land by the peasants, but also the spontaneous seizure of industrial enterprises by the workers. In industry, as in agriculture, the revolutionary party, and later also the revolutionary government, were caught up in a course of events that in many ways embarrassed and burdened them, but since they [these events] represented the main driving force of the revolution, they could not avoid to support them."

The processes that take place during major social shifts rarely follow the theoretical doctrines and plans of politicians. There is more benefit from those politicians who understand the essence of these processes and “correct” them at moments of choice, in a situation of unstable balance, when with small forces it is possible to push events into one corridor or another. As for nationalization, it was precisely a deep movement, rooted in “archaic peasant communism” and closely connected with the movement for the nationalization of the land. In general, there was nothing unusual in this movement. J.Keynes in his essay "Russia" (1922) wrote: "It is in the nature of revolutions, wars and famines to destroy the property rights and private property of certain individuals enshrined in law."

Demanding nationalization, turning to the Council, the trade union or the government, the workers sought, first of all, to preserve production (in 70% of cases, these decisions were made by meetings of workers because the entrepreneurs did not purchase raw materials and stopped paying wages, or even left the enterprise). Here is the first known document - a request for the nationalization of the Kopi Kuzbass company - a resolution of the Kolchuginsky Council of Workers' Deputies on January 10, 1918:

“Finding that the joint-stock company Kopikuz is leading to the complete collapse of the Kolchuginsky mine, we believe that the only way out of the current crisis is to transfer Kopikuz into the hands of the state, and then the workers of the Kolchuginsky mine will be able to get out of the critical situation and take control of these enterprises.”

Here is another, also one of the first, demand for nationalization, a letter from the factory committee of the Petrograd factory "Pekar" to the Central Council of Factory Committees (February 18, 1918):

“The Factory Committee of the Pekar factory brings to your attention, as a democratic economic body, that the workers of the aforementioned factory at a general meeting, together with representatives of the local food administration on January 28, 1918, decided to take the factory into their own hands, i.e. to remove a private entrepreneur for the following reasons: it is easier to carry out the concentration of bread-baking, it is possible to make a more correct accounting of bread, the administration also slowed down work, and there were cases that they prepared a hunger riot in our sub-district, and also repeatedly stated that the workers were counted, allegedly there were no means to pay, but our calculation shows that we can give a piece of bread to the unemployed for the remainder, and not increase the number of unemployed.

Taking all this into account, the workers have decided to take the factory into their own hands, which we consider it our duty to bring to your attention, for you must know what the workers are doing in the districts.

We ask you to get your opinion on our action”.

It is now difficult to distinguish between cases of "spontaneous" nationalization and "punitive" nationalization, since the legal motive in both cases was often the employer's refusal to submit to the demands of workers' control. But if we are not talking about a reason, but about a real reason, then it was that a number of owners of large enterprises led the matter to the sale of fixed capital and the liquidation of production. So, for example, the AMO plant (on the basis of which ZIL grew up) was nationalized. Its owners, the Ryabushinskys, having received 11 million rubles from the tsar's treasury for the construction, spent the money without building workshops and without supplying the agreed 1,500 cars. After February, the owners tried to close the plant, and after October they disappeared, instructing the management to close the plant due to a shortage of 5 million rubles. to complete the project. At the request of the factory committee, the Soviet government issued these 5 million rubles, but the management decided to spend them to cover debts and liquidate the enterprise. In response, the AMO plant was nationalized.

Sabotage of large enterprises and speculation in products prepared for defense began even before the February Revolution. The tsarist government could not cope - "shadow" trusts organized a sales system throughout the country, introduced their agents to factories and government agencies. Since the spring of 1918, the Supreme Council of National Economy, if it was not possible to agree with entrepreneurs on the continuation of production and supply of products, raised the question of nationalization. Non-payment of wages to workers for one month was already the basis for raising the question of nationalization, and cases of non-payment for two months in a row were considered extraordinary.

At first, individual enterprises were taken into the treasury. This, even theoretically, was in no way connected with the doctrine of Marxism, since it did not allow the transition from spontaneous regulation of the economy to a systematic one. The leadership of the Supreme Economic Council was more influenced by the example of Germany's industrial policy during the war. In such cases, nationalization decrees have always indicated the reasons that caused or justified this measure. The first nationalized industries were the sugar industry (May 1918) and the oil industry (June). This was due to the almost complete shutdown of oil fields and drilling abandoned by entrepreneurs, as well as the catastrophic state of the sugar industry due to the occupation of Ukraine by German troops.

On the whole, the policy of the Supreme Council of National Economy was based on the Leninist concept of "state capitalism", negotiations were being prepared with industrial magnates on the creation of large trusts with half of the state capital (sometimes with a large participation of American capital). This provoked sharp criticism from the “left” as a retreat from socialism, a kind of “Brest peace in the economy”. It is noteworthy that the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and even the Mensheviks, who had previously accused the Soviet state of premature socialist revolution, joined this criticism. The dispute about the place of the state in the organization of industry developed into one of the most heated discussions in the party.

After the conclusion of the Brest Peace, the situation suddenly and radically changed. The proposal for "state capitalism" was withdrawn, and at the same time the idea of ​​the "left" about the autonomization of enterprises under workers' control was rejected. After a series of meetings with representatives of the workers and engineers, a course was set for immediate, systematic and complete nationalization. Against this, the “leftists” put forward an argument, which was then developed in the writings of Trotsky and worked flawlessly for eight decades: supposedly, during nationalization, “the keys to production remain in the hands of the capitalists” (in the form of specialists), and the working masses are removed from management. In response to this, it was pointed out that the restoration of production has become such a vital necessity that theory must be sacrificed for its sake.

However, there was another powerful factor that was not discussed so openly, but forced to make a decision urgently. After the conclusion of the Brest Peace, German companies began to massively buy shares in Russia's main industrial enterprises. At the First All-Russian Congress of the Council of National Economy on May 26, 1918, it was said that the bourgeoisie “is trying by all means to sell its shares to German citizens, is trying to get the protection of German law through all sorts of fakes, all sorts of fictitious transactions.” Presentation for payment of shares by the German embassy caused Russia only financial damage. But then it turned out that the shares of key enterprises were accumulating in Germany. Negotiations were held in Berlin with the German government on compensation for German property lost in Russia. Moscow received reports that Ambassador Mirbach had already received instructions to protest to the Soviet government against the nationalization of "German" enterprises. There was a threat of losing the entire base of Russian industry.

At a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, which lasted all night on June 28, 1918, a decision was made to nationalize all important industries, and a decree was issued on this. It no longer named individual enterprises and did not give specific reasons - it was a general legal act.

A careful reading of this decree says a lot both about the historical moment and about the realism of the policy of the Soviet government. After rhetorically about nationalization as a means of “strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat and the rural poor,” it says that before the Supreme Council of National Economy can establish production management, nationalized enterprises are transferred to the former owners for gratuitous lease use, who continue to finance production and derive income from it. That is, while legally securing enterprises in the ownership of the RSFSR, the decree did not entail any practical consequences in the economic sphere. He only hastily averted the threat of German interference in the Russian economy. Soon, however, the Soviet government, contrary to its long-term intentions, had to take a second step - to establish real control over industry. This was forced to do the civil war. On November 20, 1920, all industrial private enterprises with more than 5 workers with a mechanical engine or 10 workers without it were nationalized.

The so-called "capital flight" from Russia, which began in the summer of 1917, led to the fact that many enterprises were abandoned. The first time after coming to power, the Bolsheviks did not plan to carry out the nationalization of industry. However, the forced taking under guardianship of ownerless enterprises soon became a means of combating the counter-revolution, and as a result, by March 1918, 836 factories and factories were in the hands of the Soviet government. At the enterprises, by a decree of November 16 (29), 1917, workers' control was fixed "over the production, purchase, sale of products and raw materials, their storage, as well as over the financial side of the enterprise." The workers exercised leadership through special bodies: factory and factory committees, councils of elders. However, the workers' control proved unable to regulate the indicated processes on the scale of the entire industry, therefore, on December 5 (18), 1917, the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) was established, which was entrusted with the responsibility of managing the country's economy. The first chairman of the Supreme Economic Council, from December 2 (15), 1917 to March 22, 1918, was the economist Valerian Valerianovich Obolensky (Osinsky).

From the second half of 1918, in the conditions of emergency wartime circumstances and the economic disorganization of the country, the Bolsheviks took a course towards the centralization of economic management. The complex of measures taken was called "war communism". In agriculture and food supply, he expressed himself in the establishment.

In industry, “war communism” manifested itself, first of all, in the nationalization of all the largest enterprises in the main industries. On May 9, 1918, a decree was adopted on the nationalization of the sugar industry, and on June 20, the oil industry. The last decision was preceded by a serious conflict between the central party leadership in the person of V. I. Lenin and the Baku Council of People's Commissars. From the middle of 1918, V. I. Lenin was inclined to abandon the previous thesis of “mandatory and rapid nationalization” and planned to attract foreign capital to the cause of restoring the oil industry. At the same time, the Baku authorities advocated the speedy nationalization of this industry. As a result, the Baku Council of People's Commissars independently, on June 1, 1918, issued a decree on the nationalization of the oil industry in the region. The central party leadership was forced to admit this and on June 20 to adopt a decree on the nationalization of the oil industry throughout the country.

The decision to nationalize was soon extended to other industries. Thus, the Bolsheviks took a firm course towards the centralization of industry. On June 28, a decree was adopted on the nationalization of the largest enterprises in the mining, metallurgical, metalworking, textile, electrical, sawmill, tobacco, rubber, glass, ceramics, leather and cement industries. For the centralized management of the national economy within the framework of the Supreme Council of National Economy, the so-called "glavki" and centers were soon created, each of which was engaged in its own industry: Glavmetal, Glavtorf, Glavtop, Glavtekstil, etc. On November 29, 1920, the Supreme Economic Council decided to nationalize "all industrial enterprises owned by private individuals or societies."

As a result of the emergency measures taken, by 1920, out of 396.5 thousand large, medium and small industrial enterprises, including handicrafts, 38.2 thousand were nationalized with about 2 million workers, i.e. over 70% of all employed in industry. By 1921, it became apparent that the Bolsheviks' policy of centralizing industry had led to economic decline. There was a decrease in industrial output, a reduction in the number of industrial workers, and a drop in labor productivity. In March 1921, at the 10th Congress of the RCP (b), a transition to the New Economic Policy (NEP) was announced.

The collection contains decrees and draft decrees on the management of industry; theoretical works by the chairmen of the Supreme Council of National Economy A. I. Rykov and F. E. Dzerzhinsky on the state of Soviet industry, its achievements and development plans; materials of industrial censuses and resolutions on them; correspondence with the Supreme Economic Council on the supply of enterprises; minutes of meetings of the Council of the military industry and pictorial materials.

On October 25 (November 7), 1917, one of the radical parties in Russia, the RSDLP (b), came to power. its economic tasks were defined at the VI Party Congress (1917) and had the character not of socialist construction, but of social and state intervention in the production, distribution, finance and regulation of labor force based on the introduction of universal labor service.

To main events of this period included: the organization of workers' control, the nationalization of banks, the implementation of the Decree on Land, the nationalization of industry and the organization of its management system, the introduction of a monopoly of foreign trade.

On practice the idea of ​​nationalization was gradually reduced to confiscation, which had a negative impact on the work of industrial enterprises, as economic ties were raised, it was difficult to establish control on a national scale. Despite this situation, from the beginning 1918 d. the nationalization of industry in the field began to acquire a mass nature, spontaneous and growing confiscation movement. The lack of experience led to the fact that enterprises were sometimes uspіlnyuyutsya, to manage which the workers were actually not ready, as well as small enterprises that became a burden on the state. The practice of illegal confiscation by decision of the factory committee (factory committee) with its subsequent approval by state bodies has become widespread. Against this background, the country's economic situation worsened.

Until July 1, 513 large industrial enterprises were transferred into state ownership. June 28 1918 The Council of People's Commissars (SNK) adopted Decree on the General Nationalization of the Large Industry of the Country "for the purpose of resolutely combating economic and industrial disruption and for strengthening the dictatorship of the working class and the poor peasantry." Under the conditions of the civil war, the nationalization of all industrial enterprises began. By autumn 1918 industry was almost completely nationalized.

Decree about earth, adopted at the II Congress of Soviets (1917), laid the foundation for new agrarian relations. It combined radical measures - the abolition of private ownership of land and the transfer of landowners' estates, "as well as all specific lands, monastic, church, with all living and dead inventory" at the disposal of volost land committees and district Soviets of peasant deputies - with the recognition of equality of all forms land use (podvirnoy, farm, communal, artilnoy) and the right to distribute confiscated land according to labor or consumer standards with periodic redistribution.

The nationalization and distribution of land was carried out on the basis of the Law on the Socialization of Land (adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on January 27 (February 9), 1918), which determined the distribution procedure and the consumer-labor norm of the allotment. In 1917-1919. distribution was carried out in 22 provinces. More than 6 million villagers received land. they were released from paying for the lease of land, from debts to the Peasants' Bank. The social structure of the village underwent a radical change: the proportion of wealthy peasants decreased from 15 to 5%, the share of middle peasants increased sharply (from 20 to 60%), and the number of poor peasants decreased from 65 to 35%. Some exemplary farms were not subject to division, but were reorganized into research demonstrative forms of the Soviet economy - state farms.

At the same time, military measures were taken, which was a manifestation of "super-revolutionary" in the countryside. In particular, established a state monopoly on bread; On May 27, 1918, the food authorities received emergency powers to purchase bread (their formation began after the approval of a decree granting the People's Commissariat for Food emergency powers to combat the rural bourgeoisie, which hides grain stocks and speculates with them); on the basis of the decree of June 11, 1918, created food detachments і committees (committees of the poor), whose task was to seize surplus grain at fixed prices (in the spring of 1918, money actually depreciated and grain was actually confiscated free of charge, at best in exchange for manufactured goods). These measures contributed to an increase in the daily export of, for example, Ukraine, food from 140 wagons in March to 400 in June 1918. The export of bread was accompanied by requisitions, violence against the peasants, terror was carried out against the Ukrainian village. But even under these conditions, V. Lenin raised the question not of the expropriation of the kulaks, but only of the suppression of their counter-revolutionary intentions.

In general, by the beginning of the civil war, there was economic management system: The Central Committee of the party developed the theoretical foundations for the activity of the apparatus; The Council of People's Commissars resolved the most important issues; people's commissariats led certain aspects of national economic life, their local bodies were the corresponding departments of the executive committees of the Soviets; The Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) is the center of general management of industry, which exercised leadership through its main departments, and locally through provincial and city radnargos-pi. The enterprise was headed by the board, 2/3 of whose members were appointed by the local economic council, and 1/3 were elected for six months. At the same time, the sectoral approach to management dominated.