Many "black myths" were created about the Stalinist USSR, which created negative impressions of the Soviet civilization among people. One of these myths is a lie about the "total stateization" of the national economy under the USSR and Stalin. Under Stalin, private initiative flourished. Numerous artels and single handicraftsmen worked in the Union. It was Khrushchev who destroyed this sphere of activity, which was very useful for the state and the people.
Artels under Stalin
It is believed that under socialism, the command-administrative and planned system, entrepreneurship is impossible. It is known that during the reign of the NEP (New Economic Policy), cooperatives and artels flourished and produced the bulk of consumer goods. True, at this time the speculative capital of the new bourgeois (Nepmen) and the Soviet bureaucracy was welded together. That is, corruption schemes flourished.
It seemed that under Stalin, when the NEP was closed, collectivization and industrialization were carried out, the cooperative artels would disappear. However, the opposite was true. In the Stalinist empire, entrepreneurship experienced a new heyday. Small-scale production in the Stalinist USSR was a very strong and noticeable sector of the country's economy. Artels even produced weapons and ammunition during the Great Patriotic War. That is, they possessed high technologies and their own production facilities. In the USSR, production and fishing artels supported in every possible way and in every possible way. Already in the course of the first five-year plan, the growth of members of the artels was outlined by 2, 6 times.
In 1941, the Soviet government protected the artels from unnecessary interference by the authorities, indicated that the leadership of production cooperatives at all levels must be elected, and for two years exempted enterprises from all taxes and state control over retail pricing. However, retail prices should not have exceeded government prices for similar products by more than 10-13%. It should be noted that state-owned enterprises were in worse conditions, since they did not have any benefits. So that the economic leadership could not "crush" the cooperatives, the authorities also determined the prices for raw materials, equipment, transportation costs, for storage in warehouses and trade facilities. Thus, the opportunities for corruption have been greatly reduced.
Even during the most difficult conditions of war, cooperatives retained a significant part of the indulgences. And after the end of the war, during the recovery period, they were expanded again. The development of artels was considered an important state task - so that the artels would help in the restoration of the state. In particular, benefits were received by enterprises where disabled people worked, of whom there were many after the war. Many former front-line soldiers were instructed to organize new artels in various settlements and places.
New life of the ancient Russian tradition
In fact, under Stalin, the artels received a new life, reached a new level of development. This is how the ancient industrial tradition of Russian society continued. Industrial communities-artels have been the most important part of the economic life of Rus-Russia since ancient times. The artel principle of labor organization has been known in Russia since the times of the empire of the first Rurikovichs. It is obvious that it existed earlier, in pre-recorded times. Artels were known under different names: squad, mob, brotherhood, brethren, etc. In ancient Russia, such communities could perform both military and production functions. It happened that whole villages and communities organized a common artel (fishing together, building ships, etc.). The essence is always the same - the work is done by a group of people who are equal to each other. Their principle is one for all, all for one. For organizational issues, the prince-voivode, ataman-hetman, master, elected by full members of the community, decides. All members of the artel do their job, actively support each other. There is no principle of exploitation of man by man, enrichment of one or several members of the community at the expense of the bulk of the workers.
Thus, from time immemorial, the communal, conciliar principle, which was part of the Russian worldview and worldview, prevailed on the Russian land. He helped and beat enemies, and quickly recover from military or socio-economic disasters, troubles, and create an empire-power in the most severe conditions. It is worth remembering that in our harsh northern conditions, only this principle helped to create the greatest empire-power.
Under Stalin, who de facto revived the Russian empire-power, this most important Russian production tradition was not only preserved, but also received a new impetus for development. The artel occupied an important place in Soviet society. After the red emperor, 114 thousand workshops and cooperatives of various directions remained in the country. In metalworking, jewelry, food, textile and chemical industries, woodworking, etc. About 2 million people worked in cooperatives-artels. They produced about 6% of the country's gross industrial output. In particular, cooperatives produced a significant part of furniture, metal utensils, knitwear, children's toys, etc. As a result, the private sector provided a great contribution to the development of light industry and the provision of consumer goods to the people. Artels produced practically all objects and goods necessary in everyday life in the most problematic sector of the USSR national economy. That was associated with the priority of the development of heavy industry, mechanical engineering and the military-industrial complex (the question of the survival of civilization and people). And during the war years, the private sector established the production of weapons from ready-made components, made boxes for ammunition, ammunition for soldiers and horses, etc.
Interestingly, the private sector was busy with more than just manufacturing. Dozens of design bureaus, experimental laboratories and even two research institutes worked in the private sphere. That is, there was also a research department, the Soviet artels were not a relic of feudal times. Soviet artels also produced advanced products. For example, the Leningrad artel "Progress-Radio" produced the first tube receivers in the USSR (1930), the first radio (1935), the first television sets with a cathode-ray tube (1939). This area even had its own (non-state!) Pension system. The artels also carried out financial activities: they provided loans to their members for the purchase of equipment, tools, for the construction of housing, the purchase of livestock, etc.
Also, in the private sector, progress was common for the Soviet state. So, the Leningrad enterprise "Joiner-Stroitel", which in the 1920s produced sledges, wheels, clamps, etc., in the 50s began to be called "Radist" and became a major manufacturer of furniture and radio equipment. The Gatchina artel "Jupiter", which in the 1920s and 1940s produced various household items and tools, in the early 1950s produced dishes, drilling machines, presses and washing machines. And there were many such examples. That is, private enterprises, their opportunities grew along with the Soviet Union.
As a result, in the USSR during the Stalinist period, entrepreneurship was not only not infringed, but, on the contrary, was encouraged. It was an important sector of the national economy and was actively developing and improving. It is also important to note that productive entrepreneurship was growing, not the mercantile parasitic-speculative, which proliferated during the NEP years, recovered during the Gorbachev catastrophe and liberal, destructive reforms of the 1990s. Under Stalin's “totalitarianism,” private initiative and creativity were encouraged in every possible way, since it was beneficial to the state and the people. Private enterprises made the economy of the USSR more stable. At the same time, Soviet entrepreneurs were protected by the Soviet state, they forgot about such a problem as the merging of bureaucracy with organized crime, about the danger of crime.
Stalin and his associates well understood the importance of private initiative in the country's economy and the life of the people. They suppressed the attempts of the dogmatists of Marxism-Leninism to destroy and nationalize this sector. In particular, in the all-Union discussion in 1951, the economist Dmitry Shepilov (at the suggestion of Stalin, he was appointed the head of the team of authors on the creation of the USSR's first textbook on the political economy of socialism) and the USSR Minister of Light Industry and the Chairman of the Bureau of Trade under the USSR Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin defended the freedom of artels and personal plots of collective farmers. The same idea can be noted in Stalin's work "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR" (1952).
Thus, contrary to the anti-Soviet, anti-Russian myth (under “bloody Stalin,” the people were only robbed), everything was the other way around. The people were robbed under feudalism and capitalism. Under Stalin's socialism, a system of honest, industrial entrepreneurship was formed and worked perfectly in the country (it passed the tests of the most terrible war). And not the mercantile-speculative, usurious-parasitic, as in Russia during the time of the victory of capital. Entrepreneurs were protected from abuse and extortion by corrupt officials, pressure and parasitism of bankers-usurers and the criminal world. Under the red emperor, private enterprise organically supplemented the public sector.
Khrushchevschina
Khrushchev staged "perestroika-1" in the country and inflicted several heavy, almost fatal blows on the Russian (Soviet) state and people. He abandoned the Stalinist course of development, which turned the USSR into an advanced civilization of mankind. From building a society of service, knowledge and creation. The Soviet elite refused to develop, chose "stability", which ultimately led to the destruction of Soviet civilization.
Khrushchev's "thaw" destroyed the Stalinist system. On April 14, 1956, a decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On the reorganization of industrial cooperation" appeared, in accordance with which the cooperative enterprises were transferred to the state. The property of the enterprises was alienated free of charge. An exception was made only for small producers of household goods, arts and crafts and artels of disabled people. However, they were banned from doing regular retailing on their own. Thus, Khrushchev staged a pogrom of private enterprises that were useful to the state and people.
One of the negative manifestations of this pogrom was the famous Soviet deficit, which post-Soviet rulers, officials and liberals constantly reproach the Soviet Union with. Under Stalin, when tens of thousands of cooperative artels, hundreds of thousands of individual handicraftsmen operated in the country, the food needs of the people were satisfied by collective farm markets, individual peasants and collective farmers with private plots, there was no such problem. In the Stalinist USSR, the problem of a shortage of any product (usually it was food or household goods, that is, what the artels specialized in) was solved at the local level.
Cooperatives in the USSR were revived under Gorbachev, but basically it was no longer private production, but speculative, commercial and financial activity, which led not to the development of the country and the prosperity of the people, but to the enrichment of a narrow group of “new Russians”. New bourgeois and capitalists, fattening on the plunder of the USSR-Russia.
