Part of a series on |
Socialism |
---|
Socialist property is a term used in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries to refer to state, public and cooperative property.
It was proclaimed that under socialism, public socialist property exists in two forms: 1) in the form of state property and 2) in the form of cooperative–collective economic property. It was pointed out that state property is the common property of the people, and cooperative–collective economic property is group property, the property of individual collectives or associations of workers.
In the Soviet Union it was proclaimed that state (common people's) property is the common property of the entire Soviet people. The land, its subsoil, waters, and forests were the exclusive property of the state in the Soviet Union. Also, state property included the main means of production in industry, construction and agriculture, means of transport and communications, banks, property of state–organized trade, utilities and other enterprises, and the main urban housing stock.
Collective economic–cooperative property included the property of collective farms, as well as commercial cooperatives, consumer societies, and housing construction cooperatives.
A researcher of the criminal world of Russia and the Soviet Union, Soviet dissident Valery Chalidze noted that even in tsarist times, Russians were characterized by "neglect of the property rights of the treasury", and this tradition "remained significant in Soviet times. This tradition has become unusually widespread... also due to the fact that now almost everything around is the property of the treasury or state property". [1]
The Soviet state has been concerned with the problem of protecting socialist property from selfish attacks since the mid-1920s: the Criminal Code of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic of 1926 included articles on property, official, and economic crimes.
Article 109 provided for punishment for abuse of official position for personal gain, 116th – for embezzlement, 129th – for concluding deals that are obviously unfavorable for the state, 162nd (points "d", "e") – for theft of state property, 169th, Part 2 – for fraud. Even then, punishment for crimes against state property was harsher than for claims against personal property.
For example, for the theft of personal property committed for the first time and without collusion with third parties, imprisonment or forced labor of up to three months, and a maximum of a year of imprisonment, were imposed. For ordinary theft of state property, up to 2 years of imprisonment or a year of forced labor were imposed, for qualified theft – up to five years. Fraud against a private individual could be punished by imprisonment for up to two years, and against the state – up to five. The maximum term of imprisonment under articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic 109, 116 and 129 reached 10 years. [2]
After collectivization and the onset of famine in some regions of the Soviet Union, punishments for the theft of socialist property were tightened at the suggestion of Joseph Stalin: in especially serious cases they were even punishable by execution. Motivating the need for such brutal measures, Stalin wrote to the People's Commissar of Agriculture Lazar Kaganovich and the head of the government Vyacheslav Molotov:
Capitalism could not have broken feudalism, it would not have developed and strengthened if it had not declared the principle of private property to be the basis of capitalist society, if it had not made private property sacred property, violation of the interests of which is strictly punished and for the protection of which it created its own state. Socialism will not be able to finish off and bury the capitalist elements and individually greedy habits, skills, traditions (which serve as the basis for theft), which are shaking the foundations of the new society, if it does not declare public property (cooperative, collective economic, state) sacred and inviolable. It cannot strengthen and develop the new system and socialist construction if it does not protect the property of collective farms, cooperatives, and the state with all its might, if it does not discourage antisocial, kulak–capitalist elements from plundering public property. [3]
On June 4, 1947, a decree "On Criminal Liability for Theft of State and Public Property" was issued, after which the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union dated August 7, 1932 (hence the "Law Seven–Eight") "On the Protection of State Property Enterprises, Collective Farms and Cooperation and Strengthening Public (Socialist) Property" has lost force. At the same time, a decree "On Strengthening the Protection of Citizens' Personal Property" was adopted. Thus, a gradation of property was established: state, public, personal. For encroachment on state and public property, the punishment was higher. [2]
According to the decree of 1947, theft of socialist property was punishable by imprisonment for a term of 7 to 10 years with or without confiscation of property. [2]
The same approach was reflected in the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of 1960, which declared the task of this act to be the protection of the social system of the Soviet Union, socialist property, personal rights and freedoms of citizens, as well as the socialist legal order from criminal attacks.
Article 93, Part 1, which supplemented the Criminal Code with the Law of July 25, 1962, allowed the application of the death penalty to those guilty of theft on an especially large scale (amounting to more than 10 thousand rubles and taking into account the significance of the stolen property for the national economy). The use of the death penalty for such crimes was abolished by the law of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on December 5, 1991, [2] when Russia had already begun a widespread rejection of socialism in favor of capitalism.
On June 25, 1990, the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union adopted a resolution, [4] according to which, on the basis of the Kama Automobile Plants, one of the first joint–stock companies of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union was created – the Kama Automobile Plant Joint–Stock Company, in which 51% of the shares should be were to remain in common union ownership, the rest were supposed to be sold. On September 5, 1991, the sale of shares to the workforce began. On September 10, a competition for legal entities was held, as a result of which 230 enterprises and organizations became shareholders of the Kama Automobile Plant. [5]
On July 3, 1991, the Law of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic "On the Privatization of State and Municipal Enterprises in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic" was adopted, which entrusted the State Committee of the Russian Federation for State Property Management with the privatization of common public property. [6] In November 1991, Anatoly Chubais became its chairman. [7]
Until mid–1992, the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation adopted a number of laws and resolutions regulating the processes of privatization and bankruptcy of economic entities, including the Laws of the Russian Federation "On Registered Privatization Accounts and Deposits in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic" and the Law "On Property in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic". [8]
In November 1991, the stage of forced privatization began. It was based on Decree No. 341 of the President of the Russian Federation dated December 29, 1991, which approved the "Basic Provisions of the Program for the Privatization of State and Municipal Enterprises for 1992". [9] Decree No. 66 of January 29, 1992 "On Accelerating the Privatization of State and Municipal Enterprises" determined the practical mechanism of privatization. [10]
As a result of privatization, a significant part of Russian enterprises, which were the common property of the people, became private property for almost nothing, creating the basis for the emergence of oligarchs and a huge economic stratification of the Russian population.
Perestroika was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated with CPSU general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the political and economic systems of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to end the Era of Stagnation.
The politics of Russia take place in the framework of the federal semi-presidential republic of Russia. According to the Constitution of Russia, the President of Russia is head of state, and of a multi-party system with executive power exercised by the government, headed by the Prime Minister, who is appointed by the President with the parliament's approval. Legislative power is vested in the two houses of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, while the President and the government issue numerous legally binding by-laws. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, Russia has seen serious challenges in its efforts to forge a political system to follow nearly seventy-five years of Soviet governance. For instance, leading figures in the legislative and executive branches have put forth opposing views of Russia's political direction and the governmental instruments that should be used to follow it. That conflict reached a climax in September and October 1993, when President Boris Yeltsin used military force to dissolve the parliament and called for new legislative elections. This event marked the end of Russia's first constitutional period, which was defined by the much-amended constitution adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1978. A new constitution, creating a strong presidency, was approved by referendum in December 1993.
The Law of Spikelets or Law of Three Spikelets was a decree in the Soviet Union to protect state property of kolkhozes —especially the grain they produced—from theft, largely by desperate peasants during the Soviet famine of 1932–33. The decree was also known as the "Seven Eighths Law", because the date in Russian is filled into forms as 7/8/1932. The law provided a severe punishment for stolen collective and cooperative property: "execution with confiscation of all property and replacement in mitigating circumstances with imprisonment for at least 10 years with confiscation of all property." Amnesty was prohibited in these cases. From 1932 to 1940, 182,173 people were convicted under this law.
Enterprises in the Soviet Union were legal entities engaged in some kind of economic activity, such as production, distribution, the provision of services, or any other economic operation. An enterprise was the general equivalent of "company", which was the legal entity prominent outside of the Eastern-bloc economies. Enterprises and production units engaged in activities that are generally undertaken by business-enterprises in capitalist systems, including the design, production, manufacture and distribution of producer and consumer goods and services. In contrast to business enterprises, enterprises and production associations did not engage in business-related activities such as marketing, buying-and-selling and financial decisions.
The government of Russia is the federal executive body of state power of the Russian Federation. The members of the government are the prime minister, the deputy prime ministers, and the federal ministers. It has its legal basis in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the federal constitutional law "On the Government of the Russian Federation". The Apparatus of the Government of Russia is a governmental body which administrates the activities of the government.
Privatization in Russia describes the series of post-Soviet reforms that resulted in large-scale privatization of Russia's state-owned assets, particularly in the industrial, energy, and financial sectors. Most privatization took place in the early and mid-1990s under Boris Yeltsin, who assumed the presidency following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The Ministry of Finance of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Russian: Министерство финансов СССР), formed on 15 March 1946, was one of the most important government offices in the Soviet Union. Until 1946 it was known as the People's Commissariat for Finance (Russian: Народный комиссариат финансов – Narodnyi komissariat finansov, or "Narkomfin"). Narkomfin, at the all-Union level, was established on 6 July 1923 after the signing of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, and was based upon the People's Commissariat for Finance of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) formed in 1917. The Ministry was led by the Minister of Finance, prior to 1946 a Commissar, who was nominated by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and then confirmed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The minister was a member of the Council of Ministers.
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, previously known as the Russian Soviet Republic and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, as well as being unofficially referred to as Soviet Russia, the Russian Federation, or simply Russia, was an independent federal socialist state from 1917 to 1922, and afterwards the largest and most populous Soviet socialist republic of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1922 to 1991, until becoming a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with priority of Russian laws over Union-level legislation in 1990 and 1991, the last two years of the existence of the USSR. The Russian SFSR was composed of sixteen smaller constituent units of autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group. The capital of the Russian SFSR and the USSR as a whole was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Stalingrad, Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Gorky and Kuybyshev. It was the first Marxist–Leninist state in the world.
The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, also known as MinFin, is a ministry of the Government of Russia responsible for financial policy and general management in the field of finance.
The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation is a non-governmental, non-profit organization that operates under the Russian Federation Law on Chambers of Commerce and Industry in the Russian Federation and the Chamber's Charter and represents the interests of small, medium-size, and big businesses encompassing all business sectors—manufacturing, domestic and foreign trade, agriculture, the finance system, and the services. Chaired by Sergey Katyrin.
The Government of the Soviet Union, formally the All-Union Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly abbreviated to Soviet Government, was the executive and administrative organ of state in the former Soviet Union. It had four different names throughout its existence; Council of People's Commissars (1923–1946), Council of Ministers (1946–1991), Cabinet of Ministers and Committee on the Operational Management of the National Economy. It also was known as Workers-Peasants Government of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era.
The Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the government of Soviet Russia in 1917–1946. It was established by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies on November 7, 1917 "as an interim workers' and peasants' government" under the name of the Council of People's Commissars, which was used before the adoption of the Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic of 1918.
Kyrgyzstan is ranked 140th of 180 countries in Transparency International's 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, where the country ranked first in the Index is perceived to have the most honest public sector and the country ranked 180th, the most corrupt. Despite having a strong legal framework, there still exists a huge gulf in Kyrgyzstan between the law and its implementation. Kyrgyzstan’s rampant corruption which penetrates all levels of society, including the presidency, eventually caused the Tulip Revolution in 2005, overthrowing Askar Akayev, and the 2010 Kyrgyzstani revolution, ousting Kurmanbek Bakiyev from office.
The Medal "For Distinction in the Protection of Public Order" is a state decoration of the Russian Federation retained from the awards system of the Soviet Union established to recognise outstanding service by members of law enforcement bodies or to civilians for courage in assisting law enforcement personnel in their duties.
Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member-owners jointly engage in farming activities as a collective, and state farms, which are owned and directly run by a centralized government. The process by which farmland is aggregated is called collectivization. In some countries, there have been both state-run and cooperative-run variants. For example, the Soviet Union had both kolkhozy and sovkhozy.
The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a distinctive form of central planning. The Soviet economy was characterized by state control of investment, prices, a dependence on natural resources, lack of consumer goods, little foreign trade, public ownership of industrial assets, macroeconomic stability, low unemployment and high job security.
The Constitution of Uzbekistan of 1978 was adopted on 19 April 1978 at the extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of Uzbekistan. The Constitution of Uzbekistan of 1978 contains 11 parts and it is further divided into 21 chapters.
The 1940 Constitution of Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic was unanimously adopted by the "2nd People's State Assembly", a puppet legislature in the then Soviet-occupied Estonia, on 25 August 1940.
The 1991 Belarusian strikes, also referred to in Belarus as the April Strikes, were a series of nationwide strikes and rallies in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Originally in opposition to price increases and a tax on goods from republics sold in another republic, the protests later turned into a broadly anti-Soviet movement, calling for the resignation of Soviet leadership, a reduction of the economic role of the Soviet government, and fresh elections to the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: location (link){{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help)