The Council of Labor and Defense (
Russian: Совет труда и обороны (СТО)
Sovet Truda i Oborony, Latin acronym: STO), first established as the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense in November 1918, was an agency responsible for the central management of the
economy and production of military materiel in the
Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
and later in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. During the
Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
of 1917-1922 the council served as an emergency "national economic
cabinet
Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to:
Furniture
* Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers
* Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets
* Filing ...
", issuing emergency decrees in an effort to sustain industrial production for the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
amidst economic collapse. In 1920–23 it existed on the rights of the commission of the Russian
Sovnarkom
The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...
and after 1923 of the
Soviet Council of People's Commissariats.
[Council of Labor and Defense (РАДА ПРАЦІ ТА ОБОРОНИ)]
Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia
The ''Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia'' ( uk, Українська радянська енциклопедія, ''Ukrayinska radyanska entsyklopediya'') was a multi-purpose encyclopedia of Ukraine, issued in the USSR.
First attempt
Following th ...
. The
Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union
The All-Union Central Executive Committee (russian: Всесоюзный Центральный исполнительный комитет, Vsesoyuznyy Tsentral'nyy ispolnitel'nyy komitet) was the most authoritative governing body of the USSR d ...
abolished the Council on 28 April 1937.
[ Its functions were split between the and the Defense Committee ( ru , Комитет обороны , translit = Komitet oborony) of the ]Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union
The Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union was the highest collegial body of executive and administrative authority of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1946.
As the government of the Soviet Union, the Council of People's Commissars of th ...
.
The chairperson of the Council ''ex officio
An ''ex officio'' member is a member of a body (notably a board, committee, council) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. The term '' ex officio'' is Latin, meaning literally 'from the office', and the sense intended is 'by right ...
'' was a chairperson of the Council of People's Commissars
The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...
.[ The STO, a commission of the ]Council of People's Commissars
The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...
, included among its executive body such top-ranking Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
leaders as V. I. Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
, Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
, and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
, who oversaw a burgeoning professional apparatus. In March 1920 the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense became the Council of Labour and Defense. Following the formation of the USSR in 1922 the Council was renamed in 1923 as the Council of Labour and Defense of the USSR ( ru , Совет труда и обороны СССР , translit = Sovyet truda i oborony SSSR); its economic planning and regulatory roles expanded to encompass the entire country. As the first central economic-planning authority in Soviet Russia, the Council of Labor and Defense served as the institutional precursor to the better-known Soviet planning-authority of later years, Gosplan
The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan ( rus, Госплан, , ɡosˈpɫan),
was the agency responsible for central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of ...
, launched in August 1923 as a subcommittee of STO.
History
Economic background
The Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
concluded in the fall with the October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
, organized and achieved through the direction of V. I. Lenin's radical Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
. With the country already decimated and disorganized by three brutal years of the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the fledgling socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
state struggled to hang on and survive civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, a multinational foreign military intervention, and the collapse of the economy, including the broad depopulation of major cities and the onset of hyperinflation
In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimize their holdings in that currency as t ...
.
The revolutionary government faced the dual tasks of economic organization and the marshaling of material resources on behalf of its Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
. A new body known as the Supreme Council of National Economy
Supreme Board of the National Economy, Superior Board of the People's Economy, (Высший совет народного хозяйства, ВСНХ, ''Vysshiy sovet narodnogo khozyaystva'', VSNKh) was the superior state institution for managem ...
(Latin acronym of the Cyrillic: VSNKh, commonly sounded out as "Vesenkha") was established on December 15, 1917 as the first governmental entity for the coordination of state finance and economic production and distribution in the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR).[Alec Nove, ''An Economic History of the USSR.'' New Edition. London: Penguin Books, 1989; pg. 42.] Vesenkha was attached to the de facto cabinet
Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to:
Furniture
* Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers
* Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets
* Filing ...
of the RSFSR, the Council of People's Commissars
The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...
, and formally answered to that body.
As the Vesenkha bureaucracy
The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
developed, it began to generate specialized departments from itself, entities known as ''glavki,'' each responsible for the operation of a specific economic sector. These subordinate entities were known by descriptive syllabic abbreviations, such as for example, ''Tsentrotextil for the central department in charge of textile production, and ''Glavneft'' and ''Glavles'' for the central departments in charge of oil and timber, respectively. These organizations frequently corresponded to economic syndicates established prior to the war and taken over by the pre-revolutionary Tsarist
Tsarist autocracy (russian: царское самодержавие, transcr. ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye''), also called Tsarism, was a form of autocracy (later absolute monarchy) specific to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states ...
government as part of its coordination of the economy for its own war effort. The personnel employed in these ''glavki'' were often the same individuals who served in a similar capacity under the old regime.
Although there were fewer than 500 nationalized
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
companies prior to June 1918, by the end of that month the intensification of the Civil War and worsening economic situation led to adoption of a decree nationalizing all factories of the nation.[Nove, ''An Economic History of the USSR,'' pg. 45.] Goods of all kinds vanished from the marketplace and rationing
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...
was extended. Unable to receive fair value for their surplus grain from the state grain-purchasing monopoly, peasants withheld their production from the official market, causing a parallel black market
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
to emerge. The state's ''prodrazverstka
''Prodrazvyorstka'', also transliterated ''Prodrazverstka'' ( rus, продразвёрстка, p=prədrɐˈzvʲɵrstkə, short for , ) was a policy and campaign of confiscation of grain and other agricultural products from peasants at nominal f ...
,'' involving the systemic use of force against the peasantry in order to requisition grain further deepened the crisis. This new centralized and coercive economy, brought about by economic collapse and the exigencies of civil war is remembered to economic historians as Military Communism
War communism or military communism (russian: Военный коммунизм, ''Voyennyy kommunizm'') was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1921.
According to Soviet histo ...
.
Establishment
In the absence of a viable market economy
A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand, where all suppliers and consumers ...
, the Soviet state needed a mechanism for the coordination of production and distribution to serve the direct needs of the military. On November 30, 1918 the All-Russian Central Executive Committee
The All-Russian Central Executive Committee ( rus, Всероссийский Центральный Исполнительный Комитет, Vserossiysky Centralny Ispolnitelny Komitet, VTsIK) was the highest legislative, administrative and r ...
(executive authority of the Congress of Soviets
The Congress of Soviets was the supreme governing body of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and several other Soviet republics from 1917 to 1936 and a somewhat similar Congress of People's Deputies from 1989 to 1991. After the crea ...
) created a bureaucratic entity designed for this purpose, initially called the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense.[E.H. Carr, ''A History of Soviet Russia: The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923: Volume 2.'' London: Macmillan, 1952; pg. 369.] This bureau was presented with the task of gathering and disbursing resources needed for the war effort.[Nove, ''An Economic History of the USSR,'' pg. 60.]
The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense was originally conceived as an emergency body dedicated solely to the mobilization of Russia's resources for the fighting of the civil war. Lenin himself was named as chairman, Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
sat as the People's Commissar of War, Leonid Krassin
Leonid Borisovich Krasin (russian: Леони́д Бори́сович Кра́син; 15 July 1870 – 24 November 1926) was a Russian Soviet politician, engineer, social entrepreneur, Bolshevik revolutionary politician and a Soviet diplomat. In 1 ...
as head of the extraordinary commission of supply, and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
as the representative of the All-Russian Executive Committee.
The organization quickly emerged as what historian Alec Nove
Alexander Nove, FRSE, FBA (born Aleksandr Yakovlevich Novakovsky; russian: Алекса́ндр Я́ковлевич Новако́вский; also published under Alec Nove; 24 November 1915 – 15 May 1994) was a Professor of Economics at the ...
has called the "effective economic cabinet" of the nation, with the power to issue legally binding decrees. For the duration of the civil war, running up to early 1921, the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense existed as an ''ad hoc'' basis, issuing its decrees on the basis that a national emergency existed and largely unconcerned with long-term planning processes. The council instead concentrated upon day-to-day exigencies related to the life or death military campaign.
As was the case with the parallel government planning organization Vesenkha and its ''glavki,'' the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense had a set of specialized subcommittees dedicated to specific aspects of the military industries. In many cases the two organizations attempted to extend their own influence and agendas within the same industries. Productive industry remained in crisis as authorities threw manpower and resources from one critical bottleneck to the next, creating new shortages in the process of attempting to solve standing problems.
From 1919 the authority of Vesenkha
Supreme Board of the National Economy, Superior Board of the People's Economy, (Высший совет народного хозяйства, ВСНХ, ''Vysshiy sovet narodnogo khozyaystva'', VSNKh) was the superior state institution for managem ...
began to wane, with the People's Commissariat of Agriculture The People's Commissariat for Agriculture, abbreviated as ''Narkomzem'' was established in the USSR in 1929. Its headquarters building was located at Orlikov Pereulok, 1, Moscow, designed by Aleksey Shchusev in 1928. ''Narkomzem'' was reformed as ...
(Narkomprod) in charge of grain requisitions and the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense gaining power in the industrial sphere.[Carr, ''A History of Soviet Russia: The Bolshevik Revolution,'' vol. 2, pg. 196.] The mobilization of unskilled labor, including labor service by peasants demanded by local government authorities for the transport of fuel, food, and military supplies, was made the province of the People's Commissariat of Labor The People's Commissariat for Labour (Russian: Народный комиссариат труда) was established by the Bolsheviks following their seizure of power during the October Revolution. It functioned as a ministry in the new government w ...
(Narkomtrud). Vesenkha was reduced to one of several central economic authorities, and by no means the superior.
One beneficiary of the institutional atrophy experience by Vesenkha was the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense. The authority of the organization was bolstered n the summer of 1919 by the appointment of top-ranking Bolshevik Alexei Rykov
Alexei Ivanovich Rykov (25 February 188115 March 1938) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician and statesman, most prominent as premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1929 and 1924 to 1930 respectively. He wa ...
as the "extraordinary representative," further accentuating the place of the organization as first among equals in the planning firmament.[Carr, ''A History of Soviet Russia: The Bolshevik Revolution,'' vol. 2, pg. 229.] For the duration of the civil war a large percentage of the output of Soviet industry would be dedicated to the needs of the Red Army, the supply of which was characterized as "the cornerstone of our economic policy" by one leading economic official. The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense was given charge of all supplies to the Red Army except for agricultural products and was the primary controller and user of the nation's industrial output, limited though it may have been.
New name, new role
With the civil war drawing to a successful finish, in March 1920 the council was given a new name — ''Sovet truda i oborony'' (STO), the Council of Labor and Defense. The organization was formally recognized as being of higher priority than its bureaucratic rival Vesenkha in obtaining allocations of scarce resources.[Nove, ''An Economic History of the USSR,'' pg. 61.] Rather than limiting itself to the industrial production and allocation necessary for the Red Army in wartime, STO took a broader approach to planning than it had in its earlier iteration.
The new name and function of STO was ratified in December 1920 by the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the formal legislative authority of Soviet Russia.[Carr, ''A History of Soviet Russia: The Bolshevik Revolution,'' vol. 2, pg. 375.] STO was recognized as a commission of the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), to be headed by the leading People's Commissars themselves, a representative of the Russian trade unions, and the chief of the Central Statistical Agency. STO was directed to establish a single economic plan for Soviet Russia, to direct the work of the individual People's Commissariats toward this plan's fulfillment, and to issue exceptions to the plan as necessary, among other functions. In this way "for the first time the RSFSR had a general planning organ with clearly defined functions," historian E. H. Carr
Edward Hallett Carr (28 June 1892 – 3 November 1982) was a British historian, diplomat, journalist and international relations theorist, and an opponent of empiricism within historiography. Carr was best known for '' A History of Soviet Rus ...
has observed.
During the market-based New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy (NEP) () was an economic policy of the Soviet Union proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterized the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism, ...
(NEP) which followed the wartime economy of Military Communism, STO emerged as an apparatus of administrative control, coordinating the formation of "special unions" of firms in a given branch of industry on the basis of self-financing ''(khozraschët)'' and greenlighting the separation of individual firms from centralized trusts on the same basis.
An effort was made in May 1922 to make STO the regulating agency for national trade when Sovnarkom created a new commission attached to STO with the power to issue economic decrees.[Carr, ''A History of Soviet Russia: The Bolshevik Revolution,'' vol. 2, pg. 344.] This commission, which was given a free hand to interpret and modify existing trade regulations and to propose new laws for ratification by Sovnarkom, does not seem to have exerted itself in any substantial way, however, and market forces remained paramount under the NEP.
Despite the real limitations on central planning authority in a largely market-based economy, STO emerged as what historian Maurice Dobb
Maurice Herbert Dobb (24 July 1900 – 17 August 1976) was an English economist at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He is remembered as one of the pre-eminent Marxist economists of the 20th century.
Dobb was bo ...
has characterized as "the supreme executive body in the economic sphere, filling the role of an Economic General Staff which Vesenkha had aimed, but had failed, to fulfil in the earlier period."[Maurice Dobb, ''Russian Economic Development Since the Revolution.'' New York: E.P. Dutton, 1928; pg. 241; fn. 1.]
Relationship to Gosplan
The State Committee for Planning (Gosudarstvennyi Komitet po Planirovaniiu, commonly called "Gosplan"), later all powerful in the Soviet economic firmament, was launched as a permanent advisory subcommittee of STO, assigned with the task of conducting detailed economic investigations and providing expert recommendations to the decision-making STO.
Throughout the NEP period the economic planning bureaucracy proliferated, with decision-makers of the economic trusts sometimes forced to deal with no fewer than four agencies — the Supreme Council of National Economy (Vesenkha), the People's Commissariat of Finance (Narkomfin), Gosplan, and STO.[Dobb, ''Russian Economic Development Since the Revolution,'' pg. 390.] The system was inefficient and sometimes forced contradictory objectives upon firm managers, forcing the firms to produce reams of documents to satisfy bureaucratic overseers. In the event of fundamental disagreement between agencies, the decision of STO was decisive during the years of the late 1920s.
Periodicals
The Council of Labor and Defense had a daily newspaper, ''Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn (Economic Life).[E.H. Carr, ''A History of Soviet Russia: Volume 4: The Interregnum, 1923-1924.'' London: Macmillan, 1954; pg. 13.] The paper was established in November 1918 as the organ of Vesenkha and was made the official voice of STO effective with the issue of August 2, 1921.[''Ėkonomicheskai͡a zhiznʹ: Organ Vysshego soveta narodnogo khozi͡aĭstva i Narodnykh komissariatov--finansov, prodovolʹstvii͡a, torgovli i promyshlennosti.'']
Stanford University Library. Effective in January 1935 the paper was made into the official organ of the People's Commissariat of Finance and other institutions. Publication continued through 1937.
Chairmen
*Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
(April 1920 - January 1924)
* Lev Borisovich Kamenev (February 1924 - January 1926)
*Alexei Ivanovich Rykov
Alexei Ivanovich Rykov (25 February 188115 March 1938) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician and statesman, most prominent as premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1929 and 1924 to 1930 respectively. He was ...
(January 1926 - December 1930)
*Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
(December 1930 - April 1937)
See also
* Gosplan
The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan ( rus, Госплан, , ɡosˈpɫan),
was the agency responsible for central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of ...
* USSR State Defense Committee
The State Defense Committee (russian: Государственный комитет обороны - ГКО, translit=Gosudarstvennyĭ komitet oborony - GKO) was an extraordinary organ of state power in the USSR during the German-Soviet War (Grea ...
Footnotes
{{Authority control
Government of the Soviet Union
Government of Russia
1918 establishments in Russia
1937 disestablishments