Enterprises in the Soviet Union were legal entities engaged in some kind of economic activity, such as

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations * Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...

, the provision of

services Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a p ...

, or any other economic operation. An enterprise was the general equivalent of "

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

", 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. An enterprise often included production units. There also existed associations of production units collectively called "

production association Production association (russian: Производственное объединение) was a form of the organization of industry in the Soviet Union. According to the ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'', it is "a single specialized production and ec ...

s" and " scientific production associations", organized around the production and distribution of a single sector or product. An example of a production association was the

Kazan Aircraft Production Association Kazan Aircraft Production Association (KAPO; russian: Казанское авиационное производственное объединение имени С. П. Горбунова, Kazanskoye Aviatsionnoe Proizvodstvennoe Obyedinen ...

. The generic term for economic units 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 ...

was ''"предприятие"'', or "enterprise". With the exception of the brief period of

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, ...

, the

Kosygin reform The 1965 Soviet economic reform, sometimes called the Kosygin reform () or Liberman reform, was a set of planned changes in the Economy of the USSR, economy of the USSR. A centerpiece of these changes was the introduction of Profitability index, ...

and the final period of ''

perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...

'' before the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

, the terms

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

, etc., were considered to be attributes of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...

that were inapplicable to the Soviet

socialist economy Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may t ...

Types of enterprises

Enterprises were classified into three major categories, according to the major forms of property in the Soviet Union: *Based on property of Soviet citizens **Individual enterprises **Family enterprises *Based on collective property **Collective enterprises **Consumer cooperatives **Production cooperatives **Various

incorporated business A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and re ...

es: partnerships,

joint-stock companies A joint-stock company is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares (certificates of ownership). Shareholders are ...

, etc. **Enterprises of public (общественные) or religious (религиозные) organizations *Based on state property **Union state enterprises **Republican state enterprises **Communal state enterprises There were also other types: *Mixed enterprises (смешанные предприятия) *Rental enterprises (арендные предприятия) *etc.

Types of enterprises

See also