Artel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zimmermannsartel, Russia 1912

Artel ( Russian артель [ arˈtjɛl ]) was a voluntary association of people in the Russian Empire to organize joint economic activities. The members of the Artel elected a leader ( Ataman , Starosta ) from among their number , and proceeds were shared according to agreed rules. Often the Artel acted jointly and severally for its members on the basis of collective joint and several liability . Originally arose from associations for seasonal activities (hunting, fishing) and warlike-robbery connections, the Artel developed into a widespread social institution for the most varied of economic associations (builders, customs officers, soldiers, farmers, tenants and tenants, stock brokers, domestic workers, Artists, but also beggars, thieves or robbers). The large number of seasonal handicraft workers in the late 19th century were made up of Artels, who hired themselves collectively, were paid collectively and also lived and worked together in cities or on construction sites.

In Russian economics at the end of the 19th century, the Artel was defined as "a contract-based association of several people with equal rights who, for the common pursuit of economic purposes, have united with capital and labor or only with labor alone while observing solidarity liability."

"Artells", Russian manual workers' cooperative, in: Die Gartenlaube, 1870, issue 31, pp. 485–486.

The Artel is often seen as an early form of cooperatives or a pre-form of union organization.

In the Soviet Union was in the process collectivization of agriculture, the main form of cooperative organization within the Kolchosordnung called Artel.

Origin of the term

The Duden derives the term from Italian artieri , craftsman . In contrast, the term in the literature is predominantly regarded as a Tatar loan word with the Turkish-speaking stem orta (community, center) (cf. Turkish ortaklık 'partnership, society, company' , Turkish ortak 'partner' ). The change in gender from feminine in Russian to neuter in German is attributed to the action of the pseudo suffix -el .

history

Report on fishing artels from Kosaken In: Heinrich Storch (Ed.): Russia under Alexander the First. Volume 4. Leipzig / St. Petersburg 1804, p. 33
The soldiers of the Imperial Russian Army (here during the invasion of Paris in 1814) organized themselves in Artels.
Poster soliciting support for an artel of war invalids from World War I

Very early in Russian history there is evidence of the formation of cooperative alliances to pursue a common economic goal. From the 11th and 12th centuries there are references to communities of Novgorod citizens engaged in walrus fishing in the White Sea . German-Russian trade agreements of the Middle Ages (Novgorod 12th / 13th centuries) already know formal organizations of rough , Russian rowers who carry the goods or ships of German merchants up the Volkhov to Novgorod. These preschoolers are under the direction of an older man or old man and are jointly liable for any damage caused to the merchants.

Associations of повольники (powolniki) or ушкуйники (uschkujniki) , which in early Russian history organize themselves into ventures of a warlike-robbery type ( набег = raid) in ватаги ( watagi = gangs), already have members who have equal rights to choose from In the middle of a leader ( атаман - Ataman ), proceeds or booty are shared among each other. Similar warlike connections with a clearly artelike character can be found in later times among the Cossacks . As the colonization of Russia progressed, when there was less room for such predatory expeditions and agriculture, hunting, fishing, mining, and trade formed the basis of peaceful economic activity, this traditional form of successful cooperative action persisted. Sources from the 13th and 14th centuries mention artels of hunters and falconers . In a document from 1460 it is said that the Belosersk prince Mikhail Andrejewitsch sends his watagi out to fish. In the 17th century, numerous artels were formed for fishing for cod , walrus and seals in the north of Russia, particularly in the Murmansk region. In 1682 independent Artels Kholmogorsk farmers are mentioned in a document, who catch walrus on Novaya Zemlya .

In the second half of the 17th century, the term Artel replaced the previously widespread, also from the Tatar word watag (a) for such associations. When the city of St. Petersburg was founded in 1703, the Artel was already an established form of organization of the handicraft and construction industry in Russia. These artels were led by a Starosta as master and foreman, who determined the layout and required materials from experience and in consultation with the client and negotiated the order and remuneration. Since the Artels building craftsmen also learned their craft in their respective Artels, the Artel organization adhered to a "relative conservatism" which induced Peter I to use construction crews instead of traditional Artels for his conception of a city of western design by the specially established Baukanzlei to be put together, which presided as master always a foreigner.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Russian artel received increasing attention in German literature. Travelers or Germans living in Russia tell of the custom of the Russian Cossacks to organize themselves for fishing in seasonal artels. Reports from St. Petersburg recommend servants organized in Artels as particularly reliable, to whom one also gladly entrusts financial transactions, since Artel vouches for their performance. The peculiarity of the Russian soldiers to organize themselves in Artels in order to make their " cruet ", i. H. Organizing or improving their military rations received the applause of the Austrian and German allies in the wars of liberation against Napoleon .

With the abolition of serfdom in 1861, millions of peasants poured into the cities in search of work and a livelihood. Here, however, they did not become proletarians , but remained as peasants stuck to the life cycle, customs and social discipline of the village. Many farmers returned to the village during harvest time and at the end of their working lives. The traditional form of organization of the Artel gave these peasant workers in the city the usual village support. Whole artels in a village hired themselves out together in a factory, worked as teams in road construction or on construction sites, lived and ran the farm together.

In the 1860s, supporters of the Western European cooperative movement among the Russian economists also discovered the Artel as a natural phenomenon that grew out of the people without any outside help and at the same time resembled modern French, English or German workers and craftsmen's cooperatives. Since the traditional Artel usually did not correspond to a raw material, factory or productive cooperative in the Western European sense and the vast majority of the Artels were economically completely dependent, “properly organized” model Artels were propagated and - in some cases also supported by the German cooperative movement . However, none of these Schulze-Delitzscher coinage shoemakers, blacksmiths or cheese makers were granted a long service life, while traditional artels sprouted up everywhere.

In Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, Artel, as a cooperative, cooperative-like association of employees in a wide variety of industries, was indispensable and found its way into the Russian proverb : "Artelgrütze (tastes better)." (Артельная каша лучше.) Or "It is difficult for one, but easy for artel. ”(трудно одному, да легко артели.). An eloquent testimony to the widespread use of the Artel is the fact that the hundreds of thousands of revolutionary refugees who sought asylum in Berlin in the 1920s (1923: 360,000) founded a large number of Artels: There were Artels for agricultural work, for handicrafts, car locksmithing, Papirossi manufacturing, steam laundries , tailoring. There were Artels for the balalaika player, the trading article "Trud" for agricultural machinery, Artels for the stage actors, etc.

The artist artel

Ivan Nikolajewitsch Kramskoi (1837–1887): Self-portrait

On the initiative of I. N. Kramskoi , the St. Petersburg Artists' Artel (Петербургская артель художников) was founded in 1863 , the first artist cooperative of democratically-minded Russian artists. The Artel was founded by participants in the so-called Uprising of the Fourteen (восстание четырнадцати), students of the Petersburg Art Academy , who protested against the Academy's academic art style and whose revolt resulted in their expulsion from the Academy. Members were u. a. C. B. Wenig , A. K. Grigorjew, N. D. Dmitrijew-Orenburgski , T. S. Schurawlew, A. I. Korsuchin, K. W. Lemoch and K. J. Makowski . The Petersburger Künstlerartel took on various commissions, such as works for the churches of the Petrozavodsk and St. Petersburg Mining Institute, lithographs about the time of Peter I, commissioned portraits. In addition, the Artel organized exhibitions and charity lotteries, published illustrated albums in 1869 and 1870/71, and met weekly for discussions on questions of art. The Petersburger Künstlerartel dissolved after I. N. Kramskoi left in 1871. In 1870, members of the Petersburg Artists' Artel founded the Society of Traveling Art Exhibitions (Товарищество передвижных художественных выставок) of the Peredwischniki (Wanderers), who made their new, non-idealized, societal art known through national exhibitions.

While the St. Petersburg Künstlerartel was more ideologically than economically motivated, in the following decades Artels emerged in the cities of artists with clear economic goals: mediation of orders and engagements for their members, housing brokerage, joint economic activities.

The Russian Artel was the model for the establishment of the Czech artists' cooperative Artěl (1908-1935), an association of Czech avant-garde artists who were strongly committed to Cubism and advocated a modern aesthetic in the field of applied art . Artěl deserves an important place in the development of art and design in Europe alongside the much better known art and design schools of the Wiener Werkstätte and the Bauhaus .

The Artel in the Soviet Union

“Decree on the Ground” of November 8, 1917
“Grain procurement is class war! Red wagon trains towards the kulaks! ”- Collectivization and deculakization campaign 1930
Payment of wages in the collective farm
Artel's trademark for artistic ceramics Gschel (1940)
Sergej Jessenin / E. Turowa: Child Jesus . Book edition of the Soviet Russian artist's article "Sevodnja" ("Today") 1918

In the Soviet Union, the artel played a role primarily in the collectivization of agriculture. Already the second decree of the new “workers and peasants government” of October 26th July. / November 8, 1917 greg. , the decree on the soil , named the Artel as a possible form of cultivation of the de facto nationalized soil in addition to individual farms and village communities. In the collectivization campaigns of the following years, the Bolsheviks promoted three forms of collective farms (kolkhoz) in addition to the state-owned sovkhozes . These were the "commune" ( Russian коммуна ), the "Artel" and the "cooperative for common land cultivation (TOS)" ( Russian Товарищества по совместной обработке землЗ ) - in decreasing degree of socialization While in the commune, which played only a marginal role in the history of the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union, all property was socialized and in the TOS the means of production, which remained largely privately owned, were only brought together for common use, in the Artel the equipment, the Livestock and land ownership became the common property of the Artel, while the Artel member retained the right to private use of the house, the garden property and a few cattle and poultry.

Following on from the pre-revolutionary tradition, the artel was the most common form of collective farm in the early years of Soviet Russian agriculture. In 1921, the RSFSR consisted of 6527 state estates (sovkhozs), 3313 municipalities, 10185 artels and 2514 TOS. In the course of the new economic policy , which allowed farmers to trade privately and sell their products on the market, this ratio changed significantly in favor of the TOS until 1929: In June 1929 (with an overall low level of collectivization of 3.9% of all farms ) 60% of the collective farms (in Ukraine even 75%) cooperatives for joint cultivation of land (TOS) compared to 35% Artels and less than 5% municipalities. The overwhelming majority of the kolkhozes that had emerged up to the summer of 1929 consisted of dwarf farms, which could not survive without mutual support.

In the summer of 1929, the Soviet leadership abandoned its long-term collectivization strategy, which was based on a variety of transitional forms, and increasingly called on the regional and local authorities to use administrative means to accelerate the rate of collectivization. In particular, the resolutions of the plenary session of the Central Committee of the CPSU in November 1929 confronted whole areas with the task of “continuous collectivization”. While in the hitherto existing collective farms one had mostly limited oneself to the joint execution of field work without giving up the individual economy, now not only the entire land, but also equipment and migrating cattle should be collectivized. The Pravda spoke of "one hundred percent socialization of living force and the simplest inventory". In a wave of forced collectivizations of entire villages, administrative districts, rajons and districts, in addition to farm and residential buildings as well as seeds and feed, dairy cows, small cattle, poultry and even chicks were socialized. In many areas, especially in the Ukraine and Siberia, attempts were made to establish communes immediately, and private ownership of livestock and small livestock was prohibited. This approach caused massive active and passive resistance in the peasantry, which meant that the spring sowing of 1930 was acutely endangered. At the beginning of 1930, even the Central Committee of the CPSU felt compelled to warn against an overly fast pace of collectivization. In his article Before Successes Affected by Dizziness, Stalin , published in Pravda on March 2, 1930, blamed local officials and “ left-opportunist ” forces for the hasty pace of collectivization and the coercive measures. The collective economy movement must be based on voluntariness and take into account the diversity of conditions in the various regions of the Soviet Union. In this article, Stalin describes the Artel as the type of collective farm organization that best suits the current conditions and "the most important link in the chain of the collective farm movement":

“Which is this most important link in the chain? Maybe the cooperative for joint cultivation of the land? No, it is not. The cooperatives for joint cultivation of land, in which the means of production are not yet socialized, are an already outdated stage of the collective farm movement. Maybe the agricultural commune? No, it's not the commune. For the time being, the municipalities are still individual phenomena in the collective farm movement. For the agricultural communes, as the predominant form in which not only production but also distribution is socialized, the conditions have not yet matured. The most important link in the chain of the collective farm movement, its currently predominant form, which must now be tackled, is the agricultural artel. In the agricultural artel the most important means of production, mainly those of the grain industry, are socialized: labor, land use, machines and other inventory, working cattle, farm buildings. The following are not socialized in the Artel: the farmland (small vegetable and fruit gardens), houses, a certain part of the dairy cattle, small cattle, poultry, etc. "

- Stalin : Haunted by dizziness before successes. Pravda March 2, 1930

A binding model statute, which was published at the same time, stipulated that all rural areas of land would be merged into a single area and the border margins removed. All the draft cattle, seeds and the most important agricultural implements belonged to the artisan economy; on the other hand, the farmland, part of the dairy and small cattle as well as the poultry remained in personal possession, so that the individual economy could at least partially be continued. The type of operation of the Artel was declared to be binding for the whole of agriculture - with the exception of some peripheral areas - regardless of the different local conditions. This meant that both the existing cooperative associations and the municipalities had to be dissolved or reorganized. As early as 1930, Artels owned 73.9 percent of the collective farms; In the following years this form developed into an exclusive business type. In 1935, after further reprisals, the collectivization of agriculture was essentially complete. A new model statute was issued containing precise provisions on the organization of work, the distribution of income and the order of land use. The new statute also specified the size of the courtyard and the extent of personal property. The courtyard plot (vegetable field, garden) was not allowed to exceed a quarter to half a hectare, in some areas 1 hectare. In addition, the personal possession of domestic animals and small inventory was permitted.

In addition to the agricultural Artel as an organizational form of the collective farm, production cooperatives in other sectors were also referred to as Artel in the Soviet Union. B. in fishing, in publishing and in the arts and crafts. For example, the lacquer miniature painters from Fedoskino and Palech or the ceramic workshops in Gschel were organized in Arteln.

The Artel in today's Russia

In today's Russia, the Artel is one of the organizational and legal forms of independent branches that, as legal entities, have their own legal personality and are commercial organizations. It is defined as "a group of natural persons to exercise common production activity and other activities on the basis of membership and personal work participation or other involvement." It does in addition to the more familiar forms of organization GmbH ( Russian Общество с ограниченной ответственностью - OOO) and the Joint-stock company ( Russian Акционерное общество ) plays a minor role, but is often represented in some industries. Since gold mining was only allowed to legal entities in Russia until 2006 and a presidential directive from Putin , which also allows this to natural persons , is only being implemented slowly, for example, the approximately 600 gold mining companies in Russia are mostly small artels with 30 to 40 employees.

literature

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Artel . In: Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon 1894–1896, 1st volume, p. 944.
  2. ↑ Duden. The foreign dictionary. 10th edition, 2010, ISBN 978-3-411-04060-5 .
  3. ↑ Alexander Pirojkov: Russianisms in the German of the present: existence, condition and development tendencies . Weißensee Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-934479-69-3 , p. 111.
  4. ↑ According to another interpretation, raftsmen , pilots or towers .
  5. ↑ Nikolai Michailowitsch Karamsin: History of the Russian Empire. Volume 3. Riga 1803, p. 298.
    Georg Anton Hugo von Below u. a .: Quarterly journal for social and economic history (VSWG). Volume 6. W. Kohlhammer, 1908. S. 196.
    Leopold Karl Goetz: German-Russian commercial contracts of the Middle Ages. L. Friederischsen, 1916. | Hanseatic history association: Hanseatic history sheets . Böhlau, Lübeck 1954, p. 135. | Paul Heinsius: Sources and representations on Hanseatic history. Hansischer Geschichtsverein Lübeck, Böhlau Verlag, Lübeck 1956, p. 196.
  6. ↑ повольники (powolniki), ушкуйники (uschkujniki) - old Russian terms for free, independent people who engaged in trade and robbery on land or water. DN Uschakow (Ed.): Dictionary of the Russian Language (Russian), accessed May 4, 2011.
  7. ↑ Cornelia SKODOCK: Baroque in Russia. On the oeuvre of the court architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-447-05304-6 , p 49. Full text .
  8. ↑ Pilavskij, Slavina, Tic: Istoriia architektury (2/1994); P. 267 ff. Quoted from Cornelia Skodock: Barock in Russland. On the oeuvre of the court architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-447-05304-6 , p 49. Full text .
  9. ↑ Cornelia SKODOCK: Baroque in Russia. On the oeuvre of the court architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-447-05304-6 , p. 49ff. Full text .
  10. ^ Heinrich Storch (ed.): Russia under Alexander the First. A historical magazine. 4th volume. St. Petersburg / Leipzig 1808, p. 33 ff.
  11. ^ Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer: Russian monuments: In the years 1828 and 1835 collected by Canon Meyer. Volume 2. Hamburg 1837, p. 287.
  12. ↑ JG Seume: Complete Works. Volume 8. Leipzig 1828, p. 252: "The artel, or the way Russian companies make their cruet, is not so perfect in any army at so little cost."
  13. ^ Jörg Baberowski, Robert Kindler, Christian Teichmann: Revolution in Russia 1917–1921. State Center for Political Education Thuringia, Erfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-937967-27-1 , p. 7.
  14. ↑ Manfred Hildermeier: History of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991: emergence and decline of the first socialist state. CH Beck, 1998, ISBN 3-406-43588-2 , p. 1184 (glossary).
  15. ↑ Th. G. Thörner, 1860; L. Miloradowitsch 1862. cf. Georg Staehr: Origin, History, Nature and Meaning of the Russian Artel. Dorpat 1890, p. 8, note 1.
  16. ↑ Artel . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 1, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1905, pp.  822–823 .
  17. ↑ Georg Staehr: Origin, History, Nature and Meaning of the Russian Artel. Dorpat 1890, p. 8 ff.
  18. ↑ Joseph Bradley: Muzhik and Muscovite: urbanization in late imperial Russia. University of California Press, 1985, p. 27. Full text ( memento of the original dated August 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ucpress.edu
  19. ^ Karl Schlögel: Berlin, Eastern Railway Station of Europe. Siedler, 1998, pp. 84, 98 f.
  20. ↑ Пунина И. Н .: Петербургская артель художников. (I. N. Punina: The Petersburg Artists' Artel ). (Russian). Leningrad, 1966. Quoted from Artel in the online encyclopedia Saint Petersburg (English, Russian ), accessed on May 6, 2011
  21. ^ Wiener Zeitung. March 27, 2002 , accessed June 5, 2011.
  22. ↑ The initiator and co-founder of the group, Alois Dyk , suggested the Russian name for the cooperative and quoted a passage from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina : "Artel is a merely verbally agreed community of people who work together and have an equal share in the acquisition" . see: Susanne Anna, Ján Abelovský u. a .: The Bauhaus in the east . G. Hatje, 1997, p. 49. cf. Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte , Volume 50, Verlag W. de Gruyter & Co., 1987, p. 118.
  23. ↑ Czech Cubism in Everyday Life. Artěl 1908 - 1935 ( Memento of the original dated February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. MDR Saxony-Anhalt, accessed on May 6, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blog.grassi-museum.de
  24. ↑ Decree on Land (German translation, accessed on May 19, 2011)
  25. ↑ (коллективное хозяйство - колхоз = kollektiwnoje hasjaistwo - kolkhoz)
  26. ↑ Often also abbreviated TOZ according to the English / American transcription .
  27. ↑ Manfred Hildermeier: History of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991: emergence and decline of the first socialist state . C. H. Beck, 1998, ISBN 3-406-43588-2 , p. 285.
  28. ↑ Manfred Hildermeier: History of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991: emergence and decline of the first socialist state. C. H. Beck, 1998, ISBN 3-406-43588-2 , p. 381.
  29. ↑ Pravda. November 11, 1929.
  30. ↑ Richard Lorenz: The collectivization of agriculture. In Social History of the Soviet Union 1, 1917–1945. Frankfurt am Main 1976, pp. 183-206.
  31. ↑ Richard Lorenz: The collectivization of agriculture. In Social History of the Soviet Union 1, 1917–1945. Frankfurt am Main 1976. The model statute was published in Prawda on March 1, 1930. Printed in: G. Brunner, K. West: The Soviet collective farm order. Stuttgart / Berlin / Cologne / Mainz 1970.
  32. ↑ Richard Lorenz: The collectivization of agriculture. In Social History of the Soviet Union 1, 1917–1945. Frankfurt am Main 1976.
  33. ↑ Richard Lorenz: The collectivization of agriculture. In Social History of the Soviet Union 1, 1917–1945. Frankfurt am Main 1976.
  34. ↑ G. Brunner, K. West: The Soviet collective farm order. Stuttgart / Berlin / Cologne / Mainz 1970, pp. 129–140.
  35. ^ Artel Pisatelej "Krug" Moscow
  36. ↑ a b Financial Center Russia. Published by Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich AG, January 2010, p. 5 in cooperation with the Austrian Foreign Trade Union (AWO).
  37. ↑ Dietmar Schumann: Russia's Treasures. Two-part ZDF report from 2007. Page no longer available , search in web archives: text for the broadcast accessed on May 22, 2011@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.pressetreff.zdf.de