Labor and Defense Council
The Council for Labor and Defense ( Russian Совет Труда и Обороны , СТО - STO for short ) was a Soviet-Russian or Soviet state commission that was assigned to the Council of People's Commissars and existed from 1920 to 1937. Their task was to organize and guide the Soviet economy, not just with a view to defending the Soviet state. This made it the first central Soviet planning authority and the forerunner of Gosplan , which emerged in 1921 as a sub-committee of the STO.
history
The Council for Labor and Defense emerged in April 1920 from the renamed Council of Workers-and-Peasants Defense , which coordinated civil defense efforts during the Russian Civil War . It had the power to pass decrees on its own authority, and in some areas of the economy was given a higher position than the Supreme Economic Council, which had existed since 1917, effectively that of an economic cabinet.
The composition of the council was determined by the Council of People's Commissars : in addition to the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, its members were the People's Commissars for Warfare and the Fleet, Telegraphs, Agriculture, Food, Labor and the Inspectorate of Workers and Farmers, and the Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council , a representative of the Central Statistical Administration and a representative of the All-Russian Trade Union Council. Subdivisions of the STO existed on Regional, provincial, province - Ujesd - and Wolostebene . The mandate and functions of the STO were confirmed by the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets in December 1920.
The STO received from the Soviet Congress the task of working out a single, comprehensive economic plan for the country and monitoring its compliance. For this purpose, the State Planning Commission ( Gosplan ) was founded in February 1921 as a sub-commission of the STO. In the period of the New Economic Policy from 1921 to 1927, the STO exercised control over the trusts . He also dealt with issues of national defense and the distribution of resources between the state agencies, and later also between the Union republics. By resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of July 16, 1923, the STO of the USSR was created from the STO of the RSFSR.
The STO issued legally binding decrees, ordinances and regulations for all Soviet authorities. Its members, members of the Union Council of People's Commissars and the Republic Councils of People's Commissars could appeal against his decisions, but without suspensive effect.
With the elimination of internal party competitors by Stalin and his followers, there was also a gradual loss of importance of the once powerful STO. With the decision of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of April 28, 1937, it was abolished and its functions were taken over by the Economic Council at the Council of People's Commissars ( Экономический Совет при СНК СССР ).
Chairperson
- Vladimir Lenin (April 1920 to January 1924)
- Lev Kamenev (February 2, 1924 to January 19, 1926)
- Alexei Rykow (January 19, 1926 to December 19, 1930)
- Vyacheslav Molotov (December 19, 1930 to April 28, 1937)
literature
- Ger van den Berg: Organization and functioning of the Soviet government. (= Eastern Europe and international communism , vol. 13), Nomos, Baden-Baden 1984, ISBN 3-7890-1031-6 .
- Eugene Huskey (Ed.): Executive Power and Soviet Politics: The Rise and Decline of the Soviet State. ME Sharpe, Armonk NY 1992.
- Lennart Samuelson: Plans For Stalin's War Machine: Tukhachevskii and Military-Economic Planning, 1925-1941. Macmillan, Basingstoke 2000, ISBN 0-312-22527-X .
- Eugène Zaleski: Planning for Economic Growth in the Soviet Union, 1918–1932. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1971.