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42-533: The All-Russia Thermal Engineering Institute was an organisation founded by the Soviet of Labor and Defense “for the purpose of systematic studying and working-out the vital practical issues in heat engineering and for solving related technical and economic problems, as well as for training high-skilled specialists” on July 13, 1921. The first director was Leonid Ramzin . This article about an organization in Russia

84-524: 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 ( Russian : Совет труда и обороны СССР , romanized :  Sovyet truda i oborony SSSR ); its economic planning and regulatory roles expanded to encompass

126-409: A different political party or faction is in power. A re-nationalization process may also be called "reverse privatization". Nationalization has been used to refer to either direct state-ownership and management of an enterprise or to a government acquiring a large controlling share of a publicly listed corporation . According to research by Paasha Mahdavi, leaders who consider nationalization face

168-482: A dilemma: "nationalize and reap immediate gains while risking future prosperity, or maintain private operations, thereby passing on revenue windfalls but securing long-term fiscal streams." He argues that leaders "nationalize extractive resources to extend the duration of their power" by using "this increased capital to secure political support." Nationalization can have positive and negative effects. In 2019 research based on studies from Greenwich University found that

210-426: A government to take property in certain situations. Due to political risks that are involved when countries engage in international business, it is important to understand the expropriation risks and laws within each of the countries in which business is conducted in order to understand the risks as an investor in that country. Studies have found that nationalization follows a cyclical trend. Nationalization rose in

252-537: A strategy to build socialism, more commonly nationalization was also undertaken and used to protect and develop industries perceived as being vital to a nation's competitiveness (such as aerospace and shipbuilding), or to protect jobs in certain industries. Nationalization has had varying levels of support throughout history. After the Second World War , nationalization was supported by social democratic and democratic socialist parties throughout Western Europe, such as

294-450: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Council of Labor and Defense The chairperson of the Council ex officio was a chairperson of the Council of People's Commissars . The STO, a commission of the Council of People's Commissars , included among its executive body such top-ranking Bolshevik leaders as V. I. Lenin , Leon Trotsky , and Joseph Stalin , who oversaw

336-612: Is remembered to economic historians as Military Communism . In the absence of a viable market economy , 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 (executive authority of the Congress of Soviets ) created a bureaucratic entity designed for this purpose, initially called

378-614: 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 contrasts with privatization and with demutualization . When previously nationalized assets are privatized and subsequently returned to public ownership at a later stage, they are said to have undergone renationalization . Industries often subject to nationalization include telecommunications , electric power , fossil fuels , railways , airlines , iron ore , media , postal services , banks , and water (sometimes called

420-401: Is the seizure of private property by a public agency for a purpose deemed to be in the public interest. It may also be used as a penalty for criminal proceedings. Expropriation differs from eminent domain in that the property owner is not compensated for the seized property. Unlike eminent domain, expropriation may also refer to the taking of private property by a private entity authorized by

462-451: The commanding heights of the economy ), and in many jurisdictions such entities have no history of private ownership. Nationalization may occur with or without financial compensation to the former owners . Nationalization is distinguished from property redistribution in that the government retains control of nationalized property . Some nationalizations take place when a government seizes property acquired illegally. For example, in 1945

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504-633: The 1960s and 1970s, followed by an increase in privatization in the 80s and 90s, followed again by an increase in nationalization in the 2000s and 2010s. The term appears as "expropriation of expropriators ( ruling classes )" in Marxist theory , and also as the slogan "Loot the looters!" ("грабь награбленное"), which was very popular during the Russian October Revolution . The term is also used to describe nationalization campaigns by communist states , such as dekulakization and collectivization in

546-528: The British Labour Party . In the United States, potentially nationalizing healthcare is often a topic of political disagreement and makes frequent appearances in debates between political candidates. A 2020 poll shows that a majority (63%) of Americans support a nationalized healthcare system. A re-nationalization occurs when state-owned assets are privatized and later nationalized again, often when

588-405: 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,

630-411: 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

672-401: The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense. This bureau was presented with the task of gathering and disbursing resources needed for the war effort. 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 sat as

714-453: The French government seized the car-maker Renault because its owners had collaborated with the 1940–1944 Nazi occupiers of France . In September 2021, Berliners voted to expropriate over 240,000 housing units , many of which were being held unoccupied as investment property. Economists distinguish between nationalization and socialization , which refers to the process of restructuring

756-520: The NEP. Despite the real limitations on central planning authority in a largely market-based economy, STO emerged as what historian Maurice Dobb 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." The State Committee for Planning (Gosudarstvennyi Komitet po Planirovaniiu, commonly called "Gosplan"), later all powerful in

798-539: The People's Commissar of War, Leonid Krassin as head of the extraordinary commission of supply, and Joseph Stalin as the representative of the All-Russian Executive Committee. The organization quickly emerged as what historian Alec Nove 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,

840-475: The RSFSR had a general planning organ with clearly defined functions," historian E. H. Carr has observed. During the market-based New Economic Policy (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

882-650: The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR). Vesenkha was attached to the de facto cabinet of the RSFSR, the Council of People's Commissars , and formally answered to that body. As the Vesenkha bureaucracy 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

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924-404: 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 —

966-467: The Supreme Council of National Economy (Vesenkha), the People's Commissariat of Finance (Narkomfin), Gosplan, and STO. 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

1008-463: The USSR . However, nationalization is not a specifically socialist strategy, and Marxism's founders were skeptical of its value. As Engels put it: Therein precisely lies the rub; for, so long as the propertied classes remain at the helm, nationalisation never abolishes exploitation but merely changes its form — in the French, American or Swiss republics no less than in monarchist Central, and despotic Eastern, Europe. Nikolai Bukharin also criticised

1050-435: 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 government as part of its coordination of the economy for its own war effort. The personnel employed in these glavki were often

1092-557: The direction of V. I. Lenin's radical Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party . With the country already decimated and disorganized by three brutal years of the First World War , the fledgling socialist state struggled to hang on and survive civil war , a multinational foreign military intervention , and the collapse of the economy, including the broad depopulation of major cities and

1134-408: The economic framework, organizational structure, and institutions of an economy on a socialist basis. By contrast, nationalization does not necessarily imply social ownership and the restructuring of the economic system . Historically, states have carried out nationalizations for various different purposes under a wide variety of different political systems and economic systems . Nationalization

1176-566: 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 , launched in August 1923 as a subcommittee of STO. The Russian Revolution of 1917 concluded in the fall with the October Revolution , organized and achieved through

1218-524: 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. STO was recognized as a commission of the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), to be headed by

1260-687: The late 1920s. The Council of Labor and Defense had a daily newspaper, Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn' (Economic Life). 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. 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. Nationalization Nationalization ( nationalisation in British English )

1302-528: 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

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1344-732: The motivations of the nationalizing party. Nationalization was employed towards the Panama Canal by the Panamanian Government, which came under the Panama Canal Authority in 1999, to internationally positive effect. Likewise, the Suez Canal was nationalized multiple times throughout history. In Germany, the Federal Press [ Bundesdruckerei ] was nationalized in 2008 with positive revenue and net income since. Expropriation

1386-491: The nationalization of key services such as water, bus, railways and broadband in the United Kingdom could save £13bn every year. Nationalization may produce other effects, such as reducing competition in the marketplace, which in turn reduces incentives to innovation and maintains high prices. In the short run, nationalization can provide a larger revenue stream for government but may cause that industry to falter depending on

1428-582: The onset of hyperinflation . The revolutionary government faced the dual tasks of economic organization and the marshaling of material resources on behalf of its Red Army . A new body known as the Supreme Council of National Economy (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

1470-458: The process of attempting to solve standing problems. From 1919 the authority of Vesenkha began to wane, with the People's Commissariat of Agriculture (Narkomzem) in charge of grain requisitions and the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense gaining power in the industrial sphere. The mobilization of unskilled labor, including labor service by peasants demanded by local government authorities for

1512-515: The same individuals who served in a similar capacity under the old regime. Although there were fewer than 500 nationalized 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. Goods of all kinds vanished from the marketplace and rationing was extended. Unable to receive fair value for their surplus grain from

1554-573: 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. 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

1596-403: The state grain-purchasing monopoly, peasants withheld their production from the official market, causing a parallel black market to emerge. The state's prodrazverstka , 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

1638-515: The summer of 1919 by the appointment of top-ranking Bolshevik Alexei Rykov as the "extraordinary representative," further accentuating the place of the organization as first among equals in the planning firmament. 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

1680-399: The transport of fuel, food, and military supplies, was made the province of the People's Commissariat of Labor (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

1722-590: 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. 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. Rather than limiting itself to

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1764-436: Was one of the major mechanisms advocated by reformist socialists and social democrats for gradually transitioning to socialism. In this context, the goals of nationalization were to dispossess large capitalists, redirect the profits of industry to the public purse, and establish some form of workers' self-management as a precursor to the establishment of a socialist economic system. Although sometimes undertaken as part of

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