Comrade Stalin's State Committee

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

“The party cannot exist, not defending their existence, without unconditionally struggling with

who eliminates it, destroys it, does not recognize who renounces her.

It goes without saying. Lenin.

Until the 20th century, every state and its inhabitants constituted one whole - a state economy. To fully ensure and correct the conduct of the state economy, be it a monarchy or a parliamentary form of government, the existence of a special institution - the State Control, subordinate directly to the supreme power and independent from other departments was recognized as necessary, since no one can be an impartial judge in his own case.

The tasks of state control are reduced to: a) financial control, that is, verification of the correctness of the cash turnover in the sense of harmonizing it with the estimated appointments and other related laws, in other words, to the analysis of the pattern of expenses incurred and income received for a certain period, and b) to control over management, that is, to assess the merits of all aspects of the state economy, to analyze the feasibility of the costs incurred.

According to the form of the current activities of state control institutions, two main types are distinguished: 1) preliminary control, in which advance payments are checked before the issuance of money, which can be stopped in the event of an incorrect appointment, in accordance with the tasks of the department and expediency (in a number of countries, like England, Belgium, Austria, Italy) and 2) subsequent control, in which verification takes place when the expense has already been made, so that the wrong issue can only be compensated for by taxes and other penalties from the perpetrators (most European states, including tsarist Russia).

Under the tsar, in Russia, state control monitored the legality and correctness of administrative and executive actions for the receipt, expenditure and storage of capital on the balance sheet of institutions, and also makes considerations about the profitability or disadvantage of business operations, regardless of the legality of their production (Uchr., art. 943). Accountability to state control are required: all government agencies, except for the Ministry of the Court of the Emperor, the Chancellery of the Empress, State Credit Institutions and the Special Chancellery of the Ministry of Finance, as well as some others.

The Great October Socialist Revolution put workers and workers in power, workers and peasants who had no experience in governing the country. Therefore, the apparatus of the People's Commissariat of State Control, created from the first days of Soviet power, consisted mainly of officials who worked in the state control bodies of tsarist Russia. Most of the officials were unsuitable for the tasks facing the new tasks of Soviet state control.

"The main difficulty of the proletarian revolution is the implementation on a nationwide scale of the most accurate and conscientious accounting and control, workers' control over the production and distribution of products."

(Lenin, Soch., Vol. XXI, p. 259).

Workers' control, exercised by the workers through the factory, factory committees, councils of elders, etc., covered all aspects of the work of the enterprise. The workers controlled all the documents and books of the enterprise, stocks of raw materials, products and other materials, created armed squads to protect the enterprises from the sabotage actions of the capitalists, who met with fierce resistance to carry out workers' control at the enterprises. The introduction of workers' control met with warm support from the workers. In the Moscow region alone, by March 1, 1918, there were 222 control commissions at 326 enterprises (with 132,165 workers). The bourgeoisie saw that workers' control was only the first step towards the final expropriation of its property. Therefore, she sabotaged the normal operation of production by all means. For violation of the decree on workers' control, the Soviet government punished the capitalists with the confiscation of enterprises.

The first decree of the Council of People's Commissars on the nationalization of factories and enterprises of the joint-stock company of the Bogoslovsky Gorny District of 7 / XII 1917 read: … The islands of the Theological Gorny District, whatever this property may be, and declare it the property of the Russian Republic”(Collected Legislation, 1917, N2 b, Art. 95). The Soviet government did the same with the joint-stock company of the Simsk mining plants, the Lyubertsy metallurgical company, the joint-stock company of the Kyshtym mining district, the Anatra airplane plant in Simferopol and many other enterprises whose owners sabotaged workers' control.

The VIII Congress of the RCP (b) in March 1919 in its resolution indicated that "The case of control in the Soviet Republic must be radically reorganized in order to create a genuine de facto control of a socialist character" … (VKP (b) in resolutions …, part 1, 6th ed., 1941, p. 308] Attaching the exceptional importance of state control, V. I. Lenin proposed to appoint JV Stalin to the post of People's Commissar of State Control. said that there is no better candidate for this. “It's a gigantic business. But in order to be able to handle verification, it is necessary that a person with authority be at the head, otherwise we will get bogged down, drown in petty intrigues " … (Lenin V. I., Soch., 4th ed., Vol. 33, p. 282).

From March 1919 to April 1922, JV Stalin directly supervised the entire work of state control. Under the leadership of JV Stalin, the main legislative acts on socialist state control were developed, which became a school for the training of workers and peasants for numerous cadres of capable and talented leaders of state institutions and enterprises of socialist industry.

The draft statute on the State Control, presented by Stalin and adopted by the Council of People's Commissars on April 3, 1919, with Lenin's additions, determined with exceptional force the principles of the state control activity. The foundations of truly socialist and nation-wide control were laid down in a decree of April 12, 1919, signed by V. I. Lenin, I. V. Stalin and M. I. Kalinin. The decree was aimed at democratizing state control and transforming it into an organ close to the working people, so that through control, to involve broad layers of workers and peasants in the construction of Soviet power and its apparatus in the center and in the localities.

Thus, this decree expanded the concept of control. From the formal and dead control of monetary accounting, which was specifically characteristic of the old order, according to the idea of the decree, it was necessary to move to a new, creative, actual control in all areas of the economy and state building. In development of these new tasks, the decree indicates that "The Soviet government will not tolerate bureaucracy in its own institutions, in whatever form it manifests itself, and will expel it from Soviet institutions by decisive measures."

On the initiative of I. V. Stalin, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on February 7, 1920 decided to "reorganize state control, both in the center and in the localities, into a single body of socialist control on the basis of attracting workers and peasants to the bodies of the former state control and assign it the name" Workers 'and Peasants' Inspection "(Led. All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 1920, No. 16, Art. 94). According to the regulation on the Workers 'and Peasants' Inspection (RKI), all workers who had the right to vote under the Constitution of the RSFSR could become its members. Elections to the RFL took place in factories, factories, mines, construction sites, and at village meetings. In this way, one of the most important tasks was solved - the involvement of the broad masses of the working people in the work of state administration. The most democratic form of control the world has ever known was created.

JV Stalin educated the workers of state control in the spirit of Bolshevik adherence to principles and party intransigence to all the shortcomings that hinder the success of socialist construction. Workers of Soviet control, teaches J. V. Stalin, must “To have before oneself the basic commandment: not to spare individuals, no matter what position they occupy, to spare only the cause, only the interests of the cause”. (Works, vol. 4, p. 368).

Even more precisely, the same tasks were formulated in the second regulation on RFL of March 20, 1920.

“Fighting bureaucracy and red tape in Soviet institutions, strengthening actual control through volatile audits and examining all bodies of Soviet power, both in the field of administrative management and in the field of economic, as well as public organizations … the results and so on, submission to the central government of specific proposals developed on the basis of observations and surveys on simplifying the Soviet apparatus, eliminating parallelism, mismanagement, clerical red tape, as well as transforming the entire management system in certain areas of state building - that's how Stalin viewed the tasks of the RFL in the second position.

This second period in the history of RCT was not, however, durable.

The restoration of the monetary forms of the economy required a return to the auditing activity of state control in the field of the economy and forced it to again turn to the traditional methods of documentary financial control.

Therefore, the third Regulations of 1922 again returns to the old understanding of the tasks of state control, as "a body, primarily of current supervision over the activities of state institutions and enterprises", as a body of fiscal control, and only as parallel and equal tasks sets and checks the activities of all bodies of Soviet power from the point of view of the results achieved in practice and "the fight against bureaucracy and red tape."

Thus, economic life under the conditions of the NEP has again placed the old burden of financial control, inspection, revision and rationalization functions on the Rabkrin.

This breadth and variety of the tasks set by the Workers' Committee, however, introduced more than just confusion in the methods of its work. They objectively made her powerless. To get out of the current crisis, it was necessary to bring clarity and definiteness both to the tasks of the Workers' Committee and to the methods of its work. Reform was needed again.

V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin inextricably linked the control and verification of execution with the need to improve the culture of management, clarity and organization in work. V. I. Lenin believed that state control was called upon to play a crucial role in improving all state work. In his articles "How we can reorganize the Rabkrin" and "Better less is more," he stressed that the biggest problem of socialist control is the problem of improving the state apparatus. According to the plan of V. I. Lenin, developed in these articles, the instrument for improving the state apparatus and improving its work should be state control, which, merging with the Central Control Commission (CCC), should become an exemplary institution and " define our entire state apparatus as a whole " … (Lenin V. I., Soch., 4th ed., Vol. 33, p. 450).

Guided by Leninist-Stalinist principles, the XII Party Congress (April 1923) decided to create a united body of the Central Control Commission-RCI, obliging it to protect the unity of the party, strengthen party and state discipline, and improve the apparatus of the Soviet state in every possible way. "Control activity," said the decision of the XII Congress, "should have as its main purpose the clarification of the practical achievements or shortcomings of economic and administrative bodies and the establishment of typical theft techniques typical for this area and the search for means to prevent them …". (VKP (b) in resolutions …, part 1, b ed., 1941, p. 500).

Lenin's plan for the reorganization of the RCI and the decisions of the XII Congress of the RCP (b) on this issue were legislatively enshrined in the decree of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on September 6, 1923 "On the reorganization of the RCI" and the decree of the 3rd session of the CEC of the USSR on November 12, 1923, which approved a new provision on RKI People's Commissariat. In 1924, the XIII Party Congress decided to reorganize the local control commissions and the RKI on the basis of a resolution of the XII Party Congress.

The forms and ways of exercising state control have developed and changed in accordance with the requirements of the socialist state. The table in the title of the article shows the dynamics of the national income of the country, which clearly shows the results of the work of state control.

In the first years of socialist construction, state control was aimed at eliminating the bureaucratic order left over from the old tsarist apparatus, at unconditional and full implementation of the party and government directives by the new state apparatus, at creating a revolutionary order and restoring the national economy. Having successfully completed the restoration of the national economy, the party under the leadership of JV Stalin directed all the forces and energy of the masses towards the socialist reconstruction of the national economy, towards the implementation of the Leninist-Stalinist plan for the industrialization of the country and the collectivization of agriculture. Over the years, state control has gained even more importance.

The structure of the NK RKI was mainly built according to the sectoral principle, so that each branch of management had its own inspection, section or department (industrial, trade, agricultural, cultural and educational, etc.).

Under the NK RKI there was a bureau of complaints and applications from workers. With the aim of decisively pursuing a regime of economy and combating mismanagement, the rights of the RCI, by decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of April 4, 1927, were significantly expanded. The tasks and rights of the RKI also expanded in 1928-30 in connection with the task of cleansing the state apparatus of alien, bureaucratic elements that hindered the development of the socialist reconstruction of the national economy. The mass base of the RCI was the support cells and groups and posts at enterprises, institutions and organizations; further on, sections of the RCI under the grassroots councils, numbering hundreds of thousands of inspectors - social activists, freelance inspectors, and finally, trade union organizations worked together with the bodies of the RCI. By the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the SI K of the USSR of 24 / XII 1930, the Commissions for the Execution of the USSR and the Union Republics with their local bodies were organized. A close relationship was established between the RCI NK and the Execution Commission, which was ensured, in particular, by the fact that the RCI People's Commissar was the Deputy Chairman of the Execution Commission.

At the 17th Party Congress (January 1934), JV Stalin gave a classic definition of the role and significance of verification of performance in all economic and political work. “A well-organized performance check, - I. V. Stalin spoke , - this is the spotlight that helps to illuminate the state of the apparatus at any time and bring to light the bureaucrats and clerks. " (Works, vol. 13, pp. 372-373). To improve the matter of verifying the implementation of decisions of the party and government, the 17th party congress on the initiative of I. V. Stalin, instead of the Central Control Commission-RKI, which since the XII Party Congress has already managed to fulfill its tasks, created a Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and a Soviet Control Commission under the USSR Council of People's Commissars. "We now need not an inspection," said JV Stalin, "but a check on the execution of the decisions of the center," we now need control over the implementation of the decisions of the center. " (Stalin, ibid., P. 373).

The Soviet Control Commission (1934-40) focused on operational checks on the implementation of government decisions. There was no such branch or such a corner of the Soviet economy, where the eye of state control was not. The state standard, introduced in 1925, was a measure of control in all industries, including workers and school canteens.

The further rapid growth of the national economy demanded an increase in day-to-day control over the accounting and spending of state funds and material values. The 18th Party Congress (1939), having defined the program for further state and economic development in the country, raised the questions of control and verification of implementation with renewed vigor. The tremendous growth of the socialist economy demanded clear, well-coordinated, concrete and operational control, which would ensure a systematic fight against waste and unproductive spending. In this regard, on the initiative of J. V. Stalin, on the basis of the Commission for Soviet Control and the Main Military Control, the People's Commissariat of State Control of the USSR was formed in September 1940.

During the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (1941-45), the work of the State Audit Office was subordinated to the task of the fastest defeat of the enemy. The People's Commissariat of State Control exercised systematic operational control over the implementation of decisions of the State Defense Committee and the USSR Council of People's Commissars to ensure the successful supply of raw materials, materials, semi-finished products of the defense industry. Much work has been done by the State Audit Office to control the progress of the evacuation of industrial enterprises to the east and to restore them in new places. During the war years, the State Audit Office paid great attention to the issues of economical use of electricity, fuel, metal and food.

The victorious end of the war and the transition to peaceful construction set new tasks for state control. The new "Regulation on the USSR Ministry of State Control" defines the requirements for state control at the present stage of socialist construction. In accordance with this provision, the Ministry of State Control exercises: a) control over the production, economic and financial activities of state, cooperative, public organizations and enterprises; the strictest control over the state of accounting, safety and expenditure of funds and material assets under the jurisdiction of these organizations and enterprises; b) checks the implementation of the decisions and orders of the government of the USSR; c) submits for the consideration of the government of the USSR certain questions of national economic importance arising from the materials of audits and inspections, and d) gives the government conclusions on the execution of the state budget.

The tasks and all activities of the USSR Ministry of State Control are organically linked with the widespread movement for the growth of socialist accumulations, for the identification and use of the internal resources and capabilities of the Soviet economy. By uncovering individual violations and flaws in the activities of the enterprises and organizations being inspected, the Ministry of State Control, at the same time, delves deeply into the economics and technology of enterprises and individual industries, helps to reveal unused production, technical, labor and financial reserves.

State control, being an instrument of protecting the interests of large monopoly capital, does not at all set itself the task of combating the unbridled embezzlement of the monopolists. There can be no talk of any "independence" or "objectivity" of state control in the capitalist countries. The supra-class nature of state control is incompatible with the class nature of the bourgeois state.

In capitalist countries, where, due to the domination of private ownership of the means of production, the bourgeois state does not and cannot dispose of the economy, state control is mainly reduced to control over the financial operations of state bodies and is aimed at protecting the interests of the ruling class of exploiters.

State control only formally embodies the interests of "the whole people", "all classes", but in reality it is only a screen covering the secret springs of exploitation and plundering of the national property, disguising the class nature of the bourgeois state and its budget. In the era of imperialism, and especially in the period of the general crisis of capitalism, the curtailed rights of bourgeois parliaments, which supposedly can control governments, are further restricted and sometimes simply abolished, and bourgeois governments bear full responsibility to the financial magnates.

“The parliaments assure,” says J. V. Stalin, “that it is they who control the governments. In fact, it turns out that the composition of governments is predetermined and their actions are controlled by the largest financial consortia. Who doesn’t know that in no capitalist “power” a cabinet can be formed against the will of the largest financial aces: it is only necessary to exert financial pressure, and the ministers fly out of their posts as if they were publicized. This is really the control of banks over governments, in spite of the alleged control of parliaments”(Soch., Vol. 10, pp. 100-101).

The financial oligarchy plunders the budgetary funds of the capitalist states by means of huge military orders, payments on loans, obtaining various kinds of subsidies and by means of direct embezzlement. The embezzlement in the USA, England, France and other bourgeois countries has acquired unheard of proportions.

Budget waste and corruption in many new states that declared their independence in the second half of the 20th century are a cover for open robbery of material resources of developing states by foreign monopolies.

As the people say: "It's much easier to fish in troubled waters."

List of used literature:

Collection of laws and regulations. Workers 'and Peasants' Government (1917-1935) M. 1942

CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions (1925-1953) M. 1953

Antonov-Saratovsky V. P. Councils in the era of war communism. M. 1929

Katselenbaum Z. S. Money circulation in Russia (1914-1924) M. 1924

Kolganov M. V. - National income of the USSR M. 1940

Svetlov F. Yu. Heavy and light industry M. 1929

Rubinshtein M. Economic competition of two systems. M. 1939

Ginzburg A. M. (ed.). Private capital in the national economy of the USSR. 1927

Lyashchenko P. I. History of the national economy of the USSR in 3 volumes M. 1952

Essays on the History of the Bodies of Soviet State Power M. 1949

Tasks of the party control (Yakovlev's report in Saratov 1936-22-03), Saratov 1936

Lagovier N., Mokeev V. - Court and prosecutor's office in the fight against bureaucracy and red tape M. 1929