Revolutionary transformations. Decree on the nationalization of the oil industry

Decree on the nationalization of the oil industry
June 20, 1918

1. Oil producing, oil refining, oil trading, auxiliary drilling and transport enterprises (tanks, oil pipelines, oil warehouses, docks, dock structures, etc.) with all their movable and immovable property, wherever it is located and in whatever condition, are declared state property. it did not conclude.

2. Small enterprises mentioned in paragraph 1 are excluded from the application of this decree. The grounds and procedure for the said seizure are determined special rules, the development of which is entrusted to the Main Petroleum Committee.

3. Trade in oil and its products is declared a state monopoly.

4. The matter of managing nationalized enterprises in general, as well as determining the procedure for carrying out nationalization, is transferred to the Main Petroleum Committee under the Fuel Department of the Supreme Council National economy(Glavkoneft).

5. The procedure for the formation of local bodies for the management of nationalized enterprises and the limits of their competence are determined by special instructions of the Main Petroleum Committee upon approval by the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the National Economy.

6. Pending the acceptance of the nationalized enterprises as a whole into the management of the Main Petroleum Committee, the previous boards of the named enterprises are obliged to continue their work in in full, taking all measures to protect the national heritage and the non-stop progress of operations.

7. The previous board of each enterprise must draw up a report for the entire year 1917 and for the first half of 1918, as well as the balance sheet of the enterprise as of June 20, according to which the new board checks and actually accepts the enterprise.

8. The Main Petroleum Committee has the right, without waiting for the submission of balance sheets and until the complete transfer of nationalized enterprises to the management bodies Soviet power, send their commissioners to all boards of oil enterprises, (460) as well as to all centers of extraction, production, transport and trade in oil, and the Main Petroleum Committee can delegate its powers to its commissioners.

9. All rights and obligations of the councils of congresses of oil industrialists are transferred to the relevant local authorities for the management of the nationalized oil industry.

10. All employees of enterprises and institutions coming under the jurisdiction of the Main Petroleum Committee are ordered to remain in their places without interrupting the work assigned to them.

11. Pending the publication by the Main Petroleum Committee of the instructions, orders and rules provided for in the decree, local councils of the national economy, and where there are none, other local bodies of Soviet power are given the right to publish them for their area.

12. This decree comes into force immediately upon publication.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
V. Ulyanov (Lenin).
Administrator of the Council of People's Commissars
V. Bonch-Bruevich.
Secretary of the Council N. Gorbunov. Verified according to the publication: Decrees of Soviet Power. Volume II. March 17 – July 10, 1918 M.: State. publishing house political literature, 1959.

Nationalization of industry.

In general, both the reasons and the course of nationalization industrial enterprises after October 1917 in the official Soviet history distorted. They are presented as a natural process arising from the theory of Marxism. In fact, this step of the Soviet state was made contrary to government intentions and completely contrary to the theory, which assumed the passage of a rather long stage state capitalism. Even the idea of workers' control literally on the eve of October presupposed the formation of a joint meeting of entrepreneurs and workers. It is also indicative that until March 1918 the State Bank issued very large funds in the form of loans to private enterprises. Taking power at complete collapse and sabotage of the state apparatus, the Soviet government could not even imagine taking on the function of managing the entire industry.

This problem also had an important international dimension. The fixed capital of the main industries belonged to foreign banks. In the mining, mining and metalworking industries, 52% of the capital was foreign, in the locomotive industry - 100%, in electrical and electrical companies - 90%, all 20 tram companies in Russia belonged to the Germans and Belgians, etc. No theories could predict the consequences of the nationalization of such capital - there was no experience in history.

Of course, all government funds automatically became the property of the new state. railways and enterprises. In January 1918, the naval and river fleet. In April 1918, foreign trade was nationalized. These were comparatively simple measures, there were departments and traditions for management and control in these industries.

In industry, events did not go as planned - a process of two types began - “ spontaneous" And " punitive”nationalization. English historian E. Carr created a grandiose work - “History Soviet Russia” (until 1929) in 14 volumes with meticulous study of documents. He writes about the first months after October: “The Bolsheviks faced the same discouraging experience in the factories as with the land. The development of the revolution brought with it not only the spontaneous seizure of land by peasants, but also the spontaneous seizure of industrial enterprises by workers. In industry, as well as in agriculture, the revolutionary party, and later the revolutionary government, were caught up in a course of events that in many respects confused and burdened them, but since they [these events] represented the main driving force revolution, they could not avoid giving them support.”

Processes that occur during major social changes rarely follow the theoretical doctrines and plans of politicians. More benefit comes from those politicians who understand the essence of these processes and “correct” them at moments of choice, in a situation of unstable equilibrium, when with little force it is possible to push events into one corridor or another. As for nationalization, it was precisely a deep movement, with its roots in “archaic peasant communism” and closely connected with the movement for the nationalization of the land. In general, there was nothing unusual in this movement. J. Keynes, in his essay “Russia” (1922), wrote: “It is in the nature of revolutions, wars and famines to destroy the property rights and private property of individuals secured by law.”

Demanding nationalization, turning to the Council, the trade union or the government, the workers sought first of all to preserve production (in 70% of cases these decisions were made by meetings of workers because the entrepreneurs did not purchase raw materials and stopped paying wages, or even left the enterprise). Here is the first known document - a request for the nationalization of the company "Kopi Kuzbass" - the resolution of the Kolchugino Council of Workers' Deputies on January 10, 1918:

“Finding that Joint-Stock Company Kopikuz leads to complete collapse of the Kolchuginsky mine, we believe because the only way out The solution to the current crisis is to transfer Kopikuz into the hands of the state, and then the workers of the Kolchuginsky mine will be able to get out of the critical situation and take control of these enterprises.”

Here is another, also one of the first, demand for nationalization, a letter from the factory committee of the Pekar factory in Petrograd to the Central Council of Factory Committees (February 18, 1918):

“The Factory Committee of the Pekar Factory brings to your attention, as a democratic economic body, that the workers of the said factory are general meeting together with representatives of the local food administration, on January 28, 1918, they decided to take the factory into their own hands, i.e. to remove a private entrepreneur for the following reasons: it is easier to concentrate the bakery industry, it is possible to make a more accurate accounting of bread, also the administration slowed down the work, and there were cases that it was preparing a hunger riot in our subdistrict, and also repeatedly announced that the workers were being paid, allegedly there were no means to pay, but Our calculations show that we can use the rest to give a piece of bread to the unemployed, and not increase the number of unemployed.

Taking all this into account, the workers decided to take the factory into their own hands, which we consider it our duty to bring to your attention, because you should know what the workers in the regions are doing.

We ask you to know your opinion about our action.”

Now it is difficult to distinguish cases of “spontaneous” nationalization from “punitive” ones, since the legal reason in both cases was often the refusal of the entrepreneur to submit to the demands of workers' control. But if we talk not about the reason, but about the real reason, then it was that a number of owners of large enterprises led the matter to the sale of fixed capital and the liquidation of production. For example, the AMO plant (on the basis of which ZIL grew) was nationalized. Its owners, the Ryabushinskys, having received 11 million rubles from the tsar’s treasury for construction, spent the money without building workshops or delivering the agreed upon 1,500 cars. After February, the owners tried to close the plant, and after October they disappeared, instructing the management to close the plant due to a shortage of 5 million rubles. to complete the project. At the request of the factory committee, the Soviet government issued these 5 million rubles, but the management decided to spend it to cover debts and liquidate the enterprise. In response, the AMO plant was nationalized.

Sabotage of large enterprises and speculation in products prepared for defense began even before February Revolution. The tsarist government could not cope - “shadow” trusts organized a sales system throughout the country, introduced their agents into factories and government agencies. Since the spring of 1918, the Supreme Economic Council, if it was not possible to reach an agreement with entrepreneurs on the continuation of production and supply of products, raised the issue of nationalization. Failure to pay workers' wages for one month was already grounds for raising the issue of nationalization, and cases of non-payment for two months in a row were considered extraordinary.

At first, individual enterprises were taken into the treasury. Even theoretically, this had nothing to do with the doctrine of Marxism, since it did not allow the transition from spontaneous regulation of the economy to planned regulation. The leadership of the Supreme Economic Council was more influenced by example industrial policy Germany during the war. In such cases, nationalization decrees always indicated the reasons that caused or justified this measure. The first industries to be nationalized were the sugar industry (May 1918) and the oil industry (June). This was due to the almost complete stop of oil fields and drilling abandoned by entrepreneurs, as well as the catastrophic state of the sugar industry due to the occupation of Ukraine by German troops.

In general, the policy of the Supreme Economic Council was based on the Leninist concept of “state capitalism”; negotiations were being prepared with industrial magnates on the creation of large trusts with half of the state capital (sometimes with large participation of American capital). This caused sharp criticism from the “left” as a retreat from socialism, a kind of “Brest-Litovsk peace in economics.” It is noteworthy that this criticism was joined by the Left Social Revolutionaries and even the Mensheviks, who had previously accused the Soviet state of being premature. socialist revolution. The dispute about the place of the state in the organization of industry grew into one of the most heated debates in the party.

After conclusion Treaty of Brest-Litovsk the situation suddenly and radically changed. The proposal for “state capitalism” was withdrawn, and at the same time the idea of the “left” about the autonomy of enterprises under workers’ control was rejected. After a series of meetings with representatives of workers and engineers, a course was set for immediate systematic and complete nationalization. Against this, the “lefts” put forward an argument, which was then developed in the works of Trotsky and worked flawlessly for eight decades: supposedly with nationalization, “the keys to production remain in the hands of the capitalists” (in the form of specialists), and the working masses are removed from management. In response to this, it was pointed out that the restoration of production has become such a vital necessity that theory must be sacrificed for its sake.

However, there was another powerful factor that was not discussed so openly, but forced the decision to be made urgently. After the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, German companies began massively purchasing shares of the main industrial enterprises of Russia. On I All-Russian Congress On May 26, 1918, the Council of National Economy stated that the bourgeoisie was “trying by all means to sell their shares to German citizens, trying to obtain the protection of German law through all kinds of forgeries, all kinds of fictitious transactions.” The presentation of shares for payment by the German embassy caused Russia only financial damage. But then it turned out that shares of key enterprises were accumulating in Germany. Negotiations were held in Berlin with by the German government on compensation for German property lost in Russia. Moscow received reports that Ambassador Mirbach had already received instructions to protest to the Soviet government against the nationalization of “German” enterprises. There was a threat of losing the entire base of Russian industry.

At a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, which lasted all night on June 28, 1918, it was decided to nationalize all important industries, and a decree was issued about this. It no longer named individual enterprises and did not give specific reasons - it was about a general legal act.

Upon careful reading, this decree says a lot about historical moment, and about the realism of the Soviet government's policies. After rhetoric about nationalization as a means of “strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat and the rural poor,” it states that before the Supreme Economic Council can establish production management, nationalized enterprises are transferred for free rental use to the former owners, who continue to finance production and extract income from it. That is, while legally securing enterprises in the ownership of the RSFSR, the decree did not entail any practical consequences in economic sphere. He only hastily averted the threat of German intervention in the Russian economy. Soon, however, the Soviet government, contrary to its long-term intentions, had to take the second step - to establish real control over industry. The civil war forced us to do this. On November 20, 1920, all industrial private enterprises with the number of workers over 5 with a mechanical engine or 10 workers without it were nationalized.

The most important role in the creation of socialist property is played by:

nationalization of land;
nationalization of industry;
nationalization of banks.

Let's consider their features.

Nationalization of land

Note 1

The beginning of the nationalization of land in Russia should be considered the adoption of the Decree on Land on October 26 (November 8), 1917, in accordance with which the victorious class began to carry out socialist reforms. In accordance with the Decree, the objects that were subject to “nationalization” included land, its subsoil, water and forest resources, the Institute “ private property» on land was abolished, and the land, in accordance with the Decree, became public (state) property.

In accordance with the Decree, over 150 million hectares of land confiscated from landowners, monasteries, churches, state lands and others were transferred free of charge to the peasants. total area lands that were owned and used by peasants after the adoption of the Decree increased by almost 70 percent. Also, according to the Decree, peasants were exempted from rent payments to former owners and from the costs of acquiring new land property.

In the conditions of the beginning military intervention And civil war The Soviet state began to unite the rural poor around specially created organizations (committees of the poor), the main tasks of which were to be:

redistribution of land, equipment and livestock in favor of the poorest villagers;
providing assistance to food detachments in removing “surplus” food;
implementation of the agricultural policy of the Soviet state in rural areas.

For their services, the poor could receive a certain reward in the form of basic necessities and grain, which were sold at significant discounts and generally free of charge.

In August 1918, a plan was developed to fight for the bread of the new harvest, based on an alliance of the “poor and starving peasantry” with the middle peasants, designed for direct product exchange of requisitioned industrial goods for bread.

Specifically, this direct product exchange was expressed in the system of surplus appropriation, which confiscated from the peasantry not only surpluses, but also the reserves of grain necessary for sowing.

Thus, the nationalization of lands, water and forest resources was carried out in the interests of people working on the earth. Later she will become economic basis for agricultural cooperation.

Nationalization of industry

Note 2

When carrying out nationalization in industry, the first step was the adoption of the Decree on Workers' Control, according to which the workers themselves had to learn to manage. But the Decrees adopted did not always keep up with the natural course of events.

Workers, left to their own devices, rarely had the necessary technical knowledge, relevant industrial skills and discipline, knowledge in the field of organizing technical accounting, without which it was impossible to carry out the normal operation of the enterprise.

There were cases when workers simply appropriated its funds after the seizure of an enterprise, sold equipment and supplies, and used the money received in their own interests

There are several stages in the nationalization of industry:

At the first stage (November 1917 - February 1918), nationalization was characterized by a fast pace and broad initiative of local authorities.

During the first stage, more than 800 enterprises were nationalized and individual industries industry.

This period of nationalization was called the “Red Guard attack on capital” stage; the pace of nationalization significantly outpaced the pace of creating management systems for state-owned enterprises.

In November 1917, the nationalization of enterprises began large industry, the nationalization process primarily included those private enterprises whose production was extremely important for the Soviet state, and those whose owners pursued a policy of sabotage.

The second stage of nationalization took place from March to June 1918. During this period, the center of gravity of economic and political work The RSDLP was a shift in attention from the expropriation of private property to the strengthening of already won economic positions, the organization of a system of socialist accounting and control, the organization of management systems socialist industry. The main feature of the second stage of nationalization is the socialization of not only individual enterprises, but also entire industries, as well as the creation necessary conditions for the nationalization of all major industry. Thus, on May 2, 1918, a Decree on the nationalization of enterprises in the sugar industry was adopted, and on June 20, a Decree on the nationalization of enterprises in the oil industry was adopted. A conference of representatives of nationalized engineering factories, held in May 1918, decided to nationalize transport engineering factories. In total, during the second period, more than 1,200 industrial enterprises were transferred to state ownership.

Third, The final stage nationalization began in June 1918 and ended in June 1919. Its main characteristic is the strengthening of the organizing, leading role of the Council of People's Commissars and its territorial economic bodies in carrying out nationalization.

Thus, in the fall of 1918, the state owned more than 9,500 industrial enterprises. Since the summer of 1919, the pace of “nationalization” has increased sharply, which was caused by the need to mobilize all available production resources during the period of civil war and intervention.

Note 3

As a result of the nationalization of industry, the basis was created for the industrialization of the economy of the young socialist state.

Nationalization of banks

One of the most important measures to create a socialist economy of the young Russian state began the processes of “nationalization” of banks, which began with the nationalization of the State Bank of Russia and the establishment state control over private commercial banks.

The nationalization of the banking sector was determined by the provisions of two legislative acts - the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of December 14 (27), 1917, according to which all private commercial banks were transferred to state ownership, and a state monopoly on the organization of banking was also established. The decree of the Council of People's Commissars, issued on January 23 (February 5), 1918, completely and free of charge transferred the capital of private commercial banks to the State Bank.

The process of merging nationalized private commercial banks with the State Bank of Russia into a single People's Bank of the RSFSR was finally completed by 1920. During the process of nationalization, such parts of the banking system were eliminated Tsarist Russia, like mortgage banks, mutual loan societies. The nationalization of banks created the conditions Soviet state for a successful fight against hunger and devastation.

The nationalization of the tsarist banking system and private commercial banks gave impetus to the creation of a modern banking system in the Russian Federation.

The Bolsheviks considered the decrees on the nationalization of land (Decree on Land) and the nationalization of industry to be their most important laws. The decree of November 14, 1917 introduced, instead of the leadership of managers and owners of enterprises, “workers’ control” over production, the purchase and sale of raw materials and goods, and financial activities. This marked the beginning of the destruction of the foundations of the “capitalist economy.” Soon the Bolsheviks nationalized all banks, railways, and abolished all types of loans. The authorities no longer recognized Russia’s previous external and internal debts and introduced a monopoly foreign trade. In December 1917, the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) was formed, which began to “build communism” in the economy. But by the spring of 1918, it became clear that the economic experiment had failed - “workers’ control” turned out to be a fiction: labor productivity in enterprises fell sharply, industrial production amounted to 20% of the 1913 level, workers lived worse than before the February Revolution. At meetings they began to express distrust of the Bolsheviks, the authorities responded with repression, because under the “dictatorship of the proletariat” no labor movement could exist.

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