Trust

In the RSFSR and later in the USSR, trusts were created under the New Economic Policy as an association of state enterprises of the same industry, operating on the basis of cost accounting . The decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of April 10, 1923 defined the trust as follows:

... a state-owned industrial enterprise, which is granted independence in carrying out its operations in accordance with the charter approved for them and which operates on the basis of commercial calculation in order to profit.

From the point of view of state management of industry, the trust was considered by the Soviet authorities as a state body whose function was to control market processes. This approach to the activities of trusts was documented in the relevant governing documents - in particular, in the "Model Regulations on Trusts", charters of trusts, etc. The state, in turn, carried out supervisory and control functions in relation to trusts. The trusts had a certain degree of economic freedom in deciding what to produce and where and to whom to sell their products. At the same time, each trust was obliged to fulfill state tasks and to grant the state and cooperative organizations priority rights, ceteris paribus, to purchase products of the trust. Enterprises included in the trust, as a rule, were withdrawn from state supply and purchased raw materials on the market. The law provided that "the state treasury is not responsible for the debts of the trusts."

By the end of 1922, about 90% of industrial enterprises were merged into 421 trusts. By the summer of 1923, there were 478 trusts, of which only 40% were under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR and other central government bodies, and the rest were of local subordination. The trust enterprises employed 5/6 of the total number of workers in state industry. In general, small trusts prevailed in the USSR: 63% of their total number united on average about seven enterprises and 359 workers, while large trusts (13-14 enterprises and 12.5 thousand workers) made up only 11% and were concentrated in the textile and metallurgy industry ^[2] . The trusts should have directed at least 20% of the profit to the formation of reserve capital until it reached a value equal to half of the authorized capital (soon this ratio was reduced to 10% of profit until it reached one third of the initial capital). Reserve capital was used to finance expansion of production and compensation for business losses. The premiums received by board members and workers of the trust depended on profit margins. For example, the Sverdlovsk Mining and Metallurgical Trust, formed in 1922, included more than 20 metallurgical plants, mines, peat bogs, and factory cutting areas. Under the trust, there were 6 state farms for growing crops and vegetables. The total number of employees at the enterprises of the trust was 9 thousand people, and the authorized capital in the middle of 1923 was estimated at 28.3 million gold rubles ^[3] .

Trusts were united in syndicates - voluntary cooperative associations of trusts involved in the supply, marketing of finished products, lending, and foreign trade operations. By the end of 1922, 80% of the trust industry was syndicated, and by the beginning of 1928 there were 23 syndicates in the USSR that operated in almost all industries, concentrating most of the wholesale trade in their hands. A syndicate board was elected at a meeting of trust representatives. The trusts had the freedom to determine the share of their supply and sales transferred to the syndicate.

The "Regulation on State Industrial Trusts" dated June 29, 1927 and the joint decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the Council of People's Commissars of July 27 of the same year provided for the provision of greater independence to state enterprises by introducing economic accounting in their activities. However, the mass introduction of cost accounting was not implemented and the industry management reform went towards strengthening centralized administrative management and curtailing the market, which led to a decrease in production efficiency at enterprises ^[3] . By the middle of the 1st Five-Year Plan ( 1929 - 1934 ), trusts had become an intermediate link in administrative management.

The trust, as a form of association of enterprises related by type of activity, continued to be used until the end of the existence of the USSR, especially in the field of capital construction and equipment installation ^[4] . These trusts, however, did not have managerial functions in the system of state administration of the USSR, and their economic activity was entirely subordinate to the union and republican ministries and state committees .

After the collapse of the USSR, some privatized as well as newly created construction companies often contain the word “trust” in their name, such as “Soyuzstroytrest” or “Building Trust No. 10”, but the form of ownership was added to their names (CJSC, OJSC, LLC )

• Cartel
• Syndicate
• Concern

• Bogomolova E.V. Self-supporting trusts - the main link in management // The economic mechanism of the period of the new economic policy (Based on materials from the 1920s). Sat reviews. M. , 1990.
• Legislation on trusts and syndicates. M. - L., 1926.
• Ilyin-Kryazhin A.N. What is a trust, syndicate and joint stock company / M. — L., 1927.
• Lyutov L.N. State industry during the years of NEP (1921-1929) / Saratov, 1996.

• Trusts // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.