Socialist Property Research Articles

Self-Made Boats and Social Self-Management

This article begins with the heroic stories former-Leningrad residents tell about making their own outdoor tourist gear out of illicitly obtained industrial materials. Reading these stories not as evidence of illicit circulation, but as expressions of ethical values, the author shows that they are united by common assumptions of generosity and argues that these assumptions cannot be understood through analytic frameworks concerned with private, acquisitive interest. Instead, she argues that they must be understood as the expression of an idiosyncratic Soviet property regime based on personal welfare that was not opposed to, but co-constitutive of, socialist property. Analyzing political statements, juridical arguments and media texts from the 1960s, the author shows that the 1961 Third Party Program reforms extended the juridical logic of personal property to personal ethical realms. Specifically, the Program demanded that people place their ethical obligations – to strive for overall greater good – above their formal obligations to follow the letter of the law. By framing necessary but unplanned transactions in the “a-legal” terms of “mutual aid,” this ethical stance helped the economy appear functional despite its endemic circulation problems.

ОСНОВНЫЕ ЧЕРТЫ АГРАРНЫХ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЙ В БЫВШЕЙ ГДР

The article considers the agrarian transformations (primarily privatization and structural adaptation to the domestic and international markets) in the former GDR that are often presented as a success story due to the growth in agricultural productivity and competitiveness of new types of agricultural en-terprises. First, the author identifies the main tasks of these transformations: (1) privatization of the “socialist property” and its distribution between (a) those who contributed capital and land to the agricultural enter-prise when it was established, and (b) its employees at the moment of restructuring; (2) adaptation to new market conditions. Both tasks were extremely difficult and challenging for they required large investments in better breeds and machinery, and a significant reduction of agricultural workforce. Second, the author considers the legislative basis for privatization and the real practices of the reorganization of the former agricultural enterprises (proposals for the distribution of the assets, land restitution as prior to compen-sation, the successor large-scale enterprises forced land leasing contracts, manipulations with the balance sheets to obtain hidden reserves necessary for survival by underestimation of the existing assets, etc.). The author believes that the Kohl government did not foresee that privatization would be so complicated, and made many mistakes while striving to keep agricultural production in the new countries, especially to restrain the growth of unemployment. Therefore, the contemporary research of the agricultural economy is very critical of the regulations and frameworks set by the German government that is blamed for being responsible for many serious development constraints (short-term leasing contracts, paying off old debts, the lack of state subsidies for large enterprises, etc.). The final section of the article reveals the meaning of the land property in the agrarian transformations in the GDR. The author relies on the statistical data for more than two decades, monitoring data on the still ongoing transition and his own studies of agri-cultural enterprises in different regions (1992, 1997, 2002 and 2016).

Chinese Takings Chuanhui Wang, The Constitutional Protection of Private Property in China: Historical Evolution and Comparative Research

As China reemerges as a global economic power, the desire to invest and acquire property rights in China grows. Such acquisitions give pause to foreign investors accustomed to democratic protections against the state taking private property. Given that the Communist Party of China (CPC) holds a monopoly on political power, expropriation is an issue of international interest. Historically, protections for private property in China were limited, if not nonexistent, but recently China has begun to strengthen them. It is with this emergence that Chuanhui Wang produces his comparative study of takings law.1 Wang examines whether and how China has historically protected private property. He then compares takings law in three countries: the United States, Germany, and India. Wang uses these case studies to evaluate the current state of Chinese law and offer suggestions for how China can better protect against government takings. Wang’s overview of private property protections in China’s constitutions from 1949 to 2004 provides the background for understanding how Chinese property rights have evolved.2 While not an official constitution, the 1949 Common Program began the country’s move to a socialist property regime. It established that “bureaucratic capital” should be taken by the state, but it simultaneously protected property owned by the working class.3

Борьба правоохранительных органов с хищениями социалистической собственности в кооперативных организациях и государственной торговле в конце 1940-х годов (на материалах Свердловской области)

The article is devoted to the subject insufficiently developed in the national historiography, especially in regard to its regional aspect. The study was conducted on materials of the State archive of the Sverdlovsk region, the Russian state archive of economics and the Centre of documentation of public organizations of Sverdlovsk region with the assistance of the scientific and publicistic literature. The relevance of the topic is determined by its known importance for the social sciences, especially history, sociology and law. Scientific novelty of the work is seen in the fact that the new materials discovered by the author in these archives are introduced into scientific usage. It is argued that the criminality is one of the most difficult and intractable problems of human society. It is stated that the history of the Soviet economy is the history of the functioning of a huge diversified economy in extremely inefficient use of available resources and, as a consequence, a severe shortage of most kinds of wealth. It is declared that Soviet Union “inherited” from tsarist Russia a fairly powerful and extensive system of economic cooperation, the leading role in which played two types of cooperation: consumer and commercial. It is emphasized that during the war and early post-war years the criminalization of trade sector reached its peak. It is noted that one of the serious consequences of the war for the Soviet Union was the surge of all forms of crime. It is proved that the Soviet government during all the years of its existence struggled with the embezzlement of socialist property, but failed to achieve any significant success. The conclusion is that in terms of planning and distribution-scarce economy there could not be a different result.

Post-Dayton ethnic engineering in Croatia through the lenses of property issues and social transformations

ABSTRACTThis article looks at post-Dayton Croatia, and deals with the question of why minority return was not as successful as anticipated. By examining the link between restitution of housing property and minority return, it argues that the perpetuation of ethno-national logics was not only based on local power holders who obstructed return, but was also the ‘infelicity’ of a less than well-thought-through plan of minority return directed by international organizations, which centred around the notion of returning people ‘to their homes of origin’, to their own property, and underestimated social and former socialist rights, or more generally ‘the right to have citizenship rights, including labour and education’, which could entail the need for geographical relocation. Referring to a case study in the former battleground region of Knin in Croatia, the article analyses the processes of property restitution, repossession and return, which were restricted to territorially defined former war areas (approximately only one third of Croatia’s territory), although many Serbs had lived in other parts of Croatia before the war, including the capital, Zagreb, and had only left their homes with the advent of the conflict. Many returnees could not return to urban areas due to the non-restitution of former socialist property rights, which existed during socialism and were concentrated largely in urban areas. Being confined to returning to the rural regions in the former war areas, in which economic options were meagre, sustainable minority return was furthermore obstructed by a lack of social and economic prospects. Many returnees therefore opted instead to exchange or sell their houses rather than permanently return to minority areas.

Theft under Stalin: a property rights analysis

Recent work on dictatorship has focused on how repression is used by dictators to eradicate political opposition. This article examines evidence from one of the most important dictatorships of the twentieth century to suggest that this may tell only half the story. As Stalin's dictatorship progressed, repression was increasingly administered neither by the secret police nor the military—as in most dictatorships—but through the ordinary courts. The article proposes an explanation, one broadly consistent with Olson's hypothesis that Stalin was a ‘proprietary dictator’, an autocrat with a long time horizon who made major investments in public goods. Stalin's new form of property—‘socialist property'—was one such public good. To legitimize the new form of ownership, Stalin ruled that it should be enforced through the ordinary justice system, albeit initially with high levels of repression. The article also makes two further contributions. It shows, first, how Stalin's theft campaigns are a striking historical example of what happens when an unpopular law clashes with social norms, and of how it might backfire. Second, it demonstrates how, as property rights theorists would predict, the main objects of theft legislation are generic or homogeneous goods with few property attributes.

Is President Medvedev Really Cleansing the Russian Legal and Judicial Systems of ‘Legal Nihilism’?

It is notorious that “telephone justice” was the norm in the Soviet Union. Judges, except at the highest levels, had low prestige. While most public prosecutors were men, most judges – like doctors and teachers – were women. All judges without exception were Communist Party members, and required to report back regularly on their activities to the local Party bodies. In any event, the role of the courts was seen to be primarily educational, instructing citizens in the importance of public order and respect for socialist property. Non-controversial cases, for example crime without political connotation, or cases concerning inheritance or custody of children, would be dealt with impartially and according to normal procedures. Indeed, there was strict adherence to procedural formality. But if the interest of the State or Party were concerned, then the judge would either know what needed to be done without being told, or, if necessary, would receive a telephone call so as to know what was expected.

Stalin and the Politics of Kinship: Practices of Collective Punishment, 1920s–1940s

At a Kremlin reception on 7 November 1937, Stalin declared that enemies should be eliminated as kinship groups: “And we will eliminate every such enemy [of the state and peoples of the USSR]… . we will eliminate his entire lineage (rod), his family! … Here's to the final extermination of all enemies, both themselves and their clan (rod).”1In the Soviet Union, political enemies were rounded up in groups of kin, family ties marked people as disloyal, and “counterrevolutionary” charges against one person threatened also his or her relatives. The Soviet security police or OGPU-NKVD issued detailed instructions regarding the punishment that should be assigned to the spouses, children, siblings, parents, and even ex-wives of state enemies. Campaigns against anti-Soviet elements rounded up kinship groups, whether these counterrevolutionaries were identified as so-called kulaks, enemies of the people, or traitors to the motherland. To be sure, the collective punishment of kin did not accompany every act of Stalinist repression. The regime's draconian criminal legislation also constituted a form of terror, yet persons sentenced under such laws as those punishing theft of socialist property were dealt with individually; their relatives were not targeted. Only the “politicals,” that is, people accused of disloyalty, treason, or other counterrevolutionary activities experienced terror as family units. It was the collective punishment of kin that made political repression under Stalin truly a mass phenomenon.

Informers and the State under Late Stalinism: Informant Networks and Crimes against "Socialist Property," 1940–53

Informers and the State under Late Stalinism Informant Networks and Crimes against "Socialist Property," 1940–53 James Heinzen Dept. of History Rowan University 201 Mullica Hill Rd. Robinson Hall Glassboro, NJ 08028 USA heinzen@rowan.edu Every Soviet citizen has the moral duty to inform the organs of power about all known instances of the theft of state and socialist property. —B. A. Kurinov The talebearer shall defile his own soul, and be hated by all. —Ecclesiasticus 21:31 In the years between the start of the Great Patriotic War and the death of Stalin, the Soviet regime used informant networks in the Party's efforts to eradicate a veritable epidemic of crimes against state property, bribery, and profiteering in scarce goods.1 The focus of this article is the recruitment and deployment of average Soviet people as informants to expose or prevent a variety of "non-political" crimes, mainly the theft of state property. Little is known about the informant network charged with unearthing these transgressions during and after the Great Patriotic War. Scholars have not yet noted the degree to which the nationalization of the economy, together with an ideology that urged the population to defend state property as "the people's wealth," required a large informer network. The historian Robert [End Page 789] Gellately has noted, "No police force in modern European history has been able to function without the cooperation or participation of the population in its efforts."2 In the Soviet Union after World War II, the Stalinist regime regarded the matter of marshaling that popular cooperation as both critical and quite problematic. This study has emerged from a larger project on corruption and anti-corruption campaigns in the Soviet 1940s–60s. Despite robust interest in official corruption and "shadow" markets in the former Soviet Union, scholars have not paid much attention to the phenomenon as it existed in this period, with some important exceptions.3 Although the present article is not a detailed study of the forms of corruption or the regime's attempts to combat it, it is clear that in many ways people used their official positions or the resources at their disposal to enrich themselves or gain material benefit at public expense (the classic definition of corruption).4 Apart from regular police work, the primary tool for uncovering crimes against state property and official crime was the deployment of secret informants (osvedomiteli, rezidenty, and agenty, known collectively as agentura). After examining police strategies for using informants, this study explores [End Page 790] what the police regarded as the strengths and weaknesses of this network, in addition to their explanations for its limitations. Finally, the study considers why the network was less effective than its organizers intended, and why its actions provoked certain unexpected outcomes. A critical part of the Stalinist law-enforcement system after the war, this network of informants has not yet been analyzed in detail by scholars, largely because records describing its activities have not been available. Due to the understandable lack of memoirs by admitted informants, and the reluctance of the regime to acknowledge their existence, the historian is dependent on available archival materials produced by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and the police, particularly those units that supervised informants. The present study uses materials produced by OBKhSS (Otdel bor´by s khishcheniem sotsialisticheskoi sobstvennosti i spekuliatsiei), the Ministry of Internal Affairs' "Department for Combating the Theft of Socialist Property" within the regular police force (GUM). This MVD agency was charged with unearthing a variety of "crimes against socialist property." The major primary source for this study is material and data produced by OBKhSS. Unfortunately, access to much archival material, including all files of individual informants or particular cases, is still restricted. We do have, however, multiple internal reports discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the networks. In addition, archival material from the collections of the USSR...

Politics of rural land registration in post-socialist societies: Contested titling in villages of Northwest Vietnam

Land registration has been perceived as a precondition for secure property rights and agricultural development. Yet land registration has often failed to achieve its presumed benefits. This article explores the relationship between land registration, tenure security, and agricultural development in the context of post-socialist transformations. It focuses on one key difference between socialist property and the notions underlying post-socialist land laws: socialist property law accommodated the existence of multiple layers of social control over land whereas post-socialist land legislation promotes exclusive land rights. Post-socialist land rights are exclusive in the sense that the new laws do not recognize any intermediate layers of control between the landholder and the state. The paper draws on a case study of land registration in a commune in north-western Vietnam. The research included semi-structured interviews with 65 randomly selected households and informal conversations during extended stays in the commune as well as the collection of government statistics and interpretation of SPOT images. Its results demonstrate that villagers opposed land registration and refused to comply with its rules, although registration would have strengthened villagers’ legal rights to land. The villagers resisted land registration because the new land rights conflicted with their actual land relations, which included more layers of social control than land registration could accommodate. At the same time, although land registration failed to take effect in the villages, agricultural output expanded and the forest regenerated. The findings therefore suggest the need for adjusting land registration to accommodate intermediate layers of control over land where land claims are not as exclusive as assumed by the existing legislation.

The Odessa File: Post Socialist Property Rights in English Courts

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 property relations in former Soviet states have been in a state of flux. This period of transition has raised significant practical and theoretical questions concerning the nature of ownership, because even before full privatisation many former state enterprises have been reaping the benefits of greater economic independence. In The 'Nazym Khikmet'P the Court of Appeal was called upon to analyse some of the effects of these developments and was faced with socialist legal concepts that are without parallel in English jurisprudence. For the majority of the twentieth century state ownership of the means of production and central planning of the economy were the ideological and economic twin pillars of socialist states.2 From 1923 in the territory of the former Soviet Union state property was managed by various enterprises under the theory of 'operative management'. According to Bregman and Lawrence, '[u]nder operative management principles, the Soviet state assigns limited ownership rights to various state organisations that produce goods and perform services. These assigned rights include the possession, use and disposition of the property.'3 These enterprises were vested with legal personality and were charged with ensuring that state property was used efficiently. State enterprises (not the treasury) were responsible for the debts that their activities generated.4 However, they remained subject to the national economic plan and therefore they did not enjoy independence during the socialist hegemony. State ownership raised problems for western businessmen who were concerned about its effects on their security since, according to article 20 of the Merchant Shipping Code of the Soviet Union, state owned ships could only be arrested with the consent of the Council of Ministers. In practice, however, business may often have been conducted in a way to allay such fears. It seems, for example, that Soviet shipping companies often provided other security to avoid disputes over in rem proceedings.5

Simulating the great transformation: property change under prolonged informality in Hungary

Transformations of society-wide organizing principles or, ‘systemic’ features, of property relations are rare historical occurrences and constitute crucial aspects of social change. The recent architectonic rearrangement of the societies of East-Central Europe is especially remarkable as it represents a move away from a unique, very large-scale, comprehensive social experiment concerning the use of state power in establishing and maintaining putative ‘socialist property’ as a ‘systemic’ principle. The ongoing move away from that experiment—the post-state-socialist transition—is a vector with an unmistakable point of departure and a quite nebulous direction.

The Socioeconomic Crisis as a Crisis of State Socialist Property

No one has any doubts concerning the diagnosis of the illness that afflicts our country and other socialist countries today. It is the title of this article. The main thing now is how to cure the illness.

Leasing in Socialist Property Relations

The deep restructuring of socialist property relations is a key component of our country's revolutionary reforms in the sphere of the economic base. Leasinga new, progressive, and, as experience shows, very effective form of socialist managementacquires ever greater importance in the system of measures aimed at realizing this task.

Leasing Relations In The Economic System Of Socialism

Positive change in the country's economic situation requires not only fundamental change in the system of management and the search for unconventional forms of management as such, but also the fundamental restructuring of basic relations, especially the relations of socialist property. Such restructuring essentially means returning the working people to their status as real co-owners of the means and results of production and other economic activity, the diversification of property relations, and the elimination of gross deformations that still persist in property relations.

The Renewal of Socialist Property

The period we are living through represents one of the most complex and critical stages of perestroika [restructuring]. The ground we have covered has made it possible to bring about a number of changes in the economy and in public thinking, to feel the entire depth and complexity of the problems before us, and the possibility of implementing the appropriate measures.

Editor's Introduction

The subject of property reform has become an arena of genuine debate among Soviet economists. Some of the principal issues raised in these discussions and the differing positions adopted by various economists are illustrated in the articles that follow. The property system is such a core institution that discussions of property reform sometimes force Soviet economists to confront the very foundations of official ideology. This is particularly apparent in the first two articles included here. Thus, L. Abalkin ("The Renewal of Socialist Property") acknowledges the urgency of developing "a new paradigm within the framework of Marxist-Leninist economic theory." Although he does not spell out the details of the new paradigm, Abalkin does identify some of its more general features. For example, social and economic development involves not only the "negation" of the past but also an "inheritance, a continuity." The new society must draw on the best features provided by the old. For Abalkin, these include "cooperatives, the market, democratic institutions …" Social progress also normally involves the increasing complexity and diversity of institutional structures, characteristics that should apply specifically to forms of property ownership under socialism.

Property: The Restructuring of Relations

In overcoming the deformations that have accumulated in the relations of socialist property, the discussion and theoretical analysis of their content and the forms of their realization are extremely important.

On Forms of Realization of Socialist Property

Shortcomings in our economy are ultimately connected with the existing organizational forms of socialist property, with its deformation, with the fact that certain forms of its realization are obsolete and that certain forms have not been found or put into operation. The analysis of the state of socialist property and the discovery of new forms of its realization are therefore an important task. In this connection, I would like to address certain aspects of this task that have not been sufficiently developed or that seem debatable.

Socialism and Property

Compared with bourgeois private property, socialist property creates broader opportunities for development of the productive forces, for developing the economic enterprise of millions of people, and for attaining a high quality of life. However, contemporary history has developed otherwise. The capitalist mode of production, which seemed doomed to total disintegration, has in recent decades gained its second wind, has proven capable of carrying out a scientific-technological revolution, of making quite effective use of its results in all spheres of society's life, and of creating a developed social infrastructure. In our country, on the other hand, stagnation and precrisis phenomena have mounted. Coming up with a scientific explanation of this historical paradox requires, in addition to all else, a comparative analysis of the evolution of property relations in the highly industrialized capitalist countries and in the USSR.