Socialist Property Research Articles

Some Characteristics of Crimes of Gain

The struggle unearned income, and the development and implementation of additional measures against parasites, speculators of socialist property, bribe-takers, everyone who has embarked upon a path alien to the labor-based nature of our system … [1, p. 47] is today one of the most important conditions for the socioeconomic acceleration of the country and for the realization of the principles of socialist justice. We must step up the work of law-enforcing agencies, increase preventive activity, and improve our legislation. The effectiveness of concrete forms and methods of such work will largely depend on restructuring in the economic and social spheres, on a cleaning up of the intellectual atmosphere in society, and above all on overcoming existing negative phenomena and tendencies. Results of a study carried out at the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR provide further testimony to this.

On the Nature of Property under the Conditions of Real Socialism

Issues of socialist ownership as the basis of our social system have acquired special importance under present conditions. Emphasizing that the complex of relations relating to this are in a state of flux, M. S. Gorbachev said: Unless we are deeply aware of these changes on a theoretical plane, we will not be able to find true practical solutions, and consequently will also be unable to devise measures for inculcating a truly proprietary attitude toward socialist property.

Property in the System of Socialist Production Relations

The radical restructuring of the economic mechanism requires the more intensive, deeper analysis of socialist production relations, and especially their underlying foundation—socialist property. In our view, there exist great possibilities for more substantive research on these questions which are associated with the reexamination of existing simplistic ideas, stereotypes, and dogmas that have demonstrated their theoretical and practical groundlessness.

The Structure and Forms of Socialist Property

The Twenty-Seventh CPSU Congress advanced the problem of reforming property relations to the forefront. The new edition of the CPSU Program adopted at that Congress emphasizes: "the strengthening and enhancement of public ownership of the means of production, which is the basis of the socialist economic system, is now and will continue to be the focus of the party's attention. In the future as well it will be necessary to raise the level of socialization of production, its planned organization, and to steadily improve the forms and methods of realization of the advantages and potential of public property" (1). What occasions such a formulation of the question? It is predetermined primarily by the fact that ownership of the means of production forms the basis of any society's economic system. It is this that permeates all production relations and acts as the "clamp" that unites them into a unified whole. For bourgeois society, this is private capitalist ownership. For socialist society, it is public ownership. The basic advantages of socialism and all its historic attainments are specifically associated with public ownership of the means of production.

Why something like socialism is necessary for the transition to something like communism

The basic conclusion of the analysis of this article is that for a combination of economic and political reasons, a capitalist road to communism is implausible, and for political reasons a socialist road is more likely to succeed than the mixed road. The pure capitalist road is impossible because capital flight would immediately undermine the economic base of the communism-inducing universal grant proposal, and because even if this problem were solved, the political use of disinvestment would make the system unreproducible. The mixed road, combining elements of capitalist and socialist property relations, is economically feasible, but would be politically precarious. Only in a socialist society would the political conditions for a stable growth of the universal grants be secure enough to make movement along the road to communism likely. This general conclusion is based on what is a largely unargued assumption present thoughout this article, namely that socialism itself is unambiguously compatible with the emergence and development of communism- that collective ownership of the means of production by workers is compatible with a gradual growth in the “realm of freedom,” in the predominance of distribution according to need. Following VP, I acted as if the only issue were the extent to which capitalism might also be so compatible, and if not, the extent to which certain aspects of capitalism might be compatible in what I have called the mixed road. The assumption that socialism is compatible with the growth of communism rests on two more basic claims: first, that eliminating capitalist property relations does not necessarily produce authoritarian-bureaucratic forms of the state and politics, and, second, that in democratic socialism productivity will continue to increase (for without increasing productivity, expanding the sphere of distribution according to need becomes very problematic). While I will not attempt to defend them here, I believe both of these claims to be true. If either of these assumptions is false, however, then the only feasible road to communism, no matter how precarious it might be politically, may be the quasicapitalist/quasi-socialist mixed road described above, a road that combines elements of substantial state control over investments with capitalist economic rationality.

Concerning Some Specific Features in the Prevention of Drunkenness

Creating the new man is inseparably linked with the most forthright campaign against drunkenness, hooliganism, and parasitism, against speculation and theft of socialist property, against bribe-taking and money-grubbing.

Concerning Some Specific Features in the Prevention of Drunkenness

"Creating the new man is inseparably linked with the most forthright campaign against drunkenness, hooliganism, and parasitism, against speculation and theft of socialist property, against bribe-taking and money-grubbing."

La seconde économie et la planification économique soviétique

The Second Economy and Soviet Economic Planning. As here defined, the Second Economy (SE) comprises both the small legal private sector and the ubiquitous and protean realm of illegal activities. Closely connected with the SE are (a) theft of socialist property, (b) cheating of customers, and (c) corruption of officials and other employees. Some important examples of SE activity are described. The authorities, national or local, seem to take a tolerant view of some illegal SE activities, and in certain cases may even encourage them for both official and self-seeking ends. The SE and the First Economy (FE) co-exist in a symbiotic relationship. Economic policy and planning can only indirectly regulate the behavior of the SE; moreover, owing in part to the SE, its control of the FE is also quite incomplete. At the same time, planners often must — and in some ways doubtless do, if only indirectly — take cognizance of the effects of the SE on the FE, though there is little knowledge of just how they do. Moreover, corruption in the performance of "planning acts" — e.g., allocating supplies and equipment, distributing budgetary funds, setting norms and targets, etc. — is known to exist. The paper raises a series of questions in these regards. The research rests on Soviet sources and on interviews with knowledgeable former participants in the Soviet economy.

The Struggle Against Stealing of Farm Products

The security of state and social property in agriculture is a task of the utmost importance. In Krasnodar Territory much attention is given to protecting socialist property in agriculture.

Civic Assistants to the City Procurator

In supervising adherence to law, we make wide use of the help of civic assistants to the procurator. This is true above all in verifying implementation of laws aimed against drunkenness and alcoholism and laws on protection of socialist property, in the struggle against negligence and the production of substandard output, and in conducting reinspections to determine what measures have been taken by managements to eliminate violations previously discovered.

The New Statute on Comrades' Courts

Comrades' courts do important work in socializing citizens in the spirit of irreconcilability to violations of Soviet laws and the norms of communist morality. They promote a strengthening of labor discipline, the protection of socialist property, and the struggle against hooliganism, drunkenness, and other antisocial behavior. Successes in their activity are explained principally by the fact that they rest on the force of public opinion, which can exercise a profound socializing influence.

Abandon et retour des catégories marchandes en Union Soviétique

consequence of collective ownership of the means of production, the reasons for this "causality" are far from obvious. By the same token, although the market was presented by Marx and the traditional Soviet political scientists simply as the result of private ownership of the means of production, such hypotheses are refuted by the facts and by the defenders of market socialism. Having described the existing situation Mr. Lagasse attempts to explain it;. is the market really, as Stalin affirmed, the result of the duality of socialist property? Does it not rather stem from the division of work expressed by autonomous accounting or from the scarcity of resources, as opposed to the endlessly growing demands of the socialist society? The appearance within the enterprise, which is unified state property, of a sort of "partial ownership" tends to indicate that the above argument is well grounded. In all societies where there is interpénétration of law and economics, the dialogue between man's laws and those of economics is of vital interest. The Soviet experiment demonstrates that if the former exist, the latter can neither ignore nor abuse them.

Protection of Socialist Property: A Task of the Entire People

In a socialist state all material wealth created by the labor of workers, collective farm peasantry, and the intelligentsia is the sole property of the people. This defines the attitude of Soviet people to public property. Socialist property, according to the Constitution of the USSR, is the sacred and inviolable foundation of the Soviet system.

Nuosavybės institutas socialistinėje visuomenėje

Straipsnyje siekiama išryškinti marksistinės socialinės metodologijos ypatybes sprendžiant visuomeninės nuosavybės instituto problemą. Kritiškai apžvelgiamas visuomeninės nuosavybės sąvokos vartojimas tarybinėje ekonominėje, teisinėje ir sociologinėje literatūroje. Teigiama, kad atsiradus privatinei nuosavybei, ekonominiai santykiai įgyja institucinį pobūdį ir ima reikštis kaip tam tikri nuosavybės santykiai. Teisinė visuomeninių santykių forma paslepia jų ekonominę prigimtį ir apsunkina visuomenės ekonominės struktūros tyrimą. Marksizmo požiūriu, būtina skirti gamybos procesą, kaip visuomeninį gamtos daiktų pasisavinimą, nuo istorinės gamybos formos, kurioje dėl to pasisavinimo atsiranda nuosavybės santykiai. Jie yra istorinė ekonominių santykių forma. Visuomeninė gamybos priemonių nuosavybė yra teisinė socializmo ekonominių santykių išraiška. Daroma išvada, kad marksizmo socialinės metodologijos požiūriu, visuomeninės nuosavybės pavertimas ekonominių socialistinės visuomenės santykių pagrindu yra nepagrįstas, sukelia painiavą socializmo teorijoje ir kenkia socializmo kūrimo praktikai.

Social Interests and the Competence of Administrative Organs

A complex system of interests may be seen in socialist society. (1) With respect to the subject matter of this article, they may be classified as the interests of the country as a whole; the individual republics and territorial administrative units; branches of the economy, economic agencies and enterprises; and personal interests. Moreover, each of these may be comprised of long-range and immediate interests. Socialist property, the fact that state power is in the hands of the working people, and the leadership role played by the Communist Party create the foundation for a harmonious combining of diverse interests and a profound internal unity. The system of Soviet state administration is structured to reckon with all these interests and assures that they will be harmonized in a manner best facilitating the further forward development of society.(2)

Contemporary Anti-Marxism and the Theory of Law

The present stage of historical development is characterized by acute exacerbation of the ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism. The question of law receives central attention in this struggle. Of course, even earlier, from the first days of the existence of the Soviet state, bourgeois ideology and propaganda have not disregarded law as a subject in their struggle against socialism. But at first they turned more eagerly to the country's economic backwardness and conducted a frontal attack against the idea of socialism as a new economic system based on public ownership and the principles of planning. However, in the course of its historical development, the socialist economic system won the broadest recognition as a symbol of rapid social progress. Certain institutions of socialism that had earlier been condemned out of hand, such as public ownership and the planning principle, became, in the form of state capitalist property and the "programming" role of government (which naturally are different in principle from socialist property and socialist planning), significant elements in state monopoly capitalism.

Socialistinių ekonominių santykių teisinės formos klausimu

Autorius teigia, kad tarybinėje sociologinėje literatūroje yra nepakankamai apibrėžta nuosavybės sąvoka. Straipsnyje aptariama nuosavybės teisės genezė ir jos istorinis vaidmuo. Teigiama, kad nuosavybės instituto atsiradimas yra tiesiogiai susijęs su mainų, kaip visuomeninės gamybos produktų pasiskirstymo formos, įsigalėjimu, kurį objektyviai sąlygojo gamybinių jėgų išsivystymas. Nuosavybės sąvoka yra teisinė sąvoka ir tik šia prasme ji tinka ekonominiams santykiams apibūdinti. Socialistinėje visuomenėje, kaip pirmojoje komunistinės visuomenės išsivystymo fazėje, nuosavybės teisės institutas dar yra būtinas kaip produktų skirstymo forma. Vartojimas čia yra susijęs su individo asmenine teise į vartojamuosius daiktus. Socialistiniai ekonominiai santykiai turi teisinę nuosavybės santykių formą. Daroma išvada, kad perėjimas į antrąją komunistinės visuomenės išsivystymo fazę yra susijęs su nuosavybės teisės instituto ir ekonominių santykių teisinės formos išnykimu.

The State Monopoly of Foreign Trade in the USSR

In April 1968 it will be fifty years since the state monopoly of foreign trade was instituted in the USSR. An objective consequence of the socialist economic system and of socialist property in the instruments and means of production, the state monopoly continues to be the basis of the legal regulation of Soviet foreign trade and of the determination of its legal forms of organization. However, these forms themselves have changed considerably during the past half-century. What are the principal changes that have occurred in the organization of Soviet foreign trade during these fifty years? What are the forms in which the Soviet state administers foreign trade at the present stage in the building of communism? Clarification of these questions is an essential prerequisite for further improvement in the legal forms of organization of the state foreign trade monopoly.

The State Monopoly of Foreign Trade in the USSR

In April 1968 it will be fifty years since the state monopoly of foreign trade was instituted in the USSR. An objective consequence of the socialist economic system and of socialist property in the instruments and means of production, the state monopoly continues to be the basis of the legal regulation of Soviet foreign trade and of the determination of its legal forms of organization. However, these forms themselves have changed considerably during the past half-century. What are the principal changes that have occurred in the organization of Soviet foreign trade during these fifty years? What are the forms in which the Soviet state administers foreign trade at the present stage in the building of communism? Clarification of these questions is an essential prerequisite for further improvement in the legal forms of organization of the state foreign trade monopoly.

Rates and Proportions of Expanded Reproduction in the Period of the Comprehensive Building of Communism

The Draft Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union outlines a plan of great works for the creation of a communist economy. Within two decades (1961-1980) a communist society will be built in the main in the Soviet Union, and its construction will be completed in subsequent years. To achieve this aim it is necessary to perform the major economic task of building in the shortest possible historical period, within twenty years, the material and technical base of communism. Its construction will be the foundation for converting the two forms of public socialist property into one public communist property, and for establishing communist production relations. In terms of the might of its industrial potential, per capita output, labor productivity, and national well-being, our country will far surpass the leading capitalist countries, the United States of America included.