Supreme Council of National Economy, Administration of Nationalized Industry. March 3, 1918

Original Source: Sbornik dekretov i postanovlenii po narodnomu khoziaistvu. 25 oktiabria 1917 g.--25 oktiabria 1918 g. (Moscow, 1918), pp. 311-15.

Part I

1. The central administration of nationalized enterprises of a given branch of industry is to appoint for every large nationalized enterprise [in that branch of industry] a technical and an administrative director to take complete charge and direction of the enterprise. Such directors will be responsible to the central administration and its appointed commissar.

2. The technical director is to appoint the technical personnel and issue all orders relating to the technical management of the enterprise. The shop committee will have the right to lodge complaints with the commissar of the central administration relative to the appointments and orders of the technical director, but the appointments and orders may be cancelled only by the commissar or the central administration.

3. The administrative director will work in connection with an economic-administrative Soviet consisting of representatives of workers, employees, and engineers of the enterprise. The Soviet will examine the estimates, plans of work, internal regulations, complaints, material, and moral conditions of the work and life of the workers and employees and other questions relating to the life of the enterprise.

4. In questions of technical administration the Soviet will have consultative powers only, but in other questions it will have power to make decisions ...

5. The decisions of the economic - administrative Soviet will be enacted by the administrative director.

6. The Soviet of the enterprise may petition the central administration to remove the director and recommend its own candidate ...

7. Workers' control over nationalized enterprises will be effected through the factory-shop committees ... which will send in their findings to the economic-administrative Soviet ...

8. In those branches of industry where no central administrative department exists all [administrative] rights will belong to the regional councils of national economy ...

9. Estimates and plans of work in the nationalized enterprises must be prepared every three months ...

Part II

17. The central administration (Glavnyi Komitet) of each branch of industry which had been nationalized will be attached to the Supreme Council of National Economy and will consist of representatives of workers and employees of the given industry (one-third), representatives of the general proletarian, state, political, and economic organizations, and institutions such as the Supreme Council of National Economy, the People's Commissariats, the All-Russian Council of Trade Unions, the All-Russian Council of Workers' Cooperatives, the Central Executive Committee of Soviets (one-third), and the representatives of scientific, technical, and All-Russian democratic organizations (one-third).

18. The central administration is to elect a bureau to do current business ...

19. The central administration is to organize regional and local administrations of the given branch of industry ...

20. The rights and duties of every central administration (Glavnyi :Komitet) will be defined in each case by the ordinance which brings it into existence, but in every case the central administration will take charge of: (a) the administration of the enterprises of the given branch of industry, (b) the financing [of these enterprises], (c) their technical consolidation and reform, (d) the conditions of labor in the given industry.

21. Every central administrative body must abide by the decisions of the Supreme Council of National Economy ...

22. The central administration will have a monopoly of export and import of goods ... and will cooperate with the all-national organization for foreign trade.

Iu. LARIN

Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 615-616.