material-technical supply system (Gossnab/fondy)
명령경제의 자재 배급 체계
The centralized allocation system that distributed raw materials, equipment, and semi-finished goods to state enterprises and ministries in the USSR. It operated through administrative warrants called fondy (фонды), not market purchase: Gosplan set material balances and aggregate limits, and the State Committee for Material-Technical Supply (Gossnab) together with industrial ministries broke those down into enterprise-level allocations. Enterprises were legally barred from exchanging fondy among themselves. When the 1988 Law on Cooperatives created free-pricing enterprises, cooperatives had no access to this allocation network and were forced to buy supplies from retail stores or bribe state-enterprise directors.
In depth
How It Worked
Gosplan formulated material balances for roughly 2,000 products, matching economy-wide inputs and outputs in natural units. These balances yielded aggregate limits (limity) for each industrial ministry; Gossnab and the ministries' own supply departments then broke those down into specific allocation warrants (fondy) for individual enterprises. An enterprise could obtain a material only if it held the corresponding fond; trading fondy or materials without them was illegal. Ministries acted as fondoderzhateli (фондодержатели, 'fond-holders'), controlling the allocation stream, and enterprises formally received materials only through their ministry.
The Cooperative Contradiction
When the May 1988 Law on Cooperatives permitted cooperatives to set free prices and produce for the market, it left the material-supply system untouched. Cooperatives received no fondy and had no wholesale access. Their options were to buy goods at state retail stores (a practice banned in October 1989) or to bribe state-enterprise directors for access to fondy-allocated materials. This was the core structural contradiction of cooperative reform: market-pricing enterprises inside an economy where all raw materials were still distributed by administrative warrant.
Related historical events
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) Gossnab's role as the State Committee for Material and Technical Supply, wholesale allocation of material goods to state enterprises, chairmen, and the 1948–1953 / 1965–1991 periods.
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian article: detailed functions under the 1969 statute, including distribution of products by nomenclature, inter-branch supply coordination, merger with Gosplan in 1953, re-establishment in 1965, and territorial supply organs.
- encyclopedia.com Industrial ministries as fondoderzhateli (fund-holders); Gosplan and Gossnab allocated fondiruyemie (funded) commodities only through ministries; enterprises were legally barred from exchanging funded goods.
- encyclopedia.com Gosplan's role in preparing material limits (limity) for ministries, subsequently broken into product profiles by Gossnab.
- upi.com UPI report (October 1989): cooperatives had no wholesale access in a country 'in which the government sells all wholesale goods'; they raided retail stores and collided with centralized ministries; the Supreme Soviet banned cooperative purchases of goods in short supply and middleman trade.