Торговая деятельность отделов рабочего снабжения промышленных предприятий Башкирской АССР в 1947–1953 годах
Trade-Related Activity of Workers’ Supply Departments at Industrial Sites in the Bashkir ASSR in 1947 to 1953

Summary/Abstract: The article considers trade-related activity of workers’ supply departments at sites in mining and processing industry in the Bashkir ASSR after the abolition of rationing system in 1947. The sources for the research was documents of three federal archives, earlier unpublished. The research found that workers’ supply departments at industrial sites in the Republic were in better conditions financially and economically as compared to state-owned retail organizations, which were controlled by the Department for local trade of the Ministry for Trade of the Bashkir ASSR. Workers’ supply departments fulfilled plans for goods turnover successfully, had better trading equipment and more qualified staff. To a large degree, the effectiveness of workers’ supply departments was higher thanks to the ability of planned economy to provide a steady growth of centralized goods stocks. In the late 1940s carrying out plans for goods turnover fully was only possible with the use of additional sources of goods, including decentralized procurements and individual farming; on the other hand, by 1953 workers’ supply departments at sites in the Bashkir ASSR were obtaining goods from centralized stocks above the planned goods turnover. However, by analyzing materials of state audits shows that increasing the commodity weights did not lead to meeting the demand of the population fully. Retail networks were overloaded with low-selling goods, and the underdeveloped storage networks led to damaging large quantities of foodstuffs. While workers’ supply departments of the Republic had difficulty selling excess goods, other trading organizations experienced deficit of goods. The research discloses a set of measures taken by workers’ supply departments of the Republic for selling goods to state-owned and cooperative organizations, including those which were located in other regions of the USSR.

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