22. The All-Russian Central Trades Union Council, in cases where the central committee of the All-Russian Trades Union violates the decisions of the convention, conference, or All-Russian Central Trades Union Council, may dissolve the same, and must immediately call an All-Russian convention or conference of the given trades union for the purpose of electing a new directing body.
November 7, 1919.
THE FINANCIAL POLICY AND THE RESULTS OF THE ACTIVITIES
OF THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSARIAT OF FINANCE
(1917–1919)
I
When the Soviet Government was first organized, a number of purely financial questions arose which necessitated the utilization of the services of the old financial-administrative apparatus in the form in which it existed prior to the October Revolution. It is quite natural that the first period of work in the domain of finance, that is, between the October Revolution and the Brest-Litovsk Peace, had of necessity to be marked by efforts to conquer the financial apparatus, its central as well as its local bodies, to make a study of its own functions and, somehow or other, to adapt itself to the requirements of the time.
While in the domain of the Soviet Government’s economic and general policy, this period has been marked by two most far-reaching and important changes which, strictly speaking, had been prepared prior to the October Revolution—the nationalization of banks and the annulment of the government debt; the financial policy, in the narrow sense of the word, did not disclose any new departures, not even the beginnings of original constructive work.
Gradually taking over the semi-ruined pre-revolutionary financial apparatus, however, the Soviet Government was compelled to adopt measures for the systematization of the country’s finances in their entirety.
This second period in the work of the People’s Commissariat for Finances (approximately up to August, 1918) also fails to show any features of sharply marked revolutionary change. From the very beginning the authorities have been confronted with a chaotic condition of the country’s financial affairs. All this, in connection with the large deficit which became apparent in the state budget, compelled the Commissariat of Finance to concentrate its immediate attention on straightening the general run of things and, thus, prepare the ground for further reforms.
In order to accomplish the systematizing of the financial structure, the Government had to lean for support on the already existing unreformed institutions, i.e., the central department of finance, the local administrative-financial organs—the fiscal boards tax inspection, treasuries, excise boards—and, more particularly, the financial organs of the former local institutions for self-government (Zemstvos, and municipalities).