The People’s Commissariat of Supply and The People’s Commissariat of Internal Trade

Abstract

Internal trade and the food industry were obviously important elements of the Soviet economy throughout the 1930s and beyond.¹ However, Soviet attitudes towards trade as a concept in the 1930s were ambiguous. While realising that consumer goods had somehow to be transferred from producer to consumer, the declared aim of constructing socialism meant that concepts prevalent under capitalism were suspect: ‘trade’ was such a concept and even the word was used with great caution. The organisation of internal trade and the food industries were shaped by the need to meet the requirements of a growing population, but also to meet increased demand where the state had assumed responsibility for what had previously been to a large extent in private hands. The performance of these sectors was dependent on state commitment to investment in this area, but was also crucially dependent on the performance of other sectors of the economy, most notably agriculture. The commissariats of supply and internal trade were thus placed in a delicate relationship with the central party and government bodies, but also placed in an intermediary position between those higher authorities and the population at large, whose needs they were supposed to satisfy.