Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

VSNKh. The acronym (sometimes rendered as Vesenkha), derived from its name in Russian (Vserossiiskii sovet narodnogo khoziastva), by which the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is usually known. This body (which had its counterparts in other Soviet republics), which sought to exercise supreme control over the Soviet economy, was founded on 5 December 1917 by decrees of VTsIK and was made subordinate to Sovnarkom. As one of the key organs of War Communism, it sought to direct the production and organization of nationalized industries and to manage the supply and distribution of key goods, and it exercised rights of confiscation and expropriation.

Initially, VSNKh was dominated by Left Bolsheviks (notably N. I. Bukharin, G. I. Lomov, and V. N. Smirnov), but over the spring of 1918, increasing numbers of Bolsheviks more loyal to V. I. Lenin and the party apparatus were placed in key posts within the organization, culminating with the naming of A. I. Rykov as chairman of VSNKh in May 1918. Subordinate to it were so-called glavki (from the Russian for “main committees”) that sought to direct individual industries or branches of the economy, for example, Glavneft (for the oil industry), Glavsakhar (sugar), Glavzoloto (gold), etc. By 1920, the organization was responsible for 37,000 nationalized enterprises, although the Soviet state’s broad economic strategy during the civil-war years tended to be decided elsewhere (notably in the Council of Labor and Defense). In 1923, following the creation of the USSR, it was transformed into an all-union people’s commissariat. In 1932, VSNKh was abolished and replaced by a series of people’s commissariats for heavy industry, light industry, etc.

Chairmen of VSNKh during the civil-war period were N. Osinskii (5 December 1917–28 March 1918); A. I. Rykov (28 March 1918–28 May 1921); and P. A. Bogdanov (28 May 1921–6 July 1923).

VTsIK. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee (Vserossiiskii tsentral′nyi ispolnitel′nyi komitet) of the Soviets of Workers’ Peasants’, Soldiers’ and Cossacks’ Deputies, which was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in theory served as the highest legislative body of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) while the Congress was not in session and was thus (again, in theory) the government of all territories controlled by the Bolsheviks during the civil wars. It had initially been elected at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets (3–24 June 1917), but did not at that stage claim governmental authority. The 102-member VTsIK, elected at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets (25–26 October 1917) in the midst of the October Revolution, which was dominated by the 62 Bolshevik members and their allies, notably 29 members of the Party of Left Socialists-Revolutionaries (plus 34 nonvoting, candidate members, 29 of whom were Bolsheviks and 5 Left-SRs), became in name the government of the RSFSR, although in practice state policy was decided by the smaller Sovnarkom and by the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, while (from November 1917) VTsIK’s presidium handled day-to-day affairs and rapidly eclipsed the authority of the plenum.

The roles of VTsIK, Sovnarkom, and the Congress of Soviets often overlapped and were not clearly defined by the Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of July 1918, although some clarity was brought to the matter by the issuing of the decree “On Soviet Construction” at the Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets (22–29 December 1920). However, this mattered little, as by the summer of 1918 the Bolsheviks’ grip on VTsIK was nearly complete, with the Left-SRs banned in the wake of the Left-SR Uprising and Mensheviks and other parties prevented from putting forward candidates for elections: of the 178 candidates elected to VTsIK by the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets (4–10 July 1918), 157 were Bolsheviks. Thereafter, any pretense that VTsIK might genuinely debate the decrees passed by Sovnarkom—much less reject them—was dropped, and the appearances before VTsIK of Sovnarkom representatives became a formality.