Founding and Early History
The Ministry's predecessor, the People's Commissariat for Finance of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), was established by a decree of the second convocation of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets on 8 November 1917 and was part of the Sovnarkom. The first Commissar was Ivan Skvortsov-Stepanov appointed in 1917. However, following the introduction of the New Economic Policy, Narkomfin was made responsible for Gosbank, the State Bank of the RSFSR and then the State Bank of the Soviet Union. On 26 November 1921 Lenin issued a note calling for the appointment of Grigory Sokolnikov to the newly established post of People's Commissar for Finance. Sokolnikov took control of the organisation in 1922, although his formal position was not ratified until November 1922. In 1946 the Council of People's Commissars was renamed the Council of Ministers and the People's Commissariat for Finance was renamed as the Ministry of Finance.
In 1928 the Soviet government launched a building program headed by the OSA group. The OSA group oversaw the construction of a building which should have housed the employees of the People's Commissariat for Finance. Due to its close connections with the Commissariat for Finance the building was often referred to as "the Narkomfin building". The building was designed by Moisei Ginzburg and Ignati Milinis and has a reputation for being one of the best examples of still-standing Soviet constructivist architecture. The architects tried to give the building a collective feel to it but, when the building was finished in 1932, it was denounced as a remnant of "leftist utopianism" by Joseph Stalin's regime. Unlike many other Soviet constructivist buildings there is an ongoing campaign to save it.
When Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, initiated the 1965 economic reform the Ministry of Finance sabotaged the reform by not fully implementing it which, along with many other reasons, helped the reform to fail.
Read more about this topic: Ministry Of Finance (Soviet Union)
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