Monopoly of Foreign Trade of the USSR, an exceptional right of the Soviet state to conduct economic relations with other countries. Following the nationalisation of the key means of production after the Great October Socialist Revolution, the Soviet state introduced, in mid-December 1917, a state monopoly of foreign trade in the most important products. On 29 December 1917, state control in the form of permits and prohibitions was established over foreign trade as a whole; products began to be exported and imported in the country only at the instructions of state bodies. Thus, the organisational and economic prerequisites were created for the state to monopolise foreign trade. On 22 April 1918, the government published a decree On the Nationalisation of Foreign Trade, according to which foreign trade enterprises belonging to private capital were made state property, and state monopoly introduced in all foreign trade. The People’s Commissariat for Trade and Industry became the body supervising nationalised foreign trade. Under the Constitution of the USSR foreign trade and other kinds of foreign economic activity are within the jurisdiction of the USSR as represented by its higher bodies of state authority and administration. The monopoly of foreign trade is essential for the development of the socialist economy, protecting it from spontaneity and monetary upheavals of the capitalist economy, as well as for ensuring the effectiveness and improvement of the structure and balance of foreign trade. Historically, state monopoly of foreign trade has been for the USSR one of the most important conditions for industrialisation (see Industrialisation, Socialist), for achieving technical and economic independence and the successful building and development of socialism. The organisational forms of implementing foreign trade monopoly change with the change of economic and foreign political 235 conditions. Today state management of foreign trade is the jurisdiction of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR and the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Foreign Economic Relations (the latter provides economic and technical assistance to other countries, and furnishes sets of plant for industrial and other facilities built abroad). Soviet trade delegations abroad exercise Soviet rights in the realm of foreign trade monopoly. The independence of the Soviet foreign trade associations as chartered corporations is combined with their subordination to the state foreign trade monopoly regimen. Ail-Union foreign trade associations conduct export and import operations for a certain range of goods, basing themselves on and acting within the framework of their Rules, foreign trade plans, export and import permits and licences. The Soviet government supervises and directs the activity of foreign trade associations and organisations which are granted the right to operate on the foreign market. Besides foreign trade associations, the right to conduct foreign trade is granted to other organisations. Centrosoyuz, the USSR Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and several other organisations (Intourist, the Bank for Foreign Trade and the USSR Academy of Sciences) are also granted the right to operate on the foreign market. The state currency monopoly following from the state monopoly of foreign trade and supplementing it is the sole right of the state to conduct all transactions with gold and foreign currency. The foreign trade monopoly as practised in the USSR is of great international importance. Other socialist and several developing countries have made wide use of Soviet experience in this field. Foreign trade policy is an inalienable part of the Soviet foreign policy aimed at ensuring favourable global conditions for building communism in the USSR, for consolidating the positions of world socialism, for supporting the national liberation struggle, and for consistent implementation of the principle of peaceful coexistence between countries with different social systems.