Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR

Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR (Рада міністрів УРСР; Rada ministriv URSR). Agency of state and economic administration in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which succeeded in 1946 the Council of People's Commissars. The Council of Ministers was formally elected by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR and consisted of a chairman, deputy chairmen, ministers, and heads of central governing agencies. The council could include the heads of other agencies and organizations in Ukraine. The Presidium of the Council of Ministers, which was a non-sessional body of the Council of Ministers, consisting of a chairman and deputy chairmen, decided questions of state administration and economic policy. At the recommendation of the chairman of the Council of Ministers other members of the government could be included in the presidium. The Council of Ministers was accountable to and reported to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. Between sessions it was responsible to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Following the 1991 Ukraine’s Declaration of Independence, the Council of Ministers was reorganized into the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Because the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR and its presidium were the highest representative bodies of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and did not report to corresponding Union bodies, it may be thought that they were the government of a truly sovereign republic that was independent of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But this was not true for several reasons: (1) The Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR could deal only with those matters that were under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian SSR. (2) USSR laws were equally valid in all the republics of the Union. In the case of conflict between a Union and a republic law, the Union law was overriding. (3) On questions referred to the USSR Council of Ministers, the council could suspend the decisions and orders of the republic councils of ministers. (4) Industries of a Union status that were located in the Ukrainian SSR were directed by Union ministries and state committees; Union-republican ministries and state committees directed certain branches of industry in Ukraine assigned to them. These branches were subordinate to the Ukrainian Council of Ministers as well as to the appropriate Union-republican ministry and the USSR state committee. In this field the orders of the USSR ministries and state committees were binding on the agencies of the Ukrainian SSR. Only the republic ministries, such as the Ministry of Highways, of Transport, of Consumer Services, of Public Housing, of Communal Economy, of Local Industry, of Social Security, and of the Fuel Industry, were responsible exclusively to the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR (see Ministries of the Ukrainian SSR). (5) The chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR belonged, as a representative of the republican government, to the Council of Ministers of the USSR; hence, all the decisions of the latter body were for him/her immediately binding. (6) According to art 6 of the Constitution of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1978), the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the leading and guiding force behind all government agencies. It defined the general direction of social development and Soviet domestic and foreign policy. The appropriate Party agencies were in charge of personnel administration for the Council of Ministers and so the council was actually accountable to these agencies.

The Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR functioned on the basis of USSR law, which required it to fulfill the decisions of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and its presidium. For this purpose it issued resolutions and decrees and monitored their implementation (Constitution of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, art 120). At the same time it issued resolutions and decrees on the basis of and for the enforcement of the laws of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The division of powers between the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR was decisive and was formally effected through the classification of ministries into Union, Union-republic, and republic ministries.

Until 1965 all-Union ministries and agencies had their representatives in the Ukrainian SSR. They sat on the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, and their activities in Ukraine were co-ordinated by the council. The council in turn has permanent representation on the USSR Council of Ministers in order to maintain constant communication between the governments of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR.

The powers of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR changed with the policies of the USSR government. They were greatest in 1957–62 when economic administration by region was introduced. Later the powers of the council were greatly reduced, particularly in 1965, with the return to economic administration by branch. The economic reforms introduced in 1979 broadened the powers of the council in certain areas: (1) It prepared outlines of the five-year plans and one-year plans and the budgets of those branches of the economy that were under republic control. (2) Guided by Union agencies, it prepared outlines of the plans and budgets of Union- republic ministries and state committees. (3) It presented proposals for the plans of all-Union associations, industries, and organizations located in Ukraine to the State Planning Committee of the USSR and the ministries and departments of the USSR. The basic indices of these associations, industries, and organizations were included in the five-year and one-year plans of the Ukrainian SSR.

The Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR supervised the implementation of the plans by all the ministries of the Ukrainian SSR, by their subordinate enterprises and oblast executive committees, and, finally, by the lower executive committees.

The Council of Ministers had the power to reverse the decisions and orders of the executive committees of oblast and city soviets, the ministries and departments of the Ukrainian SSR, and their subordinate agencies.

In theory the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR was a collegial body in which important questions were decided by a majority vote. Yet most matters were decided by the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, because ministers were hardly qualified to judge issues outside their fields. An agency of the USSR government known as the Office for the Affairs of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR (Kerivnytstvo spravamy RM URSR) prepared the questions that were to be considered by the council.

The following were chairmen of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR: Nikita Khrushchev (1946–7), Demian Korotchenko (1947–54), Nykyfor Kalchenko (1954–61), Volodymyr Shcherbytsky (1961–3 and 1965–72), Ivan Kazanets (1963–5), Oleksander Liashko (1972–87), Vitalii Masol (1987–90), and Vitold Fokin (1990–92), who in 1992 became head of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Nothing was published on the inner discussions of the council. The resolutions and decrees of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR were published in Zbirnyk postanov i rozporiadzhen' uriadu URSR (The Collection of Decisions and Decrees of the Government of the Ukrainian SSR), which came out in Ukrainian and Russian.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Istoriia derzhavy i prava Ukraïns'koï RSR, 1917–1960 (Kyiv 1961)
Barabashev, G.; Sheremet, K. Sovetskoe stroitel'stvo (Moscow 1965)
Kozlov, Iu. (ed). Istoriia derzhavy i prava Ukraïns'koï RSR, 1917- 1967, 1–2 (Kyiv 1967)
Kravchuk, S. (ed). Gosudarstvennoe pravo SSSR (Moscow 1967)
Muksinov, I. Sovet Ministrov soiuznoi respubliki (Moscow 1969)
Konstytutsiia SRSR (Kyiv 1979)
Konstytutsiia URSR (Kyiv 1979)

 Andrii Bilynsky, Borys Levytsky

[This article was updated in 2024.]