ABSTRACT
It is difficult for a Westerner to comprehend the extent of state ownership in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Constitution lists the following as state property: land, mineral wealth, water, and forests, the principal means of production in industry, construction, and agriculture, the means of transportation and communication, the property of trade, communal, and other enterprises set up by the state, and the principal housing stock. Transportation and communication systems are owned by the state. This includes all railroads, airlines, bus companies, postal services, telephone and telegraph lines, longshore operations, trucking, and taxi fleets; everything except some recently allowed individually owned taxis. Hotels, apartment houses, theaters, movie houses, stadiums, and all kinds of urban buildings, except for some single-family dwellings and tool sheds, are also owned by the state. In the countryside the situation is different: private dwellings prevail, and many nonprivate ones are owned by collective farms rather than by the state.
