ABSTRACT
The mandatory rules of the legal provisions regulating any given type of contract have the force of contract terms, regardless of whether they are reproduced in a specific contract or not. Examined from the viewpoint of legal regulation, exchange in the USSR is based upon contracts of many different kinds. Legally, exchange can be implemented only by means of contracts. It is true that a centralized economy cannot function without "vertical" relations in which one participant commands and another performs. An analysis of economic contracts must concentrate on planned contracts, i.e. those the execution of which relies on appropriate planning prerequisites. Planned economic contracts differ from ordinary contracts not only in the way they are concluded but also in the method by which the identity of the contractual parties is determined and in the time periods during which these contracts are to retain their force.
