An artel was any of several kinds of cooperative association of workers in pre-revolutionary Russia, and in the Soviet Union the term was applied to production cooperatives, a form that flourished from the emancipation of the Russian serfs in 1861 through the 1950s. Artels were semi-formal groups organized around craft, artisan and light industrial work, whose members often worked away from home in shared living arrangements and split earnings through informal verbal agreements, frequently in equal shares; seasonal trades such as fishing, hunting, crop harvesting, logging and foraging were typical artel activities. The term largely fell out of use during the 1960s to 1980s as the Soviet state came to monopolize the economy, and while modern Russia has no formal legal definition of an artel as a business structure, some present day companies, particularly in industries historically associated with artels, still use the word in their names. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Core MechanismAn artel operated as a semiformal association of craft, artisan or seasonal workers who pooled their labor and often lived together as a commune while working, dividing payment for completed jobs by verbal agreement, commonly in equal shares, under an elected Elder who supervised the work and accounts. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia, Artel
Lead paragraph, on semiformal worker associations and equal-share payQuote, Lead paragraph, on semiformal worker associations and equal-share pay
Artels were semiformal associations for craft, artisan, and light industrial enterprises. Often artel members worked far from home and lived as a commune. Payment for a completed job was distributed according to verbal agreements, quite often in equal shares.
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