Production conference (виробнича нарада; vyrobnycha narada). A formal organizational unit of workers and managers in Soviet enterprises. The purpose of such bodies was to increase worker and community involvement in industrial management, improve labor discipline, and raise productivity. They were introduced in the 1920s, but almost all were dissolved under Joseph Stalin’s regime. In the late 1950s, production conferences were set up in all enterprises and offices with over 300 employees. They were administered by trade-union committees and the Communist Party. They met at least four times a year and could rule on a wide range of issues, but in practice they did little but rubber-stamp management decisions. In 1977 almost 21,000 of the total 130,000 production conferences in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were located in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]