They began centuries ago but were especially prevalent from the time of the emancipation of the Russian serfs (1861) through the 1950s.
Artels were semiformal associations for craft, artisan, and light industrial enterprises.
In a 1918 article on Russian education and social structures (as of the late period of the Russian Empire, just before the Soviet Union took shape), Manya Gordon described the artel as follows:[1] The Artel (association) is another term for the collective ownership and operation of industry.
This association had a membership of 15,000 to 20,000 men whose work was carried on under conditions of absolute equality.
As a rule, small groups of men engaged in active labor organize themselves into an Artel.
In that case, by general agreement the wealthier members of the Artel, who supply the necessary implements, receive extra recompense for their property.
By the 1960s, Soviet reality had mostly killed the original spirit of the artel institution, such that in Yuri Krotkov's 1967 memoir, the term artel is defined for English-language readers in a footnote as "a small workshop, ostensibly co-operative, but actually under government control.