Kozhsindikat (the All-Union Leather Syndicate) was established in 1922 with the aim of uniting the state leather industry and trade and competing with private dealers in the market for raw hides and finished goods. Under the NEP, rapidly growing demand for leather footwear, horse harness, and machine drive belts brought Kozhsindikat to one of the leading positions in Soviet trade.
The VKS began operations on April 1, 1922. Its charter was approved by the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the National Economy on April 13, 1922. It was organized to coordinate product sales, as well as the financial, material, and technical supply of associations and enterprises of the state leather industry. Members of the syndicate included: enterprises and associations of state industry, joint-stock companies, cooperative and private enterprises in the leather sector.
The syndicate operated in the following areas: acceptance of army and other mandatory state orders and their allocation among syndicate members and other state enterprises not included in the syndicate; acceptance of other orders and their allocation among syndicate members by agreement with the syndicate; coordination of members’ trading activities in the setting of prices and the organization of sales; coordination of procurement activities; organization of imports; provision of legal and arbitration assistance to its members. By the end of the 1920s, output of enterprises in the syndicated industry accounted for more than half of Russia’s entire leather industry.
A postal-advertising stamp is a type of postage stamp which, alongside paying for mail, is also used for advertising purposes. Regular stamps from standard issues were affixed to a label carrying an advertisement.
During the period of the so-called New Economic Policy (NEP), a course was proclaimed toward broad use of commodity-money relations and the development of entrepreneurship while keeping management of the national economy in the hands of the state. In the course of that restructuring, trusts and syndicates were created. Advertising was enlisted to serve their needs.
To act as an intermediary between state trade-and-industrial enterprises and the public, and to unify all advertising and publishing activity of the postal and telegraph authority, on August 27, 1923 the “Advertising, Publishing and Commercial Agency under the People’s Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs (NKPiT)” was established, abbreviated as the “Svyaz Agency” under the NKPiT.
Postal-advertising stamps were issued in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Rostov-on-Don, Simferopol, and Samara during 1923–1926 and remained in circulation until the end of the 1920s. The advertising label was printed separately from the stamp and gummed on the reverse side. As a rule, the label size was 40 × 55 mm. It provided a special place for affixing a stamp, and an advertising text and illustration were printed on it. They were produced by lithography in several colors, with a blank area for attaching the postage stamp. They had line perforation. The edges of sheets were usually not perforated, so marginal stamps have no perforation on one side, and corner stamps on two sides. In the margins, as a rule, imprint information was printed: the name of the publisher (the Svyaz Agency), the printing house, the “litho” or order number, the print run, and some other details. All postal-advertising stamps had adhesive on the reverse side.
Postal-advertising stamps were sold at post offices with postage stamps already affixed in accordance with the current rates. The list of post offices where such stamps were sold was determined by the advertising customer. Sixty-three issues of postal-advertising stamps are known.
Many issues intended for major advertising campaigns, tobacco trusts and factories, Sovtorgflot, Soyuzflot, the State Laboratory Supply Administration of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR, Farfortrest, Avtopromtorg, the Moscow Machine Trust, the concession firm “Ball Bearing,” Kozhsindikat, and others were printed in runs from 50,000 to 800,000 copies.
On May 18, 1927, by a resolution of the Council of Labor and Defense, the commercial Svyaz Agency under the NKPiT was dissolved. This was connected with the winding down of the NEP. However, advertising regulations remained in force until October 27, 1928, up to the issuance of a new advertising instruction, and the stamps remaining in stock continued to enter postal circulation until fully used up.