#workers guild

• Artel — A historical form of cooperative association or autonomous production guild, specific to the Russian Empire and later the early Soviet period, in which members (artisans, fishermen, peasants, or laborers) voluntarily united to carry out a common economic activity. Within an artel, labor was collective, income was distributed according to contribution or agreement, and members shared joint liability for the obligations assumed, a model occasionally imported into neighboring areas or referenced in period economic literature.