State Committee
USSR state committees were different from the ministries in that a state committee was primarily responsible for several branches of governance as opposed to the one specific area for which a ministry was solely responsible. Therefore, many state committees had jurisdiction over certain common activities conducted by ministries such as the research and development, standardization, planning, building construction, state security, publishing, archiving and so on. In that sense, state committees were supersized ministries. At times the distinction between a ministry and a state committee could be obscure as in the case of the Committee for State Security (KGB).
State committees were instrumental in keeping the vast Soviet economic system coherent and integrated until it began falling apart in the late 1980-s.
Read more about this topic: Council Of Ministers (Soviet Union), Structure and Organisation
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