Publishing houses in the Soviet Union were a series of publishing enterprises which existed in the Soviet Union.
On 8 August 1930, the Sovnarkom of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) established the state publishing monopoly, OGIZ (ОГИЗ, Объединение государственных книжно-журнальных издательств, Union of the State Book and Magazine Publishers), subordinated to Sovnarkom. At its core was the former Gosizdat. Other union republics followed the same pattern.
During the era of centralization[when?] the names of the most publishers contained the acronym "гиз" ("giz") standing for "государственное издательство" (gosudarstvennoye izdatelstvo, i.e., "State Publisher", S.P.).
As of 1 January 1930, there were 995 publishers in the RSFSR alone.[1]