The article is devoted to the legal regulation of the procurement activities of individual economic entities in Soviet legislation, and to identifying, through a retrospective analysis, its influence on the modern procurement activities. By analyzing the approaches to the organization of procurement within the framework of Soviet legislation, the author demonstrates the continuity and influence of the past experience on modern procurement legislation. Special attention is paid to the features of the organization of tenders during the New Economic Policy (NEP), the consequences of abandoning them, and the formation of a centralized system of planned distribution.