1.2 State control of industry and agriculture

Question 1

What can the successful rise in industrial output during NEP be attributed to? (4)

Answer 1

• repairing roads and bridges that had been damaged during civil war
• putting existing factories back into production
• better harvests in 1922 and 23
• much of growth due to Nepmen, who saw the return of private trade as an opportunity to set up small businesses and make money

Question 2

Failures/problems with NEP (4)

Answer 2

• corruption through black market flourished (prostitution, child gangs)
• imbalance between agricultural and industrial goods, because as food prices fell, the price for industrial goods rose
• the low prices for grain discouraged peasants from growing food for market (called ‘scissor crisis’ by Trotsky)
• but government stepped in to regulate prices in 1923

Question 3

industrial production 1924 figures

Answer 3

45 percent of its 1913 figure

Question 4

key to further growth 1926 onwards

Answer 4

increasing food production in order to support more industrial workers and gain foreign exchange for new technology and machinery

Question 5

who called for a continuation of NEP? (2)

Answer 5

• bukharin

- stalin, was able to outmanoeuvre the left in 1926 and NEP stayed, but he later changed his mind

Question 6

who called for greater state control over economy?

Answer 6

Trotsky and those on the left of Bolshevik party

Question 7

what were events that raised the USSR’s fear of an invasion in 1927? (2)

Answer 7

• raid by british government on the offices of the Soviet trade mission in london
• attacks on chinese communists in shanghai

Question 8

Potential benefits of state control (4)

Answer 8

• state control under the proposed five-year plan would enable the government to direct the economy and ensure increased production and distribution of essential materials
• state control would ensure that the soviet unions resources were used to their full potential to bring about rapid industrialization
• would remove nepmen and kulaks through five-year plan
• would give stalin an opportunity to concentrate his hold over the party leadership, he could remove the right as he had done to the left in 1926

Question 9

Why did Stalin want to get rid of NEP by 1928?

Answer 9

stalin argued that it was holding back the industrialization of the soviet union

Question 10

what year was command economy implemented?

Answer 10

1928

Question 11

To what extent were war communism and the NEP sucessful?

Answer 11

• both had suceeded in their aims, but at the expense of either popular support or of the communist ideals of the revolution