4 - War Communism and NEP 1918 - 1921

Question 1

Why was the main reason as to why War Communism introduced?

Answer 1

1. To help the Reds win the Civil War

2. To tighten gov control over agriculture and force the peasants to provide more food

Question 2

How did Lenin approach religion during the war communism period?

Answer 2

1. He promoted atheism as the new state belief system

2. He prohibited public worship, ordered churches to be closed and arrested clergy

Question 3

What was the decree of nationalisation?

Answer 3

The first step towards War Communism in June 1918, in which all major industrial enterprises in Russia came under central government control

Question 4

How effect was the decree of nationalisation?

Answer 4

Not effective. it did nothing to increase production and increase economic growth as:

1. Military needs (civil war) were given priority in distribution of supplies,so industries lacked essential resources
2. Factories were deprived of workers due to Red Army conscription and inhabitants leaving urban areas in search for food or to escape fighting
3. Hyperinflation continued

Question 5

Give evidence to indicate a decreasing population between the years 1918 and 1921?

Answer 5

Between 1918 and 1921, the pops of Petrograd and Moscow had dropped by a half

Question 6

Give a statistic to suggest that War Communism did nothing to increase production

Answer 6

Industrial output for coal in 1913: 29 millions of tonnes

Industrial output for coal in 1921: 8.9 millions of tonnes

Question 7

How did the government explain the peasants resistance to central government?

Answer 7

They blamed it on the ‘kulaks’ who were accused of hoarding grain stocks to keep prices artificially high

Question 8

What was the reality of peasants resistance to central government?

Answer 8

The peasants resisted as they saw no point in producing more food until government, who had become the main grain purchaser, would pay a fair price for it

Question 9

How did the Bolsheviks respond to the peasants resistance to conform problem?

Answer 9

1. Between 1918 to 1921, They sent cheka requisitioning units to terrorise the public and take the grain by force.
2. On Lenin’s orders,100 kulaks were to be hanged in upublic to scare public into giving grain, o

Question 10

How effective was grain requisitioning?

Answer 10

Not very effective as:
- Even less food became available due to fact that peasants, knowing any surplus would be confiscated, produced only for them and their families

Question 11

How did the Bolsheviks explain low grain production, even after the requisitioning?

Answer 11

They still blamed it on grain hoarding

Question 12

What was a MAJOR consequence war communism?

Answer 12

The famine in 1921

Question 13

Give evidence to show that the famine was BAD

Answer 13

1. Grain harvests of 1920 and 1921 was producing less than half that gathered in 1913
2. Even Pravda had to admit that 1 in 5 were starving
3. Bolsheviks had to admit there was a famine, to achieve foreign assistance (USA provided food for 10 million Russians
4. Over 5 million died due to starvation during the civil war period

Question 14

Why did Bukharin support War Communism?

Answer 14

Bukharin saw War Communism as true socialism in action as it involved:

1. Centralisation of industry
2. Ending of private ownership
3. Persecution of the peasants

Question 15

What convinced Lenin to ditch War Communism?

Answer 15

1. The failure of the economy to recover
2. The Scale of the Famine
3. Widespread anti-Bolshevik risings in 1920-21 e.g. Kronstadt risings (1921)

Question 16

Who were the ‘workers opposition’?

Answer 16

A group, led by 2 leading Bolsheviks, that protested against the excesses of War Communism

Question 17

How did the Kronstadt rising start?

Answer 17

Thousands of workers, influenced by workers opposition, crossed to naval base of kronstadt and demonstrated their fight for greater freedom to sailors/dockers that helped defend Bolsheviks during Oct Rev

Question 18

What demands were included in the kronstadt Manifesto?

Answer 18

1. Freedom of speech
2. Trade union rights
3. New elections to soviets, to be held by secret ballow

Question 19

Why did the Kronstadt uprising scare the Bolsheviks?

Answer 19

The workers/sailors of Kronstadt were the great supporters of Bolsheviks in 1917, indicating the extent in which the regime betrayed the workers

Question 20

How did the Bolsheviks defeat the Kronstadt rising?

Answer 20

The Red Army general, General Tukhavchevsky, sent 30,000 Red army troops into the Kronstadt base, where savage fighting occurred until they were finally overcome
- After the suppression, the ringleaders and rebels that escaped were executed

Question 21

What was the NEP intended to do?

Answer 21

It was intended to meet Russia’s need for food and therefore, lessen the opposition to Bolshevisk

Question 22

What were the 5 main agreements in the NEP?

Answer 22

1- Central economic control to be relaxed by allowing more decisions to be taken at a local level
2- Grain requisitioning to be abandoned and replaced by a tax in kind (giving grain equivalent to fixed sum of money)
3- Peasants were allowed to keep food surpluses and sell them for a profit
4- Public markets restored
5- Money to be reintroduced as means of trading, replacing inefficient practice of bartering

Question 23

Why were some Bolsheviks unsatisfied with the NEP?

Answer 23

Because it went against the idea of ‘state control of the economy’

Question 24

What did the Bolsheviks still maintain control over, during the NEP? (according to Lenin)

Answer 24

‘Large-scale industries, banking and foreign trade’

Question 25

What did the adoption of the NEP show about the Bolshevik gov, since 1917?

Answer 25

It showed that, since 1917, they had been unable to create a successful economy along purely ideological lines

Question 26

What was Trotsky’s main argument against the NEP?

Answer 26

Trotsky argued that the reintroduction of money and private trading was creating a new class of profiteers; Nepmen

Question 27

How did Lenin try to legally prevent opposition to NEP?

Answer 27

In 1921, He passed a ‘decree on party unity’, which banned factionalism
- This made it harder for groups to come together and challenge the NEP