6-economic policy Flashcards
what were the three stages of the economic policy’s?
STATE CAPITALISM, WAR COMMUNISM AND NEW ECONOMIC POLICY
what was the point of state capitalism?
This was in place between 1917 and 1918 because lenin recognised that a backwards economy was not the right conditions to enforce a socialist one and as well, lenin predicted a workers revolution all throughout europe following russia
pros of state capitalism?
it was practical as it allowed people who knew how to run private businesses to continue and was a good system to repair the current economy
cons of state capitalism?
it was completely the opposite of what the bolsheviks stood for and although it involved some nationalisation of banks so that the vasenka could regulate it, it was not to the extent that marxists would hope
why was war communism adopted?
state capitalism was not able to be effective in a war time economy
when was war communism put in place?
july 1918-1921
features of war communism?
-nationalisation of all industries
- grain requisitioning
-conscription
what did grain requisitioning include?
-cheka requisitioning units were sent into the countryside to take grain by force
-A group known as the kulaks were particularly targeted. Even Lenin sent a letter in 1920 stating that 100 kulaks were to be killed in public in order to terrify the population “for hundreds of miles around”
-The B party made up rumours that peasants were hoarding grain in order to keep the prices artificially high. This was likely not true as the peasantry saw that they could not make profit off of making extra grain due to the collapsed currency and therefore made enough grain for just their family
what was the effect of nationalisation?
-industry slumped as the bolsheviks were not very good at managing business
-people left the factories for fear of conscription too and went out of the cities in order to avoid this and to find food
how did the bs control people living cities?
They increased the prices of train tickets and created internal passports
what happened in the 1921 famine?
-even the newspaper pravda admitted that 1 in 5 people were starving
-the ARA which came from the us provided food for 10 million russian however they were too late and 5 million russian people starved to death and they were withdrawn from russia in 1923 after spending $60 million in relief work
-people were reported to be resorting to cannibalism
how was war communism enforced?
lenin targeted the orthodox church because of marxist theology that capitalism was inherently in-forced through religion among other things and wrote in 1922 letter that people should shoot priests-“the more the better”
what was the bolshevik opinion of war communism?
-generally people saw this system as a permanent system as the party’s leading economists Bukharin and Preobrazensky argued that it was true socialism
what was the overall effect of war communism?
it created a lot of opposition and was described to be a hand to mouth policy
why was NEP introduced?
in order to quell peasants discontent, recuperate after the famine, to gain popularity and to fix russias economy
what was the features of nep?
introducing a mixed economy, end requisitioning and introducing a grain tax, legalise private enterprise, key industries were still under gov control but they had to be profitable
what were some impacts of nep?
-it came too late to stop the famine, agriculture sprung back quickly and industry slowly improved (scissor crisis)
-ban on factions
-rebrand of cheka as gpu
give me some stats on the scissor crisis!
grain harvest in millions of tons went from 37 to 50 in a year
what was the ban on factions?
removal of those who didn’t like the new economic policy in the bolshevik party
who were the nep men? what happened to them?
nep men were dudes who profited profusely off of the new economic policy and they were harassed by the gpu in order for people to remain calm in the fact that capitalism was staying at bay
what was the overall impact of nep?
recovery of the economy, class divisions and ban of factionalism
