Industrial and agricultural change: Lenin Flashcards
What was the economy like before the October revolution?
- Economy was in chaos due to the War and relied on an outdated system
What was “State Capitalism”?
- Transitional stage between capitalism from the Tsarist period into a proletariat economy, mainly used to stabilise the destroyed economy from the war etc
- Bourgeoisie had experience and expertise surrounding how to run things better than the workers and general proletariat did, so the Bolsheviks had to use them until Bolshevik experts were able to
- With this came the fear of loss of security and control from the Bolsheviks as the workers and peasants would be acting on their own accord
What were the initial key measures in Lenin’s economic policy and did they work?
Land decree of October 1917
- Abolished private ownership of land which the peasants and workers took as a right for them to control the lands that they worked
Decree on workers’ control in November 1917
- Placed the control of the factories into the hands of the workers
- December 1917 all banks were nationalised and combined into the People’s bank of the Russia Republic
Worker’s councils gave themselves huge pay rises which didn’t improve production and resulted in inflation, while superiors were all sacked out of revenge leaving no structure
Because of this the Vasenkha was set up In December 1917 to supervise the economy
Why was War Communism introduced?
- Red army needed to be supplied with enough food and resources, which entailed heavier government intervention within
- Could’ve been the Bolsheviks implementing their will and vision for the future of communist Russia
- More likely just a result of inflation and economic turmoil post war and pre-civil war
- Could also have been needed as a correction from the previously idealistic and unworkable elements that the party had introduced
What were the key features of War Communism?
- Nationalisation of all industry without compensation
- All industry controlled by the Vasenkha
- Reintroduction of hierarchical structures back into factories
- Harsh military style discipline introduced into factories, while workers were expected to do a lot more for the “communist cause”
- All private trading was banned, the government being the only way to limit prices ad determine worth of goods - led to a large black market
- Bartering heavily implemented instead of using money, due to inflation
- Forcible requisitioning of food from peasants and farms became common to supply the red army, 150,000 Bolsheviks were used to seize grain - led to severe tensions and outbreaks of violence while starvation and malnutrition became rampant
- Rationing gave those in cities and the army preferential treatment
Ensured victory for the red army at the cost of morale and the economy, industrial production of the 1921 dropping to a fifth of that in 1913
Why was the NEP introduced?
- Communist hopes and idealism had been forgotten with the introduction of war communism, which led to its discontinuation and the introduction of the NEP
- Food production had fallen to half of its previous numbers from 1913 and this led to famine and disease from which over 20 million died from in the 1920s
- War communism and all its features were unpopular
- Tambov Rising where 50,000 red army soldiers had to be sent in to deal with a peasant revolt after food requisitioning was attempted
- Kronstradt Mutiny occurred when a group of sailors mutinied at the Kronstradt naval base protesting the increasing power of the party at the expense of the workers
What were the key features of the NEP?
An attempt to move away from the tight state controlled economy introduced in the civil war
Agriculture
- End to food requisitioning, replaced with a taxation system which allowed peasants to profit off of excess
- No forced collectivisation of agriculture leaving more freedom to the peasants
Industry
- Returned small scale industry to private hands, while keeping control of heavy industry, banks and transport
- In state controlled factories perks of capitalism such as bonuses were introduced as incentive to improve production
- Re introduction of a currency so wages could be paid
- legalisation of private trade so the huge black market would start to decrease
- Introduction of a newer class of people who profited heavily off of the NEP
Seen as a major step back to capitalism by communists, however the NEP was needed to correct the situation and was only seen as a temporary solution that would be reverted once stability had occurred
How successful was the NEP?
- Industrial output increased
- Businesses such as restaurants and small shops in cities started opening
- Better harvests in 1922 and 1923
- Corruption through black markets flourished, prostitution was widespread and gangs of children committing crimes
- Imbalance of industrial and agricultural prices meant that farmers were less inclined to grow more food
- Government had to intervene and regulate prices
