Industry and Agriculture under Lenin

Question 1

What were the 4 phases of industry and agriculture?

Answer 1

• Workers control
• State capitalism
• War communism
• NEP

Question 2

Workers/peasant control (1)

Answer 2

• Initial decrees: land, workers control
• Ideological, gained peasant/worker support
• Problems: less expertise and leadership in factories, less efficient/productive. Needed factories to produce more in civil war

Question 3

State capitalism (2)

Answer 3

• 1918
• Major industries remained in private hands but under state control
• Allowed the economy to recover: the expertise that was needed
• Backtracked on communism within a year (pragmatic solution)
• Unpopular

Question 4

War communism (3)

Answer 4

• Mid 1918
• Nationalisation of all industries
• Forced grain requisitioning to supply cities/armed forces
• Justified by the civil war
  -No incentive: all workers receive the same amount of goods

Question 5

What was the NEP? (4)

Answer 5

• Introduced 1921
• Result of Peasants war against communist requisitioning and Kronstadt mutiny: ‘to rescue the soviets from communist party control’ (1921 party congress)
• Political clampdown (no factions)
• More economic freedom (sell food in markets etc)

Question 6

How many died in the great famine? (4)

Answer 6

5 million

Question 7

What were the causes of the great famine? (4)

Answer 7

Drought (especially in Ukraine), years of war and grain requisitioning

Question 8

What were the Russian people forced to eat during the great famine? (4)

Answer 8

• Weeds
• Bark
• Acorns
• Human flesh

Question 9

Why was NEP introduced? (4)

Answer 9

• Economic reasons: workers might work harder with incentive
• Unpopularity of war communism: wanted to regain support from people of Russia
• Tambov rising and Kronstadt munity

Question 10

What was tax in kind?

Answer 10

• Peasants could buy/sell/produce freely
• Replaced grain requisitioning
• Producers pay gov a proportion of what they make, rather than paying in money (due to inflation/low value of cash)

Question 11

What was a mixed economy?

Answer 11

• NEP ended war communism
• Capitalist and socialist elements
• Some state control, some economic freedom (private profit)

Question 12

What was profiteering?

Answer 12

• Making money through illegal trade
• Should only make profit if you’ve made the product, not selling it on

Question 13

What was the industrial growth?

Answer 13

• Levels of production under the Tsar 1913-1917 and war communism 1918-1921 were decreasing
• Increased when NEP was introduced
• 1926-1928 industrial economy plateaued as taxing peasants failed to provide the money necessary to build new large-scale factories

Question 14

When was the scissors crisis?

Answer 14

Mid 1922-1923

Question 15

What was the scissors crisis?

Answer 15

• Triggered by NEP
• Food prices fell, shortages in industrial/manufactured goods caused it
• On a graph looks like open pair of scissors

Question 16

What was the impact of the scissors crisis?

Answer 16

Farmers received little for their surplus food crops: could not purchase manufactured goods (couldn’t afford it)

Question 17

What was the solution to the scissors crisis?

Answer 17

• Price controls
• Forcing down industrial costs
• Cracking down of profiteering traders
• Partially resolved the scissors crisis