Lenins Economy 1918-21 Flashcards
What did Lenin believe about the economy?
What were his objectives?
Lenin (Marxist) believed economic revolution was essential to building socialism.
- MODERNISATION: socialism required the construction of a highly advanced economy
- CONSOLIDATION: he needed economic stability to help retain his hold on power
- MILITARY VICTORY: needed the economy to supply the Red Army during the Civil War
- DESTROY CAPITALISM: Lenin wanted to create an economy more efficient than capitalism and that ended inequality
What impact did Lenin’s different priorities have on the evolution of his economic policy?
They shaped them.
Often he had to put immediate PRAGMATIC goals above long term IDEOLOGICAL goals
Marx and the economy?
Marx baby hadn’t set out a detailed description of how a socialist economy would work
^^^ a key problem facing Lenin.
Marx argued that a socialist economy would be:
• highly advanced
• organised according to ‘a common plan’
BUT • argues that it was impossible to describe the future in detail
The nationalisation of industry?
Lenin began from March 1918
It was at the heart of his economic policy from 1918-24
What was state capitalism?
Lenin introduced March 1918: argued it was an economic phase between capitalism and socialism.
Based on the nationalisation of large-scale industry—> Nationalisation ended capitalism by passing the ownership of industry from capitalists to the new state.
What did Lenin hope nationalisation would do?
State capitalism
Lead to greater efficiency: government could employ EXPERTS to run the economy.
Control of the nationalised industries was then centralised by the VESENKHA— would:
- re-establish worker DISCIPLINE— offering higher pay to productive workers
- ensure factories were properly MANAGED: placing them under the control of well-paid specialists
- CO-ORDINATE economic production to meet the needs of the new society.
Why War Communism?
State capitalism always intended to be a temporary measure
Start of the Civil War (summer of 1918)—> emergency economic measures
Ensure Communist victory.
What was War Communism?
A series of emergency economic measures because of the Civil War:
1) NATIONALISATION of all industry
2) FOOD DICTATORSHIP: free market in grain abolished. Grain forcibly requisitioned from peasants, rationed by the Supply Commissariat: Workers and soldiers for the largest; the smaller were given to members of the bourgeois
3) LABOUR DISCIPLINE: Lenin introduced 11h working day, compulsory work for all able bodied men 16-50
4) abolition of the MARKET: money became worthless due to hyperinflation and then formally abolished. Private trade? Illegal. (Bartering)
What were the consequences of War Communism?
✅military victory ❌economic ruin:
— destroyed incentives to work: peasants and workers not rewarded SO economic CATASTROPHE
• by 1920: famine in countryside. 1921 harvest: 46% of 1913 one— deaths of around 6m
• workers fled the cities in search of food. Industrial workforce declined from 2.6m 1917 to 1.2m early 1921
Soooooooo the economic crisis of 1921 led to major economic reform: the NEP
