NEP and Industrialisation (10)

Question 1

From 1921 give one reason why the Party was badly split?

Answer 1

Was split over economic policy

Question 2

When did Lenin introduce the NEP?

Answer 2

In 1921

Question 3

Why was the NEP a radical divergence from Marxist theory?

Answer 3

Because it allowed private enterprise to continue, in contradiction of revolutionary socialism.

Question 4

What did Lenin say about the NEP in 1921?

Answer 4

He said that the NEP was a necessary compromise, to implemented “seriously and for a long time”.

Question 5

Why did Lenin’s successors have to grapple with Lenin’s thought about the NEP?

Answer 5

Because was it a temporary tactic to be discarded as soon as possible? Or was it permissible, given the backward conditions of Russia, to stick to the NEP to build the economy as a precursor to full socialism?

Question 6

Who wanted to abandon the NEP?

Answer 6

Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. (The Left)

Question 7

Who believed the NEP should continue?

Answer 7

Rykov, Tomsky and Bukharin (The Right)

Question 8

What was Stalin’s attitudes towards the NEP?

Answer 8

He was inconsistent, fluctuating from a left-leaning position up to 1925, then support for the continuance of the NEP up to 1928, finally switching back in 1928 to 1929 to a policy of replacing the NEP with a revolutionary surge towards rapid industrialisation and collectivisation of agriculture.