NEP + New World Flashcards
When was. the Tenth Party Congress?
8-16 March 1921
What were the most pressing concerns that lead to the NEP?
Pacifying workers greivances and finding an incentive for the peasantry to produce more grain.
Lenin on the NEP: “The national economy must be put back
on its feet at all costs. The first thing to do is to restore, consolidate and improve peasant farming.”
What did the NEP entail?
Grain requisitioning was abandoned and replaced by a ta in kind. Peasants could keep surplus and sell their produce. Famine devastated areas were exempt from the new year. Tax in kind remained until 1924 until it was replaced by tax in money.
Markets and private trading were legalised. Foreign trade resumes. Trade agreement signed with Britain in 1922.
Rationing and distribution of food by the government was phased out, as well as other free public transport.
New currency introduced, inflation bought under control.
Militarised aspects of workplace conditions were abandoned.
Which sectors remained government enterprises under the NEP?
Banking, transport sector, and heavy industries such as mining and metallurgy. Return to State Capitalism.
“Lenin always insisted that the New Economic Policy introduced in 1921
was really the old economic policy of 1918, but he never attempted to disguise the fact that it was a large-scale retreat, another breathing-space, a Brest-Litovsk on the economic front.” Christopher Hill
Lenin on the NEP: “The chief thing the people want today is nothing but
help in their desperate hunger and need…We were unable to introduce direct communist distribution. We lacked the factories and equipment for this. That being the case, we must provide the peasants with what they need through the medium of trade, and provide it as as well as the capitalist did, otherwise the people will not tolerate such an administration.”
Who led the Workers Opposition? What did they stand for?
Alexandra Kollontai, Aleksander Shylyapnikov. Critical of placing non-Communist experts in charge of factories, called for greater involvement of the proles in running of industry, control over economy should be handed over to an authority elected and directed by the trade unions, concerns over increasing bureaucratisation.
Argued NEP was a surrender to peasantry, argued Bolsheviks were loosing touch with their supporters.
Who was another faction against the NEP?
Democratic Centralists
How did Lenin respond to opponents to the NEP?
Accused those who called for union control of the economy were anarcho-syndicalists.
Said they were too idealistic to be taken seriously.
When was ‘On Anarcho-Syndicalist Deviation’ released? What did it entail?
16 March 1921. Declared that the demands of opposition factions were inconsistent with membership of Communist Party; continued advancement would be made illegal.
When was ‘On Party Unity’ released?
16 March 1921.
Banned factions within the party, individuals could still voice their ideas, however opposition platforms were to be disbanded.
Who were the NEPmen?
People who made profits and flourished under the NEP.
What were impacts of the NEP?
Strikes dramatically reduced from 1922, Countryside makes considerable advances, grain production rose to similar levels of 1903-13, livestock surpassed pre-war levels, crop diversity increases, rural sector began to produce more than the manufacturing sector.
By what year did cultivated acreage in Russia matched that of pre-war levels?
1927
Which export surpassed that of tsarist times?
Oil
What did Lenin believe was the key to overcoming the backwardness of the country side?
Electricity
