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
Lenin, with Leonid Krasin “Electricity will take the place of God.
Let the peasant pray to electricity; he’s going to feel the power of the central authorities more than that of heaven.”
What did H.G Wells say of Lenin in October 1920?
“Lenin, who like a good Marxist, denounces all “utopians”, has succumbed at last to utopia, the utopia of electricians.”
When did Lenin oversee the creation of a State Commission for the Electrification of Russia? What did it do?
1920
Set out a long term strategy for the country’s electric infrastructure.
Whe was the State General Planning Commission set up and what was its purpose?
February 1921.
To worker in accordance with Vesenkha to oversee management of industry.
What did Lenin say in June 1921 would bring about socialism?
Electrification and expansion of large scale industry to modernise farming.
What was the electricity output in Russia (million kilowatts) in 1913?
What was it in 1924? What was it in 1926?
1945
1562
3508
When had electricity surpassed levels of 1913?
1925
How many gold roubles had been invested in the electrification program?
One billion
“By the end of the 1920s, the Soviet people enjoyed greater security, better health care
higher literacy, better nutrition, greater social mobility, and more social equality than most of them had ever experienced…For the Bolsheviks it was a retreat, a detour, but for millions of Soviet citizens it was a time of relative peace and steady improvement in their lives. “ Ron Suny
What was the scissors crisis?
Factories struggled to produce sufficient amounts of goods while country increased output
Price remained high for manufactured goods, grain became cheaper.
This was feared peasantry would be reluctant to trade, using reduction in crops.
How was the scissors crisis solved?
Price controls in the industrial and manufacturing sectors.
When had formal bans on Mensheviks and SRs been removed respectively? What was the result?
November 1918
February 1919
Some members had taken posts in administration.
What led to a crackdown on Mensheviks and SRs?
Supported the 1921 strikes in Petrograd and Moscow.
How were Mensheviks suppressed after they supported protests in 1921?
Declared illegal.
2000 arrested following Tenth Party Congress.
From when were show trials held?
June-August 1922
What where SRs accused of when brought to show trials?
Accused of plotting terrorist acts, counter revolution, collusion with White generals and organising strikes.
When were Nestor Makhno’s insurgents suppressed?
Late 1920
How many Red soldiers went to Tambov? Who was defeated there?
50,000
Aleksandr Antonov
When had the last of the Green movements been stamped out?
August 1921
When had Lenin directed the Cheka to examine academic and literary journal to search for “overt counter revolutionaries” and “corruptors of student youth”?
May 1922
How many intellectuals were imprisoned in September 1922? What happened to others?
120 intellectuals
Most later deported to Germany of France
Who were three famous emigres of the Russian revolution?
Maxim Gorky in October 1921
Vladimir Nabokov
Sergei Rachmaninov
What was the Cheka replaced with in February 1922?
State Political Administration (GPU) new branch of the Commissariat of the Interior
How were crimes dealt with from February 1922?
Ordinary crimes dealt with by Commissariat of Justice, crimes against state, espionage and counter revolution were the jurisdiction of the political police.
Until when was the GPU subordinate to the Commissariat of the Interior?
July 1923
What was the GPU renamed in 1923? How had its position changed?
United State Political Administration (OGPU).
Granted status of independent People’s Commissariat/
Retain work of Cheka, decline in executions and extreme elements of police terror.
Surveillance and spies increase.
