The crisis of 1921 Flashcards
By early 1921, the Communists had…but…
won the Civil War but it had created political and economic crisis.
What was the Tambov rising?
- From autumn 1920, peasants in Tambov, led by Aleksandr Antonov, began a rebellion against Communist grain requisitioning and Cheka brutality
- By January 1921 Antonov had a force of 50,000 anti-Communist fighters
- Antonov’s revolt spread throughout the spring if 1921
What was the Kronstadt Mutiny?
Early 1921:
- Wave of strikes across Russia’s main cities
- In Petrograd, the Red Army responded by opening fire on unarmed workers
- Sailors at the Kronstadt naval base rebelled against Communist brutality
What series of reforms did the mutineers demand during the Kronstadt Mutiny?
- An immediate free and fair election of new Soviets
- Release of all anarchist, Menshevik and SR political prisoners
- A restoration of freedom of speech and the press
- The abolition of the Cheka
- An end to War Communism
- Ending of the political domination of the Communists
How did Lenin respond to the Kronstadt Mutiny?
- In mid-March the Red Army had crushed the Kronstadt uprising
- Mikhail Tukhachevski, a former White General, attacked the naval base with 60,000 troops, backed by several thousand armed members of the Cheka
- Over 3,000 of the mutineers were killed or injured
How did Lenin respond to the Tambov rising?
- Tukhachevski was also dispatched to Tambov to end the rebellion
- In May he suppressed the rebellion by deporting 100,000 people to labour camps and attacking peasant villages with poison gas
Lenin was willing to embrace economic change - as a result of the unrest he introduced the…which…
New Economic Policy (NEP) which ended War Communism and created a mixed economy.
What were the features of the NEP?
- Farming was left to the free market
- Peasants buy, sell and produce freely
- Grain requisitioning ended and was replaced by a tax in kind
- Small factories and workshops were denationalised and allowed to trade freely. Many were returned to ther former capitalist owners
- Large factories and major industries remained nationalised
- Money was reintroduced
What is a tax in kind?
A tax in which producers pay the government a proportion of what they make, rather than paying in money.
What were the consequences of the NEP?
- Led to political and economic stability
- However, it did not lead to rapid industrial growth
- Nor was it wholly popular within the party
What were the consequences of the NEP, in terms of farming?
- Ending grain requisitioning was extremely popular among the peasants
- Free trade also encouraged peasants to grow more food
- Therefore, the famine ended and farming revived
What were the consequences of the NEP, in terms of industry?
- Led to industrial growth
- Lenin authorised a major electrification campaign which revived an industry that had effectively been destroyed by the Civil War
- However, industrial recovery was extremely slow
Lenin coupled economic reform with much tighter… Including…
political control:
- At the same time as introducing the NEP, Lenin introduced a ban on factions within the Communist Party - members were not allowed to form groups that were independent from Lenin’s control
- Lenin also supported ‘democratic centralism’, meaning all other political parties were banned and decisions made by Lenin and the Politburo had to be supported by all Communists.
What was the Politburo?
Consisted of approximately 9 Communists who met every week to make key political and economic decisions. During the Civil War they became even more significant then the Sovnarkom.
