The NEP and Comintern

Question 1

What did the NEP end?

Answer 1

Ended war communism by creating a mixed economy

Question 2

What were some of the key policies of the NEP?

2 peasents, 1 expectation, 2 industry, 1 financial

Answer 2

Farming was left to the free market.

Grain requisitioning was ended and replaced with a quota/tax (could sell the surplus).

Expectation that towns would be fed again.

Small factories and workshops were denationalised.

But state kept control of large-scale heavy industry, banks and transport.

Money was reintroduced and rationing ended.

Question 3

What effect did the NEP have on agriculture?

Answer 3

Recovered quickly.

A grain tax of was introduced, allowing the peasants to sell the rest of a profit.

Ending requisitioning was popular with the peasants.

Free trade encourages peasants to grow more therefore ending the famine.

Kulak class re-emerged and villages that cooperated with the NEP were rewarded with goods.

…. however, scissor crisis

Question 4

How effective was the NEP have on industry?

Answer 4

Lenin authorised a major electrification campaign which revived an industry which had effectively been destroyed by civil war but industrial recovery was very slow

Question 5

What was grain production like in 1921 v 1924?

Answer 5

1921 = 37.61  million tonnes produced 
1924 = 51.4 million tonnes produced

Question 6

What was economic growth like in 1921 v 1925?

Answer 6

1921= 2004 million roubles 
1925 = 4660 million roubles

Question 7

What was one major problem with war communism?

Answer 7

Led to further food shortages so millions died of malnourishment and population dropped from 170.9 million in 1913 to 130.9 million by 1921

Question 8

What was the scissor crisis?

Answer 8

During the NEP there was a widening gap between industrial and agricultural prices reaching a peak in October 1923 where industrial prices were 276 percent of their 1913 levels, while agricultural prices were only 89 percent
Lack of industrial goods for peasants to buy in exchange threatened to make peasants hold back supplies

Question 9

Who was the red terror partly aimed at?

How were they punished?

Answer 9

Political enemies - the Cheka rounded up the remaining SRs, Mensheviks.

Rather than imprisoning them, they were often shot (estimates of numbers executed 1918-20 = about 1/2 a million but official records show only a fraction of this.

Question 10

What else was the Cheka given the task of during the Red terror?
How were they punished?

Answer 10

Carrying out class warfare, (excuse = bourgeoise guilty of counter-revolution)
An intense campaign = arrests, imprisonment and execution.

Question 11

Who were the victims of class warfare?

Answer 11

Victims came from all levels of society e.g. peasants and workers of all ages.

Used to frighten all sections of society into compliance.

Question 12

What did the Bolsheviks set up during the Red terror?

Answer 12

A system of labour and concentration camps - no accurate records of prisoners or deaths in these camps under Lenin.

Question 13

What was Gosplan and when was it introduced?

Answer 13

State General Planning Commission to help coordinate economic development.
Formally established by a Sovnarkom decree in February 1921 to advise on the NEP which Lenin formally announced at the 10th party congress in March 1921.

Question 14

Who was Lenin supported by with the introduction of the NEP?

Answer 14

Bukharin, Zinoviev and most of the leadership but since he knew many Bolsheviks would see the NEP as an ideological betrayal so he didn’t permit a vote on the measure

Question 15

What impacts did the NEP have on the economy?

Answer 15

Private businesses quickly reopened and service industries began to thrive in cities e.g. shops.

Money started to flow more freely and industrial production recovered from civil war ( larger sate owned industries grew more slowly than small businesses)

Question 16

What had begun to appear by 1923 under the NEP?

Answer 16

An imbalance in the economy as the large quantities of food and factories were taking longer to rebuild and expand their output = Argi prices dropped, industry prices rose.

Question 17

Who were active in getting the economy moving again under the NEP and how?
Why were they unpopular and why were they tolerated?

Answer 17

Private traders - by 1925 there were 25,000 private traders in Moscow alone.

These ‘Nepmen’ where responsible for 75% of trade but were hated by many Bolsheviks.

They were representatives of capitalism.

(hostility heightened by their flaunting of their wealth e.g. indulging in gambling and not adverse to corruption but they were tolerated as long as taxes were paid)

Question 18

Was the NEP an economic success?

Answer 18

Didn’t solve the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy which still had many backwards features compared with advanced countries
By Lenin’s death in 1924, the economy was much more secure than it had been under war communism

Question 19

How did Lenin and Zinoviev ( one member of the politburo who had worked out the policy) justify the ideological retreat under the NEP?

Answer 19

‘One step back, two steps forward’, tried to appease the discontent by stating that the NEP was only temporary - a tactical retreat necessary to enable the party to stay in power (compared to treaty of Brest-Litovsk)

Question 20

How did Lenin retain repression and vigilance at the time of the NEP?

Answer 20

Cheka renamed GPU in 1922, became even more powerful and vigilant.

Renewed attack on religion - 1921 the Union of the Militant Godless was set up and churches were stripped of valuable possessions (similar to Henry VIII in Tudors) and thousands of priests imprisoned with some executed

Question 21

When and why was the Comintern established?

Answer 21

March 1919 to promote worldwide revolution

Question 22

What did Lenin want to create through the Comintern?

Answer 22

Communist parties abroad that would be loyal to Moscow and whose purpose was to overthrow foreign governments.

Question 23

What did the Soviet Union sign in 1922?

Answer 23

An agreement with Germany - ‘The Rapallo treaty’

Question 24

What were the main terms of the Rapallo treaty?

Answer 24

Both countries agreed to cooperate in a spirit of mutual good will in meeting both countries economic needs
The re-establishment of diplomatic relations between R and G
Russia provide Germany with military training ground and resources
Russia allowed special trading rights in Germany

Question 25

What was the Treaty of Berlin and when was it signed?

Answer 25

24 April 1926
A non-aggression pact between the two nations in which they agreed that neither nation would get involved if another power invaded one of them.

Question 26

What had Lenin promised v what he delivered?

Answer 26

Promised peace, bread and land
Delivered a brutal civil war, a famine, Soviet democracy had been usurped by the party, NEP = unsuccessful because compromise was capitalist

Question 27

In what key way was Lenin successful?

Answer 27

He had succeeded in his prime goal - the communists had seized and retained power - he hoped in time the party would lead Russia and the world to Communism
Left behind a highly centralised one party state (but a state that faced many problems)

Question 28

What and when was the change from Russia to USSR?

Answer 28

December 1922 Lenin established creation of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
Comprised of Russia and other republics - essentially a multi-national communist state in which each republic would possess its own government as part of a federal structure

Question 29

Where and when was the first Founding Congress of the Comintern held and who attented?

Answer 29

In Moscow in March 1919 - not all those invited were willing or able to attend but there were more than 50 delegated from all over Europe, the US, Australia and Japan
The Chairman of all the early Comintern Congresses was Zinoviev but the dominating influence was always Lenin

Question 30

Despite the first Comintern Congress taking place at a time when the regime was fighting against White armies, foreign intervention and national independence movements why was there great optimism for the prospect of the spread of revolution?

Answer 30

Germany was believed to be ripe for revolution despite the Spartacist uprising being brutally supressed in Jan 1919
There was an establishment of Soviet-style republics in Hungary and in Bavaria
Lenin, Trotsky and other prominent Bolshevik activists believed in the inevitability of world revolution

Question 31

What was the Spartacist uprising?

Answer 31

Communist revolutionaries in Germany launched an uprising in Berlin in December 1919 - the revolt was brutally crushed by armed German militias in January and the leaders of the Spartacists, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Leibknecht were murdered

Question 32

When did the second Comintern Congress take place and what was it dominated by?

Answer 32

Petrograd, July-August 1920, at the height of the Russo-Polish war
Dominated by debates over Lenin’s ‘21 conditions’ defining the relationships between communist parties and ‘bourgeoise-democratic’ socialist parties. Some European delegations broke away from the Comintern as a result

Question 33

What was happening when the Second Comintern Congress opened?
Despite this, what gave Lenin optimism?

Answer 33

The Red Army was on the verge of capturing Warsaw.

Polish victory over Tukhachevsky’s army was a nasty shock to the delegates in Petrograd.

Hopes that victory in Poland would be a springboard for Communism to sweep across Western-Europe were dashed.

But 1920 still time of optimism - victory in civil war was certain, the last foreign forces were leaving + Bolshevik rule in Russia was secure

Question 34

What was the realisation in the Comintern Congress met in the summer of 1921?
Example?

Answer 34

There was a realisation that the world revolution was not as close as had been hoped - communist regimes and uprisings had all been crushed
Moderate socialist parties who renounced revolution were becoming established - instead of communist revolution
Germany was ruled by the ‘Bourgeoise democratic’ Weimar republic
Bolshevik Russia was alone in a capitalist world so the Comintern became totally Russian dominated

Question 35

What was the changed outlook from many of the Bolshevik leadership following the realisation world rev wasn’t likely?

Answer 35

Many were ready to play down international revolution in order to concentrate on pressing internal matters within Russia
The Comintern remained an important symbol and all Bolshevik leaders were at least outwardly committed to its aims, but the revolutionary force behind the Comintern slackened.

Question 36

By the time of Lenin’s death in what way was he successful/ unsuccessful?

Answer 36

One party state achieved
Economy had recovered - some party members felt Lenin had betrayed the principles of Rev and that NEP was at best temporary
Society had not progressed as close to socialism as many had hoped - growing bureaucracy and worrying dependencies on its leader
Conflicts between policies and personalities dogged Lenin’s last years and looked set to creature future problems