warcommunism and nep Flashcards
1
Q
War Communism
Feature 1: Grain requisitioning.
Feature 2: Industry organised to ensure the military was supplied for the Civil War.
A
Supporting detail:
- Under W.C, peasants were not allowed to sell their crops. The state requisitioned the crops and left the peasants a small amount for their own needs.
- Peasants would then often hide their grain- though if you were found hoarding, you would be executed.
- This went against some of the decrees of October 1907.
Supporting detail:
- Factories with more than 10 workers were nationalised and given production targets by the government
- Workers were put under government control
- Strikes were banned in order to guarantee production targets
- Labour conscription meant everyone who was old enough to work MUST work
- Workers could not move from one city to another to work.
2
Q
Effects of war communism
Feature 1: peasants
Feature 2: effects on the workers
A
SD:
- requisitioning turned th peasants against eh Bolsheviks
- The peasants had very little to eat, sometimes not even enough seeds to plant the next year’s harvest
- down 37 percent from 1913
- food shortages became famines
- Brigades would use increasing levels of violence to meet requisitioning targets
- some would kill their farm animals to avoid requisitioning
- they still did prefer reds over the whites.-> and the reds would blame the conflicts on the Kulaks, the “rich peasants”
SD:
- Food became so hard to find that huge numbers of workers left the cities to return to family villages
- half of Moscow’s population went back to the countryside
- ¾ of petrograd’ population disappeared in the same way
- People began to use the illegal black market to survive.
- supplied 60 percent of the food that people ate under war communism
- black market prices were very high however, which made life harder for the workers
-
3
Q
Kronstadt Naval Mutiny
Feature 1: Started when Kronstadt sailors felt betrayed by Bolshevik policies.
Feature 2: A scare for the Bolsheviks.
A
Supporting detail:
- Especially after the bread ration was cut again in 1921, opposition grew against the difficulties caused by war communism
- Strikes began, protesting about food shortages and lack of freedom
- complained the Bolshveik bureaucrats had more food than workers, and more comfortable homes
- Kronstadt sailors shared the workers’ anger
- especially against the imprisonment and execution of “enemies” without trial.
Supporting detail:
- Although initially supporters of the revolution, 15,000 sailors mutiny on 28th february 1921.
- The bolsheviks were already facing significant opposition in the countryside from widespread peasant unrest.
- Workers, soldiers and sailors who should have been Bolshevik supporters became apart of the opposition. This worried Lenin.
- This scare would lead to the N.E.P, and Lenin would call it “the flash which lit up reality, better than anything else’
4
Q
New Economic Policy
Feature 1: Improved the
economy.
Feature 2: Some negative effects.
A
Supporting detail:
- free market was reintroduced. Peasants could sell produce and decide the price at which to sell it.
- Grain requisition ended
- the state would still keep control of big factories
- foreign experts were brought in to improve how factories would be run.
- Any Russian could open a shop and sell or hire goods for a profit. They were known as “nepmen”
- agricultural production inc. rapidly. Peasants could sell any surplus for a profit.
→ peasants would be able to pay tax in cash instead of grain. This motivated them to earn more money. - supplies of food increased, and rationing was abolished. This made people more eager to earn money
- Industrial growth increased, especially smaller businesses that were privately owned.
- Other countries like britain were eager to make trade deals with the soviet union as they believed that Russia was returning to a more capitalistic system.
Supporting detail:
- By 1923, so much food was being produced. However, Industrial production was developing at a slower rate. Therefore, prices for industrial products remained high
- peasants would then be less eager to sell crops, as they would be getting less money that the amount they would have to pay for the manufactured products.
- THis was naemd the “scissors crisis” by lenin.
- the NEP seemed to be recreating new classes of rich and poor. Successful peasant farmers were more favoured than the rest of the peasants, and Nepmen was an entirely new class created. This went against socialism’s goals.
- This meant more N.E.P opposition grew. Faithful Bolsheviks, those who supported war communism, opposed the N.E.P as it looked like a return to capitalism.
5
Q
Achievements of Lenin up to 1924
Feature 1:
Figurehead of the Revolution and communism in Russia.
Feature 2:
Steered the Bolsheviks through setbacks to retain power.
A
Supporting detail:
- Lenin was the mastermind of the October revolution. WIthout him, they would not have seized power.
- He had many strong slogans and was a brilliant speaker. He convinced many to join the Bolshevik cause.
- april theses provided a strong clear message to take into the factories, navy and army. Explained how the party would end the war- how it would govern the country for ordinary workers, not the wealthy
- He was the centre of the red victory in the civil war
- After his death, although they struggled to find a leader, the soviet union would continue to be a communist country. That showed that Lenin had a strong effect on the political direction of Russia.
Supporting detail:
- People were suyre that after the Bolsheviks took power from the provisional government in october 1917, they would only last a few weeks
- they survived a civil war, economic and social problems, and yet they still held on to power
- He created both war communism and N.E.P as solutions to what current issue they had at the time
- made the difficult decision to allow the treaty of brest-litovsk to be signed. He knew that otherwise, Germany would take advantage of how weak Russia was at the time.
