Lenin and

the
Economy
Did life change
under the
Communists?
Did Russia get any
closer to
industrialisation? What October Revolution gave to the
Worker and Peasant
Learning objective
• To be able to explain why the NEP
and War Communism were
necessary.
Success criteria
1. To explain the reasons for the introduction of War
Communism and the NEP (Ao1a, knowledge and
recall).
2. To have made synoptic links between a) Tsarist
industrial policies and b) opposition to regimes
(Ao1b, synoptic judgement and synthesis across
the period).
3. To have drawn conclusions regarding the success
of War Communism and the NEP, and to explain
the effect that they had on the lives of the Russian
people (Ao1b, assessment of consequence and
significance within an historical context).
Witte and the End of the
Tsarist autocracy
• Production levels in 1913 still lagged behind that of
the West.

• Most industry was small scale, handicraft based

and any gains were masked by a substantial
increase in the size of the population.
• Little attention paid to agriculture.
• Railway system inefficient.
• Money borrowed from abroad, high taxes,
abandoned gold standard. Rampant inflation.
Was the new Bolshevik
revolution a turning
point in the
management of the
economy?
State Capitalism:
state taking
complete control
of the economy
until it could be
‘safely’ handed
over to the
proletariat.

The SEC
couldn’t
cope and
was
subservient
to the
powerful
Council of
Labour and
Defence.
What was War Communism?
• War Communism
• This was the name of the harsh economic
measures that the Bolsheviks adopted during the
Civil War.
• It’s aims were (1) to put communist theories
into practice by sharing out the wealth of the
country among the people and (2) to help with the
Civil War by keeping towns and the Red Army
supplied with food and weapons.
In Practice
In the countryside
Peasants forced to grow more food.
Refused to work harder as they
were not paid a fair price. Reduced
incentives- lazy peasants got the
same as hardworking peasants.
Lenin ordered requisition squads to
seize food.
Those found hoarding food were
punished. RED TERROR.
Peasants did not want to hand over
surplus food so grew less.
Led to famine.
In the towns
Lenin sent in his own managers to
operate factories.
Strict discipline imposed on
workers.
Death penalty introduced for
strikers.
People were prevented from leaving
the cities.
Prices rose and this inflation made
the rouble lose its value.
Black market grew. Bartering
replaced cash trade.
 Uprisings caused by War
Communism and leading to the
NEP
• Large-scale discontent among the Russian populace,
particularly amongst the peasantry who often refused to
till their land.
• In February 1921 alone, there were over one hundred
peasant uprisings.
• The workers in Petrograd were also involved in a series of
strikes sparked by the reduction of bread rations by one
third over a 10 day period.
• Kronstadt Rising. An investigation into Bolshevik’s
handling of rebellions leading to a rebellion by soldiers
and sailors. Dealt with after a series of skirmishes by
Bolshevik troops.
• Discontent also dealt with by Lenin’s ban on factions as
well as the NEP.
An historian’s view (Sally J.
Taylor)
• War Communism, as it was called, came to rely more
and more upon repression and outright violence as the
main methods of securing meat and grain from the
peasants. Essentials like salt, kerosene, and matches
were in short supply; important manufactured goods,
such as boots and farming implements, were not
forthcoming. With few rewards for their labor, the
peasants showed little interest in growing more than
what their immediate needs required. Now a ruinous
drought in the grain-growing districts added to the
misfortunes of the already depleted countryside, and
the entire nation lay exhausted, in a state of virtual
collapse.
So Lenin introduced the New
Economic Policy
• Peasants would pay a small fixed amount of grain in
tax each year.
• Any surplus grain could be sold- leading to some
peasants becoming quite wealthy (kulaks) and
returning the incentive to produce.
• Small factories were allowed to make a profit.
• Traders could make and sell goods at a profit.
These were called ‘Nepmen’.
Explanation in Peasant
Terms
The NEP
• Promoted by the Politburo as ‘a temporary
deviation, a tactical retreat’.
• Many thought it was a betrayal of the October
Revolution.
• Partially resolved a demand for political unity after
the 1921 Kronstadt rising.
• With the death of Lenin, though in 1924, and the
ensuing power struggle was based around the NEP.
 State
Capitalism
+
Grain
Requisitioning
=
War
Communism

The
people
were
rebelling
and
unhappy.
Lenin
needed to
change it.
Introduce
d the NEP.
An American Journalist in
Russia
• Everyone is so infinitely better off that present
conditions see paradise by comparison... 250,000
private traders have migrated to Moscow since the
NEP began. They crowd the restaurants where it
costs $25 a head for dinner with French wine ... and
lose a thousand or so an evening at cards without
turning a hair.
• Walter Duranty, I Write AS I Please (1935)
A young angry Bolshevik
• The NEP restored some prosperity to Russia . But
to many of us this prosperity was distasteful... We
felt ourselves sinking into the bog, paralysed,
corrupted... There was gambling, drunkenness,
and all the filth of former times.
Classes were reborn in front of our very eyes.

• Victor Serge, From Lenin to Stalin (1937)

Another Bolshevik
• There wasn’t any food in the country. We were
down to a little bread each. Then suddenly they
started the NEP. Cafes opened. Factories went
back into private hands. It was Capitalism. In my
eyes it was the very thing I had been fighting
against...
• Most people supported Lenin, other said he was
wrong, and many tore up their party membership
cards.
• Nikolai Izatchik
 Supply of food increased at a rate
The Scissors exceeding domestic demand (swift fall in
Crisis prices), supply of manufactured goods
increased more slowly, leaving prices high.

Peasants were reluctant to sell, industrialists needed them to do so, so they could
afford to buy their goods. This was less serious than it seemed at the time.
Situation was resolved.
I Like This Picture