The internal policy of the Soviet government in the summer of 1918 and early 1921 was called “war communism.”

Causes: introduction of food dictatorship and military-political pressure; disruption of traditional economic ties between city and countryside,

Essence: nationalization of all means of production, the introduction of centralized management, equal distribution of products, forced labor and the political dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party. On June 28, 1918, the accelerated nationalization of large and medium-sized enterprises was prescribed. In the spring of 1918, a state monopoly of foreign trade was established. On January 11, 1919, surplus appropriation was introduced for bread. By 1920 it had spread to potatoes, vegetables, etc.

Results: The policy of “war communism” led to the destruction of commodity-money relations. The sale of food and industrial goods was limited and an equalization system of wages among workers was introduced.

In 1918, labor conscription was introduced for representatives of the former exploiting classes, and in 1920, universal labor conscription. The naturalization of wages led to the free provision of housing, utilities, transport, postal and telegraph services. In the political sphere, an undivided dictatorship of the RCP(b) was established. The trade unions, which were placed under party and state control, lost their independence. They ceased to be defenders of workers' interests. The strike movement was prohibited.

The proclaimed freedom of speech and press was not respected. In February 1918, the death penalty was reinstated. The policy of “war communism” not only did not lead Russia out of economic ruin, but even worsened it. The disruption of market relations caused the collapse of finance and a reduction in production in industry and agriculture. The population of the cities was starving. However, the centralization of government of the country allowed the Bolsheviks to mobilize all resources and maintain power during the civil war.

By the early 1920s, as a result of the policy of war communism during the civil war, a socio-economic and political crisis broke out in the country. After the end of the civil war, the country found itself in a difficult situation and faced a deep economic and political crisis. As a result of almost seven years of war, Russia lost more than a quarter of its national wealth. Industry suffered particularly heavy losses.

The volume of its gross output decreased by 7 times. By 1920, reserves of raw materials and supplies were largely exhausted. Compared to 1913, the gross production of large-scale industry decreased by almost 13%, and small-scale industry by more than 44%. Huge destruction was caused to transport. In 1920, the volume of railway transportation was 20% of the pre-war level. The situation in agriculture has worsened. Cultivated areas, yields, gross grain harvests, and production of livestock products have decreased. Agriculture has increasingly acquired a consumer nature, its marketability has fallen by 2.5 times.

There was a sharp decline in the living standards and labor of workers. As a result of the closure of many enterprises, the process of declassification of the proletariat continued. Enormous deprivations led to the fact that, from the autumn of 1920, discontent began to intensify among the working class. The situation was complicated by the beginning demobilization of the Red Army. As the fronts of the civil war retreated to the country's borders, the peasantry began to increasingly actively oppose the surplus appropriation system, which was implemented by violent methods with the help of food detachments.

The party leadership began to look for ways out of this situation. In the winter of 1920-1921, the so-called “discussion about trade unions” arose in the party leadership. The discussion was extremely confusing, only briefly touching on the real crisis in the country, the so-called. factions appeared in the Central Committee of the RCP (b) with their own views on the role of trade unions after the end of the civil war. The instigator of this discussion was L.D. Trotsky. He and his supporters proposed to further “tighten the screws” in society by introducing army rules.

The “worker opposition” (Shlyapnikov A.G., Medvedev, Kollontai A.M.) considered trade unions as the highest form of organization of the proletariat and demanded that the right to manage the national economy be transferred to trade unions. The group of “democratic centralism” (Sapronov, Osinsky V.V. and others) opposed the leading role of the RCP (b) in the Soviets and trade unions, and within the party demanded freedom of factions and groupings. Lenin V.I. and his supporters drew up their platform, which defined trade unions as a school of management, a school of management, a school of communism. During the discussion, the struggle also unfolded over other issues of party policy in the post-war period: about the attitude of the working class towards the peasantry, about the party’s approach to the masses in general in the conditions of peaceful socialist construction.

The New Economic Policy (NEP) is an economic policy pursued in Soviet Russia since 1921. It was adopted in the spring of 1921 by the X Congress of the RCP(b), replacing the policy of “war communism” pursued during the Civil War. The New Economic Policy aimed at restoring the national economy and the subsequent transition to socialism. The main content of the NEP is the replacement of surplus appropriation with a tax in kind in the countryside, the use of the market and various forms of ownership, the attraction of foreign capital in the form of concessions, and the implementation of a monetary reform (1922-1924), as a result of which the ruble became a convertible currency.

The NEP made it possible to quickly restore the national economy destroyed by the First World War and the Civil War. In the second half of the 1920s, the first attempts to curtail the NEP began. Syndicates in industry were liquidated, from which private capital was administratively squeezed out, and a rigid centralized system of economic management was created (economic people's commissariats). Stalin and his entourage headed for the forced confiscation of grain and the forced collectivization of the countryside. Repressions were carried out against management personnel (the Shakhty case, the Industrial Party trial, etc.). By the beginning of the 1930s, the NEP was actually curtailed.

Prodrazvyorstka
Diplomatic isolation of the Soviet government
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The collapse of the Russian Empire and the formation of the USSR
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War communism- the name of the internal policy of the Soviet state, carried out in 1918 - 1921. in conditions of the Civil War. Its characteristic features were extreme centralization of economic management, nationalization of large, medium and even small industry (partially), state monopoly on many agricultural products, surplus appropriation, prohibition of private trade, curtailment of commodity-money relations, equalization in the distribution of material goods, militarization of labor. This policy was consistent with the principles on which Marxists believed a communist society would emerge. In historiography, there are different opinions on the reasons for the transition to such a policy - some historians believed that it was an attempt to “introduce communism” by command, others explained it by the reaction of the Bolshevik leadership to the realities of the Civil War. The same contradictory assessments were given to this policy by the leaders of the Bolshevik Party themselves, who led the country during the Civil War. The decision to end war communism and transition to the NEP was made on March 15, 1921 at the X Congress of the RCP(b).

Basic elements of "war communism"

Liquidation of private banks and confiscation of deposits

One of the first actions of the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution was the armed seizure of the State Bank. The buildings of private banks were also seized. On December 8, 1917, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the abolition of the Noble Land Bank and the Peasant Land Bank" was adopted. By the decree “on the nationalization of banks” of December 14 (27), 1917, banking was declared a state monopoly. The nationalization of banks in December 1917 was reinforced by the confiscation of public funds. All gold and silver in coins and bars, and paper money were confiscated if they exceeded the amount of 5,000 rubles and were acquired “unearnedly.” For small deposits that remained unconfiscated, the norm for receiving money from accounts was set at no more than 500 rubles per month, so that the non-confiscated balance was quickly eaten up by inflation.

Nationalization of industry

Already in June-July 1917, “capital flight” began from Russia. The first to flee were foreign entrepreneurs who were looking for cheap labor in Russia: after the February Revolution, the establishment of an 8-hour working day, the struggle for higher wages, and legalized strikes deprived entrepreneurs of their excess profits. The constantly unstable situation prompted many domestic industrialists to flee. But thoughts about the nationalization of a number of enterprises visited the completely left-wing Minister of Trade and Industry A.I. Konovalov even earlier, in May, and for other reasons: constant conflicts between industrialists and workers, which caused strikes on the one hand and lockouts on the other, disorganized the already economy damaged by the war.

The Bolsheviks faced the same problems after the October Revolution. The first decrees of the Soviet government did not imply any transfer of “factories to workers,” as eloquently evidenced by the Regulations on Workers’ Control approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars on November 14 (27), 1917, which specifically stipulated the rights of entrepreneurs. However, the new government also faced questions: what to do with abandoned enterprises and how to prevent lockouts and other forms of sabotage?

What began as the adoption of ownerless enterprises, nationalization later turned into a measure to combat counter-revolution. Later, at the XI Congress of the RCP(b), L. D. Trotsky recalled:

...In Petrograd, and then in Moscow, where this wave of nationalization rushed, delegations from Ural factories came to us. My heart ached: “What will we do? “We’ll take it, but what will we do?” But from conversations with these delegations it became clear that military measures are absolutely necessary. After all, the director of a factory with all his apparatus, connections, office and correspondence is a real cell at this or that Ural, or St. Petersburg, or Moscow plant - a cell of that very counter-revolution - an economic cell, strong, solid, which is armed in hand is fighting against us. Therefore, this measure was a politically necessary measure of self-preservation. We could move on to a more correct account of what we can organize and begin economic struggle only after we had secured for ourselves not an absolute, but at least a relative possibility of this economic work. From an abstract economic point of view, we can say that our policy was wrong. But if you put it in the world situation and in the situation of our situation, then it was, from the political and military point of view in the broad sense of the word, absolutely necessary.

The first to be nationalized on November 17 (30), 1917 was the factory of the Likinsky Manufactory Partnership of A. V. Smirnov (Vladimir Province). In total, from November 1917 to March 1918, according to the 1918 industrial and professional census, 836 industrial enterprises were nationalized. On May 2, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree on the Nationalization of the sugar industry, and on June 20 - the oil industry. By the fall of 1918, 9,542 enterprises were concentrated in the hands of the Soviet state. All large capitalist property in the means of production was nationalized by the method of gratuitous confiscation. By April 1919, almost all large enterprises (with more than 30 employees) were nationalized. By the beginning of 1920, medium-sized industry was also largely nationalized. Strict centralized production management was introduced. It was created to manage the nationalized industry.

Monopoly of foreign trade

At the end of December 1917, foreign trade was brought under the control of the People's Commissariat of Trade and Industry, and in April 1918 it was declared a state monopoly. The merchant fleet was nationalized. The decree on the nationalization of the fleet declared shipping enterprises belonging to joint-stock companies, mutual partnerships, trading houses and individual large entrepreneurs owning sea and river vessels of all types to be the national indivisible property of Soviet Russia.

Forced labor service

Compulsory labor conscription was introduced, initially for the "non-labor classes". The Labor Code (LC) adopted on December 10, 1918 established labor service for all citizens of the RSFSR. Decrees adopted by the Council of People's Commissars on April 12, 1919 and April 27, 1920 prohibited unauthorized transfers to new jobs and absenteeism, and established strict labor discipline at enterprises. The system of unpaid voluntary-forced labor on weekends and holidays in the form of “subbotniks” and “resurrections” has also become widespread.

However, Trotsky’s proposal to the Central Committee received only 4 votes against 11, the majority led by Lenin was not ready for a change in policy, and the IX Congress of the RCP (b) adopted a course towards “militarization of the economy.”

Food dictatorship

The Bolsheviks continued the grain monopoly proposed by the Provisional Government and the surplus appropriation system introduced by the Tsarist Government. On May 9, 1918, a Decree was issued confirming the state monopoly of grain trade (introduced by the provisional government) and prohibiting private trade in bread. On May 13, 1918, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars “On granting the People's Commissar of Food emergency powers to combat the rural bourgeoisie harboring and speculating on grain reserves” established the basic provisions of the food dictatorship. The goal of the food dictatorship was to centralize the procurement and distribution of food, suppress the resistance of the kulaks and combat baggage. The People's Commissariat for Food received unlimited powers in the procurement of food products. Based on the decree of May 13, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee established per capita consumption standards for peasants - 12 poods of grain, 1 pood of cereals, etc. - similar to the standards introduced by the Provisional Government in 1917. All grain exceeding these standards was to be transferred to the disposal of the state at prices set by it. In connection with the introduction of the food dictatorship in May-June 1918, the Food Requisition Army of the People's Commissariat of Food of the RSFSR (Prodarmiya) was created, consisting of armed food detachments. To manage the Food Army, on May 20, 1918, the Office of the Chief Commissar and Military Leader of all food detachments was created under the People's Commissariat of Food. To accomplish this task, armed food detachments were created, endowed with emergency powers.

V.I. Lenin explained the existence of surplus appropriation and the reasons for abandoning it:

Tax in kind is one of the forms of transition from a kind of “war communism”, forced by extreme poverty, ruin and war, to correct socialist product exchange. And this latter, in turn, is one of the forms of transition from socialism with features caused by the predominance of the small peasantry in the population to communism.

A kind of “war communism” consisted in the fact that we actually took from the peasants all the surplus, and sometimes not even the surplus, but part of the food necessary for the peasant, and took it to cover the costs of the army and the maintenance of the workers. They mostly took it on credit, using paper money. Otherwise, we could not defeat the landowners and capitalists in a ruined small-peasant country... But it is no less necessary to know the real measure of this merit. “War communism” was forced by war and ruin. It was not and could not be a policy that corresponded to the economic tasks of the proletariat. It was a temporary measure. The correct policy of the proletariat, exercising its dictatorship in a small-peasant country, is the exchange of grain for industrial products needed by the peasant. Only such a food policy meets the tasks of the proletariat, only it is capable of strengthening the foundations of socialism and leading to its complete victory.

Tax in kind is a transition to it. We are still so ruined, so oppressed by the oppression of the war (which happened yesterday and could break out thanks to the greed and malice of the capitalists tomorrow) that we cannot give the peasants industrial products for all the grain we need. Knowing this, we introduce a tax in kind, i.e. the minimum necessary (for the army and for workers).

On July 27, 1918, the People's Commissariat for Food adopted a special resolution on the introduction of a universal class food ration, divided into four categories, providing for measures to account for stocks and distribute food. At first, the class ration was valid only in Petrograd, from September 1, 1918 - in Moscow - and then it was extended to the provinces.

Those supplied were divided into 4 categories (later into 3): 1) all workers working in particularly difficult conditions; breastfeeding mothers up to the 1st year of the child and wet nurses; pregnant women from the 5th month 2) all those working in heavy work, but in normal (not harmful) conditions; women - housewives with a family of at least 4 people and children from 3 to 14 years old; disabled people of the 1st category - dependents 3) all workers engaged in light work; women housewives with a family of up to 3 people; children under 3 years old and adolescents 14-17 years old; all students over 14 years of age; unemployed people registered at the labor exchange; pensioners, war and labor invalids and other disabled people of the 1st and 2nd categories as dependents 4) all male and female persons receiving income from the hired labor of others; persons of liberal professions and their families who are not in public service; persons of unspecified occupation and all other population not named above.

The volume of dispensed was correlated across groups as 4:3:2:1. In the first place, products in the first two categories were simultaneously issued, in the second - in the third. The 4th was issued as the demand of the first 3 was met. With the introduction of class cards, any others were abolished (the card system was in effect from mid-1915).

• Prohibition of private entrepreneurship.

• Elimination of commodity-money relations and transition to direct commodity exchange regulated by the state. The death of money.

• Paramilitary management of railways.

Since all these measures were taken during the Civil War, in practice they were much less coordinated and coordinated than planned on paper. Large areas of Russia were beyond the control of the Bolsheviks, and the lack of communications meant that even regions formally subordinate to the Soviet government often had to act independently, in the absence of centralized control from Moscow. The question still remains - whether War Communism was an economic policy in the full sense of the word, or just a set of disparate measures taken to win the civil war at any cost.

Results and assessment of war communism

The key economic body of War Communism was the Supreme Council of the National Economy, created according to the project of Yuri Larin, as the central administrative planning body of the economy. According to his own recollections, Larin designed the main directorates (headquarters) of the Supreme Economic Council on the model of the German “Kriegsgesellschaften” (centers for regulating industry in wartime).

The Bolsheviks declared “workers’ control” to be the alpha and omega of the new economic order: “the proletariat itself takes matters into its own hands.” "Workers' control" very soon revealed its true nature. These words always sounded like the beginning of the death of the enterprise. All discipline was immediately destroyed. Power in factories and factories passed to rapidly changing committees, virtually responsible to no one for anything. Knowledgeable, honest workers were expelled and even killed. Labor productivity decreased in inverse proportion to the increase in wages. The attitude was often expressed in dizzying numbers: fees increased, but productivity dropped by 500-800 percent. Enterprises continued to exist only because either the state, which owned the printing press, took in workers to support it, or the workers sold and ate up the fixed assets of the enterprises. According to Marxist teaching, the socialist revolution will be caused by the fact that the productive forces will outgrow the forms of production and, under new socialist forms, will have the opportunity for further progressive development, etc., etc. Experience has revealed the falsity of these stories. Under “socialist” orders there was an extreme decline in labor productivity. Our productive forces under “socialism” regressed to the times of Peter’s serf factories. Democratic self-government has completely destroyed our railways. With an income of 1½ billion rubles, the railways had to pay about 8 billion for the maintenance of workers and employees alone. Wanting to seize the financial power of “bourgeois society” into their own hands, the Bolsheviks “nationalized” all banks in a Red Guard raid. In reality, they only acquired those few measly millions that they managed to seize in the safes. But they destroyed credit and deprived industrial enterprises of all funds. To ensure that hundreds of thousands of workers were not left without income, the Bolsheviks had to open for them the cash desk of the State Bank, which was intensively replenished by the unrestrained printing of paper money.

Instead of the unprecedented growth in labor productivity expected by the architects of war communism, the result was not an increase, but, on the contrary, a sharp decline: in 1920, labor productivity decreased, including due to mass malnutrition, to 18% of the pre-war level. If before the revolution the average worker consumed 3820 calories per day, already in 1919 this figure dropped to 2680, which was no longer enough for hard physical labor.

By 1921, industrial output had decreased threefold, and the number of industrial workers had halved. At the same time, the staff of the Supreme Council of National Economy increased approximately a hundredfold, from 318 people to 30 thousand; A glaring example was the Gasoline Trust, which was part of this body, which grew to 50 people, despite the fact that this trust had to manage only one plant with 150 workers.

The situation in Petrograd became especially difficult, whose population decreased from 2 million 347 thousand people during the Civil War. to 799 thousand, the number of workers decreased five times.

The decline in agriculture was just as sharp. Due to the complete disinterest of peasants in increasing crops under the conditions of “war communism,” grain production in 1920 fell by half compared to pre-war. According to Richard Pipes,

In such a situation, it was enough for the weather to deteriorate for famine to occur in the country. Under communist rule, there was no surplus in agriculture, so if there was a crop failure, there would be nothing to deal with its consequences.

To organize the food appropriation system, the Bolsheviks organized another greatly expanded body - the People's Commissariat for Food, headed by A. D. Tsyuryupa. Despite the state's efforts to establish food supply, a massive famine began in 1921-1922, during which up to 5 million people died. The policy of “war communism” (especially the surplus appropriation system) caused discontent among broad sections of the population, especially the peasantry (uprising in the Tambov region, Western Siberia, Kronstadt and others). By the end of 1920, an almost continuous belt of peasant uprisings (“green flood”) appeared in Russia, aggravated by huge masses of deserters and the beginning of mass demobilization of the Red Army.

The difficult situation in industry and agriculture was aggravated by the final collapse of transport. The share of so-called “sick” steam locomotives went from pre-war 13% to 61% in 1921; transport was approaching the threshold, after which there would only be enough capacity to service its own needs. In addition, firewood was used as fuel for steam locomotives, which was extremely reluctantly collected by peasants as part of their labor service.

The experiment to organize labor armies in 1920-1921 also completely failed. The First Labor Army demonstrated, in the words of the chairman of its council (President of the Labor Army - 1) Trotsky L.D., “monstrous” (monstrously low) labor productivity. Only 10 - 25% of its personnel were engaged in labor activity as such, and 14%, due to torn clothes and lack of shoes, did not leave the barracks at all. Mass desertion from the labor armies was widespread, which in the spring of 1921 was completely out of control.

In March 1921, at the X Congress of the RCP(b), the objectives of the policy of “war communism” were recognized by the country’s leadership as completed and a new economic policy was introduced. V.I. Lenin wrote: “War communism was forced by war and ruin. It was not and could not be a policy that corresponded to the economic tasks of the proletariat. It was a temporary measure." (Complete collected works, 5th ed., vol. 43, p. 220). Lenin also argued that “war communism” should be given to the Bolsheviks not as a fault, but as a merit, but at the same time it is necessary to know the extent of this merit.

In culture

• Life in Petrograd during the war communism is described in Ayn Rand's novel We Are the Living.

Notes

1. Terra, 2008. - T. 1. - P. 301. - 560 p. - (Big Encyclopedia). - 100,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-273-00561-7
2. See, for example: V. Chernov. The Great Russian Revolution. M., 2007
3. V. Chernov. The Great Russian Revolution. pp. 203-207
4. Regulations of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on workers' control.
5. Eleventh Congress of the RCP(b). M., 1961. P. 129
6. Labor Code of 1918 // Appendix from the textbook by I. Ya. Kiselev “Labor Law of Russia. Historical and legal research" (Moscow, 2001)
7. The Memo Order for the 3rd Red Army - 1st Revolutionary Army of Labor, in particular, said: “1. The 3rd Army completed its combat mission. But the enemy has not yet been completely broken on all fronts. Predatory imperialists also threaten Siberia from the Far East. The Entente's mercenary troops also threaten Soviet Russia from the west. There are still White Guard gangs in Arkhangelsk. The Caucasus has not yet been liberated. Therefore, the 3rd revolutionary army remains under the bayonet, maintaining its organization, its internal cohesion, its fighting spirit - in case the socialist fatherland calls it to new combat missions. 2. But, imbued with a sense of duty, the 3rd revolutionary army does not want to waste time. During those weeks and months of respite that fell to her lot, she would use her strength and means for the economic upliftment of the country. While remaining a fighting force threatening the enemies of the working class, it at the same time turns into a revolutionary army of labor. 3. The Revolutionary Military Council of the 3rd Army is part of the Council of the Labor Army. There, along with members of the revolutionary military council, there will be representatives of the main economic institutions of the Soviet Republic. They will provide the necessary leadership in various fields of economic activity.” For the full text of the Order, see: Order-memo for the 3rd Red Army - 1st Revolutionary Army of Labor
8. In January 1920, in the pre-congress discussion, “Theses of the Central Committee of the RCP on the mobilization of the industrial proletariat, labor conscription, militarization of the economy and the use of military units for economic needs” were published, paragraph 28 of which stated: “As one of the transitional forms to the implementation of a general labor conscription and the widest use of socialized labor, military units released from combat missions, up to large army formations, should be used for labor purposes. This is the meaning of turning the Third Army into the First Army of Labor and transferring this experience to other armies" (see IX Congress of the RCP (b). Verbatim report. Moscow, 1934. P. 529)
9. L. D. Trotsky Basic issues of food and land policy: “In the same February 1920, L. D. Trotsky submitted to the Central Committee of the RCP (b) proposals to replace surplus appropriation with a tax in kind, which actually led to the abandonment of the policy of “war communism” “. These proposals were the results of practical acquaintance with the situation and mood of the village in the Urals, where in January - February Trotsky found himself as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic."
10. V. Danilov, S. Esikov, V. Kanishchev, L. Protasov. Introduction // Peasant uprising of the Tambov province in 1919-1921 “Antonovshchina”: Documents and materials / Responsible. Ed. V. Danilov and T. Shanin. - Tambov, 1994: It was proposed to overcome the process of “economic degradation”: 1) “by replacing the withdrawal of surpluses with a certain percentage deduction (a kind of income tax in kind), in such a way that larger plowing or better processing would still represent a benefit,” and 2) “by establishing greater correspondence between the distribution of industrial products to peasants and the amount of grain they poured not only into volosts and villages, but also into peasant households.” As you know, this is where the New Economic Policy began in the spring of 1921.”
11. See X Congress of the RCP(b). Verbatim report. Moscow, 1963. P. 350; XI Congress of the RCP(b). Verbatim report. Moscow, 1961. P. 270
12. See X Congress of the RCP(b). Verbatim report. Moscow, 1963. P. 350; V. Danilov, S. Esikov, V. Kanishchev, L. Protasov. Introduction // Peasant uprising of the Tambov province in 1919-1921 “Antonovshchina”: Documents and materials / Responsible. Ed. V. Danilov and T. Shanin. - Tambov, 1994: “After the defeat of the main forces of counter-revolution in the East and South of Russia, after the liberation of almost the entire territory of the country, a change in food policy became possible, and due to the nature of relations with the peasantry, necessary. Unfortunately, L. D. Trotsky’s proposals to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) were rejected. The delay in canceling the surplus appropriation system for a whole year had tragic consequences; Antonovism as a massive social explosion might not have happened.”
13. See IX Congress of the RCP(b). Verbatim report. Moscow, 1934. Based on the report of the Central Committee on economic construction (p. 98), the congress adopted a resolution “On the immediate tasks of economic construction” (p. 424), paragraph 1.1 of which, in particular, said: “Approving the theses of the Central Committee of the RCP on the mobilization of industrial proletariat, labor conscription, militarization of the economy and the use of military units for economic needs, the congress decides...” (p. 427)
14. Kondratyev N.D. The grain market and its regulation during the war and revolution. - M.: Nauka, 1991. - 487 pp.: 1 l. portrait, ill., table
15. A.S. Outcasts. SOCIALISM, CULTURE AND BOLSHEVISM

Literature

• Revolution and civil war in Russia: 1917-1923. Encyclopedia in 4 volumes. - Moscow:

Abstract plan:

1. The situation in Russia, which was a prerequisite for creating the conditions for the emergence of the policy of “war communism”.

2. The policy of "war communism". Its distinctive aspects, essence and influence on the social and public life of the country.

· Nationalization of the economy.

· Surplus appropriation.

· Dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party.

· Destruction of the market.

3. Consequences and fruits of the policy of “war communism”.

4. The concept and meaning of “war communism”.

Introduction.

“Who doesn’t know the oppressive melancholy that oppresses every traveler in Russia? The January snow has not yet had time to cover the autumn mud, and has already turned black from the locomotive soot. From the morning twilight, black vast forests, gray endless expanses of fields crawled in. Deserted railway stations...”

Russia, 1918.

The First World War ended, the revolution took place, and the government changed. The country, exhausted by endless social upheavals, was on the verge of a new war - a civil one. How to save what the Bolsheviks managed to achieve. How, in the event of a decline in production, both agricultural and industrial, to ensure not only the protection of the recently established system, but also its strengthening and development.

What was our long-suffering Motherland like at the dawn of the formation of Soviet power?

Back in the spring of 1917, one of the delegates of the 1st Congress of Trade and Industry sadly remarked: “...We had 18-20 pounds of cattle, but now this cattle has turned into skeletons.” The requisitions proclaimed by the Provisional Government, the grain monopoly, which implied a ban on private trade in bread, its accounting and procurement by the state at fixed prices led to the fact that by the end of 1917 the daily norm of bread in Moscow was 100 grams per person. In the villages, the confiscation of landowners' estates and their division among the peasants is in full swing. They divided, in most cases, according to eaters. Nothing good could come from this leveling. By 1918, 35 percent of peasant households did not have horses, and almost a fifth did not have livestock. By the spring of 1918, they were already dividing not only the land of the landowners - the populists, who dreamed of black lawlessness, the Bolsheviks, the Socialist Revolutionaries, who created the law on socialization, the rural poor - everyone dreamed of dividing the land for the sake of universal equalization. Millions of embittered and feral armed soldiers are returning to the villages. From the Kharkov newspaper "Land and Freedom" about the confiscation of landowners' estates:

“Who was most involved in the destruction?... Not those peasants who have almost nothing, but those who have several horses, two or three pairs of bulls, also have a lot of land. It was they who acted most, took "Whatever turned out to be suitable for them was loaded onto oxen and taken away. And the poor could hardly take advantage of anything."

And here is an excerpt from a letter from the chairman of the Novgorod district land department:

“First of all, we tried to allocate the landless and those with little land... from the lands of the landowners, state, appanages, churches and monasteries, but in many volosts these lands are completely absent or available in small quantities. And so we had to take land from the land-poor peasants and... allocate them to the land-poor... But "Here we encountered the petty-bourgeois class of the peasantry. All these elements... opposed the implementation of the Socialization Law... There were cases when it was necessary to resort to armed force."

In the spring of 1918, the Peasant War begins. In the Voronezh, Tambov, Kursk provinces alone, in which the poor increased their allotments three times, more than 50 large peasant uprisings occurred. The Volga region, Belarus, Novgorod province were rising...

One of the Simbirsk Bolsheviks wrote:

“It was as if the middle peasants had been replaced. In January, they greeted with delight the words in favor of the power of the Soviets. Now the middle peasants wavered between revolution and counter-revolution...”

As a result, in the spring of 1918, as a result of another innovation of the Bolsheviks - commodity exchange, the supply of food to the city practically came to naught. For example, the commodity exchange of bread was only 7 percent of the planned amount. The city was stifled by hunger.

Given the complexity of the situation, the Bolsheviks quickly form an army, create a special method of managing the economy, and establish a political dictatorship.

The essence of “War Communism”.

What is “war communism”, what is its essence? Here are some of the main distinctive aspects of the implementation of the policy of "war communism". It must be said that each of the following sides are an integral part of the essence of “war communism”, complement each other, intertwine with each other in certain issues, therefore the causes that give rise to them, as well as their influence on society and consequences are closely interrelated.

1. One side is the widespread nationalization of the economy (that is, the legislative formalization of the transfer of enterprises and industries into state ownership, which does not mean turning it into the property of the entire society). The civil war required the same.

According to V.I. Lenin, “communism requires and presupposes the greatest centralization of large-scale production in the entire country.” In addition to “communism,” the military situation in the country also requires the same. And so, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of June 28, 1918, the mining, metallurgical, textile and other leading industries were nationalized. By the end of 1918, out of 9 thousand enterprises in European Russia, 3.5 thousand were nationalized, by the summer of 1919 - 4 thousand, and a year later already about 80 percent, which employed 2 million people - that’s about 70 percent of those employed. In 1920, the state was practically the undivided owner of industrial means of production. At first glance, it would seem that nationalization does not carry anything bad, but in the fall of 1920 A.I. Rykov, who at that time was the Extraordinary Commissioner for Army Supply (this is a rather significant position, considering that civil war is in full swing in Russia) war), proposes to decentralize industrial management, because, in his words:

"the whole system is built on distrust of higher authorities towards lower levels, which hinders the development of the country".

2. The next aspect that determines the essence of the policy of “war communism” - measures designed to save Soviet power from starvation (which I mentioned above) included:

A. Surplus appropriation. In simple words, “prodrazverstka” is the forced imposition of the obligation to hand over “surplus” production to food producers. Naturally, this mainly fell on the village - the main food producer. Of course, there were no surpluses, but only the forcible confiscation of food products. And the forms of carrying out the surplus appropriation left much to be desired: instead of placing the burden of extortion on the wealthy peasants, the authorities followed the usual policy of equalization, which suffered the mass of the middle peasants - who make up the main backbone of food producers, the most numerous stratum of the countryside in European Russia. This could not but cause general discontent: riots broke out in many areas, and ambushes were laid on the food army. Appeared the unity of the entire peasantry in opposition to the city as the outside world.

The situation was aggravated by the so-called committees of the poor, created on June 11, 1918, designed to become a “second power” and confiscate surplus products. It was assumed that part of the confiscated products would go to members of these committees. Their actions were to be supported by units of the “food army.” The creation of the Pobedy Committees testified to the Bolsheviks’ complete ignorance of peasant psychology, in which the communal principle played the main role.

As a result of all this, the surplus appropriation campaign in the summer of 1918 failed: instead of 144 million poods of grain, only 13 were collected. However, this did not prevent the authorities from continuing the surplus appropriation policy for several more years.

On January 1, 1919, the chaotic search for surpluses was replaced by a centralized and planned system of surplus appropriation. On January 11, 1919, the decree “On the allocation of grain and fodder” was promulgated. According to this decree, the state communicated in advance the exact figure for its food needs. That is, each region, county, volost had to hand over to the state a predetermined amount of grain and other products, depending on the expected harvest (determined very approximately, according to data from the pre-war years). Execution of the plan was mandatory. Each peasant community was responsible for its own supplies. Only after the community had fully complied with all state requirements for the delivery of agricultural products, the peasants were given receipts for the purchase of industrial goods, albeit in quantities much smaller than required (10-15%). And the assortment was limited only to essential goods: fabrics, matches, kerosene, salt, sugar, and occasionally tools. Peasants responded to surplus appropriation and shortages of goods by reducing acreage - up to 60%, depending on the region - and returning to subsistence farming. Subsequently, for example, in 1919, out of the planned 260 million poods of grain, only 100 were harvested, and even then with great difficulty. And in 1920, the plan was fulfilled by only 3 - 4%.

Then, having turned the peasantry against themselves, the surplus appropriation system did not satisfy the townspeople either. It was impossible to live on the daily prescribed ration. Intellectuals and “formers” were supplied with food last, and often received nothing at all. In addition to the injustice of the food supply system, it was also very confusing: in Petrograd there were at least 33 types of food cards with an expiration date of no more than a month.

b. Duties. Along with surplus appropriation, the Soviet government introduces a whole series of duties: wood, underwater and horse-drawn duties, as well as labor.

The emerging huge shortage of goods, including essential goods, creates fertile ground for the formation and development of a “black market” in Russia. The government tried in vain to fight the bagmen. Law enforcement forces were ordered to arrest any person with a suspicious bag. In response to this, workers of many Petrograd factories went on strike. They demanded permission to freely transport bags weighing up to one and a half pounds, which indicated that peasants were not the only ones selling their “surplus” secretly. People were busy looking for food. What thoughts about revolution are there? Workers abandoned factories and, as far as possible, escaping hunger, returned to the villages. The need of the state to take into account and consolidate the workforce in one place forces the government enter "work books", and the Labor Code distributes labor service for the entire population aged 16 to 50 years. At the same time, the state has the right to conduct labor mobilizations for any work other than the main one.

But the most “interesting” way of recruiting workers was the decision to turn the Red Army into a “labor army” and militarize the railways. The militarization of labor turns workers into labor front fighters who can be transferred anywhere, who can be commanded and who are subject to criminal liability for violating labor discipline.

Trotsky, at that time a preacher of ideas and the personification of the militarization of the national economy, believed that workers and peasants should be put in the position of mobilized soldiers. Believing that “he who does not work does not eat, and since everyone must eat, then everyone must work,” by 1920 in Ukraine, an area under the direct control of Trotsky, the railways were militarized, and any strike was regarded as betrayal. On January 15, 1920, the First Revolutionary Labor Army was formed, emerging from the 3rd Ural Army, and in April the Second Revolutionary Labor Army was created in Kazan. However, it was precisely at this time that Lenin cried out:

“The war is not over, it continues on the bloodless front... It is necessary that the entire four million proletarian mass prepare for new victims, new hardships and disasters no less than in war...”

The results were dismal: the soldiers and peasants were unskilled labor, they were in a hurry to go home and were not at all eager to work.

3. Another aspect of politics, which is probably the main one, and has the right to be in first place, if not for its last role in the development of the entire life of Russian society in the post-revolutionary period until the 80s, “war communism” - the establishment of a political dictatorship - dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party. During the civil war, V.I. Lenin repeatedly emphasized that: "dictatorship is power based directly on violence...". This is what the leaders of Bolshevism said about violence:

V. I. Lenin: “Dictatorical power and one-man rule do not contradict socialist democracy... Not only the experience that we have gained over two years of stubborn civil war leads us to such a solution to these issues... when we first raised them in 1918, we did not have any civil war... We need more discipline, more one-man rule, more dictatorship."

L. D. Trotsky: “A planned economy is unthinkable without labor service... The path to socialism lies through the highest tension of the state. And we... are passing through precisely this period... No other organization, except the army, has in the past embraced a person with such severe coercion as the state organization of the working class... That is why we are talking about the militarization of labor."

N. I. Bukharin: "Coercion... is not limited to the previously ruling classes and groups close to them. During the transition period - in other forms - it is transferred to the workers themselves and to the ruling class itself... proletarian coercion in all its forms, from execution to labor conscription is... a method of developing communist humanity from the human material of the capitalist era."

Political opponents, opponents and competitors of the Bolsheviks came under the pressure of comprehensive violence. A one-party dictatorship is emerging in the country.

Publishing activities are curtailed, non-Bolshevik newspapers are banned, leaders of opposition parties are arrested, and subsequently outlawed. Within the framework of the dictatorship, independent institutions of society are controlled and gradually destroyed, the terror of the Cheka is intensified, and the “rebellious” Soviets in Luga and Kronstadt are forcibly dissolved. Created in 1917, the Cheka was originally conceived as an investigative body, but local Chekas quickly took it upon themselves after a short trial to shoot those arrested. After the murder of the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka M. S. Uritsky and the attempt on the life of V. I. Lenin, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted a resolution that “in this situation, ensuring the rear through terror is a direct necessity”, that “it is necessary to liberate the Soviet Republic from class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps,” that “all persons involved in White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions are subject to execution.” The terror was widespread. In the attempt on Lenin alone, the Petrograd Cheka shot, according to official reports, 500 hostages. This was called the "Red Terror".

“Power from below,” that is, “power of the Soviets,” which had been gaining strength since February 1917 through various decentralized institutions created as a potential opposition to power, began to turn into “power from above,” arrogating to itself all possible powers, using bureaucratic measures and resorting to violence.

We need to say more about bureaucracy. On the eve of 1917, there were about 500 thousand officials in Russia, and during the years of the civil war the bureaucratic apparatus doubled. In 1919, Lenin simply brushed off those who persistently told him about the bureaucracy that had engulfed the party. V.P. Nogin, Deputy People's Commissar of Labor, at the VIII Party Congress, in March 1919, said:

“We received such an endless number of horrifying facts about ... bribery and the reckless actions of many workers that it simply stood on end ... If we do not take the most decisive decisions, then the continued existence of the party will be unthinkable.”

But only in 1922 did Lenin agree with this:

"The communists have become bureaucrats. If anything will destroy us, it will be"; “We all drowned in a lousy bureaucratic swamp...”

Here are a few more statements by Bolshevik leaders about the spread of bureaucracy in the country:

V. I. Lenin: "... our state is a workers' state with bureaucratic perversion... What is missing?... the layer of communists that governs lacks culture... I... doubt that it can be said that the communists are leading this (bureaucratic) pile. To tell the truth, it is not them they lead, and they are led."

V. Vinnichenko: “Where is equality if in socialist Russia... inequality reigns, if one has a “Kremlin” ration, and the other is hungry... What... is communism? In good words?... There is no Soviet power. There is the power of bureaucrats... The revolution is dying, petrifying, bureaucratizing ... A tongueless official, uncritical, dry, cowardly, a formalist bureaucrat, has reigned everywhere.”

I. Stalin: “Comrades, the country is not actually governed by those who elect their delegates to parliaments... or to congresses of Soviets... No. The country is actually governed by those who have actually taken control of the executive apparatuses of the state, who direct these apparatuses.”

V. M. Chernov: “Bureaucratism was embryonically contained in Lenin’s very idea of ​​socialism as a system of state-capitalist monopoly headed by the Bolshevik dictatorship... bureaucracy was historically a derivative of the primitive bureaucracy of the Bolshevik concept of socialism.”

Thus, bureaucracy became an integral part of the new system.

But let's return to dictatorship.

The Bolsheviks completely monopolize the executive and legislative powers, while at the same time the destruction of non-Bolshevik parties occurs. The Bolsheviks cannot allow criticism of the ruling party, cannot give voters the right to freedom of choice between several parties, and cannot accept the possibility of the ruling party being removed from power peacefully as a result of free elections. Already in 1917 cadets declared "enemies of the people." This party tried to implement its program with the help of white governments, in which the Cadets not only were members, but also led them. Their party turned out to be one of the weakest, receiving only 6% of the votes in the elections to the Constituent Assembly.

Also left socialist revolutionaries, who recognized Soviet power as a fact of reality, and not as a principle, and who supported the Bolsheviks until March 1918, did not integrate into the political system being built by the Bolsheviks. At first, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries did not agree with the Bolsheviks on two points: terror, which was elevated to the rank of official policy, and the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, which they did not recognize. According to the Socialist Revolutionaries, the following are necessary: ​​freedom of speech, press, assembly, liquidation of the Cheka, abolition of the death penalty, immediate free elections to the Soviets by secret ballot. In the fall of 1918, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries declared Lenin in a new autocracy and the establishment of a gendarmerie regime. A right socialist revolutionaries declared themselves enemies of the Bolsheviks back in November 1917. After the coup attempt in July 1918, the Bolsheviks removed representatives of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party from those bodies where they were strong. In the summer of 1919, the Socialist Revolutionaries stopped armed actions against the Bolsheviks and replaced them with the usual “political struggle.” But since the spring of 1920, they have put forward the idea of ​​the “Union of the Laboring Peasantry”, implemented it in many regions of Russia, received the support of the peasantry and themselves participated in all its actions. In response, the Bolsheviks unleashed repression on their parties. In August 1921, the 20th Socialist Revolutionary Council adopted a resolution: “The question of the revolutionary overthrow of the dictatorship of the Communist Party with all the force of iron necessity is put on the order of the day, it becomes a question of the entire existence of Russian labor democracy.” The Bolsheviks, in 1922, without delay, began the trial of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, although many of its leaders were already in exile. As an organized force, their party ceases to exist.

Mensheviks under the leadership of Dan and Martov, they tried to organize themselves into a legal opposition within the framework of the rule of law. If in October 1917 the influence of the Mensheviks was insignificant, then by mid-1918 it increased incredibly among the workers, and at the beginning of 1921 - in the trade unions, thanks to the propaganda of measures to liberalize the economy. Therefore, from the summer of 1920, the Mensheviks began to be gradually removed from the Soviets, and in February-March 1921, the Bolsheviks made over 2 thousand arrests, including all members of the Central Committee.

Perhaps there was another party that had the opportunity to count on success in the struggle for the masses - anarchists. But the attempt to create a powerless society - the experiment of Father Makhno - in fact turned into a dictatorship of his army in the liberated areas. Old Man appointed his commandants in populated areas, endowed with unlimited power, and created a special punitive body that dealt with competitors. Denying the regular army, he was forced to mobilize. As a result, the attempt to create a “free state” failed.

In September 1919, anarchists detonated a powerful bomb in Moscow, on Leontyevsky Lane. 12 people were killed and over 50 were injured, including N.I. Bukharin, who was going to make a proposal to abolish the death penalty.

After some time, the "Underground Anarchists" were liquidated by the Cheka, like most local anarchist groups.

When P. A. Kropotkin (the father of Russian anarchism) died in February 1921, the anarchists in Moscow prisons asked to be released to attend the funeral. Just for a day - they promised to return in the evening. They did just that. Even those sentenced to death.

So, by 1922, a one-party system had developed in Russia.

4. Another important aspect of the policy of “war communism” is the destruction of the market and commodity-money relations.

The market, the main engine of the country's development, is economic ties between individual producers, industries, and different regions of the country.

Firstly, the war disrupted all ties and severed them. Along with the irrevocable fall of the ruble exchange rate, in 1919 it was equal to 1 kopeck of the pre-war ruble, there was a decline in the role of money in general, inevitably entailed by the war.

Secondly, the nationalization of the economy, the undivided dominance of the state mode of production, the over-centralization of economic bodies, the general approach of the Bolsheviks to the new society as a moneyless one ultimately led to the abolition of the market and commodity-money relations.

On July 22, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars decree "On Speculation" was adopted, prohibiting all non-state trade. By the fall, in half of the provinces that were not captured by the whites, private wholesale trade was liquidated, and in a third, retail trade was liquidated. To provide the population with food and personal items, the Council of People's Commissars decreed the creation of a state supply network. Such a policy required the creation of special super-centralized economic bodies in charge of accounting and distribution of all available products. The central boards (or centers) created under the Supreme Economic Council controlled the activities of certain industries, were in charge of their financing, material and technical supplies, and distribution of manufactured products.

At the same time, the nationalization of banking is taking place. By the beginning of 1919, private trade was completely nationalized, except for the market (from stalls).

So, the public sector already makes up almost 100% of the economy, so there was no need for either a market or money. But if natural economic connections are absent or ignored, then their place is taken by administrative connections established by the state, organized by its decrees, orders, implemented by agents of the state - officials, commissars.

“+” War communism.

What, in the end, did “war communism” bring for the country, did it achieve its goal?

Social and economic conditions have been created for victory over the interventionists and White Guards. It was possible to mobilize the insignificant forces that the Bolsheviks had at their disposal, to subordinate the economy to one goal - to provide the Red Army with the necessary weapons, uniforms, and food. The Bolsheviks had at their disposal no more than a third of Russia's military enterprises, controlled areas that produced no more than 10% of coal, iron and steel, and had almost no oil. Despite this, during the war the army received 4 thousand guns, 8 million shells, 2.5 million rifles. In 1919-1920 she was given 6 million overcoats and 10 million pairs of shoes. But at what cost was this achieved?!

“ - ” War communism.

What are consequences policy of "war communism"?

The result of “war communism” was an unprecedented decline in production. In 1921, the volume of industrial production amounted to only 12% of the pre-war level, the volume of products for sale decreased by 92%, and the state treasury was replenished by 80% through surplus appropriation. For clarity, here are the indicators of nationalized production - the pride of the Bolsheviks:

Indicators

Number of employees (million people)

Gross production (billion rubles)

Gross production per worker (thousand rubles)

In the spring and summer, a terrible famine broke out in the Volga region - after the confiscation, there was no grain left. “War communism” also failed to provide food for the urban population: mortality among workers increased. With the departure of workers to the villages, the social base of the Bolsheviks narrowed. A severe crisis broke out in agriculture. A member of the board of the People's Commissariat for Food, Svidersky, formulated the reasons for the disaster approaching the country as follows:

“The reasons for the observed crisis in agriculture lie in the entire accursed past of Russia and in the imperialist and revolutionary wars. But, undoubtedly, along with the fact that the monopoly with requisitioning made the fight against ... the crisis extremely difficult and even interfered with it, strengthening, in turn, agricultural disorder."

Only half of the bread came through state distribution, the rest through the black market, at speculative prices. Social dependency increased. Pooh, the bureaucratic apparatus, interested in maintaining the existing situation, since it also meant the presence of privileges.

General dissatisfaction with “war communism” reached its limit by the winter of 1921. This could not but affect the authority of the Bolsheviks. Data on the number of non-party delegates (as a percentage of the total number) at district congresses of Soviets:

March 1919

October 1919

Conclusion.

What is it "war communism"? There are several opinions on this matter. The Soviet encyclopedia says this:

"“War communism” is a system of temporary, emergency measures forced by civil war and military intervention, which together determined the uniqueness of the economic policy of the Soviet state in 1918-1920. … Forced to implement “military-communist” measures, the Soviet state carried out a frontal attack on all positions of capitalism in the country... Without military intervention and the economic devastation it caused, there would have been no “war communism”".

The concept itself "war communism" is a set of definitions: “military” - because its policy was subordinated to one goal - to concentrate all forces for military victory over political opponents, "communism" - because the measures taken by the Bolsheviks surprisingly coincided with the Marxist forecast of some socio-economic features of the future communist society. The new government sought to immediately implement ideas strictly according to Marx. Subjectively, “war communism” was brought to life by the desire of the new government to hold out until the advent of the world revolution. His goal was not at all to build a new society, but to destroy any capitalist and petty-bourgeois elements in all spheres of society. In 1922-1923, assessing the past, Lenin wrote:

“We assumed, without sufficient calculation - by direct orders of the proletarian state, to establish state production and state distribution of products in a communist manner in a petty-bourgeois country.”

“We decided that the peasants would give us the amount of grain we needed through an allotment, and we would distribute it to the plants and factories, and we would have communist production and distribution.”

V. I. Lenin

Full composition of writings

Conclusion.

I believe that the emergence of the policy of “war communism” was due only to the thirst for power of the Bolshevik leaders and the fear of losing this power. With all the instability and fragility of the newly established system in Russia, the introduction of measures aimed specifically at the destruction of political opponents, to suppress any discontent of society, while the majority of the country’s political movements proposed programs to improve the living conditions of the people, and were initially more humane, speaks only of the most severe fear that declared the ideologues-leaders of the ruling party, who had already done enough things, before losing this power. Yes, in some ways they achieved their goal, because their main goal was not caring for the people (although there were such leaders who sincerely wanted a better life for the people), but the preservation of power, but at what cost...

indicating the topic right now to find out about the possibility of obtaining a consultation.

Have a good day everyone! In this post we will dwell on such an important topic as the policy of war communism - we will briefly analyze its key provisions. This topic is very difficult, but it is constantly tested in exams. Ignorance of concepts and terms related to this topic will inevitably entail a low grade with all the ensuing consequences.

The essence of the policy of war communism

The policy of war communism is a system of socio-economic measures that were implemented by the Soviet leadership and which was based on the key postulates of Marxist-Leninist ideology.

This policy consisted of three components: the Red Guard attack on capital, nationalization and confiscation of grain from the peasants.

One of these postulates states that it is an inevitable evil for the development of society and the state. It gives rise, firstly, to social inequality, and, secondly, to the exploitation of some classes by others. For example, if you own a lot of land, you will hire hired workers to cultivate it - and this is exploitation.

Another postulate of Marxist-Leninist theory says that money is evil. Money makes people be greedy and selfish. Therefore, money was simply eliminated, trade was prohibited, even simple barter - the exchange of goods for goods.

Red Guard attack on capital and nationalization

Therefore, the first component of the Red Guard's attack on capital was the nationalization of private banks and their subordination to the State Bank. The entire infrastructure was nationalized: communication lines, railways, etc. Worker control was also approved at factories. In addition, the decree on land abolished private ownership of land in the countryside and transferred it to the peasantry.

All foreign trade was monopolized so that citizens could not enrich themselves. Also, the entire river fleet became state property.

The second component of the policy under consideration was nationalization. On June 28, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued a Decree on the transfer of all industries into the hands of the state. What did all these measures mean for the owners of banks and factories?

Well, imagine - you are a foreign businessman. You have assets in Russia: a couple of steel production plants. October 1917 comes, and after some time the local Soviet government announces that your factories are state-owned. And you won't get a penny. She cannot buy these enterprises from you because she has no money. But it’s easy to appropriate. So how? Would you like this? No! And your government won't like it. Therefore, the response to such measures was the intervention of England, France, and Japan in Russia during the civil war.

Of course, some countries, for example Germany, began to buy shares from their businessmen in companies that the Soviet government decided to appropriate. This could have led to the intervention of this country in the process of nationalization. That is why the above-mentioned Decree of the Council of People's Commissars was adopted so hastily.

Food dictatorship

In order to supply cities and the army with food, the Soviet government introduced another measure of military communism - food dictatorship. Its essence was that now the state voluntarily and forcibly confiscated grain from the peasants.

It is clear that the latter will not hurt to hand over bread for free in the quantity required by the state. Therefore, the country's leadership continued the tsarist measure - surplus appropriation. Prodrazverstka is when the required amount of grain was distributed to the regions. And it doesn’t matter whether you have this bread or not, it will still be confiscated.

It is clear that the lion's share of the grain went to wealthy peasants - kulaks. They definitely won’t hand over anything voluntarily. Therefore, the Bolsheviks acted very cunningly: they created committees of the poor (kombedas), which were entrusted with the responsibility of confiscating grain.

Well, look. Who is more on the tree: poor or rich? It’s clear - the poor. Are they jealous of their wealthy neighbors? Naturally! So let them confiscate their bread! Food detachments (food detachments) helped confiscate bread for the poor people. This is, in fact, how the policy of war communism took place.

To organize the material, use the table:

	Politics of War Communism
"Military" - this policy was caused by the emergency conditions of the Civil War					“Communism” - the ideological beliefs of the Bolsheviks, who strived for communism, had a serious influence on economic policy
		Why?
	Main events
↓			↓				↓
In industry			In agriculture				In the field of commodity-money relations
↓			↓				↓
All enterprises were nationalized			The committees were dissolved. A Decree on the allocation of grain and fodder was issued.				Prohibition of free trade. Food was given as wages.

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War communism is a unique policy that was pursued between 1918 and 1921 by the young Soviet state. It still causes a lot of controversy among historians. In particular, few can say unequivocally how justified it was (and whether it was). Some elements of the policy are considered a reaction to the threat of the "white movement", others are believed to have been determined by the Civil War. In this case, the reasons for the introduction of war communism come down to several factors:

1. The coming to power of the Bolsheviks, who perceived the teachings of Engels and Marx literally as a program of action. Many, led by Bukharin, demanded that all communist measures be immediately implemented in the economy. They didn’t want to think about how realistic and feasible it was, how true it was. As well as the fact that Marx and Engels were largely theoreticians who interpreted practice to suit their worldviews. In addition, they wrote with an orientation towards industrialized countries, where there were completely different institutions. Their theory did not take Russia into account.
2. Lack of real experience in managing a huge country among those who came to power. What was shown not only by the policy of war communism, but also by its results, in particular, a sharp reduction in production, a decrease in the volume of sowing, and the loss of interest of peasants in agriculture. The state surprisingly quickly fell into incredible decline, it was undermined.
3. Civil War. The immediate introduction of a number of measures was associated with the need to defend the revolution at all costs. Even if it meant starvation.

It is worth noting that Soviet historiographers, trying to justify what the policy of war communism implied, talked about the deplorable state of the country in which the state found itself after the First World War and the reign of Nicholas II. However, there is a clear distortion here.

The fact is that 1916 was quite favorable for Russia at the front. It was also marked by an excellent harvest. Moreover, to be frank, military communism was not aimed primarily at saving the state. In many ways, this was a way to strengthen their power in both domestic and foreign policy. What is very typical for many dictatorial regimes, the characteristic features of the future Stalinist rule were already laid then.

Maximum centralization of the economic management system, surpassing even autocracy, the introduction of surplus appropriation, rapid hyperinflation, nationalization of almost all resources and enterprises - these are not all the features. Compulsory labor appeared, which was largely militarized. Private trade is completely prohibited. In addition, the state tried to abandon commodity-money relations, which almost led the country to complete disaster. However, a number of researchers believe that it did.

It is worth noting that the main provisions of war communism were based on equalization. The individual approach not only to a specific enterprise, but even to industries was destroyed. Therefore, a noticeable decrease in productivity is quite natural. During the Civil War, this could have turned into a disaster for the new government if it had lasted at least a couple more years. So historians believe that the collapse was timely.

Prodrazverstka

War communism is an extremely controversial phenomenon in itself. However, few things caused as many conflicts as surplus appropriation. Its characterization is quite simple: the Soviet authorities, experiencing a constant need for food, decided to organize something like a tax in kind. The main goals were to maintain an army that opposed the “whites”.

After the surplus appropriation system was introduced, the attitude of the peasants towards the new government deteriorated greatly. The main negative result was that many farmers began to openly regret the monarchy, they were so dissatisfied with the politics of war communism. Which later served as an impetus for the perception of the peasantry, especially the wealthy, as a potentially dangerous element for the communist form of government. We can say that as a result of surplus appropriation, dispossession occurred. However, the latter in itself is too complex a historical phenomenon, so it is problematic to say anything unequivocally here.

In the context of the issue under discussion, groups of food detachments deserve special mention. These people, who talked a lot about capitalist exploitation, themselves treated the peasants no better. And the study of such a topic as the policy of war communism briefly even shows: often it was not the surplus that was taken away, but the essentials, the peasants were left completely without food. In fact, under the slogan of seemingly beautiful communist ideas, robbery took place.

What are the main measures of the policy of war communism?

Nationalization played a big role in what was happening. Moreover, it concerned not only large or medium-sized enterprises, but even small ones belonging to certain sectors and (or) located in specific regions. At the same time, the policy of war communism is characterized by the surprisingly low competence of those who tried to manage, weak discipline, and inability to organize complex processes. And the political chaos in the country only intensified the problems in the economy. The logical result was a sharp decrease in productivity: some factories reached the level of Peter’s enterprises. Such results of the policy of war communism could not but discourage the country's leadership.

What else characterized what was happening?

The goal of the policy of War Communism was ultimately intended to be the achievement of order. However, very soon many contemporaries realized that the established regime was characterized differently: in some places it resembled a dictatorship. Many democratic institutions that appeared in the Russian Empire in the last years of its existence or that had just begun to emerge were strangled in the bud. By the way, a well-thought-out presentation can show this quite colorfully, because there was not a single area that was not affected by war communism in one way or another. He sought to control everything.

At the same time, the rights and freedoms of individual citizens, including those they were supposedly fighting for, were ignored. Very soon the term war communism became something of a household name for the creative intelligentsia. It was during this period that the maximum disappointment with the results of the revolution occurred. War communism showed many the true face of the Bolsheviks.

Grade

It should be noted that many are still arguing about how exactly this phenomenon should be assessed. Some believe that the concept of war communism was distorted by the war. Others believe that the Bolsheviks themselves were familiar with it only in theory, and when they encountered it in practice, they were afraid that the situation could get out of control and turn against them.

When studying this phenomenon, a presentation can be a good help, in addition to the usual material. In addition, that time was literally full of posters and bright slogans. Some romantics of the revolution still tried to ennoble it. This is exactly what the presentation will show.