Modern World History: Pages 123-125

The New Economic Policy

War communism

During the Civil War, the Bolsheviks used some very hard, harsh ways of controlling the economy. They called these methods, 'War Communism.' War Communism had two main aims. The first aim was to bring the main idea of Communism to Russia by redistributing wealth amongst the Russian people. The second aim was to help win the Civil War by making sure that the towns and the Red Army had enough food and weapons. These are examples of War Communism:

War Communism did help the Bolsheviks to win the war but it caused a lot of suffering to ordinary people. (Some historians say that Lenin was so determined to bring Communism to Russia that he used hard methods like War communism. They say that maybe this caused the war in the first place.) Peasants refused to do what they were told and produce more food because the government just came and took it away. This led to food shortages. Also, there was very bad weather in 1920 and 1921. The result was that there was a terrible famine. There were even some reports of cannibalism.

In February 1921 there was a mutiny at Kronstadt naval base. The cause of this was that the sailors were unhappy with the way that the Bolsheviks were governing the country. The sailors said that they had no more freedom than when the Tsar ruled Russia.

Trotsky's soldiers stopped the mutiny, but soon after this Lenin stopped the emergency economic policies of War Communism. It may seem strange that this revolt should have such a big effect on Lenin but he did this because the Kronstadt sailors had been some of his strongest supporters. Perhaps the revolt made him realize that he would lose too much support if he did not stop the War Communism by a political party, business, or other policies.

The New Economic Policy

Thousands of sailors were killed in the Kronstadt mutiny. The mutiny was crushed. However, Lenin realized that he had to make some changes. In March 1921, at the Party congress, Lenin announced some new policies which he called the New Economic Policy (NEP). The NEP brought back capitalism for some parts of Russian society. Peasants were allowed to sell extra grain they produced for profit. They would pay tax on what they produced, not give the grain to the government.

In the towns, small factories were given back to private owners. Lenin also allowed private trading of small goods.

Lenin made sure that people understood that the NEP was temporary. He also made it clear that the big, important industries (coal, oil, iron and steel) would continue to be owned by the state. However, many Bolsheviks were very unhappy when Lenin announced the NEP. They thought that it was against the ideas of Communism. As usual, Lenin got what he wanted and the NEP started in 1921. By 1925, there was strong evidence that the NEP was working. Food production went up a lot. However, the pay of miners, metal workers and train drivers was still lower than it had been in 1914. This meant that the workers' housing and food was still poor. (See Source 25, page 125).

The death of Lenin and the creation of the USSR

Lenin did not live long enough to see the improvement of the Russian economy. In 1922 and 1923, he became very ill and he died in January 1924, he died. He was a very remarkable man. He led Russia through revolution and civil war. In 1923, he even organized a new constitution for Russia. It turned the Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

If he had lived longer Lenin would have brought more new policies to Russia but we will never know what they would have been. He didn't say how much longer he wanted the NEP to continue. He also left another big unanswered question behind him: who was going to be the next leader of the USSR?

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