Terms 

The period of the new economic policy of surplus appropriation. Forced NEP. Points of view on the NEP

New Economic Policy- economic policy pursued in Soviet Russia and the USSR in the 20s. It was adopted on March 15, 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 (up to 70% of grain was confiscated during surplus appropriation, and about 30% with the tax in kind), the use of the market and various forms of ownership, attracting foreign capital in the form of concessions, carrying out a monetary reform (1922-1924), in as a result of which the ruble became a convertible currency.

Prerequisites for the transition to NEP

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 damage. 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 oppose food appropriation, which was implemented by violent methods with the help of food detachments.

The policy of “war communism” led to the destruction of commodity-money relations. The sale of food and industrial goods was limited; they were distributed by the state in the form of wages in kind. An equalization system of wages among workers was introduced. This gave them the illusion of social equality. The failure of this policy was manifested in the formation of a “black market” and the flourishing of speculation. In the social sphere, the policy of “war communism” was based on the principle “ He who doesn't work doesn't eat" In 1918, labor conscription was introduced for representatives of the former exploiting classes, and in 1920, universal labor conscription. Forced mobilization of labor resources was carried out with the help of labor armies sent to restore transport, construction work, etc. Naturalization of wages led to the free provision of housing, utilities, transport, postal and telegraph services. During the period of “war communism”, an undivided dictatorship of the RCP(b) was established in the political sphere, which also subsequently became one of the reasons for the transition to the NEP. The Bolshevik Party ceased to be a purely political organization; its apparatus gradually merged with state structures. It determined the political, ideological, economic and cultural situation in the country, even the personal life of citizens. Essentially, we were talking about the crisis of the policy of “war communism.”

Devastation and hunger, workers' strikes, uprisings of peasants and sailors - everything indicated that a deep economic and social crisis was brewing in the country. In addition, by the spring of 1921, the hope for an early world revolution and material and technical assistance from the European proletariat had been exhausted. Therefore, V.I. Lenin revised the internal political course and recognized that only satisfying the demands of the peasantry could save the power of the Bolsheviks.

The essence of the NEP

The essence of the NEP was not clear to everyone. Disbelief in the NEP and its socialist orientation gave rise to disputes about the ways of developing the country's economy and about the possibility of building socialism. With very different understandings of the NEP, many party leaders agreed that at the end of the civil war in Soviet Russia, two main classes of the population remained: workers and peasants, and at the beginning of the 20 years after the implementation of the NEP, a new bourgeoisie appeared, the bearer of restorationist tendencies. A wide field of activity for the Nepman bourgeoisie consisted of industries serving the basic most important consumer interests of the city and countryside. V.I. Lenin understood the inevitable contradictions and dangers of development along the path of the NEP. He considered it necessary to strengthen the Soviet state to ensure victory over capitalism.

In general, the NEP economy was a complex and unstable market-administrative structure. Moreover, the introduction of market elements into it was of a forced nature, while the preservation of administrative-command elements was fundamental and strategic. Without abandoning the ultimate goal (creation of a non-market economic system) of the NEP, the Bolsheviks resorted to the use of commodity-money relations while simultaneously maintaining the “commanding heights” in the hands of the state: nationalized land and mineral resources, large and most of medium-sized industry, transport, banking, monopoly foreign trade. It was assumed that there would be a relatively long coexistence of socialist and non-socialist (state-capitalist, private capitalist, small-scale commodity, patriarchal) structures with the gradual displacement of the latter from the economic life of the country while relying on “commanding heights” and the use of levers of economic and administrative influence on large and small owners (taxes, loans , pricing policy, legislation, etc.).

From the point of view of V.I. Lenin, the essence of the NEP maneuver was to lay an economic foundation under the “union of the working class and the working peasantry,” in other words, to provide a certain freedom of management that prevailed in the country among small commodity producers in order to relieve their acute dissatisfaction with the authorities and ensure political stability in society. As the Bolshevik leader emphasized more than once, the NEP was a roundabout, indirect path to socialism, the only one possible after the failure of the attempt to directly and quickly break all market structures. The direct path to socialism, however, was not rejected by him in principle: Lenin recognized it as quite suitable for developed capitalist states after the victory of the proletarian revolution there.

NEP in agriculture

The resolution of the X Congress of the RCP(b) on replacing the appropriation tax with a tax in kind, which laid the foundation for the new economic policy, was formalized into law by a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in March 1921. The tax amount was reduced by almost half compared to the surplus appropriation system, and the main burden fell on wealthy rural peasants. The decree limited the freedom of trade of the products remaining with the peasants after paying the tax “within the limits of local economic turnover.” Already by 1922, there was a noticeable growth in agriculture. The country was fed. In 1925, the sown area reached pre-war levels. The peasants sown almost the same area as in pre-war 1913. The gross grain harvest was 82% compared to 1913. The number of livestock exceeded the pre-war level. 13 million peasant farms were members of agricultural cooperation. There were about 22 thousand collective farms in the country. The implementation of grandiose industrialization required a radical restructuring of the agricultural sector. In Western countries, the agricultural revolution, i.e. the system of improving agricultural production preceded revolutionary industry, and therefore in general it was easier to supply the urban population with food. In the USSR, both of these processes had to be carried out simultaneously. At the same time, the village was considered not only as a source of food, but also as the most important channel for replenishing financial resources for the needs of industrialization.

NEP in industry

Radical changes also took place in industry. The chapters were abolished, and in their place trusts were created - associations of homogeneous or interconnected enterprises that received complete economic and financial independence, up to the right to issue long-term bond issues. By the end of 1922, about 90% of industrial enterprises were united into 421 trusts, with 40% of them being centralized and 60% of local subordination. The trusts themselves decided what to produce and where to sell the products. The enterprises that were part of the trust were withdrawn from state supplies and began purchasing resources on the market. The law provided that “the state treasury is not responsible for the debts of trusts.”

VSNKh, having lost the right to intervene in the current activities of enterprises and trusts, turned into a coordination center. His staff was sharply reduced. It was at that time that economic accounting appeared, in which an enterprise (after mandatory fixed contributions to the state budget) has the right to independently dispose of income from the sale of products, is itself responsible for the results of its economic activities, independently uses profits and covers losses. Under the conditions of the NEP, Lenin wrote, “state enterprises are transferred to the so-called economic accounting, that is, in fact, to a large extent to commercial and capitalist principles.”

The Soviet government tried to combine two principles in the activities of trusts - market and planned. Encouraging the first, the state, with the help of trusts, sought to borrow technology and work methods from the market economy. At the same time, the principle of planning in the activities of trusts was strengthened. The state encouraged the areas of activity of trusts and the creation of a system of concerns by joining the trusts with enterprises producing raw materials and finished products. The concerns were supposed to serve as centers for planned economic management. For these reasons, in 1925, the motivation for “profit” as the goal of their activities was removed from the regulations on trusts and only the mention of “commercial calculation” was left. So, the trust as a form of management combined planned and market elements that the state tried to use to build a socialist planned economy. This was the complexity and contradictory nature of the situation.

Almost simultaneously, syndicates began to be created - associations of trusts for the wholesale distribution of products, lending and regulation of trade operations on the market. By the end of 1922, the syndicates controlled 80% of the industry covered by the trusts. In practice, three types of syndicates have emerged:

  1. with a predominance of trade function (Textile, Wheat, Tobacco);
  2. with a predominance of the regulatory function (Council of Congresses of the Main Chemical Industry);
  3. syndicates created by the state on a compulsory basis (Salt Syndicate, Oil Syndicate, Coal Syndicate, etc.) to maintain control over the most important resources.

Thus, syndicates as a form of management also had a dual character: on the one hand, they combined elements of the market, since they were focused on improving the commercial activities of the trusts that were part of them, on the other hand, they were monopoly organizations in this industry, regulated by higher government bodies (VSNKh and People's Commissariats).

Financial reform of the NEP

The transition to the NEP required the development of a new financial policy. Experienced pre-revolutionary financiers took part in the reform of the financial and monetary system: N. Kutler, V. Tarnovsky, professors L. Yurovsky, P. Genzel, A. Sokolov, Z. Katsenelenbaum, S. Volkner, N. Shaposhnikov, N. Nekrasov, A. Manuilov, former assistant to minister A. Khrushchev. Great organizational work was carried out by the People's Commissar of Finance G. Sokolnikov, a member of the Narkomfin Board V. Vladimirov, and the Chairman of the Board of the State Bank A. Sheiman. The main directions of the reform were identified: stopping the issue of money, establishing a deficit-free budget, restoring the banking system and savings banks, introducing a unified monetary system, creating a stable currency, and developing an appropriate tax system.

By decree of the Soviet government of October 4, 1921, the State Bank was formed as part of the Narkomfin, savings and loan banks were opened, and payment for transport, cash register and telegraph services was introduced. The system of direct and indirect taxes was restored. To strengthen the budget, all expenses that did not correspond to state revenues were sharply reduced. Further normalization of the financial and banking system required the strengthening of the Soviet ruble.

In accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars, in November 1922 the issue of a parallel Soviet currency, the “chervonets”, began. It was equal to 1 spool - 78.24 shares or 7.74234 g of pure gold, i.e. the amount contained in the pre-revolutionary gold ten. It was forbidden to pay off the budget deficit in chervonets. They were intended to service the credit operations of the State Bank, industry, and wholesale trade.

To maintain the stability of the chervonets, a special part (OS) of the currency department of the People's Commissariat of Finance bought or sold gold, foreign currency and chervonets. Despite the fact that this measure corresponded to the interests of the state, such commercial activities of the OC were regarded by the OGPU as speculation, so in May 1926, arrests and executions of the leaders and employees of the OC began (L. Volin, A.M. Chepelevsky and others, who were only rehabilitated 1996).

The high nominal value of chervonets (10, 25, 50 and 100 rubles) created difficulties in exchanging them. In February 1924, a decision was made to issue state treasury notes in denominations of 1, 3, and 5 rubles. gold, as well as small silver and copper coins.

In 1923 and 1924 two devaluations of the sovznak (the former settlement banknote) were carried out. This gave the monetary reform a confiscatory character. On March 7, 1924, a decision was made to issue Sovznak by the State Bank. For every 500 million rubles handed over to the state. model 1923, their owner received 1 kopeck. Thus, the system of two parallel currencies was eliminated.

In general, the state has achieved some success in carrying out monetary reform. Exchanges began to produce chervonets in Constantinople, the Baltic countries (Riga, Revel), Rome, and some eastern countries. The chervonets exchange rate was 5 dollars. 14 US cents.

The strengthening of the country's financial system was facilitated by the revival of the credit and tax systems, the creation of exchanges and a network of joint-stock banks, the spread of commercial credit, and the development of foreign trade.

However, the financial system created on the basis of the NEP began to destabilize in the second half of the 20s. for several reasons. The state strengthened planning principles in the economy. The control figures for the 1925-26 financial year affirmed the idea of ​​maintaining monetary circulation through increasing emissions. By December 1925, the money supply increased 1.5 times compared to 1924. This led to an imbalance between the size of trade turnover and the money supply. Since the State Bank constantly introduced gold and foreign currency into circulation in order to withdraw cash surpluses and maintain the exchange rate of the chervonets, the state’s foreign exchange reserves were soon depleted. The fight against inflation was lost. Since July 1926, it was prohibited to export chervonets abroad and the purchase of chervonets on the foreign market was stopped. Chervonets turned from a convertible currency into the internal currency of the USSR.

Thus, the monetary reform of 1922-1924 was a comprehensive reform of the sphere of circulation. The monetary system was rebuilt simultaneously with the establishment of wholesale and retail trade, the elimination of the budget deficit, and the revision of prices. All these measures helped restore and streamline monetary circulation, overcome emissions, and ensure the formation of a solid budget. At the same time, financial and economic reform helped streamline taxation. Hard currency and a solid state budget were the most important achievements of the financial policy of the Soviet state in those years. In general, monetary reform and financial recovery contributed to the restructuring of the mechanism of operation of the entire national economy on the basis of the NEP.

The role of the private sector during the NEP

During the NEP period, the private sector played a major role in the restoration of the light and food industries - it produced up to 20% of all industrial products (1923) and predominated in wholesale (15%) and retail (83%) trade.

Private industry took the form of handicraft, rental, joint-stock and cooperative enterprises. Private entrepreneurship has become noticeably widespread in the food, clothing and leather industries, as well as the oil-pressing, flour-grinding and shag industries. About 70% of private enterprises were located on the territory of the RSFSR. In total in 1924-1925 There were 325 thousand private enterprises in the USSR. They employed about 12% of the total workforce, with an average of 2-3 workers per enterprise. Private enterprises produced about 5% of all industrial output (1923). the state constantly limited the activities of private entrepreneurs through the use of tax pressure, depriving entrepreneurs of voting rights, etc.

At the end of the 20s. In connection with the collapse of the NEP, the policy of restricting the private sector was replaced by a course towards its elimination.

Consequences of the NEP

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).

In October 1928, the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy began, the country's leadership set a course for accelerated industrialization and collectivization. Although no one officially canceled the NEP, by that time it had already been effectively curtailed.

Legally, the NEP was terminated only on October 11, 1931, when a resolution was adopted to completely ban private trade in the USSR.

The undoubted success of the NEP was the restoration of the destroyed economy, and if we take into account that after the revolution Russia lost highly qualified personnel (economists, managers, production workers), then the success of the new government becomes a “victory over devastation.” At the same time, the lack of those highly qualified personnel became the cause of miscalculations and mistakes.

Significant rates of economic growth, however, were achieved only through the return to operation of pre-war capacities, because Russia only reached the economic indicators of the pre-war years by 1926-1927. The potential for further economic growth turned out to be extremely low. The private sector was not allowed to the “commanding heights of the economy,” foreign investment was not welcomed, and investors themselves were in no particular hurry to come to Russia due to ongoing instability and the threat of nationalization of capital. The state was unable to make long-term capital-intensive investments using its own funds alone.

The situation in the village was also contradictory, where the “kulaks” were clearly oppressed.


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(NEP) - carried out from 1921 to 1924. in Soviet Russia, economic policy that replaced the policy of “war communism”.

The crisis of the Bolshevik policy of “war communism” manifested itself most acutely in the economy. Most of the food, metal and fuel supplies were used for the needs of the civil war. Industry also worked for military needs, as a result, agriculture was supplied with 2-3 times less machines and tools than required. The lack of labor, agricultural implements and seed funds led to a reduction in sown areas, and the gross harvest of agricultural products decreased by 45%. All this became the cause of the famine in 1921, which killed almost 5 million people.

The deterioration of the economic situation and the continuation of emergency communist measures (surplus appropriation) led to the emergence of an acute political and economic crisis in the country in 1921. The result was anti-Bolshevik protests by peasants, workers and military men with demands for political equality of all citizens, freedom of speech, the establishment of workers' control over production, the encouragement of private entrepreneurship, etc.

In order to normalize the economy, destroyed by the Civil War, intervention and the measures of “war communism”, and to stabilize the socio-political sphere, the Soviet government decided to make a temporary retreat from its principles. The policy of a temporary transition to a capitalist economy in order to improve the economy and resolve social and political problems was called the NEP (new economic policy).

The departure from the NEP was facilitated by such factors as the weakness of domestic private enterprise, which was a consequence of its long ban and excessive government intervention. The unfavorable global economic background (the economic crisis in the West in 1929) was interpreted as the “decay” of capitalism. The economic rise of Soviet industry by the mid-1920s. hampered by the lack of new reforms needed to maintain growth rates (for example, the creation of new industries, the weakening of government controls, tax revisions).

At the end of the 1920s. reserves have dried up, the country is faced with the need for huge investments in agriculture and industry to reconstruct and modernize enterprises. Due to a lack of funds for industrial development, the city could not satisfy rural demand for urban goods. They tried to save the situation by increasing prices for manufactured goods (the “commodity famine” of 1924), which resulted in the loss of interest of the peasantry in selling food to the state or unprofitably exchanging it for manufactured goods. Production volumes decreased, in 1927-1929. The grain procurement crisis worsened. The printing of new money and the rise in prices of agricultural and industrial products led to the depreciation of the chervonets. In the summer of 1926, the Soviet currency ceased to be convertible (transactions with it abroad were stopped after the abandonment of the gold standard).

Faced with a lack of government funds for industrial development, from the mid-1920s. all NEP measures were curtailed with the aim of greater centralization of the financial and material resources available in the country, and by the end of the 1920s. The country followed the path of planned and directive development of industrialization and collectivization.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

NEP- a new economic policy carried out in Soviet Russia and the USSR in the 1920s. It was adopted on March 14, 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 (up to 70% of grain was seized during surplus appropriation, and about 30% with the tax in kind), the use of the market and various forms of ownership, attracting foreign capital in the form of concessions, carrying out a monetary reform (1922-1924), in as a result of which the ruble became a convertible currency.

Reasons for the new economic policy.

The extremely difficult situation in the country pushed the Bolsheviks towards a more flexible economic policy. In different parts of the country (in the Tambov province, in the Middle Volga region, on the Don, Kuban, in Western Siberia) anti-government peasant uprisings break out. By the spring of 1921, there were already about 200 thousand people in the ranks of their participants. Discontent also spread to the Armed Forces. In March, sailors and Red Army soldiers of Kronstadt, the largest naval base of the Baltic Fleet, took up arms against the communists. A wave of mass strikes and demonstrations by workers grew in the cities.

At their core, these were spontaneous outbursts of popular indignation against the policies of the Soviet government. But in each of them there was also an element of organization to a greater or lesser extent. It was contributed by a wide range of political forces: from monarchists to socialists. These diverse forces were united by the desire to take control of the emerging popular movement and, relying on it, to eliminate the power of the Bolsheviks.

It was necessary to admit that it was not only the war that led to the economic and political crisis, but also the policy of “war communism.” “Ruin, need, impoverishment” - this is how V. I. Lenin characterized the situation that developed after the end of the civil war. By 1921, the population of Russia, compared with the fall of 1917, had decreased by more than 10 million people; industrial production decreased by 7 times; transport was in complete disrepair; coal and oil production was at the level of the end of the 19th century; the area under cultivation has sharply decreased; gross agricultural output was 67% of the pre-war level. The people were exhausted. For a number of years people lived from hand to mouth. There were not enough clothes, shoes, and medicines.

In the spring and summer of 1921, a terrible famine broke out in the Volga region. It was provoked not so much by a severe drought, but by the fact that after the confiscation of surplus production in the fall, the peasants had neither grain left for sowing, nor the desire to sow and cultivate the land. More than 5 million people died from hunger. The consequences of the civil war also affected the city. Due to a lack of raw materials and fuel, many enterprises closed. In February 1921, 64 of the largest factories in Petrograd stopped working, including Putilovsky. The workers found themselves on the street. Many of them went to the village in search of food. In 1921, Moscow lost half of its workers, Petrograd two-thirds. Labor productivity fell sharply. In some industries it reached only 20% of the pre-war level.

One of the most tragic consequences of the war years was child homelessness. It increased sharply during the famine of 1921. According to official data, in 1922 there were 7 million street children in the Soviet Republic. This phenomenon acquired such alarming proportions that the Chairman of the Cheka, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, was appointed head of the Commission for Improving the Lives of Children, designed to combat homelessness.

As a result, Soviet Russia entered a period of peaceful construction with two diverging lines of internal policy. On the one hand, a rethinking of the fundamentals of economic policy began, accompanied by the emancipation of the country's economic life from total state regulation. On the other hand, the ossification of the Soviet system and the Bolshevik dictatorship remained, and any attempts to democratize society and expand the civil rights of the population were resolutely suppressed.

The essence of the new economic policy:

1) The main political task is to relieve social tension in society, strengthen the social base of Soviet power, in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants.

2) The economic task is to prevent further devastation in the national economy, get out of the crisis and restore the country’s economy.

3) The social task is to provide favorable conditions for building socialism in the USSR, ultimately. A minimum program could include such goals as eliminating hunger, unemployment, raising material standards, and saturating the market with necessary goods and services.

4) And finally, the NEP pursued another, no less important task - the restoration of normal foreign economic and foreign policy relations, to overcome international isolation.

Let's consider the main changes that occurred in the life of Russia with the country's transition to the NEP.

Agriculture

Starting from the 1923-1924 business year, a single agricultural tax was introduced, replacing various in-kind taxes. This tax was levied partly on products and partly on money. Later, after the currency reform, the single tax took exclusively monetary form. On average, the size of the tax in kind was half the size of the surplus appropriation system, and the bulk of it was assigned to the wealthy peasantry. Great assistance in restoring agricultural production was provided by government measures to improve agriculture, the massive dissemination of agricultural knowledge and improved farming techniques among peasants. Among the measures aimed at restoring and developing agriculture in 1921-1925, financial assistance to the countryside occupied an important place. A network of district and provincial agricultural credit societies was created in the country. Loans were provided to low-power horseless, one-horse peasant farms and middle peasants for the purchase of draft animals, machinery, tools, fertilizers, to increase the breed of livestock, improve soil cultivation, etc.

In the provinces that fulfilled the procurement plan, the state grain monopoly was abolished and free trade in bread and all other agricultural products was allowed. Products remaining in excess of the tax could be sold to the state or on the market at free prices, and this, in turn, significantly stimulated the expansion of production on peasant farms. It was allowed to lease land and hire workers, but there were, however, great restrictions.

The state encouraged the development of various forms of simple cooperation: consumer, supply, credit, and fishing. Thus, in agriculture, by the end of the 1920s, these forms of cooperation covered more than half of peasant households.

Industry

With the transition to the NEP, impetus was given to the development of private capitalist entrepreneurship. The main position of the state on this issue was that freedom of trade and the development of capitalism were allowed only to a certain extent and only under the condition of state regulation. In industry, the sphere of activity of a private owner was mainly limited to the production of consumer goods, the extraction and processing of certain types of raw materials, and the manufacture of simple tools.

Developing the idea of ​​state capitalism, the government allowed private enterprise to lease small and medium-sized industrial and commercial enterprises. In fact, these enterprises belonged to the state, their work program was approved by local government institutions, but production activities were carried out by private entrepreneurs.

A small number of state-owned enterprises were denationalized. It was allowed to open their own enterprises with no more than 20 employees. By the mid-1920s, the private sector accounted for 20-25% of industrial production.

One of the features of the NEP was the development of concessions, a special form of lease, i.e. granting foreign entrepreneurs the right to operate and build enterprises on the territory of the Soviet state, as well as to develop the earth’s subsoil, extract minerals, etc. The concession policy pursued the goal of attracting foreign capital to the country's economy.

Of all the industries during the recovery period, mechanical engineering achieved the greatest success. The country began to implement Lenin's electrification plan. Electricity production in 1925 was 6 times higher than in 1921 and significantly higher than the level of 1913. The metallurgical industry was far behind pre-war levels and much work remained to be done in this area. Railway transport, which had been badly damaged during the Civil War, was gradually restored. The light and food industries were quickly restored.

Thus, in 1921-1925. The Soviet people successfully solved the problems of restoring industry, and production output increased.

Production management

Major changes took place in the economic management system. This concerned primarily the weakening of centralization characteristic of the period of “war communism”. The central boards in the Supreme Economic Council were abolished, and their local functions were transferred to large district departments and provincial economic councils.

Trusts, that is, associations of homogeneous or interconnected enterprises, have become the main form of production management in the public sector.

Trusts were given broad powers; they independently decided what to produce, where to sell products, and bore financial responsibility for the organization of production, the quality of products, and the safety of state property. Enterprises included in the trust were withdrawn from state supplies and began purchasing resources on the market. All this was called “economic accounting” (khozraschet), according to which enterprises received complete financial independence, up to the issue of long-term bond issues.

Simultaneously with the formation of the trust system, syndicates began to emerge, that is, voluntary associations of several trusts for the wholesale sale of their products, purchases of raw materials, lending, and regulation of trade operations on the domestic and foreign markets.

Trade

The development of trade was one of the elements of state capitalism. With the help of trade, it was necessary to ensure economic exchange between industry and agriculture, between city and countryside, without which normal economic life of society is impossible.

It was supposed to carry out a wide exchange of goods within the local economic turnover. To achieve this, it was envisaged to oblige state enterprises to hand over their products to a special commodity exchange fund of the republic. But unexpectedly for the country's leaders, local trade exchange turned out to be difficult for economic development, and already in October 1921 it turned into free trade.

Private capital was allowed into the trade sphere in accordance with the permission received from government agencies to carry out trade operations. The presence of private capital in retail trade was especially noticeable, but it was completely excluded from foreign trade, which was carried out exclusively on the basis of a state monopoly. International trade relations were concluded only with the bodies of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade.

D currency reform

Of no small importance for the implementation of the NEP was the creation of a stable system and stabilization of the ruble.

As a result of heated discussions, by the end of 1922 it was decided to carry out monetary reform based on the gold standard. To stabilize the ruble, a denomination of banknotes was carried out, that is, a change in their face value according to a certain ratio of old and new notes. First, in 1922, Sovznaki were issued.

Simultaneously with the release of Sovznak, at the end of November 1922, a new Soviet currency was released into circulation - the “chervonets”, equal to 7.74 grams of pure gold, or to the pre-revolutionary ten-ruble coin. Chervonets were primarily intended for lending to industry and commercial operations in wholesale trade; it was strictly forbidden to use them to cover the budget deficit.

In the fall of 1922, stock exchanges were created, where the purchase and sale of currency, gold, and government loans were allowed at a free exchange rate. Already in 1925, the chervonets became a convertible currency; it was officially listed on various currency exchanges around the world. The final stage of the reform was the procedure for repurchasing Sovznak.

Tax reform

Simultaneously with the monetary reform, tax reform was carried out. Already at the end of 1923, the main source of state budget revenues became deductions from the profits of enterprises, rather than taxes from the population. The logical consequence of the return to a market economy was the transition from natural to monetary taxation of peasant farms. During this period, new sources of obtaining cash taxes are actively being developed. In 1921-1922 taxes were established on tobacco, alcoholic beverages, beer, matches, honey, mineral waters and other goods.

Banking system

The credit system was gradually revived. In 1921, the State Bank, which was abolished in 1918, restored its work. Lending to industry and trade on a commercial basis began. Specialized banks arose in the country: the Commercial and Industrial Bank (Prombank) for financing industry, the Electric Bank for lending to electrification, the Russian Commercial Bank (from 1924 - Vneshtorgbank) for financing foreign trade, etc. These banks provided short-term and long-term lending, distributed loans, assigned loan, discount and deposit interest.

Confirmation of the market nature of the economy can be seen in the competition that arose between banks in the struggle for clients by providing them with especially favorable lending conditions. Commercial credit, that is, lending to each other by various enterprises and organizations, has become widespread. All this suggests that a single money market with all its attributes was already functioning in the country.

Foreign trade

The monopoly of foreign trade did not make it possible to more fully use the country's export potential, since peasants and artisans received only devalued Soviet banknotes, and not foreign currency, for their products. V.I. Lenin opposed the weakening of the monopoly of foreign trade, fearing the alleged growth of smuggling. In fact, the government feared that producers, having received the right to enter the world market, would feel independent from the state and again begin to fight against the authorities. Based on this, the country’s leadership tried to prevent the demonopolization of foreign trade

These are the most important measures of the new economic policy carried out by the Soviet state. Despite all the diversity of assessments, the NEP can be called a successful and successful policy that was of great and invaluable importance. And, of course, like any economic policy, the NEP has vast experience and important lessons.

It is believed that on March 21, 1921, our country switched to a new form of commodity-economic relations: it was on this day that a decree was signed ordering the abandonment of surplus appropriation and the transition to collecting food taxes. This is exactly how the NEP began.

The Bolsheviks realized the need for economic interaction, since the tactics of war communism and terror were producing more and more negative effects, expressed in the strengthening of separatist phenomena on the outskirts of the young republic, and not only there.

When introducing the New Economic Policy, the Bolsheviks pursued a number of economic and political goals:

  • Relieve tension in society, strengthen the authority of the young Soviet government.
  • Restore the country's economy, completely destroyed as a result of the First World War and the Civil War.
  • Lay the foundation for the creation of an effective planned economy.
  • Finally, it was very important to prove to the “civilized” world the adequacy and legitimacy of the new government, since at that time the USSR found itself in strong international isolation.

Today we will talk both about the essence of the new policy of the USSR government and discuss the main NEP. This topic is extremely interesting, since several years of the new economic course largely determined the features of the political and economic structure of the country for decades to come. However, this is far from what the creators and founders of this phenomenon would have liked.

The essence of the phenomenon

As is usually the case in our country, the NEP was introduced in a hurry, the rush to adopt decrees was terrible, and no one had a clear plan of action. The determination of the most optimal and adequate methods for implementing the new policy was carried out almost throughout its entire duration. Therefore, it is not surprising that it could not do without a lot of trial and error. It’s the same with economic “liberties” for the private sector: their list expanded and then almost immediately narrowed.

The essence of the NEP policy was that while the Bolsheviks retained their powers in politics and management, the economic sector received more freedom, which made it possible to form market relations. In fact, the new policy can be seen as a form of authoritarian rule. As we have already mentioned, this policy included a whole range of measures, many of which openly contradicted each other (the reasons for this have already been mentioned above).

Political aspects

As for the political side of the issue, the Bolshevik NEP was a classic autocracy, in which any dissent in this area was harshly suppressed. In any case, deviations from the “central line” of the Party were definitely not welcomed. However, in the economic sector there was a rather bizarre fusion of elements of administrative and purely market methods of economic management:

  • The state retained complete control over all transport flows and large and medium-sized industry.
  • There was some freedom in the private sector. Thus, citizens could rent land and hire workers.
  • The development of private capitalism in some sectors of the economy was allowed. At the same time, many initiatives of this very capitalism were legislatively hampered, which in many ways made the whole undertaking meaningless.
  • The lease of enterprises owned by the state was allowed.
  • Trade became relatively free. This explains the relatively positive results of the NEP.
  • At the same time, contradictions between the city and the countryside were expanding, the consequences of which are still felt today: industrial centers provided tools and equipment for which people had to pay in “real” money, while food requisitioned for the tax in kind went to the cities for free. Over time, this led to the actual enslavement of the peasants.
  • There was limited cost accounting in industry.
  • A financial reform was carried out, which greatly improved the economy.
  • Management of the national economy was partially decentralized, removed from the control of the central government.
  • Piece-rate wages appeared.
  • Despite this, the state did not transfer international trade into the hands of private traders, which is why the situation in this area has not improved too dramatically.

Despite all of the above, you should clearly understand that the reasons for the collapse of the NEP largely lay in its origins. We'll talk about them now.

Some attempts at reform

The Bolsheviks made the most concessions to farmers, cooperatives (at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, it was small producers who ensured the fulfillment of government orders), as well as small industrialists. But here it should be clearly understood that the features of the NEP, which was conceived and which came out in the end, are very different from each other.

Thus, in the spring of 1920, the authorities came to the conclusion that the easiest way to organize direct trade exchange between city and village was simply by exchanging equipment and other industrial products for food and other goods obtained in the countryside. Simply put, the NEP in Russia was originally conceived as another form of tax in kind, in which peasants would be allowed to sell their remaining surplus.

In this way, the authorities hoped to encourage peasants to increase their crops. However, if you study these dates in the history of Russia, the complete failure of such a policy will become clear. People by that time preferred to sow as little as possible, not wanting to feed a horde of city dwellers without receiving anything in return. It was not possible to convince the embittered peasants: by the end of the year it became extremely clear that no increase in grain was expected. In order for the NEP times to continue, some decisive steps were needed.

Food crisis

As a result, by winter a terrible famine began, sweeping through regions where at least 30 million people lived. About 5.5 million died of starvation. There are more than two million orphans in the country. To provide industrial centers with bread, at least 400 million poods were required, but there simply wasn’t that much.

Using the most brutal methods, they managed to collect only 280 million from the already “robbed” peasants. As you can see, two strategies that were completely opposite at first glance had very similar features: the NEP and war communism. Comparing them shows that in both cases, rural peasants were often forced to give away the entire harvest for nothing.

Even the most ardent supporters of war communism admitted that further attempts to fleece the villagers would not lead to anything good. has increased greatly. By the summer of 1921, it became abundantly clear that a real expansion of the population was needed. Thus, communism and NEP (at the initial stage) are much more closely connected than many imagined.

Corrective course

By the autumn of that year, when a third of the country was on the verge of a terrible famine, the Bolsheviks made their first serious concessions: the medieval trade turnover that had bypassed the market was finally abolished. In August 1921, a decree was issued on the basis of which the NEP economy was to function:

  • As we said, a course was taken towards decentralized management of the industrial sector. Thus, the number of headquarters was reduced from fifty to 16.
  • Enterprises were given some freedom in the field of independent marketing of products.
  • Non-leased businesses had to close.
  • Real financial incentives for workers have finally been introduced in all state-owned enterprises.
  • The leaders of the Bolshevik government were forced to admit that the NEP in the USSR should become truly capitalist, making it possible to improve the country's economic system through effective commodity-money, and not at all natural, circulation of funds.

To ensure normal commodity-money relations, the State Bank was created in 1921, cash desks were opened for issuing loans and receiving savings, and mandatory payment for public transport, utilities and telegraph services was introduced. The tax system was completely restored. In order to strengthen and fill the state budget, many costly items were deleted from it.

All further financial reform was aimed strictly at strengthening the national currency. Thus, in 1922, the production of a special currency, the Soviet chervonets, began. In fact, it was an equivalent (including in terms of gold content) replacement for the imperial ten. This measure had a very positive impact on confidence in the ruble, which soon gained recognition abroad.

¼ of the new currency was backed by precious metals and some foreign currencies. The remaining ¾ was provided through bills of exchange, as well as some goods of high demand. Let us note that the government strictly forbade paying off the budget deficit with chervonets. They were intended exclusively to support the operations of the State Bank and to carry out some foreign exchange transactions.

NEP contradictions

You need to clearly understand one simple thing: the new government never (!) set itself the goal of building some kind of market state with full-fledged private property. This is confirmed by Lenin’s famous words: “We do not recognize anything common...”. He constantly demanded that his comrades strictly control economic processes, so that the NEP in the USSR was never truly independent. It was precisely because of the absurd administrative and party pressure that the new policy did not give even half of the positive results that could have been expected otherwise.

In general, the NEP and war communism, the comparison of which is often cited by some authors in the purely romantic aspect of the new policy, were extremely similar, no matter how strange it may seem. Of course, they were especially similar during the initial period of economic reforms, but even subsequently the common features could be traced without much difficulty.

Crisis phenomena

Already by 1922, Lenin declared that further concessions to capitalists should be completely stopped, that the days of the NEP were over. Reality has corrected these aspirations. Already in 1925, the maximum permitted number of hired workers on peasant farms was increased to one hundred people (previously - no more than 20). Kulak cooperation was legalized, landowners could rent out their plots for up to 12 years. Prohibitions on the creation of credit partnerships were lifted, and exit from communal farms (cuts) was also completely allowed.

But already in 1926, the Bolsheviks set a course for a policy whose goal was to curtail the NEP. Many of the permits that people received a year ago have been completely canceled. The fists again came under attack, so that small-scale industries were almost completely buried. Pressure on private business owners grew inexorably both in the city and in the countryside. Many of the results of the NEP were practically nullified due to the fact that the country's leadership lacked experience and unanimity in matters of carrying out political and economic reforms.

Curtailment of the NEP

Despite all the measures taken, contradictions in the social and economic sphere became more and more serious. It was necessary to decide what to do next: continue to act using purely economic methods, or wind down the NEP and return to the methods of war communism.

As we already know, the supporters of the second method, led by J.V. Stalin, won. To neutralize the consequences of the grain harvest crisis in 1927, a number of administrative measures were taken: the role of the administrative center in managing the economic sector was again significantly strengthened, the independence of all enterprises was practically abolished, and prices for industrial goods were significantly increased. In addition, the authorities resorted to increasing taxes; all peasants who did not want to hand over grain were tried. During arrests, complete confiscation of property and livestock was carried out.

Dispossession of owners

Thus, in the Volga region alone, more than 33 thousand peasants were arrested. Archives show that approximately half of them lost all their property. Almost all agricultural equipment that had been acquired by some large farms by that time was forcibly confiscated in favor of collective farms.

Studying these dates in the history of Russia, one can notice that it was in those years that lending to small industries was completely stopped, which led to very negative consequences in the economic sector. These events were held throughout the country, sometimes reaching the point of absurdity. In 1928-1929 large farms began to curtail production and sell off livestock, equipment and machinery. The blow dealt to large farms for political purposes, to demonstrate the supposed futility of running an individual farm, undermined the foundations of productive forces in the country’s agricultural sector.

Conclusions

So, what are the reasons for the collapse of the NEP? This was facilitated by the deepest internal contradictions in the leadership of the young country, which only worsened when they tried to stimulate the economic development of the USSR using habitual but ineffective methods. In the end, even a radical increase in administrative pressure on private owners, who by that time no longer saw any particular prospects in developing their own production, did not help.

You need to understand that the NEP was not canceled in a couple of months: in the agricultural sector this happened already at the end of the 20s, industry was out of business around the same period, and trade lasted until the beginning of the 30s. Finally, in 1929, a resolution was adopted to speed up the socialist development of the country, which predetermined the end of the NEP era.

The main reasons for the collapse of the NEP are that the Soviet leadership, wanting to quickly build a new model of social structure provided that the country was surrounded by capitalist states, was forced to resort to overly harsh and extremely unpopular methods.

NEP (New Economic Policy) was carried out by the Soviet government from 1921 to 1928. This was an attempt to bring the country out of the crisis and give impetus to the development of the economy and agriculture. But the results of the NEP turned out to be terrible, and ultimately Stalin had to hastily interrupt this process to create industrialization, since the NEP policy almost completely killed heavy industry.

Reasons for introducing the NEP

With the beginning of the winter of 1920, the RSFSR plunged into a terrible crisis. It was largely due to the fact that in 1921-1922 there was a famine in the country. The Volga region suffered mainly (we all remember the infamous phrase " Starving Volga region"). Added to this was the economic crisis, as well as popular uprisings against the Soviet regime. No matter how many textbooks told us that people greeted the power of the Soviets with applause, this was not so. For example, uprisings took place in Siberia, on the Don, in the Kuban, and the largest one was in Tambov. It went down in history as the Antonov uprising or “Antonovschina.” In the spring of 21, about 200 thousand people were involved in the uprising, considering that the Red Army was extremely weak at that time, this was a very serious threat. for the regime. Then the Kronstadt rebellion was born. At the cost of efforts, all these revolutionary elements were suppressed, but it became obvious that the approach to governing the country needed to be changed. And Lenin formulated them as follows:

  • The driving force of socialism is the proletariat, which means the peasants. Therefore, the Soviet government must learn to get along with them.
  • it is necessary to create a unified party system in the country and destroy any dissent.

This is precisely the essence of the NEP - “Economic liberalization under strict political control.”

In general, all the reasons for the introduction of the NEP can be divided into ECONOMIC (the country needed an impetus for economic development), SOCIAL (social division was still extremely acute) and POLITICAL (the new economic policy became a means of managing power).

Beginning of the NEP

The main stages of the introduction of the NEP in the USSR:

  1. Decision of the 10th Congress of the Bolshevik Party of 1921.
  2. Replacement of appropriation with a tax (in fact, this was the introduction of the NEP). Decree of March 21, 1921.
  3. Allowing free exchange of agricultural products. Decree March 28, 1921.
  4. Creation of cooperatives, which were destroyed in 1917. Decree of April 7, 1921.
  5. Transfer of some industry from state hands to private hands. Decree May 17, 1921.
  6. Creating conditions for the development of private trade. Decree May 24, 1921.
  7. Permission to TEMPORARILY provide the opportunity for private owners to lease state-owned enterprises. Decree July 5, 1921.
  8. Permission for private capital to create any enterprise (including industrial) with a staff of up to 20 people. If the enterprise is mechanized - no more than 10. Decree of July 7, 1921.
  9. Adoption of a “liberal” Land Code. He allowed not only the rental of land, but also wage labor on it. Decree of October 1922.

The ideological foundation of the NEP was laid at the 10th Congress of the RCP (b), which met in 1921 (if you remember, its participants went straight from this congress of delegates to suppress the Kronstadt rebellion), adopted the NEP and introduced a ban on “dissent” in the RCP (b). The fact is that before 1921 there were different factions in the RCP (b). This was allowed. According to logic, and this logic is absolutely correct, if economic relief is introduced, then within the party there must be a monolith. Therefore, there are no factions or divisions.

The ideological concept of the NEP was first given by V.I. Lenin. This happened at a speech at the tenth and eleventh congresses of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which took place in 1921 and 1922, respectively. Also, the justification for the New Economic Policy was made at the third and fourth congresses of the Comintern, which also took place in 1921 and 1922. In addition, Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin played a major role in formulating the tasks of the NEP. It is important to remember that for a long time Bukharin and Lenin acted as opposition to each other on NEP issues. Lenin proceeded from the fact that the time had come to ease the pressure on the peasants and “make peace” with them. But Lenin was going to get along with the peasants not forever, but for 5-10 years. Therefore, the majority of members of the Bolshevik Party were sure that the NEP, as a forced measure, was being introduced for just one grain procurement company, as a deception for the peasantry. But Lenin especially emphasized that the NEP course is taken for a longer period. And then Lenin said a phrase that showed that the Bolsheviks were keeping their word - “but we will return to terror, including economic terror.” If we remember the events of 1929, then this is exactly what the Bolsheviks did. The name of this terror is Collectivization.

The New Economic Policy was designed for 5, maximum 10 years. And it certainly fulfilled its task, although at some point it threatened the existence of the Soviet Union.

Briefly, the NEP, according to Lenin, is a bond between the peasantry and the proletariat. This is precisely what formed the basis of the events of those days - if you are against the bond between the peasantry and the proletariat, then you are an opponent of the workers’ power, the Soviets and the USSR. The problems of this bond became a problem for the survival of the Bolshevik regime, because the regime simply did not have the army or equipment to crush the peasant revolts if they began en masse and in an organized manner. That is, some historians say that the NEP is the Brest peace of the Bolsheviks with their own people. That is, what kind of Bolsheviks are the International Socialists who wanted a world revolution. Let me remind you that it was this idea that Trotsky promoted. At first, Lenin, who was not a very great theorist, (he was a good practitioner), he defined the NEP as state capitalism. And immediately for this he received a full portion of criticism from Bukharin and Trotsky. And after this, Lenin began to interpret the NEP as a mixture of Socialist and capitalist forms. I repeat - Lenin was not a theorist, but a practitioner. He lived by the principle - it is important for us to take power, but what it will be called is unimportant.

Lenin, in fact, accepted Bukharin’s version of the NEP with its wording and other attributes..

The NEP is a socialist dictatorship based on socialist production relations and regulating the broad petty-bourgeois organization of the economy.

Lenin

According to the logic of this definition, the main task facing the leadership of the USSR was the destruction of the petty-bourgeois economy. Let me remind you that the Bolsheviks called peasant farming petty-bourgeois. You need to understand that by 1922 the building of socialism had reached a dead end and Lenin realized that this movement could only be continued through the NEP. It is clear that this is not the main path, and it contradicted Marxism, but as a workaround it was quite suitable. And Lenin constantly emphasized that the new policy was a temporary phenomenon.

General characteristics of NEP

The totality of the NEP:

  • rejection of labor mobilization and an equal wage system for all.
  • transfer (partial, of course) of industry into private hands from state ones (denationalization).
  • creation of new economic associations - trusts and syndicates. Widespread introduction of self-financing
  • the formation of enterprises in the country at the expense of capitalism and the bourgeoisie, including the Western one.

Looking ahead, I will say that the NEP led to the fact that many idealistic Bolsheviks shot themselves in the forehead. They believed that capitalism was being restored, and they shed blood in vain during the Civil War. But the non-idealistic Bolsheviks made great use of the NEP, because during the NEP it was easy to launder what was stolen during the Civil War. Because, as we will see, NEP is a triangle: it is the head of a separate link of the party’s Central Committee, the head of a syndicator or trust, and also NEPman as a “huckster,” in modern language, through whom this whole process takes place. In general, this was a corruption scheme from the very beginning, but the NEP was a forced measure - the Bolsheviks would not have retained power without it.


NEP in trade and finance

  • Development of the credit system. In 1921, a state bank was created.
  • Reforming the financial and monetary system of the USSR. It was achieved through the reform of 1922 (monetary) and the replacement of money of 1922-1924.
  • The emphasis is on private (retail) trade and the development of various markets, including the All-Russian one.

If we try to briefly characterize the NEP, then this design was extremely unreliable. It took ugly forms of fusion of personal interests of the country's leadership and everyone who was involved in the “Triangle”. Each of them played their role. The menial work was done by the NEP man speculator. And this was especially emphasized in Soviet textbooks, saying that it was all private traders who ruined the NEP, and we fought against them as best we could. But in fact, the NEP led to colossal corruption of the party. This was one of the reasons for the abolition of the NEP, because if it had been maintained further, the party would simply have completely disintegrated.

Beginning in 1921, the Soviet leadership set a course for weakening Centralization. In addition, much attention was paid to the element of reforming economic systems in the country. Labor mobilizations were replaced by labor exchanges (unemployment was high). Equalization was abolished, the card system was abolished (but for some, the card system was a salvation). It is logical that the results of the NEP almost immediately had a positive impact on trade. Naturally in retail trade. Already at the end of 1921, the Nepmen controlled 75% of trade turnover in retail trade and 18% in wholesale trade. NEPism has become a profitable form of money laundering, especially for those who looted a lot during the civil war. Their loot lay idle, and now it could be sold through the NEPmen. And many people laundered their money this way.

NEP in agriculture

  • Adoption of the Land Code. (22nd year). Transformation of the tax in kind into a single agricultural tax since 1923 (since 1926, entirely in cash).
  • Agricultural cooperation cooperation.
  • Equal (fair) exchange between agriculture and industry. But this was not achieved, as a result of which the so-called “price scissors” appeared.

The party leadership's turn to the NEP did not find much support among the lower classes. Many members of the Bolshevik Party were sure that this was a mistake and a transition from socialism to capitalism. Someone simply sabotaged the decision of the NEP, and those who were especially ideological even committed suicide. In October 1922, the New Economic Policy affected agriculture - the Bolsheviks began implementing the Land Code with new amendments. Its difference was that it legalized wage labor in the countryside (it would seem that the Soviet government was fighting precisely against this, but it did the same thing itself). The next stage occurred in 1923. This year, something happened that many had been waiting for and demanding for so long - the tax in kind was replaced by an agricultural tax. In 1926, this tax began to be collected entirely in cash.

In general, the NEP was not an absolute triumph of economic methods, as it was sometimes written in Soviet textbooks. It was only outwardly a triumph of economic methods. In fact, there was a lot of other things there. And I don’t just mean the so-called excesses of local authorities. The fact is that a significant part of the peasant product was alienated in the form of taxes, and taxation was excessive. Another thing is that the peasant got the opportunity to breathe freely, and this solved some problems. And here the absolutely unfair exchange between agriculture and industry, the formation of the so-called “price scissors,” came to the fore. The regime increased prices for industrial products and decreased prices for agricultural products. As a result, in 1923-1924 the peasants worked for practically nothing! The laws were such that the peasants were forced to sell approximately 70% of everything that the village produced for almost nothing. 30% of the product they produced was taken by the state at market value, and 70% at a reduced value. Then this figure decreased, and it became approximately 50/50. But in any case, this is a lot. 50% of products are priced below the market price.

As a result, the worst happened - the market ceased to fulfill its direct functions as a means of buying and selling goods. Now it has become an effective means of exploiting the peasants. Only half of the peasant goods were purchased with money, and the other half was collected in the form of tribute (this is the most accurate definition of what happened in those years). The NEP can be characterized as follows: corruption, a swollen apparatus, massive theft of state property. The result was a situation where the products of peasant farming were used irrationally, and often the peasants themselves were not interested in high yields. This was a logical consequence of what was happening, because the NEP was initially an ugly design.

NEP in industry

The main features that characterize the New Economic Policy from the point of view of industry are the almost complete lack of development of this industry and the huge level of unemployment among ordinary people.

The NEP was initially supposed to establish interaction between city and village, between workers and peasants. But it was not possible to do this. The reason is that industry was almost completely destroyed as a result of the Civil War, and it was not able to offer anything significant to the peasantry. The peasantry did not sell their grain, because why sell if you can’t buy anything with money anyway. They simply stored the grain and did not buy anything. Therefore, there was no incentive for the development of industry. It turned out to be such a “vicious circle”. And in 1927-1928, everyone already understood that the NEP had outlived its usefulness, that it did not provide an incentive for the development of industry, but, on the contrary, destroyed it even more.

At the same time, it became clear that sooner or later a new war was coming in Europe. Here is what Stalin said about this in 1931:

If in the next 10 years we do not cover the path that the West has covered in 100 years, we will be destroyed and crushed.

Stalin

To put it in simple words, in 10 years it was necessary to raise industry from the ruins and put it on par with the most developed countries. The NEP did not allow this to be done, because it was focused on light industry and on Russia being a raw materials appendage of the West. That is, in this regard, the implementation of the NEP was ballast, which slowly but surely dragged Russia to the bottom, and if this course had been maintained for another 5 years, it is unknown how World War 2 would have ended.

The slow pace of industrial growth in the 1920s caused a sharp rise in unemployment. If in 1923-1924 there were 1 million unemployed in the city, then in 1927-1928 there were already 2 million unemployed. The logical consequence of this phenomenon is a huge increase in crime and discontent in cities. For those who worked, of course, the situation was normal. But overall the situation of the working class was very difficult.

Development of the USSR economy during the NEP period

  • Economic booms alternated with crises. Everyone knows the crises of 1923, 1925 and 1928, which also led to famine in the country.
  • Lack of a unified system for the development of the country's economy. The NEP crippled the economy. It did not allow the development of industry, but agriculture could not develop under such conditions. These 2 spheres slowed each other down, although the opposite was planned.
  • The grain procurement crisis of 1927-28 28 and, as a result, the course to curtail the NEP.

The most important part of the NEP, by the way, one of the few positive features of this policy, is the “lifting of the financial system from its knees.” Let’s not forget that the Civil War has just ended, which almost completely destroyed the Russian financial system. Prices in 1921 compared to 1913 increased 200 thousand times. Just think about this number. Over 8 years, 200 thousand times... Naturally, it was necessary to introduce other money. Reform was needed. The reform was carried out by People's Commissar of Finance Sokolnikov, who was assisted by a group of old specialists. In October 1921, the State Bank began its work. As a result of his work, in the period from 1922 to 1924, depreciated Soviet money was replaced by Chervontsi

The chervonets was backed by gold, the content of which corresponded to the pre-revolutionary ten-ruble coin, and cost 6 American dollars. Chervonets was backed by both our gold and foreign currency.

Historical background

Sovznak were withdrawn and exchanged at the rate of 1 new ruble 50,000 old signs. This money was called “Sovznaki”. During the NEP, cooperation actively developed and economic liberalization was accompanied by the strengthening of communist power. The repressive apparatus also strengthened. And how did this happen? For example, on June 6, 22, GlavLit was created. This is censorship and establishing control over censorship. A year later, GlavRepedKom emerged, which was in charge of the theater’s repertoire. In 1922, by decision of this body, more than 100 people, active cultural figures, were expelled from the USSR. Others were less fortunate and were sent to Siberia. The teaching of bourgeois disciplines was banned in schools: philosophy, logic, history. In 1936 everything was restored. Also, the Bolsheviks and the church did not ignore them. In October 1922, the Bolsheviks confiscated jewelry from the church, supposedly to fight hunger. In June 1923, Patriarch Tikhon recognized the legitimacy of Soviet power, and in 1925 he was arrested and died. A new patriarch was no longer elected. The patriarchate was then restored by Stalin in 1943.

On February 6, 1922, the Cheka was transformed into the state political department of the GPU. From emergency ones, these bodies turned into state, regular ones.

The NEP culminated in 1925. Bukharin addressed an appeal to the peasantry (primarily to the wealthy peasants).

Get rich, accumulate, develop your farm.

Bukharin

At the 14th party conference, Bukharin's plan was adopted. He was actively supported by Stalin, and criticized by Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. Economic development during the NEP period was uneven: first crisis, sometimes recovery. And this was due to the fact that the necessary balance between the development of agriculture and the development of industry was not found. The grain procurement crisis of 1925 was the first sound of the bell on the NEP. It became clear that the NEP would soon end, but due to inertia it continued for several more years.

Cancellation of NEP - reasons for cancellation

  • July and November plenum of the Central Committee of 1928. Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party and the Central Control Commission (to which one could complain about the Central Committee) April 1929.
  • reasons for the abolition of the NEP (economic, social, political).
  • whether the NEP was an alternative to real communism.

In 1926, the 15th party conference of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) met. It condemned the Trotskyist-Zinovievist opposition. Let me remind you that this opposition actually called for a war with the peasantry - to take away from them what the authorities need and what the peasants are hiding. Stalin sharply criticized this idea, and also directly voiced the position that the current policy had outlived its usefulness, and the country needed a new approach to development, an approach that would allow the restoration of industry, without which the USSR could not exist.

Since 1926, a tendency towards the abolition of the NEP gradually begins to emerge. In 1926-27, grain reserves for the first time exceeded pre-war levels and amounted to 160 million tons. But the peasants still did not sell bread, and industry was suffocating from overexertion. The left opposition (its ideological leader was Trotsky) proposed confiscating 150 million poods of grain from wealthy peasants, who made up 10% of the population, but the leadership of the CPSU (b) did not agree to this, because this would mean a concession to the left opposition.

Throughout 1927, the Stalinist leadership conducted maneuvers to completely eliminate the left opposition, because without this it was impossible to resolve the peasant question. Any attempt to put pressure on the peasants would mean that the party has taken the path that the “Left Wing” is talking about. At the 15th Congress, Zinoviev, Trotsky and other left oppositionists were expelled from the Central Committee. However, after they repented (this was called in party language “disarming before the party”) they were returned, because the Stalinist center needed them for the future fight against the Bucharest team.

The struggle for the abolition of the NEP unfolded as a struggle for industrialization. This was logical, because industrialization was task number 1 for the self-preservation of the Soviet state. Therefore, the results of the NEP can be briefly summarized as follows: the ugly economic system created many problems that could only be solved thanks to industrialization.