What is the policy of war communism. War communism. War communism policy events

War communism is the policy of the Russian Communist Party of the Bolsheviks, which took power in Russia in October 1917, a set of emergency measures for governing the state during the war and the destruction of the entire economic system.
The beginning of the policy of War Communism is considered May 13, 1918, when the decree "On the emergency powers of the People's Commissar for Food" was adopted. The end was the X Congress of the RCP (b), held in Moscow from 8 to 16 March 1921.

The tasks of war communism

Victory in the Civil War. To do this, the Bolsheviks needed to turn all of Russia into a single military camp under a common, that is, their own, leadership. The concept of a "single camp" meant the concentration in the hands of the Bolshevik government of all the country's resources, and since the Russian industry was destroyed by the World War and the subsequent years of confusion and anarchy, the main resource was agricultural products, in other words, food, because no army is hungry to fight will be

War communism policy events

1. Food appropriation
2. Direct product exchange between city and country
3. State distribution of products (rationing system)
4. Naturalization of economic relations
5. General labor service
6. Equalizing principle of remuneration
7. Deprivation of power from the Soviets

- Food appropriation is a forced purchase from peasants of all surplus crops grown by them. Since there was nothing to buy back, the surplus was simply taken away, and everything was taken away from the fact that the concept of "surplus" did not have a precise definition.

- Direct product exchange - natural, without using money, exchange of products for manufactured goods

- Card system - a person could receive a certain, no more, no less, amount of food only from the state

- Naturalization of economic relations - a ban on trade. On July 22, 1918, the SNK decree "On speculation" was adopted, which prohibited any non-state trade. To provide the population with food, personal consumption items, the SNK decreed the creation of a state supply network.

- General labor service - non-economic compulsion to work

- The councils of deputies trying to soften the government's policy were dispersed.

The Consequence of the Policy of War Communism

Russia turned into a country of the pre-industrial age, society became more primitive, the economy collapsed, the working class - the main force of the party - lumpenized, but the layer of bureaucracy that had to be fed incredibly grew. As the peasantry lost all incentives to work, famine came. Following this, popular uprisings began to break out every now and then (in Siberia, in the Tambov province, in Kronstadt ...). Only in 1921 did Lenin realize the perniciousness of the policy of War Communism, which he replaced with

One of the results of the policy of war communism was the famine in the Volga region, which broke out in 1912-1922 and claimed more than 5 million lives

"War Communism" is the policy of the Bolsheviks, which was carried out from 1918 to 1920 and led to the Civil War in the country, as well as to the sharp discontent of the population with the new government. As a result, Lenin was hastily forced to curtail this course, and to announce the beginning of a new policy (NEP). The term "War Communism" was coined by Alexander Bogdanov. Sowe begins the policy of War Communism in the spring of 1918. Subsequently, Lenin wrote that this was a necessary measure. In fact, such a policy was a logical and normal course from the point of view of the Bolsheviks, following from the goals of the Bolsheviks. And the civil war, born of war communism, only contributed to the further development of this idea.

The reasons for the introduction of War Communism are as follows:

• Creation of a state according to communist ideals. The Bolsheviks sincerely believed that they would be able to create a non-market society with a complete lack of money. For this, it seemed to them, terror was needed, and it could only be achieved by creating special conditions in the country.
• Full subordination of the country. To completely concentrate power in their hands, the Bolsheviks needed complete control over all state bodies, as well as over state resources. This could only be done by terror.

The question of "war communism" is important in the historical sense for understanding what was happening in the country, as well as for the correct causal relationship of events. We will deal with this in this material.

What is "war communism" and what are its features?

War Communism is a policy pursued by the Bolsheviks from 1918 to 1920. In fact, it ended in the first third of 1921, or rather, at that moment it was finally curtailed, and the transition to NEP was announced. This policy is characterized by the fight against private capital, as well as the establishment of total control over literally all spheres of human life, including over the sphere of consumption.

History reference

The last words in this definition are very important to understand - the Bolsheviks took control of the consumption process. For example, autocratic Russia controlled production, but consumption was allowed to flow. The Bolsheviks went further ... In addition, War Communism assumed:

• nationalization of private enterprise
• food dictatorship
• cancellation of trade
• universal labor service.

It is very important to understand which events were the cause and which were the consequences. Soviet historians say that War Communism was necessary because there was an armed struggle between the Reds and Whites, each of whom was trying to seize power. But in fact, first war communism was introduced, and as a result of the introduction of this policy, a war began, including a war with its own population.

What is the essence of the policy of War Communism?

The Bolsheviks, as soon as they seized power, seriously believed that they would be able to completely abolish money, and there would be a natural exchange of goods in the country on a class basis. But the problem was that the situation in the country was very difficult and here it was simply necessary to hold on to power, while socialism, communism, Marxism, and so on, was relegated to the background. This was due to the fact that at the beginning of 1918 there was gigantic unemployment in the country, and inflation was reaching 200 thousand percent. The reason for this is simple - the Bolsheviks did not recognize private property and capital. As a result, they nationalized and seized capital by terror. But instead they offered nothing! And here Lenin's reaction is indicative, who blamed ... ordinary workers for all the troubles of the events of 1918-1919. According to him, the people in the country are idlers, and they are to blame for the famine, for the introduction of the policy of war communism, and for the Red Terror.

The main features of War Communism in brief

• The introduction of food appropriation in agriculture. The essence of this phenomenon is very simple - forcibly taken away from the peasants practically everything that was produced by them. The decree was signed on January 11, 1919.
• Exchange between city and village. This is what the Bolsheviks wanted, and their "textbooks" on building communism and socialism spoke about it. In practice, this has not been achieved. But they managed to worsen the situation and provoke the anger of the peasants, which resulted in uprisings.
• Industry nationalization. The RCP naively believed that it was possible to build socialism in one year, remove all private capital, by nationalizing it for this. They carried out it, but it did not give results. Moreover, in the future, the Bolsheviks were forced to carry out the NEP in the country, which in many respects had features of denationalization.
• A ban on the lease of land, as well as the use of hired force for its cultivation. This is again one of the postulates of Lenin's "textbooks", but it led to the decline of agriculture and hunger.
• Complete abolition of private trade. Moreover, this cancellation was done even when it was obvious that it was harmful. For example, when there was an obvious shortage of grain in the cities and the peasants came and sold it, the Bolsheviks began to fight the peasants and apply punishment to them. As a result - hunger again.
• The introduction of labor service. Initially, they wanted to implement this idea for the bourgeois (rich), but they quickly realized that there were not enough people, and there was a lot of work. Then they decided to go further, and announced that everyone should work. All citizens from 16 to 50 years old were required to work, including in labor armies.
• Distribution of natural forms of payment, including for wages. The main reason for this step is terrible inflation. What cost 10 rubles in the morning could cost 100 rubles by evening, and 500 by the next morning.
• Privileges. The state provided free housing, public transport, did not charge utility bills and other payments.

War communism in industry

The main thing with which the Soviet government began was the nationalization of industry. Moreover, this process was proceeding at an accelerated pace. So, by July 1918, 500 enterprises were nationalized in the RSFSR, by August 1918 - more than 3 thousand, by February 1919 - more than 4 thousand. As a rule, they did nothing with the managers and owners of enterprises - they took away all the property and everything. Another thing is interesting here. All enterprises were subordinated to the military industry, that is, everything was done to defeat the enemy (whites). In this respect, the policy of nationalization can be understood as the enterprises that the Bolsheviks needed for the war. But among the nationalized factories and factories there were also purely civilian ones. But they were of little interest to the Bolsheviks. Such enterprises were seized and closed until better times.

War communism in industry is characterized by the following events:

• Resolution "On the organization of supply". In fact, private trade and private supply were destroyed, but the problem was that no other was substituted for private supply. As a result, the supply collapsed completely. The decree was signed by the Council of People's Commissars on November 21, 1918.
• The introduction of labor service. At first, the labor works concerned only the "bourgeois elements" (autumn 1918), and then all able-bodied citizens from 16 to 50 years old were involved in the work (decree of December 5, 1918). To bring coherence to this process, work books were introduced in June 1919. They actually attached the worker to a specific place of work, with no options to change him. By the way, these are exactly the books that are still in use today.
• Nationalization. By the beginning of 1919, all large and medium-sized private enterprises were nationalized in the RSFSR! In small business, the share of private owners was observed, but there were very few of them.
• Militarization of labor. This process was introduced in November 1918 in rail transport, and in March 1919 in river and sea transport. This meant that working in these industries was equated with serving in the armed forces. The laws were applied accordingly.
• Decision of the 9th Congress of the RCP b of 1920 (late March - early April) on the transfer of all workers and peasants to the position of mobilized soldiers (labor army).

But on the whole, the main task was industry and the submission of its new power for the war with the whites. Have you managed to achieve this? No matter how much Soviet historians assured us that they succeeded, in fact the industry in these years was destroyed and finally finished off. This can be partly attributed to the war, but only partly. The whole trick is that the Bolsheviks' stake was on the city and industry, and they managed to win the Civil War only thanks to the peasantry, who, choosing between the Bolsheviks and Denikin (Kolchak), chose the Reds as the least evil.

All industry was subject to the central government in the person of the Glavkov. They concentrated on themselves 100% of the receipt of all industrial products, with the aim of its further distribution for the needs of the front.

War communism policy in agriculture

But the main events of those years took place in the countryside. And these events were very important and extremely deplorable for the country, since terror was deployed to obtain bread and everything necessary to provide the city (industry).

Organization of exchange of goods, mostly without money

On March 26, 1918, a special decree was adopted for the implementation of the PWC, which is known as "On the organization of trade." The trick is that despite the adoption of the decree, there was no functioning and real exchange of goods between the city and the countryside. It was not there not because the law was bad, but because this law was accompanied by instructions that fundamentally contradicted the law and interfered with activity. This was the instruction of the People's Commissar of Food (People's Commissar of Prod).

At the initial stage of the formation of the USSR, it was customary for the Bolsheviks to accompany each law with instructions (by-laws). Very often these documents contradicted each other. Largely because of this, there were so many bureaucratic problems in the first years of the power of the Soviets.

History reference

What was it about the instructions of the People's Commissar for Prod? She completely prohibited any sale of grain in the region, except for cases when the region donated in full the amount of grain that was "recommended" by the Soviet government. Moreover, even in this case, it was supposed to be an exchange, not a sale. Instead of agricultural products, the products of industry and cities were offered. Moreover, the system was designed in such a way that most of this exchange was received by representatives of the authorities, who were engaged in “extortion” in the countryside in favor of the state. This led to a logical reaction - the peasants (even small owners on the land) began to shelter grain, and were extremely reluctant to give it to the state.

Seeing that it was impossible to get bread in the countryside peacefully, the Bolsheviks created a special detachment - ComBedy. These "comrades" were organizing a real terror in the village, knocking out by force what they needed. Formally, this concerned only rich peasants, but the problem is that no one knew how to define rich from not rich.

Emergency powers of the People's Commissar

The policy of War Communism was gaining momentum. The next important step took place on May 13, 1918, when a decree was passed that literally pushed the country into civil war. This decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "On emergency powers." These powers were vested in the People's Commissar of Food. This decree was extremely idiotic. If you get away from the dry letters of the law and understand what it boiled down to, then this is what we come to: - a fist is any person who did not hand over grain as much as the state ordered him. That is, the peasant is told that he needs to surrender, conditionally, 2 tons of wheat. The rich peasant does not surrender, because it is not profitable for him - he simply hides. The poor man does not surrender, because he does not have This wheat. In the eyes of the Bolsheviks, both of these people are kulaks. This was actually a declaration of war on the entire peasant population. According to the most conservative estimates, the Bolsheviks recorded about 60% of the country's population as "enemies"!

For a greater demonstration of the horror of those days, I want to quote Trotsky (one of the ideological inspirers of the revolution), which he voiced at the very beginning of the formation of the power of the Soviets:

Our party for the Civil War! The civil war needs bread. Long live the Civil War!

Trotsky L.D.

That is, Trotsky, just like Lenin (then there were no disagreements between them), advocated war communism, for terror and for war. Why? Because this was the only way to retain power, writing off all your miscalculations and flaws in the war. By the way, many people still use this technique.

Food detachments and Combed

At the next stage, Food Squads (Food Squads) and ComBedy (Poor Committees) were created. It was on their shoulders that the task of weaning grain from the peasants fell. Moreover, a norm was established - a peasant could keep 192 kilograms of grain per person for himself. The rest was the surplus that had to be given to the state. These units performed their duties extremely reluctantly and undisciplined. Although at the same time they managed to collect a little over 30 million poods of grain. On the one hand, the figure is large, but on the other hand, within the framework of Russia, it is extremely negligible. And the ComBeds themselves often sold the taken away grain and grain, bought the right not to surrender the surplus from the peasants, and so on. That is, in a couple of months after the creation of these "units" the question arose about their liquidation, since they not only did not help, but interfered with the Soviet regime and further aggravated the situation in the country. As a result, at the next congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (in December 1918), the "Committees of the Poor" were liquidated.

The question arose - how to rationally justify this step for people? After all, not later than a couple of weeks before that, Lenin was proving to everyone that ComBeds are badly needed and without them it is impossible to govern the country. Kamenev came to the aid of the leader of the world proletariat. He said briefly - Combedes are no longer needed, since the need for them has disappeared.

Why did the Bolsheviks really take this step? It would be naive to believe that they felt sorry for the peasants who were tortured by the ComBedy. The answer is different. At this very time, the Civil War turned its back on the red. There was a real threat of White victory. In such a situation, it was necessary to turn to the peasants for help and support. But for this it was necessary to earn their respect and, no matter what, but love. Therefore, a decision was made - with the peasants you need to get along and put up with.

Major supply problems and complete destruction of private trade

By the middle of 1918, it became clear that the main task of War Communism had failed - the exchange of goods had failed. Moreover, the situation was complicated as famine began in many cities. Suffice it to say that most cities (including large cities) provided themselves with bread only by 10-15%. The rest of the townspeople were provided by the "bagmen".

The sackers are independent peasants, including the poor, who independently came to the city, where they sold bread and grain. Most often, these transactions were in-kind.

History reference

It would seem that the Soviet government should carry in its arms "bagmen" who save the city from hunger. But the Bolsheviks needed complete control (remember, I said at the beginning of this article that this control was established over everything, including consumption). As a result, the fight against the bagmen began ...

Complete destruction of private trade

On November 21, 1918, the decree "On the organization of supply" was issued. The essence of this law was that now only the People's Commissariat for Food had the right to provide the population with any goods, including bread. That is, any private sales, including the activities of "bagmen", were outlawed. Their goods were confiscated in favor of the state, and the merchants themselves were arrested. But in this quest to control all the Bolsheviks went very far. Yes, they completely destroyed private trade, leaving only the state, but the problem is that the state had nothing to offer the population! The supply of the city and the exchange of goods with the countryside was completely cut off! And it is no coincidence that during the civil war there were "red", there were "white" and there were, few people know, "green". The latter were representatives of the peasantry and defended its interests. The Greens did not see much difference between the Whites and the Reds, so they fought with everyone.

As a result, the measures that the Bolsheviks had been strengthening for two years began to weaken. And this was a forced measure, since people were tired of terror, in all its manifestations, and it was impossible to build a state on violence alone.

The results of the policy of war communism for the USSR

• A one-party system finally took shape in the country, and the Bolsheviks had all power.
• A non-market economy has been created in the RSFSR, completely controlled by the state, and in which private capital has been completely removed.
• The Bolsheviks gained control over all the country's resources. As a result, it was possible to establish power and win the war.
• Aggravation of contradictions between workers and peasants.
• The pressure on the economy, as the policies of the Bolsheviks led to social problems.

As a result, War Communism, which we briefly talked about in this material, completely failed. Rather, this policy fulfilled its historical mission (the Bolsheviks were consolidated in power thanks to terror), but it had to be hastily curtailed and passed to the NEP, otherwise the power could not be retained. The country is so tired of terror, which was the hallmark of the policy of War Communism.

War Communism (the policy of War Communism) is the name of the domestic policy of Soviet Russia, carried out during the Civil War of 1918-1921.

The essence of War Communism was to prepare the country for a new, communist society, towards which the new authorities were oriented. War communism was characterized by such features as:

• the extreme degree of centralization of management of the entire economy;
• nationalization of industry (from small to large);
• a ban on private trade and curtailment of commodity-money relations;
• state monopolization of many branches of agriculture;
• militarization of labor (focus on the military industry);
• total equalization, when everyone received an equal amount of goods and goods.

It was on the basis of these principles that it was planned to build a new state, where there are no rich and poor, where everyone is equal and everyone gets exactly as much as is necessary for a normal life. Scientists believe that the introduction of a new policy was necessary in order not only to survive in the conditions of the Civil War, but also to quickly rebuild the country into a new type of society.

War communism is the name of the domestic policy of Soviet Russia, pursued during the Civil War of 1918-1921.

The essence of War Communism was to prepare the country for a new, communist society, towards which the new authorities were oriented.

War communism was characterized by such features as:

The extreme degree of centralization of the management of the entire economy;
nationalization of industry (from small to large);
a ban on private trade and curtailment of commodity-money relations;
state monopolization of many branches of agriculture;
militarization of labor (focus on the military industry);
total equalization, when everyone received an equal amount of goods and goods.

It was on the basis of these principles that it was planned to build a new state, where there are no rich and poor, where everyone is equal and everyone gets exactly as much as is necessary for a normal life. Scientists believe that the introduction of a new policy was necessary in order not only to survive in the conditions of the Civil War, but also to quickly rebuild the country into a new type of society.

Prerequisites and reasons for the introduction of War Communism

After the October Revolution, when the Bolsheviks succeeded in seizing power in Russia and overthrowing the Provisional Government, a Civil War broke out in the country between those who supported the new Soviet regime and those who were against it. Weakened by the war with Germany and endless revolutions, Russia needed a completely new system of government that could hold the country together. The Bolsheviks understood that they would not be able to win the civil war if they could not achieve quick and accurate adherence to their decrees in all the regions under their control. Power had to be centralized, in the new system everything had to be registered and controlled by the power of the Soviets.

On September 2, 1918, the Central Executive Committee declared martial law, and all power passed to the Council of People's and Peasants' Defense, commanded by V.I. Lenin. The difficult economic and military situation of the country led to the fact that the government introduced a new policy - war communism, which was supposed to support the country's economy in this difficult period and reconfigure it.

The main force of resistance was the peasants and workers, who were dissatisfied with the actions of the Bolsheviks, so the new economic system was aimed at giving these classes of the population the right to work, but at the same time placing them in a clear dependence on the state.

The main provisions of war communism

The main goal of the policy of war communism is the complete destruction of commodity-money relations and entrepreneurship. All the reforms that were carried out at that time were guided by this very principle.

The main transformations of War Communism:

Liquidation of private banks and deposits;
Industry nationalization;
Monopoly on foreign trade;
Compulsory labor service;
Food dictatorship, the emergence of food appropriation.

First of all, the Bolshevik took over all the tsarist property, including money and jewelry. Private banks were liquidated - only the state should own and manage the money - private large deposits, as well as gold, jewelry and other remnants of the old life were taken from the population.

Initially, the state began to nationalize industrial enterprises in order to save them from ruin - many owners of factories and production facilities simply fled from Russia during the revolutions. However, over time, the state began to nationalize all industry, even small ones, in order to make it under its control and to avoid riots of workers and peasants.

In order to make the country work and raise the economy, universal labor service was introduced - the entire population was obliged to work an 8-hour working day, idleness was punishable by law. After the withdrawal of the Russian army from the First World War, some units of soldiers were transformed into labor units.

The so-called food dictatorship was introduced, the main essence of which was that the state was involved in the process of distributing bread and necessary goods to the population. Per capita consumption rates have been established.

Results and significance of the policy of war communism

The main body during this period was the National Economy Council, which was engaged in planning the economy and carrying out all reforms. In general, the policy of War Communism turned out to be a failure, as it did not achieve its economic goals - the country was plunged into even greater chaos, the economy not only did not rebuild, but began to fall apart even faster. In addition, War Communism, in its quest to force the people to submit to the rule of the Soviets, simply ended up with the usual policy of terror, which destroyed all who were against the Bolsheviks.

The crisis of the war communist policy led to the fact that it was replaced by the New Economic Policy (NEP).

War communism policy

With the intensification of the civil war, the Bolsheviks are pursuing a special, non-economic policy called "war communism." During the spring and autumn of 1919. surplus appropriation, nationalization, curtailment of commodity-money circulation and other military-economic measures were summed up in the policy of "war communism".

The policy of "War Communism" was aimed at overcoming the economic crisis and was based on theoretical ideas about the possibility of the direct introduction of communism. The main features are: nationalization of the entire large and medium-sized industry and most of the small enterprises; food dictatorship, food appropriation, direct product exchange between town and country; replacement of private trade by state distribution of products by class (rationing system); naturalization of economic relations; universal labor service; equalization in wages; a military command system of leadership over the entire life of society. After the end of the war, numerous actions of workers and peasants against the policy of "War Communism" showed its complete collapse, in 1921 a new economic policy was introduced.

War communism was even more than politics, for a time it became a way of life and a way of thinking - it was a special, extraordinary period in the life of society as a whole. Since he fell on the stage of the formation of the Soviet state, at its "infancy", he could not but have a great influence on its entire subsequent history.

The main features of War Communism are the shift of the center of gravity of economic policy from production to distribution. This happens when the decline in production reaches such a critical level that the distribution of what is available becomes the main factor for the survival of society. Since vital resources are replenished at the same time to a small extent, there is a sharp shortage of them, and if distributed through the free market, their prices would jump so high that the most necessary products for life would become inaccessible to a large part of the population. Therefore, an equalizing non-market distribution is introduced. On a non-market basis (perhaps even with the use of violence), the state alienates the products of production, especially food. Monetary circulation in the country is sharply narrowed. Money disappears in the relationship between enterprises. Food and industrial goods are distributed by cards - at fixed low prices or free of charge (in Soviet Russia at the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921, payments for housing, the use of electricity, fuel, telegraph, telephone, mail, supply of the population with medicines, consumer goods, etc. etc.). The state introduces universal labor service, and in some sectors (for example, in transport) martial law, so that all workers are considered mobilized. All these are general signs of war communism, which with one or another specific historical specificity manifested themselves in all periods of this type known in history.

The most striking (or rather, studied) examples are military communism during the Great French Revolution, in Germany during the First World War, in Russia in 1918-1921, in Great Britain during the Second World War. The fact that in societies with very different cultures and completely different dominant ideologies in extreme economic circumstances, a very similar way of equalizing distribution arises, suggests that this is the only way to survive difficulties with minimal loss of human lives. Perhaps, in these extreme situations, instinctive mechanisms inherent in humans as a biological species begin to operate.

In recent years, a number of authors have argued that War Communism in Russia was an attempt to accelerate the implementation of the Marxist doctrine of building socialism. If this is said sincerely, then we have before us a regrettable lack of attention to the structure of an important general phenomenon in world history. The rhetoric of the political moment almost never accurately reflects the essence of the process. In Russia at that moment, by the way, the views of the so-called. The "maximalists" who believed that War Communism would become a springboard to socialism were not at all dominant among the Bolsheviks. A serious analysis of the entire problem of war communism in connection with capitalism and socialism is given in the book of the prominent theoretician of the RSDLP (b) AA Bogdanov "Questions of Socialism", published in 1918. He shows that War Communism is a consequence of the regression of the productive forces and the social organism. In times of peace, he is represented in the army as a vast, authoritarian consumerist commune. However, during a big war, consumer communism spreads from the army to the whole of society. A. A. Bogdanov gives precisely a structural analysis of the phenomenon, taking as an object not even Russia, but a purer case - Germany.

An important proposition follows from this analysis: the structure of War Communism, having emerged under extreme conditions, does not disintegrate by itself after the conditions that gave rise to it (the end of the war). Breaking out of War Communism is a special and difficult task. In Russia, as A. A. Bogdanov wrote, it will be especially difficult to solve it, since the Soviets of Soldiers' Deputies, imbued with the thinking of war communism, play a very important role in the state system. After the end of the war, numerous actions of workers and peasants against the policy of "War Communism" showed its complete collapse, in 1921 a new economic policy was introduced.

The constituent elements of "War Communism" were:

In the economy - the elimination of private property and the curtailment of commodity-money relations, complete nationalization, nationalization of industry, the introduction of food appropriation in the countryside.
- In the social sphere - the dominance of the state distribution system, equalization in wages, the introduction of universal labor service.
- In the sphere of politics - the establishment of the regime of the one-party Bolshevik dictatorship, terror against real and potential opponents of the Soviet regime, command-administrative methods of management.
- In ideology - the cultivation of faith in the bright future of mankind, inciting class hatred for the enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the approval of the idea of \u200b\u200bself-sacrifice and mass heroism.

In the cultural and spiritual-moral sphere - opposing collectivism to bourgeois individualism, Christian faith - atheistic understanding of natural history, propaganda of the need to destroy bourgeois culture and create a new, proletarian one.

In the field of trade and distribution, the period of "War Communism" was characterized by several peculiar features: the introduction of the rationing system, the abolition of commodity-money relations, the prohibition of free trade, and the naturalization of wages. In addition to soldering in 1919-1920. utilities, passenger and freight transport were free. 6 million children were fed free of charge. The distribution of food and industrial goods was organized through a system of consumer cooperation.

The naturalization of the economy and the centralization of management entailed an appropriate organization of the labor force. Its essence was to abandon the labor market and "capitalist methods of recruiting and regulating it." In 1919-1920. a system of labor mobilization was formed, enshrined in the decree on universal labor service, explained not only as a necessity dictated by the war, but also as the establishment of the principle "He who does not work does not eat."

The basis of universal labor conscription was the compulsory involvement of the urban population in various jobs and the militarization of labor, i.e. attachment of workers and employees to enterprises. A number of military formations in 1920. was temporarily transferred to a labor position - the so-called army labor.

Held March 29 - April 5, 1920 The IX Congress of the RCP (b) outlined a plan for economic restoration and the creation of the foundations of a socialist society in accordance with the principles of "war communism", excluding market, commodity-money relations. The main stake in solving economic problems was made on non-economic coercion.

Decisions of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets in December 1920. introduced a state sowing plan and established seed committees, which meant a decisive movement towards state regulation of agricultural production. But after the end of the civil war, the policy of "war communism" came into conflict with the interests of the peasantry and by the spring of 1921. actually led to an acute economic and political crisis.

As soon as the main military operations ended on the fronts of the civil war, the peasantry rose up against the surplus appropriation system, which did not stimulate the interests of the peasantry to develop agriculture. This discontent was intensified by the economic disruption. The policy of "war communism" has exhausted itself and has led to an increase in social tension in the countryside. After analyzing the situation in the country, the X Congress of the RCP (b) (March 1921) made a decision to immediately replace the surplus appropriation tax in kind - a key link in the new economic policy.

The policy of "war communism" was assessed ambiguously by the Bolsheviks themselves. Some considered "war communism" to be a logical development of the policy of the previous period, the main method of establishing socialist principles. To others, this policy seemed erroneous, reckless, and did not correspond to the economic tasks of the proletariat. In their opinion, "War Communism" was not a movement along the road to socialism and was only a forced action in the emergency circumstances of a civil war.

Summing up the controversy, VI Lenin in April 1921. wrote: "War Communism" was forced by war and ruin. It was not and could not be a policy that meets 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 to exchange grain for industrial products necessary for the peasantry. ”Thus,“ war communism ”became a definite stage in the history of the new socialist society under the extreme conditions of foreign intervention and civil war.

The policy of War Communism was based on the task of abolishing market and commodity-money relations (i.e., private property), replacing them with centralized production and distribution.

To carry out this plan, a system was needed that could bring the will of the center to the most remote corners of a huge power. In this system, everything should be recorded and controlled (flows of raw materials and resources). Lenin believed that "War Communism" would be the last step before socialism.

On September 2, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee announced the introduction of martial law, the country's leadership passed to the Council of Workers and Peasants' Defense, headed by V.I. Lenin. The fronts were commanded by the Revolutionary Military Council, headed by L.D. Trotsky.

The difficult situation on the fronts and in the country's economy pushed the authorities to introduce a number of emergency measures, defined as War Communism.

In the Soviet version, it included food appropriation (private trade in grain was prohibited, surplus and stocks were forcibly confiscated), the beginning of the creation of collective and state farms, the nationalization of industry, the prohibition of private trade, the introduction of universal labor service, and the centralization of management.

By February 1918, enterprises belonging to the tsarist family, the Russian treasury and private owners had passed into state ownership. Later, a chaotic nationalization of small industrial enterprises, and then of entire industries was carried out.

Although in tsarist Russia the share of state (state) property was traditionally large, the centralization of production and distribution was rather painful.

The peasants and a significant part of the workers were opposed to the Bolsheviks. And from 1917 to 1921. they adopted anti-Bolshevik resolutions and actively participated in armed anti-government protests.

The Bolsheviks had to create such a political and economic system that could provide workers with minimal living opportunities and at the same time put them in strict dependence on the authorities and administration. It was for this purpose that the policy of over-centralizing the economy was pursued. Subsequently, communism was identified with centralization.

Despite the "Decree on Land" (the land was transferred to the peasants), there was a nationalization of the land received by the peasants during the Stolypin reform.

The de facto nationalization of land and the introduction of equal land use, the prohibition to rent and buy land and expand plowing led to a terrible drop in the level of agricultural production. As a result, famine began, causing the death of thousands of people.

During the period of "War Communism", after the suppression of the anti-Bolshevik actions of the Left SRs, the transition to a one-party system was carried out.

The scientific justification by the Bolsheviks of the historical process as an irreconcilable class struggle led to the policy of the "red Teppopa", the reason for the introduction of which was a series of attempts on the life of party leaders.

Its essence lay in the consistent destruction on the principle "who is not with us is against us." The list includes the intelligentsia, officers, nobles, priests, wealthy peasants.

The main method of the "red terror" was extrajudicial executions, sanctioned and carried out by the Cheka. The policy of "red terror" allowed the Bolsheviks to strengthen their power, to destroy opponents and those who showed discontent.

The policy of war communism exacerbated the economic devastation, led to the unjustified death of a huge number of innocent people.

War communism and NEP in brief

"War communism" - the policy of the Bolsheviks, when they prohibited trade, private property, took away the entire harvest from the peasants (surplus appropriation). Money was canceled in the country, the accumulated funds were taken from citizens by force. All this is supposedly for a quick victory over enemies. "War Communism" was carried out from 1918 to 1921.

This policy, together with the war, gave the following results:

1. The area under crops has decreased, the harvests have decreased, the links between the city and the countryside have been disrupted.
2. The volume of industrial production reached 12% of the pre-war level.
3. Labor productivity fell by 80%.
4. Crisis in all spheres of life, hunger, poverty.

In 1921, popular uprisings took place (Kronstadt, Tambov). From hunger in the country, approx. 5 million people! The Bolsheviks oppressed the people's uprising cruelly. The rebels were shot in churches, poisoned with poisonous gases. Peasant houses were destroyed from cannons. The soldiers were heavily intoxicated with moonshine so that they could shoot old people, women and children in this state.

The Bolsheviks defeated their people, but they decided to change the policy. At the X Congress of the Workers 'and Peasants' Party of the Bolsheviks in March 1921, the NEP, a new economic policy, was adopted.

Signs of NEP:

1. Provisional appropriation was replaced by a clearly defined tax in kind.
2. Allowed private property and trade.
3. Carried out a monetary reform.
4. Allowed rent and wage labor.
5. Enterprises were transferred to self-financing and self-financing (what he himself produced and realized, so live).
6. Foreign investment was allowed.

1921 - 1929 - the years of the NEP.

But the Bolsheviks immediately said that these measures were temporary, that they would soon be canceled. At first, the NEP raised the standard of living in the country and solved many economic problems. NEP ended due to the lack of international trade, the crisis in the collection of grain, not the desire of the Bolsheviks.

Under a dictatorship in politics, there can be no democracy in the economy. Without restructuring the policy, reforms in the economy will always stall. To be continued.

War communism events

In the fall of 1918, the government decided to introduce a military dictatorship in the Soviet Republic. Such a regime made it possible to establish state control over vital resources. This period received the definition of War Communism.

The preparatory period lasted six months and in the spring of 1919 ended with the definition of three main directions:

All leading industrial enterprises were subject to nationalization;
centralized free supply of food to the population, a ban on the trade in food and the creation of food appropriation;
the introduction of universal labor service.

The adoption of such measures was forced. Civil war broke out in the country, foreign powers attempted to intervene. It was urgent to mobilize all resources for defense. The monetary system ceased to function due to depreciation and was replaced by administrative measures that took an openly coercive nature.

The policy of War Communism turned out to be especially tangible in agriculture. The created People's Commissariat was allowed to use weapons, local Soviets were instructed to unconditionally comply with the decisions of the People's Commissariat for Food in the field of food. All products in excess of the established norms were seized and distributed, half was transferred to the enterprise that organized the detachment, and half went to the People's Commissariat for Deputies. In view of the low efficiency of the food detachments, a new decree was created, distributing the required amount of grain and fodder among the producing territories. By this decree, local government bodies were involved in the surplus appropriation. The created kombeds (committees of the poor) were of assistance to the People's Commissariat and over time became its lower apparatus of the commissariat. The state decided to focus on its own needs and not take into account the capabilities of the peasants.

In 1920, the decree included all food products. The peasantry put up passive resistance, sometimes turning into active one. Bandit groups arose, trying to recapture the seized food or destroy it. During the period of war communism, the authorities adopted various resolutions aimed at the reform of agriculture and the creation of socialist agriculture. Their effectiveness turned out to be low and the proposed measures were condemned at the 8th Congress of the RCP (b). In 1920, peasant farming was declared a state obligation.

Industry in the period of War Communism underwent complete nationalization instead of the previously planned workers' control. This decision was put forward at the 1st All-Russian Congress of Economic Councils. The spontaneous seizure of enterprises by workers was carried out much earlier. Based on the proposal put forward, the Council of People's Commissars in 1918 issues a decree on the alienation and nationalization of the main enterprises, the railway and steam mills. After the successful completion of the task, the nationalization of medium and small industries is carried out. The state takes full control of the management of the entire industry. A new structure of the Supreme Council of the National Economy and the Economic Council was created to manage industry. With the complete transfer of enterprises into the ownership of the state, the Supreme Council of the National Economy turns into an administrative division with subordinate heads. Industry management was built vertically. Cash settlements between businesses are strictly prohibited.

The principle of equalization began to operate in wages. In 1919, martial law was introduced in all branches of industry and the railway. The Council of People's Commissars decides to establish working disciplinary courts. Everyone who left the workplace without permission was credited as deserters. In January, the Council of People's Commissars makes a decision to create the first labor army, subordinate to the Revolutionary Military Council. The concept of labor armies meant paramilitary units within the Red Army. These units were engaged in the places of their deployment in the implementation of tasks of an economic nature and management problems. By the spring of 1920, the Red Army consisted of a quarter of such units. They were disbanded in December 1922. Over time, the vital necessity forced the Bolsheviks to revise the basic provisions of War Communism. The 10th Party Congress decided to recognize them.

Causes of War Communism

War communism was a necessary measure. The requisitions that were proclaimed by the Provisional Government, the prohibition of private trade in bread, its accounting and procurement by the state at stable prices became the reason that the daily bread norm in Moscow by the end of 1917 was 100 grams per person. In the villages, landowners' estates were confiscated and divided, most often by eaters, between the peasants.

In the spring of 1918, not only the landowners' lands were already being divided. Socialist-Revolutionaries, Bolsheviks, Narodniks, and the rural poor dreamed of dividing the land for universal equalization. Feral and embittered armed soldiers began to return to the villages. At the same time, the peasant war began. And because of the exchange of goods introduced by the Bolsheviks, the supply of the city with food practically ceased, and hunger reigned in it. The Bolsheviks had to urgently solve these problems and at the same time get the resources to hold on to power.

All these reasons led to the formation in the shortest possible time of war communism, the main elements of which include: centralization and nationalization of all areas of public life, replacement of market relations with direct product exchange and distribution according to norms, labor service and mobilization, surplus appropriation and state monopoly.

"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 1918-1921.

The internal policy of the Soviet state during the civil war was called "the policy of war communism." The term "war communism" was proposed by the famous Bolshevik A.A. Bogdanov back in 1916. In his book "Questions of Socialism" he wrote that during the war the internal life of any country is subject to a special logic of development: most of the able-bodied population leaves the sphere of production, producing nothing, and consumes a lot. The so-called "consumer communism" emerges. At the same time, a significant part of the national budget is spent on military needs. War also leads to the collapse of democratic institutions in the country, so we can say that War Communism was driven by the needs of wartime.

Another reason for the formation of this policy can be considered the Marxist views of the Bolsheviks who came to power in Russia in 1917. Marx and Engels did not elaborate in detail the features of the communist formation. They believed that there would be no place for private property and commodity-money relations, but there would be an equalizing principle of distribution. However, at the same time it was about industrially developed countries and about the world socialist revolution as a one-time act. Ignoring the immaturity of the objective prerequisites for the socialist revolution in Russia, a significant part of the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution insisted on the immediate implementation of socialist transformations in all spheres of society.

Left-wing communists insisted on rejection of any compromises with the world and Russian bourgeoisie, the speedy expropriation of all forms of private property, curtailment of commodity-money relations, the abolition of money, the introduction of the principles of equalizing distribution and socialist orders literally "from today".

Until the summer of 1918 V.I. Lenin criticized the views of the left communists. True, here Lenin defended the erroneous idea of \u200b\u200bdirect product exchange between town and country through the general cooperation of the rural population, which brought his position closer to that of the "left communists". Ultimately, the spontaneous development of the revolutionary process in the countryside, the beginning of the intervention and the mistakes of the Bolsheviks in agrarian policy in the spring of 1918 were decided.

The policy of "war communism" was also largely conditioned by the hopes for an early implementation of the world revolution. In the first months after October in Soviet Russia, if they were punished for an insignificant offense (petty theft, hooliganism), they wrote “imprisoned until the victory of the world revolution”, therefore there was a conviction that compromises with the bourgeois counter-revolution were inadmissible, and that the country would turn into a single military camp.

War communism features

With the beginning of autumn 1918, the government of the young Soviet Republic decided to turn the country into a single military camp. For this, a special regime was introduced, which made it possible to concentrate the most important resources in the hands of the state. This is how a policy began in Russia that was called "war communism."

Measures within the framework of the policy of War Communism, in general terms, were carried out by the spring of 1919 and took the form of three main directions. The main decision was the nationalization of the main industrial enterprises. The second group of measures included the establishment of a centralized supply of the Russian population and the replacement of trade by forced distribution through surplus appropriation. Also, universal labor service was introduced into practice.

The body that was in charge of the country during the period of this policy was the Council of Workers 'and Peasants' Defense, established in November 1918. The transition to military communism was caused by the outbreak of civil war and intervention by the capitalist powers, which led to devastation. The system itself did not take shape immediately, but gradually, in the course of solving priority economic problems.

The country's leadership has set the task of mobilizing all the country's resources for defense needs as soon as possible. This was precisely the deep essence of War Communism. Since traditional economic instruments, such as money, the market and material interest in the results of labor, practically ceased to work, they were replaced by administrative measures, most of which were of a pronounced coercive nature.

The policy of War Communism was especially noticeable in agriculture. The state has established its monopoly on bread. Special bodies were created with emergency powers for the procurement of food. The so-called food detachments carried out measures to identify and forcibly confiscate surplus grain from the rural population. Products were seized without payment or in exchange for manufactured goods, since the banknotes were almost worthless.

During the years of War Communism, food trade, which was considered the basis of the bourgeois economy, was prohibited. All food products were required to be handed over to government agencies. Trade was replaced by a nationwide organized distribution of products based on the rationing system and through consumer societies.

In the field of industrial production, War Communism assumed the nationalization of enterprises, the management of which was based on the principles of centralization. Non-economic methods of doing business were widely used. At first, the lack of experience among appointed managers often led to a drop in production efficiency and negatively affected the development of industry.

This policy, which was pursued until 1921, may well be described as a military dictatorship with the use of coercion in the economy. These measures were forced. The young state, suffocated in the fire of civil war and intervention, had neither the time nor the extra resources to systematically and slowly develop its economic activities by other methods.

War communism economic policy

In the economic policy of the Soviet government in 1917-1920. two interrelated periods are distinguished: the "Red Guard attack on capital" (up to the summer of 1918) and "war communism". There were no fundamental differences in directions, forms and methods: a stake on rigid centralization of the economy, a course of nationalization and socialization of production, confiscation of landlord ownership, nationalization of the banking and financial systems are characteristic of both the "Red Guard attack" and "military communism". The difference was in the degree of radicalism, extremeness, and scale of these measures.

By the summer of 1918, the following measures were taken: the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) was created, which was supposed to manage all sectors of the economy that were transferred from the hands of private entrepreneurs to state ownership (nationalized); banks (December 1917), the merchant fleet (January 1918), foreign trade (April 1918), large-scale industry (June 1918) were nationalized; redistribution of the landlord's land among the peasants was carried out on an equalizing basis ("in fairness"); a food dictatorship was declared (May 1918, a state monopoly, fixed prices, a ban on private grain trade, a fight against “speculators”, the creation of food detachments). Meanwhile, the crisis continued to escalate, taking, in the words of V. I. Lenin, the form of an "economic catastrophe". Attempts to reduce the pace of nationalization, to focus on strengthening labor discipline and organization of management, undertaken in May-July 1918, did not yield results. With the outbreak of the Civil War, the centralization of economic, military, financial, food and other resources in the hands of the state reached a qualitatively new level.

The policy of "war communism" (so named because emergency measures dictated by military necessity were perceived by many theorists of Bolshevism as the embodiment of communist ideas about a society without private property, commodity and money circulation, etc.) in the economic and social spheres consisted of the following elements: liquidation of private property, nationalization of large, medium and even small industry, its nationalization; the subordination of industry and agriculture to the direct leadership of the central executive authorities, often endowed with extraordinary powers and acting by order, command methods; curtailment of commodity-money relations, the introduction of direct product exchange between town and country on the basis of surplus appropriation (since January 1919) - the withdrawal of all surplus grain from the peasants in excess of the minimum established by the state; the approval of the state system of distribution by coupons and cards, equalizing wages, universal labor service, the creation of labor armies, the militarization of labor.

Historians believe that "War Communism" was not limited to the economic and social spheres. It was a holistic system that had its strongholds in politics (the one-party system as the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the fusion of the state and party apparatus), in ideology (the idea of \u200b\u200ba world revolution, the preaching of class hostility to the enemies of the revolution), in culture, morality, psychology (belief in inexhaustible possibilities of violence, the interests of the revolution as a moral criterion for the actions of people, denial of the individual and the cult of the collective, revolutionary romanticism - "I am glad that my little house will burn in the fire of the world fire!"). In the program of the RCP (b), adopted by the 8th Congress in March 1919, the policy of "war communism" was theoretically interpreted as a direct transition to a communist society.

"War communism", on the one hand, made it possible to subordinate all resources to the control of the "warring party", turn the country into a single military camp, and ultimately win the Civil War. On the other hand, it did not create incentives for economic growth, generated discontent in almost all segments of the population, and created an illusory belief in violence as an omnipotent lever for solving all the problems facing the country. With the end of the war, military-communist methods have exhausted themselves. This was not immediately understood: back in November-December 1920, decrees were adopted on the nationalization of small industry, on the abolition of payments for food and fuel, and utilities.

Causes of the policy of war communism

Reasons for the introduction of the policy of "war communism":

1. Enormous difficulties caused by the civil war.
2. The policy of the Bolsheviks to mobilize all the resources of the country.
3. The need to introduce terror against everyone who was not satisfied with the new Bolshevik regime.

Causes of occurrence. The internal policy of the Soviet state during the civil war was called "the policy of war communism." The term "war communism" was proposed by the famous Bolshevik A. A. Bogdanov back in 1916. In his book "Questions of Socialism" he wrote that during the war the internal life of any country is subject to a special logic of development: most of the able-bodied population leaves spheres of production, producing nothing, and consumes a lot. The so-called "consumer communism" emerges. At the same time, a significant part of the national budget is spent on military needs. This inevitably requires restrictions on consumption and state control over distribution. War also leads to the collapse of democratic institutions in the country, so we can say that War Communism was driven by the needs of wartime.

Another reason for the formation of this policy can be considered the Marxist views of the Bolsheviks who came to power in Russia in 1917. Marx and Engels did not elaborate in detail the features of the communist formation. They believed that there would be no place for private property and commodity-money relations, but there would be an equalizing principle of distribution. However, it was about the industrially developed countries and the world socialist revolution as a one-time act. Ignoring the immaturity of the objective prerequisites for the socialist revolution in Russia, a significant part of the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution insisted on the immediate implementation of socialist reforms in all spheres of society, including the economy. A trend of "left communists" emerged, the most prominent representative of which was NI Bukharin.

Civil war - one of the most brutal forms of war - divided the country into white and red. The Soviet government waged an armed struggle against counter-revolution throughout the country. The forces of the internal counter-revolution were assisted by foreign interventionists. After this, the Soviet government and the Bolshevik Party had to subordinate the entire life of the country to the needs of the war.

The civil war forced the Bolsheviks to change their policy. The Soviet government began to pursue a policy of "war communism", the core of which was a tough food dictatorship. Based on violence and administration, this policy caused popular discontent and a political crisis for the Soviet regime.

The civil war ended with the victory of the Bolsheviks, the consolidation of Soviet power and the communist party in society. However, the civil war and "War Communism" left their imprint on public consciousness, giving it an even greater uncompromising attitude, belief in the omnipotence of violence and military methods of government. Belief in bright ideals, revolutionary romanticism and disregard for the human person and the entire “bourgeois” culture that existed before October coexisted in the "military-communist" consciousness.

War communism period

After the seizure of political power in October 1917 and the formation of the Soviet government headed by V.I.Lenin (Ulyanov), the Bolsheviks began the economic transformation of Russia and the formation of a new economic system.

As you know, the Paris Commune - the first experience of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat - lasted only 72 days, and the good intentions of the Communards remained declared on paper. Therefore, the RSDLP (b) party predetermined the economic platform: the destruction of private property in the country and the socialization (nationalization) of production, which are the main postulates of Marxist theory in the struggle to build socialism (August 1917, VI Congress of the Party). At the same time, the catastrophic consequences of refusal to pay external debts were not calculated. Together with the nationalization of banks and industrial monopolies, in the creation and operation of which foreign capital was present (investments, acquisition of shares, etc.), this inevitably should have led, after the victory of the revolution, to foreign military intervention. A fierce civil war was to begin after the confiscation of the landowners' lands and the nationalization of all land in the state, industrial enterprises, vehicles and banks.

After October 1917, the experiment on the socialist reorganization of the economy and social life dragged on for 70 years.

After the creation of the Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies at the Second Congress of the Government Councils, the weight of the pre-revolutionary power structures, including city councils, zemstvos and the judicial system, were liquidated. The Soviets found themselves surrounded by the elements of the masses, not ready to perform the new most important functions of state and economic construction.

Two documents, also adopted on the night of October 26, 1917, served as a prologue to two "minor" revolutions: the "Decree on Land" caused an "agrarian revolution", during which not only the remnants of feudal, but also capitalist relations were broken in the countryside ... The results of the "Decree on Peace" were: a) the old army ceased to exist, and the country bared the front line in front of the German troops; b) Russia soon withdrew from the Entente, having lost a significant part of the post-war indemnities; c) the "betrayal" of the former allies by this act was one of the reasons for the military intervention in Russia by England, the USA, France, Canada, Japan; d) the masses of soldiers rushing from the front, most of them former peasants, deepened the agrarian revolution, the struggle for land in the countryside; e) The Decree on Peace, in conjunction with the Declaration of the Morality of the Peoples of Russia, adopted a week later, were the program documents for the “small” national liberation revolution. The implementation of the well-known Leninist ideas "about the right of nations to self-determination up to secession" led to a narrowing of the Russian economic space: Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia left the former empire in late 1917 - early 1918. The nationalist movement won out in Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Georgia and led to their separation from Russia. But the leading place in the socio-economic process was taken by the "small" proletarian revolution, the basis for which was the "Decree on Workers' Control" and a number of government documents that also appeared at the end of 1917.

The only democratic institution was the Constituent Assembly, to which free elections were held before the start of the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks dissolved it on January 5, 1918, because they won only 25%. seats out of 715 and could not legitimately rule the country on behalf of this democratic body. The socialist parties received 427 seats, they fell into the category of oppositionists after the creation of the Council of People's Commissars on October 26, 1917 from representatives in the overwhelming majority of the Bolshevik Party.

Soon the concept of a new national idea: "the alliance of workers and peasants" was subjected to the strongest test. The "black redistribution" of peasant lands on the basis of the provisions of the "Decree on Land" entailed: 1) the destruction of the institution of state tax obligations and fixed prices for agricultural products; 2) not realizing the meaning of nationalization of all land in the state, the peasants, having received allotments under the "Decree on Land" in conditional possession, began to consider themselves private owners; 3) in accordance with these convictions and fueled by the agitation of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (Socialist-Revolutionaries) and anarchists, the peasants fought out with demands for free trade. “If before 1917 the prosperous kulak strata accounted for at least 20%, and the number of poor peasants reached 50%, now the middle peasants began to predominate, this contributed to the naturalization of agriculture, that is, a strong decrease in its marketability. In connection with the elimination of landlord economies. The "averaging" of the countryside strongly resembled the parceling (creation of small allotments) of the peasant economy in France. In Russia, the very existence of Soviet power was called into question, since the revolution swept, in Lenin's opinion, the "petty-bourgeois element" of the peasants, handicraftsmen, artisans and small traders, which greatly undermined the alliance of workers and peasants.The village Soviets were on the side of the people, but on the eve of the White Bohemian rebellion, which grew into a large-scale civil war, in April-May 1918, the Soviet government introduced a food dictatorship: levying from peasants from the help of food detachments of food appropriation. Poor committees were set up to the councils. Many of the peasants did not agree to give away a significant part of the production earned by hard peasant labor for the surplus appropriation. Therefore, some peasants sided with the whites in the Civil War, while others from time to time raised uprisings "for Soviets without communists."

Even earlier, at the end of 1917, the policy of nationalizing factories, factories, banks, etc. began. In the context of the outbreak of civil war and intervention, this policy was collectively called War Communism. The design of its main components took place at the very beginning of 1919. Thus, efforts were made to accelerate the building of socialism-communism by military methods, due to the course of the civil war.

The main components of the military-communist model of building socialism were:

1) confiscation of landowners' lands;
2) nationalization of all land in the state;
3) nationalization of banks, industrial enterprises, transport;
4) collection of food appropriation from peasant farms;
5) the creation of armed food detachments from workers in large cities;
6) the introduction of a state monopoly on foreign trade;
7) state monopoly on the trade in bread, other products and essential goods in the domestic market or the prohibition of private trade;
8) organization of committees of the poor in the countryside;
9) the first experiments in the creation of centralized economic management bodies in the country;
10) the manifestation of the main features of the planning and distribution system - in the distribution of raw materials to industrial enterprises and in the introduction of equalizing principles in the calculation of wages;
11) declaration of ideas on the abolition of money and curtailment of commodity-money relations;
12) the introduction of universal labor service and the creation of labor armies;
13) the organization of communes in the village.

The land and its bowels were nationalized already in the first hours of Soviet power by the "Decree on Land". The action of the Stolypin agrarian legislation was canceled. Russia abandoned the farmerisation of the countryside and the active development of commodity-money relations in the agrarian sphere, all the land turned into state property. Former landowners were evicted from their estates and were deprived of political rights, that is, the estate of landowners (nobles) was liquidated from the standpoint of economic and political.

The peasants received from the Soviet government in conditional possession 150 million acres of land (the size of these documents is not confirmed); their debt to the Peasant Land Bank in the amount of 3 billion rubles was canceled; the peasants were given landlord implements and agricultural machinery in the amount of 300 million rubles. (conditionally, since a lot was broken and plundered, burned during the Civil War).

The second direction of total socialization was the nationalization of banks. Already on October 25, the Central Emission Bank of Russia was captured by armed detachments of the Red Guards. Due to the sabotage of bank officials who did not want to cooperate with the Soviet government, monetary transactions began to be carried out only in December 1917. During this time, part of the funds were transferred abroad or taken out by detachments of the emerging White Guard. Then came the turn of 59 commercial banks, which were occupied by representatives of the Soviet government on November 14, the next day a decree on state monopoly on banking was issued. All private joint-stock banks and banking offices were merged with the State Bank, all banks were confiscated and the depositors' shares were canceled. The nationalization of banks dealt a severe blow to international capital, the situation for its representatives worsened by the annulment of all state loans of the tsarist and Provisional governments on January 21, 1918.

The third direction of socialization was the nationalization of industry, transport, and foreign trade. The main attention was paid to the nationalization of former state-owned factories and factories: Izhora, Baltic, Obukhov in Petrograd, etc. With regard to private industry, transitional measures were taken towards nationalization - from workers' control to the creation of state-capitalist enterprises. But events developed spontaneously, the so-called "Red Guard attack" on capital became a new version of nationalization. By the beginning of 1918, most of the state-owned railways, which accounted for two-thirds of the entire railway network, had been nationalized. On January 23, 1918, a decree was issued on the nationalization of the merchant fleet, including the property of cooperative fishing and whaling associations. April 22, 1918 the decree declared a state monopoly on foreign trade operations. A significant step was the decree of June 28, 1918 on the nationalization of all large and, later, smaller industries.

These facts indicate that in 1917-1921. in Russia, the ideas of the accelerated construction of socialism were implemented in practice. Lenin wrote in October 1921: "At the beginning of 1918 ... we made the mistake of deciding to make a direct transition to communist production and distribution." Thus, the leader of the revolution declared, albeit after the fact, about the desire to rapidly build socialism-communism. This conclusion is indirectly confirmed by the fact that the name of the ruling party was changed already in 1918 at the 7th Congress. It began to be called communist - the RCP (b) instead of the social democratic - the RSDLP (b).

So, to create the foundation of socialism, the Soviet government and the Bolshevik Party had commanding heights in the economy: land, its subsoil, banks, transport, factories and plants, foreign trade, and in politics - the power of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the okrug of the Soviets, but there was no clear concept building socialism. Lenin's work "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Power" (spring 1918) discussed a number of aspects of the national economy. This work was later defined as a preliminary outline of a new economic policy.

The provisions of the Marxist theory on the development of social production after the socialist revolution were disseminated.

The ideas from the work "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Power" received more and more application: accounting and control - newer local, total; comprehensive state management of the economy; ideas on the development of large-scale plans for the development of the national economy; on the development of socialist competition, etc. Already in July 1918, the Central Statistical Office was created and a planned approach to the management of the national economy began to form in conditions of complete centralization of production, exchange and management, that is, the foundations of a planning and administrative system of management were laid. Openly, this concept began to be implemented under the conditions of the policy of war communism from mid-1918 to early 1919. At that time, work continued on the accelerated construction of socialism-communism, begun in the first year of the existence of Soviet power. At the end of 1918, the First All-Russian Congress of Land Departments, Committees of the Poor and Communes was held, and in the resolution "On the collectivization of agriculture" it was written that the policy of war communism was pursued "with the aim of the fastest reorganization of the entire national economy on communist principles."

The government used the most brutal methods to collect surplus appropriation. But the first campaign, according to N. Werth, ended in failure: instead of the planned 144 million poods of grain in the fall of 1918, only 13 million poods were collected. The 1919 food appropriation was completed by 38.5%, and in 1920 - by 34%. The volumes of surplus appropriation, which were unaffordable for peasants during the hard times of war, and tough measures of its collection, in many respects provoked a civil war in the country.

The plans for the accelerated construction of socialism in Russia were consistent with the party and government policy of creating collective farms in the countryside, at least a third of which were communes, in some regions of the country the communes were in the majority. The utopian ideas of the rapid creation of a socialist society included the provisions of the Second Program of the RCP (b), adopted in 1919, where the task was set to abolish money in the near future, which meant a course towards curtailing commodity-money relations. The ideas of equalization, which emerged from the depths of the peasant consciousness in a certain connection with the equalizing redistribution of land within the peasant communities, since that time entered the "flesh and blood" of Soviet society, into the mentality of the people.

The main distribution bodies of material resources of Russia are the vertical branch administrations of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, represented by the central administrations - Glavtekstil, Glavkozh, etc .; their number in 1920 reached 52. The horizontal associations were provincial economic councils, which managed local industry enterprises. In the emerging command-administrative system, there was a threat of self-destruction. Not only basic resources were distributed, but non-economic coercion in the form of universal labor service. During the times of war communism, this was manifested through the creation of the labor of armies, the establishment of fuel and animal service, and free work on subbotniks and Sundays. Economic planning has only just begun to be implemented, but the plan has not taken the place of the market as a regulator of replicated processes. There was no single economic plan for the RSFSR. This made it possible even for large enterprises to manufacture products for the black market. Thus, commodity-money relations existed, and uncontrollably. This phenomenon greatly undermined the command-administrative system throughout the Soviet period.

To characterize the catastrophic consequences of the policy of war communism for the Russian economy, one can cite the following information by N. Werth: by the end of 1920, large-scale industry accounted for only 14.6% of the 1913 level. And the figures for the production of pig iron over these years were absolutely negligible. the level of 2%, and metal products - 7%. The country faced a choice: to abandon the gains of the revolution or change its economic policy. Lenin's report "On the tax in kind" at the 10th Congress of the RCP (b) in March 1921 meant the choice of the second path: economic policy turned sharply towards the revitalization of the capitalist elements in the city and countryside.

Aftermath of War Communism

The destruction and social cataclysms that accompanied the Bolshevik revolution, despair and previously unseen opportunities for social mobility gave rise to irrational hopes for an early victory of communism. The radical slogans of Bolshevism disorientated other revolutionary forces, which did not immediately determine that the RCP (Bolsheviks) pursued goals opposite to those of the anti-authoritarian wing of the Russian revolution. Many national movements were similarly disoriented. The opponents of the Bolsheviks, represented by the white movement, were viewed by the peasant masses as supporters of restoration, the return of land to the landowners. The majority of the country's population was culturally closer to the Bolsheviks than to their opponents. All this allowed the Bolsheviks to create the most solid social base that ensured their victory in the struggle for power.

The totalitarian methods allowed the RCP (b), despite the extreme inefficiency of the bureaucracy and the associated losses, to concentrate the resources necessary to create a massive Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA), necessary to win the civil war. In January 1919, a colossal food tax was introduced - the surplus appropriation. With its help, in the first year of the food dictatorship (until June 1919), the state managed to get 44.6 million poods of grain, and in the second year (until June 1920) - 113.9 million poods. The army consumed 60% fish and meat, 40% bread, 100% tobacco. But due to bureaucratic confusion, a significant part of the food simply rotted. The workers and peasants were starving. Where the peasants managed to keep some of the food, they tried to exchange bread for some manufactured goods from the townspeople. Such "bagmen" who flooded the railways were pursued by barrage detachments, designed to suppress the exchange uncontrolled by the state.

Lenin considered the struggle against uncontrolled commodity exchange to be the most important direction in the creation of communist relations. Bread was not supposed to go to cities outside of the state, in addition to the lion's share belonging to the army and bureaucracy. Nevertheless, under pressure from workers 'and peasants' uprisings, temporary decisions were made to soften the regime of product exchange, which allowed the transport of a small amount of private food (for example, "one and a half pudding"). In conditions of a general lack of food, the inhabitants of the Kremlin were provided with regular three meals a day. The diet included meat (including game) or fish, oil or lard, cheese, caviar.

The system of war communism caused massive discontent among workers, peasants and intellectuals. Strikes and peasant unrest did not stop. The disaffected were arrested by the Cheka and shot. The policy of War Communism allowed the Bolsheviks to win the Civil War, but contributed to the final ruin of the country. The victory over the whites deprived the sense of the state of a single military camp, but the rejection of war communism in 1920 did not follow - this policy was seen as a direct path to communism as such. At the same time, on the territory of Russia and Ukraine, the peasant war flared up more and more, in which hundreds of thousands of people were involved (the Antonov uprising, the West Siberian uprising, hundreds of smaller uprisings).

Workers' unrest intensified. Broad social strata put forward demands for freedom of trade, an end to food appropriation, and the elimination of the Bolshevik dictatorship. The culmination of this phase of the revolution was the workers' unrest in Petrograd and the Kronstadt uprising. In the face of widespread popular uprisings against the Bolshevik government, the X Congress of the RCP (b) decided to abolish the food appropriation and replace it with a lighter tax in kind, by paying which the peasants could sell the rest of the food. These decisions marked the end of "War Communism" and marked the beginning of a series of measures known as the New Economic Policy (NEP).

Results of War Communism

The results of the policy of war communism:

Mobilization of all resources in the fight against anti-Bolshevik forces, which made it possible to win the civil war;
Nationalization of oil, large and small industries, railway transport, banks,
Massive discontent of the population;
Peasant performances;
Increased economic disruption;
Production decline;
Black market prosperity and speculation;
The dictatorship of the party was established, the strengthening of party power and its total control;
The focus on democracy, self-government and autonomy was completely destroyed. Collegiality has been replaced by one-man management;
Instead of socialization of property, it was nationalized.

The results of War Communism, like its essence, turned out to be contradictory. In military-political terms, he was successful, as he ensured the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War and allowed them to retain power. But the victory stimulated the barracks spirit, militarism, violence and terror. This was clearly not enough for economic success. The economic results of War Communism were disastrous.

Industrial production decreased seven times compared with 1913, agricultural production - by 40%. Coal production was 1/3 of the pre-war level. Smelting of pig iron decreased by half in 1920 in comparison with the pre-war level. Transport was in a difficult situation: 31 railways did not work, trains with bread got stuck on the way. Due to the lack of raw materials, fuel and labor, most of the factories and plants were idle. More than 400 enterprises were closed in Moscow alone.

The gross agricultural output in 1921 was 60% of the 1913 level. The number of livestock and livestock production decreased. The sown area decreased by 25% in 1920, and the yield by 43% (in relation to 1913). Crop failure in 1920, drought in 1921, famine in the Volga region, in the North Caucasus, in part of Ukraine killed about 5 million people.

Results and consequences of the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War

The civil war, which ended with the victory of the Bolsheviks, became a dramatic test for the country, for the victors and the vanquished.

Historians identify a whole complex of reasons that contributed to the victory of Soviet power. Its main factor is the support of the Bolsheviks from the overwhelming part of the population - the peasantry, who, according to the Decree on Land, received the satisfaction of their age-old agrarian demands (destruction of landlord ownership, withdrawal of land from trade, allotment of land). Other reasons include successes in state and military development, and the subordination of the entire life of Soviet society to the interests of armed struggle, and the lack of military, ideological, political and social unity in the ranks of the opponents of the Bolsheviks.

The civil war had enormous consequences for Russia. The economic complex was largely destroyed. Industrial production fell sharply, transport was paralyzed, and agriculture was in crisis.

Serious changes have taken place in the social structure of society. The former dominant social strata (landowners, bourgeoisie) were eliminated, but workers also suffered social losses, the number of which decreased by half, declassing processes took place in their midst. The peasantry, being the main social group, managed to withstand and save themselves from complete collapse.

Human losses during the Civil War were very high, although it was not possible to make an exact calculation. According to various estimates, they amounted to from 4 to 18 million people, taking into account the combat losses of all sides, the victims of the "white" and "red" terror, who died of hunger and disease, and emigrants.

It is our historic duty not to forget that civil war is the suffering and tragedy of the entire people.

War communism industry

In industry, War Communism meant complete nationalization, centralization of management and non-economic methods of management.

In 1918, the case ended with the nationalization of large enterprises. But with increasing devastation, these large enterprises stopped working, their proportion decreased, and in 1920, they accounted for only 1% of all registered enterprises, and they employed only a quarter of the country's workers.

At the end of 1920, the nationalization of medium and small enterprises was announced. All enterprises with a mechanical engine, which employed more than 5 workers, and institutions without a mechanical engine, which employed more than 10 workers, passed into the hands of the state. Thus, not only capitalist enterprises were now subject to nationalization, but also those that Lenin attributed to the pre-capitalist stage of simple commodity production.

War communism meant complete nationalization, centralization of management and non-economic methods of management.

For what? The state did not need these enterprises as production units. Usually this act of nationalization is explained by the fact that the mass of small enterprises created anarchy, did not succumb to state registration and absorbed the resources needed for state industry. Obviously, after all, the decisive role was played by the desire for general accounting and control, to ensure that "everyone should work according to one general plan on the common land, in common factories and plants and according to a common schedule," as Lenin demanded. As a result of nationalization, small establishments were usually closed. However, the authorities had many other concerns, and they often did not come to the nationalization of small establishments.

Another manifestation of War Communism in industry was the strict centralization of management or the system of "glavkism". "Glavkizm" - because all enterprises in each industry were subordinate to their own branch chief - the department of the Supreme Council of the National Economy. But the main thing was not that enterprises were subordinate to their central bodies, but that all economic relations were terminated and administrative methods were used. Enterprises received from the state free of charge everything they needed for production, they donated finished products free of charge. Free, that is, no cash payments. Profitability, production costs did not matter now.

An important element of War Communism was universal labor service. It was proclaimed as law back in 1918, with the advent of the new Labor Code. Labor was now viewed not as a commodity to be sold, but as a form of service to the state, as a compulsory obligation. "Freedom of Labor" was declared a bourgeois prejudice. Wages were also declared a bourgeois element. "Under the system of the proletarian dictatorship," wrote Bukharin, "the worker receives a labor ration, not wages."

These theoretical provisions were implemented in the January 1920 decree, which regulated the mobilization of the population for various kinds of labor duties - fuel, road, construction, etc. Only for logging in the first half of 1920, 6 million people were mobilized, while workers time numbered about a million.

At first, it was assumed that forced labor would be applied only to the "bourgeois elements", while for workers the incentive to work would be class consciousness and revolutionary enthusiasm. However, this hypothesis was soon abandoned.

Trotsky said: "We are moving towards socially normalized labor on the basis of an economic plan that is binding on the entire country, that is, compulsory for every worker. This is the basis of socialism." Trotsky at that time was one of the main leaders of the country and expressed the general views of the party.

Evasion of labor service was considered desertion and was punishable under the laws of wartime. In 1918, forced labor camps were organized for violators, and concentration camps for those guilty of anti-Soviet activities.

Labor armies were also a variant of labor service: with the cessation of hostilities, military formations were not disbanded, but turned into "labor" ones, performing the most urgent jobs that did not require special qualifications.

The transition to war communism

War communism is the name of the internal policy of the Soviet state during the Civil War. Its characteristic features were the extreme centralization of economic management (glavkism), the nationalization of large, medium, and partly small industries, the state monopoly on bread and many other agricultural products, surplus appropriation, the prohibition of private trade, the curtailment of commodity-money relations, the introduction of the distribution of material goods based on equalization, militarization of labor.

These features of economic policy corresponded to the principles on the basis of which, in the opinion of the Marxists, a communist society should have emerged. All these "communist" beginnings during the years of the civil war were imposed by the Soviet government by administrative-order methods. Hence the name of this period, which appeared after the end of the civil war - "war communism".

The policy of "war communism" was aimed at overcoming the economic crisis and was based on theoretical ideas about the possibility of the direct introduction of communism.

In historiography, there are different opinions on the need for a transition to this policy. Some authors assess this transition as an attempt to immediately and directly "introduce" communism, others explain the need for "war communism" by the circumstances of the civil war, which forced Russia to turn into a military camp and resolve all economic issues from the point of view of the front's demands.

These contradictory assessments were initially given by the leaders of the ruling party themselves, who headed the country during the Civil War - V. I. Lenin and L. D. Trotsky, and then were perceived by historians.

Explaining the need for "war communism", Lenin in 1921 said: "then we had the only calculation - to defeat the enemy." In the early 1920s, Trotsky also declared that all the components of "war communism" were determined by the need to defend Soviet power, but he also did not avoid the question of the existing illusions associated with the prospects of "war communism". In 1923, answering the question whether the Bolsheviks had hoped to move from "war communism" to socialism "without major economic turns, upheavals and retreats, that is, along a more or less ascending line ", Trotsky argued:" yes, at that period we really firmly expected that the revolutionary development in Western Europe would proceed at a faster pace. And this gives us the opportunity, by correcting and changing the methods of our "war communism", to arrive at a truly socialist economy. "

The essence of war communism

In essence, “war communism” was engendered even before 1918 by the establishment of a one-party Bolshevik dictatorship, the creation of repressive terrorist organs, and pressure on the countryside and capital. The actual impetus for its implementation was the fall in production and the reluctance of the peasants, mainly middle peasants, who finally received land, the opportunity to develop their economy, to hand over grain at fixed prices.

As a result, a set of measures was put into practice, which were supposed to lead to the defeat of the forces of counterrevolution, to raise the economy and create favorable conditions for the transition to socialism. These measures affected not only politics and economics, but, in fact, all spheres of society.

In the economic sphere: the widespread nationalization of the economy (that is, the legislative registration of the transition of enterprises and industries into the ownership of the state, which, however, does not mean its transformation into the property of the whole society), which was also demanded by the civil war (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 same is required by martial law). The SNK decree nationalizes the mining, metallurgical, textile and other industries. 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 7 thousand enterprises, which employed 2 million people (this is about 70 percent of the employed). The nationalization of industry gave rise to a system of 50 central administrations, which controlled the activities of enterprises that distributed raw materials and received products.

In 1920, the state was practically the undivided owner of the industrial means of production.

The next side, which determines the essence of the economic policy of "war communism" - surplus appropriation. In simple words, "surplus appropriation" is a compulsory imposition of the obligation to hand over "surplus" production on food producers. Mainly, of course, this fell on the village, the main producer of food. In practice, this led to the forcible confiscation of the necessary amount of grain from the peasants, and the forms of the surplus appropriation left much to be desired: the authorities followed the usual policy of equalization, and, instead of placing the burden of levies on wealthy peasants, robbed the middle peasants, who make up the bulk of food producers. This could not but cause general discontent, riots broke out in many areas, and the food army was ambushed. The unity of the peasantry was manifested in its opposition to the city as to the outside world.

The situation was aggravated by the so-called "kombeds" (committees of the poor), created on June 11, 1918, designed to become a "second power" and seize surplus products (it was assumed that part of the withdrawn products would go to members of these committees), their actions had to be supported by parts "food army". The creation of kombeds testified to the complete ignorance of the Bolsheviks of peasant psychology, in which the communal principle played the main role.

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

On January 1, 1919, the indiscriminate search for surplus was replaced by a centralized and planned surplus system. On January 11, 1919, the decree "On appropriation of grain and fodder" was promulgated. According to this decree, the state announced in advance the exact number of its needs for products. 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 the data of the pre-war years). The plan was imperative. Each peasant community was responsible for its own supplies. Only after the community fully fulfilled all the requirements of the state for the delivery of agricultural products, peasants were issued receipts for the purchase of industrial goods, however, in an amount much less than required (10-15%). And the assortment was limited only to essential goods: fabrics, matches, kerosene, salt, sugar, and occasionally tools (in principle, the peasants agreed to exchange food for manufactured goods, but the state did not have enough of them).

The peasants reacted to the surplus appropriation and the shortage of goods by reducing the 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 procured, and then with great difficulty. And in 1920 the plan was fulfilled by only 3-4%.

Then, having revived the peasantry against itself, the surplus appropriation did not satisfy the townspeople either: it was impossible to live on the daily ration provided for, the intellectuals and the “former” were supplied with food last, and often did not receive anything at all. In addition to the inequity of the food supply system, it was also very confusing: in Petrograd there were at least 33 types of food cards with a shelf life of less than a month.

Along with the surplus appropriation, the Soviet government introduces a number of duties, such as: wood, underwater and horse-drawn, as well as labor.

The discovered huge shortage of goods, including basic necessities, 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 officers were ordered to arrest anyone with a suspicious bag.

In response, the workers of many Petrograd factories went on strike. They demanded permission for free transportation of sacks weighing up to one and a half pounds, which indicated that not only peasants were selling their "surplus" in secret. The people were busy looking for food, the workers abandoned the factories and, fleeing from hunger, returned to the villages. The need of the state to take into account and fix the labor force in one place forces the government to introduce "work books", and the Labor Code extends labor service to the entire population aged 16 to 50 years. At the same time, the state has the right to conduct labor mobilization for any work, in addition to the main one.

A fundamentally new way of recruiting workers was the decision to turn the Red Army into a "labor army" and to militarize the railways. The militarization of labor turns workers into fighters on the labor front, who can be deployed anywhere, who can be commanded and who are subject to criminal liability for violation of labor discipline.

Trotsky, for example, believed that workers and peasants should be placed in the position of mobilized soldiers. Considering that "who does not work, he does not eat, but, since everyone must eat, everyone must work," by 1920 in Ukraine, an area under Trotsky's direct control, railways were militarized, and any strike was regarded as betrayal. On January 15, 1920, the First Revolutionary Labor Army was formed, which arose from the 3rd Ural Army, and in April the Second Revolutionary Labor Army was created in Kazan.

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

Many other factors turned out to be decisive in the policy of "war communism": the establishment of a political dictatorship (one-party dictatorship of the Bolshevik party); bureaucracy, the terror of the Cheka, the prohibition of anti-Bolshevik publishing, the nationalization of finance, and the state market monopolization, which was mentioned a little above.

War communism economy

The economic processes taking place in the country have their own internal logic. Several stages of economic development can be distinguished: October 1917 - summer 1918 ("Red Guard attack on capital"), summer 1918 - 1920. (the policy of "war communism"), 1921 - mid-1920s. (New Economic Policy), mid 1920s - late 1930s. (design of the command and control system).

On October 25 (November 7), 1917, one of the radical parties of Russia, the RSDLP (b), came to power. The main provisions of the economic strategy of the Bolsheviks were developed by V.I. Lenin in the spring - in the summer of 1917.

The program was based on theoretical provisions on the model of socialism developed by K. Marx and F. Engels. The new society was supposed to have a commodity-free (moneyless) mechanism. But at the first stage of the construction of a new society, the functioning of commodity-money relations was assumed. To understand further events, it should be borne in mind that the duration of the transition period was not determined and could not be determined. Specific historical conditions 1917-1918 combined with the revolutionary impatience of the masses of the workers and the rejection of the new government by the bourgeoisie "spurred" the maturing of ideas about the possibility of immediate implementation of communist principles, created the illusion of completion of the transition to socialism and communism. And in order to overcome the most difficult crisis and at the same time use capital in the interests of the working people, the centralization of economic life and the all-encompassing nature of the state apparatus were proposed on the basis of involving all citizens in management.

The material basis of these processes was to become the nationalization of banks and syndicates, which, according to the Bolsheviks' plan, should not destroy capitalist economic ties, but, on the contrary, unite them on a national scale, become a form of capital functioning during the transition to socialism and lead society to self-government.

In the sphere of agrarian relations, the Bolsheviks adhered to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe immediate confiscation of the landowners' lands and their nationalization. But in the pre-revolutionary months they adjusted their agrarian program by "borrowing" from the Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs) and supported the equalization of land use by the peasants.

These were the basic program settings. But since the Bolshevik government inherited the economic and political problems associated with the wartime crisis, so it was forced to pursue a policy that largely contradicted its statements.

The economic policy of October 1917 - summer 1918 V.I. Lenin defined it as the "Red Guard attack on capital." Coercion and violence became its main methods.

The main measures of this period included: the organization of workers' control, the nationalization of banks, the implementation of the "Decree on Land", the nationalization of industry and the organization of the state management system, the introduction of a monopoly of foreign trade.

The nationalization of banks, like the nationalization of industrial enterprises, was preceded by the establishment of workers' control.

Bodies of workers' control arose during the February Revolution in the form of factory committees. The new leadership of the country viewed them as one of the transitional steps to socialism, saw in practical control and accounting not only control and accounting of production results, but also a form of organization, establishment of production by the working people, since the task of “correctly distributing labor” was set before the national control.

Workers' control was supposed to be carried out over a long period. 14 (27) November 1917 the "Regulation on workers' control" was adopted. It was planned to create its elected bodies at all enterprises where hired labor was used, in industry, in transport, in banks, trade, and agriculture. Production, supply of raw materials, sale and storage of goods, financial transactions were subject to control. Establishment of judicial liability of the owners of enterprises for failure to comply with the orders of workers-controllers. In November-December 1917, workers' control was established at most large and medium-sized enterprises in the main industrial centers. It was considered a school for training personnel of the Soviet economic apparatus and an important means of establishing state accounting for resources and needs. At the same time, workers' control largely accelerated the implementation of nationalization and changed its direction.

The State Bank was occupied by the Red Guard on the very first day of the October Revolution. Taking possession of the State Bank created more favorable conditions for carrying out workers' control over the finances of enterprises.

Taking over private banks was more difficult. On December 27, 1917, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a decree on the nationalization of banks, but the actual liquidation of private banks and their merger with the State Bank continued until 1920. Workers' control throughout the country met with natural resistance from bankers. Private banks refused to issue money from current accounts to enterprises where workers' control was introduced, did not fulfill agreements with the State Bank, confused accounts, provided deliberately false information about the state of affairs, and financed counterrevolutionary conspiracies. These actions were identified by the new government as sabotage by the owners of private banks, which significantly accelerated their nationalization (confiscation).

The Bolsheviks recognized the need for a gradual nationalization of industry. Therefore, in the first months after the October Revolution, individual enterprises that were of great importance for the state, as well as enterprises whose owners did not obey the decisions of state bodies, were transferred to the disposal of the Soviet government. First of all, large military factories were nationalized, for example, Obukhovsky, Baltic. However, already at this time, at the initiative of the workers, local enterprises were declared nationalized. An example is the Likinskaya manufactory (near Orekhovo-Zuev) - the first private enterprise passed into the hands of the state.

Gradually, the idea of \u200b\u200bnationalization is reduced in practice to confiscation. Since the beginning of 1918. local nationalization of industry began to take on the character of a mass and spontaneously growing confiscation movement. Often, enterprises were socialized, for which the workers were in fact not ready to manage, as well as low-power enterprises that became a burden for the state; the practice of illegal confiscation by the decision of factory committees with subsequent approval by state bodies expanded. All this had a negative effect on the work of industry, since economic ties were disrupted, it was difficult to establish control and management on a national scale, and the crisis was aggravated.

The growth of this uncontrollable wave forced the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) to go to the centralization of "economic life on a national scale" in order to preserve the collapsing economic ties. This left an imprint on the nature of the nationalization of the second stage (spring-summer 1918). Entire branches of production were already under the jurisdiction of the state. At the beginning of May, the sugar industry was nationalized, in June - the oil industry, the nationalization of the metallurgical and machine-building industries was completed. In the conditions of the Civil War in January 1919, the nationalization of all industrial enterprises began.

The reforms in the sphere of agrarian relations were carried out on the basis of the "Decree on Land". It proclaimed the abolition of private ownership of land (Art. 1), the transfer of landlord estates, "as well as all appanage, monastic, church lands, with all living and dead implements", at the disposal of volost land committees and district Soviets of peasant deputies with the recognition of equality all forms of land use (household, farm, communal, artisanal) and the right to divide confiscated land according to labor or consumer norms with periodic redistributions (Art. 7.8).

Thus, in agrarian policy, the Bolsheviks departed from the strategy of the immediate "introduction" of socialism towards measures aimed at saving the country from the "impending catastrophe". The direction and degree of radicalism of these measures was greatly enhanced by the political aspirations of a part of the ruling party (supporters of N.I.Bukharin and L.D. Trotsky) to the earliest destruction of the basis of exploitation - commodity-money relations. "Superrevolutionary" was also manifested in the countryside: during the actions of food detachments (their formation began in May 1918 after the approval of the decree "On granting the People's Commissariat of Food extraordinary powers to fight the village bourgeoisie, hiding grain reserves and speculating them") and combedov (created on the basis of decree of June 11, 1918), in illegal extortions from the peasantry, punitive detachments, decimations (executions of every tenth) in cases of non-fulfillment of assignments for surplus appropriation. This led to the discrediting of Soviet power and the growing threat of civil war.

Nationalization and division of land were carried out on the basis of the law on the socialization of land, adopted on January 27, 1918. It determined the procedure for division and allotment. In 1917-1919. the partition was carried out in 22 provinces. And although about 3 million peasants received land again, the partition caused an increase in social contradictions in the countryside - in the summer of 1918, 108 riots were suppressed.

All these activities were reflected in the volume of procurement. The government responded by adopting a number of military measures: a state monopoly on bread was established; food authorities were endowed with extraordinary powers to purchase bread; food detachments were created, the task of which was to seize surplus grain at fixed prices. Note that in the spring of 1918 money meant little and grain was actually withdrawn free of charge, at best by exchange for manufactured goods. And the goods became less and less, since by the fall of 1918 the industry was almost paralyzed.

The naturalization of the economy, the curtailment of commodity-money relations, the need for a centralized distribution of products created the appearance of the end of the transition period. A consequence of this, as well as the theoretical basis for subsequent economic measures, were the positions of the leaders of the ruling party about the need and the possibility, relying on the enthusiasm of the masses, instructions from the center and the efforts of the proletarian state, to organize nationwide production and distribution. This left an imprint on the functional orientation of the economic management bodies.

In general, by the beginning of the Civil War, the system of state management of the national economy looked like this. The Central Committee of the party developed the theoretical foundations for the activity of the apparatus. The general leadership was carried out by the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), which solved the most important issues. The people's commissariats were in charge of some aspects of national economic life. Their local bodies were the corresponding departments of the executive committees of the Soviets. The Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh), created in 1917 as a general economic center, in the specific historical conditions of the "Red Guard attack on capital" was transformed into the center of industrial management. At the same time, the sectoral approach to management dominated.

With the outbreak of the Civil War in the summer of 1918 and foreign intervention, the country was declared a single military camp and a military regime was established, the purpose of which was to concentrate all available resources in the hands of the state and save the remnants of economic ties.

This policy, which later received the name of the policy of "war communism", acquired its complete outlines by the spring of 1919 and consisted of three main groups of events:

To solve the food problem, a centralized supply of the population was organized. Trade was replaced by compulsory state-organized distribution. In January 1919. food appropriation was introduced: free trade in grain was declared a state crime. The grain received under the appropriation system (and later other products and goods of mass demand) was distributed in a centralized manner according to the class norm; all industrial enterprises were nationalized and deprived of their economic independence (the so-called system of central administration was formed);
- was introduced universal labor service. All those who evaded it were proposed to be accused of desertion, to create penalty work teams from them, or even to be imprisoned in concentration camps.

In this situation, the process of maturation of the idea of \u200b\u200bthe immediate construction of commodity-free socialism by replacing trade with a planned distribution of products organized on a national scale accelerated. Therefore, in late 1920 - early 1921, "military-communist" measures were purposefully carried out. The decrees of the Council of People's Commissars "On free supply of foodstuffs to the population" (December 4, 1920), "On free supply of consumer goods to the population" (December 17), "On the abolition of payments for all kinds of fuel" (December 23) were sent to implement them. Projects have already been proposed to abolish money: instead of them S. Strumilin and E. Varga proposed the use of accounting labor or energy units - "threads" and "enedov". However, the crisis state of the economy testified to the ineffectiveness of the measures applied. In 1920, in comparison with 1917, coal mining decreased three times, steel smelting - 16 times, the production of cotton fabrics - 12 times. The workers of Moscow, engaged in the most difficult physical labor, received 225 grams of bread, 7 grams of meat or fish, and 10 grams of sugar per day.

The centralization of management increased sharply. Enterprises were deprived of independence in order to identify and maximize the use of available resources. Since November 30, 1918, the Council of Workers 'and Peasants' Defense became the supreme body, which was called upon to establish a firm regime in all sectors of the national economy and the closest coordination of the work of departments.

The Supreme Council of the National Economy remained the supreme governing body of industry, the structure of which acquired a pronounced military character. The central apparatus of the Supreme Council of the National Economy consisted of general (functional) and production departments (metal, mining, textile, etc.). Production departments solved general issues of distribution of raw materials, were in charge of accounting and distribution of finished products, financing of individual industries. The production departments of the Supreme Council of the National Economy were in charge of several related industries.

The operational management of enterprises was mainly concentrated in the so-called main committees - central administrations or centers subordinate to the Supreme Council of the National Economy (Glavneft, Glavsol, Tsentromed, etc.). Until the end of 1918, 42 headquarters were created. Between the commander-in-chief and the enterprise in a number of industries there was another link - a trust that managed several enterprises. Under the local Soviets, economic councils were preserved. They were in charge of a relatively small number of small enterprises that were not directly subordinate to the Supreme Council of the National Economy. Such a system of centralized control was called glavkism.

Despite the difficult situation in the country, the ruling party at that time began to determine the prospects for the country's development, which found expression in the GOELRO plan (December 1920) - the first promising national economic plan / The plan provided for the priority development of machine building, metallurgy, fuel and energy base, chemistry and railway construction - industries designed to ensure the technical progress of the entire economy. Within ten years, it was planned to almost double industrial production with an increase in the number of workers by only 17%. The construction of 30 large power plants was planned. But it was not just about the electrification of the national economy, but about how, on this basis, to transfer the economy to an intensive path of development. The main thing was to ensure the rapid growth of labor productivity at the least cost of material and labor resources of the country.

War communism is a policy pursued on the territory of the Soviet state during a civil war. War communism peaked in 1919-1921. Communist policy was aimed at creating a communist society by the so-called left communists.

There are several reasons for the Bolsheviks' transition to this policy. Some historians believe that this was an attempt to introduce communism by command. However, later it turned out that the attempt was not successful. Other historians believe that War Communism was only a temporary measure, and the government did not consider such a policy to be applied in practice in the future after the end of the civil war.

The period of War Communism did not last long. War communism was ended on March 14, 1921. At this time, the Soviet state took a course towards NEP.

The basis of war communism

The policy of War Communism was characterized by one distinctive feature - the nationalization of all possible sectors of the economy. The coming to power of the Bolsheviks became the starting point for the policy of nationalization. "Lands, bowels, waters and forests" was announced on the day of the Petrograd coup.

Nationalization of banks

During the October Revolution, one of the first actions taken by the Bolsheviks was the armed seizure of the State Bank. This was the beginning of the economic policy of War Communism under the leadership of the Bolsheviks.

After a while, banking began to be considered a state monopoly. The local population's funds were confiscated from the monopoly banks. The funds that were acquired "by dishonest unearned means" were confiscated. As for the confiscated funds, it was not only banknotes, but also gold, as well as silver. was carried out if the contribution was more than 5,000 rubles per person. Subsequently, the account holder of monopoly banks could receive no more than 500 rubles a month from their account. However, it quickly absorbed the not confiscated balance - it was considered almost impossible to get their owners from bank accounts.

Capital flight and industrial nationalization

The capital flight from Russia intensified in the summer of 1917. Foreign entrepreneurs were the first to flee Russia. They were looking for cheaper labor here than in their homeland. However, after the February Revolution, it was practically impossible to cash in on cheap power. The working day was clearly established, while there was a struggle to raise wages, which would not be entirely beneficial for foreign entrepreneurs.

Domestic industrialists also had to resort to flight, because the situation in the country was unstable, and fled so that they could fully engage in their work.

The nationalization of enterprises was not only due to political reasons. The Minister of Trade and Industry believed that the constant conflicts with the labor force, which in turn held meetings and strikes on a permanent basis, needed some adequate resolution. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks overtook the same problems with labor as before. Naturally, there was no talk of any transfer of factories to workers.

Likinskaya manufactory A. V. Smirnov became one of the first factories, which was nationalized by the Bolsheviks. In less than six months (from November to March 1917-1918), more than 836 industrial enterprises were nationalized. On May 2, 1918, the nationalization of the sugar industry began actively. Nationalization of the oil industry began on June 20 of the same year. In the fall of 1918, the Soviet state managed to nationalize 9,542 enterprises.

Capitalist property was nationalized quite simply - through gratuitous confiscations. Already in April of the next year, practically not a single enterprise remained that would not have been nationalized. Gradually, nationalization reached medium-sized enterprises. Production management was subjected to severe nationalization by the government. The Supreme Council of the National Economy became the leading body in the management of centralized enterprises. The economic policy of war communism, undertaken in relation to the nationalization of enterprises, practically did not bring a positive effect, since most of the workers stopped working for the good of the Soviet state and went abroad.

Control over trade and industry

Control over trade and industry came in December 1917. Less than six months after War Communism became the main mode of policy in the Soviet state, trade and industry were declared a state monopoly. The merchant fleet was nationalized. At the same time, shipping enterprises, trading houses and other property of private entrepreneurs in the merchant marine were declared the property of the state.

Introduction of compulsory labor service

For the "non-labor classes" it was decided to introduce compulsory labor service. According to the adopted code of labor laws in 1918, compulsory labor service was established for all citizens of the RSFSR. Starting next year, unauthorized transition from one workplace to another was prohibited for citizens, while absenteeism was severely punished. A strict discipline was established at all enterprises, over which the managers constantly kept control. On weekends and holidays, labor was no longer paid, which in turn led to massive discontent among the workers.

In 1920, the law "On the procedure for universal labor service" was adopted, according to which the able-bodied population was involved in performing various works for the good of the country. The presence of a permanent workplace did not matter in this case. Everyone had to do the duty.

Introduction of rations and food dictatorship

The Bolsheviks decided to continue adhering to the grain monopoly, which was adopted by the Provisional Government. Private trade in grain products was officially banned by the decree on the state monopoly of grain. In May 1918, the local people's commissars had to independently wage a struggle against the citizens who were hiding the grain supplies. To conduct a full-fledged fight against shelter and speculation in grain reserves, the people's commissars were endowed with additional powers from the government.

The food dictatorship had its own purpose - to centralize the procurement and distribution of food among the population. Another goal of the food dictatorship was to combat the fraud of the kulaks.

The People's Commissariat for Food had unlimited powers in the methods and methods of procurement of food, which was carried out during the existence of such a thing as the policy of war communism. According to the decree of May 13, 1918, the consumption rate for each person of food products per year was established. The decree was based on the food consumption norms introduced by the Provisional Government in 1917.

If the amount of bread per person exceeded the norms specified in the decree, he had to hand it over to the state. The transfer was carried out at prices set by the state. After that, the government could dispose of grain products at its own discretion.

To control the food dictatorship, the Food-requisitioning army of the RSFSR People's Commissariat for Food was created. In 1918, a decree was adopted on the introduction of food rations for four classes of the population. Initially, only residents of Petrograd could use the ration. A month later, residents of Moscow. Subsequently, the opportunity to receive food rations spread to the entire state. After the ration cards were introduced, all other methods and systems for obtaining food were canceled. In parallel with this, a ban on the private was introduced.

Due to the fact that all the worlds for the maintenance of the food dictatorship were adopted during the civil war in the country, in fact they were not supported as strictly as indicated in the documents confirming the introduction of various decrees. Not all regions were under the control of the Bolsheviks. Accordingly, there could be no talk of any implementation of their decrees in this territory.

At the same time, not in all regions that were subordinate to the Bolsheviks, it was also possible to carry out government decrees, since the local authorities did not know about the existence of various decrees and decrees. Due to the fact that communication between the regions was practically not maintained, local authorities could not receive instructions on the conduct of food or any other policy. They had to act at their own discretion.

Until now, not all historians can explain the essence of War Communism. Whether it was really an economic policy is impossible to say. It is possible that these were just measures of the Bolsheviks in order to win the country.

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