New Economic Policy

New Economic Policy 1921–1924

Summary

After 3 years of the policies historians call 'War Communism', a mutiny at the Kronstadt naval base scared the Bolsheviks, and they realised that they were pressing the people too hard.

Lenin – much to the annoyance of hard-line Communists – brought in the New Economic Policy, which allowed some free enterprise, and concentrated on stimulating production .

Source A

A Strategic Retreat

In substance, our New Economic Policy signifies that we have started a strategical retreat. We said in effect: “Before we are completely routed, let us retreat and reorganise everything"...

We have sustained a very severe defeat on the economic front... We thought that production and distribution would go on at communist bidding in a country with a declassed proletariat. We must change that now, or we shall be unable to make the proletariat understand this process of transition. No such problems have ever arisen in history before. We tried to solve this problem straight out, by a frontal attack, as it were, but we suffered defeat...

A cultural problem cannot be solved as quickly as political and military problems. It it is possible to achieve a political victory within a few weeks. It is possible to obtain victory in war in a few months. But it is impossible to achieve a cultural victory in such a short time. By its very nature it requires a longer period; and we must plan our work accordingly, and display the maximum of perseverance, persistence and method... We must not only abolish illiteracy and bribery, but we must get the people really to accept our propaganda, our guidance and our pamphlets, so that the result may be an improvement in the national economy.

Lenin, speaking at the Congress Of Political Education Departments October, 1921.

Going Deeper

The following links will help you widen your knowledge:

Old Bitesize - simple intro (pdf)

Kronstadt Rebellion

Was the NEP a success?

YouTube

Clear, basic account - History Pod

So: Who was more important: Lenin or Trotsky?

Causes of the NEP [WTK]

'War Communism' had failed

The Bolshevik policies of 1917-21 had helped win the Civil War, but were enormously unpopular. In the countryside, peasants avoided the Prodrazverstka by simply not creating a surplus. This in turn led to food shortages in the cities, which in turn led to strikes and unrest. It also harmed industry as many industrial workers left their jobs and returned to the countryside.

Bolshevik rules were also widely ignored; illegal 'black markets' ('bazaars') where peasants bartered (swapped) their goods were taking place openly all over the country, and were proving impossible to stop.

At the Tenth Party Congress, in March 1921, Lenin reported "a whole number of profound discrepancies, erroneous calculations or plans" that needed a change of policy.

Tambov Rebellion, 1920-21

In 1920 the peasants in the village of Khitrovo (about 300 miles south of Moscow) beat up an army requisitioning unit and marched on the local capital, Tambov. Repulsed by machine gun fire, they formed the 'Union of Working Peasants', led by Social Revolutionaries who opposed the Bolsheviks. They demanded free trade, an end to the Prodrazverstka, and an end to the CHEKA, and waged an underground war against the Bolsheviks. Peasant revolts spread across the country – during the next year, 200 grain collectors were assassinated.

The rebellion was brutally suppressed; 100,000 people were sent to kontslargerya (containment camps), villages were burned to the ground, 15,000 people were executed. Nevertheless, Lenin in a pamphlet of April 1921 wrote that: "the political situation in the spring of 1921 was such that immediate, very resolute and urgent measures had to be taken to improve the condition of the peasants and to increase their productive forces".

Kronstadt Naval Base mutiny
In 1921, the sailors at the Kronstadt Naval Base mutinied.
They demanded free speech, free elections, free trade unions and an end to war communism. Trotsky’s Red Army put the mutiny down, but only with great losses.
The Kronstadt mutiny especially scared the Bolsheviks, because the Kronstadt sailors had been their greatest supporters! Lenin said later that the rebellion was "like a flash of lightning which threw more of a glare upon reality than anything else" – he realised that he was pushing the people too far too fast.

So he abandoned the policies of 1917-21 and brought in the NEP.

Source B

The Kronstadt Mutiny was a warning that Lenin could not ignore. The Mutiny gave a focus to the anger of workers and peasants, who felt disappointed by the Bolsheviks. Lenin admitted the Bolsheviks were only just hanging on to power. He told the Tenth Party Congress meeting that the peasant revolts and the Kronstadt Mutiny were more dangerous to the Bolsheviks than the Whites were. The people were no longer willing to suffer in the hope of a better future. The Bolsheviks’ use of terror and military force was no longer enough to keep control.

M Sixsmith, Russia (2012)

Consider:

Study Source A. In the speech, Lenin described the NEP as a 'retreat'after a 'defeat'. Use your wider knowledge of the causes of the NEP to explain what he meant.

Lenin's New Economic Policy

National freedoms

Lenin allowed freedom to national and Muslim cultures.
In the Ukraine, although the Bolsheviks were in power, the Ukrainian language was allowed in government and business, and children could be taught it in schools.
In the Muslim areas of central Asia (such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) bazaars were allowed to reopen, mosques were taken from Soviet control, the Koran was restored, and native languages were encouraged.

Experts

Coal, iron, steel and railways stayed nationalised, but the Bolsheviks brought in foreign experts, on high wages, to increase production.

Private enterprise

Small factories were handed back to their owners.
New traders (called 'nepmen') were allowed to set up small private businesses.
At the same time - where the Prodrazverstka had forced the peasants to hand over their surplus grain – Lenin let them sell their surplus, and pay a 'tax-in-kind' (the prodnalog) instead. Some hard-working peasants became rich (the ‘Kulaks’).

Source C

A 1925 advert for ‘Kalenkin’ beers, sodas and syrups.

Source D

A poster: ‘You will be able to go anywhere in the world if you win the state lottery’.

Source E

Everyone is so infinitely better off that present conditions see paradise by comparison... 250,000 private traders have migrated to Moscow since the NEP began. They crowd the restaurants where it costs $25 a head for dinner with French wine ... and lose a thousand or so an evening at cards without turning a hair.

Walter Duranty, I Write As I Please (1935)
Duranty – an American journalist who had been in Russia during the revolution – remembering the NEP in 1992 .

Source F

he NEP restored some prosperity to Russia . But to many of us this prosperity was distasteful... We felt ourselves sinking into the bog, paralysed, corrupted... There was gambling, drunkenness, and all the filth of former times.

Classes were reborn in front of our very eyes.

Victor Serge, From Lenin to Stalin (1937)
Serge was a Bolshevik, remembering the NEP.

Source G

There wasn’t any food in the country. We were down to a little bread each. Then suddenly they started the NEP. Cafes opened. Factories went back into private hands. It was Capitalism. In my eyes it was the very thing I had been fighting against...

Most people supported Lenin, others said he was wrong, and many tore up their party membership cards.

Nikolai Izatchik, a Bolshevik, remembering the NEP in 1992.

Results

Some of the Politburo (the inner cabinet of the government) opposed the NEP because it allowed capitalism.
However, the NEP did something to restore prosperity – although production levels only passed the 1914 level in 1928.

Consider:

1. Using Sources C-E and your wider knowledge, make a list of the differences between the NEP and War Communism.

2. So-called 'War Communism' harmed the people AND was an economic disaster – so why did some people still support it (Sources F and G)?

3. Write an 'on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand' essay debating whether, overall, the Bolsheviks were successful under Lenin, 1917-24?

4. Who was more important for the success of the Russian Revolution, Lenin or Trotsky?

AQA-style Questions

Edexcel-style Questions