NEP - new economic policy.
NEP – this is a cycle of economic measures to overcome the crisis, which replaced the policy of "war communism".
“To a certain extent, we are re-creating capitalism”
IN AND. Lenin
NEP "is being introduced seriously and for a long time, but ... not forever"
IN AND. Lenin
"NEP is an economic Brest"
“From NEP Russia there will be socialist Russia”
IN AND. Lenin
Chronological framework – March 1921 - 1928/1929.
Reasons for the transition to the NEP.
The policy of "war communism" led the country's economy to complete collapse . With its help, it was not possible to overcome the devastation generated by 4 years of Russia's participation in the First World War and aggravated by 3 years civil war. The population decreased, many mines and mines were destroyed. Due to lack of fuel and raw materials factories stopped . The workers were forced to leave the cities and went to the countryside. Petrograd lost 60% of its workers when major factories closed. Inflation was rampant. Agricultural products produced only 60% of the pre-war volume. The sown areas were reduced, as the peasants were not interested in expanding the economy. In 1921, due to crop failure, massive famine swept through the city and countryside.
In parallel with the economic crisis in the country, a social crisis was growing. The workers were irritated by unemployment and food shortages. They were dissatisfied with the infringement of the rights of trade unions, the introduction of forced labor and its equal pay. Therefore, in the cities in late 1920 - early 1921, strikes began, in which the workers advocated the democratization of the country's political system, the convening of the Constituent Assembly, and the abolition of rations. The peasants, outraged by the actions of the food detachments, not only ceased to hand over bread according to the food requisition, but also rose to the armed struggle ( one of the largest - "Antonovshchina"). In 1921, an uprising broke out in Kronstadt .
Devastation and famine, strikes of workers, uprisings of peasants and sailors - all testified to the fact that a deep economic, political and social crisis. In addition, by the spring of 1921 there was the hope for an early world revolution and the material and technical assistance of the European proletariat has been exhausted. Therefore, V. I. Lenin revised his internal political course and recognized that only the satisfaction of the demands of the peasantry could save the power of the Bolsheviks.
At the X Congress of the RCP (b) in March 1921, V. I. Lenin proposed a new economic policy. It was an anti-crisis program, the essence of which was to recreate a mixed economy and use the organizational and technical experience of the capitalists while maintaining the "commanding heights" in the hands of the Bolshevik government. They were understood as political and economic levers of influence: the absolute power of the RCP (b), the state sector in industry, centralized financial system and monopoly of foreign trade.
NEP goals:
1) Overcoming the political crisis of the power of the Bolsheviks.
2) The search for new ways to build the economic foundations of socialism.
3) Improving the socio-economic condition of society, creating internal political stability.
Economic entity NEP- an economic link between industry and the small-scale peasantry through trade.
The political essence of the NEP- an alliance of the working class with the working peasantry.
The main elements of the NEP:
1) Replacing the surplus tax with a tax in kind (tax in kind). The tax in kind was announced in advance, on the eve of the sowing season, it was 2 times less than the food requisition and could not be increased during the year. The main burden of the tax fell on the wealthy sections of the village, the poor were exempted from it.
2) Allowing free trade in grain, and later allowing the lease of land and the hiring of workers . Thus, the interest of the peasants in their work was restored.
3) Permission of private enterprise in industry . The decree on the complete nationalization of industry was canceled, the lease of state enterprises by private individuals was allowed, and the creation of concessions was encouraged.
Concession- this is an agreement on the lease of enterprises or land to foreign firms with the right to production activities (also called an enterprise created on the basis of such an agreement).
With a certain danger of restoring capitalism through concessions, Lenin saw them as an opportunity to acquire necessary machines and locomotives, machine tools and equipment, without which it was impossible to restore the economy. However, concessions were not widely spread, as foreigners were faced with strict state centralization, and the distrust of foreigners in the Soviet state also affected.
4) Rejection of forced recruitment of labor force, transition to voluntary recruitment (through labor exchanges). Workers were now free to move from one job to another. The abolition of universal labor service.
5) Introduced material incentives for workers depending on the qualifications and quality of products (instead of equalization - a new tariff scale).
6) Changes in the management of state industry: State enterprises were transferred to self-financing, which made it possible to gradually transition to self-sufficiency, self-financing, self-government.
7) Restoration of the banking system and the role of money. In 1922 - 1924, a monetary reform was carried out (People's Commissar for Finance G.Ya Sokolnikov): a solid monetary unit was introduced, backed by the zloty chervonets.
8) Introduction of free trade, restoration of market relations. Coexistence of state, cooperative and private trade.
9) The liquidation of the card system, the introduction of fees for housing, utilities, transport, etc. d.
The peculiarity of the NEP is a combination of administrative and market methods of management,
NEP- the new economic policy pursued in Soviet Russia and the USSR in the 1920s. It was adopted on March 14, 1921 by the X Congress of the RCP (b), replacing the policy of "war communism" that was carried out during the Civil War. The New Economic Policy was aimed at restoring the national economy and the subsequent transition to socialism. The main content of the NEP is the replacement of the surplus appropriation tax in the countryside (up to 70% of grain was confiscated during the surplus appropriation tax, about 30% with the food tax), the use of the market and various forms of ownership, the attraction of foreign capital in the form of concessions, the implementation of the monetary reform (1922-1924), in as a result of which the ruble became a convertible currency.
Reasons for the New Economic Policy.
The extremely difficult situation in the country pushed the Bolsheviks to a more flexible economic policy. In different parts of the country (in the Tambov province, in the Middle Volga region, on the Don, Kuban, in Western Siberia) anti-government uprisings of peasants break out. By the spring of 1921, there were already about 200 thousand people in the ranks of their participants. Discontent spread to the Armed Forces. In March, the sailors and Red Army soldiers of Kronstadt, the largest naval base of the Baltic Fleet, took up arms against the Communists. A wave of mass strikes and demonstrations of workers grew in the cities.
At their core, these were spontaneous outbursts of popular indignation at the policies of the Soviet government. But in each of them, to a greater or lesser extent, there was also an element of organization. It was introduced wide range political forces: from monarchists to socialists. What united these versatile forces was the desire to master what had begun. popular movement and, relying on it, liquidate the power of the Bolsheviks.
It had to be admitted that not only the war, but also the policy of "war communism" led to the economic and political crisis. "Ruin, need, impoverishment" - this is how Lenin characterized the situation that developed after the end of the civil war. By 1921, the population of Russia, compared with the autumn of 1917, decreased by more than 10 million people; industrial production decreased by 7 times; transport was in complete decline; coal and oil production was at the level of the end of the 19th century; crop areas were sharply reduced; gross agricultural output was 67% of the pre-war level. The people were exhausted. For a number of years people lived from hand to mouth. There were not enough clothes, shoes, medicines.
In the spring and summer of 1921, a terrible famine broke out in the Volga region. It was provoked not so much by a severe drought, but by the fact that after the confiscation of surplus products in the autumn, the peasants had neither grain for sowing, nor the desire to sow and cultivate the land. More than 5 million people died from starvation. The consequences of the civil war also affected the city. Due to the lack of raw materials and fuel, many enterprises were closed. In February 1921, 64 of the largest factories in Petrograd stopped, including the Putilovsky one. The workers were on the street. Many of them went to the countryside in search of food. In 1921 Moscow lost half of its workers, Petrograd two-thirds. Labor productivity dropped sharply. In some branches it reached only 20% of the pre-war level.
One of the most tragic consequences of the war years was child homelessness. It increased sharply during the famine of 1921. According to official figures, in 1922 there were 7 million street children in the Soviet Republic. This phenomenon has become so alarming that F. E. Dzerzhinsky, chairman of the Cheka, was placed at the head of the Commission for the Improvement of the Life of Children, designed to combat homelessness.
As a result, Soviet Russia entered a period of peaceful construction with two divergent lines of domestic policy. On the one hand, a rethinking of the foundations of economic policy began, accompanied by the emancipation economic life countries from total state regulation. On the other hand, ossification was preserved Soviet system, the Bolshevik dictatorship, resolutely suppressed any attempts to democratize society, expand the civil rights of the population.
The essence of the new economic policy:
1) The main political task is to relieve social tension in society, to strengthen the social base of Soviet power, in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants.
2) The economic task is to prevent further deepening of the ruin in the national economy, to get out of the crisis and restore the country's economy.
3) The social task is to provide favorable conditions for building socialism in the USSR, in the final analysis. The minimum program could be called such goals as eliminating hunger, unemployment, raising the material standard, saturating the market with necessary goods and services.
4) And, finally, the NEP pursued another, no less important task - the restoration of normal foreign economic and foreign policy relations, to overcome international isolation.
Consider the main changes that have taken place in the life of Russia with the country's transition to the NEP.
Agriculture
Starting from the 1923-1924 business year, a single agricultural tax was introduced, replacing various taxes in kind. This tax was levied partly in products, partly in money. Later, after the monetary reform, the single tax took on an exclusively monetary form. On average, the size of the food tax was half the size of the surplus appropriation, and its main part was assigned to the prosperous peasantry. Great assistance in the restoration of agricultural production was provided by state measures to improve agriculture, the mass dissemination of agricultural knowledge and improved methods of farming among the peasants. Among the measures aimed at the restoration and development of agriculture in 1921-1925, an important place was occupied by financial assistance to the countryside. A network of district and provincial agricultural credit societies was created in the country. Loans were granted to low-power horseless, one-horse peasant farms and middle peasants for the purchase of working livestock, machines, tools, fertilizers, for increasing the breed of livestock, improving soil cultivation, etc.
In the provinces that fulfilled the procurement plan, the state grain monopoly was abolished and free trade in grain and all other agricultural products was allowed. Products left over the tax could be sold to the state or on the market at free prices, and this, in turn, significantly stimulated the expansion of production in peasant farms. It was allowed to lease land and hire workers, but there were severe restrictions.
The state encouraged the development of various forms of simple cooperation: consumer, supply, credit, and trade. Yes, in agriculture by the end of the 1920s, more than half of the peasant households were covered by these forms of cooperation.
Industry
With the transition to the NEP, an impetus was given to the development of private capitalist entrepreneurship. The main position of the state in this matter was that the freedom of trade and the development of capitalism were allowed only to a certain extent and only under the condition of state regulation. In industry, the sphere of activity of a private trader was mainly limited to the production of consumer goods, the extraction and processing of certain types of raw materials, and the manufacture of the simplest tools.
Developing the idea of state capitalism, the government allowed private enterprise to lease small and medium-sized industrial and commercial enterprises. In fact, these enterprises belonged to the state, the program of their work was approved by local government institutions, but production activities were carried out by private entrepreneurs.
A small number of state-owned enterprises were denationalised. It was allowed to open their own enterprises with the number of employees no more than 20 people. By the mid-1920s, the private sector accounted for 20-25% of industrial production.
One of the signs of the NEP was the development of concessions, a special form of lease, i.e. granting foreign entrepreneurs the right to operate and build enterprises on the territory of the Soviet state, as well as to develop the earth's interior, extract minerals, etc. The concession policy pursued the goal of attracting foreign capital to the country's economy.
Of all the branches of industry during the years of the recovery period, mechanical engineering achieved the greatest success. The country began to implement the Leninist plan for electrification. Electricity generation in 1925 was 6 times higher than in 1921 and significantly higher than in 1913. The metallurgical industry lagged far behind the pre-war level, and a lot of work had to be done in this area. The railway transport, which had been badly damaged during the civil war, was gradually restored. The light and food industries were quickly restored.
Thus, in 1921-1925. the Soviet people successfully completed the tasks of restoring industry, and output increased.
Manufacturing control
Big changes took place in the system of economic management. This concerned primarily the weakening of centralization, characteristic of the period of "war communism". Head offices in the Supreme Economic Council were abolished, their local functions were transferred to large district administrations and provincial economic councils.
Trusts, that is, associations of homogeneous or interconnected enterprises, have become the main form of production management in the public sector.
Trusts were endowed with broad powers, they independently decided what to produce, where to sell products, they were financially responsible for the organization of production, the quality of products, and the safety of state property. The enterprises included in the trust were removed from the state supply and switched to the purchase of resources on the market. All this was called "economic accounting" (self-financing), in accordance with which enterprises received complete financial independence, up to the issuance of long-term bonded loans.
Simultaneously with the formation of the trust system, syndicates began to emerge, that is, voluntary associations of several trusts for the wholesale sale of their products, the purchase of raw materials, lending, and the regulation of trade operations in the domestic and foreign markets.
Trade
The development of trade was one of the elements of state capitalism. With the help of trade, it was necessary to ensure economic exchange between industry and agriculture, between town and country, without which the normal economic life of society is impossible.
It was supposed to carry out a wide exchange of goods within the limits of local economic turnover. To do this, it was envisaged to oblige state enterprises to hand over their products to a special commodity exchange fund of the republic. But unexpectedly for the leaders of the country, the local trade turned out to be close to the development of the economy, and already in October 1921 it turned into free trade.
Private capital was allowed into the trade sphere in accordance with the permission received from state institutions to carry out trade operations. The presence of private capital in retail However, he was completely excluded from the sphere of foreign trade, which was carried out exclusively on the basis of a state monopoly. International trade relations were concluded only with the bodies of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade.
D monetary reform
Important to carry out the NEP, it was necessary to create a stable system and stabilize the ruble.
As a result of heated discussions, by the end of 1922, it was decided to carry out a monetary reform based on the gold standard. To stabilize the ruble, a denomination of banknotes was carried out, that is, a change in their face value according to a certain ratio of old and new banknotes. First, in 1922, Soviet signs were issued.
Simultaneously with the release of Soviet signs, at the end of November 1922, a new Soviet currency was put into circulation - the "chervonets", equated to 7.74 g of pure gold, or to the pre-revolutionary ten-ruble coin. Chervonets were primarily intended for lending to industry and commercial operations in wholesale trade, it was strictly forbidden to use them to cover the budget deficit.
In the autumn of 1922, stock exchanges were created, where the sale and purchase of currency, gold, government loans at a free rate was allowed. Already in 1925, the chervonets became a convertible currency; it was officially quoted on various currency exchanges around the world. The final stage of the reform was the procedure for the redemption of Soviet signs.
tax reform
Simultaneously with the monetary reform, a tax reform was carried out. Already at the end of 1923, deductions from the profits of enterprises, and not taxes from the population, became the main source of state budget revenues. The logical consequence of the return to a market economy was the transition from taxation in kind to monetary taxation of peasant farms. During this period, new sources of cash tax are being actively developed. In 1921-1922. taxes were imposed on tobacco, spirits, beer, matches, honey, mineral waters and other goods.
Banking system
The credit system gradually revived. In 1921, the State Bank, which was abolished in 1918, restored its work. Lending to industry and trade began on a commercial basis. Specialized banks arose in the country: the Commercial and Industrial Bank (Prombank) for financing industry, the Electric Bank for lending to electrification, the Russian Commercial Bank (from 1924 - Vneshtorgbank) for financing foreign trade, etc. These banks carried out short-term and long-term lending, distributed loans, appointed loan, accounting interest and interest on deposits.
The market nature of the economy can be confirmed by the competition that arose between banks in the struggle for customers by providing them with especially favorable credit conditions. Commercial credit, that is, lending to each other by various enterprises and organizations, has become widespread. All this suggests that a single money market with all its attributes has already functioned in the country.
International trade
The monopoly of foreign trade did not make it possible to make fuller use of the country's export potential, since peasants and handicraftsmen received only depreciated Soviet banknotes for their products, and not currency. IN AND. Lenin opposed the weakening of the monopoly of foreign trade, fearing an alleged increase in smuggling. In fact, the government was afraid that producers, having received the right to enter the world market, would feel their independence from the state and would again begin to fight against the authorities. Based on this, the country's leadership tried to prevent the demonopolization of foreign trade
These are the most important measures of the new economic policy carried out by the Soviet state. With all the variety of assessments, the NEP can be called a successful and successful policy, which had a great and invaluable significance. And, of course, like any economic policy, the NEP has vast experience and important lessons.
NEP - " new economic policy» Soviet Russia was an economic liberalization under strict political control of the authorities. NEP has replaced war communism» (« old economic policy”- SEP) and had the main task: to overcome the political and economic crises of the spring of 1921. The main idea of the NEP was the restoration of the national economy for the subsequent transition to socialist construction.
By 1921, the Civil War on the territory of the former Russian Empire generally ended. There were still battles with the unfinished White Guards and the Japanese occupiers on Far East(in the Far East), and in the RSFSR they already estimated the losses brought by military revolutionary upheavals:
Loss of territory- outside of Soviet Russia and its allied socialist state formations were Poland, Finland, Baltic countries(Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia), Western Belarus and Ukraine, Bessarabia and Kars region of Armenia.
Population loss as a result of wars, emigration, epidemics and a drop in the birth rate, it amounted to approximately 25 million people. Experts calculated that no more than 135 million people lived in the Soviet territories at that time.
Were thoroughly destroyed and fell into disrepair industrial areas: Donbass, Ural and Baku oil complex. There was a catastrophic shortage of raw materials and fuel for somehow working plants and factories.
The volume of industrial production decreased by about 5 times (metal smelting fell to the level of the beginning of the 18th century).
The volume of agricultural production has decreased by about 40%.
Inflation crossed all reasonable limits.
There was a growing shortage of consumer goods.
The intellectual potential of society has degraded. Many scientists, technicians and cultural figures emigrated, some were subjected to repression, up to physical destruction.
The peasants, outraged by the surplus appropriation and the atrocities of the food detachments, not only sabotaged the delivery of bread, but also everywhere raised armed rebellions. The farmers of the Tambov region, Don, Kuban, Ukraine, the Volga region and Siberia revolted. The rebels, often led by ideological SRs, put forward economic (the abolition of the surplus) and political demands:
- Changes in the agrarian policy of the Soviet authorities.
- Cancel the one-party dictate of the RCP(b).
- Elect and convene a Constituent Assembly.
Units and even formations of the Red Army were thrown to suppress the uprisings, but the wave of protests did not subside. In the Red Army, anti-Bolshevik sentiments also matured, which resulted on March 1, 1921 in the large-scale Kronstadt uprising. In the RCP(b) itself and the Supreme Council of National Economy, already since 1920, the voices of individual leaders (Trotsky, Rykov) were heard, calling for the abandonment of the surplus appraisal. The issue of changing the socio-economic course of the Soviet government is ripe.
Factors that influenced the adoption of the new economic policy
The introduction of the NEP in the Soviet state was not someone's whim, on the contrary, the NEP was due to a number of factors:
Political, economic, social and even ideological. The concept of the New Economic Policy was formulated in general terms by VI Lenin at the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b). The leader urged at this stage to change approaches to governing the country.
The concept that driving force the socialist revolution is the proletariat, unshakable. But the working peasantry is its ally, and the Soviet government must learn to "get along" with it.
The country should have a built-in system with a unified ideology suppressing any opposition to the existing government.
Only in such a situation could the NEP provide a solution to the economic problems that wars and revolutions confronted the young Soviet state.
General characteristics of the NEP
The NEP in the Soviet country is an ambiguous phenomenon, since it directly contradicted Marxist theory. When the policy of "war communism" failed, the "new economic policy" played the role of an unplanned detour on the road to building socialism. V. I. Lenin constantly emphasized the thesis: "NEP is a temporary phenomenon." Based on this, the NEP can be broadly characterized by the main parameters:
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The Soviet state allowed private capitalist relations in trade, small-scale and even in some enterprises of medium industry. At the same time, large-scale industry, transport and the financial system were regulated by the state. In relation to private capital, the NEP allowed the application of a formula of three elements: admission, containment and crowding out. What and at what moment to use the Soviet and party organs based on the emerging political expediency.
Chronological framework of the NEP
The New Economic Policy fell within the time frame from 1921 to 1931.
Action | Course of events |
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Starting a process | The gradual curtailment of the system of war communism and the introduction of elements of the NEP. |
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1923, 1925, 1927 | Crises of the New Economic Policy | Emergence and intensification of the causes and signs of the tendency to curtail the NEP. |
Activation of the program termination process. | The actual departure from the NEP, a sharp increase in the critical attitude towards the "kulaks" and "Nepmen". |
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Complete collapse of the NEP. | The legal prohibition of private property has been formalized. |
In general, the NEP quickly restored and made the economic system of the Soviet Union relatively viable.
Pros and cons of the NEP
One of the most important negative aspects of the new economic policy, according to many analysts, was that during this period the industry (heavy industry) did not develop. This circumstance could have catastrophic consequences in this period of history for a country like the USSR. But besides this, in the NEP, not everything was assessed with the sign “plus”, there were also significant disadvantages.
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Restoration and development of commodity-money relations. | Mass unemployment (more than 2 million people). |
Development of small business in the fields of industry and services. | High prices for manufactured goods. Inflation. |
Some boost standard of living industrial proletariat. | Low qualification of the majority of workers. |
The prevalence of "middle peasants" in social structure villages. | Exacerbation of the housing problem. |
Conditions have been created for the industrialization of the country. | Growth in the number of soviet employees (officials). Bureaucracy of the system. |
The reasons for many economic troubles that led to crises were the low competence of personnel and the inconsistency of the policy of the party and state structures.
Inevitable Crises
From the very beginning, the NEP showed the unstable economic growth characteristic of capitalist relations, which resulted in three crises:
The marketing crisis of 1923, as a result of the discrepancy between low prices for agricultural products and high prices for industrial consumer goods ("scissors" of prices).
The crisis of grain procurements in 1925, expressed in the preservation of mandatory state purchases at fixed prices, with a decrease in the volume of grain exports.
The acute crisis of grain procurements in 1927-1928, overcome with the help of administrative and legal measures. Closing of the New Economic Policy project.
Reasons for abandoning the NEP
The collapse of the NEP in the Soviet Union had a number of justifications:
- The New Economic Policy did not have a clear vision of the prospects for the development of the USSR.
- The instability of economic growth.
- Socio-economic flaws (property stratification, unemployment, specific crime, theft and drug addiction).
- The isolation of the Soviet economy from the world economy.
- Dissatisfaction with the NEP by a significant part of the proletariat.
- Disbelief in the success of the NEP by a significant part of the communists.
- The CPSU(b) risked losing its monopoly on power.
- The predominance of administrative methods of managing the national economy and non-economic coercion.
- Aggravation of the danger of military aggression against the USSR.
Results of the New Economic Policy
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The New Economic Policy and was not up to the end understood and accepted as a given by the authorities and the people of the country. To some extent, the NEP measures justified themselves, but there were still more negative aspects of the process. The main result was rapid recovery of the economic system to the level of readiness for the next stage in the construction of socialism - a large-scale industrialization.
Under the conditions of the Civil War and the military-communist policy, the population lost any material incentives for production. However, it seemed to the leaders of the Bolsheviks that their policy was not emergency and forced, but quite natural. They were building a classless society of the future, free from commodity-money relations, communism. In response, powerful peasant uprisings broke out one after another in different parts of the country (in the Tambov province, the Middle Volga region, on the Don, the Kuban, in Western Siberia). By the spring of 1921, there were already over 200,000 people in the ranks of those who rebelled against the Bolshevik dictatorship. The surplus in 1920 was not carried out, huge efforts were spent on suppressing rebellions and peasant uprisings.
In March 1921, the sailors and Red Army men of Kronstadt, the largest naval base of the Baltic fleet, took up arms against the Bolsheviks. The workers' movement rises up against the power of the Bolsheviks, who spoke of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the cities, a wave of strikes and demonstrations of workers is growing. IN AND. Lenin was forced to characterize the situation of the winter of 1920-spring of 1921 as an economic and political crisis of Soviet power.
The power of the Bolsheviks was under threat. L.D. Trotsky, in order to overcome the crisis, demanded that the measures of "war communism" be tightened: to separate the peasants from the land, to create gigantic labor armies and use them on the construction sites of communism. Trotsky also proposed strengthening punitive and repressive organs for organized violence against those who would not voluntarily join the labor armies. His opponents from the so-called "workers' opposition" (A.G. Shlyapnikov, A.M. Kollontai and others) proposed, on the contrary, to abandon the leading role of the Bolsheviks and transfer control to the trade unions.
The most soberly dangerous situation for the Bolsheviks was assessed by Lenin. He refuses to attempt an immediate transition to communism through violence. Domestic policy is built in two directions:
1. In the economic sphere, the Bolsheviks abandoned their previous course. In order to save their power, they are ready to make concessions to the peasants, go to the liberation of economic life from total state control.
2. In the political sphere, the previous course was toughened. Centralization and the struggle against opposition forces intensified, and the dictatorial character of Bolshevik rule was preserved.
The first "anti-crisis" measure of the Bolsheviks was the replacement of the surplus with a natural tax in kind. It was approved by the X Congress of the RCP (b), held on March 8-16, 1921. The replacement of the surplus tax with food tax and the permission of free trade marked the beginning of the New Economic Policy (NEP).
With the introduction of the tax in kind (it was less than the surplus and was announced in advance, on the eve of sowing), the peasant had surpluses that he could freely dispose of, i.e. trade. Free trade led to the destruction of the state monopoly not only in the distribution of agricultural products, but also in the management of industry in the city. Enterprises are transferred to self-financing, which made it possible to gradually transition to self-sufficiency, self-financing and self-government. Introduced material incentives for workers. Many enterprises were leased to cooperatives, partnerships or individuals. Thus, the decree on the nationalization of all small and handicraft industries was canceled.
Under the new regulation of July 7, 1921, handicraft or industrial production could be opened, but no more than one per owner. It was allowed to hire up to 10 workers in mechanized production (“with a motor”) and up to 20 without mechanization (“without a motor”). More specialists began to be attracted to state-owned factories. The abolition of the law on universal labor service in 1921 made it possible to engage in entrepreneurship. The process of formation of the "Soviet bourgeoisie" (NEPmen) began.
The beginning of the NEP coincided with the famine - a consequence of the former policy of "war communism", which deprived agriculture of any reserves, making it defenseless against any crop failure. The grain-bearing regions of Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Crimea, the Urals and the Volga region in 1921 were engulfed in drought. In 1921-1922 about 40 provinces with 90 million people were starving, of which 40 million were on the verge of death.
The government was looking for a way out. A number of commissions to help the starving were created. A campaign began for the Russian church to voluntarily donate its valuables to the fund for rescuing the starving, and valuables began to come from Russian emigrants. However, persecution soon began on the church. For the purchase of food, church property was confiscated, often cruelly. Works of art were sold abroad. The Soviet government appeals to the world for help. It is proposed and provided by the American Relief Administration (ARA), the international proletariat, and the European states.
One of the most important elements of the NEP was the monetary reform of 1922-1924. (People's Commissar for Finance G.Ya. Sokolnikov). The reform began at the end of 1922 with the release of the Soviet chervonets. From that time until March 1924, a stable gold coin and a falling Soviet sign were in circulation at the same time. In 1924, the State Bank bought the remaining Soviet money from the population. The golden chervonets was valued above the British pound sterling and was equal to 5 dollars 14.5 US cents. The ruble has become an international currency.
Among the most important laws adopted by the Soviet government in the early 1920s is the law on concessions (permission, concession). The Soviet country, under an agreement, transferred to foreign entrepreneurs for a certain period of operation natural resources, enterprises or other economic objects. Through concessions V.I. Lenin saw an opportunity to acquire the necessary machines and locomotives, machine tools and equipment, without which it was impossible to restore the economy.
Concessions were concluded between the government of the RSFSR and the Great Northern Telegraphic Society (1921) for the operation of underwater telegraph lines between Russia, Denmark, Japan, China, Sweden and Finland. In 1922, the first international airline Moscow - Koenigsberg was opened. Special joint-stock enterprises are created - Russian, foreign, mixed. But in the future, concessions and mixed enterprises did not develop due to state intervention, which limited the freedom of entrepreneurs.
The cooperation, which during the years of "war communism" was an appendage of the People's Commissariat for Food, received relative independence. The efficiency of cooperative production was at least twice that of state industry. It was provided with a freer organization of labor. In industry by the mid-1920s. 18% of enterprises were cooperative. 2/3 of the cooperative commodity product fell on the cities. By 1927, 1/3 of all peasant households were covered by agricultural cooperation. It consisted of about 50 different types of associations: credit, sugar beet, potato, butter, etc.
The agrarian policy of the Soviet government supported the economically weak poor and middle peasant farms. At the same time, the growth of large peasant (kulak) farms is restrained with the help of tax policy and regular redistribution of land. The share of large farms did not rise above 5% of the total number in the country. However, they were the producers of commercial products. Farms are closed in production for their own consumption, not sale. Population growth leads to fragmentation of peasant households. There is a stagnation and a fall in production. At the same time, prices for agricultural products are artificially lowered by the state, which makes their production unprofitable.
The needs for agricultural products of the urban population and industry are increasing, but they cannot be satisfied. The state that retained control over the "command" heights, i.e. over large industry and banks, constantly sought to dictate its terms in other sectors of the economy. Funds for maintaining large-scale industry were constantly withdrawn from other sectors of the economy, hindering their development. The inflated prices of manufactured goods made them unaffordable for the countryside. This is the most important reason for the crises of the NEP of 1923, 1925, 1928, which, in the end, led to the establishment of a rigid command and administrative system, military-communist in its content.
Literature
1. NEP. Side view: Collection / comp. V.V. Kudryavtsev. - M. -1991. - S. 42-56.
2. Russia and the world. Educational book on history. In 2 hours / under total. ed. A.A. Danilova. - M.: VLADOS, 1994. - Part 2. - S. 101-131.
3. Talapin, A.N. National history. Course of lectures: textbook. manual for students of non-humanitarian faculties of higher vocational education/ A.N. Talapin, A.A. Tsindic. - Omsk: Publishing House of OmGPU, 2012. - S. 98-99.
What caused the Bolsheviks to abandon war communism and what results did it lead to?
Historians have been arguing about the NEP for a quarter of a century, not agreeing on whether the New Economic Policy was conceived as a long-term one or a tactical maneuver, and regarding the need to continue this policy in different ways. Needless to say, even the position of Lenin himself during the first years of the NEP changed greatly, and the views on the new course of other Bolsheviks represented a wide range, ranging from the opinion of Bukharin, who threw the slogan “Get rich!” to the masses, and ending with the rhetoric of Stalin, who justified the need to abolish the NEP that he has fulfilled his role.
NEP as a "temporary retreat"
The policy of war communism, which the Bolsheviks began to pursue shortly after they took power in the country, led to an acute political and economic crisis. Prodrazverstka, by the end of 1920, spread to almost all agricultural products, caused extreme bitterness among the peasants. A series of protests against the authorities swept across Russia. The largest peasant rebellion - the so-called Antonovsky (by the name of the leader - the Socialist-Revolutionary Alexander Stepanovich Antonov), which raged, starting in the summer of 1920, in the Tambov and adjacent provinces, the Bolsheviks had to suppress with the help of troops. Other peasant uprisings against the authorities spread throughout Ukraine, the Don and Kuban, the Volga region and Siberia. Part of the army was also dissatisfied: as a result of the Kronstadt rebellion, which began on March 1, 1921, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee seized power in the city, putting forward the slogan "For Soviets without Communists!", And only after the assault did the Red Army units under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky manage to take the Kronstadt fortress and deal with its rebellious garrison.
However, by forceful methods, the authorities could only deal with extreme manifestations of public discontent, but not with the economic and social crisis itself. Output in the country by 1920 compared with 1913 fell to 13.8%. Nationalization industrial enterprises hit the village too: the bias towards the production of ammunition, coupled with inept planning, led to the fact that the village received less agricultural equipment. Due to a shortage of workers, the sown area in 1920 decreased by a quarter compared to 1916, and the gross agricultural harvest decreased by 40-45% compared to the last pre-war year, 1913. The drought exacerbated these processes and caused a famine: in 1921, it affected about 20% of the population and led to the death of almost 5 million people.
All these events prompted the Soviet leadership to dramatically change the economic course. Back in the spring of 1918, in a polemic with the "Left Communists," Lenin began to talk about the need to give a "breathing space" to the movement towards socialism. By 1921, he summed up the ideological justification for this tactical decision: Russia is a predominantly agrarian country, capitalism in it is immature, and a revolution cannot be carried out here according to Marx, a special form of transition to socialism is needed. “There is no doubt that the socialist revolution in a country where the vast majority of the population belongs to small agricultural producers can be carried out only through a series of special transitional measures that would be completely unnecessary in the countries of developed capitalism ...”, the chairman of the Council asserted. people's commissars.
The key was the decision to replace the surplus with a food tax, which could be paid both in kind and in money. In a report at the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) on March 21, 1921, when the transition to the New Economic Policy was declared, Lenin pointed out that "there can be no other support for strengthening economically our entire cause of building socialism." By a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of March 29, 1921, a grain tax was established in the amount of 240 million poods instead of 423 million poods when apportioned in 1920. From now on, each household had to pay a certain amount of tax, and all other agricultural products could be freely sold. The government believed that in exchange for surplus grain, the peasant would acquire the goods he needed - fabrics, kerosene, nails, the production of which, after the nationalization of industry, was in the hands of the state.
Progress of reforms
It should be noted that at the X Congress of the RCP(b) no truly cardinal decisions were announced, which would later lead to the return of the private sector. The Bolsheviks believed that already replacing the surplus with a tax in kind would be enough to carry out a "link" between the peasantry and the proletariat, which would allow them to continue the course towards strengthening Soviet power. Private property was still perceived as an obstacle to this path. However, over the next few years, the government had to significantly expand the list of measures aimed at saving the economy, greatly deviating from previous ideas about what a communist organization of the economy should be.
In order to establish commodity exchange, it was necessary to increase the output of industrial products. To this end, legislative acts were adopted providing for the denationalization of small industrial enterprises. The decree of July 7, 1921 allowed any citizen of the republic to create handicraft or small-scale industrial production; subsequently, a simplified procedure for registering such enterprises was established. And the decree adopted in December 1921 on the denationalization of small and part of medium-sized industrial enterprises corrected one of the main excesses of the policy of war communism: hundreds of enterprises were returned to their former owners or their heirs. State monopolies for various types of products were gradually abolished.
As for large and medium-sized enterprises, they underwent a management reform: homogeneous or interconnected enterprises were merged into trusts, endowed with complete independence in the conduct of business, up to the right to issue long-term bonded loans. By the end of 1922, about 90% of industrial enterprises were united in trusts. The trusts themselves began to merge into larger organizational forms - syndicates, which took over the establishment of marketing and supply, lending and foreign trade operations. The revival of industry spurred trade: in the country, like mushrooms after rain, commodity exchanges multiplied - by 1923 there were 54 of them. Along with the decentralization of the management of the national economy, measures were taken to stimulate the productivity of workers: an incentive payment system was introduced at enterprises.
The government tried to attract capital from abroad, encouraging foreign entrepreneurs to invest in mixed enterprises and create concessions on the territory of Soviet Russia - to rent enterprises or Natural resources. The first concession was established in 1921, a year later there were already 15 of them, by 1926 - 65. Basically, concessions arose in heavy industries of the RSFSR that required large investments - in mining, mining, woodworking.
The new Land Code, adopted in October 1922, allowed peasants to rent land and use the labor of hired workers. According to the law on cooperation promulgated in 1924, the peasants received the right to organize themselves into partnerships and artels, and over the next three years, cooperation covered up to a third of farms in the countryside. The decision taken earlier to introduce a food tax eased the situation of the peasants: during the surplus appropriation, on average, up to 70% of grain was seized, and about 30% during the tax in kind. True, the tax was progressive, and this became a serious deterrent to the development of large peasant farms: trying to avoid paying the tax, wealthy peasants split up their farms.
Workers unload sacks of flour at the cooperative of the grain trade of the Volga Germans, 1921. Photo: RIA Novosti
Monetary reform and improvement of finances
One of the biggest phenomena of the NEP era was the stabilization of the national currency. By the early 1920s, the country's finances were in dire straits. The annually increasing budget deficit in 1920 exceeded 1 trillion rubles, and the government had no other way to finance budget spending, except with the help of ever new issues, which led to new rounds of inflation: in 1921, the real value of 100 thousand "Soviet signs" did not exceed the cost of one pre-revolutionary penny.
The reform was preceded by two denominations - in November 1921 and in December 1922, which made it possible to reduce the amount of paper money in circulation. The ruble was backed by gold: from now on, manufacturers of goods were required to calculate all payments in pre-war gold rubles with their subsequent transfer to Soviet banknotes at the current rate. Hard currency contributed to the recovery of enterprises and the growth of production, which, in turn, made it possible, through taxes, to increase the revenue base of the budget and break out of the vicious circle in which the additional issue of paper money to cover budget expenditures entailed inflation and, ultimately, the need for a new issue. The monetary unit was the chervonets - a ten-ruble bank note issued by the State Bank of the USSR (the bank itself was created at the end of 1921 to normalize financial management), having a gold content similar to a pre-revolutionary gold coin (7.74234 g). However, the issuance of new money at first did not lead to a complete rejection of the old ones: the state continued to issue state marks to cover budgetary expenses, although the private market, of course, preferred chervonets. By 1924, when the ruble became a convertible currency, the Soviet signs were finally discontinued and withdrawn from circulation.
The NEP made it possible to form the country's banking system: specialized banks were created to finance certain sectors of the economy. By 1923, there were 17 of them in the country, by 1926 - 61. By 1927, a whole network of cooperative banks, credit and insurance partnerships controlled by the State Bank of the USSR was functioning in the country. A number of direct and indirect taxes (income and agricultural taxes, excises, etc.) became the basis for budget financing.
Success or failure?
So, market relations were legalized again. Lenin's expectations associated with the NEP were fully justified, although he himself no longer had the opportunity to verify this. By 1926, agriculture reached pre-war levels, and the following year, industry reached the level of 1913. The Soviet economist Nikolai Volsky noted the growth of people's living standards as one of the most important results of the NEP. Thus, the increased wages of workers in 1924-1927 allowed them to eat better than before 1913 (and, by the way, much better than in the subsequent years of the first Soviet five-year plans). “My cooperation began to fledge. We beat a penny. Very good,” Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote about the results of the New Economic Policy.
However, the mixed economy contrasted sharply with the country's lack of a genuinely democratic political system and administrative apparatus. The NEP did not follow from the views of the Bolsheviks on economic issues; on the contrary, it continued to contradict them. In a famous phrase uttered on December 23, 1921, Lenin formulated his extremely complex relationship to the NEP: "We are pursuing this policy in earnest and for a long time, but, of course, as it has already been correctly noted, not forever." How many years should this “seriously and for a long time” continue, and what results should we stop at? Neither Lenin himself, a skilled tactician, nor even his "heirs" knew this. The inconsistency of economic policy and the absence of any unified attitude towards it within the Party could not but end in its curtailment.
After the leader retired from governing the country, the disputes around the NEP intensified. In December 1925, the XIV Party Congress set a course for the industrialization of the country, which led to a grain procurement crisis, the strengthening of which in subsequent years became one of the reasons for the collapse of the NEP: first in agriculture, then in industry, and already in the 1930s in trade. It is well known what role the political struggle between the group of Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky, who favored the deepening of the NEP, and Stalin's supporters, who adhered to positions of hard planning.
It does not know the subjunctive mood, but historians and economists have repeatedly attempted to establish what would have happened if the NEP had not been curtailed. So, Soviet researchers Vladimir Popov and Nikolai Shmelev published an article in 1989 “At the fork in the road. Was there an alternative to the Stalinist model of development?”, where they expressed the opinion that if the average pace of the NEP was maintained, Soviet industry would grow 2–3 times faster than under Stalin’s industrialization, and by the beginning of the 1990s the USSR would have grown 1.5– 2 times ahead of the United States in terms of GDP. Despite the interest aroused by the thoughts of the authors of the article, it can be noted that their views are based on a concept that, quite possibly, is morally outdated: according to them, economic development is inextricably linked with political freedoms, and the “alternative USSR”, which did not abolish NEP, by the 1950s was bound to come to democratic freedoms and the triumph of the market economy. However, the example of the “Chinese miracle”, which was not yet so impressive in 1989, proves that economic development can take place with a completely different ratio between the private and public sectors, as well as maintaining, at least externally, communist ideology.
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