Economic policy of the Bolsheviks during the Civil War. Bolshevik policy during the Civil War. War communism. Economic policy of the Bolsheviks during the civil war. The essence of "war communism"

Tomsk State University Control Systems and Radioelectronics (TUSUR)

In the discipline "History"

Economic policy Bolshevik Party in

years of civil war and the construction of socialism .

Economic policy of the Bolshevik Party during the civil war and the construction of socialism

The essence and goals of the new economic policy (NEP), its results.

The objective need for industrialization of the country

Complete collectivization of agriculture, its results and consequences

Economic Party Bolsheviks during the civil war and the construction of socialism.

Civil war (preconditions and consequences). A civil war is an armed struggle between various groups population having different political, ethnic moral interests. In Russia, the civil war took place with the intervention of foreign intervention. Foreign intervention - in international law violent intervention of one or more states in the internal affairs of another state. The peculiarity of the civil war is:

1.Uprising,

3.Large-scale operations,

4. Existence of the front (red and white).

Nowadays, the reordination of the civil war from February 1917 to 1920 (22) has been established.

February 1917-1918: A bourgeois-democratic revolution took place, dual power was established, and the violent overthrow of the autocracy; strengthening socio-political contradictions in society; establishment of Soviet power; Terror is a policy of intimidation and violence, reprisal against politicians. against; the formation of white and red forces, the creation of a red army; and in six months the number of the Red Army grew from 300 thousand to 1 million. Military command cadres were created: Budanov, Furorov, Kotovsky, Chapaev, Shchors...

Second period (March - November 1918) characterized by a radical change in the balance of social forces within the country, which was the result of the foreign and domestic policies of the Bolshevik government, which, in the context of a deepening economic crisis and “the rampant petty-bourgeois element,” was forced to conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population, especially the peasantry.

Third period (November 1918 - March 1919) became the time of the beginning of real assistance of the Entente powers to the White movement. The allies' unsuccessful attempt to launch their own operations in the south, and on the other hand, the defeat of the Don and People's armies led to the establishment of the military dictatorships of Kolchak and Denikin, whose armed forces controlled significant territories in the south and east. In Omsk and Yekaterinodar, state apparatuses were created according to pre-revolutionary models. Political and material support for the Entente, although far from meeting the expected scale, played a role in consolidating the Whites and strengthening their military potential.

Fourth period of the Civil War (March 1919 - March 1920) was distinguished by the greatest scope of armed struggle and fundamental changes in the balance of power within Russia and beyond, which predetermined first the successes of the white dictatorships and then their death. During the spring-autumn of 1919, surplus appropriation, nationalization, curtailment of commodity-money circulation and other military-economic measures were summarized in the policy of “war communism”. A striking difference from the territory of the “Sovdepia” was the rear of Kolchak and Denikin, who tried to strengthen their economic and social base using traditional and similar means.

The policy of “War Communism” was aimed at overcoming the economic crisis and was based on theoretical ideas about the possibility of directly introducing communism. Main features: nationalization of all large and medium-sized industries and most small enterprises; food dictatorship, surplus appropriation, direct product exchange between city and countryside; replacing private trade with state distribution of products based on class (card system); naturalization of economic relations; universal labor conscription; equalization of wages; military order system for managing the entire life of society. After the end of the war, numerous protests by 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 a policy; 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 at the stage of formation of the Soviet state, at its “infancy,” he could not help but have an impact great influence for its entire subsequent history, became part of the “matrix” on which the Soviet system was reproduced. Today we can understand the essence of this period, freed from the myths of both official Soviet history and vulgar anti-Sovietism.

The main signs of war communism- shifting the center of gravity of economic policy from production to distribution. This occurs when the decline in production reaches such a critical level that the main thing for the survival of society becomes the distribution of what is available. Since the resources of life are replenished 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 egalitarian non-market distribution is introduced. On a non-market basis (possibly even with the use of violence), the state alienates production products, especially food. Money circulation in the country is sharply narrowing. Money disappears in relationships between enterprises. Food and industrial goods are distributed on ration 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, the supply of the population with medicines, consumer goods, etc. were even abolished. d.). The state introduces universal labor conscription, and in some industries (for example, transport) martial law, so that all workers are considered mobilized. All this - general signs military 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 war 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 culture and completely different dominant ideologies in emergency economic circumstances, a very similar structure with egalitarian distribution arises, suggesting that this is the only way to survive difficulties with minimal losses human lives. Perhaps in these extreme situations, instinctive mechanisms inherent in humans as a biological species begin to operate. Perhaps the choice is made at the cultural level; historical memory suggests that societies that refused the solidary distribution of burdens during such periods simply perished. In any case, war communism as a special economic system has nothing in common with communist teaching, much less with Marxism.

The very words “war communism” simply mean that in a period of severe devastation, society (society) turns into a community (commune) - like warriors. IN last years a number of authors argue 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 are faced with a regrettable inattention to the structure of an important general phenomenon of world history. The rhetoric of the political moment almost never correctly 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 into 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) A.A. Bogdanov's "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 peacetime, it is represented in the army as a vast authoritarian consumer commune. However, during great war consumer communism is spreading from the army to the whole society. A.A. Bogdanov gives precisely a structural analysis of the phenomenon, taking as an object not even Russia, but a purer case - Germany.

From this analysis follows an important proposition that goes beyond the framework of historical mathematics: the structure of military communism, having arisen in emergency conditions, does not disintegrate by itself after the disappearance of the conditions that gave rise to it (the end of the war). Exiting war communism is a special and difficult task. In Russia, as A.A. wrote. Bogdanov, solving it will be especially difficult, since the Soviets of Soldiers’ Deputies, imbued with the thinking of war communism, play a very important role in the state system. Agreeing with the prominent Marxist and economist V. Bazarov that war communism is a “bastard” economic system, A. A. Bogdanov shows that socialism is not one of its “parents.” This is a product of capitalism and consumer communism as an emergency regime that has no genetic connection with socialism as, first of all, a new type of cooperation in production. A.A. Bogdanov also points to big problem, which arises in the sphere of ideology: “War communism is still communism; and its sharp contradiction with the usual forms of individual appropriation creates that atmosphere of a mirage in which vague prototypes of socialism are taken for its implementation.” After the end of the war, numerous protests by workers and peasants against the policy of “War Communism” showed its complete collapse; in 1921, a new economic policy was introduced.

Military intervention and civil war of 1918

By the spring of 1918, Soviet power was established throughout almost the entire territory of the country. However, in the summer fighting flared up again.

The policies pursued by the Bolshevik government contributed to the outbreak of the civil war. In November 1917, the Bolsheviks abandoned the possibility of creating a “homogeneous socialist government” that would include representatives of all parties professing socialism, primarily the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. In January 1918, the legally elected people constituent Assembly. The country began to pursue a policy of nationalization of land and enterprises. Food detachments began to be created, taking away grain from the peasants. At the same time, the new authorities deliberately pitted some social groups against others.

Property in the country was also nationalized foreign citizens. The Soviet government refused to repay loans to creditor states. The Entente countries, trying to prevent multi-billion-dollar losses, as well as to prevent the spread of the socialist revolution throughout the world, began to actively provide assistance to the anti-Bolshevik forces, including military assistance.

In March - April 1918, British, French, and then American troops landed in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk; Japanese, British and Americans - in Vladivostok; the British appeared in Central Asia and Transcaucasia; the west of the country was occupied by the Germans.

Within the country, the Czechoslovak corps raised an uprising against the Bolshevik regime. It consisted of captured Czechs who were transported by rail to Vladivostok for subsequent shipment to France. As a result, Soviet power was eliminated in the North, Far East, in Siberia, the Urals, and the Volga region.

On June 13, 1918, the Soviet government formed the Eastern Front. It was recognized as the main front on which the fate of the revolution was decided. To replenish it, special communist and trade union mobilizations were carried out, and troops were transferred from other regions of the country. In September, the Red Army went on the offensive. She occupied Kazan, then Simbirsk, and in October Samara. By the winter of 1918, the troops of the Eastern Front approached the Urals.

An important area of military operations in 1918 was the city of Tsaritsyn. Here the troops of General Krasnov tried to connect with the troops operating against the Soviet Eastern Front. Three major attacks by white troops were repulsed.

In November 1918, a revolution occurred in Germany. The country was forced to admit defeat in the First World War. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR annulled the Brest Peace Treaty. German troops were withdrawn from Ukraine, Belarus (on whose territory the Soviet regime was established), and the Baltic states, where independent states were formed (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia).

The end of the First World War allowed the Entente countries to strengthen their presence in Russia. England and France sent new troops to the south of the country.

Bolshevik policy during the Civil War. War communism

In September 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree declaring the Soviet Republic a military camp. The leadership of the country passed to the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense (V.I. Lenin), the body of the highest military power was the Revolutionary Military Council (Revolutionary Military Council) (L.D. Trotsky).

The economic policy of the Soviet state during the civil war was called “war communism.” In the field of industry, this was expressed in the widespread nationalization of industrial enterprises, the reorientation of factories to the production of military products, and the transfer of workers to a barracks position with the issuance of rations instead of wages. In agriculture, surplus appropriation was introduced, which prohibited grain trade, and all surplus grain was confiscated by the state. Collective and state farms were being created. Universal labor conscription was introduced everywhere. Utility fees have been waived.

A strictly centralized system of managing the economy and the country has emerged. In March 1919, the VII Congress of the RCP(b) was held, which adopted a new party program, the goal of which was proclaimed to be the construction of socialism.

The congress made a special decision on the peasant question. A new direction of social policy in the countryside was developed: a transition from a policy of neutralizing the middle peasantry to the search for an alliance with it. The decisions of the congress on the peasant question reflected the fact that by this time a significant part of the peasantry opposed the Bolshevik regime. This was due to the violent and brutally carried out food appropriation. The largest peasant uprising was the movement in Ukraine led by N. I. Makhno.

The Soviet government pursued a policy of “decossackization,” i.e. liquidation of an entire social stratum, which resulted in the death a large number of of people.

At the Eighth Congress of the Bolshevik Party, a discussion broke out on issues of military development. The "military opposition" insisted on the priority of guerrilla methods of struggle. However, the majority of delegates advocated the creation and strengthening of a regular army, and the attraction of military specialists from the tsarist army to the side of the Soviet government.

In June 1918, the Soviet government officially restored death penalty and on September 5 announced the introduction of Red Terror, giving the Cheka unlimited powers. Trying to prevent anti-Soviet riots and attempts on the lives of their leaders, the Bolsheviks began to take hostages from representatives of the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia. Many innocent people became victims of terror.

Soviet power relied on significant sections of the population: the poor peasantry, declassed elements, and a significant part of the working class. Support for its activities, in particular from workers, was expressed in the movement of communist subbotniks - free labor for the state. V.I. Lenin called this movement a “great initiative.”

Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics (TUSUR)

In the discipline "History"

Economic policy of the Bolshevik Party in

years of civil war and the construction of socialism .

Economic policy of the Bolshevik Party during the civil war and the construction of socialism

The essence and goals of the new economic policy (NEP), its results.

The objective need for industrialization of the country

Complete collectivization of agriculture, its results and consequences

Economic Bolshevik Party during the Civil War and the Construction of Socialism.

Civil war (preconditions and consequences). A civil war is an armed struggle between different groups of the population with different political, ethnic and moral interests. In Russia, the civil war took place with the intervention of foreign intervention. Foreign intervention is in international law the violent intervention of one or more states in the internal affairs of another state. The peculiarity of the civil war is:

1.Uprising,

3.Large-scale operations,

4. Existence of the front (red and white).

Nowadays, the reordination of the civil war from February 1917 to 1920 (22) has been established.

The policy of “War Communism” was aimed at overcoming the economic crisis and was based on theoretical ideas about the possibility of directly introducing communism. Main features: nationalization of all large and medium-sized industries and most small enterprises; food dictatorship, surplus appropriation, direct product exchange between city and countryside; replacing private trade with state distribution of products based on class (card system); naturalization of economic relations; universal labor conscription; equalization of wages; military order system for managing the entire life of society. After the end of the war, numerous protests by 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 a policy; 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 it occurred at the stage of formation of the Soviet state, at its “infancy,” it could not but have a great influence on its entire subsequent history, and became part of the “matrix” on which the Soviet system was reproduced. Today we can understand the essence of this period, freed from the myths of both official Soviet history and vulgar anti-Sovietism.

The main signs of war communism- shifting the center of gravity of economic policy from production to distribution. This occurs when the decline in production reaches such a critical level that the main thing for the survival of society becomes the distribution of what is available. Since the resources of life are replenished 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 egalitarian non-market distribution is introduced. On a non-market basis (possibly even with the use of violence), the state alienates production products, especially food. Money circulation in the country is sharply narrowing. Money disappears in relationships between enterprises. Food and industrial goods are distributed on ration 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, the supply of the population with medicines, consumer goods, etc. were even abolished. d.). The state introduces universal labor conscription, and in some industries (for example, transport) martial law, so that all workers are considered mobilized. All these are general signs of military 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 war 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 very different dominant ideologies, in extreme economic circumstances, a very similar pattern of egalitarian distribution emerges suggests that this is the only way to survive the difficulties with minimal loss of human life. Perhaps in these extreme situations, instinctive mechanisms inherent in humans as a biological species begin to operate. Perhaps the choice is made at the cultural level; historical memory suggests that societies that refused the solidary distribution of burdens during such periods simply perished. In any case, war communism as a special economic system has nothing in common with communist teaching, much less with Marxism.

The very words “war communism” simply mean that in a period of severe devastation, society (society) turns into a community (commune) - like warriors. 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 are faced with a regrettable inattention to the structure of an important general phenomenon of world history. The rhetoric of the political moment almost never correctly 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 into 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) A.A. Bogdanov’s “Questions of Socialism,” published in 1918. He shows that war communism is a consequence of the regression of productive forces and the social organism. In peacetime, it is represented in the army as a vast authoritarian consumer commune. However, during a major war, consumer communism spreads from the army to the entire society. A.A. Bogdanov gives precisely a structural analysis of the phenomenon, taking as an object not even Russia, but a purer case - Germany.

From this analysis follows an important proposition that goes beyond the framework of historical mathematics: the structure of military communism, having arisen in emergency conditions, does not disintegrate by itself after the disappearance of the conditions that gave rise to it (the end of the war). Exiting war communism is a special and difficult task. In Russia, as A.A. wrote. Bogdanov, solving it will be especially difficult, since the Soviets of Soldiers’ Deputies, imbued with the thinking of war communism, play a very important role in the state system. Agreeing with the prominent Marxist and economist V. Bazarov that war communism is a “bastard” economic system, A. A. Bogdanov shows that socialism is not one of its “parents.” This is a product of capitalism and consumer communism as an emergency regime that has no genetic connection with socialism as, first of all, a new type of cooperation in production. A.A. Bogdanov also points out a big problem that arises in the sphere of ideology: “War communism is still communism; and its sharp contradiction with the usual forms of individual appropriation creates that atmosphere of a mirage in which vague prototypes of socialism are taken for its implementation.” After the end of the war, numerous protests by workers and peasants against the policy of “War Communism” showed its complete collapse; in 1921, a new economic policy was introduced.

The result of “war communism” was an unprecedented decline in production: at the beginning of 1921, the volume of industrial production amounted to only 12% of the pre-war level, and the output of iron and cast iron -2.5%. The volume of products for sale decreased by 92%; the state treasury was replenished by 80% through surplus appropriation. Since 1919, entire regions came under the control of rebel peasants. In the spring and summer, a terrible famine broke out in the Volga region: after the confiscation, there was no grain left. About 2 million Russians emigrated, most of them city dwellers. On the eve of the X Congress (March 8, 1919), the sailors and workers of Kronstadt, a stronghold October revolution.

The essence and goals of the new economic policy (NEP), its results;

NEW ECONOMIC POLICY, adopted in the spring of 1921 by the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b); replaced the policy of “war communism”. It was designed for the restoration of the national economy and the subsequent transition to socialism. The main content: replacing the surplus appropriation system with a tax in kind in the countryside; use of the market, various forms property. Foreign capital was attracted (concessions), and a monetary reform was carried out (1922-24), which led to the transformation of the ruble into a convertible currency. It quickly led to the restoration of the national economy destroyed by the war. From ser. 20s The first attempts to curtail NEP began. Syndicates in industry were liquidated, from which private capital was administratively squeezed out, and a rigid centralized system of economic management was created (economic people's commissariats). J.V. Stalin and his entourage set a course for the forced confiscation of grain and the forced “collectivization” of the countryside. Repressions were carried out against management personnel (the Shakhty case, the process of the Industrial Party, etc.).

Russia on the eve of the First World War was an economically backward country. In 1913, labor productivity in Russia was 9 times lower than in the USA, 4.9 times lower in England, and 4.7 times lower in Germany. Russia's industrial production was 12.5% of America's, 75% of the population was illiterate[i] .

On the eve of the First World War, a note from the Council of Congresses of Representatives of Industry and Trade was sent to the tsarist government, which noted that questions about the most correct economic policy were beginning to increasingly occupy the attention of society, the press and the government; It is becoming generally accepted that without raising the main productive forces of the country, agriculture and industry, Russia will not be able to cope with its enormous tasks of culture, state building and properly organized defense. To develop a program for the industrialization of Russia, a commission was created under the leadership of V.K. Zhukovsky, which in 1915 presented the program “On measures to develop the productive forces of Russia”, it was written in it: “... first of all, the point of departure for all judgments about the future economic program The development and achievement of economic independence in Russia should be driven by the conviction that in a country that is poor, but has developed into a powerful world power, the task of balancing between economic weakness and political power should be placed in the foreground. Therefore, issues of accumulation, issues of extraction, issues of increasing labor productivity must come before issues of wealth distribution. Within 10 years, Russia must double or triple its economic turnover, or go bankrupt - this is the clear alternative of the present moment.”

First World War led Russia to even greater backwardness and ruin. Nevertheless, the tasks formulated in the program did not disappear; they became more acute and relevant. It is no coincidence that I. Stalin, a few years later, formulated this problem as follows: we are 50 to 100 years behind the developed countries. We need to overcome this gap in 10–15 years. Either we do this, or we will be crushed. This was the initial economic position of the Bolsheviks in the 1920s from the point of view of productive forces. But it was even more difficult from the point of view of industrial relations.

The “war communism” that preceded the NEP was characterized by brutal centralization in management, equal distribution, surplus appropriation, labor conscription, restrictions on commodity-money relations, etc. This policy was dictated by the conditions of that time - post-war devastation, civil war, military intervention. The country practically turned into a military camp, into a besieged fortress, which allowed the country to survive.

After the end of the civil war and the intervention of the Entente, the task of establishing economic management in peaceful conditions arose. And the first steps of this establishment showed that the policy of “war communism” needs to be changed.

The country was 80% peasant, small-scale, and without a market it could not only develop, but could not exist. Therefore, from the first steps of transformation, the Bolsheviks were faced with this irresistible tendency (trait) of the peasantry. A contradiction inevitably arose between the tasks of building socialism, which the Bolsheviks adhered to (based their policy) and the essence of peasant Russia. Since the policy of “war communism” limited commodity-money relations, then it limited (prevented) the bulk of the Russian population from functioning, managing and living normally, which led to military uprisings (Kronstadt uprising, uprising in the Tambov region and others).

The objective need for industrialization of the country.

Industrialization is the process of creating large-scale machine production in all sectors of the national economy and primarily in industry.

Prerequisites for industrialization: In 1928 the country finished recovery period reached the level of 1913, but Western countries have gone far ahead during this time. As a result, the USSR began to lag behind. Technical and economic backwardness could become chronic and turn into historical, which means: the need for industrialization.

The need for industrialization – major economic productivity and primarily group A (production of government funds) determines economic development countries in general and agricultural development in particular. Social – without industrialization it is impossible to develop the economy, and therefore the social sphere: education, healthcare, recreation, social security. Military-political – without industrialization it is impossible to ensure the technical and economic independence of the country and its defense power.

Conditions for industrialization: the consequences of the devastation have not been fully eliminated, international economic ties have not been established, there is a lack of experienced personnel, the need for cars is satisfied through imports.

Goals: Transformation of Russia from an industrial-agrarian country into an industrial power, ensuring technical and economic independence, strengthening defense capabilities and raising the well-being of the people, demonstrating the advantages of socialism. The sources were internal savings: internal loans, pumping out funds from the countryside, income from foreign trade, cheap labor, the enthusiasm of the working people, and the labor of prisoners.

The beginning of industrialization: December 1925 -14th Party Congress emphasized the unconditional possibility of the victory of socialism in one country and set a course for industrialization. In 1925, the recovery period ended and the period of reconstruction of the national economy began. In 1926, the practical implementation of industrialization began. About 1 billion rubles were invested in productivity. This is 2.5 times more than in 1925.

In 1926-28, the large batch increased by 2 times, and gross productivity reached 132% of 1913. But there were also negative aspects: commodity hunger, food cards (1928-35), lower wages, lack of highly qualified personnel, population migration and aggravation of housing problems, difficulties in setting up new production, massive accidents and breakdowns, hence the search for those responsible.

Results and significance of industrialization: 9 thousand large industrial enterprises equipped with the most advanced technology were put into operation, new industries were created: tractor, automobile, aviation, tank, chemical, machine tool manufacturing, gross productivity output increased by 6.5 times, including group A by 10 Once, in terms of the volume of industrial production, the USSR came to first place in Europe, and to second place in the world, industrial construction spread to remote areas and national outskirts, the social structure and demographic situation in the country changed (40% of the urban population in the country). The number of workers and engineering and technical intelligentsia increased sharply, and industrialization significantly influenced the well-being of the Soviet people.

Significance: industrialization ensured the technical and economic independence of the country and the defense power of the country, industrialization transformed the USSR from an agrarian-industrial country into an industrial one, industrialization demonstrated the mobilization capabilities of socialism and the inexhaustible capabilities of Russia.

Complete collectivization of agriculture, its results and consequences.

At the XV Party Congress (1927), the policy of collectivization of agriculture was approved. At the same time, it was resolutely stated that the creation of collective farms should be a purely voluntary undertaking of the peasants themselves. But already in the summer of 1929, the collectivization that began took on a far from voluntary character. From July to December 1929, about 3.4 million peasant households were united, or 14% of the total number. By the end of February 1930, there were already 14 million united peasant farms, or 60% of their total number.

Widespread collectivization was a necessity, which I. Stalin justified in the article “The Year of the Great Turnaround” (November 1929), replaced emergency measures on grain procurements. This article argued that large sections of the peasantry were ready to join collective farms, and also emphasized the need for a decisive offensive against the kulaks. In December 1929, Stalin announced the end of NEP, the transition from a policy of limiting the kulaks to a policy of “liquidating the kulaks as a class.”

In December 1929, the leadership of the party and state proposed carrying out “complete collectivization” with strict deadlines. Thus, in the Lower Volga region, in the Doma and in the North Caucasus, it should have been completed by the autumn of 1930, in the Central Black Earth regions and regions of steppe Ukraine - by the autumn of 1931, in Left Bank Ukraine - by the spring of 1932, in other regions of the country - by 1933.

Collectivization- This is the replacement of the system of small-holder peasant farming with large socialized agricultural producers. Small and private farms are being replaced by large ones.

Prerequisites collectivization are two problems, to what extent do they correlate? national characteristics Russia (peasant land community) and collectivization and to what extent the construction of socialism presupposes collectivization.

To carry out collectivization, 25 thousand communist workers were sent from cities to villages, who were given great powers to forcibly unite peasants. Those who did not want to join the public economy could be declared enemies of Soviet power.

Back in 1928, the law 2 “On the general principles of land use and land management” was adopted, according to which certain benefits were established for new joint farms when receiving loans, paying taxes, etc. They were promised technical assistance: by the spring of 1930, it was planned to supply 60 thousand tractors to the villages , and a year later - 100 thousand. This was a huge figure, considering that in 1928 there were only 26.7 thousand tractors in the country, of which about 3 thousand were domestically produced. But the supply of equipment was very slow, since the main capacities of the tractor factories went into operation only during the Second Five-Year Plan.

At the first stage of collectivization, it was not yet entirely clear what form the new farms would take. In some regions they became communes with complete socialization of the material conditions of production and life. In other places they took the form of partnerships for joint cultivation of land (TOZ), where socialization did not take place completely, but with the preservation of individual peasant plots. But gradually agricultural artels (collective farms - collective farms) became the main form of peasant association.

Along with collective farms, Soviet “state farms”, that is, agricultural enterprises owned by the state, also developed during this period. But their number was small. If in 1925 there were 3382 state farms in the country, then in 1932 there were 4337. They had at their disposal approximately 10% of the entire sown area of the country.

At the beginning of 1930, it became obvious to the country's leadership that the incredibly high rate of collectivization and the associated losses were harming the very idea of unifying the peasants. In addition, the spring sowing campaign was in danger of being disrupted.

There is evidence that the peasants of Ukraine, Kuban, Don, Central Asia, and Siberia took up arms against collectivization. In the North Caucasus and in a number of regions of Ukraine, regular units of the Red Army were sent against the peasants.

The peasants, as long as they had enough strength, refused to go to collective farms and tried not to succumb to agitation and threats. They did not want to transfer their property into socialized ownership, preferring to offer passive resistance to general collectivization, burn buildings, and destroy livestock, since the livestock transferred to the collective farm most often died anyway due to the lack of prepared premises, feed, and care.

The spring of 1933 was especially difficult in Ukraine, although in 1932 no less grain was collected than in the previous year. In Ukraine, which has always been famous for its harvests, entire families and villages perished from hunger. People stood in lines for bread for several days, dying right on the streets without receiving anything.

Results of collectivization in Russia.

1) everyone who had something was dispossessed and robbed;

2) almost all peasants became collective farmers;

3) the destruction of the age-old ways of the village;

4) grain production has been reduced;

5) famine of the early 30s;

6) terrible death of livestock;

Negative: changes in agricultural production, a radical change in the way of life of the bulk of the country's population (de-peasantization), large human losses - 7-8 million people (hunger, dispossession, resettlement).

Positive: freeing up a significant part of the workforce for other areas of production, creating conditions for the modernization of the agricultural sector. Putting the food supply under state control on the eve of the Second World War. Providing funds for industrialization.

The demographic results of collectivization were catastrophic. If during the civil war, during the “de-Cossackization” (1918-1919), about 1 million Cossacks were killed in the south of Russia, and this was a huge disaster for the country, then the death of the population in peacetime with the knowledge of its own government can be considered a tragedy. It is not possible to accurately calculate the number of victims of the collectivization period, since data on fertility, mortality, and the total population after 1932 in the USSR ceased to be published.

Collectivization led to the “de-peasantization” of the countryside, as a result of which the agricultural sector lost millions of independent workers, “diligent” peasants who turned into collective farmers, having lost the property acquired by previous generations, and lost interest in effective work on the land.

It should be emphasized once again that the main goal of collectivization was to solve the “grain problem,” since it was much more convenient to confiscate agricultural products from collective farms than from millions of scattered peasant farms.

Forced collectivization led to a decrease in the efficiency of agricultural production, since forced labor turned out to be less productive than it was on private farms. Thus, during the years of the first five-year plan, only 12 million tons of grain were exported, that is, an average of 2-3 million tons annually, while in 1913 Russia exported without any effort more than 9 million tons with a production of 86 million tons.

The increase in government purchases in 1928-1935 by 18.8 million tons could be achieved without extreme stress and losses associated with collectivization, since the annual growth rate in the second half

1920s was consistently at least 2%. If the country had continued to develop at the same moderate pace further, then by 1940 the average annual grain harvest would have been approximately 95 million tons, but at the same time, the peasantry would not only not have lived worse than in the 1920s, but would also have been able to provide funds for industrialization and feed the urban population. But this would happen if strong peasant farms covered by cooperation remained in the village.

List of used literature:

1. Notes on the book by S.G. Kara - Murza “Soviet Civilization”

2. Gumilyov L.N. “From Rus' to Russia” L 1992

3. Orlov I.B. “Modern historiography of the NEP: achievements, problems, prospects.”

4. Buldalov V.P., Kabanov V.V. “War communism” ideology and social development. Questions of history. 1990.

5.Textbook by T.M. Timoshin “Economic history of Russia. Moscow 2000.

6.Economy of the transition period. Institute of Economic Problems of the Transition Period. Moscow 1998.

"War Communism"

Economic situation countries in 1917-1920 was extremely difficult. This was aggravated by the fact that neither Lenin nor the party had any developed economic concept of socialism. By October 1917, the Bolsheviks had the most general ideas about the economics of socialism, stemming from the works of Marx and Engels.

In traditional Soviet historiography, the activities of the Bolsheviks during the Civil War are usually called the policy of “war communism.” The origins of this policy lay in the Bolsheviks' declaration of a grain monopoly. The grain monopoly itself is a limitation of the grain market and mandatory delivery to his state according to allotment leaving the peasant a minimum for food and sowing - was not an invention of the Bolsheviks. The Tsarist government in the fall of 1916 and the Provisional Government in March 1917 made decisions on a grain monopoly that were unpopular among the peasants, citing wartime difficulties. However, the Bolsheviks most consistently pursued the policy of “forced economy” in all spheres of production, in the rationing and distribution of raw materials, goods and products (rations, ration cards) with universal labor conscription and the prohibition of free trade in 1918-1920.

The contradictory situation in the economy, when in parallel with free trade there was a forced confiscation of products from peasants, did not last long. Observing the collapse in the economy, Lenin in the spring of 1918 finally chose the path of state capitalism, and demanded that the main blow be struck not at big capital, but at small owners. For him it was a way of fighting net capital, private property and free trade.

In May-June 1918, a series of decrees were adopted that marked the beginning of a food dictatorship, which went beyond the scope of food legislation and determined the course of further events in the construction of a comprehensive system of war communism. In June 1918, committees of the poor appeared. The center, building its relations with the village in a new way, artificially incited social struggle in the village. Carrying out the predatory surplus appropriation policy with the help of food detachments, creating lawlessness and tyranny in the countryside, was entrusted to the poor committees. The resistance of the mass of peasants to this policy strengthened the position of the counter-revolution. The Bolsheviks deliberately created vertical political structures that were closed to the committees. The policy, aimed at inciting a social war in the countryside, forced the peasants to rush between the Reds and the Whites, drawing them into a struggle for power that was alien to the peasants.

Having transferred the center of gravity of the class struggle in May-June 1918 to the countryside, the Bolsheviks consistently built the building of war communism. On June 28, 1918, a decree was issued on the nationalization of all large and medium-sized industries. However, the revolutionary impulse of the Bolsheviks to establish state capitalism in the country met with massive resistance. The “armed campaign” to the village failed - in 1918 they managed to collect only 30 million pounds of grain. Worker dissatisfaction grew; due to the deterioration in supplies to cities, frequent strikes and anti-communist protests occurred. The emergence of spontaneous “black markets” spoke of the economic failure of the Bolshevik policy, and terror and mobilization spoke of its anti-people nature.

On January 11, 1919, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars introduced the allocation of grain and fodder. According to this decision, peasants were obliged to hand over to the state all surplus grain and fodder crops. The surplus appropriation system allowed the Soviet government to concentrate the main food resources of the country in its hands and deal a serious blow to the wealthy peasantry, for it was carried out according to the class principle: “from the poor peasants - nothing, from the middle peasants - moderately, from the rich peasants - a lot.”

The meaning of this essentially predatory policy was that the peasants had to supply the city and the Red Army with bread and fodder for free, and the Soviet government ensured the protection of rural workers from the restoration of pre-revolutionary orders in the countryside.

It was not only the village that became victims of this policy. Private trade was prohibited everywhere. All private shops and trading establishments were nationalized in November 1918. Supplying food to the Red Army, the working class and the urban population Soviet state took it directly into its own hands and introduced a rationing system, thereby making the population of the cities directly dependent on the Bolshevik regime. The size of food rations was determined on a class basis. The advantage in supplies was given to soldiers of the Red Army, workers in the defense industry and then workers employed in all other areas of material production. Only children received the same rations, regardless of the class affiliation of their parents. However, even the largest rations did not exceed 300-400 grams of bread per day.

Universal labor conscription was introduced and the principle “he who does not work, neither shall he eat” was consistently implemented. All citizens between the ages of 16 and 50 were required to participate in so-called socially useful labor. Former “exploiting elements” were widely involved in clearing snow drifts from railway tracks, collecting firewood, loading and unloading wagons, barges, etc. Those who avoided labor were deprived of food rations.

In the spring of 1919, the Communists were forced to soften their policy towards the peasantry, which was reflected in the cessation of “armed campaigns” into the countryside and the dissolution of the Poor Committees. The VIII Congress of the RCP(b) in March 1919, making concessions to the peasantry, proclaimed an alliance with the middle peasants.

The policy of “war communism” led to the fact that the national economy was turned into one huge factory controlled by government authority. As a result, industrial enterprises have become government agencies, which, ignoring economic laws, began to be completely controlled by party structures. All this eliminated the personal interest of workers and employees in increasing labor productivity. Wage was replaced by rations, the size of which was determined not by the intensity and qualifications of the worker’s work, but by the size of his family. Twenty million peasant farms could not be nationalized, but all the products of their labor were nationalized.

According to the new political course of the Soviet leadership, all heavy industry, the main sectors light industry and transport were militarized. Enterprises began to work mainly to supply the Red Army with weapons, ammunition, uniforms, and food. Transport was therefore loaded with military supplies. Strict centralization of management of all spheres of life was introduced. Procurement, distribution of raw materials and fuel, organization of production and distribution of finished products - everything was concentrated in the hands of the Supreme Economic Council. Each branch of industry was controlled by a special central board. Extraordinary commissioners were appointed to particularly important enterprises.

Researchers suggest that the introduction of the policy of “war communism” was dictated not only by the conditions of the civil war, but also by the attempt of Lenin and his circle to realize a utopia according to Marx in Russia, with all the ensuing negative consequences.

The ceased exchange of goods between city and countryside led to the destruction of the entire economic system. Famine broke out, claiming more than 5 million lives. Instead of looking for a way out of the crisis, Lenin strengthens the policy of war communism: money is abolished, food rations are introduced, payments for housing, medical care, fuel, telephone, and telegraph are canceled. The beginning of the nationalization of small enterprises accelerated the outcome. At the beginning of 1921, the country was struck by a deep economic crisis. Railway transport stopped, firewood collection was disrupted, pogroms and riots began. Peasant uprisings in Western Siberia, the Tambov region, the Volga region and, finally, the uprising in Kronstadt somewhat cooled Lenin’s ardor. The looming threat of losing power forced Lenin to switch to a new economic policy.

Economic policy of the Bolsheviks.

Civil war and military intervention.

Reasons for the Bolshevik victory.

Results of the civil war and intervention

From the very beginning, Soviet power was faced with problems of an economic nature. In response to the sabotage of entrepreneurs, the nationalization of enterprises begins. An important measure was the nationalization of banks and the merger of all of them with the State Bank. However, by mid-1918 in the state. ownership was transferred to only 35% of factories and factories.

The agrarian revolution took place at a faster pace, carried out locally by Soviets or land committees. As a result, large landowner farms disappeared in Russia; their confiscation was completed by the spring of 1918. The law on the socialization of land adopted in January 1918 proclaimed principle of equal land use.

The supply of food to the population of cities became a complex problem - in a number of places there was a threat of famine. In January 1918, a decree was adopted on the introduction food dictatorship. In accordance with this decree, there are created food detachments, sent to the village to remove surplus food. In the village there arise committees of the poor.

If at first the Bolshevik policy was dominated by the tendency of equalizing taxation, then in the summer of 1918 significant concessions were made to poor households. Difficulties arise in determining the criterion for the prosperity of a particular farm. Because of this, many excesses occurred, even uprisings.

The country was gradually flaring up Civil War, in which three camps can be distinguished: the Bolsheviks, who declared the goal of building communism; their main opponents, who can be united under the collective name “whites,” whose main goal was not so much the restoration of the old order as opposition to Bolshevism; the third camp consisted mainly of representatives of the peasantry or people who expressed their interests. Here were Nestor Makhno and the “greens” - deserters from both armies (red and white), Antonov’s rebels, sailors of the rebel Kronstadt. For them, both the goals of the Bolsheviks and any hints at restoring the old order were equally unacceptable.

Civil war is a state of irreconcilable armed struggle for power among large masses of people belonging to different classes and social groups.

The armed struggle acquired a national scale from mid-1918, when a series of actions, on the one hand, by the Soviet government (the growing campaign for the “expropriation of expropriators”, the conclusion of the Brest Peace Treaty, emergency decrees on the organization of grain procurements), on the other hand, by its opponents (rebellion Czechoslovak Corps) plunged millions of people into a fratricidal war.

The peculiarity of the civil war in Russia was its intertwining with foreign intervention. The military intervention of the Western powers in the internal affairs of Russia on the side of the anti-Bolshevik forces was based on the desire to prevent the liquidation of the Eastern Front, to avoid multi-billion-dollar losses from the nationalization of the property of foreign citizens and the Bolsheviks’ refusal to pay state debts.

The key reason for the Bolshevik victory was that they ultimately received the support of the majority of the country's population.

The “White Movement” put forward the slogan of “united and indivisible Russia,” which was considered by the peoples of the disintegrated Russian Empire as a great power and caused them to protest (the Bolsheviks were for the self-determination of nations up to the formation of independent states).

The foreign policy reasons for the Bolshevik victory played an equally important role.

The Bolsheviks' hopes for a world revolution and the help of Western workers who took power did not materialize. Nevertheless, support was provided. It was expressed in mass protests by workers of foreign countries against the intervention under the slogan “Hands off Soviet Russia!” They considered our country as “the common homeland of socialism, which opened a new, fairer place for ordinary people era." International solidarity with the Soviet Republic became the main factor that undermined the unity of action of the Entente powers.

For Russia itself, the civil war and intervention were the greatest tragedy. Damage caused national economy, exceeded 50 billion rubles. Industrial production decreased in 1920 compared to 1913 by seven times, agricultural production by 40%. The size of the working class has almost halved. More than 8 million people died in battles, from hunger, disease, and “white” and “red” terror. About 2 million people - almost the entire political, financial, industrial, scientific and artistic elite of pre-revolutionary Russia - were forced to emigrate.

Bolshevism won and preserved the statehood and sovereignty of Russia.