Who painted the picture of the military council in Fili. Council in Fili - briefly

How the policy of war communism was carried out: briefly about the causes, goals and results. Many people know about it only in general terms.

But what exactly were the first transformations of the Bolsheviks?

The essence of the policy of war communism

The policy of war communism - measures taken in the period 1918-1920 and aimed at reorganization in politics, the economy and the social sphere.

What was the essence of this policy:

Providing the army and the population with food.
Universal strict labor service.
Issuance of goods on cards.
Food preparation.
Curtailment of commodity-money relations. Introduction of natural exchange.

The Bolsheviks also pursued the goal of making power as centralized as possible and managing the national economy.

Reasons for the introduction of war communism

The main reason was the state of emergency during the war and popular unrest. The military situation in the country is always characterized by a special development.

Production is decreasing and consumption is increasing, a significant part of the budget is spent on military needs. This situation calls for decisive action.

Other reasons:

non-acceptance by part of the country of Soviet power, requiring the appointment of punitive measures;
based on the previous paragraph, the need to consolidate power;
the need to overcome the economic crisis.

One of the main reasons was the desire of the Bolsheviks to create a communist state in which the principle of distribution would be used and there would be no place for commodity-money relations and private property.

The methods that were used for this were quite harsh. Changes were made quickly and decisively. Many Bolsheviks wanted immediate change.

Key provisions and activities

The policy of war communism was carried out in the following provisions:

On June 28, 1918, decrees on nationalization in the industrial sector were adopted.
The distribution of products took place at the state level. All surpluses were seized and distributed among the regions equally.
Trade in any goods was strictly prohibited.
For the peasants, the minimum was determined, which was necessary only to maintain life and work.
It was assumed that all citizens from 18 to 60 years of age must work in industry or agriculture.
Since November 1918, mobility has been significantly reduced in the country. This refers to the introduction of martial law on transport.
Cancellation of payments for transport, utilities; introduction of other free services.

In general, the activities were aimed at transferring the economy to a military footing.

Results, consequences and significance of war communism

The policy of war communism created all the conditions for the victory of the Reds in the civil war. The main element was the supply of the Red Army with the necessary products, transport, and ammunition.

But the Bolsheviks failed to solve the economic problem of overcoming the crisis. The economy of the country fell into complete decline.

National income fell by more than half. In agriculture, sowing crops and harvesting have been significantly reduced. Industrial production was on the verge of collapse.

As for power, the policy of war communism laid the foundations for the further state structure of Soviet Russia.

Pros and Cons of War Communism

The policy pursued had both advantages and disadvantages.

Reasons for abandoning war communism

As a result, the measures introduced were not only ineffective in overcoming the economic crisis, but also provoked a new, even deeper one. Industry and agriculture fell into complete decline, famine set in.

It was necessary to take new measures in the economy. Came to replace war communism.

Causes. The internal policy of the Soviet state during the Civil War was called the "policy of war communism." The term "war communism" was proposed by the famous Bolshevik A.A. Bogdanov back in 1916. In his book Questions of Socialism, he wrote that during the war years, the internal life of any country is subject to a special logic of development: most of the able-bodied population leaves the sphere of production, producing nothing, and consumes a lot. There is a so-called "consumer communism". A significant part of the national budget is spent on military needs. This inevitably requires restrictions on consumption and state control over distribution. War also leads to the curtailment of democratic institutions in the country, so it can be said that war communism was conditioned by the needs of wartime.

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

The left communists insisted on the rejection of any compromises with the world and Russian bourgeoisie, the speedy expropriation of all forms of private property, the curtailment of commodity-money relations, the abolition of money, the introduction of the principles of equal distribution and socialist orders literally “from today”. These views were shared by most of the members of the RSDLP (b), which was clearly manifested in the debate at the 7th (Emergency) Party Congress (March 1918) on the issue of ratifying the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Until the summer of 1918, V.I. Lenin criticized the views of the left communists, which is especially clearly seen in his work "The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power". He insisted on the need to suspend the “Red Guard attack on capital”, organize accounting and control at already nationalized enterprises, strengthen labor discipline, fight parasites and loafers, widely use the principle of material interest, use bourgeois specialists, and allow foreign concessions under certain conditions. When, after the transition to NEP in 1921, V.I. Lenin was asked if he had previously thought about NEP, he answered in the affirmative and referred to the "Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power." True, here Lenin defended the erroneous idea of direct product exchange between the city and the countryside through the general cooperation of the rural population, which brought his position closer to the position of the "Left Communists". It can be said that in the spring of 1918 the Bolsheviks chose between the policy of attacking the bourgeois elements, which was supported by the "left communists", and the policy of gradual entry into socialism, which was proposed by Lenin. The fate of this choice was ultimately decided by the spontaneous development of the revolutionary process in the countryside, the beginning of intervention and the mistakes of the Bolsheviks in agrarian policy in the spring of 1918.

The policy of "war communism" was largely due to hopes for the speedy realization of the world revolution. The leaders of Bolshevism considered the October Revolution as the beginning of the world revolution and expected the arrival of the latter from day to day. In the first months after October in Soviet Russia, if they were punished for a minor offense (petty theft, hooliganism), they wrote "to imprison until the victory of the world revolution", so there was a belief that compromises with the bourgeois counter-revolution were unacceptable, that the country would be turned into a single military camp, about the militarization of all internal life.

The Essence of Politics. The policy of "war communism" included a set of measures that affected the economic and socio-political sphere. The basis of "war communism" was emergency measures in supplying cities and the army with food, the curtailment of commodity-money relations, the nationalization of all industry, including small-scale, food requisitioning, the supply of food and industrial goods to the population on cards, universal labor service and the maximum centralization of the management of the national economy and the country. generally.

Chronologically, “war communism” falls on the period of the civil war, however, individual elements of the policy began to appear at the end of
1917 - early 1918 This applies primarily nationalization of industry, banks and transport."Red Guard attack on capital",
which began after the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the introduction of workers' control (November 14, 1917), was temporarily suspended in the spring of 1918. In June 1918, its pace accelerated and all large and medium-sized enterprises passed into state ownership. In November 1920, small businesses were confiscated. Thus it happened destruction of private property. A characteristic feature of "war communism" is extreme centralization of the management of the national economy. At first, the management system was built on the principles of collegiality and self-government, but over time, the failure of these principles becomes apparent. The factory committees lacked the competence and experience to manage them. The leaders of Bolshevism realized that they had previously exaggerated the degree of revolutionary consciousness of the working class, which was not ready to govern. A bet is made on the state management of economic life. On December 2, 1917, the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) was created. N. Osinsky (V.A. Obolensky) became its first chairman. The tasks of the Supreme Council of National Economy included the nationalization of large-scale industry, the management of transport, finance, the establishment of commodity exchange, etc. By the summer of 1918, local (provincial, district) economic councils appeared, subordinate to the Supreme Economic Council. The Council of People's Commissars, and then the Council of Defense, determined the main directions of the work of the Supreme Council of National Economy, its central departments and centers, while each represented a kind of state monopoly in the corresponding industry. By the summer of 1920, almost 50 central offices were created to manage large nationalized enterprises. The name of the headquarters speaks for itself: Glavmetal, Glavtekstil, Glavsugar, Glavtorf, Glavkrakhmal, Glavryba, Tsentrokhladoboynya, etc.

The system of centralized control dictated the need for a commanding style of leadership. One of the features of the policy of "war communism" was emergency system, whose task was to subordinate the entire economy to the needs of the front. The Council of Defense appointed its own commissioners with emergency powers. So, A.I. Rykov was appointed Extraordinary Commissioner of the Defense Council for the supply of the Red Army (Chusosnabarm). He was endowed with the right to use any apparatus, remove and arrest officials, reorganize and resubordinate institutions, seize and requisition goods from warehouses and from the population under the pretext of "military haste." All factories that worked for defense were transferred to the jurisdiction of Chusosnabarm. To manage them, the Industrial Military Council was formed, the decisions of which were also binding on all enterprises.

One of the main features of the policy of "war communism" is curtailment of commodity-money relations. This manifested itself primarily in introduction of non-equivalent natural exchange between town and country. In conditions of galloping inflation, the peasants did not want to sell grain for depreciated money. In February - March 1918, the consuming regions of the country received only 12.3% of the planned amount of bread. The norm of bread on cards in industrial centers was reduced to 50-100 gr. in a day. Under the terms of the Brest Peace, Russia lost areas rich in bread, which aggravated
food crisis. Hunger was coming. It should also be remembered that the attitude of the Bolsheviks towards the peasantry was twofold. On the one hand, he was regarded as an ally of the proletariat, and on the other (especially the middle peasants and kulaks) as a support of the counter-revolution. They looked at the peasant, even if it was a low-powered middle peasant, with suspicion.

Under these conditions, the Bolsheviks headed for establishment of a grain monopoly. In May 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted decrees "On granting emergency powers to the People's Commissariat for Food to combat the rural bourgeoisie, hiding grain stocks and speculating on them" and "On the reorganization of the People's Commissariat for Food and local food authorities." In the context of the impending famine, the People's Commissariat for Food was granted emergency powers, a food dictatorship was established in the country: a monopoly on the trade in bread and fixed prices were introduced. After the adoption of the decree on the grain monopoly (May 13, 1918), trade was actually banned. To seize food from the peasantry began to form food squads. The food detachments acted according to the principle formulated by the People's Commissar of Food Tsuryupa "if it is impossible
take grain from the rural bourgeoisie by ordinary means, then you must take it by force. To help them, on the basis of the decrees of the Central Committee of June 11, 1918, committees of the poor(comedy ) . These measures of the Soviet government forced the peasantry to take up arms. According to the prominent agrarian N. Kondratyev, “the village, flooded with soldiers who returned after the spontaneous demobilization of the army, responded to the armed violence with armed resistance and a whole series of uprisings.” However, neither the food dictatorship nor the committees could solve the food problem. Attempts to prohibit market relations between town and countryside and the forcible seizure of grain from the peasants only led to a wide illegal trade in grain at high prices. The urban population received no more than 40% of the consumed bread on cards, and 60% - through illegal trade. Having failed in the struggle against the peasantry, in the fall of 1918 the Bolsheviks were forced to somewhat weaken the food dictatorship. In a number of decrees adopted in the autumn of 1918, the government tried to ease the taxation of the peasantry, in particular, the "extraordinary revolutionary tax" was abolished. According to the decisions of the VI All-Russian Congress of Soviets in November 1918, the Kombeds were merged with the Soviets, although this did not change much, since by that time the Soviets in rural areas consisted mainly of the poor. Thus, one of the main demands of the peasants was realized - to put an end to the policy of splitting the countryside.

On January 11, 1919, in order to streamline the exchange between the city and the countryside, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee introduced surplus appropriation. It was prescribed to withdraw from the peasants the surplus, which at first was determined by the "needs of the peasant family, limited by the established norm." However, soon the surplus began to be determined by the needs of the state and the army. The state announced in advance the figures of its needs for bread, and then they were divided into provinces, districts and volosts. In 1920, in the instructions sent down to the places from above, it was explained that "the apportionment given to the volost is in itself a definition of surplus." And although the peasants were left only a minimum of grain according to the surplus, nevertheless, the initial assignment of deliveries introduced certainty, and the peasants considered the surplus appropriation as a blessing compared to the food orders.

The curtailment of commodity-money relations was also facilitated by prohibition autumn 1918 in most provinces of Russia wholesale and private trade. However, the Bolsheviks still failed to completely destroy the market. And although they were supposed to destroy money, the latter were still in use. The unified monetary system collapsed. Only in Central Russia, 21 banknotes were in circulation, money was printed in many regions. During 1919, the ruble exchange rate fell 3136 times. Under these conditions, the state was forced to switch to natural wages.

The existing economic system did not stimulate productive labor, the productivity of which was steadily declining. Output per worker in 1920 was less than one-third of the pre-war level. In the autumn of 1919, the earnings of a highly skilled worker exceeded those of a handyman by only 9%. Material incentives to work disappeared, and with them the very desire to work also disappeared. At many enterprises, absenteeism amounted to up to 50% of working days. To strengthen discipline, mainly administrative measures were taken. Forced labor grew out of egalitarianism, out of the lack of economic incentives, out of poor living standards for the workers, and also out of a catastrophic shortage of workers. The hopes for the class consciousness of the proletariat were not justified either. In the spring of 1918, V.I. Lenin writes that "revolution ... requires unquestioning obedience masses one will leaders of the labor process. The method of "war communism" policy is militarization of labor. At first, it covered workers and employees of the defense industries, but by the end of 1919, all industries and railway transport were transferred to martial law. On November 14, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the "Regulations on working disciplinary comrades' courts." It provided for such punishments as sending malicious violators of discipline to heavy public works, and in case of "stubborn unwillingness to submit to comradely discipline" to subject "as not a labor element to dismissal from enterprises with transfer to a concentration camp."

In the spring of 1920, it was believed that the civil war had already ended (in fact, it was only a peaceful respite). At this time, the IX Congress of the RCP (b) wrote in its resolution on the transition to a militarization system of the economy, the essence of which "should be in every possible approximation of the army to the production process, so that the living human strength of certain economic regions is at the same time the living human strength of certain military units." In December 1920, the VIII Congress of Soviets declared the maintenance of a peasant economy a state duty.

Under the conditions of "war communism" there was universal labor service for people from 16 to 50 years old. On January 15, 1920, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree on the first revolutionary army of labor, which legalized the use of army units in economic work. On January 20, 1920, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution on the procedure for conducting labor service, according to which the population, regardless of permanent work, was involved in the performance of labor service (fuel, road, horse-drawn, etc.). The redistribution of the labor force and labor mobilization were widely practiced. Work books were introduced. To control the execution of universal labor service, a special committee headed by F.E. Dzerzhinsky. Persons evading community service were severely punished and deprived of ration cards. On November 14, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the above-mentioned "Regulations on working disciplinary comrades' courts."

The system of military-communist measures included the abolition of fees for urban and railway transport, for fuel, fodder, food, consumer goods, medical services, housing, etc. (December 1920). Approved egalitarian-class principle of distribution. From June 1918, card supply was introduced in 4 categories. According to the first category, workers of defense enterprises engaged in heavy physical labor and transport workers were supplied. In the second category - the rest of the workers, employees, domestic servants, paramedics, teachers, handicraftsmen, hairdressers, cabbies, tailors and the disabled. According to the third category, directors, managers and engineers of industrial enterprises, most of the intelligentsia and clergy were supplied, and according to the fourth - persons who use wage labor and live on capital income, as well as shopkeepers and peddlers. Pregnant and lactating women belonged to the first category. Children under three years old additionally received a milk card, and up to 12 years old - products of the second category. In 1918, in Petrograd, the monthly ration for the first category was 25 pounds of bread (1 pound = 409 gr.), 0.5 lb. sugar, 0.5 fl. salt, 4 tbsp. meat or fish, 0.5 lb. vegetable oil, 0.25 f. coffee substitutes. The norms for the fourth category were three times less for almost all products than for the first. But even these products were given out very irregularly. In Moscow in 1919, a rationed worker received a calorie ration of 336 kcal, while the daily physiological norm was 3600 kcal. Workers in provincial cities received food below the physiological minimum (in the spring of 1919 - 52%, in July - 67, in December - 27%). According to A. Kollontai, starvation rations caused workers, especially women, feelings of despair and hopelessness. In January 1919, there were 33 types of cards in Petrograd (bread, dairy, shoe, tobacco, etc.).

"War Communism" was considered by the Bolsheviks not only as a policy aimed at the survival of Soviet power, but also as the beginning of the construction of socialism. Based on the fact that every revolution is violence, they widely used revolutionary coercion. A popular 1918 poster read: “With an iron hand we will drive mankind to happiness!” Revolutionary coercion was used especially widely against the peasants. After the adoption of the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of February 14, 1919 "On socialist land management and measures for the transition to socialist agriculture", propaganda was launched in defense of creation of communes and artels. In a number of places, the authorities adopted resolutions on the mandatory transition in the spring of 1919 to collective cultivation of the land. But it soon became clear that the peasantry would not go for socialist experiments, and attempts to impose collective forms of farming would finally alienate the peasants from Soviet power, so at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) in March 1919, the delegates voted for the union of the state with the middle peasants.

The inconsistency of the peasant policy of the Bolsheviks can also be seen in the example of their attitude towards cooperation. In an effort to impose socialist production and distribution, they eliminated such a collective form of self-activity of the population in the economic field as cooperation. The Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of March 16, 1919 "On consumer communes" put the cooperatives in the position of an appendage of state power. All local consumer societies were forcibly merged into cooperatives - "consumer communes", which united into provincial unions, and they, in turn, into Tsentrosoyuz. The state entrusted the consumer communes with the distribution of food and consumer goods in the country. Cooperation as an independent organization of the population ceased to exist. The name "consumer communes" aroused hostility among the peasants, since they identified it with the total socialization of property, including personal property.

During the Civil War, the political system of the Soviet state underwent major changes. The RCP(b) becomes its central link. By the end of 1920, there were about 700 thousand people in the RCP (b), half of them were at the front.

The role of the apparatus that practiced military methods of work grew in Party life. Instead of elected collectives in the field, operational bodies with a narrow composition most often acted. Democratic centralism - the basis of party building - was replaced by an appointment system. The norms of collective leadership of party life were replaced by authoritarianism.

The years of war communism became the time of establishment political dictatorship of the Bolsheviks. Although representatives of other socialist parties took part in the activities of the Soviets after a temporary ban, the Communists still constituted an overwhelming majority in all government institutions, at the congresses of Soviets and in executive bodies. The process of merging party and state bodies was going on intensively. Provincial and district party committees often determined the composition of the executive committees and issued orders for them.

Orders that took shape within the party, the communists, soldered by strict discipline, voluntarily or involuntarily transferred to those organizations where they worked. Under the influence of the civil war, a military command dictatorship took shape in the country, which entailed the concentration of control not in elected bodies, but in executive institutions, the strengthening of unity of command, the formation of a bureaucratic hierarchy with a huge number of employees, a decrease in the role of the masses in state building and their removal from power.

Bureaucracy for a long time becomes a chronic disease of the Soviet state. Its reasons were the low cultural level of the bulk of the population. The new state inherited a lot from the former state apparatus. The old bureaucracy soon got places in the Soviet state apparatus, because it was impossible to do without people who knew managerial work. Lenin believed that it was possible to cope with bureaucracy only when the entire population ("every cook") would participate in government. But later the utopian nature of these views became obvious.

The war had a huge impact on state building. The concentration of forces, so necessary for military success, required a strict centralization of control. The ruling party placed its main stake not on the initiative and self-government of the masses, but on the state and party apparatus capable of implementing by force the policy necessary to defeat the enemies of the revolution. Gradually, the executive bodies (apparatus) completely subordinated the representative bodies (Soviets). The reason for the swelling of the Soviet state apparatus was the total nationalization of industry. The state, having become the owner of the main means of production, was forced to ensure the management of hundreds of factories and factories, to create huge administrative structures that were engaged in economic and distribution activities in the center and in the regions, and the role of central bodies increased. Management was built "from top to bottom" on strict directive-command principles, which limited local initiative.

The state sought to establish total control not only over the behavior, but also over the thoughts of its subjects, into whose heads the elementary and primitive elements of communism were introduced. Marxism becomes the state ideology. The task of creating a special proletarian culture was set. Cultural values and achievements of the past were denied. There was a search for new images and ideals. A revolutionary avant-garde was being formed in literature and art. Particular attention was paid to the means of mass propaganda and agitation. Art has become entirely politicized. Revolutionary steadfastness and fanaticism, selfless courage, sacrifice for the sake of a bright future, class hatred and ruthlessness towards enemies were preached. This work was led by the People's Commissariat of Education (Narkompros), headed by A.V. Lunacharsky. Active activity launched Proletcult- Union of proletarian cultural and educational societies. The proletarians especially actively called for the revolutionary overthrow of the old forms in art, the stormy onslaught of new ideas, and the primitivization of culture. The ideologists of the latter are such prominent Bolsheviks as A.A. Bogdanov, V.F. Pletnev and others. In 1919, more than 400 thousand people took part in the proletarian movement. The dissemination of their ideas inevitably led to the loss of traditions and the lack of spirituality of society, which in a war was unsafe for the authorities. The leftist speeches of the proletarians forced the People's Commissariat of Education to call them down from time to time, and in the early 1920s to completely dissolve these organizations.

The consequences of "war communism" cannot be separated from the consequences of the civil war. At the cost of enormous efforts, the Bolsheviks managed to turn the republic into a "military camp" by methods of agitation, rigid centralization, coercion and terror and win. But the policy of "war communism" did not and could not lead to socialism. By the end of the war, the inadmissibility of running ahead, the danger of forcing socio-economic transformations and the escalation of violence became obvious. Instead of creating a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a dictatorship of one party arose in the country, to maintain which revolutionary terror and violence were widely used.

The national economy was paralyzed by the crisis. In 1919, due to the lack of cotton, the textile industry almost completely stopped. It gave only 4.7% of pre-war production. The linen industry gave only 29% of the pre-war.

Heavy industry collapsed. In 1919, all the blast furnaces in the country went out. Soviet Russia did not produce metal, but lived on the reserves inherited from the tsarist regime. At the beginning of 1920, 15 blast furnaces were launched, and they produced about 3% of the metal smelted in Tsarist Russia on the eve of the war. The catastrophe in metallurgy affected the metalworking industry: hundreds of enterprises were closed, and those that were working were periodically idle due to difficulties with raw materials and fuel. Soviet Russia, cut off from the mines of Donbass and Baku oil, experienced fuel starvation. Wood and peat became the main type of fuel.

Industry and transport lacked not only raw materials and fuel, but also workers. By the end of the civil war, less than 50% of the proletariat in 1913 was employed in industry. The composition of the working class has changed significantly. Now its backbone was not cadre workers, but people from the non-proletarian strata of the urban population, as well as peasants mobilized from the villages.

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution

higher professional education

Volgograd State Technical University

Department of History, Cultural Studies and Sociology

on the subject: "Patriotic history"

on the topic: "POLICY OF "WAR COMMUNISM"

Completed:

Student group EM - 155

Galstyan Albert Robertovich

Checked:

Sitnikova Olga Ivanovna

Volgograd 2013

THE POLICY OF "WAR COMMUNISM" (1918 - 1920)

The Civil War set before the Bolsheviks the task of creating a huge army, the maximum mobilization of all resources, and hence - the maximum centralization of power and subordinating it to the control of all spheres of the state's life. At the same time, the tasks of the wartime coincided with the ideas of the Bolsheviks about socialism as a non-commodity, market-free centralized society. As a result, politics war communism , carried out by the Bolsheviks in 1918-1920, was built, on the one hand, on the experience of state regulation of economic relations during the First World War (in Russia, Germany), on the other hand, on utopian ideas about the possibility of a direct transition to market-free socialism in the face of the expectation of a global revolution, which ultimately led to the acceleration of the pace of socio-economic transformations in the country during the years of the Civil War.

Main policy elements war communism . In November 1918, the prodarmia was dissolved and by a decree of January 11, 1919. surplus was carried out. The Decree on Land was practically cancelled. The land fund was transferred not to all workers, but, first of all, to state farms and communes, and secondly, to labor artels and partnerships for joint cultivation of the land (TOZs). On the basis of the decree of July 28, 1918, by the summer of 1920, up to 80% of large and medium-sized enterprises were nationalized. Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of July 22, 1918 About speculation all non-state trade was prohibited. By the beginning of 1919, private trading enterprises were completely nationalized or closed. After the end of the Civil War, the transition to the full naturalization of economic relations was completed. During the Civil War, a centralized state and party structure was created. The peak of centralization was glaucism . In 1920, there were 50 central offices subordinate to the Supreme Economic Council, coordinating related industries and distributing finished products - Glavtorf, Glavkozha, Glavkrakhmal, etc. Consumer cooperation was also centralized and subordinated to the People's Commissariat of Food. During the period war communism general labor conscription was introduced, the militarization of labor.

Policy Outcomes war communism . As a result of the policy war communism social and economic conditions were created for the victory of the Soviet Republic over the interventionists and the White Guards. At the same time, for the country's economy, war and politics war communism had dire consequences. By 1920, the national income fell from 11 to 4 billion rubles compared to 1913. The production of large-scale industry was 13% of the pre-war level, incl. heavy industry - 2-5%. The food requisition led to a reduction in sowing and gross harvest of major agricultural crops. Agricultural output in 1920 amounted to two-thirds of the pre-war level. In 1920-1921. famine broke out in the country. The unwillingness to endure the surplus led to the creation of insurgent centers in the Middle Volga region, on the Don, Kuban. Basmachi became more active in Turkestan. In February - March 1921, the West Siberian rebels created armed formations of several thousand people. On March 1, 1921, a rebellion broke out in Kronstadt, during which political slogans were put forward ( Power to the Soviets, not to the parties! , Soviets without Bolsheviks! ). The acute political and economic crisis prompted the leaders of the party to revise whole point of view on socialism . After a broad discussion in late 1920 - early 1921 with the X Congress of the RCP (b) (March 1921), a gradual abolition of the policy war communism.

I consider the topic "The policy of "war communism" and the NEP in the USSR" relevant.

There were many tragic events in the history of Russia in the 20th century. One of the most difficult trials for the country, for its people, was the period of the policy of "war communism".

The history of the policy of "war communism" is the history of hunger and suffering of the people, the history of the tragedy of many Russian families, the history of the collapse of hopes, the history of the destruction of the country's economy.

The New Economic Policy is one of the problems that constantly attracts the attention of researchers and people studying the history of Russia.

The relevance of the considered topic lies in the ambiguity of the attitude of historians, economists to the content and lessons of the NEP. Much attention is paid to the study of this topic both in our country and abroad. Some researchers pay tribute to the activities that were carried out within the framework of the NEP, another group of researchers is trying to belittle the importance of the NEP for the recovery of the economy after World War I, the revolution and the civil war. But this issue is no less relevant against the backdrop of the events taking place now in our country.

These pages of history should not be forgotten. At the present stage of development of our state, it is necessary to take into account the mistakes and lessons of the NEP. Such historical events should be studied especially carefully by modern politicians and statesmen so that they can learn from the mistakes of past generations.

The purpose of this work is to study the features of the socio-economic development of Russia in this period and a comparative analysis of the policy of "war communism" and the new economic policy.

Features of the socio-economic development of Russia in 1918-1920. and in 1921-1927.

In the autumn of 1917, a nationwide crisis brewed in the country. On November 7, 1917, an armed uprising took place in Petrograd, and one of the radical parties, the RSDLP (b), came to power with its program to bring the country out of the deepest crisis. The economic tasks were in the nature of social and state intervention in the field of production, distribution of finances and regulation of the labor force on the basis of the introduction of universal labor service.

For the practical implementation of state control, the task of nationalization was put forward.

Nationalization was supposed to unite capitalist economic ties on a national scale, to become a form of capital functioning under the control of workers involved in state activities.

The main task of the Soviet power was to concentrate the commanding heights in the economy in the hands of the organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat and, at the same time, to create socialist organs of government. The politics of this period were based on coercion and violence.

During this period, the following measures were taken: the nationalization of banks, the implementation of the Decree on Land, the nationalization of industry, the introduction of a monopoly of foreign trade, the organization of workers' control. The State Bank was occupied by the Red Guard on the very first day of the October Revolution. The former apparatus refused to issue money on orders, tried to arbitrarily dispose of the resources of the treasury and the bank, and provided money to the counter-revolution. Therefore, the new apparatus was formed mainly from small employees and recruited personnel from workers, soldiers and sailors who did not have experience in financial affairs.

Even more difficult was the acquisition of private banks. The actual liquidation of the affairs of private banks and their merger with the State Bank continued until 1920.

The nationalization of the banks, as well as the nationalization of industrial enterprises, was preceded by the establishment of workers' control, which throughout the country met with the active resistance of the bourgeoisie.

Bodies of workers' control arose during the February Revolution in the form of factory committees. The new leadership of the country considered them as one of the transitional steps towards socialism, saw in practical control and accounting not only control and accounting for the results of production, but also a form of organization, establishing production by the masses of workers, since the task was to "distribute labor correctly".

November 1917, the "Regulations on Workers' Control" are adopted. Its elected bodies were planned to be created at all enterprises where hired labor was used: in industry, transport, banks, trade, and agriculture. Production, supply of raw materials, sale and storage of goods, financial transactions were subject to control. established legal liability of owners of enterprises for non-compliance with the orders of work supervisors.

Workers' control greatly accelerated the implementation of nationalization. Future business executives mastered command, coercive methods of work, which were based not on knowledge of the economy, but on slogans.

The Bolsheviks realized the need for gradual nationalization. Therefore, at first, individual enterprises of great importance for the state, as well as enterprises whose owners did not obey the decisions of state bodies, passed into the hands of the Soviet government. First, large military factories were nationalized. But immediately, on the initiative of the workers, local enterprises were nationalized, for example, the Likinskaya manufactory.

The concept of nationalization was gradually reduced to confiscation. This had a bad effect on the work of industry, as economic ties were broken, and it was difficult to establish control on a national scale.

Subsequently, the nationalization of local industry assumed the character of a mass and spontaneously growing movement. Sometimes enterprises were socialized, for the management of which the workers were not actually ready, as well as low-capacity enterprises. The economic situation in the country was deteriorating. Coal production in December 1917 was halved compared to the beginning of the year. Production of pig iron and steel has decreased by 24% this year. the situation with bread also became more difficult.

This forced the Council of People's Commissars to go for the centralization of "economic life on a national scale." And in the spring and summer of 1918, entire branches of production were already transferred to the state. The sugar industry was nationalized in May, and the oil industry in the summer; completed the nationalization of metallurgy and engineering.

By July 1, 513 large industrial enterprises had passed into state ownership. The Council of People's Commissars adopted a Decree on the general nationalization of the country's large-scale industry "in order to resolutely combat economic and industrial disruption and to strengthen the dictatorship of the working class and the rural poor." In December 1918, the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the National Economy stated that "the nationalization of industry is basically complete."

In 1918, the 5th Congress of Soviets adopted the first Soviet constitution. The Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918 proclaimed and secured the rights of workers, the rights of the vast majority of the population.

In the sphere of agrarian relations, the Bolsheviks adhered to the idea of confiscation of landowners' lands and their nationalization. The Decree on Land, adopted the day after the victory of the revolution, combined radical measures to abolish private ownership of land and transfer landowners' estates to the disposal of volost land committees and district Soviets of peasant deputies with the recognition of the equality of all forms of land use and the right to divide confiscated land according to labor or consumer norm.

The nationalization and division of land were carried out on the basis of the law on the socialization of land, adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on February 9, 1918. In 1917-1919. the section was made in 22 provinces. About 3 million peasants received the land. At the same time, military measures were taken: a monopoly on bread was established, food authorities received emergency powers to purchase bread; food detachments were created, the task of which was to seize surplus grain at fixed prices. There were fewer and fewer goods. In the autumn of 1918, industry was practically paralyzed.

September, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee declared the Republic a single military camp. A regime was established, the purpose of which was to concentrate all available resources from the state. The policy of "war communism" began to be carried out, which acquired a completed outline by the spring of 1919 and consisted of three main groups of events:

) to solve the food problem, a centralized supply of the population was organized. By decrees of November 21 and 28, trade was nationalized and replaced by compulsory state-organized distribution; In order to create stocks of products, on January 11, 1919, a food allocation was introduced: the free trade in bread was declared a state crime. The bread received under apportionment was distributed in a centralized manner according to the class norm;

) all industrial enterprises were nationalized;

) universal labor service was introduced.

The process of maturation of the idea of the immediate building of commodity-free socialism by replacing trade with a planned distribution of products organized on a national scale is accelerating. The culmination of the "military-communist" measures was the end of 1920 - the beginning of 1921, when the decrees of the Council of People's Commissars "On the free sale of food products to the population", "On the free sale of consumer goods to the population", "On the abolition of payment for all kinds of fuel" were issued. . Projects for the abolition of money were envisaged. But the crisis state of the economy testified to the ineffectiveness of the measures taken.

The centralization of control is sharply increasing. Enterprises were deprived of independence in order to identify and maximize the use of available resources. The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense, established on November 30, 1918, chaired by V. I. Lenin, became the supreme body.

Despite the difficult situation in the country, the ruling party began to determine the prospects for the development of the country, which was reflected in the GOELRO plan (State Commission for the Electrification of Russia) - the first long-term national economic plan, approved in December 1920.

GOELRO was a plan for the development of not just one energy sector, but the entire economy. It provided for the construction of enterprises providing these construction sites with everything necessary, as well as the advanced development of the electric power industry. And all this was tied to the plans for the development of territories. Among them is the Stalingrad Tractor Plant founded in 1927. As part of the plan, the development of the Kuznetsk coal basin also began, around which a new industrial area arose. The Soviet government encouraged the initiative of private traders in the implementation of GOELRO. Those who were engaged in electrification could count on tax incentives and loans from the state.

The GOELRO plan, designed for 10-15 years, provided for the construction of 30 regional power plants (20 TPPs and 10 HPPs) with a total capacity of 1.75 million kW. Among others, it was planned to build Shterovskaya, Kashirskaya, Nizhny Novgorod, Shaturskaya and Chelyabinsk regional thermal power plants, as well as hydroelectric power stations - Nizhegorodskaya, Volkhovskaya (1926), Dneprovskaya, two stations on the Svir River, etc. Within the framework of the project, economic zoning was carried out, transport and energy framework of the country. The project covered eight main economic regions (Northern, Central Industrial, Southern, Volga, Ural, West Siberian, Caucasian and Turkestan). In parallel, the development of the country's transport system was carried out (the mainline of old and the construction of new railway lines, the construction of the Volga-Don Canal). The GOELRO project laid the foundation for industrialization in Russia. The plan was largely overfulfilled by 1931. Electricity generation in 1932 compared with 1913 increased not 4.5 times as planned, but almost 7 times: from 2 to 13.5 billion kWh.

With the end of the Civil War at the end of 1920, the tasks of restoring the national economy came to the fore. At the same time, it was necessary to change the methods of governing the country. The paramilitary management system, the bureaucratization of the apparatus, dissatisfaction with the surplus appraisal caused an internal political crisis in the spring of 1921.

In March 1921, the X Congress of the RCP (b) considered and approved the main measures that formed the basis of the policy, which later became known as the New Economic Policy (NEP).

Comparative analysis of the reasons for the introduction and results of the implementation of the policy of "war communism" and the new economic policy

war communism economic nationalization

The term "war communism" was proposed by the famous Bolshevik A.A. Bogdanov back in 1916. In his book Questions of Socialism, he wrote that during the war years, the internal life of any country is subject to a special logic of development: most of the able-bodied population leaves the sphere of production, producing nothing, and consumes a lot. There is a so-called "consumer communism". A significant part of the national budget is spent on military needs. The war also leads to the curtailment of democratic institutions in the country, so it can be said that war communism was driven by the needs of wartime.

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

The policy of "war communism" was also largely conditioned by the hopes for the speedy implementation of the world revolution. In the first months after October in Soviet Russia, if someone was punished for a minor offense (petty theft, hooliganism), they wrote "to imprison until the victory of the world revolution", so there was a conviction that compromises with the bourgeois counter-revolution were unacceptable, that the country would be turned into a single military camp.

The unfavorable development of events on numerous fronts, the capture by the White armies and interventionist troops (USA, England, France, Japan, etc.) of three-quarters of Russia's territory accelerated the application of military-communist methods of managing the economy. After the central provinces were cut off from Siberian and Ukrainian bread (Ukraine was occupied by German troops), the supply of grain from the North Caucasus and the Kuban became more difficult, famine began in the cities. May 13, 1918 The All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree "On granting the People's Commissar of Food Extraordinary Powers to Combat the Rural Bourgeoisie, Hiding Grain Stocks and Speculating on them." The decree provided for prompt, tough measures, up to "the use of armed force in the event of counteraction to the taking away of bread and other food products." To implement the food dictatorship, armed food detachments of workers were created.

The main task in these conditions was the mobilization of all remaining resources for defense needs. This became the main goal of the policy of war communism.

Despite the efforts of the state to establish food security, the massive famine of 1921-1922 began, during which up to 5 million people died. The policy of "war communism" (especially the surplus appropriation) caused discontent among the general population, especially the peasantry (the uprising in the Tambov region, in Western Siberia, Kronstadt, etc.).

In March 1921, at the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b), the tasks of the policy of "war communism" were recognized by the country's leadership as fulfilled and a new economic policy was introduced. IN AND. Lenin wrote: "War Communism" was forced by war and ruin. It was not and could not be a policy meeting the economic tasks of the proletariat. It was a temporary measure."

But by the end of the period of "war communism", Soviet Russia found itself in a severe economic, social and political crisis. Instead of the unprecedented growth in labor productivity expected by the architects of war communism, its result was not an increase, but, on the contrary, a sharp drop: in 1920, labor productivity decreased, including due to massive malnutrition, to 18% of the pre-war level. If before the revolution the average worker consumed 3820 calories per day, already in 1919 this figure fell to 2680, which was no longer enough for hard physical labor.

By 1921, industrial output had halved, and the number of industrial workers had halved. At the same time, the staff of the Supreme Economic Council grew about a hundred times, from 318 people to 30,000; a glaring example was the Gasoline Trust, which was part of this body, which grew to 50 people, despite the fact that this trust had to manage only one plant with 150 workers.

Particularly difficult was the situation of Petrograd, whose population during the Civil War decreased from 2 million 347 thousand people. to 799 thousand, the number of workers decreased by five times.

The decline in agriculture was just as sharp. Due to the complete lack of interest of the peasants to increase crops under the conditions of "war communism", grain production in 1920 fell by half compared to the pre-war level.

Coal was mined only 30%, the volume of rail transport fell to the level of the 1890s, the country's productive forces were undermined. "War Communism" deprived the bourgeois-landlord classes of power and economic role, but the working class was also bled white and declassed. A significant part of it, having abandoned the stopped enterprises, went to the villages, fleeing from hunger. Dissatisfaction with "war communism" swept the working class and the peasantry, they felt deceived by the Soviet government. Having received additional allotments of land after the October Revolution, the peasants during the years of "war communism" were forced to give the state the grain they had grown almost without remuneration. The indignation of the peasants resulted in mass uprisings in late 1920 and early 1921; everyone demanded the abolition of "war communism".

The consequences of "war communism" cannot be separated from the consequences of the civil war. At the cost of enormous efforts, the Bolsheviks managed to turn the republic into a "military camp" by methods of agitation, rigid centralization, coercion and terror and win. But the policy of "war communism" did not and could not lead to socialism. Instead of creating a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a dictatorship of one party arose in the country, to maintain which revolutionary terror and violence were widely used.

Life forced the Bolsheviks to reconsider the foundations of "war communism", therefore, at the 10th Party Congress, the military-communist methods of management, based on coercion, were declared obsolete. The search for a way out of the impasse in which the country found itself led it to a new economic policy - the NEP.

Its essence is the assumption of market relations. The NEP was seen as a temporary policy aimed at creating the conditions for socialism.

The main political goal of the NEP is to relieve social tension, to strengthen the social base of Soviet power in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants. The economic goal is to prevent further aggravation of the devastation, to get out of the crisis and restore the economy. The social goal is to provide favorable conditions for building a socialist society without waiting for the world revolution. In addition, the NEP was aimed at restoring normal foreign policy ties, at overcoming international isolation.

By a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of March 21, 1921, adopted on the basis of decisions of the X Congress of the RCP (b), the surplus appropriation was abolished and replaced by a natural food tax, which was approximately half as much. Such a significant indulgence gave a certain incentive to the development of production to the war-weary peasantry.

In July 1921, a permissive procedure for opening trade establishments was established. Gradually, state monopolies on various types of products and goods were abolished. For small industrial enterprises, a simplified registration procedure was established, and the allowable amount of hired labor was revised (from ten workers in 1920 to twenty workers per enterprise according to the July decree of 1921). Denationalization of small and handicraft enterprises was carried out.

In connection with the introduction of the NEP, certain legal guarantees were introduced for private property. By the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of November 11, 22, from January 1, 1923, the Civil Code of the RSFSR was put into effect, which, in particular, provided that every citizen has the right to organize industrial and commercial enterprises.

Back in November 1920, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree "On Concessions", but only in 1923 did the practice of concluding concession agreements begin, according to which foreign companies were granted the right to use state-owned enterprises.

The task of the first stage of the monetary reform, implemented within the framework of one of the directions of the economic policy of the state, was the stabilization of the monetary and credit relations of the USSR with other countries. After two denominations, as a result of which 1 million rubles. former banknotes was equated to 1 p. new state marks, a parallel circulation of depreciating state marks was introduced to serve small trade and hard gold pieces backed by precious metals, stable foreign currency and easily sold goods. Chervonets was equal to the old 10-ruble gold coin.

A skillful combination of planned and market instruments for regulating the economy, which ensured the growth of the national economy, a sharp reduction in the budget deficit, an increase in gold and foreign currency reserves, as well as an active foreign trade balance, made it possible during 1924 to carry out the second stage of the monetary reform in the transition to one stable currency. Canceled Soviet signs were subject to redemption with treasury notes at a fixed ratio within a month and a half. A fixed ratio was established between the treasury ruble and bank chervonets, equating 1 chervonets to 10 rubles.

In the 20s. commercial credit was widely used, serving approximately 85% of the volume of transactions for the sale of goods. Banks controlled mutual lending to economic organizations and, with the help of accounting and collateral operations, regulated the size of a commercial loan, its direction, terms and interest rate.

Financing of capital investments and long-term lending developed. After the Civil War, capital investments were financed irrevocably or in the form of long-term loans.

The Supreme Council of National Economy, having lost the right to interfere in the current activities of enterprises and trusts, turned into a coordinating center. His apparatus was drastically reduced. It was at that time that economic accounting appeared, in which the enterprise (after mandatory fixed contributions to the state budget) has the right to manage the income from the sale of products, is itself responsible for the results of its economic activity, independently uses profits and covers losses.

Syndicates began to emerge - voluntary associations of trusts on the basis of cooperation, engaged in marketing, supply, lending, and foreign trade operations. By the beginning of 1928, there were 23 syndicates operating in almost all branches of industry, concentrating the bulk of the wholesale trade in their hands. The board of syndicates was elected at a meeting of representatives of the trusts, and each trust could, at its own discretion, transfer a greater or lesser part of its supply and sales to the syndicate.

The sale of finished products, the purchase of raw materials, materials, equipment was carried out on a full-fledged market, through wholesale trade channels. There was a wide network of commodity exchanges, fairs, trade enterprises.

In industry and other sectors, wages in cash were restored, tariffs and wages were introduced that excluded equalization, and restrictions were lifted to increase wages with an increase in output. Labor armies were liquidated, compulsory labor service and basic restrictions on changing jobs were abolished.

A private sector emerged in industry and commerce: some state-owned enterprises were denationalized, others were leased out; private individuals with no more than 20 employees were allowed to create their own industrial enterprises (later this “ceiling” was raised).

A number of enterprises have been leased to foreign firms in the form of concessions. In 1926-27. there were 117 existing agreements of this kind. Cooperation of all forms and types developed rapidly.

The credit system has revived. In 1921, the State Bank of the RSFSR was established (transformed in 1923 into the State Bank of the USSR), which began lending to industry and trade on a commercial basis. In 1922-1925. created a number of specialized banks.

In just 5 years, from 1921 to 1926, the index of industrial production more than tripled; agricultural production doubled and exceeded the level of 1913 by 18%. the increase in industrial production amounted to 13 and 19%, respectively. In general, for the period 1921-1928. the average annual growth rate of national income was 18%.

The most important result of the NEP was that impressive economic successes were achieved on the basis of fundamentally new, hitherto unknown to the history of social relations. In industry, key positions were occupied by state trusts, in the credit and financial sphere - by state and cooperative banks, in agriculture - by small peasant farms covered by the simplest types of cooperation. In the conditions of NEP, the economic functions of the state turned out to be completely new; the goals, principles and methods of government economic policy have changed radically. If earlier the center directly established natural, technological proportions of reproduction by order, now it has switched to price regulation, trying to ensure balanced growth by indirect, economic methods.

In the second half of the 1920s, the first attempts to curtail the NEP began. Syndicates in industry were liquidated, from which private capital was administratively ousted, and a rigid centralized system of economic management (economic people's commissariats) was created. In October 1928, the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy began, the country's leadership set a course for accelerated industrialization and collectivization. Although no one officially canceled the NEP, by that time it had already been actually curtailed. Legally, the NEP was terminated only on October 11, 1931, when a resolution was adopted to completely ban private trade in the USSR. The undoubted success of the NEP was the restoration of the destroyed economy, and, given that after the revolution, Russia lost highly qualified personnel (economists, managers, production workers), then the success of the new government becomes a "victory over devastation." At the same time, the lack of those same highly qualified personnel has become the cause of miscalculations and errors.

Conclusion

Thus, the research topic allowed me to draw the following conclusions:

The experiment of "war communism" led to an unprecedented decline in production. Nationalized enterprises were not subject to any state control. The "roughening" of the economy, command methods did not give any effect. The fragmentation of large estates, leveling, the destruction of communications, food requisition - all this led to the isolation of the peasantry. A crisis has matured in the national economy, the need for a quick solution to which was shown by the growing uprisings.

The NEP brought beneficial changes surprisingly quickly. Since 1921 there has been a tentative growth of industry at first. Its reconstruction began: the construction of the first power plants was launched according to the GOERLO plan. The following year, hunger was defeated, the consumption of bread began to grow. In 1923-1924. it exceeded the pre-war level

Despite significant difficulties, by the mid-1920s, using the economic and political levers of the NEP, the country managed to basically restore the economy, switch to expanded reproduction, and feed the population.

Successes in the restoration of the national economy of the country were significant. However, the economy of the USSR as a whole remained backward.

It was by the mid-1920s that the necessary economic (success in the restoration of the national economy, the development of trade and the public sector in the economy) and political (Bolshevik dictatorship, a certain strengthening of relations between the working class and the peasantry based on the NEP) prerequisites for the transition to politics expanded industrialization.

Bibliography

1. Gimpelson E.G. War communism. - M., 1973.

Civil war in the USSR. T. 1-2. - M., 1986.

History of the Fatherland: people, ideas, solutions. Essays on the history of the Soviet state. - M., 1991.

History of the Fatherland in documents. Part 1. 1917-1920. - M., 1994.

Kabanov V.V. Peasant economy in the conditions of war communism. - M., 1988.

Pavlyuchenkov S.A. War Communism in Russia: Power and the Masses. - M., 1997

History of the national economy: Dictionary-reference book, M. VZFEI, 1995.

History of the world economy. Economic reforms 1920-1990: educational

Manual (Edited by A.N. Markova, M. Unity - DANA, 1998, 2nd edition).

History of Economics: textbook (I.I. Agapova, M., 2007)

Internet resource http://ru.wikipedia.org.

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war communism- the name of the internal policy of the Soviet state, carried out in 1918-1921 during the Civil War. The main goal was to provide the cities and the Red Army with weapons, food and other necessary resources in conditions where all normal economic mechanisms and relations were destroyed by the war. The decision to end war communism and switch to the NEP was made on March 21, 1921, at the 10th Congress of the RCP(b).

There is a so-called "consumer communism". A significant part of the national budget is spent on military needs. This inevitably requires restrictions on consumption and state control over distribution. War also leads to the curtailment of democratic institutions in the country, so it can be said that war communism was conditioned by the needs of wartime.

Another reason for folding this policy can be considered Marxist views Bolsheviks who came to power in Russia in 1917. Marx and Engels did not work out the features of the communist formation in detail. They believed that there would be no place for private property and commodity-money relations in it, but there would be an equalizing principle of distribution. However, it was about the industrialized countries and the world socialist revolution as a one-time act.

Ignoring the immaturity of the objective prerequisites for a socialist revolution in Russia, a significant part of the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution insisted on the immediate implementation of socialist transformations in all spheres of society, including the economy. There is a current of "left communists", the most prominent representative of which was N.I. Bukharin.

Until the summer of 1918, V.I. Lenin criticized the views of the left communists, which is especially clearly seen in his work "The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power". He insisted on the need to suspend the “Red Guard attack on capital”, organize accounting and control at already nationalized enterprises, strengthen labor discipline, fight parasites and loafers, widely use the principle of material interest, use bourgeois specialists, and allow foreign concessions under certain conditions.

When, after the transition to NEP in 1921, V.I. Lenin was asked if he had previously thought about NEP, he answered in the affirmative and referred to the "Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power." True, here Lenin defended the erroneous idea of direct product exchange between the city and the countryside through the general cooperation of the rural population, which brought his position closer to the position of the "Left Communists".

It can be said that in the spring of 1918 the Bolsheviks chose between the policy of attacking the bourgeois elements, which was supported by the "left communists", and the policy of gradual entry into socialism, which was proposed by Lenin. The fate of this choice was ultimately decided by the spontaneous development of the revolutionary process in the countryside, the beginning of intervention and the mistakes of the Bolsheviks in agrarian policy in the spring of 1918.

Chronologically, "war communism" falls on the period of the civil war, however, individual elements of the policy began to emerge as early as late 1917 - early 1918. This applies primarily nationalization of industry, banks and transport. The "Red Guards attack on capital", which began after the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the introduction of workers' control (November 14, 1917), was temporarily suspended in the spring of 1918. In June 1918, its pace accelerated and all large and medium-sized enterprises passed into state ownership. In November 1920, small businesses were confiscated.

Thus it happened destruction of private property. A characteristic feature of "war communism" is the extreme centralization of the management of the national economy. At first, the management system was built on the principles of collegiality and self-government, but over time, the failure of these principles becomes apparent. The factory committees lacked the competence and experience to manage them. The leaders of Bolshevism realized that they had previously exaggerated the degree of revolutionary consciousness of the working class, which was not ready to govern.

A bet is made on the state management of economic life. On December 2, 1917, the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) was created. N. Osinsky (V.A. Obolensky) became its first chairman. The tasks of the Supreme Council of National Economy included the nationalization of large-scale industry, the management of transport, finance, the establishment of commodity exchange, etc. By the summer of 1918, local (provincial, district) economic councils appeared, subordinate to the Supreme Economic Council.

The Council of People's Commissars, and then the Council of Defense, determined the main directions of the work of the Supreme Council of National Economy, its central departments and centers, while each represented a kind of state monopoly in the corresponding industry. By the summer of 1920, almost 50 central offices were created to manage large nationalized enterprises. The name of the headquarters speaks for itself: Glavmetal, Glavtekstil, Glavsugar, Glavtorf, Glavkrakhmal, Glavryba, Tsentrokhladoboynya, etc.

So, A.I. Rykov was appointed Extraordinary Commissioner of the Defense Council for the supply of the Red Army (Chusosnabarm). He was endowed with the right to use any apparatus, remove and arrest officials, reorganize and resubordinate institutions, seize and requisition goods from warehouses and from the population under the pretext of "military haste." All factories that worked for defense were transferred to the jurisdiction of Chusosnabarm. To manage them, the Industrial Military Council was formed, the decisions of which were also binding on all enterprises.

One of the main features of the policy of "war communism" is the curtailment of commodity-money relations. This was manifested primarily in the introduction of non-equivalent exchange in kind between town and country. In conditions of galloping inflation, the peasants did not want to sell grain for depreciated money. In February - March 1918, the consuming regions of the country received only 12.3% of the planned amount of bread.

The norm of bread on cards in industrial centers was reduced to 50-100 gr. in a day. Under the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia lost grain-rich areas, which aggravated the food crisis. Hunger was coming. It should also be remembered that the attitude of the Bolsheviks towards the peasantry was twofold. On the one hand, he was regarded as an ally of the proletariat, and on the other (especially the middle peasants and kulaks) as a support of the counter-revolution. They looked at the peasant, even if it was a low-powered middle peasant, with suspicion.

In the context of the impending famine, the People's Commissariat for Food was granted emergency powers, a food dictatorship was established in the country: a monopoly on the trade in bread and fixed prices were introduced. After the adoption of the decree on the grain monopoly (May 13, 1918), trade was actually banned. To seize food from the peasantry began to form food squads.

The food detachments acted according to the principle formulated by the People's Commissar for Food Tsuryupa "if you cannot take bread from the rural bourgeoisie by conventional means, then you must take it by force." To help them, on the basis of the decrees of the Central Committee of June 11, 1918, committees of the poor(combeds). These measures of the Soviet government forced the peasantry to take up arms. According to the prominent agrarian N. Kondratyev, “the village, flooded with soldiers who returned after the spontaneous demobilization of the army, responded to the armed violence with armed resistance and a whole series of uprisings.”

However, neither the food dictatorship nor the committees could solve the food problem. Attempts to prohibit market relations between town and countryside and the forcible seizure of grain from the peasants only led to a wide illegal trade in grain at high prices. The urban population received no more than 40% of the consumed bread on cards, and 60% - through illegal trade. Having failed in the struggle against the peasantry, in the fall of 1918 the Bolsheviks were forced to somewhat weaken the food dictatorship.

In a number of decrees adopted in the autumn of 1918, the government tried to ease the taxation of the peasantry, in particular, the "extraordinary revolutionary tax" was abolished. According to the decisions of the VI All-Russian Congress of Soviets in November 1918, the Kombeds were merged with the Soviets, although this did not change much, since by that time the Soviets in rural areas consisted mainly of the poor. Thus, one of the main demands of the peasants was realized - to put an end to the policy of splitting the countryside.

The state announced in advance the figures of its needs for bread, and then they were divided into provinces, districts and volosts. In 1920, in the instructions sent down to the places from above, it was explained that "the apportionment given to the volost is in itself a definition of surplus." And although the peasants were left only a minimum of grain according to the surplus, nevertheless, the initial assignment of deliveries introduced certainty, and the peasants considered the surplus appropriation as a blessing compared to the food orders.

At many enterprises, absenteeism amounted to up to 50% of working days. To strengthen discipline, mainly administrative measures were taken. Forced labor grew out of egalitarianism, out of the lack of economic incentives, out of poor living standards for the workers, and also out of a catastrophic shortage of workers. The hopes for the class consciousness of the proletariat were not justified either. In the spring of 1918

IN AND. Lenin writes that "revolution ... requires unquestioning obedience masses one will leaders of the labor process. The method of "war communism" policy is militarization of labor. At first, it covered workers and employees of the defense industries, but by the end of 1919, all industries and railway transport were transferred to martial law.

On November 14, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the "Regulations on working disciplinary comrades' courts." It provided for such punishments as sending malicious violators of discipline to heavy public works, and in case of "stubborn unwillingness to submit to comradely discipline" to subject "as not a labor element to dismissal from enterprises with transfer to a concentration camp."

The redistribution of the labor force and labor mobilization were widely practiced. Work books were introduced. To control the execution of universal labor service, a special committee headed by F.E. Dzerzhinsky. Persons evading community service were severely punished and deprived of ration cards. On November 14, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the above-mentioned "Regulations on working disciplinary comrades' courts."

According to the first category, workers of defense enterprises engaged in heavy physical labor and transport workers were supplied. In the second category - the rest of the workers, employees, domestic servants, paramedics, teachers, handicraftsmen, hairdressers, cabbies, tailors and the disabled. According to the third category, directors, managers and engineers of industrial enterprises, most of the intelligentsia and clergy were supplied, and according to the fourth - persons who use wage labor and live on capital income, as well as shopkeepers and peddlers.

Pregnant and lactating women belonged to the first category. Children under three years old additionally received a milk card, and up to 12 years old - products of the second category. In 1918, in Petrograd, the monthly ration for the first category was 25 pounds of bread (1 pound = 409 gr.), 0.5 lb. sugar, 0.5 fl. salt, 4 tbsp. meat or fish, 0.5 lb. vegetable oil, 0.25 f. coffee substitutes. The norms for the fourth category were three times less for almost all products than for the first. But even these products were given out very irregularly.

In Moscow in 1919, a rationed worker received a calorie ration of 336 kcal, while the daily physiological norm was 3600 kcal. Workers in provincial cities received food below the physiological minimum (in the spring of 1919 - 52%, in July - 67, in December - 27%). According to A. Kollontai, starvation rations caused workers, especially women, feelings of despair and hopelessness. In January 1919, there were 33 types of cards in Petrograd (bread, dairy, shoe, tobacco, etc.).

After the adoption of the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of February 14, 1919 "On socialist land management and measures for the transition to socialist agriculture", propaganda was launched in defense of creation of communes and artels. In a number of places, the authorities adopted resolutions on the mandatory transition in the spring of 1919 to collective cultivation of the land. But it soon became clear that the peasantry would not go for socialist experiments, and attempts to impose collective forms of farming would finally alienate the peasants from Soviet power, so at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) in March 1919, the delegates voted for the union of the state with the middle peasants.

All local consumer societies were forcibly merged into cooperatives - "consumer communes", which united into provincial unions, and they, in turn, into Tsentrosoyuz. The state entrusted the consumer communes with the distribution of food and consumer goods in the country. Cooperation as an independent organization of the population ceased to exist. The name "consumer communes" aroused hostility among the peasants, since they identified it with the total socialization of property, including personal property.

The reason for the swelling of the Soviet state apparatus was the total nationalization of industry. The state, having become the owner of the main means of production, was forced to ensure the management of hundreds of factories and factories, to create huge administrative structures that were engaged in economic and distribution activities in the center and in the regions, and the role of central bodies increased. Management was built "from top to bottom" on strict directive-command principles, which limited local initiative.

In June 1918 L.I. Lenin wrote about the need to encourage "the energy and mass nature of popular terror." Decree of 6 July 1918 (Left SR rebellion) reintroduced the death penalty. True, mass executions began in September 1918. On September 3, 500 hostages and "suspicious persons" were shot in Petrograd. In September 1918, the local Cheka received an order from Dzerzhinsky, which stated that they were completely independent in searches, arrests and executions, but after they have taken place Chekists must report to the Council of People's Commissars.

Single executions did not have to be accounted for. In the autumn of 1918, the punitive measures of the emergency authorities almost got out of hand. This forced the Sixth Congress of Soviets to limit terror to the framework of "revolutionary legality." However, the changes that had taken place by that time both in the state and in the psychology of society did not really allow limiting arbitrariness. Speaking of the Red Terror, it should be remembered that no less atrocities were going on in the territories occupied by the Whites.

As part of the white armies, there were special punitive detachments, reconnaissance and counterintelligence units. They resorted to mass and individual terror against the population, looking for communists and representatives of the Soviets, participating in the burning and execution of entire villages. In the face of a decline in morality, terror quickly gained momentum. Through the fault of both sides, tens of thousands of innocent people died.

A revolutionary avant-garde was being formed in literature and art. Particular attention was paid to the means of mass propaganda and agitation. Art has become entirely politicized. Revolutionary steadfastness and fanaticism, selfless courage, sacrifice for the sake of a bright future, class hatred and ruthlessness towards enemies were preached. This work was led by the People's Commissariat of Education (Narkompros), headed by A.V. Lunacharsky. Active activity launched Proletcult- Union of proletarian cultural and educational societies.

The proletarians especially actively called for the revolutionary overthrow of the old forms in art, the stormy onslaught of new ideas, and the primitivization of culture. The ideologists of the latter are such prominent Bolsheviks as A.A. Bogdanov, V.F. Pletnev and others. In 1919, more than 400 thousand people took part in the proletarian movement. The dissemination of their ideas inevitably led to the loss of traditions and the lack of spirituality of society, which in a war was unsafe for the authorities. The leftist speeches of the proletarians forced the People's Commissariat of Education to call them down from time to time, and in the early 1920s to completely dissolve these organizations.