The XXth Century Political History of Russia: lecture materials. Gennady Bordyugov

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СКАЧАТЬ regime introduced by the «Reds» and the «Whites» left traces across the whole battleground of the Civil War. In General Denikin’s words, this regime «caused the people’s cup of sorrow to overflow with new tears and blood, and it blurred the colors of the politico-military spectrum in the minds of the population, erasing the differences between the Savior and the Enemy.» To tell the truth, from time to time the Bolsheviks managed to restrain the war and regularize activity in the rear, which helped the Army and assisted in repulsing the attacks of the enemy. In the long run, it affected the outcome of the Civil War in the Bolsheviks’ favor. Nevertheless, extraordinary bodies that were once considered interim proliferated to a huge degree and became a state within a state. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep them within strict bounds and to put them under the supervision of regular state bodies. The end of the Civil War and the transition to the New Economic Policy provided hope that there would be dramatic changes in the structure of state administration.

      Theme 5

      FROM «WAR COMMUNISM» TO THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY: CONTRADICTIONS OF THE NEP

      The disturbances that struck Russia in 1914 reached their peak in early 1920s. Devastation of the industrial and transport sectors, fuel crises, strikes, demobilization, the revolt of the sailors of the Baltic fleet and Kronstadt: these are well-known manifestations of the general crisis. There are two phenomena, however, that more than others influenced the crisis situation. The first was the largest peasant rebellion since the times of Yemelian Pugachev. The second was the terrible famine that struck many regions of the country, mostly the Volga region.

      Understanding the essence of the transition from the Civil War to peace requires analyzing the interconnection and correlation of the following phenomena: Soviet government policy, the peasant movement and the famine.

      A new stage of the Civil War began in the summer of 1920. A peasant movement against the Bolsheviks, who did not want to change the policy of «War Communism» and its food rationing system (the system of surplus appropriation), spread to almost all provinces of Russia and Ukraine (the most notable rebellions were conducted by Makhno and Antonov). The struggle between peasants and Soviet troops was extremely severe. The struggle began in the context of the 1920 harvest failure and the surplus appropriation system that led to confiscation of more food from peasants than in 1918 and 1919.

      So what could end such a vast peasant rebellion? Could it be the change of ration policy by the Bolsheviks, i.e. the replacement of the surplus appropriation system with an agricultural tax in kind? Or perhaps the military suppression of mass rebellions? Or simply famine?

      Until recently, historians have regarded the adoption of the agricultural tax in kind as a political decision that made peasants immediately shift their alignment towards the Bolsheviks. But analysis of related documents does not provide any proof for this theory. It was only in central industrial provinces that most of peasants gladly accepted the adoption of agricultural tax in kind. People in other regions regarded it as a new form of surplus appropriation. The strongest resistance to efforts to collect the tax was manifested in Western Russia. Due to a severe crop failures in the South of Russia, the Soviet government made a decision to collect the bulk of the agricultural tax in kind from Siberia. Peasants’ resistance toward the tax collection was followed by punitive actions.

      The agricultural tax in kind was perceived as another form of surplus appropriation in many Russian and Ukrainian provinces besides Siberia. This is a report of the State Political Directorate (GPU) made in October 1922: «Over two thirds of the crops will be gathered as the agricultural tax in kind in Pskov province. Peasants of Riazan and Tver provinces will starve if they are forced to pay 100 percent of the agricultural tax in kind. But it all pales in comparison to the incidence of suicides committed by peasants in Kiev province because of the excessive rates of the agricultural tax in kind.»

      This is why the agricultural tax in kind did not really mean any relief for most of peasants in the situation of famine and economic chaos in 1921 and 1922, and therefore it could not have had a real impact on pacifying the insurgent peasants. The Bolshevik administration decided to crush the peasant movement. In Tambov province, for instance, regular troops under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky were deployed for this purpose. He issued a secret order in June 1921: «The remnants of defeated bands that fled from villages are gathering in forests. To immediately clear these forests I hereby command: Use poisonous gases in the forests where bandits are hiding, so that the poison cloud fills all the forest killing anyone hiding in it». Concentration camps were established in the province, families of insurgent peasants who refused to surrender became hostages, and their property was confiscated. But, after comparing various sources, we know that all these government steps were ineffective in suppressing the mass insurgency of peasants.

      The scale of the famine of 1921–1922 in Russia and part of Ukraine surpassed by far that of all other famine disasters of previous decades. According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) over 40 million people from 35 provinces suffered from famine in 1921–1922. According to information from the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture about 60 % of agricultural territories of Russia were affected by the disaster. Famine, and the diseases and epidemics that it provoked, caused over 5 million deaths. Thanks to the aid of overseas organizations – the American Relief Administration first and foremost – the death toll did not increase. The ARA provided food for 10.5 million people at the peak of its activity in August of 1922. Egregiously, this contribution of the United States in saving millions of Russian lives remains unrecognized— even by the current regime of the Russian Federation.

      The famine catastrophe had a great demographic, economic, and social impact. The results of a new analysis of the situation in a number of provinces reveal a direct relationship between famine and peasant revolts. The famine was the determinative factor in the pacification of peasant revolts.

      The urgent necessity to overcome the crisis and claims by peasants boosted the introduction of market and commodity-money relations. The new Land Code authorized the lease of land and the hiring of labor. Soon after that the agricultural tax in kind was replaced with the unified agricultural tax mostly paid in cash.

      With the introduction of the market, private traders appeared in the national economy. The state aimed at privatization of handicraft, small-scale and (some time later) medium-scale industry. The leasing of state companies and licenses to operate (a special form of lease) were authorized. Cooperation was promoted. Industrial companies under the Supreme Council of National Economy were allowed to form trusts. They operated on the basis of self-support, self-finance and self-repayment. Universal labor duty was abrogated, and the system for equal remuneration of labor at state companies was cancelled. In-kind compensation (rations in kind) was replaced with wages. The rationing system was finally cancelled.

      Industrial management was decentralized. The number of branch central offices for industrial management was dramatically decreased. The National bank was created to regulate and revitalize finances. It had the right to issue chervonetses (bank bills backed by the gold standard) instead of devaluated Soviet rubles. The ruble became a convertible currency in Russia and abroad by 1924.

      These swift and profound changes in economic policy took place at the same time as important steps in state construction. The state of disunity that had followed the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917–1918 was replaced with a movement toward unification; it resulted in the creation of the United Soviet Socialist Republics in December, 1922. The Russian Communist party played the central role in the unification movement and the creation of a union of equal Slavic (Russia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia) and Transcaucasian republics (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia). The Central Asian republics (Kirghizia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenia, Tajikistan) joined the union in late 1920s.

      In 1923/1924 the Constitution of the USSR was adopted, the USSR government was created and the second chamber of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR was assembled.

      The New Economic Policy led to an СКАЧАТЬ