War Communism and the New Economic Policy (NEP), 1918–1928 (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• War Communism was an emergency Civil War policy based on state control, grain requisitioning, nationalisation and rationing

  • By 1921, it had helped push the economy into crisis

  • Industrial output at around 20% of pre-war levels

  • Unrest spread at Tambov and Kronstadt

• Lenin replaced War Communism with the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921

  • Private trade returned

  • Grain requisitioning was replaced by a tax in kind

  • The state kept control of heavy industry

• The NEP restored production to 1913 levels by 1928

  • However, it also created inequality

  • Many Bolsheviks saw it as a retreat from socialism

• Historians debate whether the NEP was a pragmatic rescue or an ideological retreat

  • Freeze stresses rapid economic recovery

  • Ulam argues that survival forced the Bolsheviks away from socialist goals

Why was War Communism introduced?

A response to the Civil War

• War Communism began in June 1918 as civil war spread across Soviet Russia

  • The Bolsheviks needed to feed the Red Army and the cities

  • Food supplies and industrial output had already collapsed since 1917

  • The government therefore, moved towards emergency control of the economy

• The policy also strengthened Bolshevik political control

  • Workers, peasants and local markets were brought under central direction

  • Centralised control made opposition easier to suppress

  • Survival in the Civil War became the main justification for coercion

Ideology and the leap to socialism

• Some Bolsheviks saw War Communism as more than an emergency policy

  • Lenin and Bukharin argued it could move Russia closer to a socialist economy

  • Abolishing money and private trade appeared to match Marxist theory

  • Critics later argued this was an attempt to leap straight to socialism

Key features and impacts of War Communism: famine, unrest and the Kronstadt Rebellion

The key features of War Communism

• War Communism gave the Bolshevik state direct control over food, industry, labour and trade

  • It also supported the war effort

  • It also reflected Bolshevik hopes for a socialist economy based on state control

• Grain requisitioning forced peasants to hand over food without payment

  • The Cheka and requisition squads seized grain to feed the cities and army

  • This created deep anger in the countryside

• The state nationalised the industry and banned private trade

  • Sugar was nationalised in May 1918, oil in June, and nearly all industry by November 1920

  • Local markets became illegal

  • Goods were meant to move only through state channels

• Rationing was organised by class

  • Workers and soldiers received the most rations

  • The "former people", such as nobles and former elites, received the least

  • Food distribution became political as well as practical

• Labour discipline tightened sharply

  • The 1918 Constitution declared: "He who does not work shall not eat"

  • From 1919, all able-bodied people aged 16 to 50 had to work

  • Labour was treated as a duty owed to the revolution

• Hyperinflation destroyed the currency

  • The government printed so much money that it became worthless

  • Money was increasingly abandoned in everyday life

  • Workers were now paid in rations and public transport became free

Economic collapse and famine

• War Communism wrecked production

  • Industrial output fell to around 20% of pre-war levels by 1921

  • Disease epidemics killed more than 3 million people in 1920

• Workers fled the starving cities

  • By the end of 1920, Moscow had lost 44.5% of its population, while Petrograd had lost 57.5%

• The 1921 famine devastated the countryside

  • The 1921 harvest was only 48% of the 1913 level

  • An estimated 5 million people died, mostly in the Volga region

    • Russia's population fell from 170.9 million in 1913 to 130.9 million by 1921

Unrest and the Kronstadt Rebellion

• Peasant resistance became violent

  • Peasants hid or destroyed their crops rather than surrender them

  • The Tambov Rebellion (1920 to 1921) raised a 70,000-strong peasant army

  • With the use of poison gas, about 100,000 Red Army soldiers destroyed the Rebellion

• The Kronstadt Rebellion shook the regime in March 1921

  • Around 15,000 sailors, once the regime's strongest supporters, demanded an end to one-party rule

  • The Red Army crossed five miles of ice and took 15,000 prisoners

  • Lenin called the rebels "White Traitors", but the revolt pushed him to abandon War Communism for the NEP

Why was the NEP introduced?

Crisis forced a retreat

• By 1921, War Communism had pushed Russia to breaking point

  • Famine, economic collapse and revolt threatened Bolshevik survival

  • Kronstadt and Tambov showed the regime was losing peasant and worker support

• Lenin needed to restore food supplies and rebuild the economy

  • In February 1921, Gosplan was created to advise on a new economic policy

Lenin announces the NEP

• Lenin announced the NEP at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921

  • He presented it as a temporary retreat, not an abandonment of socialism

  • He argued the state would keep the "commanding heights" of the economy

  • Many rank-and-file Bolsheviks still saw the NEP as an ideological betrayal

Key features and impacts of the NEP: Nepmen, recovery and inequality

The key features of the NEP

• Grain requisitioning ended and was replaced with tax in kind

  • Peasants paid the state a fixed share

  • They could sell their surplus grain for a profit

• Private trade and small businesses returned

  • Firms with fewer than 20 workers could be privately owned

  • Money was reintroduced

  • People paid for public transport again

• The state kept the "commanding heights"

  • Heavy industry, banking, transport and foreign trade stayed under state control

Recovery and foreign trade

• The NEP got the economy moving again

  • Production reached 1913 levels

  • The famine ended as peasants grew more food to sell

• Foreign trade revived

  • Favourable trade agreements followed with Britain and Germany

Nepmen, kulaks and inequality

• A new class of private traders, known as the Nepmen, emerged

  • They controlled around 75% of retail trade by 1923

  • Many Bolsheviks despised them as "parasites" and "class enemies"

• Wealthier peasants, the kulaks, prospered again

  • Visible inequality angered Party members

  • Many feared capitalism was returning

• The Scissors Crisis exposed the NEP's fragility in 1923

  • Agriculture recovered faster than industry, so farm prices fell while industrial goods stayed expensive

  • Peasants held back grain rather than sell it cheaply

    • The state capped industrial prices to keep the worker-peasant alliance intact

How successful was Lenin’s economic policy?

• Judging Lenin's economic policy depends on the criteria used:

  • economic recovery

  • the survival of the regime

  • loyalty to socialist principles

Lenin's economic policy was a practical success

• War Communism helped the Bolsheviks win the Civil War, despite its cost

  • Centralised control kept the Red Army supplied during the conflict

• The NEP rescued a collapsing economy

  • It ended the famine

  • It restored production to 1913 levels

  • It ended the revolts that had threatened the regime

• The retreat secured Bolshevik survival

  • Lenin treated the NEP as a breathing space to rebuild socialism later

Key historian

• Freeze stresses the speed of recovery after the NEP replaced War Communism

  • This supports the view that Lenin’s economic policy succeeded as a pragmatic rescue

Lenin's economic policy was a retreat forced by survival

• War Communism was an economic catastrophe

  • It triggered famine, industrial collapse and widespread revolt

• The NEP compromised socialist principles

  • It reintroduced private trade, Nepmen and growing inequality

  • Many Bolsheviks saw it as a betrayal of the revolution

• The NEP left deep problems unresolved

  • The Scissors Crisis showed it could not satisfy peasants and workers at the same time

  • It did not deliver the rapid industrialisation that socialism seemed to require

Key historian

• Ulam frames both policies as survival measures

  • They kept the Bolsheviks in power

  • However, they pulled the regime away from socialist aims

  • This supports the view that Lenin’s economic policy was a forced ideological retreat