Basic elements of war communism. The policy of “war communism”, its essence

The policy of "war communism".

The politics of War Communism in brief- This is widespread centralization with the aim of destroying market relations, as well as the concept of private property. Instead, centralized production and distribution were cultivated. This measure was introduced due to the need to subsequently introduce a system of equal rights for any resident of the future country of the Soviets. Lenin believed that the policy of war communism was a necessity. Quite naturally, having come to power, it was necessary to act actively and without the slightest delay in order to consolidate and implement the new regime. The last stage before the final transition to socialism.

The main stages in the development of the policy of war communism, briefly:

1. Nationalization of the economy. With the introduction of a new government strategy, factories, lands, factories and other property in the hands of private owners were unilaterally and forcefully transferred into state ownership. The ideal goal is for subsequent equal distribution among everyone. According to the ideology of communism.

2. Surplus appropriation. According to the policy of war communism, peasants and food producers were entrusted with the function of obligatory delivery of certain volumes of products to the state in order to centrally maintain a stable situation in the food sector. In fact, surplus appropriation turned into robberies of the middle class of peasants and total famine throughout Russia.

The result of the policy at this stage of development of the new Soviet state was a severe drop in the rate of production development (for example, steel production decreased by 90-95%). The surplus appropriation deprived the peasants of their reserves, causing a terrible famine in the Volga region. However, from a management point of view, the goal was achieved 100%. The economy came under state control, and with it, the country’s residents became dependent on the “distribution body.”

In 1921 policy of war communism was quite quietly replaced by the New Economic Policy. Now the time has come to return to the issue of increasing the pace and development of industrial and production capacities, but under the auspices of Soviet power.

The essence of the policy of “war communism”. The policy of “war communism” included a set of measures that affected the economic and socio-political spheres. The basis of “war communism” were emergency measures to supply cities and the army with food, the curtailment of commodity-money relations, the nationalization of all industry, including small industry, surplus appropriation, supplying the population with food and industrial goods on ration cards, universal labor service and maximum centralization of management of the national economy and the country generally.

Chronologically, “war communism” falls on the period of the Civil War, but individual elements of the policy began to emerge at the end of 1917 - beginning of 1918. This applies primarily nationalization of industry, banks and transport. The “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 became state property. In November 1920, small enterprises were confiscated. Thus it happened destruction of private property. A characteristic feature of “war communism” is extreme centralization of economic management.

At first, the management system was built on the principles of collegiality and self-government, but over time the inconsistency of these principles becomes obvious. 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. The emphasis is placed on state management of economic life.

On December 2, 1917, the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) was created. Its first chairman was N. Osinsky (V.A. Obolensky). The tasks of the Supreme Economic Council included the nationalization of large industry, management of transport, finance, establishment of trade exchange, etc.

By the summer of 1918, local (provincial, district) economic councils, subordinate to the Supreme Economic Council, emerged. The Council of People's Commissars, and then the Defense Council, determined the main directions of work of the Supreme Economic Council, its headquarters and centers, each representing a kind of state monopoly in the corresponding branch of production.

By the summer of 1920, almost 50 central administrations had been created to manage large nationalized enterprises. The name of the departments speaks for itself: Glavmetal, Glavtextile, Glavsugar, Glavtorf, Glavstarch, Glavryba, Tsentrokhladoboynya, etc.

The centralized management system dictated the need for an orderly leadership style. 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 Defense Council appointed its commissioners with emergency powers. Thus, A.I. Rykov was appointed extraordinary commissioner of the Defense Council for the supply of the Red Army (Chusosnabarm). He was endowed with the rights to use any apparatus, remove and arrest officials, reorganize and reassign institutions, confiscate and requisition goods from warehouses and from the population under the pretext of “military urgency.” All factories working for defense were transferred to the jurisdiction of Chusosnabarm. To manage them, the Industrial Military Council was formed, whose regulations were also mandatory for all enterprises.

One of the main features of the policy of “war communism” is curtailment of commodity-money relations. This was evident primarily in introduction of unequal natural exchange between city and countryside. In conditions of galloping inflation, peasants did not want to sell bread for depreciated money. In February - March 1918, the consuming regions of the country received only 12.3% of the planned amount of bread. The rationed bread quota in industrial centers was reduced to 50-100 grams. in a day. Under the terms of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, Russia lost grain-rich areas, which worsened the food crisis. Famine was approaching. It should also be remembered that the Bolsheviks had a twofold attitude towards the peasantry. On the one hand, he was viewed as an ally of the proletariat, and on the other (especially the middle peasants and kulaks) - as a support for the counter-revolution. They looked at the peasant, even a low-power 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 the decrees “On granting the People’s Commissariat of Food emergency powers to combat the rural bourgeoisie hiding grain reserves and speculating on them” and “On the reorganization of the People’s Commissariat of Food and local food authorities.” In the context of an impending famine, the People's Commissariat for Food was granted emergency powers, and a food dictatorship was established in the country: a monopoly on the trade of bread and fixed prices was introduced. After the adoption of the decree on the grain monopoly (May 13, 1918), trade was actually prohibited. To seize food from the peasantry, they began to form food squads. The food detachments acted according to the principle formulated by the People's Commissar of Food Tsuryupa: “if you cannot take grain from the village 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(combat committees ) . These measures of the Soviet government forced the peasantry to take up arms.

On January 11, 1919, in order to streamline the exchange between city and countryside, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was introduced by decree surplus appropriation It was prescribed to confiscate surpluses from peasants, which were initially determined by “the needs of the peasant family, limited by the established norm.” However, soon the surpluses began to be determined by the needs of the state and the army. The state announced in advance the figures for its needs for bread, and then they were divided by provinces, districts and volosts. In 1920, instructions sent to places from above explained that “the allocation given to the volost is in itself a definition of surplus.” And although the peasants were left with only a minimum of grain according to the surplus appropriation system, the initial set of deliveries introduced certainty, and the peasants considered the surplus appropriation system as a benefit compared to food detachments.

The collapse of commodity-money relations was also facilitated by prohibition in the fall of 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. In Central Russia alone, 21 banknotes were in circulation, and money was printed in many regions. During 1919, the ruble exchange rate fell 3,136 times. Under these conditions, the state was forced to switch to wages in kind.

The existing economic system did not stimulate productive work, the productivity of which was steadily falling. Output per worker in 1920 was less than one-third of the pre-war level. In the fall of 1919, the earnings of a highly skilled worker exceeded the earnings of a general worker by only 9%. Material incentives to work disappeared, and along with them the desire to work itself 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 leveling, from the lack of economic incentives, from the poor living conditions of workers, and also from a catastrophic shortage of labor. Hopes for the class consciousness of the proletariat were also not realized. In the spring of 1918 V.I. Lenin writes that “revolution... requires unquestioning obedience masses common will leaders of the labor process." The method of the policy of “war communism” becomes militarization of labor. At first it covered workers and employees of 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 workers' disciplinary comradely courts.” It provided for such punishments as sending malicious violators of discipline to heavy public works, and in case of “stubborn refusal to submit to comradely discipline” to be subjected “as a non-labor element to dismissal from enterprises and 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 militarized economic system, the essence of which “should consist in bringing the army closer to the production process in every possible way, so that the living human power of certain economic regions is at the same time the living human power of certain military units." In December 1920, the VIII Congress of Soviets declared farming to be a state duty.

Under the conditions of “war communism” there was universal labor conscription for persons 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, thereby legalizing 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 carrying out labor conscription, according to which the population, regardless of permanent work, was involved in performing labor duties (fuel, road, horse-drawn, etc.). Redistribution of labor and labor mobilizations were widely practiced. Work books were introduced. To control the implementation of universal labor service, a special committee was created headed by F.E. Dzerzhinsky. Persons evading community service were severely punished and deprived of food cards. On November 14, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the above-mentioned "Regulations on workers' disciplinary comradely 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. Since June 1918, card supply in 4 categories has been introduced.

The third category supplied directors, managers and engineers of industrial enterprises, most of the intelligentsia and clergy, and the fourth category included persons using hired labor and living on income from capital, as well as shopkeepers and peddlers.

Pregnant and lactating women belonged to the first category. Children under three years old received an additional milk card, and children under 12 years old received products in the second category.

In 1918 in Petrograd, the monthly ration in the first category was 25 pounds of bread (1 pound = 409 grams), 0.5 pounds. sugar, 0.5 lb. salt, 4 lbs. meat or fish, 0.5 lb. vegetable oil, 0.25 lbs. coffee surrogates.

In Moscow in 1919, a worker on ration cards 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%).

“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 poster from 1918 read: “With an iron hand we will drive humanity to happiness!” Revolutionary coercion was used especially widely against peasants. After the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted the Resolution of February 14, 1919 “On Socialist Land Management and Measures for the Transition to Socialist Agriculture,” propaganda was launched in defense creation of communes and artels. In a number of places, 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 agree to socialist experiments, and attempts to impose collective forms of farming would completely push the peasants away from Soviet power, so at the VIII Congress of the RCP(b) in March 1919, delegates voted for an alliance of the state with the middle peasants.

The inconsistency of the Bolsheviks' peasant policy can also be observed in their attitude to cooperation. In an effort to introduce socialist production and distribution, they eliminated such a collective form of initiative 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” placed cooperation in the position of an appendage of state power. All local consumer societies were forcibly merged into cooperatives - “consumer communes”, which were united into provincial unions, and they, in turn, into the Central Union. The state entrusted 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 them with the total socialization of property, including personal property.

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

In party life, the role of the apparatus that practiced military methods of work grew. Instead of elected collectives, narrowly composed operational bodies most often acted at the local level. Democratic centralism - the basis of party building - was replaced by a system of appointment. 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 the temporary ban, the communists still constituted an overwhelming majority in all government institutions, at congresses of Soviets and in executive bodies. The process of merging party and government bodies was intensive. Provincial and district party committees often determined the composition of executive committees and issued orders for them.

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

Bureaucracy for a long time it 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 much from the previous state apparatus. The old bureaucracy soon received 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 governing the state. 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 strict centralization of control. The ruling party placed its main emphasis not on the initiative and self-government of the masses, but on the state and party apparatus, capable of implementing by force the policies necessary to defeat the enemies of the revolution. Gradually, the executive bodies (apparatus) completely subordinated the representative bodies (Councils). 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 provide management of hundreds of factories and plants, to create huge management structures 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 and command principles, which limited local initiative.

In June 1918 L.I. Lenin wrote about the need to encourage “the energy and mass character of popular terror.” The decree of July 6, 1918 (revolt of the left Socialist Revolutionaries) restored the death penalty. True, executions became widespread 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 been carried out security officers must report to the Council of People's Commissars. There was no need to account for single executions. In the fall of 1918, the punitive measures of the emergency authorities almost got out of control. This forced the VI Congress of Soviets to limit terror to the framework of “revolutionary legality.” However, the changes that had taken place by this time both in the state and in the psychology of society did not make it possible to really limit arbitrariness. Speaking about the Red Terror, it should be remembered that in the territories occupied by the whites, no less atrocities were committed. The white armies included special punitive detachments, reconnaissance and counterintelligence units. They resorted to mass and individual terror against the population, hunting down communists and representatives of the Soviets, participating in the burning and execution of entire villages. In the face of declining morality, terror quickly gained momentum. Due to the fault of both sides, tens of thousands of innocent people died.

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 basics of communism were introduced. Marxism becomes the state ideology.

The task was set to create a special proletarian culture. Cultural values and achievements of the past were denied. There was a search for new images and ideals. A revolutionary avant-garde was formed in literature and art. Particular attention was paid to the means of mass propaganda and agitation. Art has become completely politicized.

Revolutionary fortitude and fanaticism, selfless courage, sacrifice in the name of a bright future, class hatred and ruthlessness towards enemies were preached. This work was supervised by the People's Commissariat of Education (Narkompros), headed by A.V. Lunacharsky. He launched active activities Proletkult- Union of proletarian cultural and educational societies. Proletkultists were especially active in calling for a revolutionary overthrow of old forms in art, a violent onslaught of new ideas, and the primitivization of culture. The ideologists of the latter are considered to be such prominent Bolsheviks as A.A. Bogdanov, V.F. Pletnev and others. In 1919, more than 400 thousand people took part in the proletkult movement. The spread of their ideas inevitably led to the loss of traditions and the lack of spirituality of society, which was unsafe for the authorities in war conditions. The leftist speeches of the Proletkultists forced the People's Commissariat for Education to pull them back 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, using methods of agitation, strict centralization, coercion and terror, managed to turn the republic into a “military camp” 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 and the danger of forcing socio-economic changes and escalating 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 provided only 4.7% of pre-war production. The flax industry produced only 29% of the pre-war level.

Heavy industry was collapsing. In 1919, all blast furnaces in the country went out. Soviet Russia did not produce metal, but lived on 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 Donbass mines and Baku oil, experienced a fuel shortage. The main type of fuel was firewood and peat.

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 had changed significantly. Now its backbone consisted not of regular workers, but of people from the non-proletarian strata of the urban population, as well as peasants mobilized from the villages.

Life forced the Bolsheviks to reconsider the foundations of “war communism”, therefore, at the Tenth Party Congress, military-communist economic methods based on coercion were declared obsolete.

Other:

War communism- the name of the internal policy of the Soviet state, carried out in 1918 - 1921. in conditions of the Civil War. Its characteristic features were extreme centralization of economic management, nationalization of large, medium and even small industry (partially), state monopoly on many agricultural products, surplus appropriation, ban on private trade, curtailment of commodity-money relations, equalization in the distribution of material goods, militarization of labor. This policy was based on communist ideology, in which the ideal of a planned economy was seen in the transformation of the country into a single factory, the head “office” of which directly manages all economic processes. The idea of immediately building commodity-free socialism by replacing trade with a planned, organized on a national scale distribution of products was recorded as a party policy in the II Program at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) in March 1919.

Revolution of 1917 in Russia
Social processes
Until February 1917: Prerequisites for the revolution February - October 1917: Democratization of the army Land question After October 1917: Boycott of the government by civil servants Prodrazvyorstka Diplomatic isolation of the Soviet government Russian Civil War The collapse of the Russian Empire and the formation of the USSR War communism
Institutions and organizations

Armed formations

Events
February - October 1917: After October 1917:
Personalities

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In historiography, there are different opinions on the reasons for the transition to such a policy - some historians believed that it was an attempt to “introduce communism” using a command method and the Bolsheviks abandoned this idea only after its failure, others presented it as a temporary measure, as reaction of the Bolshevik leadership to the realities of the Civil War. The same contradictory assessments were given to this policy by the leaders of the Bolshevik Party themselves, who led the country during the Civil War. The decision to end war communism and transition to the NEP was made on March 14, 1921 at the X Congress of the RCP(b).

Basic elements of "war communism"

The basis of war communism was the nationalization of all sectors of the economy. Nationalization began immediately after the October Socialist Revolution and the Bolsheviks’ coming to power - the nationalization of “land, mineral resources, waters and forests” was announced on the day of the October Uprising in Petrograd - November 7, 1917. The set of socio-economic measures carried out by the Bolsheviks in November 1917 - March 1918 was called Red Guard attack on capital .

Liquidation of private banks and confiscation of deposits

One of the first actions of the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution was the armed seizure of the State Bank. The buildings of private banks were also seized. On December 8, 1917, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the abolition of the Noble Land Bank and the Peasant Land Bank" was adopted. By the decree “on the nationalization of banks” of December 14 (27), 1917, banking was declared a state monopoly. The nationalization of banks in December 1917 was reinforced by the confiscation of public funds. All gold and silver in coins and bars, paper money, if they exceeded the amount of 5,000 rubles and were acquired “unearnedly,” were confiscated. For small deposits that remained unconfiscated, the norm for receiving money from accounts was set at no more than 500 rubles per month, so that the non-confiscated balance was quickly eaten up by inflation.

Nationalization of industry

Already in June-July 1917, “capital flight” began from Russia. The first to flee were foreign entrepreneurs who were looking for cheap labor in Russia: after the February Revolution, the establishment, the struggle for higher wages, and legalized strikes deprived entrepreneurs of their excess profits. The constantly unstable situation prompted many domestic industrialists to flee. But thoughts about the nationalization of a number of enterprises visited the completely left-wing Minister of Trade and Industry A.I. Konovalov even earlier, in May, and for other reasons: constant conflicts between industrialists and workers, which caused strikes on the one hand and lockouts on the other, disorganized the already economy damaged by the war.

The Bolsheviks faced the same problems after the October Socialist Revolution. The first decrees of the Soviet government did not envisage any transfer of “factories to workers,” as eloquently evidenced by the Regulations on Workers’ Control approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars on November 14 (27), 1917, which specifically stipulated the rights of entrepreneurs. However, the new government also faced questions: what to do with abandoned enterprises and how to prevent lockouts and other forms of sabotage?

What began as the adoption of ownerless enterprises, nationalization later turned into a measure to combat counter-revolution. Later, at the XI Congress of the RCP(b), L. D. Trotsky recalled:

...In Petrograd, and then in Moscow, where this wave of nationalization rushed, delegations from Ural factories came to us. My heart ached: “What will we do? “We’ll take it, but what will we do?” But from conversations with these delegations it became clear that military measures are absolutely necessary. After all, the director of a factory with all his apparatus, connections, office and correspondence is a real cell at this or that Ural, or St. Petersburg, or Moscow plant - a cell of that very counter-revolution - an economic cell, strong, solid, which is armed in hand is fighting against us. Therefore, this measure was a politically necessary measure of self-preservation. We could move on to a more correct account of what we can organize and begin economic struggle only after we had secured for ourselves not an absolute, but at least a relative possibility of this economic work. From an abstract economic point of view, we can say that our policy was wrong. But if you put it in the world situation and in the situation of our situation, then it was, from the political and military point of view in the broad sense of the word, absolutely necessary.

The first to be nationalized on November 17 (30), 1917 was the factory of the Likinsky Manufactory Partnership of A. V. Smirnov (Vladimir Province). In total, from November 1917 to March 1918, according to the industrial and professional census of 1918, 836 industrial enterprises were nationalized. On May 2, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree on the Nationalization of the sugar industry, and on June 20 - the oil industry. By the fall of 1918, 9,542 enterprises were concentrated in the hands of the Soviet state. All large capitalist property in the means of production was nationalized by the method of gratuitous confiscation. By April 1919, almost all large enterprises (with more than 30 employees) were nationalized. By the beginning of 1920, medium-sized industry was also largely nationalized. Strict centralized production management was introduced. The Supreme Council of the National Economy was created to manage the nationalized industry.

Monopoly of foreign trade

At the end of December 1917, foreign trade was brought under the control of the People's Commissariat of Trade and Industry, and in April 1918 it was declared a state monopoly. The merchant fleet was nationalized. The decree on the nationalization of the fleet declared shipping enterprises belonging to joint-stock companies, mutual partnerships, trading houses and individual large entrepreneurs owning sea and river vessels of all types to be the national indivisible property of Soviet Russia.

Forced labor service

Compulsory labor conscription was introduced, initially for the "non-labor classes". Adopted on December 10, 1918, the Labor Code (LC) established labor service for all citizens of the RSFSR. Decrees adopted by the Council of People's Commissars on April 12, 1919 and April 27, 1920 prohibited unauthorized transfers to new jobs and absenteeism, and established strict labor discipline at enterprises. The system of unpaid work on weekends and holidays in the form of “subbotniks” and “Sundays” has also become widespread.

At the beginning of 1920, in conditions when the demobilization of the liberated units of the Red Army seemed premature, some armies were temporarily transformed into labor armies, which retained military organization and discipline, but worked in the national economy. Sent to the Urals to transform the 3rd Army into the 1st Labor Army, L.D. Trotsky returned to Moscow with a proposal to change economic policy: replace the seizure of surpluses with a food tax (with this measure a new economic policy will begin in a year). However, Trotsky’s proposal to the Central Committee received only 4 votes against 11, the majority led by Lenin was not ready for a change in policy, and the IX Congress of the RCP (b) adopted a course towards “militarization of the economy.”

Food dictatorship

The Bolsheviks continued the grain monopoly proposed by the Provisional Government and the surplus appropriation system introduced by the Tsarist Government. On May 9, 1918, a Decree was issued confirming the state monopoly of grain trade (introduced by the provisional government) and prohibiting private trade in bread. On May 13, 1918, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars “On granting the People's Commissar of Food emergency powers to combat the rural bourgeoisie harboring and speculating on grain reserves” established the basic provisions of the food dictatorship. The goal of the food dictatorship was to centralize the procurement and distribution of food, suppress the resistance of the kulaks and combat baggage. The People's Commissariat for Food received unlimited powers in the procurement of food products. Based on the decree of May 13, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee established per capita consumption standards for peasants - 12 pounds of grain, 1 pood of cereal, etc. - similar to the standards introduced by the Provisional Government in 1917. All grain exceeding these standards was to be transferred to the disposal of the state at prices set by it. In fact, the peasants handed over food without compensation (in 1919, only half of the requisitioned grain was compensated with depreciated money or industrial goods, in 1920 - less than 20%).

In connection with the introduction of the food dictatorship in May-June 1918, the Food Requisition Army of the People's Commissariat of Food of the RSFSR (Prodarmiya) was created, consisting of armed food detachments. To manage the Food Army, on May 20, 1918, the Office of the Chief Commissar and Military Leader of all food detachments was created under the People's Commissariat of Food. To accomplish this task, armed food detachments were created, endowed with emergency powers.

V.I. Lenin explained the existence of surplus appropriation and the reasons for abandoning it:

Tax in kind is one of the forms of transition from a kind of “war communism”, forced by extreme poverty, ruin and war, to correct socialist product exchange. And this latter, in turn, is one of the forms of transition from socialism with features caused by the predominance of the small peasantry in the population to communism. A kind of “war communism” consisted in the fact that we actually took from the peasants all the surplus, and sometimes not even the surplus, but part of the food necessary for the peasant, and took it to cover the costs of the army and the maintenance of the workers. They mostly took it on credit, using paper money. Otherwise, we could not defeat the landowners and capitalists in a ruined small-peasant country... But it is no less necessary to know the real measure of this merit. “War communism” was forced by war and ruin. It was not and could not be a policy that corresponded to the economic tasks of the proletariat. It was a temporary measure. The correct policy of the proletariat, exercising its dictatorship in a small-peasant country, is the exchange of grain for industrial products needed by the peasant. Only such a food policy meets the tasks of the proletariat, only it is capable of strengthening the foundations of socialism and leading to its complete victory.
Tax in kind is a transition to it. We are still so ruined, so oppressed by the oppression of the war (which happened yesterday and could break out thanks to the greed and malice of the capitalists tomorrow) that we cannot give the peasants industrial products for all the grain we need. Knowing this, we introduce a tax in kind, i.e. the minimum necessary (for the army and for workers).

On July 27, 1918, the People's Commissariat for Food adopted a special resolution on the introduction of a universal class food ration, divided into four categories, providing for measures to account for stocks and distribute food. At first, the class ration was valid only in Petrograd, from September 1, 1918 - in Moscow - and then it was extended to the provinces.

Those supplied were divided into 4 categories (later into 3): 1) all workers working in particularly difficult conditions; breastfeeding mothers up to the 1st year of the child and wet nurses; pregnant women from the 5th month 2) all those working in hard work, but in normal (not harmful) conditions; women - housewives with a family of at least 4 people and children from 3 to 14 years old; disabled people of the 1st category - dependents 3) all workers engaged in light work; women housewives with a family of up to 3 people; children under 3 years old and adolescents 14-17 years old; all students over 14 years of age; unemployed people registered at the labor exchange; pensioners, war and labor invalids and other disabled people of the 1st and 2nd categories as dependents 4) all male and female persons receiving income from the hired labor of others; persons of liberal professions and their families who are not in public service; persons of unspecified occupation and all other population not named above.

The volume of dispensed was correlated across groups as 4:3:2:1. In the first place, products in the first two categories were simultaneously issued, in the second - in the third. The 4th was issued as the demand of the first 3 was met. With the introduction of class cards, any others were abolished (the card system was in effect from mid-1915).

In practice, the measures taken were much less coordinated and coordinated than planned on paper. Trotsky, who returned from the Urals, gave a textbook example of excessive centralism: in one Ural province people ate oats, and in a neighboring one they fed horses with wheat, since local provincial food committees did not have the right to exchange oats and wheat with each other. The situation was aggravated by the conditions of the civil war - large areas of Russia were not under the control of the Bolsheviks, and the lack of communications meant that even regions formally subordinate to the Soviet government often had to act independently, in the absence of centralized control from Moscow. The question still remains - whether War Communism was an economic policy in the full sense of the word, or just a set of disparate measures taken to win the civil war at any cost.

Results of War Communism

Prohibition of private entrepreneurship.
Elimination of commodity-money relations and transition to direct commodity exchange regulated by the state. The death of money.
Paramilitary management of railways.

The culmination of the policy of “war communism” was the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921, when the Council of People’s Commissars issued decrees “On the free supply of food products to the population” (December 4, 1920), “On the free supply of consumer goods to the population” (December 17), “On the abolition fees for all kinds of fuel" (December 23).

Instead of the unprecedented growth in labor productivity expected by the architects of war communism, there was a sharp drop: in 1920, labor productivity fell, including due to mass 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 dropped to 2680, which was no longer enough for hard physical labor.

By 1921, industrial output had decreased threefold, and the number of industrial workers had halved. At the same time, the staff of the Supreme Council of National Economy increased approximately a hundredfold, from 318 people to 30 thousand; 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.

The situation in Petrograd became especially difficult, whose population decreased from 2 million 347 thousand people during the Civil War. to 799 thousand, the number of workers decreased five times.

The decline in agriculture was just as sharp. Due to the complete disinterest of peasants in increasing crops under the conditions of “war communism,” grain production in 1920 fell by half compared to pre-war. According to Richard Pipes,

In such a situation, it was enough for the weather to deteriorate for famine to occur in the country. Under communist rule, there was no surplus in agriculture, so if there was a crop failure, there would be nothing to deal with its consequences.

The course adopted by the Bolsheviks towards the “withering away of money” in practice led to fantastic hyperinflation, which many times exceeded the “achievements” of the tsarist and Provisional governments.

The difficult situation in industry and agriculture was aggravated by the final collapse of transport. The share of so-called “sick” steam locomotives went from pre-war 13% to 61% in 1921; transport was approaching the threshold after which there would only be enough capacity to service its own needs. In addition, firewood was used as fuel for steam locomotives, which was extremely reluctantly collected by peasants as part of their labor service.

The experiment to organize labor armies in 1920-1921 also completely failed. The First Labor Army demonstrated, in the words of the chairman of its council (President of the Labor Army - 1) Trotsky L.D., “monstrous” (monstrously low) labor productivity. Only 10 - 25% of its personnel were engaged in labor activity as such, and 14%, due to torn clothes and lack of shoes, did not leave the barracks at all. Mass desertion from the labor armies was widespread, which in the spring of 1921 was completely out of control.

To organize the food appropriation system, the Bolsheviks organized another greatly expanded body - the People's Commissariat of Food, headed by A.D. Tsyuryupa, but despite the state's efforts to establish food supply, a massive famine of 1921-1922 began, during which up to 5 million people died. The policy of “war communism” (especially the surplus appropriation system) caused discontent among broad sections of the population, especially the peasantry (uprising in the Tambov region, Western Siberia, Kronstadt and others). By the end of 1920, an almost continuous belt of peasant uprisings (“green flood”) appeared in Russia, aggravated by huge masses of deserters and the beginning of mass demobilization of the Red Army.

Assessing War Communism

The key economic body of War Communism was the Supreme Council of the National Economy, created according to the project of Yuri Larin, as the central administrative planning body of the economy. According to his own memoirs, Larin designed the main directorates (headquarters) of the Supreme Economic Council on the model of the German “Kriegsgesellschaften” (German: Kriegsgesellschaften; centers for regulating industry in wartime).

The Bolsheviks declared “workers’ control” to be the alpha and omega of the new economic order: “the proletariat itself takes matters into its own hands.”
"Workers' control" very soon revealed its true nature. These words always sounded like the beginning of the death of the enterprise. All discipline was immediately destroyed. Power in factories and factories passed to rapidly changing committees, virtually responsible to no one for anything. Knowledgeable, honest workers were expelled and even killed.
Labor productivity decreased in inverse proportion to the increase in wages. The attitude was often expressed in dizzying numbers: fees increased, but productivity dropped by 500-800 percent. Enterprises continued to exist only because either the state, which owned the printing press, took in workers to support it, or the workers sold and ate up the fixed assets of the enterprises. According to Marxist teaching, the socialist revolution will be caused by the fact that the productive forces will outgrow the forms of production and, under new socialist forms, will have the opportunity for further progressive development, etc., etc. Experience has revealed the falsity of these stories. Under “socialist” orders there was an extreme decline in labor productivity. Our productive forces under “socialism” regressed to the times of Peter’s serf factories.
Democratic self-government has completely destroyed our railways. With an income of 1½ billion rubles, the railways had to pay about 8 billion for the maintenance of workers and employees alone.
Wanting to seize the financial power of “bourgeois society” into their own hands, the Bolsheviks “nationalized” all banks in a Red Guard raid. In reality, they only acquired those few measly millions that they managed to seize in the safes. But they destroyed credit and deprived industrial enterprises of all funds. To ensure that hundreds of thousands of workers were not left without income, the Bolsheviks had to open for them the cash desk of the State Bank, which was intensively replenished by the unrestrained printing of paper money.

A feature of Soviet historical literature about war communism was an approach based on the assumption of the exceptional role and “infallibility” of Vladimir Lenin. Since the "purges" of the thirties "removed from the political scene" most of the communist leaders of the War Communist era, such "bias" could easily be explained as part of the effort to "create an epic" of the Socialist Revolution that would highlight its success and "minimize" its mistakes. The “myth of the leader” was also widespread among Western researchers, who mostly “left in the shadows” both other leaders of the RSFSR of those times and the economic “legacy” itself that the Bolsheviks inherited from the Russian Empire.

In culture

Notes

History of economic doctrines / Ed. V. Avtonomova, O. Ananina, N. Makasheva: Textbook. allowance. - M.: INFRA-M, 2000. - P. 421.
, With. 256.
History of the world economy: Textbook for universities / Ed. G. B. Polyak, A. N. Markova. - M.: UNITY, 2002. - 727 p.
, With. 301.
Orlov A. S., Georgieva N. G., Georgiev V. A. Historical Dictionary. 2nd ed. M., 2012, p. 253.
See, for example: V. Chernov. The Great Russian Revolution. M., 2007
V. Chernov. The Great Russian Revolution. pp. 203-207
Lohr, Eric. Nationalizing the Russian Empire: the campaign against enemy aliens during World War I. - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003. - xi, 237 p. - ISBN 9780674010413.
Regulations of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on workers' control.
Eleventh Congress of the RCP(b). M., 1961. P. 129
Code of Labor Laws of 1918 // Kiselev I. Ya. Labor Law of Russia. Historical and legal research. Textbook M., 2001
The Memo Order for the 3rd Red Army - 1st Revolutionary Army of Labor, in particular, said: “1. The 3rd Army completed its combat mission. But the enemy has not yet been completely broken on all fronts. Predatory imperialists also threaten Siberia from the Far East. The mercenary troops of the Entente are also threatening Soviet Russia from the west. There are still White Guard gangs in Arkhangelsk. The Caucasus has not yet been liberated. Therefore, the 3rd revolutionary army remains under the bayonet, maintaining its organization, its internal cohesion, its fighting spirit - in case the socialist fatherland calls it to new combat missions. 2. But, imbued with a sense of duty, the 3rd revolutionary army does not want to waste time. During those weeks and months of respite that fell to her lot, she would use her strength and means for the economic upliftment of the country. While remaining a fighting force threatening the enemies of the working class, it at the same time turns into a revolutionary army of labor. 3. The Revolutionary Military Council of the 3rd Army is part of the Council of the Labor Army. There, along with members of the revolutionary military council, there will be representatives of the main economic institutions of the Soviet Republic. They will provide the necessary leadership in various fields of economic activity.” For the full text of the Order, see: Order-memo for the 3rd Red Army - 1st Revolutionary Army of Labor
In January 1920, in the pre-congress discussion, “Theses of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party on the mobilization of the industrial proletariat, labor conscription, militarization of the economy and the use of military units for economic needs” were published, paragraph 28 of which stated: “As one of the transitional forms to the implementation of a general labor conscription and the widest use of socialized labor, military units released from combat missions, up to large army formations, should be used for labor purposes. This is the meaning of turning the Third Army into the First Army of Labor and transferring this experience to other armies" (see IX Congress of the RCP (b). Verbatim report. Moscow, 1934. P. 529)

The policy of war communism was carried out by the Soviet government from 1918 to 1920. Introduced and developed by the commander of the Council of People's and Peasant Defense V.I. Lenin and his associates. It was aimed at uniting the country and preparing the people for life in a new communist state, where there is no division between rich and poor. Such a modernization of society (the transition from a traditional system to a modern one) caused discontent among the most numerous layers - peasants and workers. Lenin himself called it a necessary measure to achieve the goals set by the Bolsheviks. As a result, this system grew from a saving tactic into a terrorist dictatorship of the proletariat.

What is called the policy of war communism?

This process took place in three directions: economic, ideological and social. The characteristics of each of them are presented in the table.

Directions of the political program	Characteristics
economic	The Bolsheviks developed a program to get Russia out of the crisis in which it had been since the war with Germany, which began in 1914. The situation was further aggravated by the 1917 revolution, and later by the Civil War. The main emphasis was on increasing the productivity of enterprises and the general rise of industry.
ideological	Some scientists, representatives of nonconformism, believe that this policy is an attempt to implement Marsky ideas in practice. The Bolsheviks sought to create a society consisting of hardworking workers who devoted all their strength to the development of military affairs and other state needs.
social	The creation of a just communist society is one of the goals of Lenin's policies. Such ideas were actively promoted among the people. This explains the involvement of so many peasants and workers. They were promised, in addition to improving living conditions, an increase in social status through the establishment of universal equality.

This policy implied a large-scale restructuring not only in the public administration system, but also in the minds of citizens. The authorities saw a way out of this situation only in the forced unification of the people in an aggravated military situation, which was called “war communism.”

What did the policy of war communism imply?

Historians include the following main features:

centralization of the economy and nationalization of industry (full state control);
prohibition of private trade and other types of individual entrepreneurship;
introduction of surplus appropriation (forced confiscation of part of the bread and other products by the state);
forced labor of all citizens from 16 to 60 years of age;
monopolization in the field of agriculture;
equalization of rights for all citizens and building a fair state.

Characteristics and Features

The new political program was clearly totalitarian in nature. Called to improve the economy and raise the spirit of a war-weary people, it, on the contrary, destroyed both the first and the second.

At that time, there was a post-revolutionary situation in the country, which had developed into a war situation. All resources provided by industry and agriculture were taken away by the front. The essence of the communists’ policy was to defend the workers’ and peasants’ power by any means, personally plunging the country into a “half-starved and worse than half-starved” state, in his words.

A distinctive feature of war communism was the fierce struggle between capitalism and socialism that flared up against the backdrop of the civil war. The bourgeoisie, which actively advocated the preservation of private property and the free trade sector, became a supporter of the first system. Socialism was supported by adherents of communist views, who made directly opposite speeches. Lenin believed that the revival of the policy of capitalism, which existed in tsarist Russia for half a century, would lead the country to destruction and death. According to the leader of the proletariat, such an economic system ruins the working people, enriches the capitalists and gives rise to speculation.

A new political program was introduced by the Soviet government in September 1918. It meant carrying out such events as:

introduction of surplus appropriation (seizure of food products from working citizens for the needs of the front)
universal labor conscription for citizens from 16 to 60 years of age
cancellation of payment for transport and utilities
government provision of free housing
centralization of the economy
ban on private trade
establishing direct trade between villages and cities

Causes of War Communism

The reasons for the introduction of such emergency measures were provoked by:

the weakening of the state's economy after the First World War and the 1917 revolution;
the desire of the Bolsheviks to centralize power and take the country under their total control;
the need to supply the front with food and weapons against the background of the unfolding Civil War;
the desire of the new authorities to provide peasants and workers with the right to legal labor activity, fully controlled by the state

Politics of War Communism and Agriculture

Agriculture suffered a significant blow. Residents of villages where “food terror” was carried out especially suffered from the new policy. In support of military-communist ideas, on March 26, 1918, a decree “On the organization of commodity exchange” was issued. It implied bilateral cooperation: supplying both the city and the village with everything necessary. In fact, it turned out that the entire agricultural industry and agriculture worked only with the goal of restoring heavy industry. For this purpose, a redistribution of land was carried out, as a result of which peasants increased their land plots by more than 2 times.

Comparative table of the results of the policy of war communism and the NEP:

	Politics of War Communism
Reasons for introduction	The need to unite the country and increase all-Russian productivity after the First World War and the 1917 revolution	People's dissatisfaction with the dictatorship of the proletariat, economic recovery
Economy	Destruction of the economy, plunging the country into an even greater crisis	Noticeable economic growth, implementation of a new monetary reform, the country’s recovery from the crisis
Market relations	Prohibition on private property and personal capital	Restoration of private capital, legalization of market relations
Industry and agriculture	Nationalization of industry, total control of the activities of all enterprises, introduction of surplus appropriation, general decline

War communism (policy of war communism) is the name of the internal policy of Soviet Russia, carried out during the Civil War of 1918-1921.

The essence of war communism was to prepare the country for a new, communist society, which the new authorities were oriented towards. War communism was characterized by the following features:

extreme degree of centralization of management of the entire economy;
nationalization of industry (from small to large);
a ban on private trade and the curtailment of commodity-money relations;
state monopolization of many branches of agriculture;
militarization of labor (orientation towards the military industry);
total equalization, when everyone received an equal amount of benefits and goods.

It was on the basis of these principles that it was planned to build a new state, where there are no rich and poor, where everyone is equal and everyone receives exactly what is necessary for a normal life. Scientists believe that the introduction of new policies was necessary in order not only to survive the Civil War, but also to quickly rebuild the country into a new type of society.

In order to responsibly understand what the policy of war communism was, let us briefly consider the public mood during the turbulent years of the Civil War, as well as the position of the Bolshevik Party during this period (its

participation in the war and government policy).

The years 1917-1921 were the most difficult period in the history of our fatherland. Bloody wars with many warring parties and the most difficult geopolitical situation made them this way.

communism: briefly about the position of the CPSU (b)

During this difficult time, in various parts of the former empire, many claimants fought for every piece of its land. German Army; local national forces who tried to create their own states on the fragments of the empire (for example, the formation of the UPR); local popular associations commanded by regional authorities; the Poles who invaded Ukrainian territories in 1919; White Guard counter-revolutionaries; Entente formations allied to the latter; and, finally, the Bolshevik units. Under these conditions, an absolutely necessary guarantee of victory was the complete concentration of forces and the mobilization of all available resources for the military defeat of all opponents. Actually, this mobilization on the part of the communists was war communism, carried out by the leadership of the CPSU (b) from the first months of 1918 to March 1921.

Politics briefly about the essence of the regime

During its implementation, the mentioned policy caused many contradictory assessments. Its main points were the following measures:

Nationalization of the entire complex of industry and the country's banking system;

State monopolization of foreign trade;

Forced labor service for the entire population capable of working;

Food dictatorship. It was this point that became the most hated by the peasants, since part of the grain was forcibly confiscated in favor of the soldiers and the starving city. The surplus appropriation system is often held up today as an example of the atrocities of the Bolsheviks, but it should be noted that with its help the workers in the cities were significantly smoothed out.

The politics of war communism: briefly about the reaction of the population

Frankly speaking, war communism was a forceful way of forcing the masses to increase the intensity of work for the victory of the Bolsheviks. As already mentioned, the bulk of the discontent in Russia, a peasant country at that time, was caused by food appropriation. However, in fairness, it must be said that the White Guards also used the same technique. It logically followed from the state of affairs in the country, since the First World War and the Civil War completely destroyed the traditional trade ties between the village and the city. This led to the deplorable state of many industrial enterprises. At the same time, there was dissatisfaction with the policies of war communism in the cities. Here, instead of the expected increase in labor productivity and economic revival, on the contrary, there was a weakening of discipline at enterprises. The replacement of old personnel with new ones (who were communists, but not always qualified managers) led to a noticeable decline in industry and a decline in economic indicators.

briefly about the main thing

Despite all the difficulties, the policy of war communism still fulfilled its intended role. Although not always successful, the Bolsheviks were able to gather all their forces against the counter-revolution and survive the battles. At the same time, it caused popular uprisings and seriously undermined the authority of the CPSU (b) among the peasantry. The last such mass uprising was the Kronstadt one, which took place in the spring of 1921. As a result, Lenin initiated the transition to the so-called 1921, which helped restore the national economy in the shortest possible time.

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