It is considered an event that accelerated the transition to NEP. New Economic Policy (NEP)
After seven years of the First World War and civil war The situation in the country was catastrophic. It has lost more than a quarter of its national wealth. There was a shortage of basic food products.
According to some reports, human losses since the beginning of the First World War from combat, hunger and disease, “red” and “white” terror amounted to 19 million people. About 2 million people emigrated from the country, and among them were almost all representatives of the political, financial and industrial elite of pre-revolutionary Russia.
Until the fall of 1918, huge supplies of raw materials and food were carried out, according to peace terms, to Germany and Austria-Hungary. Retreating from Russia, the interventionists took with them furs, wool, timber, oil, manganese, grain, and industrial equipment worth many millions of gold rubles.
Dissatisfaction with the policy of “war communism” became more and more evident in the villages. In 1920, one of the most massive peasant insurgent movements unfolded under the leadership of Antonov - “Antonovshchina”.
Dissatisfaction with the Bolshevik policies also spread in the army. Kronstadt, the largest naval base of the Baltic Fleet, “the key to Petrograd,” rose up in arms. The Bolsheviks took emergency and brutal measures to eliminate the Kronstadt rebellion. A state of siege was introduced in Petrograd. An ultimatum was sent to the Kronstadters, in which those who were ready to surrender were promised to spare their lives. Army units were sent to the walls of the fortress. However, the attack on Kronstadt launched on March 8 ended in failure. On the night of March 16-17 to thin ice In the Gulf of Finland, the 7th Army (45 thousand people) under the command of M.N. moved to storm the fortress. Tukhachevsky. Delegates from the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b), sent from Moscow, also took part in the offensive. By the morning of March 18, the performance in Kronstadt was suppressed.
The Soviet government responded to all these challenges with the NEP. It was an unexpected and strong move.
History.RF: NEP, infographic video
HOW MANY YEARS LENIN GAVE NEP
The expression “Seriously and for a long time.” From the speech of the Soviet People's Commissar of Agriculture Valerian Valerianovich Osinsky (pseudonym of V.V. Obolensky, 1887-1938) at the X Conference of the RCP (b) on May 26, 1921. This is how he defined the prospects for the new economic policy - NEP.
The words and position of V.V. Osinsky are known only from the reviews of V.I. Lenin, who in his final speech (May 27, 1921) said: “Osinsky gave three conclusions. The first conclusion is “seriously and for a long time.” And; “seriously and for a long time - 25 years.” I'm not such a pessimist."
Later, speaking with a report “On the internal and foreign policy of the republic” at the IX All-Russian Congress of Soviets, V.I. Lenin said about the NEP (December 23, 1921): “We are pursuing this policy seriously and for a long time, but, of course, how right already noticed, not forever.”
It is usually used in the literal sense - thoroughly, fundamentally, firmly.
ABOUT REPLACEMENT OF PRODRAZAPERSTERY
The decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee “On replacing food and raw material allocation with a tax in kind”, adopted on the basis of the decision of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) “On replacing appropriation with a tax in kind” (March 1921), marked the beginning of the transition to a new economic policy.
1. To ensure correct and calm management of the economy on the basis of more free disposal of the farmer with the products of his labor and his own economic means, to strengthen the peasant economy and raise its productivity, as well as for the purpose of accurately establishing state obligations falling on farmers, appropriation as a method of state procurement food, raw materials and fodder, is replaced by a tax in kind.
2. This tax should be less than that imposed hitherto through appropriation. The amount of the tax should be calculated so as to cover the most necessary needs of the army, urban workers and the non-agricultural population. The total amount of the tax should be constantly reduced as the restoration of transport and industry allows the Soviet government to receive agricultural products in exchange for factory and handicraft products.
3. The tax is levied in the form of a percentage or share of the products produced on the farm, based on the harvest, the number of eaters on the farm and the presence of livestock on it.
4. The tax must be progressive; the percentage of deductions for farms of middle peasants, low-income owners and for farms of urban workers should be reduced. The farms of the poorest peasants may be exempted from some, and in exceptional cases and from all types of taxes in kind.
Diligent peasant owners who increase the sowing area on their farms, as well as increase the productivity of farms as a whole, receive benefits for the implementation of the tax in kind. (...)
7. Responsibility for fulfilling the tax is assigned to each individual owner, and the bodies of Soviet power are instructed to impose penalties on everyone who has not complied with the tax. Circular liability is abolished.
To control the application and implementation of the tax, organizations of local peasants are formed according to groups of payers of different tax amounts.
8. All supplies of food, raw materials and fodder remaining with farmers after they have fulfilled the tax are at their full disposal and can be used by them to improve and strengthen their economy, to increase personal consumption and for exchange for products of factory and handicraft industries and agricultural production. Exchange is allowed within the limits of local economic turnover, both through cooperative organizations and in markets and bazaars.
9. Those farmers who wish to hand over the surplus remaining to them after completing the tax to the state, in exchange for these voluntarily surrendered surpluses, should be provided with consumer goods and agricultural implements. For this purpose, a state permanent stock of agricultural implements and consumer goods is created, both from domestically produced products and from products purchased abroad. For the latter purpose, part of the state gold fund and part of the harvested raw materials are allocated.
10. Supplying the poorest rural population carried out in the state order according to special rules. (...)
Directives of the CPSU and the Soviet government on economic issues. Sat. documents. M.. 1957. T. 1
LIMITED FREEDOM
The transition from “war communism” to the NEP was proclaimed by the X Congress of the Russian communist party March 8-16, 1921
In the agricultural sector, surplus appropriation was replaced by a lower tax in kind. In 1923‑1924 it was allowed to pay tax in kind in food and money. Private trade in surplus was allowed. The legalization of market relations entailed a restructuring of the entire economic mechanism. The hiring of labor in the village was facilitated, and land rental was allowed. However, tax policy (the larger the farm, the higher the tax) led to the fragmentation of farms. The kulaks and middle peasants, dividing farms, tried to get rid of high taxes.
The denationalization of small and medium-sized industry was carried out (transfer of enterprises from state ownership to private lease). Limited freedom of private capital in industry and trade was allowed. The use of hired labor was allowed, and the possibility of creating private enterprises became possible. The largest and most technically developed factories and plants united into state trusts that operated on self-support and self-sufficiency (“Khimugol”, “State Trust” machine-building plants" and etc.). Metallurgy, the fuel and energy complex, and partly transport were initially supplied by the state. Cooperation developed: consumer agricultural, cultural and commercial.
Equal wages, characteristic of the Civil War, were replaced by a new incentive tariff policy that took into account the qualifications of workers, the quality and quantity of products produced. The card system for distributing food and goods was abolished. The “ration” system has been replaced by a monetary form of wages. Universal labor conscription and labor mobilizations were abolished. Large fairs were restored: Nizhny Novgorod, Baku, Irbit, Kiev, etc. Trade exchanges opened.
In 1921-1924 financial reform was carried out. A banking system has been created: the State Bank, a network of cooperative banks, the Commercial and Industrial Bank, the Bank for foreign trade, a network of local communal banks and others. Direct and indirect taxes have been introduced (commercial, income, agricultural, excise taxes on consumer goods, local taxes), as well as fees for services (transport, communications, public utilities and etc.).
In 1921, monetary reform began. At the end of 1922, a stable currency was released into circulation - the Soviet chervonets, which was used for short-term lending in industry and trade. Chervonets was provided with gold and other easily sold valuables and goods. One chervonets was equivalent to 10 pre-revolutionary gold rubles, and on the world market it cost about 6 dollars. To cover the budget deficit, the old currency continued to be issued - depreciating Soviet notes, which were soon replaced by the chervonets. In 1924, instead of Sovznak, copper and silver coins and treasury notes were issued. During the reform, it was possible to eliminate the budget deficit.
The NEP led to a rapid economic recovery. The economic interest that appeared among peasants in the production of agricultural products made it possible to quickly saturate the market with food and overcome the consequences of the hungry years of “war communism.”
However, already at the early stage of the NEP, recognition of the role of the market was combined with measures to abolish it. Most Communist Party leaders viewed the NEP as a “necessary evil,” fearing that it would lead to the restoration of capitalism.
Fearful of the NEP, the party and state leaders took measures to discredit it. Official propaganda treated the private trader in every possible way, and the image of the “NEPman” as an exploiter, a class enemy, was formed in the public consciousness. Since the mid-1920s. measures to curb the development of the NEP gave way to a course towards its curtailment.
NEPMANS
So what was he like, a NEP man of the 20s? This social group was formed by former employees of commercial and industrial private enterprises, millers, clerks - people who had certain skills in commercial activities, as well as employees of government offices at various levels, who initially combined their official service with illegal commercial activities. The ranks of the Nepmen were also replenished by housewives, demobilized Red Army soldiers, workers who found themselves on the street after the closure of industrial enterprises, and “downsized” employees.
In terms of their political, social and economic status, representatives of this stratum differed sharply from the rest of the population. According to the legislation in force in the 1920s, they were deprived of voting rights, the opportunity to teach their children in the same schools with children of other social groups, could not legally publish their own newspapers or promote their views in any other way, and were not conscripted into military service. army, were not members of trade unions and did not hold positions in the state apparatus...
The group of entrepreneurs who used hired labor both in Siberia and in the USSR as a whole was extremely small - 0.7 percent of the total urban population (1). Their incomes were tens of times higher than those of ordinary citizens...
Entrepreneurs of the 20s were distinguished by amazing mobility. M. Shaginyan wrote: “The Nepmen are leaving. They magnetize vast Russian spaces, moving around them at courier speed, now to the extreme south (Transcaucasia), now to the far north (Murmansk, Yeniseisk), often back and forth without respite” (2).
In terms of culture and education, the social group of “new” entrepreneurs differed little from the rest of the population and included a wide variety of types and characters. The majority were “nepmen-democrats,” as described by one of the authors of the 20s, “nimble, greedy, strong-minded and strong-headed guys” for whom “the air of the bazaar was more useful and profitable than the atmosphere of a cafe.” In the event of a successful deal, the “bazaar Nepman” “grunts joyfully,” and when the deal falls through, “from his lips comes a juicy, strong, like himself, Russian “word.” Here “mother” sounds in the air often and naturally.” “The well-bred Nepmen,” as described by the same author, “in American bowler hats and boots with mother-of-pearl buttons, made the same billion-dollar transactions in the twilight of a cafe, where subtle conversation was conducted on subtle delicacy.”
E. Demchik. “New Russians”, 1920s. Homeland. 2000, No. 5
In the autumn of 1920, the social and economic crisis intensified in the country. Peasant farms, devastated by war and crop failure, were in a difficult situation. Hunger began. Workers, dissatisfied with food shortages, unemployment, and equal pay, began strikes. A wave of peasant uprisings swept across the country, covering Ukraine, the Don, Kuban, Siberia, and the Volga region. The largest peasant uprising, which lasted from the summer of 1920 to the summer of 1921, took place in the Tambov province under the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary A.S. Antonov. The unrest of workers and peasants was supported by the military. On February 28, 1921, the sailors of Kronstadt rebelled. The rebel sailors demanded respect for the rights and freedoms proclaimed in October 1917. Neither the peasants, nor the workers, nor the sailors made a call for the overthrow of the Soviet power. There was dissatisfaction only with the omnipotence of one party - the Bolshevik party.
A split was brewing in the party itself. The issue of democratization, the development of collegiality in management and the weakening of the dictates of the center was increasingly on the agenda. Urgent measures were needed to get the country out of the crisis and restore the destroyed economy.
13.1. New Economic Policy
In March 1921, a decision was made to transition to the New Economic Policy (NEP). The essence of the new economic policy was to build socialism using various forms property, in creating a diverse economy while maintaining the regulatory role of the state.
The goals of the NEP were the following: to relieve social tension, strengthen the social base of Soviet power, provide favorable conditions for building a socialist society, overcome international isolation and restore political and economic relations with other states.
The transition to the NEP was legislatively formalized by the decrees of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Council of People's Commissars and the decisions of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets. During the implementation of the NEP program, surplus appropriation was replaced by a food tax, which was established before the start of spring sowing and could not be changed during the year. In addition, the tax in kind was half the size of the surplus appropriation system. Poor and collective farms were exempt from taxes in kind and received certain benefits. Private trade, the use of hired labor, and leasing of land were allowed. The private sector has strengthened. State-owned enterprises were transferred to self-financing, workers received the right to move from one enterprise to another, private enterprises were allowed to be created, enterprises with up to 21 employees were denationalized, universal labor conscription was abolished, and labor exchanges were introduced. In December 1921, the state began returning enterprises with no more than 10 workers to private owners.
The implementation of the NEP led to an improvement in the situation in the national economy. By 1925, the cultivated area and gross output of large-scale industry had almost reached pre-war levels. Electricity production exceeded the pre-war level by 1.5 times. A planned principle was introduced in the economy.
In 1920, the State Electrification Plan of Russia (GOELRO) was adopted. This was the first long-term plan development National economy. Subsequently, planned economy became a characteristic feature of state management of the economy.
Market principles operated in the economy during the NEP period. Commodity-money relations became the main link between the individual parts of the economic mechanism. In 1922, the production of a new monetary unit, the chervonets, began. On the foreign exchange market, both domestically and abroad, chervonets were freely exchanged for gold and major foreign currencies at the pre-war exchange rate of the Tsarist ruble (1 American dollar was equal to 1.94 rubles).
In 1921, the State Bank was recreated, lending to industry and trade on a commercial basis. In addition, a number of specialized banks were created. On October 1, 1923, there were 17 independent banks operating in the country, and by October 1926 their number increased to 61.
The most important result of the NEP was that impressive economic successes were achieved on the basis of fundamentally new, non-technical famous history public 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.
Under the conditions of the NEP, the economic functions of the state also changed: if earlier, under the conditions of “war communism,” the center directly established natural, technological proportions of reproduction by order, now it has moved on to regulating prices, trying to ensure balanced growth using economic methods.
13.2. Changes in the state apparatus under the NEP
There have been changes in the state apparatus. The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense was reorganized into the Council of Labor and Defense. The chapters were abolished, and in their place trusts were created - associations of homogeneous or interconnected enterprises that received complete economic and financial independence, up to the right to issue long-term bond issues. By the end of 1922, about 90% of industrial enterprises were united into 421 trusts. The enterprises that were part of the trust were withdrawn from state supplies. The state treasury was not responsible for the debts of the trusts. Trusts began to unite into syndicates on the basis of cooperation. The board of syndicates was elected at a meeting of representatives of the trusts. The sale of finished products, the purchase of raw materials, materials and equipment were carried out on the wholesale market, and therefore a wide network emerged trading enterprises, fairs, commodity exchanges. The functions of domestic trade were transferred to the People's Commissariat of Domestic Trade with broad rights in the field of price regulation.
VSNKh, having lost the right to intervene in the current activities of enterprises, turned into a coordination center.
In December 1921, the Cheka was reorganized. Instead, the State Political Directorate (GPU) was created under the NKVD. With the formation of the USSR, the GPU was reorganized into the United State Political Administration (OGPU) under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Political departments were created locally. Within the GPU and political departments, special departments were created that fought crimes in the army and navy, and transport departments that fought counter-revolution in transport. The activities of the OGPU focused on solving political and state crimes.
A new principle of organization was introduced in the army. Its number was reduced to 600 thousand people. Along with personnel units, territorial ones began to be created. The armed forces began to be divided into land, sea, air and special forces, the OGPU and convoy guards. Compulsory military service was introduced for men aged 19 to 40 years. In 1924, the period of service in the army was established as two years, in the navy as four.
13.3. Education USSR
The Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918 enshrined the principle of national-territorial federation as a form of government. From 1918 to 1920, more than 20 national autonomous entities (republics and regions) arose on the territory of the RSFSR. The resulting Soviet national republics - Ukrainian, Belarusian and others were grouped around the RSFSR due to economic, military and other necessity.
The form of unification that emerged between the republics was called a contractual federation. The republics entered into financial agreements among themselves, formed common production plans, and pooled raw materials and commodity funds. The following were created: a unified command of military formations, Councils of the National Economy, Railway Transport, Finance, and Labor Commissariats. With the multi-party system that existed, the leading role was recognized and belonged to the Communist Party. The socialist idea acted as a guarantor of the unity of the new state formation.
In March 1922, the union of the republics of Transcaucasia was formed - the Transcaucasian SFSR, which united Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. For internal and international reasons, a need arose to unite independent Soviet republic states into a common state.
In August 1922, a commission was formed to develop a project for a future federal state. Various options were proposed: a confederation of republics with the preservation of their currency and army, autonomization, i.e. the formation of Soviet republics that are part of the RSFSR with the rights of autonomy, and a federation of equal republics. The third option was accepted. In the fall of 1922, the project was discussed at the congresses of the Soviets of Transcaucasia, Belarus, and Ukraine, and on December 30, 1922, the 1st All-Union Congress of Soviets of the USSR approved the Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and elected a Central Executive Committee (CEC) with four chairmen , one from each republic: M.I. Kalinin (RSFSR), G.I. Petrovsky (Ukrainian SSR), A.G. Chervyakov (BSSR), N.N. Narimanov (ZSFSR).
In 1925, the Uzbek SSR and the Turkmen SSR joined the USSR. In 1929, the Tajik ASSR as part of the Uzbek SSR was transformed into a Union Republic and accepted into the USSR. In 1936, the USSR already consisted of 11 subjects. It included the Kazakh and Kyrgyz union republics. The formation of the USSR contributed to the strengthening of the country's military and economic power. The Russian Empire, which collapsed as a result of the revolution, was revived again, on the basis of voluntary unification. The unification of the republics ensured their independence and made it possible to more successfully solve foreign policy problems, both defense and diplomatic.
The All-Union Congress of Soviets became the highest legislative body of the new state. Congresses were to meet annually, and extraordinary congresses were allowed. In the period between Congresses of Soviets, the supreme authority was the Central Executive Committee of the Union, which consisted of two chambers - the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities. The Central Executive Committee of the USSR formed the first union government - the Council of People's Commissars, headed by V.I. Lenin. After his death, A.I. became the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. Rykov (until 1930).
The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR supervised the activities of the all-Union People's Commissariats: foreign, military and maritime affairs, foreign trade, communications, posts and telegraphs, the State Bank and the State Planning Committee.
The Central Executive Committee of the USSR was given the right to issue decrees and resolutions binding on all union republics. Between sessions of the Central Election Commission, all legislative and executive powers were transferred to its presidium.
The territorial and administrative division of the country changed: provinces, districts, and volosts were transformed into regions, territories, and districts. National districts and districts were created.
13.4. Codification of Soviet law
During the period under review, the codification of Soviet law was carried out. The RSFSR adopted: Criminal, Civil, Criminal Procedure Codes, Code of Labor Laws and Code of Laws on Marriage, Family and Guardianship. In 1922, judicial reform was carried out and the prosecutor's office of the RSFSR was created.
Constitutional law. The Constitution of 1918 was in force in the RSFSR, and with the adoption by the Second Congress of Soviets of the USSR on January 31, 1924 of the Basic Law of the USSR - the Constitution of the USSR, which consisted of two sections - the Declaration on the Formation of the USSR and the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR - the need arose to adopt a new Constitution, which and was done in 1925. Moscow became the capital of the USSR and the RSFSR.
The Constitution of the USSR established a new state association of republics - the federation and established a system higher authorities authorities of the USSR and union republics: Congress of Soviets, Central Executive Committee, Presidium of the Central Executive Committee, Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
The Union's jurisdiction included foreign relations and foreign trade, resolving issues of war and peace, organizing and directing the armed forces, general management and planning of the economy and budget, and developing the foundations of legislation. The Constitution provided for the creation of the Supreme Court under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the USSR.
On May 11, 1925, a new Constitution of the RSFSR was adopted, which established the RSFSR as a federal state with autonomous entities. The Constitution states: “The RSFSR is a socialist state of workers and peasants, built on the basis of a federation of national Soviet republics,” in which all power belongs to the Soviets of workers, peasants, Cossacks and Red Army deputies. The Constitution of the RSFSR defined the powers of the state authorities of the republic, the structure of which corresponded to the structure of similar bodies of the USSR. In terms of their content, the Constitution of the USSR of 1924 and the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1925 complemented each other. Part of the powers of the RSFSR was transferred to the jurisdiction of the allied authorities and administration. The Constitution of the RSFSR also introduced new authorities - the presidiums of the executive committees of local Soviets. The presidiums were elected by the executive committees. The powers of Councils at all levels and the procedure for their elections were discussed in some detail. The previous norms of representation, establishing the advantages of workers over peasants, were preserved. The Constitution of the RSFSR enshrined the provision that land, factories, factories, water and air transport were the property of the state. The Constitution of the RSFSR consisted of 6 sections, 8 chapters and 89 articles.
Civil law. Each union republic had its own civil code. The Civil Code of the RSFSR of 1922, in force until 1964, consisted of the General Part, property law, obligations and inheritance law.
The General Part, which consisted of several articles, characterized the operation of the Civil Code throughout the territory of the RSFSR, noting that civil rights are protected by law, except in cases where they conflict with the social and economic purpose. All citizens of the RSFSR were recognized as subjects of law. Gender, race, nationality, religion, origin had no influence on civil legal capacity, which began at the age of 18.
Legal entities were recognized as associations of persons, institutions or organizations that could acquire rights to property, enter into obligations, seek and answer in court.
Transactions, i.e. actions aimed at establishing, changing or terminating civil legal relations could be unilateral and mutual. They could be done orally or in writing. Written documents were divided into simple and notarized. Transactions made in violation of the law were considered invalid. The limitation period was set at three years.
The Civil Code distinguished between state, cooperative and private property. Land, mineral resources, forests, waters, railways and their rolling stock were declared the exclusive property of the state. The subject of private property could be non-municipalized buildings, industrial enterprises that had hired workers in the number provided by law (up to 20 people), tools and means of production, money, securities and any property that was not withdrawn from circulation. Cooperative organizations could own all kinds of property on an equal basis with private individuals. Cooperative industrial enterprises were not limited in the number of workers they hired. The disposal of state property was carried out by state bodies. State property was not subject to alienation into the ownership of private individuals and legal entities. It could not be the subject of a pledge.
Agreements for the provision of city plots for development were concluded by municipal departments with individuals and legal entities for the following terms: for stone and reinforced concrete buildings - up to 65 years, for mixed buildings - up to 60 years, for wooden buildings - up to 50 years.
Property that was not withdrawn from circulation could be the subject of a pledge. The mortgagor must be the owner of the property. The pledge agreement for the building and the right of development was certified by a notary. The mortgaged property, except for the building and the right of development, was transferred to the mortgagee.
Law of obligations. The Civil Code provides for the grounds for the emergence and termination of agreements on obligations. The agreement was considered concluded when the parties agreed with each other on all its points. An agreement for an amount over 500 rubles must be made in writing. A gift agreement for an amount over 1000 rubles was certified by a notary. Interest under the loan agreement was determined at 6% per annum of the debt amount. If the contract was declared invalid due to a violation of the law, then the parties were obliged to return to each other everything received under the contract.
Property lease agreements are common. The term of employment must not exceed 12 years. The period of employment by state and cooperative organizations of state-owned enterprises should not exceed 24 years.
Living space in houses owned by state enterprises was rented out under contracts for a certain period.
The subject of purchase and sale could only be non-municipalized and demunicipalized residential buildings, subject to the purchase of only one building per family. One property could be sold within three years. The purchase and sale agreement for a building must be certified by a notary.
Agreements of barter, loan, contract, guarantee, commission, partnership, and insurance were practiced.
A loan agreement for an amount over 50 rubles must be concluded in writing. The lender could demand interest only if it was provided for in the contract. Interest was accrued only on the principal amount of the debt.
Under a work contract, one party (contractor) was obliged to perform certain work, and the other party (customer) was obliged to pay the agreed remuneration for all the work or in parts.
According to the partnership agreement, there was an obligation to combine contributions to achieve an economic goal. A partnership was recognized as full when the participants were responsible for the obligations of the partnership with all their property as joint and several debtors. A limited partnership consisted of unlimitedly responsible partners and investors. In an LLP, all participants were equally liable for the obligations of the partnership, not only with the contributions made, but also with personal property.
Inheritance law. The Civil Code allowed inheritance by law and will. According to the law, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the surviving spouse and persons who were dependent on the deceased for at least one year before his death were recognized as heirs. Children born after the death of the testator could also be heirs. The testator had the right to bequeath property to the state or its individual institutions and enterprises, party, trade union and other public organizations. It was impossible to deprive minor children of inheritance rights.
When inheriting by law, all property was divided into equal parts among all heirs. The inheritance was considered escheated if the heirs did not register the right to inheritance with a notary within six months after the death of the testator.
Civil procedural law. In July 1923, at the 2nd session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Civil Procedure Code of the RSFSR was adopted (valid until 1964), which set out the rules for conducting legal proceedings in civil cases. The basis for starting the process was a statement from the interested party. The participation of a prosecutor was provided for, who, by court decision, could intervene in the case at any stage of the process. Legal proceedings were conducted in the language of the majority of the population of the area. If the parties or witnesses did not speak the language in which the proceedings were conducted, the court was obliged to invite translators. The parties could conduct the case in court in person or through their representatives. The process was based on the principles of transparency and publicity. All cases arising from civil relations, both between private individuals and between state, cooperative and other public organizations, as well as disputes between collective farms, were subject to the jurisdiction of the people's court. All civil cases were considered by a court composed of a presiding judge and two lay judges. From everyone statement of claim a duty was collected. Procedural deadlines were determined: cases of labor disputes were considered within 5 days, cases of alimony - from 10 to 20 days. In cases of alimony collection, measures were taken to secure the claim in the form of seizure of a share of earnings and an inventory of property. Cases were heard publicly and orally. Minutes were kept at each court hearing.
The main types of evidence were witness testimony, written evidence, and examination. The decision was made by a majority vote, the judge could add his own special opinion. The decision of the people's court could be appealed to the regional or Supreme Court within 10 days.
Family law. In 1926, the second Code of Laws on Marriage, Family and Guardianship of the RSFSR was adopted. A uniform minimum age for marriage was established - 18 years. Those getting married could leave their premarital surnames. In exceptional cases, local executive committees of the Soviets were given the right to lower the marriageable age for women, but not by more than one year. The actual marriage was legalized. The conditions for recognition of a de facto marriage were cohabitation, running a common household and raising children. The Code gave the court the right to deprive parents of parental rights and transfer children to guardianship authorities. Guardianship was established over children under the age of 14, over the mentally ill and the mentally ill. The possibility of adoption of minor children was established. Adoptive parents, at their request, could be recorded in the birth register as parents, with the adopted child assigned the adoptive parent's surname and patronymic.
Marriages between persons, one of whom was in another marriage, were not subject to registration; between the mentally ill and the mentally ill; between close relatives.
The couple enjoyed complete freedom to choose their occupations and professions. The procedure for running a common household was established by mutual agreement. Property owned by spouses before marriage remained separate. Property acquired during the marriage was considered common. A change of residence by one spouse did not oblige the other to follow him. Spouses could enter into all property and contractual relations permitted by law. The disabled spouse had the right to receive maintenance from the other spouse.
The marriage ended with the death of one of the spouses. During the life of the spouses, the marriage could be terminated by divorce through the courts. The People's Court was obliged to establish the reasons for the divorce and take measures to reconcile the spouses. The decision on divorce was made by the regional, regional, district, city or Supreme Court.
The father and mother of the child were recorded in the birth register. When a child was born to an unmarried mother, the child was registered using the mother's surname with a patronymic assigned at her direction. Illegitimate children were given equal rights to those born during marriage. Alimony was established in court. For the maintenance of one child, one quarter of the salary received was recovered, for the maintenance of two children - one third, and for the maintenance of three or more children - half of the defendant's salary.
The children's surname and citizenship were determined by agreement between the parents. Parents were obliged to take care of minor children, they were given the right to send their children for upbringing and education. Children are obliged to support their needy and disabled parents.
Labor law. In November 1922, the second Labor Code of the RSFSR was adopted. The Labor Code applied to all persons who worked for hire, to all organizations and individuals who used hired labor. Special attention focused on regulating labor relations in the private sector. Sanctions were provided for violators of labor discipline. A number of articles protected the interests of workers from the arbitrariness of private entrepreneurs. Social insurance was introduced, which covered all types of payments: illness, pregnancy, disability, survivor's pension. All payments were made from the funds of the enterprise or the employer. Labor disputes were considered in labor sessions of the courts.
Universal labor conscription was abolished. The principle of free hiring of labor was established. Employment contracts were concluded on the principle of voluntariness for a definite (no more than one year) and for an indefinite period. The employment contract could be terminated by agreement of the parties, at the request of the employer and at the request of the employee, who must notify the employer 7 days in advance (in case of a contract for an indefinite period). The terms of the employment contract were determined by agreement of the parties. In exceptional cases, the Code also allowed for universal labor conscription. The Code introduced the institution of collective agreements concluded by trade unions with the enterprise. Instead of social security, social insurance was introduced, which extended to employees. Insurance premiums were paid by enterprises and all users of hired labor, without the right to be deducted from the insured's salary. Social insurance provided not only for the provision of temporary disability benefits, but also for the provision of medical care, as well as the issuance of additional benefits, unemployment benefits, disability benefits, and in the event of the death of the breadwinner. The transition from an 8-hour working day to a 7-hour day began. This transition was carried out in 1928 - 1932. without salary reduction.
Mandatory intermediation of stock exchanges in the hiring of workers and employees has been abolished.
Financial right. The tax system has been streamlined. The natural tax was replaced by a monetary tax. In addition to direct taxes, indirect taxes were introduced. A number of decisions were made on the transfer of part of the agricultural tax to the volost budget, on the transfer of enterprises and property (mills and forges) to the volosts. The idea of transforming the volost “into a financial and economic unit” was implemented. In 1921 - 1923, banknotes were exchanged: first, 1 ruble was exchanged for 10,000 rubles, and then again for 100 rubles. Savings banks were created. Along with state banks, commercial, cooperative, communal banks, agricultural credit institutions, and agricultural credit partnerships were created. The credit system was restored, internal government loans were introduced. A unified monetary and credit system was established for all union republics. A unified budget of the USSR was established. All union republics, except the RSFSR, received subsidies from the all-Union budget. The Union republics, with the permission of the Union, could introduce additional taxes and fees that went to their budgets.
Land law. In May 1922, the Law on Labor Land Use was adopted, and in December - the Land Code of the RSFSR. The Code consolidated the abolition of private ownership of land, mineral resources, water and forests. Particular attention was paid to agricultural lands. The Land Code consisted of the Basic Provisions and three parts: on labor land use, on urban lands and state land properties, on land management and resettlement. All citizens of the RSFSR who wished to cultivate it with their own labor had the right to use land for farming. This right was unlimited. The purchase and sale, will, donation and pledge of land were prohibited. Labor leases and the use of hired labor were allowed in compliance with all standards labor law. Peasants were given freedom to choose forms of land use: artels, communes, TOZs, district (cut, farm), communal with equalized redistributions. Preference was given to collective forms of labor.
On December 15, 1928, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted the General Principles of Land Use and Land Management of the USSR and Union Republics, which regulated relations related to land use and land management.
Criminal law. The Criminal Code of the RSFSR was adopted on May 26, 1922 and was in force until 1961. The Criminal Code set the task of strengthening the legal protection of the state for workers from crimes and from socially dangerous elements. Protection was carried out by applying penalties or other social protection measures to violators of the revolutionary legal order.
The Criminal Code consisted of two parts: General and Special. The Code applied to all crimes committed within the RSFSR by both its citizens and foreigners. Any action or inaction directed against the Soviet system or violating the rule of law established by the workers' and peasants' government "for the period of time transitional to the communist system" was considered a crime. Criminal liability began at the age of 14. Medical and pedagogical measures were applied to adolescents from 14 to 16 years of age. Article 20 of the Criminal Code provided for exemption from liability in the event of harm caused in the conditions of necessary defense.
Crime system. In the first place were state crimes: counter-revolutionary, aimed at overthrowing Soviet power; armed uprisings to seize territory; espionage; propaganda and agitation, expressed in a call for the overthrow of Soviet power; production and storage of literature of a counter-revolutionary nature; inventing and spreading false rumors for counter-revolutionary purposes.
Crimes against the order of government included: participation in mass riots, organization and participation in gangs (armed gangs), aiding and concealing gangs, tax evasion, evasion of military service, forgery of documents, resistance to authority, forgery of banknotes and documents, concealment collections and ancient monuments.
Official crimes were recognized as abuse of power, inaction of power, negligent attitude towards service, official forgery, taking a bribe, and disclosing secret information.
The Criminal Code included crimes that violated the rules on the separation of church and state: using the religious prejudices of the masses to overthrow the government; committing deceptive acts with the aim of inciting superstition among the masses; teaching religious doctrines to children and minors; collection of fees in favor of church and religious organizations; appropriation by religious or church organizations administrative or judicial functions.
Economic crimes included labor desertion, production of substandard products, failure to fulfill contractual obligations, violation of the Labor Code by the employer, obstruction of the legitimate activities of trade unions, eviction of workers and government employees from apartments and charging rents above those established by the Council of People's Commissars, and others.
A large group consisted of crimes against life, health, freedom and dignity of the individual: intentional murder, murder by negligence, assistance or incitement to suicide minor, artificial termination of pregnancy not in medical institutions, intentional bodily harm resulting in danger to life and health, exceeding the limits of necessary defense, illegal imprisonment and others.
An important place in the Criminal Code was occupied by property crimes: theft of other people's property, purchase of stolen goods, theft of livestock, damage and destruction of property belonging to private individuals, misappropriation or waste of property by an official, fraud, forgery of official papers and receipts, sale of unusable seed material, deliberate destruction of property by arson or drowning.
Military crimes included insult by subordinate military personnel to their superior, unauthorized leaving of service, failure to report to the place of duty from a business trip on time without good reason, failure to comply with military regulations, evasion of military service, abuse of power, and looting.
The Criminal Code included crimes that constituted violations of rules protecting public health, public safety and public order, as well as crimes that constituted remnants of tribal life.
As measures of social protection of a judicial-correctional nature, the following were used: declaration of an enemy of the people with deprivation of citizenship of the union republic and mandatory expulsion from the republic, imprisonment in forced labor camps, imprisonment in places of detention, forced labor without imprisonment, defeat in political rights, dismissal from office, public censure, confiscation of property, fine, imposition of obligations to make amends for the harm caused, warning.
Imprisonment in cases of espionage, sabotage, sabotage is set for up to 10 years. Imprisonment for a term of up to three years was served in places of detention, over three years - in forced labor camps.
Medical and pedagogical measures were applied to minors and the mentally ill.
In cases pending before revolutionary tribunals, execution was used.
Criminal process. In May 1922, the first Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR was adopted, which was in force until 1960. The Code defines the principles of criminal proceedings: transparency, publicity of meetings, conducting the process in the language of the majority of the population of the area. The court was not limited by any formal obligations; the process completely depended on it. An oath was not allowed as evidence. The procedure for inquiry and investigation was regulated in detail. When passing a verdict, all issues were decided by a majority vote. The judge, who remained in the minority, had the right to express his dissenting opinion in writing, which was attached to the verdict, but was not subject to publication. The appeal was cancelled. A cassation procedure for appealing verdicts was established. The Code also contained standards for the execution of sentences.
To regulate relations in connection with the execution of sentences, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the use of labor of prisoners in places of deprivation of liberty and those serving forced labor without imprisonment" was adopted in 1921. Labor was put in first place in the re-education of convicts.
In 1924, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved the Correctional Labor Code of the RSFSR (ITC). The Code set the goals of punishing and re-educating criminals and isolating them from society. The Code stated that detention in correctional institutions should be expedient and should not be intended to cause physical suffering or humiliation of human dignity. Instead of prisons there should be labor colonies. The regime of detention of prisoners varied depending on class affiliation. Control over places of detention was carried out through public commissions, and oversight of legality was carried out by prosecutors.
At the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1927, the work of the justice authorities was seriously criticized. The congress pointed out the need to improve the activities of the judiciary in the fight against bureaucracy, and to bring to justice administrative and business workers guilty of criminal mismanagement. There was a need for better leadership of the judiciary by higher courts. In 1929, a provision was adopted on the Supreme Court of the USSR, which was given the right to give directives to the Supreme Courts of the Union republics and check the quality of their work. The supervisory functions of the Supreme Court of the USSR have expanded significantly.
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USSR IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD AND WORLD WAR II
EDUCATION USSR
During the years of the civil war, several Soviet republics arose on the outskirts of the former Russian Empire, which developed not within the framework of the RSFSR, but next to it, independently.
1919 - the formation of a military alliance between the RSFSR, the Byelorussian SSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Bukhara SSR and the Khiva SSR. In all republics there was a single politic system- Soviet power led by the Bolsheviks.
1920-1921 – accession to the military union of the Abkhaz SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Armenian SSR, Georgian SSR and Far Eastern Republic. At the same time, the military alliance was supplemented by an economic alliance. Common armed forces and national economic councils were formed, and a unified monetary system was introduced.
04-05/1922 - the formation of a diplomatic union between the Soviet republics for the period of the international conference in Genoa, where the Russian delegation represented and defended the interests of all Soviet republics.
08-12/1922 – work of the commission of the Politburo of the RCP (b) on the issue of uniting all Soviet republics into a single state.
Proposals for forms of unification of Soviet republics:
autonomy policy(J.V. Stalin) - all republics are part of the RSFSR with autonomous rights - the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, Ukraine and Georgia spoke out against the plan;
Sovietization policy(V.I. Lenin) - all republics form an equal union - the plan was approved by the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of all republics.
12/30/1922 – proclamation of the creation Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at the I All-Union Congress of Soviets - as part of 4 republics: the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR), the Belarusian Socialist Soviet Republic (BSSR), the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic (USSR) and the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (TSFSR).
12/30/1922-12/26/1991 – existence of the USSR.
07/06/1923 – creation of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
26.01-02.02/1924 – II All-Union Congress of Soviets .
01/31/1924 – acceptance Constitution of the USSR.
announced government structure The USSR is based on Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The rights of representatives of the “exploiting” classes were limited. Indirect elections were announced.
All-Union Congress of Soviets Central Executive Committee of the USSR , consisting of two chambers - Council of the Union And Council of Nationalities . The highest executive body remained - .
1924-1925 – national-territorial demarcation in Central Asia .
18-31.12/1925 – XIV Congress of the RCP(b) .
12/31/1925 – transformation Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) RKP(b) in All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (VKP(b)) .
29.11-05.12/1936 – VIII All-Union Extraordinary Congress of Soviets .
12/05/1936 – acceptance Constitution of the USSR.
It was proclaimed that socialism had won in the USSR and was basically built. The economic basis was proclaimed to be a planned socialist economic system and socialist ownership of tools and means of production, which had either the form of state ownership (national property) or the form of cooperative-collective farm ownership. Universal, equal and direct suffrage, with secret ballot, and the right to work and rest, material security in old age and illness, and the right to education (free) were announced. Freedom of conscience, speech, press, meetings and rallies was proclaimed, as well as personal inviolability and secrecy of correspondence.
The supreme state body, as well as the highest legislative and judicial body, was declared Supreme Council of the USSR , consisting of two equal chambers - Council of the Union And Council of Nationalities , and in the intervals between its sessions - Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR . The Supreme Soviet of the USSR had the right to create investigative and audit commissions on any issue; the responsibility of its deputies to voters and the right to recall those who did not justify the trust placed in them were established. The highest executive body remained Council of People's Commissars of the USSR .
Formation and renaming of the Union republics of the USSR:
10/27/1924 – education Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic And Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (separated from the RSFSR);
05.12/1929 – education Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (separated from the RSFSR);
05.12/1936 – education Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic And Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (separated from the RSFSR), liquidation of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and inclusion directly into the USSR Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic , Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic And Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic , renaming the RSFSR into Russian Soviet federal socialist republic , BSSR - in Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian SSR - in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic .
1938 – creation Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR .
NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (NEP) (1921-1929)
Russia emerged from the Civil War in a state of crisis. The crisis was comprehensive: economic devastation (industry, according to some indicators, thrown back to the level of 1861, inactive transport, sown areas reduced by half, inflation measured in thousands of percent per year, collapsed financial system) was complemented by social catastrophe (declining living standards, declassification, high mortality, famine) and political tension (distrust of Soviet power, strengthening of anti-Bolshevik sentiments).
02/21/1920 – creation State Commission for Electrification of Russia (GOELRO) .
03/18-23/1920 – decision of the VIII Congress of Soviets on the adoption of the plan State Plan for Electrification of Russia (GOELRO) . Designed for 10-15 years, it provided for the construction of 30 regional power plants (20 thermal power plants and 10 hydroelectric power stations).
03/29-04/05/1920 – decision of the IX Congress of the RCP(b) on a unified economic plan.
08-16.03/1921 – at the X Congress of the RCP(b) it was announced New Economic Policy (NEP). She recognized the need for maneuver, allowing some freedom economic activity, trade, commodity-money relations, concessions to the peasantry and private capital. Fundamentally, the goals did not change - the transition to communism remained the programmatic goal of the party and the state, but the methods of this transition were partly revised.
NEP measures:
replacement of the surplus appropriation system with a smaller tax in kind (1921);
allowing freedom of trade in agricultural products;
denationalization of small and medium-sized industry while retaining the state's so-called commanding heights - heavy industry and transport;
the consolidation of large enterprises into trusts operating on the basis of self-financing and subordinate to the Supreme Council of the National Economy;
abolition of labor conscription and labor mobilization, introduction of remuneration at tariffs taking into account the quantity and quality of products;
allowing freedom of private capital in industry, agriculture, trade, and the service sector (with restrictions), encouraging cooperation;
admission of foreign capital (concessions, leases); reconstruction of the banking and tax systems;
carrying out a monetary reform (1922) based on limiting emissions, ousting sovznak and introducing a stable currency - the chervonets.
By 1925, the pre-war level of industrial and agricultural production had been achieved, inflation had been stopped, the financial system had been stabilized, and the financial situation of the population had improved.
However, the NEP only led to the restoration of backwardness; it did not solve the problems of modernization that faced the Russian economy already at the beginning of the 20th century. Moreover, the NEP was characterized by very serious contradictions, which led to a whole series of crises and gave rise to intense struggle within the leadership of the party and state.
NEP crises:
sales of industrial goods (autumn 1923),
shortage of industrial goods (autumn 1924, autumn 1925),
grain procurements (winter 1927/1928).
Manifestation of the contradictions of the NEP:
in the economy (technical backwardness of industry - high rates of its recovery, urgent need for renewal production capacity– lack of capital within the country. the impossibility of widely attracting foreign investment, the absolute predominance of small, semi-subsistence peasant farms in the countryside);
in the social sphere (increasing inequality, rejection of the NEP by a significant part of the working class and peasantry, the feeling of the temporary nature of their situation among many representatives of the NEP bourgeoisie);
in politics (understanding the NEP as a temporary retreat, a maneuver necessary for the regrouping of forces, the preservation of numerous restrictions on private capital in industry, trade and agriculture, an intense struggle on issues related to the prospects of the NEP).
between economics and politics (an economy based on partial recognition of the market and private property could not develop stably in the conditions of a tightening one-party political regime, the program goals of which were the transition to communism - a society free of private property).
10/11/1931 – resolution on a complete ban on private trade in the USSR – official rejection of NEP .
INDUSTRIALIZATION
Industrialization- creation of large-scale machine production, especially heavy industry.
Reasons for Industrialization
1925 – decision of the XIV Congress of the CPSU(b) on course towards industrialization, which included measures to ensure the economic independence of the USSR, priority development of heavy and defense industries, and bridging the gap with Western countries.
1927 – definition of basic industrialization approaches:
1 – justified by prominent economists: capital for financing industrialization will provide the development of private entrepreneurship, attracting foreign loans, and expanding trade turnover; the pace of industrialization must be high, but at the same time focus on real opportunities, and not on political needs; industrialization should not lead to a sharp drop in the living standards of the population, the peasantry first of all;
2 – justified by the leaders of the left opposition: it is not possible to finance industrialization from external resources; it is necessary to find funds within the country, pumping them into heavy industry from light industry and agriculture; it is necessary to accelerate industrial growth and industrialize rapidly in 5-10 years; it is criminal to think about the cost of industrialization; the peasantry is an “internal colony” that will pay for all the difficulties.
1927 - drawing up directives for the five-year plan, mainly based on the first approach.
1928 – demand of I.V. Stalin to revise the planned targets in the direction of their sharp increase; supporters of the old figures were branded as representatives of the “right deviation”, and their political leaders, led by N.I. Bukharin, were defamed. The policy of accelerating industrialization prevailed: in ten years, “to cover the distance of 50-100 years,” by which the USSR lagged behind the advanced countries of the West. Complete rejection of the NEP.
1928-1932 – I five-year plan . It was completed ahead of schedule in terms of its main indicators. Capital investment in industrialization was insufficient. Therefore, their sources were resources pumped out of agriculture, government loans, forced confiscation of valuables from the population and religious organizations, and the export of natural resources.
1933-1937 – II five-year plan . The slogan is “Personnel who have mastered technology decide everything.” Enterprises have acquired a network of schools and vocational training courses. Socialist competitions . Stakhanov movement .
1938-1942 – III five-year plan . Disrupted due to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War.
The USSR took second place in the world in terms of industrial production (total growth by 4.5 times); the gap between the USSR and Western countries in terms of industrial production per capita has narrowed; dozens of large industrial enterprises were built; new industries emerged; unemployment disappeared. The USSR became capable of producing all types of modern industrial products. However, the planned growth rates were not achieved, and there was a tendency towards their constant decline. The price of success: the neglect of agriculture, the lag of light industry, a significant decline in the living standards of the population, the increasingly widespread use of free prison labor, the formation of a super-centralized command economy.
COLLECTIVIZATION
Collectivization– transfer by the state of formal ownership rights to the means of production to groups of citizens or collective farms under its control; mass creation of collective farms (collective farms).
Collective farms began to emerge at the turn of 1917-1918.
Forms of collective farms:
TOZ (partnerships for joint cultivation of land);
Reasons for collectivization
1926-1929 – grain procurement crises .
The essence of the grain procurement crisis was that the peasants were reducing grain supplies to the state and disrupting the planned indicators: fixed purchasing prices were too low, and systematic attacks on the countryside did not encourage expansion of sown areas and increased yields. The party and the state assessed the problems, which were economic in nature, as political, so the corresponding decisions were: a ban on free trade in grain, confiscation of grain reserves, incitement of the poor against the wealthy part of the village. The results convinced of the effectiveness of violent measures. The accelerated industrialization that began also required colossal investments. Their main source was recognized as the village, which, according to the plans of the developers of the new general line, was supposed to uninterruptedly supply industry with raw materials and cities with food.
1927 - decision of the XV Congress of the CPSU (b) that collectivization should become the main task of the party in the countryside.
1929 – publication of Stalin’s article "The Year of the Great Breakthrough" , in which accelerated collective farm construction was recognized as the main task, the solution of which in three years will make the country “one of the most grain-producing, if not the most grain-producing country in the world.” The choice was made in favor of the liquidation of individual farms, dispossession, destruction of the grain market, and the actual nationalization of the village economy.
1929-1937 – holding collectivization.
A truly rapid pace of collectivization was established: in the Volga region and the North Caucasus it was to be completed within one year; in Ukraine, in the black earth regions of Russia, in Kazakhstan - for two years; in other regions - for three years. To speed up collectivization, “ideologically literate” urban workers were sent to the villages (first 25, and then another 35 thousand people). Punitive authorities deprived those who persisted of voting rights, confiscated property, intimidated them, and put them under arrest.
Mass dispossession. On the eve of collectivization there were about 3% of wealthy farms; In some areas, up to 10-15% of individual farms were subject to dispossession; in total, it affected at least 1 million farms. The departure of peasant families to the city, the slaughter of livestock, and uprisings begin.
06/05/1929 – resolution of the USSR STO on the widespread creation machine and tractor stations (MTS) – state agricultural enterprises that provided technical and organizational assistance with agricultural machinery to collective farms.
1930 – adoption of a law banning land lease and hired labor.
1930 – approval model charter agricultural artel - personal lands, small equipment, livestock, and poultry were retained in the sole use of collective farmers.
1930 – publication of Stalin’s article "Dizziness from success" , in which responsibility for violence and coercion was placed on local authorities. The state had to retreat temporarily, but in the autumn of 1930 the pressure intensified again.
1932-1933 – Holodomor - mass famine in Ukraine, the North Caucasus and Kazakhstan - more than 3 million people died.
1937 – collectivization was declared complete – about 93% of peasants were members of collective farms.
Collectivization led to a reduction in grain production, livestock numbers, yields, sown areas, the destruction of the individual peasantry, etc., although state grain procurements increased by 2 times, taxes from collective farms by 3.5 times. Collective farms, which formally remained voluntary cooperative associations, in fact turned into a type of state enterprise that had strict planned targets and were subject to directive management. During the passport reform, collective farmers did not receive passports.
01.08/1939 – opening in Moscow All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSKHV) .
STALINISM
1921 – adoption of a resolution by the X Congress of the RCP(b) "On Party Unity", which prohibited any factional activity.
1921 – course towards the establishment of a one-party political system.
Right-wing parties were banned back in 1917.
1921 – self-dissolution in the RSFSR Bunda (General Jewish Labor Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia) .
1922 - trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries accused of organizing conspiracies against Soviet power and the leaders of the RCP (b) - liquidation AKP - Social Revolutionaries.
1923 – self-dissolution RSDP(o) - Mensheviks.
1925 – liquidation of the last Menshevik organizations in the USSR.
21.01/1924 – death of V.I. Lenin - the beginning of the internal party struggle.
21.01/1924 – "Lenin's call" – massive recruitment of workers and poor peasants into the RCP(b).
Stages of internal party struggle - Stalin's victories:
1923-1924 – "triumvirate" (J.V. Stalin - General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), G. E. Zinoviev - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, Chairman of the Petrograd (from 1924 - Leningrad) Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and L B. Kamenev - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Member of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, Chairman of the Council of Labor and Defense of the USSR, People's Commissar of Foreign and Internal Trade of the USSR) against L. D. Trotsky - Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, People's Commissar on military and naval affairs of the USSR: Trotsky demands to stop retreating before the petty-bourgeois element, “tighten the screws,” tighten the command leadership of the economy, accuses the party leaders of degeneration;
1925 – J.V. Stalin – General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b), N.I. Bukharin – Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b), Member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, editor of the newspaper “Pravda”, editor of the magazine “Bolshevik”, A. I. Rykov - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs of the USSR, M. P. Tomsky - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Candidate member of the Organizing Bureau of the All-Union Communist Party (b), Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, etc. against "new opposition" (G. E. Zinoviev - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, Chairman of the Leningrad Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, and L. B. Kamenev - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Chairman of the Council of Labor and Defense of the USSR , People's Commissar for Foreign and Internal Trade of the USSR): Stalin puts forward the thesis about “the possibility of building socialism in a single country”; the opposition defends the old slogan of “world revolution” and criticizes the authoritarian methods of party leadership;
10.31/1925 - possible murder during a surgical operation of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR, candidate member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, M. V. Frunze, on the orders of Stalin, who saw him as a rival;
1926-1927 – J.V. Stalin – General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b), N.I. Bukharin – Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b), Member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, editor of the newspaper “Pravda”, editor of the magazine “Bolshevik”, A. I. Rykov - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs of the USSR, and M. P. Tomsky - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions against "united opposition" ("Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc" ) (G. E. Zinoviev - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, Chairman of the Leningrad Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, L. B. Kamenev - Plenipotentiary Representative of the USSR in Italy, Member of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, L D. Trotsky): the struggle continues around Stalin’s thesis about building socialism in a single country, the opposition demands to speed up the development of industry by “pumping out” money from the countryside;
1927 – expulsion of L. D. Trotsky from the CPSU (b), his deportation to Alma-Ata;
1928-1929 – I.V. Stalin – General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) against "right opposition" (N. I. Bukharin - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b), Member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, editor of the newspaper "Pravda", editor of the magazine "Bolshevik", A. I. Rykov - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b), Chairman of the People's Council Commissars of the USSR, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs of the USSR, M. P. Tomsky - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions): Stalin puts forward a course towards accelerated industrialization carried out at the expense of the peasantry, talks about strengthening the class struggle, Bukharin develops a theory about “growing into” socialism, about civil peace and support for the peasantry;
1929 – expulsion of L. D. Trotsky abroad,
1932 - L. D. Trotsky was deprived of USSR citizenship.
Since the 1930s, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) has been a single, strictly centralized, strictly subordinate, well-functioning mechanism. It was the only legal political organization. The councils, which were formally the main bodies of the dictatorship of the proletariat, acted under its control, all state decisions were made by the Politburo and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and only then formalized by government resolutions. Leading party figures occupied leading positions in the state. All personnel work was carried out through party bodies.
Original “schools of communism” (trade unions for workers, the Komsomol for youth, a pioneer organization for children and teenagers, creative unions for the intelligentsia), they, in essence, served as representatives of the party in various strata of society.
Stalin's personality cult:“Whoever is not with us is against us”; The USSR is a stronghold of the progressive public all over the world; “Stalin is Lenin today.”
Political repression:
05-07/1928 – "Shakhty case" – a trial of a group of engineers and technicians of the coal industry from the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR and the Donugol trust, accused of creating a counter-revolutionary sabotage organization that specifically caused accidents in the Donbass mines and was associated with Moscow saboteurs and foreign anti-Soviet centers;
12/1929-08/1930 – “The Case of the Academicians” (“The Platonov-Tarle Case”) – trial of academicians of the USSR Academy of Sciences, accused of creating a monarchical counter-revolutionary organization;
11-12/1930 – "The Case of the Industrial Party" – a trial of a group of engineers and technicians accused of creating an anti-Soviet underground organization, the Union of Engineering Organizations, allegedly associated with white emigrants in France and the French general staff and preparing foreign intervention and the overthrow of Soviet power;
11/1930-05/1931 – case "Spring" ("Guards case") – repressions against military experts - officers of the Red Army and the Red Army Navy, who previously served in the RIA and RIVMF, suspected of anti-Soviet activities;
03/1931 – "The Menshevik Cause" – a trial of former Mensheviks accused of allegedly creating the Union Bureau of the Menshevik Central Committee, the collapse of the Soviet economy and establishing contacts with the governments of imperialist states.
1930-1960 – existence Main Directorate of Camps of the NKVD of the USSR (GULAG) .
1932 – existence Union of Marxists-Leninists - an opposition organization led by M. N. Ryutin as part of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which sharply criticized the policies of I. V. Stalin and his entourage (“Stalin’s clique”).
05/1932 – distribution of the appeal “To all members of the CPSU(b)” (“Manifesto”) among the members of the CPSU(b).
07/1932 – distribution of the article “Stalin and the crisis of the proletarian dictatorship” among members of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
09/1932 – “The Case of the Union of Marxists-Leninists” (“The Ryutin Case”) – trial of members of the Union of Marxists-Leninists accused of anti-Soviet activities.
12/01/1934 - murder for personal reasons of the 1st Secretary of the Leningrad Regional and City Committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, member of the Political and Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks S. M. Kirov. This event is considered the beginning of widespread Stalinist repressions.
26.01-10.02/1934 – XVII Congress of the RCP(b) – "Congress of Executed Victors" .
At the congress, the results of the First Five-Year Plan were summed up and the directions for the implementation of the Second Five-Year Plan were determined, which provided for the transformation of the USSR into “a technically and economically independent country and the most technologically advanced state in Europe.” Most of the delegates to the congress will be shot in a few years.
07/1935 – "Kremlin affair" - a trial of a number of employees of the Moscow Kremlin, employees of the Kremlin commandant’s office, who were accused of creating an anti-Soviet organization and preparing an assassination attempt on I.V. Stalin.
1936-1939 – "Great Terror" (Yezhovshchina)– a period of mass political repression and persecution in the USSR.
1936-1938 – Moscow trials– trials of participants in the opposition to Stalin in the 1920s:
08/1936 – I Moscow trial (trial of the “Anti-Soviet unification of the Trotskyist-Zinoviev center”, Trial of 16) – a trial against members of the “united opposition” and emigrants from Germany - leaders of the KKE who sympathized with the “left opposition”;
01/1937 – II Moscow Trial (Trial of the “Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center”, Trial of 17) – trial against members of the “new opposition”;
03/1938 – III Moscow Trial (Trial of the “Anti-Soviet Right-Trotskyist Bloc”, Trial of the 21st, Grand Trial) – a trial against members of the “right opposition”.
"Stalin's lists"- lists of those who should be repressed were distributed according to the plan for each administrative-territorial entity of the USSR.
07/1936-07/1938 – repressions in the Red Army , – 40 thousand commanders and superiors were repressed.
04/05/1937 - arrest of G. G. Yagoda, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, accused of state and criminal crimes and connections with Trotsky, Bukharin and Rykov.
06/1937 – The Tukhachevsky Case (The Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Military Organization) – trial of senior commanders and chiefs of the Red Army, accused of preparing a military coup.
10-21.03/1939 – XVIII Congress of the CPSU(b) .
The congress summed up the results of the transition period from capitalism to socialism and outlined a course for creating conditions for the transition to communist construction.
04/10/1939 - arrest of N. I. Ezhov, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, accused of preparing an anti-Soviet conspiracy and terrorist activities.
08/20/1940 – assassination of L. D. Trotsky in Mexico by a Soviet agent.
Victims of the Great Terror, - in total, about 1.5 million people were arrested, of which about 600 thousand were sentenced to death.
FOREIGN POLICY IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD
USSR principles of foreign policy:
exit from foreign policy isolation;
promoting the world communist revolution.
1920-1939 – Versailles-Washington political system .
Main states: Great Britain and France, as well as Germany, Italy, USSR, USA and Japan.
Ideological peculiarity of the USSR, self-isolation of the USA.
1920-1946 – The League of nations – included 63 states; headquarters - in 1920 - London, from 1920 - Geneva; official languages– English, Spanish, French.
Peculiarities:
discrimination against the position of defeated states;
establishing the right to collectively change the characteristics of the international system and formulate its principles by the leading victorious states;
the formation of a number of new states in Europe, the foreign policy of which at later stages of the development of the system had a significant impact on the development of crisis processes;
completion of the Eurocentric nature of international relations;
the presence of differences in processes in the European and Far Eastern international subsystems, which in turn led to subsequent destabilization of the system;
the presence of an egalitarian-hierarchical type of control of international relations, in which there was a certain hierarchy of means and subjects of systemic control, and in practice the main elements of control were formalized in an egalitarian way;
the establishment of the principle of “freedom of the seas,” which presupposed freedom of navigation for ships of all states on the open seas and oceans;
the establishment of the principle of “equal opportunity”, which presupposed the equal right of colonial powers to dominate the colonies.
1920 – conclusion of peace treaties by the RSFSR with Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1921 – conclusion of trade and economic agreements by the RSFSR with Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Norway, etc.
1921-1927 – provision of assistance to the Chinese communists by the RSFSR (USSR).
10.04-19.05/1922 – Genoa International Conference . Main question, over which the struggle unfolded, was associated with the settlement of Russia's debts to European countries.
16.04/1922 – Treaty of Rapallo between Russia and Germany on the restoration of diplomatic relations and trade cooperation.
1923 – the Comintern allocated significant funds to support revolutionary uprisings in Germany and Bulgaria.
1924-1925 – recognition of the USSR by Great Britain, France, Italy, Austria, Norway, Sweden, China, etc.
1926 - the USSR provided assistance to striking British miners.
05/02/1927 – Soviet-British diplomatic conflict due to British protest against USSR support for China and the subversive activities of the Comintern in London.
1927-1929 – rupture of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Great Britain.
1928 – approval of Stalin’s idea of building socialism in a single country.
10-12/1929 – Conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway- Soviet-Chinese conflict - the Chinese tried to seize the CER, but its1 status was restored.
1933 – diplomatic recognition of the USSR by the United States.
1918-1938 – Basmachism (from the Turkic “attack, run”) - an anti-Soviet partisan movement in Central Asia.
1920s - guerrilla war of Karelian nationalists supported by Finland.
Related information.
NEP (New Economic Policy) was carried out by the Soviet government from 1921 to 1928. This was an attempt to bring the country out of the crisis and give impetus to the development of the economy and agriculture. But the results of the NEP turned out to be terrible, and ultimately Stalin had to hastily interrupt this process to create industrialization, since the NEP policy almost completely killed heavy industry.
Reasons for introducing the NEP
With the beginning of the winter of 1920, the RSFSR plunged into a terrible crisis. It was largely due to the fact that in 1921-1922 there was a famine in the country. The Volga region suffered mainly (we all understand sadly famous phrase"The Starving Volga Region"). Added to this was the economic crisis, as well as popular uprisings against the Soviet regime. No matter how many textbooks tell us that people greeted the power of the Soviets with applause, this was not so. For example, uprisings took place in Siberia, on the Don, in the Kuban, and the largest one was in Tambov. It went down in history under the name Antonov uprising or “Antonovschina.” In the spring of 21, about 200 thousand people were involved in the uprising. Considering that the Red Army at that moment was extremely weak, then this was a very serious threat to the regime. Then the Kronstadt rebellion was born. At the cost of effort, all these revolutionary elements were suppressed, but it became obvious that the approach to government management needed to be changed. And the conclusions were made correctly. Lenin formulated them this way:
- The driving force of socialism is the proletariat, which means the peasants. Therefore, the Soviet government must learn to get along with them.
- it is necessary to create a unified party system in the country and destroy any dissent.
This is precisely the essence of the NEP - “Economic liberalization under strict political control.”
In general, all the reasons for the introduction of the NEP can be divided into ECONOMIC (the country needed an impetus for economic development), SOCIAL (social division was still extremely acute) and POLITICAL (the new economic policy became a means of managing power).
Beginning of the NEP
The main stages of the introduction of the NEP in the USSR:
- Decision of the 10th Congress of the Bolshevik Party of 1921.
- Replacing the appropriation tax (in fact, this was the introduction of the NEP). Decree of March 21, 1921.
- Allowing free exchange of agricultural products. Decree March 28, 1921.
- Creation of cooperatives, which were destroyed in 1917. Decree of April 7, 1921.
- Transfer of some industry from state hands to private hands. Decree May 17, 1921.
- Creating conditions for the development of private trade. Decree May 24, 1921.
- Resolution to TEMPORARILY provide the opportunity for private owners to lease state-owned enterprises. Decree July 5, 1921.
- Permission for private capital to create any enterprise (including industrial) with a staff of up to 20 people. If the enterprise is mechanized - no more than 10. Decree of July 7, 1921.
- Adoption of a “liberal” Land Code. He allowed not only the rental of land, but also hired labor on it. Decree of October 1922.
The ideological foundation of the NEP was laid at the 10th Congress of the RCP (b), which met in 1921 (if you remember, its participants went straight from this congress of delegates to suppress the Kronstadt rebellion), adopted the NEP and introduced a ban on “dissent” in the RCP (b). The fact is that before 1921 there were different factions in the RCP (b). This was allowed. According to logic, and this logic is absolutely correct, if economic relief is introduced, then within the party there must be a monolith. Therefore, there are no factions or divisions.
Justification of the NEP from the point of view of Soviet ideology
The ideological concept of the NEP was first given by V.I. Lenin. This happened at a speech at the tenth and eleventh congresses of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which took place in 1921 and 1922, respectively. Also, the rationale for the New Economic Policy was voiced at the third and fourth congresses of the Comintern, which also took place in 1921 and 1922. In addition, Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin played a major role in formulating the tasks of the NEP. It is important to remember that for a long time Bukharin and Lenin acted in opposition to each other on NEP issues. Lenin proceeded from the fact that the time had come to ease the pressure on the peasants and “make peace” with them. But Lenin was going to get along with the peasants not forever, but for 5-10 years. Therefore, the majority of members of the Bolshevik Party were sure that the NEP, as a forced measure, was being introduced for just one grain procurement company, as a deception for the peasantry. But Lenin especially emphasized that the NEP course is taken for a more long term. And then Lenin said a phrase that showed that the Bolsheviks were keeping their word - “but we will return to terror, including economic terror.” If we remember the events of 1929, then this is exactly what the Bolsheviks did. The name of this terror is Collectivization.
The New Economic Policy was designed for 5, maximum 10 years. And it certainly fulfilled its task, although at some point it threatened the existence of the Soviet Union.
Briefly, the NEP, according to Lenin, is a bond between the peasantry and the proletariat. This is precisely what formed the basis of the events of those days - if you are against the bond between the peasantry and the proletariat, then you are an opponent of the workers’ power, the Soviets and the USSR. The problems of this bond became a problem for the survival of the Bolshevik regime, because the regime simply did not have the army or equipment to crush the peasant revolts if they began en masse and in an organized manner. That is, some historians say that the NEP is the Brest peace of the Bolsheviks with their own people. That is, what kind of Bolsheviks are the International Socialists who wanted a world revolution. Let me remind you that it was this idea that Trotsky promoted. First, Lenin, who was not a very great theorist, (he was a good practitioner), he defined the NEP as state capitalism. And immediately for this he received a full portion of criticism from Bukharin and Trotsky. And after this, Lenin began to interpret the NEP as a mixture of Socialist and capitalist forms. I repeat - Lenin was not a theorist, but a practitioner. He lived by the principle - it is important for us to take power, but what it will be called is unimportant.
Lenin, in fact, accepted Bukharin’s version of the NEP with its wording and other attributes..
The NEP is a socialist dictatorship based on socialist production relations and regulating the broad petty-bourgeois organization of the economy.
Lenin
According to the logic of this definition, the main task facing the leadership of the USSR was the destruction of the petty-bourgeois economy. Let me remind you that the Bolsheviks called peasant farming petty-bourgeois. You need to understand that by 1922 the building of socialism had reached a dead end and Lenin realized that this movement could only be continued through the NEP. It is clear that this is not the main path, and it contradicted Marxism, but as a workaround it was quite suitable. And Lenin constantly emphasized that new policy- a temporary phenomenon.
General characteristics of NEP
The totality of the NEP:
- rejection of labor mobilization and an equal wage system for all.
- transfer (partial, of course) of industry into private hands from state ones (denationalization).
- creation of new economic associations - trusts and syndicates. Widespread introduction of self-financing
- the formation of enterprises in the country at the expense of capitalism and the bourgeoisie, including the Western one.
Looking ahead, I will say that the NEP led to the fact that many idealistic Bolsheviks shot themselves in the forehead. They believed that capitalism was being restored, and they shed blood in vain during the Civil War. But the non-idealistic Bolsheviks made great use of the NEP, because during the NEP it was easy to launder what was stolen during the Civil War. Because, as we will see, NEP is a triangle: it is the head of a separate link of the party’s Central Committee, the head of a syndicator or trust, and also NEPman as a “huckster,” in modern language, through whom this whole process takes place. In general, this was a corruption scheme from the very beginning, but the NEP was a forced measure - the Bolsheviks would not have retained power without it.
NEP in trade and finance
- Development of the credit system. In 1921, a state bank was created.
- Reforming the financial and monetary system of the USSR. This was achieved through the reform of 1922 (monetary) and the replacement of the money of 1922-1924.
- The emphasis is on private (retail) trade and the development of various markets, including the All-Russian one.
If we try to briefly characterize the NEP, then this structure was extremely unreliable. It took ugly forms of merging the personal interests of the country's leadership and everyone who was involved in the "Triangle". Each of them played their role. The menial work was done by the NEP man speculator. And this was especially emphasized in Soviet textbooks, saying that it was all private traders who ruined the NEP, and we fought against them as best we could. But in fact, the NEP led to colossal corruption of the party. This was one of the reasons for the abolition of the NEP, because if it had been maintained further, the party would simply have completely disintegrated.
Beginning in 1921, the Soviet leadership set a course towards weakening Centralization. In addition, much attention was paid to the element of reforming economic systems in the country. Labor mobilizations were replaced by labor exchanges (unemployment was high). Equalization was abolished, the card system was abolished (but for some, the card system was a salvation). It is logical that the results of the NEP almost immediately had a positive impact on trade. Naturally in retail trade. Already at the end of 1921, the Nepmen controlled 75% of trade turnover in retail trade and 18% in wholesale trade. NEPism has become a profitable form of money laundering, especially for those who looted a lot during the civil war. Their loot lay idle, and now it could be sold through the NEPmen. And many people laundered their money this way.
NEP in agriculture
- Adoption of the Land Code. (22nd year). Transformation of the tax in kind into a single agricultural tax since 1923 (since 1926, entirely in cash).
- Agricultural cooperation cooperation.
- Equal (fair) exchange between agriculture and industry. But this was not achieved, as a result of which the so-called “price scissors” appeared.
At the bottom of society, the party leadership's turn to the NEP did not find much support. Many members of the Bolshevik Party were sure that this was a mistake and a transition from socialism to capitalism. Someone simply sabotaged the decision of the NEP, and those who were especially ideological even committed suicide. In October 1922, the New Economic Policy affected agriculture - the Bolsheviks began implementing the Land Code with new amendments. Its difference was that it legalized wage labor in the countryside (it would seem that the Soviet government was fighting precisely against this, but it did the same thing itself). The next stage occurred in 1923. This year, something happened that many had been waiting for and demanding for so long - the tax in kind was replaced by an agricultural tax. In 1926, this tax began to be collected entirely in cash.
In general, the NEP was not an absolute triumph of economic methods, as it was sometimes written in Soviet textbooks. It was only outwardly a triumph of economic methods. In fact, there was a lot of other things there. And I don’t just mean the so-called excesses of local authorities. The fact is that a significant part of the peasant product was alienated in the form of taxes, and taxation was excessive. Another thing is that the peasant got the opportunity to breathe freely, and this solved some problems. And here the absolutely unfair exchange between agriculture and industry, the formation of the so-called “price scissors,” came to the fore. The regime increased prices for industrial products and decreased prices for agricultural products. As a result, in 1923-1924 the peasants worked for practically nothing! The laws were such that the peasants were forced to sell approximately 70% of everything that the village produced for next to nothing. 30% of the product they produced was taken by the state at market value, and 70% at a reduced price. Then this figure decreased, and it became approximately 50/50. But in any case, this is a lot. 50% of products are priced below the market price.
As a result, the worst happened - the market ceased to perform its direct functions as a means of buying and selling goods. Now it has turned into an effective time of exploitation of the peasants. Only half of the peasant goods were purchased with money, and the other half was collected in the form of tribute (this is the most accurate definition of what happened in those years). The NEP can be characterized as follows: corruption, a swollen apparatus, massive theft of state property. The result was a situation where peasant production was used irrationally, and often the peasants themselves were not interested in high yields. This was a logical consequence of what was happening, because the NEP was initially an ugly design.
NEP in industry
The main features that characterize the New Economic Policy from the point of view of industry are practically complete absence development of this industry and a huge level of unemployment among ordinary people.
The NEP was initially supposed to establish interaction between city and village, between workers and peasants. But it was not possible to do this. The reason is that industry was almost completely destroyed as a result of the Civil War, and it was not able to offer anything significant to the peasantry. The peasantry did not sell their grain, because why sell if you can’t buy anything with money anyway. They simply stored the grain and did not buy anything. Therefore, there was no incentive for the development of industry. It turned out to be such a “vicious circle”. And in 1927-1928, everyone already understood that the NEP had outlived its usefulness, that it did not provide an incentive for the development of industry, but, on the contrary, destroyed it even more.
At the same time, it became clear that sooner or later a new war was coming in Europe. Here is what Stalin said about this in 1931:
If in the next 10 years we do not cover the path that the West has covered in 100 years, we will be destroyed and crushed.
Stalin
If you say in simple words- in 10 years it was necessary to raise industry from the ruins and put it on a par with the most developed countries. The NEP did not allow this to be done, because it was focused on light industry and on Russia being a raw materials appendage of the West. That is, in this regard, the implementation of the NEP was a ballast that slowly but surely dragged Russia to the bottom, and if this course had been maintained for another 5 years, it is unknown how World War 2 would have ended.
The slow pace of industrial growth in the 1920s caused a sharp rise in unemployment. If in 1923-1924 there were 1 million unemployed in the city, then in 1927-1928 there were already 2 million unemployed. The logical consequence of this phenomenon is a huge increase in crime and discontent in cities. For those who worked, of course, the situation was normal. But overall the situation of the working class was very difficult.
Development of the USSR economy during the NEP period
- Economic booms alternated with crises. Everyone knows the crises of 1923, 1925 and 1928, which also led to famine in the country.
- Lack of a unified system for the development of the country's economy. The NEP crippled the economy. It did not provide an opportunity for the development of industry, but agriculture could not develop under such conditions. These 2 spheres slowed each other down, although the opposite was planned.
- The grain procurement crisis of 1927-28 28 and, as a result, the course to curtail the NEP.
The most important part of the NEP, by the way, one of the few positive traits this policy is “lifting up the financial system from its knees.” Let’s not forget that the Civil War has just ended, which almost completely destroyed the Russian financial system. Prices in 1921 compared to 1913 increased 200 thousand times. Just think about this number. Over 8 years, 200 thousand times... Naturally, it was necessary to introduce other money. Reform was needed. The reform was carried out by People's Commissar of Finance Sokolnikov, who was assisted by a group of old specialists. In October 1921, the State Bank began its work. As a result of his work, in the period from 1922 to 1924, depreciated Soviet money was replaced by Chervontsi
The chervonets was backed by gold, the content of which corresponded to the pre-revolutionary ten-ruble coin, and cost 6 American dollars. Chervonets was backed by both our gold and foreign currency.
Historical reference
Sovznak were withdrawn and exchanged at the rate of 1 new ruble 50,000 old signs. This money was called “Sovznaki”. During the NEP, cooperation actively developed and economic liberalization was accompanied by the strengthening of communist power. The repressive apparatus also strengthened. And how did this happen? For example, on June 6, 22, GlavLit was created. This is censorship and establishing control over censorship. A year later, GlavRepedKom emerged, which was in charge of the theater’s repertoire. In 1922, by decision of this body, more than 100 people, active cultural figures, were expelled from the USSR. Others were less fortunate and were sent to Siberia. The teaching of bourgeois disciplines was banned in schools: philosophy, logic, history. In 1936 everything was restored. Also, the Bolsheviks and the church did not ignore them. In October 1922, the Bolsheviks confiscated jewelry from the church, supposedly to fight hunger. In June 1923, Patriarch Tikhon recognized the legitimacy of Soviet power, and in 1925 he was arrested and died. A new patriarch was no longer elected. The patriarchate was then restored by Stalin in 1943.
On February 6, 1922, the Cheka was transformed into the state political department of the GPU. From emergency ones, these bodies turned into state, regular ones.
The NEP culminated in 1925. Bukharin addressed an appeal to the peasantry (primarily to the wealthy peasants).
Get rich, accumulate, develop your farm.
Bukharin
At the 14th party conference, Bukharin's plan was adopted. He was actively supported by Stalin, and criticized by Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. Economic development during the NEP period was uneven: first crisis, sometimes recovery. And this was due to the fact that the necessary balance between the development of agriculture and the development of industry was not found. The grain procurement crisis of 1925 was the first sound of the bell on the NEP. It became clear that the NEP would soon end, but due to inertia it continued for several more years.
Cancellation of NEP - reasons for cancellation
- July and November plenum of the Central Committee of 1928. Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party and the Central Control Commission(to which one could complain about the Central Committee) April 1929.
- reasons for the abolition of the NEP (economic, social, political).
- was the NEP an alternative to real communism.
In 1926, the 15th party conference of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) met. It condemned the Trotskyist-Zinovievist opposition. Let me remind you that this opposition actually called for a war with the peasantry - to take away from them what the authorities need and what the peasants are hiding. Stalin sharply criticized this idea, and also directly voiced the position that the current policy had outlived its usefulness, and the country needed a new approach to development, an approach that would allow the restoration of industry, without which the USSR could not exist.
Since 1926, a tendency towards the abolition of the NEP gradually begins to emerge. In 1926-27, grain reserves for the first time exceeded pre-war levels and amounted to 160 million tons. But the peasants still did not sell bread, and industry was suffocating from overexertion. The left opposition (its ideological leader was Trotsky) proposed confiscating 150 million poods of grain from wealthy peasants, who made up 10% of the population, but the leadership of the CPSU (b) did not agree to this, because this would mean a concession to the left opposition.
Throughout 1927, the Stalinist leadership conducted maneuvers to completely eliminate the left opposition, because without this it was impossible to resolve the peasant question. Any attempt to put pressure on the peasants would mean that the party has taken the path that the “Left Wing” is talking about. At the 15th Congress, Zinoviev, Trotsky and other left oppositionists were expelled from the Central Committee. However, after they repented (this was called in party language “disarming before the party”) they were returned, because the Stalinist center needed them for the future fight against the Bucharest team.
The struggle for the abolition of the NEP unfolded as a struggle for industrialization. This was logical, because industrialization was task number 1 for the self-preservation of the Soviet state. Therefore, the results of the NEP can be briefly summarized as follows: the ugly economic system created many problems that could only be solved thanks to industrialization.
NEP is a policy of the Soviet government, under which all enterprises of one industry were subordinate to a single central management body - the main committee (head office). Changed the policy of “war communism”. The transition from “war communism” to the NEP was proclaimed by the X Congress of the Russian Communist Party in March 1921. The initial idea of the transition was formulated in the works of V.I. Lenin 1921-1923: the ultimate goal remains the same - socialism, but the situation in Russia after the civil war dictates the need resort to a “reformist” method of action in fundamental issues of economic construction. Instead of a direct and complete breakdown of the old system to replace it with a new socio-economic structure, carried out during the years of “war communism”, the Bolsheviks took a “reformist” approach: not to break the old socio-economic structure, trade, small farming, small business, capitalism, but carefully and gradually master them and gain the opportunity to subject them to government regulation. In Lenin's last works, the concept of NEP included ideas about the use of commodity-money relations, all forms of ownership - state, cooperative, private, mixed, self-financing. It was proposed to temporarily retreat from the achieved “military-communist” gains, to take a step back in order to gain strength for the leap to socialism.
Initially, the framework of the NEP reforms was determined by the party leadership by the extent to which the reforms strengthened its monopoly on power. The main measures taken within the framework of the NEP: surplus appropriation was replaced by a food tax, followed by new measures designed to interest broad social strata in the results of their economic activities. Free trade was legalized, private individuals received the right to engage in handicrafts and open industrial enterprises with up to a hundred workers. Small nationalized enterprises were returned to their former owners. In 1922 the right to lease land and use hired labor was recognized; The system of labor duties and labor mobilizations was abolished. Payment in kind was replaced by cash, a new state bank was established and the banking system was restored.
The ruling party carried out all these changes without abandoning its ideological views and command methods of managing socio-political and economic processes. “War communism” gradually lost ground.
For its development, the NEP needed the decentralization of economic management, and in August 1921 the Council of Labor and Defense (SLO) adopted a resolution to reorganize the central administration system, in which all enterprises of the same industry were subordinate to a single central management body - the main committee (main committee). The number of branch headquarters was reduced, and only large industry and basic sectors of the economy remained in the hands of the state.
Partial denationalization of property, privatization of many previously nationalized enterprises, a system of running the economy based on cost accounting, competition, and the introduction of leasing of joint ventures - all these are characteristic features of the NEP. At the same time, these “capitalist” economic elements were combined with coercive measures adopted during the years of “war communism.”
The NEP led to a rapid economic recovery. The economic interest that appeared among peasants in the production of agricultural products made it possible to quickly saturate the market with food and overcome the consequences of the hungry years of “war communism.”
However, already at the early stage of the NEP (1921-1923), recognition of the role of the market was combined with measures to abolish it. Most Communist Party leaders viewed the NEP as a “necessary evil,” fearing that it would lead to the restoration of capitalism. Many Bolsheviks retained “military-communist” illusions that the destruction of private property, trade, money, equality in the distribution of material goods lead to communism, and the NEP is a betrayal of communism. In essence, the NEP was designed to continue the course towards socialism, through maneuvering, social compromise with the majority of the population, to move the country towards the party’s goal - socialism, although more slowly and with less risk. It was believed that in market relations the role of the state was the same as under “war communism,” and that it should carry out economic reform within the framework of “socialism.” All this was taken into account in the laws adopted in 1922 and in subsequent legislative acts.
The admission of market mechanisms, which led to economic recovery, allowed the political regime to strengthen. However, its fundamental incompatibility with the essence of the NEP as a temporary economic compromise with the peasantry and bourgeois elements of the city inevitably led to the rejection of the idea of the NEP. Even in the most favorable years for its development (until the mid-20s), progressive steps in pursuing this policy were made uncertainly, contradictorily, with an eye to the past stage of “war communism.”
Soviet and, for the most part, post-Soviet historiography, reducing the reasons for the collapse of the NEP to purely economic factors, deprived itself of the opportunity to fully reveal its contradictions - between the requirements for the normal functioning of the economy and the political priorities of the party leadership, aimed first at limiting and then completely crowding out private manufacturer.
The country’s leadership’s interpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the suppression of all those who disagree with it, as well as the continued adherence of the majority of the party’s cadres to the “military-communist” views adopted during the civil war, reflected the communists’ inherent desire to achieve their ideological principles. At the same time, the strategic goal of the party (socialism) remained the same, and the NEP was seen as a temporary retreat from the “war communism” achieved over the years. Therefore, everything was done to prevent the NEP from going beyond limits dangerous for this purpose.
Market methods of regulating the economy in NEP Russia were combined with non-economic methods, with administrative intervention. The predominance of state ownership of the means of production and large-scale industry was the objective basis for such intervention.
During the NEP years, the party and state leaders did not want reforms, but were concerned that the private sector would gain an advantage over the public sector. Fearful of the NEP, they took measures to discredit it. Official propaganda treated the private trader in every possible way, and the image of the “NEPman” as an exploiter, a class enemy, was formed in the public consciousness. Since the mid-20s, measures to curb the development of the NEP gave way to a course towards its curtailment. The dismantling of NEPA began behind the scenes, first with measures to tax the private sector, then depriving it of legal guarantees. At the same time, loyalty to the new economic policy was proclaimed at all party forums. On December 27, 1929, in a speech at a conference of Marxist historians, Stalin stated: “If we adhere to the NEP, it is because it serves the cause of socialism. And when it ceases to serve the cause of socialism, we will throw the new economic policy to hell.”
At the end of the 20s, considering that the new economic policy had ceased to serve socialism, the Stalinist leadership discarded it. The methods by which it curtailed the NEP indicate the difference in the approaches of Stalin and Lenin to the new economic policy. According to Lenin, with the transition to socialism, the NEP will become obsolete in the course of the evolutionary process. But by the end of the 20s there was no socialism in Russia yet, although it had been proclaimed, the NEP had not outlived its usefulness, but Stalin, contrary to Lenin, made the “transition to socialism” by violent, revolutionary means.
One of the negative aspects of this “transition” was the policy of the Stalinist leadership to eliminate the so-called “exploiting classes”. During its implementation, the village “bourgeoisie” (kulaks) were “dekulakized”, all their property was confiscated, exiled to Siberia, and the “remnants of the urban bourgeoisie” - entrepreneurs engaged in private trade, crafts and the sale of their products (“NEPmen”), as well as their family members were deprived of political rights (“disenfranchised”); many were prosecuted.
NEP (details)
IN extreme conditions civil war carried out by the Soviet government domestic politics called "war communism". The prerequisites for its implementation were laid by the widespread nationalization of industry and the creation of a state apparatus to manage it (primarily the All-Russian Council of the National Economy - VSNKh), the experience of military-political solutions to food problems through committees of the poor in the countryside. On the one hand, the policy of “war communism” was perceived by part of the country’s leadership as a natural step towards the rapid construction of market-free socialism, which supposedly corresponded to the principles of Marxist theory. In this they hoped to rely on the collectivist ideas of millions of workers and poor peasants who were ready to divide all property in the country equally. On the other hand, it was a forced policy, caused by the disruption of traditional economic ties between city and countryside, and the need to mobilize all resources to win the civil war.
It was extremely difficult internal position Soviet country. The country is in crisis:
Political- in the summer of 1920, peasant uprisings broke out in the Tambov and Voronezh provinces (as they were called - “kulak rebellions”) - Antonovism. Peasants' dissatisfaction with surplus appropriation grew into a real peasant war: Makhno's detachments in Ukraine and Antov's “peasant army” in the Tambov region numbered 50 thousand people at the beginning of 1921, the total number of detachments formed in the Urals, Western Siberia, Pomerania , in the Kuban and Don, reached 200 thousand people. On March 1, 1921, the sailors of Kronstadt rebelled. They put forward the slogans “Power to the Soviets, not parties!”, “Soviets without communists!” The rebellion in Kronstadt was eliminated, but peasant uprisings continued. These uprisings were not an accident.” In each of them, to a greater or lesser extent, there was an element of organization. It was contributed by a wide range of political forces: from monarchists to socialists. These disparate forces were united by the desire to take control of the emerging popular movement and, relying on it, to eliminate the power of the Bolsheviks;
Economic- The national economy was fragmented. The country produced 3 percent of pig iron; oil was produced 2.5 times less than in 1913. Industrial production fell to 4-2 percent of 1913 levels. The country lagged behind the United States in iron production by 72 times, in steel by 52 times, and in oil production by 19 times. If in 1913 Russia smelted 4.2 million tons of pig iron, then in 1920 it was only 115 thousand tons. This is approximately the same amount as was received in 1718 under Peter I;
Social- Hunger, poverty, unemployment were rampant in the country, crime was rampant, and child homelessness was rampant. The declassification of the working class intensified, people left the cities and went to the countryside so as not to die of hunger. This led to a reduction in the number of industrial workers by almost half (1 million 270 thousand people in 1920 versus 2 million 400 thousand people in 1913). In 1921, about 40 provinces with a population of 90 million were starving, of which 40 million were on the verge of death. 5 million people died from hunger. Child crime, compared to 1913, has increased 7.4 times. Epidemics of typhoid, cholera, and smallpox raged in the country.
Immediate, most decisive and energetic measures were needed to improve the situation of the working people and increase the productive forces.
In March 1921, at the X Congress of the RCP (b), a course towards a new economic policy (NEP) was adopted. This policy was introduced seriously and for a long time.
The purpose of adopting the NEP was aimed at:
To overcome the devastation in the country, restore the economy;
Creating the foundation of socialism;
Development of large industry;
Displacement and liquidation of capitalist elements;
Strengthening the alliance of the working class and peasantry.
“The essence of the new economic policy,” said Lenin, “is the union of the proletariat and the peasantry, the essence lies in the union of the avant-garde, the proletariat, with the broad peasant field.”
The ways to accomplish these tasks were:
All-round development of cooperation;
Widespread encouragement of trade;
The use of material incentives and economic calculations.
Contents of the new economic policy:
Replacing the surplus appropriation system with a tax in kind (the peasant could sell the remaining products after paying the tax in kind at his own discretion - either to the state or on the free market);
Introduction of free trade and circulation;
Allowance of private small commercial and industrial enterprises, while maintaining the leading industries (banks, transport, large industry, foreign trade) in the hands of the state;
Permission to rent concessions, mixed companies;
Providing freedom of action to state-owned enterprises (introducing self-financing, self-financing, product sales, self-sufficiency);
Introduction of material incentives for workers;
Elimination of rigid sectoral formations of an administrative nature - headquarters and centers;
Introduction of territorial - sectoral management of industry;
Carrying out monetary reform;
Transition from in-kind to cash wages;
Streamlining the income tax (income tax was divided into basic, which was paid by all citizens except pensioners, and progressive - paid by NEPmen, privately practicing doctors, and all those who received additional income). The greater the profit, the greater the tax. A profit limit was introduced;
Permission to hire labor, rent land, enterprises;
Revival of the credit system - the State Bank was recreated, a number of specialized banks were formed;
The introduction of the NEP caused a change social structure and people's lifestyles. The NEP provided organizational economic freedom to people and gave them the opportunity to show initiative and entrepreneurship. Private enterprises were created everywhere in the country, self-financing was introduced at state enterprises, a struggle arose against bureaucracy and administrative-command habits, and culture improved in all spheres of human activity. The introduction of a tax in kind in the countryside made it possible for the broad development of agriculture, including strong owners, who were later called “kulaks.”
The most colorful figure of that time was the new Soviet bourgeoisie - the “NEPmen”. These people largely defined the face of their era, but they were, as it were, outside of Soviet society: they were deprived of voting rights and could not be members of trade unions. Among the Nepmen, the old bourgeoisie had a large share (from 30 to 50 percent, depending on their occupation). The rest of the Nepmen came from among Soviet employees, peasants and artisans. Due to the rapid turnover of capital, the main area of activity of the Nepmen was trade. Store shelves began to quickly fill with goods and products.
At the same time, criticism of Lenin and the NEP as a “disastrous petty-bourgeois policy” was heard throughout the country.
Many communists left the RCP (b), believing that the introduction of the NEP meant the restoration of capitalism and a betrayal of socialist principles. At the same time, it should be noted that, despite partial denationalization and concession, the state retained at its disposal the most powerful sector of the national economy. Basic industries remained completely outside the market - energy, metallurgy, oil production and refining, coal mining, defense industry, foreign trade, railways, communications.
Important points of the new economic policy:
The peasant was given the opportunity to truly become a master;
Small and medium-sized entrepreneurs were given freedom of development;
Monetary reform, the introduction of convertible currency - the chervonets - stabilized the financial situation in the country.
In 1923, all types of natural taxation in the countryside were replaced by a single agricultural tax in cash, which, of course, was beneficial to the peasant, because allowed you to maneuver crop rotation at your own discretion and determine the direction of development of your farm in terms of growing certain crops, raising livestock, producing handicrafts, etc.
On the basis of the NEP, rapid economic growth began in the city and countryside, and the living standards of the working people rose. The market mechanism made it possible to quickly restore industry, the size of the working class and, most importantly, increase labor productivity. Already by the end of 1923 year it more than doubled. By 1925, the country had restored the destroyed national economy.
The New Economic Policy made it possible:
Economic relations between city and countryside;
Development of industry based on electrification;
Cooperation based on the country's population;
The widespread introduction of cost accounting and personal interest in the results of labor;
Improving government planning and management;
The fight against bureaucracy, administrative and command habits;
Improving culture in all spheres of human activity.
Showing a certain flexibility in economic policy, the Bolsheviks had no doubts or hesitations in strengthening the control of the ruling party over the political and spiritual life of society.
The most important instrument in the hands of the Bolsheviks here were the bodies of the Cheka (from the 1922 congress - the GPU). This apparatus was not only preserved in the form in which it existed during the era of the civil war, but also developed rapidly, surrounded by the special care of those in power, and more and more fully embraced state, party, economic and other public institutions. There is a widespread opinion that the initiator of these repressive and fiscal measures and their implementer was F.E. Dzerzhinsky, in fact, this is not so. Archival sources and research by historians allow us to note that at the head of the terror was L.D. Trotsky (Bronstein), who, as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, and then the People's Commissar of the Military and Naval Affairs, had punitive bodies unaccountable to the party that administered their justice and reprisals, were in his hands a valid means of usurping power and establishing a personal military-political dictatorship in the country.
During the NEP years, many legally published newspapers and magazines, party associations, and other parties were closed, and the last underground groups of right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks were liquidated.
Through an extensive system of secret employees of the Cheka-GPU, control was established over the political sentiments of civil servants, workers and peasants. Particular attention was paid to kulaks and urban private entrepreneurs, as well as the intelligentsia. At the same time, it should be noted that the Soviet government sought to involve the old intelligentsia in active labor activity. Specialists in various fields of knowledge were provided with more tolerable living and working conditions compared to the general population.
This was especially true for those who were in one way or another connected with strengthening the scientific, economic and defense potential of the state.
The transition to the NEP contributed to the return of emigrants to their homeland. For 1921-1931 181,432 emigrants returned to Russia, of which 121,843 (two thirds) - in 1921,
However, the class approach remained the main principle of building government policy towards the intelligentsia. If opposition was suspected, the authorities resorted to repression. In 1921, many representatives of the intelligentsia were arrested in connection with the Petrograd Combat Organization case. Among them there were few scientific and creative intellectuals. By decision of the Petrograd Cheka, 61 of those arrested, including the prominent Russian poet N.S. Gumilyov, were shot. At the same time, remaining in the position of historicism, it should be noted that many of them opposed the Soviet regime, involving in public and other organizations, including military and combat organizations, all those who did not accept the new system.
The Bolshevik Party is heading towards the formation of its own socialist intelligentsia, devoted to the regime and serving it faithfully. New universities and institutes are opening. The first workers' faculties (workers' faculties) were created at higher educational institutions. The system also underwent radical reform school education. It ensured continuity of education, from preschool institutions to universities. A program to eliminate illiteracy was proclaimed.
In 1923, the voluntary society “Down with Illiteracy” was established, headed by the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee M.I. Kalinin. By the end of the 1920s, about 40 percent of the population could read and write (versus 27 percent in 1913), and a decade later the figure was 80 percent.
During the years of the NEP, the literary and artistic life of Soviet Russia was distinguished by its diversity and abundance of various creative groups and movements. In Moscow alone there were over 30 of them.
The NEP made it much easier for the USSR to break through the economic blockade, enter international markets, and gain diplomatic recognition.
In just 5 years - from 1921 to 1926. the index of industrial production increased more than 3 times, agricultural production increased 2 times and exceeded the level of 1913 by 18 percent. But even after the end of the recovery period, economic growth continued at a rapid pace: in 1927, 1928. the increase in industrial production was 13 and 19 percent, respectively. In general, for the period 1921-1928. the average annual growth rate of national income was 18 percent.
Monetary reform played an important role in the restoration of the national economy and its further development. At the beginning of 1924, the Soviet government stopped issuing unstable banknotes. Instead, a gold-backed chervonets was introduced into circulation. This contributed to the stabilization of the Soviet ruble and the strengthening of the country's financial system.
An important point during the years of the new economic policy was that impressive economic successes were achieved on the basis of fundamentally new social relations, hitherto unknown to history. The private sector emerged in industry and commerce; some state-owned enterprises were denationalized, others were leased out: private individuals were allowed to create their own industrial enterprises with no more than 20 employees (later this “ceiling” was raised). Among the factories rented by private owners there were those that employed 200-300 people, and in general the private sector during the NEP period accounted for from 1/5 to 1/4 of industrial output and 40-80 percent of retail trade. A number of enterprises were leased to foreign firms in the form of concessions. In 1926-1927, there were 117 existing agreements of this kind. They covered enterprises that employed 18 thousand people and produced just over one percent of industrial output.
In industry, key positions were occupied by state trusts, in the credit and financial sphere - by state and cooperative banks. The state put pressure on producers, forced them to find internal reserves for increasing production, to mobilize efforts to increase production efficiency, which alone could now ensure an increase in profits.
NEP Russia, whether it wanted it or not, created the basis of socialism. NEP is both a strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks. “From NEP Russia,” said V.I. Lenin, “Russia will be socialist.” At the same time, V.I. Lenin demanded that we reconsider our entire point of view on socialism. The driving force of the NEP should be the working people, the alliance of the working class and the peasantry. The taxes paid by the Nepmen made it possible to expand the socialist sector. New plants, factories, and enterprises were built. In 1928, industrial production surpassed the pre-war level in a number of important indicators. Since 1929, the country has become a huge construction site.
NEP meant the economic competition of socialism with capitalism. But this was an unusual competition. It took place in the form of a fierce struggle of capitalist elements against socialist forms of economy. The struggle was not for life, but for death, according to the principle of “who will win.” The Soviet state had everything it needed to win the fight against capitalism: political power, commanding heights in the economy, natural resources. There was only one thing missing - the ability to run a household and trade culturally. Even in the first days of Soviet power, V.I. Lenin said: “We, the Bolshevik Party, convinced Russia. We won Russia - from the rich for the poor, from the exploiters for the working people. We must now govern Russia.” The matter of management turned out to be extremely difficult. This was also evident during the years of the New Economic Policy.
The priority of politics over economics, proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in the process of social development, introduced disruptions into the mechanisms of the NEP. During the NEP period, many crisis situations arose in the country. They were caused by both objective and subjective reasons.
First crisis in economics arose in 1923. It went down in history as a sales crisis. 100 million peasants who received economic freedom filled the city market with cheap agricultural products. To stimulate labor productivity in industry (5 million workers), the state artificially inflates prices for industrial goods. By the fall of 1923, the price difference was more than 30 percent. This phenomenon, at the instigation of L. Trotsky, began to be called “scissors” of prices.
The crisis threatened the “link” between city and countryside and was aggravated by social conflicts. Workers' strikes began in a number of industrial centers. The fact is that the loans that enterprises previously received from the state were closed. There was no way to pay the workers. The problem was complicated by rising unemployment. From January 1922 to September 1923, the number of unemployed increased from 680 thousand to 1 million 60 thousand.
At the end of 1923 - beginning of 1924, prices for industrial goods were reduced by an average of more than 25 percent, and in light industry serving the mass consumer - by 30-45 percent. At the same time, prices for agricultural goods were increased almost 2 times. Much work has been done to improve state and cooperative trade. In May 1924, the People's Commissariat of Domestic and Foreign Trade was created. 30-year-old A.I. Mikoyan, the youngest People's Commissar of the USSR, was appointed to this post.
The economic crisis at this time is closely intertwined with the intensification of the struggle for power within the party due to the illness of the leader, V.I. Lenin. The fate of the country was influenced by internal party discussions that covered a wide range of issues: about worker and party democracy, bureaucracy and the apparatus, about the style and methods of leadership.
Second crisis arose in 1925. It brought new economic problems and difficulties. If during the recovery period the country immediately received a return in the form of agricultural and industrial goods, then during the construction of new and expansion of old enterprises, the return came after 3-5 years, and the construction paid off even longer. The country still received few goods, and wages had to be paid to workers regularly. Where can I get money backed by goods? They can be “pumped out of the village by raising prices for manufactured goods, or they can be printed further. But raising prices for manufactured goods did not mean getting more food from the village. The peasantry simply did not buy these goods, leading a subsistence economy; His incentive to sell bread became less and less. This threatened to reduce the export of bread and the import of equipment, which, in turn, hampered the construction of new and expansion of old industries.
In 1925-1926 got out of difficulties due to foreign currency reserves and allowing state sales of alcohol. However, there was little prospect of the situation improving. In addition, in just one year, unemployment in the country, due to agrarian overpopulation, increased by a thousand people and amounted to . 1 million 300 thousand.
Third crisis NEP was associated with industrialization and collectivization. This policy required the expansion of planning principles in the economy, an active attack on the capitalist elements of the city and countryside. Practical steps to implement this party line led to the completion of the reconstruction of the administrative-command system.
Collapsing NEP
Until recently, scientists disagreed regarding the end of the NEP. Some believed that by the mid-1930s the tasks set for the new economic policy had been solved. The New Economic Policy “ended in the second half of the 1930s. victory of socialism. Nowadays, the beginning of the NEP restrictions dates back to 1924 (after the death of V.I. Lenin). V.P. Danilov, one of the most authoritative researchers of the agrarian history of Russia, believes that 1928 was the time of transition to the frontal scrapping of the NEP, and in 1929 it was finished. Modern historians A.S. Barsenkov and A.I. Vdovin, the authors of the textbook “History of Russia 1917-2004,” connect the end of the NEP with the beginning of the first five-year plan.
History shows that the assumption of multi-structure and the determination of the place of each of these structures in the socio-economic development of the country occurred in an atmosphere of intense struggle for power between several party groups. In the end, the struggle ended in victory for the Stalinist group. By 1928-1929 she mastered all the heights of the party and state leadership and pursued an openly anti-NEP line.
The NEP was never officially cancelled, but in 1928 it began to wind down. What did this mean?
In the public sector, planned principles of economic management were introduced, the private sector was closed, and in agriculture, a course was taken to eliminate the kulaks as a class. The collapse of the NEP was facilitated by internal and external factors.
Domestic:
Private entrepreneurs have strengthened economically, both in the city and in the countryside; The restrictions on profits introduced by the Soviet government reached their maximum. The experience of socio-political development shows: whoever has a lot of money wants power. Private owners needed power to remove restrictions on making profits and to increase them;
The party's policy of collectivization in the countryside aroused resistance from the kulaks;
Industrialization required an influx of labor, which only the countryside could provide;
The peasantry demanded the abolition of the foreign trade monopoly, claiming access to the world market, and refused to feed the city under conditions of low purchase prices for agricultural products, primarily grain;
In the country, dissatisfaction with the everyday behavior of the “Nepmen” was becoming more and more acute among the general population, who staged carousings and various entertainments in full view.
External:
The aggressiveness of capitalist states against the USSR increased. The very fact of the existence of the Soviet state and its successes aroused the furious hatred of the imperialists. International reaction aimed to disrupt the industrialization that had begun in the USSR at any cost and to create a united front of capitalist powers for anti-Soviet military intervention. An active role in anti-Soviet politics during this period belonged to the British imperialists. It is enough to note that W. Churchill, an outstanding politician of that time, repeatedly noted that we did not leave Soviet Russia out of our attention for a single day, and constantly directed efforts to destroy, at any cost, the communist regime. In February 1927, an attack was organized on the Soviet plenipotentiary mission in London and Beijing, and the plenipotentiary representative in Poland P.L. was killed. Voikova;
The Kuomintang government of China in 1927 suspended diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and closed all Soviet diplomatic missions.
In 1929, emergency measures to limit the free sale of bread were legalized. Priority sale of grain under government obligations is established. Already in the second half of 1929, partial expropriation of the kulaks began. The year 1929 was essentially decisive in the rejection of the NEP. The year 1929 went down in the history of the USSR as the “Year of the Great Turning Point.”
In the early 30s, there was an almost complete displacement of private capital from various sectors of the economy. The share of private enterprises in industry in 1928 was 18%, in agriculture - 97%, in retail trade - 24%, and by 1933 - 0.5%, 20% and zero, respectively.