War communism in Russia is a special structure of socio-economic relationships, which was based on the elimination of the commodity-money system and the concentration of available resources in the power of the Bolsheviks. In the growing conditions in the country, a food dictatorship was introduced, a direct exchange of products between the village and the city. War communism presupposed the introduction of general labor conscription and the principle of “equalization” in the issue of wages.
A rather difficult situation was developing in the country. The reasons for War Communism were mainly the Bolsheviks' intense desire to retain power. Various methods were used for this.
First of all, the new government needed armed protection. Given the difficult situation at the beginning of 1918, the Bolsheviks created an army as soon as possible. It included detachments formed from selected commanders and volunteer soldiers. By mid-year, the government will introduce compulsory military service. This decision was mainly associated with the beginning of the intervention and the development of the opposition movement. Trotsky (chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of that time) introduces strict discipline in the armed forces and a hostage system (when his family was responsible for the escape of a deserter).
War communism destroyed the country's economy. Since the beginning of the revolution, the Bolsheviks lost control over the richest regions of the country: the Volga region, the Baltic states, and Ukraine. Between the city and the countryside were interrupted during the war. The economic collapse was completed by numerous strikes and discontent among entrepreneurs.
Under these conditions, the Bolsheviks are taking a number of measures. The nationalization of production and trade began. was established on January 23 in the merchant fleet, then on April 22 in foreign trade. From mid-1918 (from June 22), the government began a program to nationalize enterprises with capital of more than 500 thousand rubles. In November, the government declared a state monopoly on all organizations that employ five to ten workers and use a mechanical engine. By the end of November, a decree on the nationalization of the domestic market was adopted.
War communism solved the problem of food supply to the city by intensifying the class struggle in the countryside. As a result, in 1918, on June 11, “kombeds” (committees of the poor) began to be created, endowed with the power to confiscate surplus food from wealthy peasants. This system of measures failed. However, the surplus appropriation program continued until 1921.
Due to the lack of food, the rationing system was unable to satisfy the needs of the townspeople. In addition to being unfair, this system was also confusing. The authorities tried unsuccessfully to fight the “black market”.
Discipline at enterprises has weakened greatly. To strengthen it, the Bolsheviks introduced work books, subbotniks, and general labor obligations.
A political dictatorship began to be established in the country. Non-Bolshevik parties began to gradually be destroyed. Thus, the Cadets were declared “enemies of the people”, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were removed from the bodies in which they represented the majority, the anarchists were arrested and shot.
On the eve of October, Lenin said that the Bolsheviks, having taken power, would not lose it. War communism and the NEP in 1921 led the country to the Bolsheviks tried to maintain power through violence, the destruction of independent trade unions, and the subordination of authorities. Of course, they have achieved a monopoly in the political sphere. However, the country's economy was undermined. About 2 million citizens (mostly city dwellers) emigrated from Russia; a terrible famine began in the Volga region in the spring of 1919 (there was no grain left after confiscation). As a result, on the eve of the Tenth Congress (in 1919, on March 8), the workers and sailors of Kronstadt rebelled, providing military support for the October Revolution.
In the view of the classics of orthodox Marxism, socialism as a social system presupposes the complete destruction of all commodity-money relations, since these relations are the breeding ground for the revival of capitalism. However, these relations may disappear no sooner than the complete disappearance of the institution of private ownership of all means of production and instruments of labor, but an entire historical era is needed to realize this most important task.
This fundamental position of Marxism found its visible embodiment in the economic policy of the Bolsheviks, which they began to pursue in December 1917, almost immediately after seizing state power in the country. But, having quickly failed on the economic front, in March-April 1918 the leadership of the Bolshevik Party tried to return to Lenin’s “April Theses” and establish state capitalism in the country devastated by war and revolution. A large-scale Civil War and foreign intervention put an end to these utopian illusions of the Bolsheviks, forcing the top leadership of the party to return to the previous economic policy, which then received the very capacious and accurate name of the policy of “war communism.”
For quite a long time, many Soviet historians were confident that the very concept of military communism was first developed by V.I. Lenin in 1918. However, this statement is not entirely true, since he first used the very concept of “war communism” only in April 1921 in his famous article “On the Food Tax.” Moreover, as established by “late” Soviet historians (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov, V. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov), this term was first introduced into scientific circulation by the famous Marxist theorist Alexander Bogdanov (Malinovsky) back in 1917.
In January 1918, returning to the study of this problem in his famous work “Questions of Socialism,” A.A. Bogdanov, having examined the historical experience of a number of bourgeois states during the First World War, equated the concepts of “war communism” and “military state capitalism.” In his opinion, there was a whole historical abyss between socialism and war communism, since “war communism” was a consequence of the regression of productive forces and epistemologically was a product of capitalism and a complete negation of socialism, and not its initial phase, as it seemed to the Bolsheviks themselves, first of all, “ left communists" during the Civil War.
The same opinion is now shared by many other scientists, in particular, Professor S.G. Kara-Murza, who argue convincingly that “war communism” as a special economic structure has nothing in common either with communist teaching, much less with Marxism. The very concept of “war communism” simply means that during a period of total devastation, society (society) is forced to transform into a community or commune, and nothing more. In modern historical science, there are still several key problems associated with the study of the history of war communism.
I. From what time should the policy of war communism begin?
A number of Russian and foreign historians (N. Sukhanov) believe that the policy of military communism was proclaimed almost immediately after the victory of the February Revolution, when the bourgeois Provisional Government, at the instigation of the first Minister of Agriculture, cadet A.I. Shingarev, having issued the law “On the transfer of grain to the disposal of the state” (March 25, 1917), introduced a state monopoly on bread throughout the country and established fixed prices for grain.
Other historians (R. Danels, V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov) connect the approval of “war communism” with the famous decree of the Council of People’s Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR “On the nationalization of large industry and railway transport enterprises,” which was issued on June 28, 1918. According to V. .IN. Kabanova and V.P. Buldakov, the policy of military communism itself went through three main phases in its development: “nationalizing” (June 1918), “Kombedovsky” (July - December 1918) and “militaristic” (January 1920 - February 1921) .
Still others (E. Gimpelson) believe that the beginning of the policy of war communism should be considered May - June 1918, when the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted two important decrees that marked the beginning of the food dictatorship in the country: “On the emergency powers of the People's Commissar for Food” ( May 13, 1918) and “On the Committees of the Village Poor” (June 11, 1918).
The fourth group of historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov) is confident that after a “year-long period of trial and error,” the Bolsheviks, having issued the decree “On food distribution of grain grain and fodder” (January 11, 1919), made their final the choice in favor of surplus appropriation, which became the backbone of the entire policy of war communism in the country.
Finally, the fifth group of historians (S. Pavlyuchenkov) prefers not to name the specific date of the beginning of the policy of war communism and, referring to the well-known dialectical position of F. Engels, says that “absolutely sharp dividing lines are not compatible with the theory of development as such.” Although S.A. himself Pavlyuchenkov is inclined to begin the countdown of the policy of war communism with the beginning of the “Red Guard attack on capital,” that is, from December 1917.
II. Reasons for the policy of “war communism”.
In Soviet and partly Russian historiography (I. Berkhin, E. Gimpelson, G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov, I. Ratkovsky), the policy of military communism has traditionally been reduced to a series of exclusively forced, purely economic measures caused by foreign intervention and the Civil War. Most Soviet historians strongly emphasized the smooth and gradual nature of the implementation of this economic policy.
In European historiography (L. Samueli) it has traditionally been argued that “war communism” was not so much determined by the hardships and deprivations of the Civil War and foreign intervention, but had a powerful ideological basis, going back to the ideas and works of K. Marx, F. Engels and K. Kautsky.
According to a number of modern historians (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov), subjectively “war communism” was caused by the desire of the Bolsheviks to hold out until the start of the world proletarian revolution, and objectively this policy was supposed to solve the most important modernization task - to eliminate the gigantic gap between the economic structures of the industrial city and patriarchal village. Moreover, the policy of war communism was a direct continuation of the “Red Guard attack on capital”, since both of these political courses were related by the frantic pace of major economic events: the complete nationalization of banks, industrial and commercial enterprises, the displacement of state cooperation and the organization of a new system of public distribution through productive-consumer communes, an obvious tendency towards the naturalization of all economic relations within the country, etc.
Many authors are convinced that all the leaders and major theoreticians of the Bolshevik Party, including V.I. Lenin, L.D. Trotsky and N.I. Bukharin, viewed the policy of war communism as a high road leading directly to socialism. This concept of “Bolshevik utopianism” was presented especially clearly in the famous theoretical works of the “left communists,” who imposed on the party the model of “war communism” that it implemented in 1919–1920. In this case we are talking about two famous works by N.I. Bukharin “Program of the Bolshevik Communists” (1918) and “Economy of the Transition Period” (1920), as well as about the popular opus N.I. Bukharin and E.A. Preobrazhensky’s “The ABCs of Communism” (1920), which are now rightly called “literary monuments of the collective recklessness of the Bolsheviks.”
According to a number of modern scientists (Yu. Emelyanov), it was N.I. Bukharin, in his famous work “Economy of the Transition Period” (1920), derived from the practice of “war communism” an entire theory of revolutionary transformations, based on the universal law of the complete collapse of the bourgeois economy, industrial anarchy and concentrated violence, which will completely change the economic system of bourgeois society and build on its ruins is socialism. Moreover, according to the firm conviction of this "the favorite of the whole party" And "the largest party theorist" as V.I. wrote about him Lenin, “proletarian coercion in all its forms, from executions to labor conscription, is, strange as it may seem, a method for developing communist humanity from the human material of the capitalist era.”
Finally, according to other modern scientists (S. Kara-Murza), “war communism” became an inevitable consequence of the catastrophic situation in the country’s national economy, and in this situation it played an extremely important role in saving the lives of millions of people from inevitable starvation. Moreover, all attempts to prove that the policy of war communism had doctrinal roots in Marxism are absolutely groundless, since only a handful of Bolshevik maximalists in the person of N.I. Bukharin and Co.
III. The problem of the results and consequences of the policy of “war communism”.
Almost all Soviet historians (I. Mints, V. Drobizhev, I. Brekhin, E. Gimpelson) not only idealized “war communism” in every possible way, but actually avoided any objective assessments of the main results and consequences of this destructive economic policy of the Bolsheviks during the Civil War . According to most modern authors (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov), this idealization of “war communism” was largely due to the fact that this political course had a huge impact on the development of the entire Soviet society, and also modeled and laid the foundations of that command- administrative system in the country, which finally took shape in the second half of the 1930s.
In Western historiography, there are still two main assessments of the results and consequences of the policy of war communism. One part of Sovietologists (G. Yaney, S. Malle) traditionally speaks of the unconditional collapse of the economic policy of war communism, which led to complete anarchy and the total collapse of the country's industrial and agricultural economy. Other Sovietologists (M. Levin), on the contrary, argue that the main results of the policy of war communism were etatization (a gigantic strengthening of the role of the state) and archaization of socio-economic relations.
As for the first conclusion of Professor M. Levin and his colleagues, there is indeed hardly any doubt that during the years of “war communism” there was a gigantic strengthening of the entire party-state apparatus of power in the center and locally. But what concerns the economic results of “war communism”, then the situation here was much more complicated, because:
On the one hand, “war communism” swept away all the previous remnants of the medieval system in the agricultural economy of the Russian village;
On the other hand, it is absolutely obvious that during the period of “war communism” there was a significant strengthening of the patriarchal peasant community, which allows us to talk about the real archaization of the country’s national economy.
According to a number of modern authors (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov, S. Pavlyuchenkov), it would be a mistake to try to statistically determine the negative consequences of “war communism” for the country’s national economy. And the point is not only that these consequences cannot be separated from the consequences of the Civil War itself, but that the results of “war communism” have not a quantitative, but a qualitative expression, the essence of which lies in the very change in the socio-cultural stereotype of the country and its citizens.
According to other modern authors (S. Kara-Murza), “war communism” became a way of life and a way of thinking for the vast majority of Soviet people. And since it occurred at the initial stage of the formation of the Soviet state, at its “infancy,” it could not but have a huge impact on its entirety and became the main part of the very matrix on the basis of which the Soviet social system was reproduced.
IV. The problem of determining the main features of “war communism”.
a) total destruction of private ownership of the means and instruments of production and the dominance of a single state form of ownership throughout the country;
b) total liquidation of commodity-money relations, the monetary circulation system and the creation of an extremely rigid planned economic system in the country.
In the firm opinion of these scholars, the main elements of the policy of war communism were the Bolsheviks borrowed from the practical experience of the Kaiser’s Germany, where, starting from January 1915, the following actually existed:
a) state monopoly on essential food products and consumer goods;
b) their normalized distribution;
c) universal labor conscription;
d) fixed prices for main types of goods, products and services;
e) the allotment method of removing grain and other agricultural products from the agricultural sector of the country's economy.
Thus, the leaders of “Russian Jacobinism” made full use of the forms and methods of governing the country, which they borrowed from capitalism, which was in an extreme situation during the war.
The most visible evidence of this conclusion is the famous “Draft Party Program” written by V.I. Lenin in March 1918, which contained main features of the future policy of war communism:
a) the destruction of parliamentarism and the unification of the legislative and executive branches of government in Councils of all levels;
b) socialist organization of production on a national scale;
c) management of the production process through trade unions and factory committees, which are under the control of Soviet authorities;
d) state monopoly of trade, and then its complete replacement by systematically organized distribution, which will be carried out by unions of commercial and industrial employees;
e) forced unification of the entire population of the country into consumer-production communes;
f) organizing competition between these communes for a steady increase in labor productivity, organization, discipline, etc.
The fact that the leadership of the Bolshevik Party turned the organizational forms of the German bourgeois economy into the main instrument for establishing the proletarian dictatorship was directly written by the Bolsheviks themselves, in particular by Yuri Zalmanovich Larin (Lurie), who in 1928 published his work “Wartime State Capitalism in Germany” (1914―1918)". Moreover, a number of modern historians (S. Pavlyuchenkov) argue that “war communism” was a Russian model of German military socialism or state capitalism. Therefore, in a certain sense, “war communism” was a pure analogue of the “Westernism” traditional in the Russian political environment, only with the significant difference that the Bolsheviks managed to tightly envelop this political course in the veil of communist phraseology.
In Soviet historiography (V. Vinogradov, I. Brekhin, E. Gimpelson, V. Dmitrenko), the entire essence of the policy of war communism was traditionally reduced only to the main economic measures carried out by the Bolshevik Party in 1918–1920.
A number of modern authors (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov, V. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov, S. Pavlyuchenkov, E. Gimpelson) pay special attention to the fact that a radical change in economic and social relations was accompanied by radical political reform and the establishment of a one-party dictatorship in country.
Other modern scientists (S. Kara-Murza) believe that the main feature of “war communism” was the shift of the center of gravity of economic policy from the production of goods and services to their equal distribution. It is no coincidence that L.D. Trotsky, speaking about the policy of war communism, frankly wrote that “We nationalized the disorganized economy of the bourgeoisie and established a regime of “consumer communism” in the most acute period of the struggle against the class enemy.” All other signs of “war communism”, such as: the famous surplus appropriation system, the state monopoly in the field of industrial production and banking services, the elimination of commodity-money relations, universal labor conscription and the militarization of the country’s national economy - were structural features of the military-communist system, which in specific historical conditions, it was characteristic of the Great French Revolution (1789–1799), and of the Kaiser’s Germany (1915–1918), and of Russia during the Civil War (1918–1920).
2. Main features of the policy of “war communism”
According to the overwhelming majority of historians, the main features of the policy of war communism, which were finally formulated in March 1919 at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b), were:
a) The policy of “food dictatorship” and surplus appropriation
According to a number of modern authors (V. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov), the Bolsheviks did not immediately come to the idea of surplus appropriation, and initially intended to create a state grain procurement system based on traditional market mechanisms, in particular, by significantly increasing prices for grain and other agricultural products . In April 1918, in his report “On the Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power,” V.I. Lenin directly stated that the Soviet government would pursue the previous food policy in accordance with the economic course, the contours of which were determined in March 1918. In other words, it was about preserving the grain monopoly, fixed grain prices and the traditional system of commodity exchange that had long existed between the city and the village. However, already in May 1918, due to a sharp aggravation of the military-political situation in the main grain-producing regions of the country (Kuban, Don, Little Russia), the position of the country's top political leadership changed radically.
At the beginning of May 1918, according to the report of the People's Commissar of Food A.D. Tsyurupa, members of the Soviet government for the first time discussed a draft decree introducing a food dictatorship in the country. And although a number of members of the Central Committee and the leadership of the Supreme Economic Council, in particular L.B. Kamenev, A.I. Rykov and Yu.Z. Larin, opposed this decree, on May 13 it was approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR and was formalized in the form of a special decree “On granting the People's Commissar of Food emergency powers to combat the rural bourgeoisie.” In mid-May 1918, a new decree of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee “On the organization of food detachments” was adopted, which, together with the committees of the poor, were to become the main instrument for knocking out scarce food resources from tens of millions of peasant farms in the country.
At the same time, in furtherance of this decree, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopt Decree “On the reorganization of the People’s Commissariat of Food of the RSFSR and local food authorities”, in accordance with which a complete structural restructuring of this department of the country was carried out in the center and locally. In particular, this decree, which was quite rightly dubbed “the bankruptcy of the idea of local Soviets”:
a) established the direct subordination of all provincial and district food structures not to local Soviet authorities, but to the People’s Commissariat of Food of the RSFSR;
b) determined that within the framework of this People's Commissariat a special Food Army Directorate would be created, which would be responsible for the implementation of the state grain procurement plan throughout the country.
Contrary to traditional opinion, the very idea of food detachments was not an invention of the Bolsheviks and the palm here should still be given to the Februaryists, so “dear to the hearts” of our liberals (A. Yakovlev, E. Gaidar). Back on March 25, 1917, the Provisional Government, having issued the law “On the transfer of grain to the disposal of the state,” introduced a state monopoly on bread throughout the country. But since the plan for state grain procurements was carried out very poorly, in August 1917, in order to carry out forced requisitions of food and fodder from the marching units of the active army and rear garrisons, special military detachments began to be formed, which became the prototype of those very Bolshevik food detachments that arose during the Civil War.
The activities of food brigades still evoke absolutely polar opinions.
Some historians (V. Kabanov, V. Brovkin) believe that, in fulfilling grain procurement plans, the majority of food detachments were engaged in the wholesale plunder of all peasant farms, regardless of their social affiliation.
Other historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov, S. Kara-Murza) argue that, contrary to popular speculation and legends, food detachments, having declared a crusade to the village for bread, did not plunder peasant farms, but achieved tangible results precisely where They obtained bread through traditional barter.
After the start of the frontal Civil War and foreign intervention, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted on June 11, 1918 the famous decree “On the organization and supply of committees of the rural poor,” or kombedahs, which a number of modern authors (N. Dementyev, I. Dolutsky) called the trigger mechanism of the Civil War war.
For the first time, the idea of organizing the Committee of Poor People was heard at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in May 1918 from the mouth of its chairman Ya.M. Sverdlov, who motivated the need to create them to incite "second social war" in the countryside and a merciless struggle against the class enemy in the person of the rural bourgeois - the village “bloodsucker and world-eater” - kulak. Therefore, the process of organizing committees of poor people, which V.I. Lenin regarded it as the greatest step of the socialist revolution in the countryside, it went at a rapid pace, and by September 1918, more than 30 thousand committees of poor people had been created throughout the country, the backbone of which was the village poor.
The main task of the poor committees was not only the fight for bread, but also the crushing of the volost and district bodies of Soviet power, which consisted of the wealthy strata of the Russian peasantry and could not be bodies of the proletarian dictatorship on the ground. Thus, their creation not only became the trigger for the Civil War, but also led to the virtual destruction of Soviet power in the countryside. In addition, as a number of authors (V. Kabanov) noted, the Pobedy Committees, having failed to fulfill their historical mission, gave a powerful impetus to chaos, devastation and impoverishment of the Russian countryside.
In August 1918, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted a package of new regulations, which marked the creation of a whole system of emergency measures to confiscate grain in favor of the state, including the decrees “On the involvement of workers’ organizations in the procurement of grain”, “On the organization of harvesting and -requisition detachments”, “Regulations on barrage requisition food detachments”, etc.
In October 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted a new decree “On imposing a tax in kind on rural owners in the form of deductions of part of agricultural products.” Some scientists (V. Danilov), without sufficient evidence, expressed the idea of a genetic connection between this decree and the 1921 tax in kind, which marked the beginning of the NEP. However, most historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov) rightly argue that this decree marked the abandonment of the “normal” taxation system and the transition to a system of “emergency” taxation, built on a class principle. In addition, according to the same historians, it was from the end of 1918 that there was a clear turn of the entire Soviet state machine from a disorderly “emergency” to organized and centralized forms of “economic and food dictatorship” in the country.
The crusade against the kulak and the village world-eater, announced by this decree, was greeted with delight not only by the rural poor, but also by the overwhelming mass of the average Russian peasantry, whose number made up more than 65% of the country’s total rural population. The mutual attraction between the Bolsheviks and the middle peasantry, which arose at the turn of 1918–1919, predetermined the fate of the poor committees. Already in November 1918, at the VI All-Russian Congress of Soviets, under pressure from the communist faction itself, which was then headed by L.B. Kamenev, a decision was made to restore a uniform system of Soviet government bodies at all levels, which, in essence, meant the liquidation of the Pobedy Committees.
In December 1918, the First All-Russian Congress of Land Departments, Communes and Committees of Poor People adopted a resolution “On the collectivization of agriculture,” which clearly outlined a new course for the socialization of individual peasant farms and their transfer to large-scale agricultural production built on socialist principles. This resolution, as suggested by V.I. Lenin and People's Commissar of Agriculture S.P. Sereda was met with hostility by the overwhelming mass of the multi-million Russian peasantry. This situation forced the Bolsheviks to again change the principles of food policy and, on January 11, 1919, issue the famous decree “On food distribution of grain grain and fodder.”
Contrary to traditional public opinion, surplus appropriation in Russia was introduced not by the Bolsheviks, but by the tsarist government of A.F. Trepov, which in November 1916, at the suggestion of the then Minister of Agriculture A.A. Rittich issued a special resolution on this issue. Although, of course, the surplus appropriation system of 1919 differed significantly from the surplus appropriation system of 1916.
According to a number of modern authors (S. Pavlyuchenkov, V. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov), contrary to the prevailing stereotype, surplus appropriation was not a tightening of the food dictatorship in the country, but its formal weakening, since it contained a very important element: the initially specified amount of state needs for bread and fodder In addition, as shown by Professor S.G. Kara-Murza, the scale of the Bolshevik allocation was approximately 260 million poods, while the tsarist allocation was more than 300 million poods of grain per year.
At the same time, the surplus appropriation plan itself proceeded not from the real capabilities of peasant farms, but from state needs, since, in accordance with this decree:
The entire amount of grain, fodder and other agricultural products that the state needed to supply the Red Army and cities was distributed among all grain-producing provinces of the country;
In all peasant farms that fell under the surplus appropriation molokh, a minimum amount of food, fodder and seed grain and other agricultural products remained, and all other surpluses were subject to complete requisition in favor of the state.
On February 14, 1919, the regulation of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR “On socialist land management and on measures for the transition to socialist agriculture” was published, but this decree no longer had fundamental significance, since the bulk of the Russian peasantry, having rejected the collective “commune”, compromised with the Bolsheviks, agreeing with temporary food appropriation, which was considered the lesser evil. Thus, by the spring of 1919, from the list of all Bolshevik decrees on the agrarian issue, only the decree “On surplus appropriation” was preserved, which became the supporting frame for the entire policy of war communism in the country.
Continuing the search for mechanisms capable of forcing a significant part of the Russian peasantry to voluntarily hand over agricultural and handicraft products to the state, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR issued new decrees “On benefits for collecting tax in kind” (April 1919) and “On compulsory exchange of goods” (August 1919). .). They did not have much success with the peasants, and already in November 1919, by decision of the government, new allocations were introduced throughout the country - potato, wood, fuel and horse-drawn.
According to a number of authoritative scientists (L. Lee, S. Kara-Murza), only the Bolsheviks were able to create a workable food requisitioning and supply apparatus, which saved tens of millions of people in the country from starvation.
b) Policy of total nationalization
To implement this historical task, which was a direct continuation of the “Red Guard attack on capital,” the Council of People’s Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR issued a number of important decrees, including “On the nationalization of foreign trade” (April 1918), “On the nationalization of large industry and enterprises railway transport" (June 1918) and "On establishing a state monopoly on domestic trade" (November 1918). In August 1918, a decree was adopted that created unprecedented benefits for all state industrial enterprises, since they were exempt from the so-called “indemnity” - emergency state taxes and all municipal fees.
In January 1919, the Central Committee of the RCP (b), in its “Circular Letter” addressed to all party committees, directly stated that at the moment the main source of income of the Soviet state should be "nationalized industry and state agriculture." In February 1919, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee called on the Supreme Economic Council of the RSFSR to accelerate the further restructuring of the country’s economic life on a socialist basis, which actually launched a new stage of the proletarian state’s offensive against “medium private business” enterprises that had retained their independence, the authorized capital of which did not exceed 500 thousand rubles. In April 1919, a new decree of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR “On the Handicraft and Craft Industry” was issued, according to which these enterprises were not subject to total confiscation, nationalization and municipalization, with the exception of special cases according to a special resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council of the RSFSR.
However, already in the fall of 1920, a new wave of nationalization began, which mercilessly hit small industrial production, that is, all handicrafts and handicrafts, into whose orbit millions of Soviet citizens were drawn. In particular, in November 1920, the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council, headed by A.I. Rykov adopted a decree “On the nationalization of small industry”, under which 20 thousand handicraft and craft enterprises in the country fell. According to historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov, I. Ratkovsky, M. Khodyakov), by the end of 1920 the state concentrated in its hands 38 thousand industrial enterprises, of which more than 65% were handicraft and craft workshops.
c) Liquidation of commodity-money relations
Initially, the country's top political leadership tried to establish normal trade exchange in the country, issuing in March 1918 a special decree of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR "On the organization of trade exchange between city and countryside." However, already in May 1918, a similar special instruction from the People's Commissariat of Food of the RSFSR (A.D. Tsyurupa) to this decree de facto abolished it.
In August 1918, at the height of a new procurement campaign, having issued a whole package of decrees and tripling fixed prices for grain, the Soviet government again tried to organize normal commodity exchange. The volost committees of poor people and councils of deputies, having monopolized in their hands the distribution of industrial goods in the countryside, almost immediately buried this good idea, causing general anger among the multi-million Russian peasantry against the Bolsheviks.
Under these conditions, the country's top political leadership authorized the transition to barter trade, or direct product exchange. Moreover, on November 21, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted the famous decree “On organizing the supply of the population with all products and items of personal consumption and household”, according to which the entire population of the country was assigned to the “Unified Consumer Societies”, through which they began to receive all food and industrial rations. According to a number of historians (S. Pavlyuchenkov), this decree, in fact, completed the legislative formalization of the entire military-communist system, the building of which would be brought to barracks perfection until the beginning of 1921. Thus, policy of "war communism" with the adoption of this decree it became system of "war communism".
In December 1918, the Second All-Russian Congress of Economic Councils called on the People's Commissar of Finance N.N. Krestinsky to take immediate measures to curtail monetary circulation throughout the country, but the leadership of the country’s financial department and the People’s Bank of the RSFSR (G.L. Pyatakov, Ya.S. Ganetsky) avoided making this decision.
Until the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919. The Soviet political leadership was still trying to restrain itself from a complete turn towards the total socialization of the entire economic life of the country and the replacement of commodity-money relations with the naturalization of exchange. In particular, the communist faction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which was headed by the leader of the moderate Bolsheviks L.B. Kamenev, playing the role of informal opposition to the government, created a special commission, which at the beginning of 1919 prepared a draft decree “On the restoration of free trade.” This project met with stiff resistance from all members of the Council of People's Commissars, including V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky.
In March 1919, a new decree of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR “On Consumer Communes” was issued, according to which the entire system of consumer cooperation with one stroke of the pen turned into a purely state institution, and the ideas of free trade were finally put to death. And at the beginning of May 1919, a “Circular Letter” was issued by the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR, in which all government departments of the country were asked to switch to a new system of settlements among themselves, that is, to record traditional cash payments only in “accounting books”, avoiding, if possible, cash operations among themselves.
For the time being, V.I. Lenin still remained a realist on the issue of the abolition of money and monetary circulation within the country, so in December 1919 he suspended the introduction of a draft resolution on the destruction of banknotes throughout the country, which the delegates of the VII All-Russian Congress of Soviets were supposed to adopt. However, already in January 1920, by decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the country's only credit and emission center, the People's Bank of the RSFSR, was abolished.
According to the majority of Russian historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Buldakov, M. Gorinov, V. Kabanov, V. Kozlov, S. Pavlyuchenkov), a new major and final stage in the development of the military-communist system was the IX Congress of the RCP(b), held in March - April 1920. At this party congress, the entire top political leadership of the country quite consciously decided to continue the policy of war communism and build socialism in the country as soon as possible.
In the spirit of these decisions, in May - June 1920, almost complete naturalization of wages of the overwhelming majority of the country's workers and employees took place, which N.I. Bukharin (“Program of the Communist-Bolsheviks”) and E.A. Shefler (“Naturalization of wages”) was considered the most important condition back in 1918 “building a communist cashless economy in the country.” As a result, by the end of 1920, the natural part of the average monthly wage in the country amounted to almost 93%, and cash payments for housing, all utilities, public transport, medicines and consumer goods were completely abolished. In December 1920, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted a number of important decrees in this regard - “On the free supply of food products to the population”, “On the free supply of consumer goods to the population”, “On the abolition of monetary payments for the use of mail, telegraph, telephone and radiotelegraph”, “On the abolition of fees for medicines dispensed from pharmacies”, etc.
Then V.I. Lenin drew up a draft resolution for the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR “On the abolition of cash taxes and the transformation of surplus appropriation into a tax in kind,” in which he directly wrote that “The transition from money to non-monetary product exchange is indisputable and is only a matter of time.”
d) Militarization of the country's national economy and the creation of labor armies
Their opponents (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov) deny this fact and believe that the entire top political leadership, including V.I. himself, were supporters of the militarization of the country’s national economy. Lenin, as clearly evidenced by the theses of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) “On the mobilization of the industrial proletariat, labor conscription, militarization of the economy and the use of military units for economic needs,” which were published in Pravda on January 22, 1920.
These ideas contained in the theses of the Central Committee, L.D. Trotsky not only supported, but also creatively developed in his famous speech at the IX Congress of the RCP (b), held in March - April 1920. The overwhelming majority of the delegates of this party forum, despite the sharp criticism of the Trotskyist economic platform from A.I. Rykova, D.B. Ryazanova, V.P. Milyutin and V.P. Nogina, they supported her. This was not at all about temporary measures caused by the Civil War and foreign intervention, but about a long-term political course that would lead to socialism. This was clearly evidenced by all the decisions made at the congress, including its resolution “On the transition to a police system in the country.”
The process of militarization of the country's national economy, which began at the end of 1918, proceeded quite quickly, but gradually and reached its apogee only in 1920, when War Communism entered its final, “militaristic” phase.
In December 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR approved the “Code of Labor Laws,” according to which universal labor conscription was introduced throughout the country for citizens over 16 years of age.
In April 1919 they published two resolutions of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR, according to which:
a) universal labor conscription was introduced for all able-bodied citizens aged 16 to 58 years;
b) special forced labor camps were created for those workers and government employees who voluntarily switched to another job.
The strictest control over compliance with labor conscription was initially entrusted to the bodies of the Cheka (F.E. Dzerzhinsky), and then to the Main Committee for General Labor Conscription (L.D. Trotsky). In June 1919, the previously existing labor market department of the People's Commissariat of Labor was transformed into a department for accounting and distribution of labor, which eloquently spoke for itself: now a whole system of forced labor was created in the country, which became the prototype of the notorious labor armies.
In November 1919, the Council of People's Commissars and the STO of the RSFSR adopted the provisions "On Workers' Disciplinary Courts" and "On the Militarization of State Institutions and Enterprises", according to which the administration and trade union committees of factories, factories and institutions were given full right not only to dismiss workers from enterprises , but also send them to concentration labor camps. In January 1920, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted a decree “On the procedure for universal labor service,” which provided for the involvement of all able-bodied citizens in performing various public works necessary to maintain the country's municipal and road infrastructure in proper order.
Finally, in February - March 1920, by decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the creation of the notorious labor armies began, the main ideologist of which was L.D. Trotsky. In his note “Immediate tasks of economic development” (February 1920), he came up with the idea of creating provincial, district and volost labor armies, built according to the type of Arakcheevsky military settlements. Moreover, in February 1920, by the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR L.D. Trotsky was appointed chairman of the interdepartmental commission on issues of labor service, which included almost all the heads of the central people's commissariats and departments of the country: A.I. Rykov, M.P. Tomsky, F.E. Dzerzhinsky, V.V. Schmidt, A.D. Tsyurupa, S.P. Sereda and L.B. Krasin. A special place in the work of this commission was occupied by the issues of recruiting labor armies, which were to become the main instrument for building socialism in the country.
e) Total centralization of management of the country's national economy
In April 1918, Alexey Ivanovich Rykov became the head of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, under whose leadership its structure was finally created, which lasted throughout the entire period of war communism. Initially, the structure of the Supreme Economic Council included: the Supreme Council of Workers' Control, industry departments, a commission of economic people's commissariats and a group of economic experts, consisting mainly of bourgeois specialists. The leading element of this body was the Bureau of the Supreme Economic Council, which included all the heads of departments and the expert group, as well as representatives of the four economic people's commissariats - finance, industry and trade, agriculture and labor.
From now on The Supreme Economic Council of the RSFSR, as the main economic department of the country, coordinated and directed the work:
1) all economic people's commissariats - industry and trade (L.B. Krasin), finance (N.N. Krestinsky), agriculture (S.P. Sereda) and food (A.D. Tsyurupa);
2) special meetings on fuel and metallurgy;
3) workers' control bodies and trade unions.
Within the competence of the Supreme Economic Council and its local bodies, that is, regional, provincial and district economic councils, included:
Confiscation (free seizure), requisition (seizure at fixed prices) and sequestration (deprivation of the right to dispose) of industrial enterprises, institutions and individuals;
Carrying out forced syndication of industrial production and trade sectors that have retained their economic independence.
By the end of 1918, when the third stage of nationalization was completed, an extremely rigid system of economic management had developed in the country, which received a very capacious and precise name - “Glavkizm”. According to a number of historians (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov), it was this “Glavkism”, which was based on the idea of transforming state capitalism into a real mechanism for the planned management of the country’s national economy under the conditions of the state dictatorship of the proletariat, that became the apotheosis of “war communism”.
By the beginning of 1919, all industry departments, transformed into the Main Directorates of the Supreme Economic Council, endowed with economic and administrative functions, completely covered the entire range of issues related to the organization of planning, supply, distribution of orders and sales of finished products of the majority of industrial, commercial and cooperative enterprises in the country . By the summer of 1920, within the framework of the Supreme Economic Council, 49 branch departments had been created - Glavtorf, Glavtop, Glavkozha, Glavzerno, Glavstarch, Glavtrud, Glavkustprom, Tsentrokhladoboynya and others, in the depths of which there were hundreds of production and functional departments. These headquarters and their sectoral departments exercised direct control over all state-owned enterprises in the country, regulated relations with small-scale, handicraft and cooperative industries, coordinated the activities of related branches of industrial production and supply, and distributed orders and finished products. It became quite obvious that a whole series of vertical economic associations (monopolies) isolated from each other had arisen, the relationship between which depended solely on the will of the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council and its leader. In addition, within the framework of the Supreme Economic Council itself there were many functional bodies, in particular the financial-economic, financial-accounting and scientific-technical departments, the Central Production Commission and the Bureau for the Accounting of Technical Forces, which completed the entire framework of the system of total bureaucracy that struck the country towards the end Civil War.
During the Civil War, a number of the most important functions previously belonging to the Supreme Economic Council were transferred to various emergency commissions, in particular the Extraordinary Commission for Supply of the Red Army (Chrezkomsnab), the Extraordinary Authorized Defense Council for Supply of the Red Army (Chusosnabarm), the Central Council for Military Procurement (Tsentrovoenzag), Council for the Military Industry (Promvoensovet), etc.
f) Creation of a one-party political system
According to many modern historians (W. Rosenberg, A. Rabinovich, V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov, S. Pavlyuchenkov), the term “Soviet power”, which came into historical science from the field of party propaganda, in no case can claim to adequately reflect the structure of political power that was established in the country during the Civil War.
According to the same historians, the actual abandonment of the Soviet system of government of the country occurred in the spring of 1918, and from that time the process of creating an alternative apparatus of state power through party channels began. This process, first of all, was expressed in the widespread creation of Bolshevik party committees in all volosts, districts and provinces of the country, which, together with the committees and bodies of the Cheka, completely disorganized the activities of Soviets at all levels, turning them into appendages of party administrative authorities.
In November 1918, a timid attempt was made to restore the role of Soviet authorities in the center and locally. In particular, at the VI All-Russian Congress of Soviets, decisions were made to restore a unified system of Soviet authorities at all levels, to strictly observe and strictly implement all decrees issued by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR, which in March 1919, after the death of Ya.M. Sverdlov was headed by Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, but these good wishes remained on paper.
In connection with the assumption of the functions of the highest state administration of the country, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) itself is being transformed. In March 1919, by decision of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) and in pursuance of its resolution “On the organizational issue,” several permanent working bodies were created within the Central Committee, which V.I. Lenin in his famous work “The Infantile Disease of “Leftism” in Communism” called the real party oligarchy - the Political Bureau, the Organizational Bureau and the Secretariat of the Central Committee. At the organizational Plenum of the Central Committee, which took place on March 25, 1919, the personal composition of these highest party bodies was approved for the first time. Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, which was charged with the right “make decisions on all urgent matters” included five members - V.I. Lenin, L.D. Trotsky, I.V. Stalin, L.B. Kamenev and N.N. Krestinsky and three candidate members - G.E. Zinoviev, N.I. Bukharin and M.I. Kalinin. Member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, which was supposed to “to direct all organizational work of the party”, five members also included - I.V. Stalin, N.N. Krestinsky, L.P. Serebryakov, A.G. Beloborodov and E.D. Stasova and one candidate member - M.K. Muranov. The Secretariat of the Central Committee, which at that time was responsible for all technical preparations for the meetings of the Politburo and the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, included one executive secretary of the Central Committee, E.D. Stasov and five technical secretaries from among experienced party workers.
After the appointment of I.V. Stalin as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), it is these party bodies, especially the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee, that will become the real bodies of the highest state power in the country, which will retain their enormous powers until the XIX Party Conference (1988) and the XXVIII Congress of the CPSU (1990).
At the end of 1919, broad opposition to administrative centralism also arose within the party itself, led by the “decists” led by T.V. Sapronov. At the VIII Conference of the RCP(b), held in December 1919, he spoke with the so-called platform of “democratic centralism” against the official party platform, which was represented by M.F. Vladimirsky and N.N. Krestinsky. The platform of the “decists,” which was actively supported by the majority of delegates at the party conference, provided for the partial return of real local power to Soviet government bodies and the limitation of arbitrariness on the part of party committees at all levels and central government institutions and departments of the country. This platform was also supported at the VII All-Russian Congress of Soviets (December 1919), where the main struggle unfolded against supporters of “bureaucratic centralism.” In accordance with the decisions of the congress, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee tried to become a real body of state power in the country and at the end of December 1919 created a number of working commissions to develop the foundations of a new economic policy, one of which was headed by N.I. Bukharin. However, already in mid-January 1920, at his suggestion, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) proposed to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to abolish this commission and henceforth not to show unnecessary independence in these matters, but to coordinate them with the Central Committee. Thus, the course of the VII All-Russian Congress of Soviets to revive the organs of Soviet power in the center and locally was a complete fiasco.
According to the majority of modern historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov, A. Sokolov, N. Simonov), by the end of the Civil War, the bodies of Soviet power were not only affected by the diseases of bureaucracy, but actually ceased to exist as a system of state power in the country. The documents of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets (December 1920) directly stated that the Soviet system is degrading into a purely bureaucratic, apparatus structure, when the real bodies of local power are not the Soviets, but their executive committees and presidiums of executive committees, in which the main role is played by party secretaries, who have fully assumed the functions of local bodies of Soviet power. It is no coincidence that already in the summer of 1921, in his famous work “On the Political Strategy and Tactics of Russian Communists,” I.V. Stalin wrote extremely frankly that the Bolshevik Party is the very “Order of the Sword Bearers” that “inspires and directs the activities of all bodies of the Soviet state in the center and locally.”
3. Anti-Bolshevik uprisings of 1920–1921.
The policy of war communism became the cause of a huge number of peasant uprisings and rebellions, among which the following were particularly widespread:
An uprising of the peasants of the Tambov and Voronezh provinces, which was led by the former chief of the Kirsanov district police, Alexander Sergeevich Antonov. In November 1920, under his leadership, the Tambov partisan army was created, the number of which amounted to more than 50 thousand people. In November 1920 - April 1921, units of the regular army, police and the Cheka were unable to destroy this powerful center of popular resistance. Then, at the end of April 1921, by decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee, the “Plenipotentiary Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to combat banditry in the Tambov province” was created, headed by V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko and the new commander of the Tambov Military District, M.N. Tukhachevsky, who particularly distinguished himself during the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion. In May - July 1921, units and formations of the Red Army, using all means, including mass terror, the institution of hostages and poisonous gases, literally drowned the Tambov popular uprising in blood, destroying several tens of thousands of Voronezh and Tambov peasants.
An uprising of the peasants of the Southern and Left Bank of New Russia, which was led by the ideological anarchist Nestor Ivanovich Makhno. In February 1921, by decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)U, the “Permanent Conference on Combating Banditry” was created, headed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR Kh.G. Rakovsky, who entrusted the defeat of the troops of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army to N.I. Makhno on the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Soviet troops M.V. Frunze. In May - August 1921, units and formations of the Soviet army in the most difficult bloody battles defeated the peasant uprising in Ukraine and destroyed one of the most dangerous centers of the new Civil War in the country.
But, of course, the most dangerous and significant signal for the Bolsheviks was the famous Kronstadt rebellion. The background to these dramatic events was as follows: at the beginning of February 1921, in the northern capital, where mass protests by workers of the largest St. Petersburg enterprises (Putilovsky, Nevsky and Sestroretsky factories) closed by decision of the Soviet government took place, martial law was introduced and a city Defense Committee was created, which was headed by the leader of St. Petersburg communists G.E. Zinoviev. In response to this government decision, on February 28, 1921, the sailors of two battleships of the Baltic Fleet, Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol, adopted a tough petition in which they opposed the Bolshevik omnipotence in the Soviets and for the revival of the bright ideals of October, desecrated by the Bolsheviks.
On March 1, 1921, during a meeting of thousands of soldiers and sailors of the Kronstadt naval garrison, it was decided to create a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, headed by Sergei Mikhailovich Petrichenko and the former tsarist general Arseniy Romanovich Kozlovsky. All attempts by the head of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to reason with the rebellious sailors were unsuccessful, and the All-Russian headman M.I. Kalinin went home “without a sip.”
In this situation, units of the 7th Army of the Red Army, led by the favorite L.D., were urgently transferred to Petrograd. Trotsky and the future Soviet Marshal M.N. Tukhachevsky. On March 8 and 17, 1921, during two bloody assaults, the Kronstadt Fortress was taken: some of the participants in this rebellion managed to retreat to the territory of Finland, but a significant part of the rebels were arrested. Most of them met a tragic fate: 6,500 sailors were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, and more than 2,000 rebels were executed by verdicts of the revolutionary tribunals.
In Soviet historiography (O. Leonidov, S. Semanov, Yu. Shchetinov), the Kronstadt rebellion was traditionally regarded as an “anti-Soviet conspiracy”, which was inspired by “the undead White Guard and agents of foreign intelligence services.”
At the moment, such assessments of the Kronstadt events are a thing of the past, and most modern authors (A. Novikov, P. Evrich) say that the uprising of the combat units of the Red Army was caused by purely objective reasons for the economic state of the country in which it found itself after the end of the Civil War and foreign intervention.
The policy of war communism of 1918-1921 is the internal policy of the Soviet state, which was carried out during the Civil War.
Prerequisites and reasons for the introduction of the policy of war communism
With the victory of the October Revolution, the new government began the most daring transformations in the country. However, the outbreak of the Civil War, as well as the extreme depletion of material resources, led to the fact that the government was faced with the problem of finding solutions to its salvation. The paths were extremely harsh and unpopular and were called the “policy of war communism.”
Some elements of this system were borrowed by the Bolsheviks from the policies of the government of A. Kerensky. Requisitions also took place, and a ban on private trade in bread was practically introduced, however, the state kept control over its accounting and procurement at persistently low prices.
In the countryside, the seizure of landowners' lands was in full swing, which the peasants themselves divided among themselves, according to their food intake. This process was complicated by the fact that embittered former peasants returned to the village, but in military overcoats and with weapons. Food supplies to the cities practically ceased. The peasant war began.
Characteristics of War Communism
Centralized management of the entire economy.
The practical completion of the nationalization of all industry.
Agricultural products completely fell into the state monopoly.
Minimize private trading.
Limitation of commodity-money turnover.
Equalization in all areas, especially in the sphere of essential goods.
Closing of private banks and confiscation of deposits.
Nationalization of industry
The first nationalizations began under the Provisional Government. It was in June-July 1917 that the “flight of capital” from Russia began. Among the first to leave the country were foreign entrepreneurs, followed by domestic industrialists.
The situation worsened with the Bolsheviks coming to power, but a new question arose: what to do with enterprises left without owners and managers.
The first-born of nationalization was the factory of the Likinsky Manufactory Partnership of A.V. Smirnov. This process could no longer be stopped. Enterprises were nationalized almost daily, and by November 1918 there were already 9,542 enterprises in the hands of the Soviet state. By the end of the period of War Communism, nationalization was generally completed. The Supreme Council of the National Economy became the head of this entire process.
Monopolization of foreign trade
The same policy was followed in relation to foreign trade. It was taken under control by the People's Commissariat of Trade and Industry and subsequently declared a state monopoly. At the same time, the merchant fleet was nationalized.
Labor service
The slogan “he who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat” was actively put into practice. Labor conscription was introduced for all “non-labor classes,” and a little later compulsory labor service extended to all citizens of the Land of Soviets. On January 29, 1920, this postulate was even legalized in the decree of the Council of People's Commissars “On the procedure for universal labor service.”
Food dictatorship
The food problem has become a vitally important issue. Famine gripped almost the entire country and forced the government to continue the grain monopoly introduced by the Provisional Government and the surplus appropriation system introduced by the tsarist government.
Per capita consumption standards for peasants were introduced, and they corresponded to the standards that existed under the Provisional Government. All remaining grain passed into the hands of the state authorities at fixed prices. The task was very difficult, and to carry it out, food detachments with special powers were created.
On the other hand, food rations were adopted and approved, which were divided into four categories, and measures were provided for the accounting and distribution of food.
Results of the policy of war communism
Tough policies helped the Soviet government turn the overall situation in its favor and win on the fronts of the Civil War.
But in general, such a policy could not be effective in the long term. It helped the Bolsheviks hold out, but destroyed industrial ties and strained the government's relations with the broad masses of the population. The economy not only failed to rebuild, but began to fall apart even faster.
The negative manifestations of the policy of war communism led to the fact that the Soviet government began to look for new ways to develop the country. It was replaced by the New Economic Policy (NEP).
In order to responsibly understand what the policy of war communism was, let us briefly consider the public mood during the turbulent years of the Civil War, as well as the position of the Bolshevik Party during this period (its
participation in the war and government policy).
The years 1917-1921 were the most difficult period in the history of our fatherland. Bloody wars with many warring parties and the most difficult geopolitical situation made them this way.
communism: briefly about the position of the CPSU (b)
During this difficult time, in various parts of the former empire, many claimants fought for every piece of its land. German Army; local national forces who tried to create their own states on the fragments of the empire (for example, the formation of the UPR); local popular associations commanded by regional authorities; the Poles who invaded Ukrainian territories in 1919; White Guard counter-revolutionaries; Entente formations allied to the latter; and, finally, the Bolshevik units. Under these conditions, an absolutely necessary guarantee of victory was the complete concentration of forces and the mobilization of all available resources for the military defeat of all opponents. Actually, this mobilization on the part of the communists was war communism, carried out by the leadership of the CPSU (b) from the first months of 1918 to March 1921.
Politics briefly about the essence of the regime
During its implementation, the mentioned policy caused many conflicting assessments. Its main points were the following measures:
Nationalization of the entire complex of industry and the country's banking system;
State monopolization of foreign trade;
Forced labor service for the entire population capable of working;
Food dictatorship. It was this point that became the most hated by the peasants, since part of the grain was forcibly confiscated in favor of the soldiers and the starving city. The surplus appropriation system is often held up today as an example of the atrocities of the Bolsheviks, but it should be noted that with its help the workers in the cities were significantly smoothed out.
The politics of war communism: briefly about the reaction of the population
Frankly speaking, war communism was a forceful way of forcing the masses to increase the intensity of work for the victory of the Bolsheviks. As already mentioned, the bulk of the discontent in Russia, a peasant country at that time, was caused by food appropriation. However, in fairness, it must be said that the White Guards also used the same technique. It logically followed from the state of affairs in the country, since the First World War and the Civil War completely destroyed the traditional trade ties between the village and the city. This led to the deplorable state of many industrial enterprises. At the same time, there was dissatisfaction with the policies of war communism in the cities. Here, instead of the expected increase in labor productivity and economic revival, on the contrary, there was a weakening of discipline at enterprises. The replacement of old personnel with new ones (who were communists, but not always qualified managers) led to a noticeable decline in industry and a decline in economic indicators.
Despite all the difficulties, the policy of war communism still fulfilled its intended role. Although not always successful, the Bolsheviks were able to gather all their forces against the counter-revolution and survive the battles. At the same time, it caused popular uprisings and seriously undermined the authority of the CPSU (b) among the peasantry. The last such mass uprising was the Kronstadt one, which took place in the spring of 1921. As a result, Lenin initiated the transition to the so-called 1921, which helped restore the national economy in the shortest possible time.
The policy of war communism was based on the task of destroying market and commodity-money relations (private property) in order to replace them with centralized production and distribution.
To carry out this plan, a system was needed that was capable of bringing the will of the center to the most remote corners of the huge power. In this system, everything must be registered and put under control (flows of raw materials and resources, finished products). believed that war communism would be the last step before socialism.
On September 2, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee announced the introduction of martial law; leadership of the country passed to the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense, headed by V.I. Lenin. The fronts were commanded by the Revolutionary Military Council, headed by L.D. Trotsky.
The difficult situation on the fronts and in the country's economy prompted the authorities to introduce a series of emergency measures, defined as war communism.
In the Soviet version, it included surplus appropriation (private trade in grain was prohibited, surpluses and reserves were forcibly confiscated), the beginning of the creation of collective and state farms, the nationalization of industry, the prohibition of private trade, the introduction of universal labor service, and the centralization of management.
By February 1918, enterprises belonging to the royal family, the Russian treasury and private owners became state property. Subsequently, a chaotic nationalization of small industrial enterprises and then entire industries was carried out.
Although in tsarist Russia the share of state (state) property was always traditionally large, the centralization of production and distribution was quite painful.
The peasants and a significant part of the workers were opposed to the Bolsheviks. From 1917 to 1921 they adopted anti-Bolshevik resolutions and actively participated in armed anti-government protests.
The actual nationalization of land and the introduction of equalized land use, the ban on renting and buying land and expanding arable land led to a terrifying drop in the level of agricultural production. The result was a famine that caused the death of thousands of people.
During the period of war communism, after the suppression of the anti-Bolshevik speech of the left Socialist Revolutionaries, a transition to a one-party system was carried out.
The scientific justification by the Bolsheviks of the historical process as an irreconcilable class struggle led to the policy of the “Red Party,” the reason for the introduction of which was a series of assassination attempts on party leaders.
Its essence was the consistent destruction of the dissatisfied according to the principle “Whoever is not with us is against us.” The list included nobles, intelligentsia, officers, priests, and wealthy peasants.
The main method of the “Red Terror” was extrajudicial executions, authorized and carried out by the Cheka. The policy of “red terror” allowed the Bolsheviks to strengthen their power and destroy opponents and those who showed dissatisfaction.
War communism worsened economic devastation and led to the unjustified death of a huge number of innocent people.
