The goals of the NEP

- restoration of the economy and the search for new ways of building socialism;

- creating internal political stability, attracting peasants to the side of Soviet power;

- overcoming the crisis of power.

- Substitution of surplus tax in kind;

- the tax in kind provided for the surrender to the state of a fixed part of the production of the peasant economy, with the granting of the right to dispose of the rest;

- permission for private trade;

- decentralization of economic management;

- denationalization of small and medium-sized industries, leasing of unprofitable enterprises;

- conducting monetary reform (strengthening the financial system);

- the transition to cash wages, rehabilitated material incentives for workers;

- cancellation of free services;

- permission for land lease and hired labor;

- transfer of state-owned enterprises to self-financing and self-financing;

- admission of private capital into the economy in the form concessions: the conclusion of agreements on the transfer of natural resources, industrial enterprises and other economic objects belonging to the state into operation for a certain period.

In general, the NEP was assessed as a transitional period, a tactical move, a temporary retreat for the development of socialism.

NEP– it is the domination of economic management methods, the development of competition while maintaining control of the Bolshevik state. In the political sphere, the monopoly of the RCP (b) has not only been preserved, but also strengthened. The claims of the trade unions to control the economic sphere are rejected.

Lenin believed that political liberalization (multi-party system) should not be allowed in the Soviet Republic.

Achievements of the NEP:

- the introduction of the NEP made it possible to restore the destroyed economy, improve the material situation of people;

- agriculture was recovering faster than industry, by 1925 all the empty land was sown, the pre-revolutionary grain yield was achieved (7 centners per hectare); the livestock population reached the pre-war level;

- the middle peasant farms developed especially actively;

- the connection between peasant farms and the market was strengthened;

- the marketability of agricultural products grew;

- in general, the standard of living of the population has increased;

- industrial enterprises are going through a period of reorganization;

- already in 1924 the volume of industrial production reached 50% of the pre-war level, and in 1927 in the light and food industries it exceeded the pre-war indicators;

- there is a revival in transport, by 1927 the pre-war volumes of cargo transportation were restored;

- the fuel industry is on the rise;

- the working class is reviving;

- new power plants are put into operation (according to the GOELRO plan).

Small and medium-sized enterprises were transferred to former or new owners, while large enterprises were leased.

- in 1920 a law on concessions was adopted - enterprises were transferred for temporary use to foreign entrepreneurs;

- Joint-stock enterprises became one of the forms of capitalist management (domestic capital was invested).

These forms of management did not receive further development, since the state took control of foreign trade. Cooperation in the conditions of the NEP:

- got some independence;

- control and management of the fulfillment of obligatory tasks was maintained;

- the efficiency of cooperative production was twice as high as that of state production;

- the cooperative movement has developed in the city and in the countryside;

- the Bolshevik party took control of the cooperative movement.

Taking on X Congress of the RCP (b) the decision to replace the surplus appropriation system with a tax in kind is the starting point in the transition from the policy of “war communism” to a new economic system, to the NEP.

VI Lenin and KE Voroshilov among the delegates to the X Congress of the RCP (b). 1921 g.

It is quite obvious that the introduction of the tax in kind is not the only characteristic of NEP, which became a certain system of political and economic measurescarried out for almost a decade. But these were the first steps, and they were taken very carefully. Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of March 29, 1921 No. Was installed grain tax in the amount of 240 million poods (with an average harvest) instead of 423 million poods with the appropriation of 1920

The peasants were given the opportunity to sell their surplus products on the market.

For V.I. Lenin, as for all Bolsheviks, this entailed a deep revision of his own ideas about the incompatibility of socialism and private trade. Already in May 1921, 2 months after the X Congress, the X Extraordinary Party Conference was convened to discuss the new course. There could be no more doubts - the course, as Lenin specified, was taken "seriously and for a long time." It was " reformist"Method of action, rejection of the revolutionary Red Guard attack on capital, this was the" admission "of elements of the capitalist economy into socialism.

V. I. Lenin in his office. October 1922

For the formation of the market and the establishment of trade, it was necessary to revive the industry, to increase its output. The management of industry has undergone radical changes. 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 loans. By the end of 1922, about 90% of industrial enterprises were merged into trusts.

N.A. Berdyaev.

S.L. Frank, L.P. Karsavin; historians A.A. Kizevetter, S.P. Melgunov, A.V. Florovsky; economist B.D. Brutskus and others.

Particular emphasis is placed on liquidation menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, in 1922 arrests became widespread. By this time RCP (b) stayed the only legal political party in the country.

From the very beginning, the New Economic Policy has combined two contradictory tendencies: one - to liberalize the economy, the other - to maintain the monopoly of the communist party on power... These contradictions could not fail to see V.I. Lenin and other party leaders.

Established in the 20s. the NEP system, therefore, was supposed to contribute restoration and development of the national economy, which collapsed during the years of imperialist and civil wars, but at the same time this system initially included internal inconsistencywhich inevitably led to deep crises directly stemming from the nature and essence of NEP.

The first steps in the liberalization of the economy, the introduction of market relations contributed to the solution of the problem restoration of the national economy the country destroyed by the civil war. A clear rise was indicated by the beginning of 1922. The implementation of the plan began GOELRO.

V. I. Lenin at the GOELRO card. VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets. December 1920 Hood. L. Shmatko. 1957 g.

Railway transport began to emerge from a state of ruin, train traffic was restored throughout the country. By 1925, large-scale industry reached the level of 1913. The Nizhegorodskaya, Shaturskaya, Yaroslavskaya, Volkhovskaya hydroelectric power stations were put into operation.

Start-up of the 1st stage of the Kashirskaya SDPP. 1922 g.

The Putilov machine-building plant in Petrograd, and then the Kharkov and Kolomna factories began to produce tractors, the Moscow AMO plant - trucks.

For the period 1921 - 1924. the gross output of large state industry has more than doubled.

The rise in agriculture began... In 1921 - 1922. the state received 233 million poods of grain, in 1922 - 1923 - 429.6 million, in 1923 - 1924 - 397, in 1925 - 1926 - 496 million poods. State procurement of butter increased 3.1 times, eggs - 6 times.

The transition to a tax in kind improved the socio-political situation in the countryside. In the information summaries of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), relating to the summer of 1921, it was reported: "The peasants are increasing the area under crops everywhere, armed uprisings began to decline, the attitude of the peasants is changing in favor of the Soviet regime."

But the first successes were thwarted by extreme disasters that hit the main grain areas of the country. 25 provinces of the Volga region, Don, North Caucasus and Ukraine were hit by a severe drought, which, in the context of the post-war food crisis, led to famine, which took away about 6% of the population. The fight against hunger was carried out as a broad state campaign with the involvement of enterprises, organizations, the Red Army, and international organizations (ARA, Mezhrabpom).

In the famine-stricken areas, martial law, introduced there during the years of the civil war, remained, there was a real threat of riots, and banditry increased.

On first plan a new problem comes up. The peasantry showed their dissatisfaction with the rate of tax in kind, which turned out to be unbearable.

In the reports of the GPU for 1922, "On the political state of the Russian countryside" noted the extremely negative impact of the tax in kind on the material situation of the peasants. Local authorities took decisive measures against debtors, up to reprisals. In some provinces, property inventories, arrests and trials were carried out. Such measures met with active resistance from the peasants. For example, residents of one of the villages of the Tver province shot a detachment of Red Army men who had arrived to collect the tax.

According to the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars "On a unified tax in kind on agricultural products for 1922 - 1923." dated March 17, 1922, instead of a whole host of food taxes, uniform tax in kind, which assumed the unity of the salary, pay periods and a common unit of calculation - pood of rye.

IN may 1922 All-Russian Central Executive Committee accepted Basic Law on Labor Land Use, the content of which later, almost unchanged, formed the basis of the Land Code of the RSFSR, approved on October 30 and entered into force on December 1 of the same year. Within the framework of state ownership of land, confirmed by the code, the peasants were given the freedom to choose forms of land use up to the organization of individual farms.

The development of individual farms in the countryside led to strengthening class stratification... As a result, low-power farms found themselves in a difficult situation. In 1922, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) began to receive information about the spread of the system of enslaving deals in the countryside. This meant that the poor, in order to get a loan or inventory from the kulaks, were forced to lay their crops “in the bud” for next to nothing. These phenomena are also the face of NEP in the countryside.

In general, the first years of NEP became a serious test of the new course, since the difficulties that arose were caused not only by the consequences of the poor harvest in 1921, but also by the complexity of restructuring the entire system of economic relations in the country.

Spring 1922 g. broke out financial crisisdirectly related to the introduction of capitalist forms of economy.

The 1921 SNK decrees on free trade and denationalization of enterprises marked the rejection of the policy of “communist” distribution. This means that banknotes have returned to life as an integral part of free enterprise and trade. As M. Bulgakov wrote, at the end of 1921, “trillionaires” appeared in Moscow, i.e. people who had trillions of rubles. Astronomical figures became a reality because it became possible to buy goods with them, but this opportunity was limited by the constant depreciation of the ruble, which, naturally, narrowed the possibilities of free trade and the market.

At this time, a new NEP entrepreneur, a “Soviet capitalist,” who, in the conditions of a commodity shortage, inevitably became an ordinary reseller and speculator, also showed himself.

Passionate (now Pushkin) square. 1920s

IN AND. Lenin, assessing speculation, said that "the car is pulled out of hand, does not drive exactly as the one who sits at the wheel of this car imagines."

The communists admitted that the old world had burst in with buying and selling, salesmen, speculators - with what they had recently fought against. Problems with the state-owned industry were added, which was removed from state supplies and, in fact, left without working capital. As a result, the workers either joined the army of the unemployed, or did not receive their wages for several months.

The situation in industry has become seriously complicated in 1923 - early 1924when there was a sharp decline in the growth rate of industrial production, which, in turn, led to a massive closure of enterprises, an increase in unemployment, the emergence of a strike movement that engulfed the entire country.

The reasons for the crisis that hit the country's economy in 1923 became the subject of discussion at XII congress of the RCP (b)held in April 1923. “Price scissors crisis"- so he began to be called from the famous diagram, which L. D. Trotsky, who spoke about this phenomenon, showed it to the delegates of the congress. The crisis was associated with the divergence of prices for industrial and agricultural products (this was called “price scissors”). This happened because during the recovery period the village was ahead in terms of the scale and pace of recovery. Handicraft and private production grew faster than large-scale industry. By the middle of 1923, agriculture was restored in relation to the pre-war level by 70%, and large-scale industry - by only 39%.

Discussion on the problem “ scissors”Took place on october Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) in 1923 a decision was made to lower the prices of industrial goods, which undoubtedly prevented the deepening of the crisis, which posed a serious threat of a social explosion in the country.

The entire socio-political crisis that hit the USSR in 1923 cannot be limited only by the narrow framework of the price scissors problem. Unfortunately, the problem was even more serious than it might seem at first glance. A serious contradiction between government and peoplewho was dissatisfied with the policy of the authorities, the policy of the Communist Party. Both the working class and the peasantry expressed their protest both in the form of passive resistance and active protests against Soviet power.

IN 1923 year... many provinces of the country were covered strike movements... In the reports of the OGPU "On the political state of the USSR," a whole complex of reasons was highlighted: these are long-term delays in wages, its low level, an increase in production rates, staff reductions, and mass layoffs. The most acute disturbances occurred at textile enterprises in Moscow, at metallurgical enterprises in the Urals, Primorye, Petrograd, and at railroad and water transport.

1923 was also difficult for the peasantry. The defining moment in the mood of the peasantry was dissatisfaction with the excessively high level of the single tax and the “price scissors”. In some areas of the Primorsky and Transbaikal provinces, in the Mountain Republic (North Caucasus), peasants generally refused to pay tax. Many peasants had to sell their livestock and even implements to pay the tax. There was a threat of hunger. In the Murmansk, Pskov, Arkhangelsk provinces, surrogates have already begun to be used for food: moss, fish bones, straw. Banditry became a real threat (in Siberia, Transbaikalia, in the North Caucasus, in Ukraine).

The socio-economic and political crisis could not but affect the position of the party.

On October 8, 1923, Trotsky outlined his point of view on the causes of the crisis and the ways out of it. Trotsky's conviction that "chaos comes from above", that subjective reasons lie at the heart of the crisis, was shared by many leaders of economic departments and organizations.

This position of Trotsky was condemned by the majority of the members of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), and then he appealed to the party masses. December 11, 1923in " The truth"Trotsky's" Letter to Party Meetings "was published, where he accused the Party of bureaucratic rebirth... For a whole month from mid-December 1923 to mid-January 1924, 2-3 pages of Pravda were filled with discussion articles and materials.

The difficulties that arose as the NEP developed and deepened in the first half of the 1920s, inevitably led to internal party disputes. The emerging " left direction", Defended by Trotsky and his supporters, actually reflected disbelief of a certain part of the communists in the prospects of NEP in the country.

At the VIII All-Union Party Conference, the results of the discussion were summed up and a detailed resolution was adopted, condemning Trotsky and his supporters for a petty-bourgeois deviation. Accusations of factionalism, anti-Bolshevism, revisions of Leninism shook his credibility and marked the beginning of the collapse of his political career.

IN 1923 g. in connection with Lenin's illness, there is a gradual process of concentration of power in the hands of the main " triplets"Central Committee: Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev. In order to exclude oppositionism within the party in the future, the seventh clause of the resolution "On Party Unity", adopted at the 10th Congress and kept secret until that time, was promulgated at the conference.

Farewell to V. I. Lenin. January 1924 Hood. S. Boim. 1952 g.

As long as Lenin actually headed the party, his authority in it was indisputable. Therefore, the struggle for power between representatives of the political currents emerging in connection with the transition to NEP could only have the character of latent rivalry.

WITH 1922 year. when I.V. Stalin took office Secretary General of the RCP (b), he gradually placed his supporters in key positions in the party apparatus.

At the XIII Congress of the RCP (b) on May 23 - 31, 1924, two trends in the development of Soviet society were clearly noted: “one is capitalist, when capital accumulates at one pole, wage labor, poverty at the other; the other - through the most understandable, accessible forms of cooperation - to socialism. "

WITH late 1924... the course begins “ facing the village”, Elected by the party as a result of the growing discontent of the peasantry with the current policy, the emergence of massive demands for the creation of a peasant party (the so-called Peasant Union), which, unlike the RCP (b), would protect the interests of the peasants, resolve issues of tax, and contribute to the deepening and expansion of private property in the countryside.

The developer and ideologist of the “village NEP” was N.I. Bukharin, who believed that it was necessary to move from a policy of tactical concessions to the peasantry to a stable course of economic reforms, because, as he said, “we have NEP in the city, we have NEP in relations between town and country, but we do not have NEP in village ”.

Bukharin spoke about a new turn in economic policy in the village April 17, 1925... at a meeting of the Moscow party activists, a week later this report in the form of an article was published in Pravda. It was in this report that Bukharin uttered the famous phrase, addressing an appeal to the entire peasantry: “ Get rich!”.

This course was put into practice at the April 1925 Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), which stated that “along with the development of market relations in the countryside, as well as the strengthening of trade relations with the city and the foreign market, the strengthening of the bulk of middle peasant farms is going on and will grow. simultaneous growth (at least for the next few years) on one side of the wealthy strata of the countryside, with the allocation of capitalist elements (merchants) and on the other side - farm laborers and rural poor ”.

And in december 1925... took place XIV Congresswhere the course was officially approved to the victory of socialism in the USSR.

Workers' delegations from Moscow and Donbass welcome the XIV Party Congress. Hood. Y. Tsyganov

K.E. Voroshilov and M.V. Frunze during the parade on Red Square on May 1, 1925

The congress called this “the main task of our party” and emphasized that “there is an economic offensive of the proletariat on the basis of the new economic policy and the advancement of the USSR economy towards socialism, and the state socialist industry is increasingly becoming the vanguard of the national economy,” therefore, “ to set the task of victory of socialist economic forms over private capital ”.

Thus, XIV Congress of the RCP (b) became a kind milestone in the reorientation of the party's policy towards strengthening the socialist principles in the economy.

Nevertheless, the beginning of the second half of the 20s. still took place under the sign of the preservation and development of the NEP principles. But the grain procurement crisis of the winter of 1927 - 1928. created a real threat to industrial construction plans, complicating the overall economic situation in the country.

In determining the fate of NEP in the current economic conditions, two groups of the country's political leadership clashed. The first - Bukharin, Rykov, Pyatakov, Tomsky, Smilga and other supporters of the active growth of agriculture, the deepening of NEP in the countryside, lost the ideological battle to the other - to Stalin and his supporters (Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, etc.), who by that time had achieved a majority in the political leadership of the country.

In January 1928, Stalin proposed to expand the construction of collective and state farms to stabilize grain procurements. Stalin's speech in July 1928, published only a few years later, emphasized that politics nEP has reached a dead endthat the bitterness of the class struggle is explained by the increasingly desperate resistance of the capitalist elements, that the peasantry will have to spend money on the needs of industrialization.

Bukharin, in his own words, “was horrified” by the General Secretary’s conclusions and tried to organize a polemic by publishing “Notes of an Economist” in Pravda on September 30, 1928, where he outlined the economic program of the opposition (Bukharin, Rykov, Tomskiy drew up the so-called “ right opposition ”). The author of the article explained the crisis by mistakes in planning, pricing, unpreparedness of agricultural cooperation and advocated a return to economic and financial measures of influence on the market under the conditions of the New Economic Policy.

IN november 1928... The plenum of the Central Committee unanimously condemned “ right slope”, Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky dissociated themselves from him, who were guided by the desire to preserve the unity of the party. In the same month, the party and state bodies decide on forcing collectivization processes.

In 1929, in the Ukraine and the RSFSR, emergency measures to restrict the free sale of grain were legalized, the priority sale of grain was established on state obligations, and the policy of expropriation of the merchant class as a class began to be implemented. The country is entering the first five-year plan, the plans of which provide for an accelerated rate of industrialization and collectivization of the country. And in these plans already no place.

In the many years of struggle between socialist and market principles, victory was directed from above, the party leadership of the country, who made their final choice in favor of socialism.

However, attaching decisive importance to the subjective factor - the volitional actions of Stalin and his entourage, oriented towards accelerated socialist industrialization, cannot be the only explanation for the “death of NEP” in the USSR.

The real practice of implementing this policy throughout the 20s. identifies and objective factor - i.e. those contradictions and crises that were inherent in the very nature of NEP... The intertwining of market and administrative command principles of management, maneuvering between the market and the directive economy led to the "turn" 1929 year... This year has actually become the end of the new economic policycarried out by the party and the government during the recovery period. There were at that time and undoubted successes, and losses, and phenomena of stabilization, and internal crises. But the positive, constructive transformations of the 1920s. undoubtedly associated with a more flexible strategy and tactics of NEP in comparison with the policy of the total regime of the subsequent "Stalinist" decades.

From the October Revolution to the late 1920s, two models of economic development were tested in Soviet Russia. The first was called a military com ...

The NEP years, the reasons for the introduction of the new economic policy, its essence and historical facts

From Masterweb

20.04.2018 22:01

From the October Revolution to the late 1920s, two models of economic development were tested in Soviet Russia. The first was called War Communism, the second - NEP (New Economic Policy). In the first years of the development of the socialist state, two opposite phenomena collided. How is this possible, and what was the NEP during the years of the USSR? We will try to understand this issue.

From War Communism to New Economic Policy

November 1920 was marked by the end of the civil war in Russia. The transition to the peaceful construction of statehood began. It was not easy to implement this: during the years of turmoil, the country's population decreased by 20 million people, and the total damage amounted to about 39 billion gold rubles. The productive forces were undermined. Industry in 1920 was only 14% of the pre-war level. Agricultural production fell by a third, most of the transport routes collapsed. Peasant uprisings raged everywhere, and in some places the white invaders did not calm down.

The reason for the discontent was the system of War Communism, introduced by the Soviet government in 1918. This policy consisted of preparing the country for a new, communist society. Industry and agriculture were nationalized. Labor acquired a militarized character: the focus was mainly on military products. The people were dissatisfied with the total egalitarianism manifested in the introduction of food appropriation. Bread was simply confiscated from the starving population.

The Soviet government is tired of fighting the growing number of riots. The last straw was the Kronstadt mutiny. Its members previously helped the Bolsheviks to seize power. Lenin was one of the first to realize that fighting his own people was not good. In 1920, he spoke at the 10th Party Congress and proposed new economic principles.

The country was completely transformed during the NEP years. Extremely liberal principles and norms were introduced, which caused anxiety among seasoned revolutionaries and educated Marxists. The Bolshevik opposition appeared, dissatisfied with the bourgeois deviation of the leadership. What were the Marxists afraid of? You need to figure it out.

The essence of the NEP

The main goal of the NEP policy during the years of the USSR was the revival of the country's economic sector. A system of measures was developed to address the food crisis. The set goals could be realized by raising agriculture. It was necessary to liberate the producer, to provide him with incentives for the development of production.

The years of the NEP were marked, in fact, by the strongest liberalization of the economic sphere. Of course, the market was out of the question, but in comparison with War Communism, the new system was a significant step forward.

So, the following phenomena became the reasons for the transition to the NEP policy in the years after the revolution:

• the decline of the revolutionary wave in the West (in Mexico, Germany and a number of other states);
• the desire to retain power at any cost;
• the deepest political and socio-economic crisis of power, caused, among other things, by the policy of war communism;
• mass uprisings in the villages, as well as performances in the army and navy;
• the collapse of the idea of \u200b\u200bforming socialism and communism by circumventing market relations.

The NEP years were marked by the gradual elimination of the military-mobilization economic model and the restoration of the national economy destroyed during the war.

The main political goal during the NEP years was the removal of social tension. It was necessary to strengthen the social base in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants. The economic goal was to prevent further aggravation of devastation, to overcome the crisis and restore the economy. The social task was to ensure favorable conditions for the formation of a socialist society without a world revolution.

There were also foreign policy goals during the NEP years. The relatively liberal elite of the Soviet regime insisted on overcoming international isolation. One of the reasons for this decision lay in economic changes. For example, the concession became widespread - a procedure used during the NEP years. The commissioning of various enterprises or lands to foreign entrepreneurs has gained remarkable popularity. This procedure helped to quickly "pull out" many enterprises and lands, although the conservative part of the Bolsheviks was still suspicious of the concession.

Have the set goals been achieved? There are certain indicators, for example, the growth of national income, the improvement in the material situation of workers, etc. The years of the NEP did indeed lead to the optimization of the state situation. But was the new policy a real economic revolution, or did the Soviet government overestimate its own plans? To answer this question, you need to turn to the basic techniques and mechanisms used during the NEP years.

Changes in the economy

The first and main measure of the new economic policy was the elimination of food appropriation. From now on, bread was not confiscated in unlimited quantities. A clear limit was established for the food tax - 20% of the net peasant product. The food appropriation system required almost twice as much. The peasants could use the products remaining after the tax was paid for their own needs. You could use it yourself, transfer it to the state, or even sell it on the free market.

The industrial sphere has also been radically changed. The main committees, the so-called chapters, were abolished. Instead, trusts appear - associations of interconnected or homogeneous enterprises. They receive complete financial and economic independence, up to the right to produce long-term bonds.

By the end of 1922, about 90% of the enterprises were united in 421 trusts. 60% of them were localized and only 40% were centralized. The trusts resolved issues of production and state sales of products. The enterprises themselves did not receive state support and were guided only by the purchase of resources on the market.

Syndicates - voluntary associations of several trusts - began to enjoy no less popularity. They were engaged in supply, marketing, lending and various foreign trade functions. The widest network of fairs, trade enterprises and exchanges arose.

The aggressive policy of War Communism involved the complete abolition of finance and payment. But the years of the NEP in Russia revived commodity-money relations. Wage rates have been introduced, restrictions have been lifted for increasing wages and changing jobs, and universal labor service has been abolished. The principle of material incentives was taken as a basis. It replaced the non-economic coercion of War Communism.

Tax in kind and trade

A little more detail should be told about each economic sector that underwent changes during the NEP years. The state with all its population breathed a sigh of relief when it became known about the abolition of the appropriation of food. At the X Congress of the RSDLP, held from 8 to 16 March 1921, it was decided to introduce a special tax, which would replace the forcible seizure of property. By the way, the question of in which year the transition to NEP was officially confirmed by the authorities should be considered within the framework of the X Congress. There, Lenin proposed a program of new socio-economic principles, which was supported by 732,000 party members.

The essence of the tax in kind is simple: from now on, the peasants annually hand over to the state a firmly formed grain rate. Forced confiscation of almost half of the total production is a thing of the past. The tax has been halved. The authorities felt that such a move would create an incentive to increase grain production. By 1922, measures to help the peasants were strengthened at all: the tax in kind was reduced by 10%. Farmers were freed from the choice of forms of agricultural use. Even the hiring of labor and the lease of land were allowed.

All measures taken were the most liberal. The commercial and financial side of the NEP concerned the free sale of rural products. At the X Congress, the beginning of the exchange of products between the countryside and the city was announced. The preference was given not to the market, but to the cooperatives. Initially, the Bolsheviks planned to be based on barter - free exchange without money. For example, 1 pood of rye could be exchanged for 1 box of nails. Naturally, nothing came of this venture. The pseudo-socialist exchange of products was quickly replaced by the customary buying and selling with money.

Industry during the NEP years

The transition to the use of market mechanisms was completed in the fall of 1921. This prompted the leadership of the RCP (b) to urgently carry out reforms in the industrial field. Most state-owned enterprises had to switch to the principles of cost accounting. State finances, on the other hand, had to be reformed in equal measure - by replacing taxes in kind with monetary ones, forming a new budget, establishing control over the emission of money, etc.

The question of creating state capitalism in the form of concessions and lease relations was raised. The power-capitalist form of management included trade, rural and consumer cooperation.

The main task of the Bolshevik leadership was to strengthen the socialist sector through the creation of large-scale state industry. It was necessary to ensure its interaction with other structures. Didn't such a move contradict the basic principles of the NEP? It is necessary to understand the issue.

The public sector included the largest and most efficient enterprises, which were provided with fuel, raw materials and other products. All large businesses were subordinate to the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh). The rest of the enterprises were immediately leased out. The industrial management system was reformed. Of the fifty former industrial centers and central administrations of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, only 16 remained. Accordingly, the number of employees decreased from 300 thousand to 91 thousand people.

The surrender of domestic industry to foreign entrepreneurs, which was used during the NEP years, was called a concession. In fact, production attracted foreign capital. This saved many unprofitable enterprises during the NEP years.

Despite the development of market mechanisms, the Soviet authorities still despised the bourgeois development of society. "Capitalism should be well-trained in our country," Lenin once declared. What could he mean? Most likely, Vladimir Ilyich was going to improve the country in a matter of months with the help of the market and liberal reforms, and then return to the path of socialist development. Capitalism in Russia will not develop fully, but only at the "school" level. After that he will be liquidated, "schooled".

Trade and private capital

A significant step forward has been the revival of private capital in the trade sector. Merchants, like small producers, were forced to buy up patents and pay a progressive tax. The merchants were divided into five categories, depending on the nature of the trade relations carried out. These are sellers from hands, in stores, in kiosks and stalls, retail and wholesale, as well as hired workers.

Towards 1925, the state implemented a shift towards stationary trade. Used by the authorities and widely used during the NEP years, private traders were placed in shops that formed a wide retail network. At the same time, the wholesale market was still in the hands of the authorities. Cooperative and large state enterprises predominated here.

Since 1921, exchanges have begun to revive - points of circulation of mass products. Such institutions were abolished during the years of war communism, but the new economic policy changed everything.

During the NEP years, the number of various exchanges reached the pre-war number. By the end of 1925, about 90 joint stock companies were registered. All of them were a collection of mostly cooperative, state or mixed capital. The trading companies' turnover exceeded 1.5 billion rubles. Various forms of cooperation developed rapidly. This especially affected the consumer cooperative instances, which were closely associated with the countryside.

As already mentioned, a foreign element appeared in trade - concessions. This is the leasing used in the years of the NEP to foreign tenants and small entrepreneurs of various firms and organizations. Already in 1926, there were 117 valid concession agreements. They covered enterprises that employed about 20 thousand people. This is 1% of the total number of products manufactured in Russia.

Concessions were not the only form of interaction with foreign enterprises. A stream of emigrant workers from all over the world went to the Soviet Union. The newly formed country with an unusual way of life, utopian ideology and a complex form of government attracted foreigners. Thus, in 1922, the Russian-American Industrial Corporation (RAIK) was created, which included six garment factories in Petrograd and four in Moscow. The credit system was revived. Until 1925, a number of specialized banks, joint stock companies, syndicates, cooperatives, etc. appeared.

The situation, I must say, was amazing. The socialists who came to power were simply carried away by bourgeois rule, because of which they were criticized by the conservative part of the revolutionaries. However, the policy being pursued was simply necessary. The devastation in the country demanded quick changes, and they could only be ensured by proven, capitalist methods. But can we say that a real market has been formed in the country? Let's try to figure it out further.

Market mechanisms

There was no pure market economy in the form in which we know it in the USSR during the NEP years. This is an obvious fact, despite all the mechanisms and tricks to which the Bolshevik government so often went. It is impossible to build a market in a matter of days from scratch. And the country's economy was really "empty". The authorities have achieved a similar phenomenon by aggressively imposing War Communism. No matter how actively and effectively all the methods that marked the new years of the NEP were used, a normal market was still not possible in the country.

In the late 1910s, monetary relations were abolished in the USSR. Most of the goods and services were sold free of charge. The Soviet government considered this decision painful, but correct. Radical measures will supposedly bring closer an early, happy future, and socialism will flourish. However, there was still no happiness. The confusion with piled up money and unsecured exchange only sparked a wave of discontent. The state made concessions, and to improve the economy, a monetary reform was carried out - the first market mechanism.

In the early 1920s, a gold duct was introduced in the country. It was equal to 5 US dollars and was backed by the gold reserves of Russia. A little later, the State Bank appeared, created on the principles of cost accounting and interested in obtaining income from lending to industry, trade and agriculture.

The transition to NEP meant the abandonment of revolutionary, radical methods of economic management. The Soviet authorities realized the ineffectiveness of the reactionary policy and did not torture their fellow citizens. However, there is no need to talk about the market either. The surrender of revolutionary powers, which was used during the NEP years, does not mean an active and desired transition to capitalism. On the contrary, the authorities were reluctant to introduce new liberal elements. The same concession could not do without strict supervision by the Soviet authorities.

Social contradictions of politics

Most historians argue that the introduction of new economic principles significantly changed the social structure and lifestyle of Soviet citizens. The colorful figures of the Soviet bourgeoisie appeared - the so-called Sovburs, Nepmen. These are the persons who determine the specifics of that era. They were, as it were, outside the boundaries of society. Deprived of voting rights and trade union membership, while far from poor Nepmen became a real reflection of the times of the 1920s.

The entrepreneurs felt the fragility and temporary nature of their position. It was hard and pointless to leave the country. Running an enterprise from a distance would simply not work. The Soviet Union itself was a state with an unusual ideology: every person here should be equal, all the rich are despised. More recently, landowners and merchants were killed or expelled from the country. The Napmans knew this, and therefore feared for their lives.

Fashion in the years of the NEP differed little from the American era of Prohibition. The photo below clearly demonstrates this.

How long can you still hit the jackpot and earn on adventures? What to do with the spent savings and is it worth doing at all? These questions were asked by every Soviet entrepreneur who built at least small forecasts in his head.

However, the emergence of entrepreneurs in the most unadapted country was not the only contradiction during the NEP years. The applied support for small lands, as well as the reduction of well-to-do farms and the "averaging" of the countryside, presented another interesting problem.

It all started with a tax policy - a kind of deterrent. Prosperous industries ceased to grow. The support of small farms was especially developed. The so-called averaging began - when each owner gets not a little and not a lot, but average. It was the middle peasants who became staunch adherents of power and traditional culture.

Lenin pursued the policy. He hoped for universal peasant cooperatives, while he was not lazy to once again mention the voluntary nature of land divisions. What is the contradiction here? On the one hand, the state had a socialist orientation. It was supposed to equalize everyone by force. But the NEP policy, marked by bourgeois principles, did not allow this to be done. The result is a very strange picture: a supposedly voluntary "averaging" with incomprehensible goals, which did not lead to anything at all. A little later, the Soviet authorities will abandon private property and announce the creation of collective farms.

The last contradiction of the NEP is the creation of an exorbitant bureaucratic apparatus. The bureaucracy has grown to incredible proportions due to the active intervention of the authorities in the industrial and production spheres. Already in 1921, about 2.5 million officials worked in state institutions. For comparison: in tsarist Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, the number of civil servants barely reached 180 thousand people. There is only one question: why does the state, whose ideology is the focus on the absence of any power, need such a vast and cumbersome state apparatus? It is difficult to answer this question.

Policy Outcomes

The question of in what year the NEP was officially liquidated remains relevant to this day. Some talk about 1927, when the state procurement of grain was disrupted. Then an enormous amount of food supplies was confiscated from the kulaks. Other historians put forward a point of view about 1928, when the policy of five-year development of the national economy was launched. The country's leadership then took a course towards collectivization and forced industrialization.

NEP was not officially canceled. It should be remembered that the principles of the New Economic Policy were formed by Vladimir Lenin, who died in 1924. His rules worked after death. Only on October 11, 1931, an official decree was adopted on the complete prohibition of private trade in the USSR.

What was the main political success? First, it is a partial restoration of the economy, which was destroyed during the two revolutions and the civil war. War Communism was unable to "cure" the country, but this was partly achieved through the use of capitalist methods. Economic performance from 1913 to 1926 doubled. The country has received capital intensive, long-term investments. The situation remained controversial only in the countryside, where pressure was exerted on the kulaks - wealthy peasants.

Finding new ways

The undoubted successes of the New Economic Policy did not, however, solve all state problems. The sales crisis remained in force, the price scissors increased (discrepancy between the cost of goods), and finally, the shortage of goods did not disappear.

The authorities had different views on the solution of the problem. The left, led by Trotsky, insisted on the dictatorship of industry. The tasks can be solved only through the efforts of the proletariat with minimal interference from the authorities. There were also the Rights, headed by Bukharin. They advocated the creation of cooperatives, the support of the peasantry and the development of a market economy. Bukharin's famous quote:

Get rich, accumulate, develop your economy! Poor socialism is lousy socialism.

Trotsky was defeated quite easily - at the January 1924 party conference, his project was removed from discussion. Bukharin, in turn, became friends with Stalin. At the end of the 20s, he finds himself in disgrace due to contradictions with the current government - his arguments against collectivization and industrialization were simply not accepted.

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The first attempts to curtail the NEP began. Syndicates were liquidated in industry, from which private capital was administratively squeezed out, and a rigid centralized system of economic management (economic people's commissariats) was created. Stalin and his entourage embarked on a course of compulsory seizure of grain and forcible collectivization of the countryside. Repressions were carried out against management personnel (the Shakhty case, the process of the Industrial Party, etc.). By the beginning of the 1930s, the NEP was virtually phased out.

Prerequisites for NEP

Agricultural production fell by 40% due to depreciation of money and a shortage of industrial goods.

The society has degraded, its intellectual potential has significantly weakened. Most of the Russian intelligentsia was destroyed or left the country.

Thus, the main task of the internal policy of the RCP (b) and the Soviet state was to restore the destroyed economy, to create the material, technical and socio-cultural basis for building socialism, promised by the Bolsheviks to the people.

The peasants, indignant at the actions of the food detachments, not only refused to surrender their grain, but also rose up for an armed struggle. The uprisings covered the Tambov region, Ukraine, Don, Kuban, the Volga region and Siberia. The peasants demanded a change in agrarian policy, the abolition of the dictatorship of the RCP (b), the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal, equal suffrage. Red Army units were sent to suppress these uprisings.

Discontent spread to the army as well. On March 1, sailors and Red Army men of the Kronstadt garrison under the slogan "For Soviets without Communists!" demanded the release from imprisonment of all representatives of the socialist parties, re-election of the Soviets and, as follows from the slogan, the exclusion of all communists from them, the granting of freedom of speech, assembly and unions to all parties, ensuring freedom of trade, allowing the peasants to freely use their land and dispose of the products of their economy , that is, liquidation of the surplus appropriation. Convinced of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the rebels, the authorities stormed Kronstadt. By alternating artillery fire and infantry actions, by March 18, Kronstadt was captured; some of the rebels died, the rest fled to Finland or surrendered.

From the appeal of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt:

Comrades and citizens! Our country is going through a difficult moment. Hunger, cold, economic ruin have kept us in an iron grip for three years now. The Communist Party, ruling the country, broke away from the masses and was unable to bring it out of the state of general ruin. It did not take into account the unrest that had recently taken place in Petrograd and Moscow, and which clearly enough indicated that the party had lost the confidence of the working masses. Neither did it take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them to be the intrigues of the counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken. These unrest, these demands are the voice of the entire people, of all working people. All workers, sailors and Red Army men clearly at the present moment see that only by common efforts, by the common will of the working people, it is possible to give the country bread, firewood, coal, to dress the barefoot and undressed and to bring the republic out of the impasse ...

The uprisings that swept across the country convincingly showed that the Bolsheviks were losing public support. Already in the year, calls were heard to abandon the surplus appropriation system: for example, in February 1920, Trotsky made a corresponding proposal to the Central Committee, but received only 4 votes out of 15; at about the same time, independently of Trotsky, Rykov raised the same question in the Supreme Council of the National Economy.

The policy of War Communism had exhausted itself, but Lenin, in spite of everything, persisted. Moreover, at the turn of 1920 and 1921, he strongly insisted on strengthening this policy - in particular, plans were made to completely abolish the monetary system.

V. I. Lenin

It was only by the spring of 1921 that it became obvious that the general discontent of the lower classes, their armed pressure could lead to the overthrow of the power of the Soviets, headed by the communists. Therefore, Lenin decided to make a concession for the sake of maintaining power.

Development of the NEP

The proclamation of the NEP

Cooperation of all forms and types developed rapidly. The role of production cooperatives in agriculture was insignificant (in 1927 they provided only 2% of all agricultural products and 7% of marketable products), but by the end of the 1920s more than half of all were covered by the simplest primary forms - marketing, supply and credit cooperation. peasant farms. By the end of the year, non-productive cooperation of various types, primarily peasant cooperatives, covered 28 million people (13 times more than in the city). In the socialized retail trade, 60-80% fell on the cooperative and only 20-40% - on the state itself, in industry in 1928, 13% of all production was provided by cooperatives. There was cooperative legislation, lending, insurance.

Instead of the depreciated and actually already rejected by the turnover of sovznak in the city, the release of a new monetary unit - chervonets, which had a gold content and a rate in gold (1 ducat \u003d 10 pre-revolutionary gold rubles \u003d 7.74 g of pure gold) was started. In the city, the Sovznaks, which were quickly ousted by the chervonets, stopped printing altogether and were withdrawn from circulation; in the same year, the budget was balanced and the use of the issue of money to cover government expenses was prohibited; new treasury notes were issued - rubles (10 rubles \u003d 1 chervonets). In 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 US dollar \u003d 1.94 rubles).

The credit system has revived. In the city, the State Bank of the USSR was re-established, which began lending to industry and trade on a commercial basis. In 1922-1925. a number of specialized banks were created: joint-stock banks, in which the State Bank, syndicates, cooperatives, private and even at one time foreign ones were the shareholders, for lending to certain sectors of the economy and regions of the country; cooperative - for lending to consumer cooperatives; agricultural credit societies organized on shares, closed on the republican and central agricultural banks; mutual credit societies - for lending to private industry and trade; savings banks - to mobilize money savings of the population. On October 1, 1923, 17 independent banks operated in the country, and the State Bank's share in the total credit investments of the entire banking system was 2/3. By October 1, 1926, the number of banks increased to 61, and the share of the State Bank in lending to the national economy fell to 48%.

The economic mechanism during the NEP period was based on market principles. In the 1920s, commodity-money relations, which had previously tried to expel from production and exchange, penetrated into all the pores of the economic organism and became the main connecting link between its individual parts.

Discipline within the Communist Party itself was also tightened. At the end of 1920, an opposition grouping appeared in the party - the "workers' opposition", which demanded the transfer of all power in production to the trade unions. In order to prevent such attempts, the X Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921 adopted a resolution on the unity of the party. According to this resolution, decisions taken by the majority must be implemented by all party members, including those who disagree with them.

The result of the one-party system was the merging of the party and the government. The same people occupied the main positions in both the party (Politburo) and state bodies (SNK, All-Russian Central Executive Committee, etc.). At the same time, the personal authority of the people's commissars and the need to make urgent, urgent decisions in the conditions of the Civil War led to the fact that the center of power was concentrated not in the legislative body (All-Russian Central Executive Committee), but in the government - the Council of People's Commissars.

All these processes led to the fact that the real position of a person, his authority played a greater role in the 1920s than his place in the formal structure of state power. That is why, speaking about the figures of the 1920s, we name first of all not positions, but surnames.

In parallel with the change in the position of the party in the country, there was a degeneration of the party itself. Obviously, there will always be many more people who want to join the ruling party than the underground party, membership in which cannot give other privileges except iron bunks or a noose around the neck. At the same time, the party, having become ruling, began to need to increase its number in order to fill government posts at all levels. This led to the rapid growth of the Communist Party after the revolution. From time to time he was spurred on by mass kits, such as the Lenin Set after Lenin's death. The inevitable consequence of this process was the dissolution of the old, ideological, Bolsheviks among the young party members. In 1927, out of 1,300,000 people who were members of the party, only 8,000 had pre-revolutionary experience; most of the rest did not know the communist theory at all.

Decreased not only the intellectual and educational, but also the moral level of the party. In this respect, indicative are the results of the party purge carried out in the second half of 1921 with the aim of removing from the party "kulak-proprietary and bourgeois elements." Of the 732 thousand, only 410 thousand members remained in the party (just over half!). At the same time, a third of the expelled were expelled for passivity, another quarter - for "discrediting Soviet power", "selfishness", "careerism", "bourgeois way of life", "decomposition in everyday life."

In connection with the growth of the party, the initially unnoticed position of secretary began to acquire more and more importance. Any secretary is a secondary position by definition. This is a person who, when holding official events, monitors the observance of the necessary formalities. Since April, the Bolshevik Party has had the post of General Secretary. He combined the leadership of the Central Committee secretariat and the accounting and distribution department, which distributed lower-level party members to various positions. This position was given to Stalin.

The privileges of the upper layer of party members soon began to expand. Since 1926, this layer has received a special name - "nomenclature". So they began to call the party and state positions included in the list of positions, the appointment to which was subject to approval in the Accounting and Distribution Department of the Central Committee.

The processes of party bureaucratization and centralization of power took place against the background of a sharp deterioration in Lenin's health. Actually, the year of the introduction of the NEP became for him the last year of a full life. In May of the year he was struck by the first blow - the brain suffered, so that the almost helpless Lenin was given a very sparing work schedule. In March, a second attack occurred, after which Lenin fell out of life for six months altogether, almost learning to pronounce words anew. As soon as he began to recover from the second attack, in January, the third and final occurred. An autopsy showed that during the last two years of Lenin's life, only one hemisphere of the brain was functioning.

But between the first and second attacks, he still tried to participate in political life. Realizing that his days were numbered, he tried to draw the attention of the delegates to the most dangerous tendency - the degeneration of the party. In letters to the congress, known as his "political testament" (December 1922 - January 1923), Lenin proposes to expand the Central Committee at the expense of the workers, to elect a new Central Control Commission (Central Control Commission) - from the proletarians, to curtail the excessively swollen and therefore incompetent RCI (Raboche -peasant inspection).

There was another component in the "Lenin Testament" - the personal characteristics of the largest party leaders (Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Pyatakov). Often this part of the Letter is interpreted as a search for a successor (heir), however, Lenin, unlike Stalin, was never the sole dictator, he could not make a single decision of principle without the Central Committee, and not so principled - without the Politburo, despite the fact that in The Central Committee, and even more so in the Politburo, at that time sat independent people, often at odds with Lenin in views. Therefore, the question could not be raised about any "heir" (and Lenin did not call the Letter to the Congress a "testament"). Assuming that after him the collective leadership will remain in the party, Lenin gave characteristics to the prospective members of this leadership, for the most part ambiguous. Only one definite indication was in his Letter: the post of general secretary gives Stalin too much power, dangerous with his rudeness (it was dangerous, in Lenin's opinion, only in the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky, and not in general). Some modern researchers believe, however, that the "Lenin Testament" was based more on the psychological state of the patient than on political motives.

But the letters to the congress reached the rank and file of its participants only in fragments, and the letter in which personal characteristics were given to the comrades-in-arms, the closest circle did not show the party at all. We agreed among ourselves that Stalin promised to improve, and that was the end of the matter.

Even before Lenin's physical death, at the end of the year, a struggle began between his "heirs", or rather, the ouster of Trotsky from the helm. In the fall of the year, the struggle became open. In October, Trotsky sent a letter to the Central Committee, in which he pointed out the formation of a bureaucratic internal party regime. A week later, a group of 46 old Bolsheviks wrote an open letter in support of Trotsky ("Statement 46"). The Central Committee, of course, responded with an emphatic refutation. The leading role in this was played by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. This was not the first time that heated controversy arose in the Bolshevik Party. But unlike previous discussions, this time the ruling faction actively used labeling. Trotsky was not refuted with reasonable arguments - he was simply accused of Menshevism, deviation and other mortal sins. The substitution of labels for real disputes is a new phenomenon: it did not exist before, but it will become more common as the political process develops in the 1920s.

Trotsky was defeated fairly easily. The next party conference, held in January, promulgated a resolution on party unity (previously kept secret), and Trotsky was forced to shut up. Until the fall. In the fall of 1924, however, he published the book "Lessons of October", in which he stated unequivocally that he was doing the revolution with Lenin. Then Zinoviev and Kamenev "suddenly" remembered that before the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) in July 1917, Trotsky was a Menshevik. The party was shocked. In December 1924, Trotsky was removed from the post of People's Commissariat for Military Affairs, but left in the Politburo.

Closure of the NEP

In October 1928, the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy began. At the same time, not a project developed by the USSR State Planning Committee was adopted as a plan for the first five-year plan, but an overestimated version, drawn up by the Supreme Council of the National Economy not so much taking into account objective possibilities as under the pressure of party slogans. In June 1929, mass collectivization began (even contrary to the plan of the Supreme Council of the National Economy) - it was carried out with the widespread use of coercive measures. In the fall, it was supplemented by forced grain procurements.

As a result of these measures, the association in collective farms really acquired a mass character, which gave Stalin a reason in November of the same 1929 to make a statement that the middle peasant had gone to collective farms. Stalin's article was called “The Great Breakdown”. Immediately after this article, the next plenum of the Central Committee approved new, increased and accelerated plans for collectivization and industrialization.

Conclusions and conclusions

The undoubted success of the NEP was the restoration of the destroyed economy, and if we consider that after the revolution Russia lost highly qualified personnel (economists, managers, production workers), then the success of the new government becomes a "victory over devastation." At the same time, the absence of those very highly qualified personnel became the reason for miscalculations and mistakes.

New economic policy - the economic policy pursued in Soviet Russia and the USSR in the 1920s. It was adopted on March 15, 1921 by the X Congress of the RCP (b), replacing the policy of "war communism" pursued during the Civil War. The new economic policy was aimed at the restoration of the national economy and the subsequent transition to socialism. The main content of the NEP is the replacement of surplus appropriation with a tax in kind in the countryside (up to 70% of grain was withdrawn during surplus appropriation, about 30% with a tax in kind), the use of the market and various forms of ownership, the attraction of foreign capital in the form of concessions, the implementation of monetary reform (1922-1924), as a result of which the ruble became a convertible currency.

Prerequisites for the transition to NEP

After the end of the civil war, the country found itself in a difficult situation, faced with a deep economic and political crisis. As a result of almost seven years of war, Russia has lost more than a quarter of its national wealth. The industry suffered especially large losses. The volume of its gross output has decreased 7 times. By 1920, stocks of raw materials and supplies were largely depleted. Compared to 1913, the gross production of large-scale industry fell by almost 13%, and small-scale more than 44%.

Transport was severely damaged. In 1920, the volume of railway traffic was 20% in relation to the pre-war level. The situation in agriculture has worsened. Sown areas, yields, gross grain harvest, and production of livestock products have decreased. Agriculture more and more acquired a consumer character, its marketability fell 2.5 times. There was a sharp drop in the living standards and labor of workers. As a result of the closure of many enterprises, the process of declassing the proletariat continued. The enormous hardships led to the growing discontent among the working class in the fall of 1920. The situation was complicated by the beginning of the demobilization of the Red Army. As the fronts of the civil war retreated to the borders of the country, the peasantry began to more and more actively oppose the surplus appropriation system, which was implemented by violent methods with the help of food detachments.

The policy of "war communism" led to the destruction of commodity-money relations. The sale of foodstuffs and industrial goods was limited, they were distributed by the state in the form of in-kind wages. An equalizing system of wages among workers was introduced. This gave them the illusion of social equality. The failure of this policy was manifested in the formation of the "black market" and the flourishing of speculation. In the social sphere, the policy of “war communism” was based on the principle “ Who does not work shall not eat". In 1918, labor conscription was introduced for representatives of the former exploiting classes, and in 1920 - universal labor conscription. Forced mobilization of labor resources was carried out with the help of labor armies, sent to restore transport, construction work, etc. The naturalization of wages led to the free provision of housing, utilities, transport, postal and telegraph services. During the period of "war communism" in the political sphere, the undivided dictatorship of the RCP (b) was established, which also later became one of the reasons for the transition to the NEP. The Bolshevik Party ceased to be a purely political organization, its apparatus gradually merged with state structures. She determined the political, ideological, economic and cultural situation in the country, even the personal life of citizens. In essence, it was about the crisis of the policy of "war communism".

Devastation and famine, workers' strikes, uprisings of peasants and sailors - all testified to the fact that a deep economic and social crisis was ripening in the country. In addition, by the spring of 1921 the hope for an imminent world revolution and the material and technical assistance of the European proletariat had been exhausted. Therefore, VI Lenin revised the internal political course and admitted that only the satisfaction of the demands of the peasantry could save the power of the Bolsheviks.

The essence of the NEP

The essence of the NEP was not clear to everyone. Disbelief in the NEP, its socialist orientation gave rise to disputes about the ways of developing the country's economy, about the possibility of building socialism. With a very different understanding of the NEP, many party leaders agreed that at the end of the civil war in Soviet Russia, two main classes of the population remained: workers and peasants, and in the early 20s after the NEP, a new bourgeoisie appeared, the bearer of restorationist tendencies. A wide field of activity for the NEP bourgeoisie was made up of industries serving the main most important consumer interests of the city and countryside. VI Lenin understood the inevitable contradictions, the dangers of development on the path of the NEP. He considered it necessary to strengthen the Soviet state in order to ensure victory over capitalism.

On the whole, the NEP economy was a complex and unstable market-administrative structure. Moreover, the introduction of market elements into it was forced, and the preservation of the administrative-command elements was fundamental and strategic. Without abandoning the ultimate goal (creation of a non-market system of the economy) of the NEP, the Bolsheviks resorted to using commodity-money relations while maintaining the "commanding heights" in the hands of the state: nationalized land and mineral resources, large and most of the middle industry, transport, banking, monopoly foreign trade. A relatively long coexistence of the socialist and non-socialist (state-capitalist, private capitalist, small-scale, patriarchal) structures was assumed with the gradual ousting of the latter from the country's economic life, relying on "commanding heights" and using levers of economic and administrative influence on large and small owners (taxes, loans , pricing policy, legislation, etc.).

From the point of view of V.I. Lenin, the essence of the NEP maneuver was to lay an economic foundation for the "alliance of the working class and the working peasantry," in other words, to provide a certain freedom of management to the dominant small commodity producers in the country in order to remove their acute discontent with the government and ensure political stability in society. As the Bolshevik leader emphasized more than once, the NEP was a roundabout, indirect path to socialism, the only possible one after the failure of an attempt to directly and quickly break down all market structures. The direct path to socialism, however, was not rejected by him in principle: Lenin recognized it as quite suitable for developed capitalist states after the victory of the proletarian revolution there.

NEP in agriculture

The decree of the X Congress of the RCP (b) on replacing the appropriation tax with a tax in kind, which laid the foundation for a new economic policy, was legally formalized by a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in March 1921. The size of the tax was reduced by almost two times in comparison with the surplus appropriation, and its main burden fell on wealthy rural peasants. The decree limited the freedom of trade of the products remaining with the peasants after the tax was paid "within the limits of local economic turnover." Already by 1922, a noticeable growth in agriculture was indicated. The country was fed. In 1925 the sown area reached the pre-war level. The peasants sowed almost the same area as in the pre-war 1913. The gross grain harvest was 82% compared to 1913. The livestock population exceeded the pre-war level. 13 million peasant farms were members of agricultural cooperatives. There were about 22 thousand collective farms in the country. The implementation of the grandiose industrialization required a radical restructuring of the agrarian sector. In Western countries, the agrarian revolution, i.e. the system of improving agricultural production, preceded the revolutionary industry, and therefore, in general, it was easier to supply the urban population with food. In the USSR, both of these processes had to be carried out simultaneously. At the same time, the village was considered not only as a source of food, but also as the most important channel for replenishing financial resources for the needs of industrialization.

NEP in industry

Industry has also undergone radical transformations. Glavki were abolished, and instead of them trusts were created - associations of homogeneous or interconnected enterprises, which received complete economic and financial independence, up to the right to issue long-term bonded loans. By the end of 1922, about 90% of industrial enterprises were united in 421 trusts, 40% of them were centralized, and 60% were local subordination. The trusts themselves decided what to produce and where to sell their products. The enterprises that were part of the trust were removed from the state supply and switched to purchasing resources on the market. The law provided that "the state treasury is not responsible for the debts of trusts."

The Supreme Council of the National Economy, having lost the right to interfere in the current activities of enterprises and trusts, has become a focal point. His apparatus was drastically reduced. It was at that time that economic accounting appeared, in which an enterprise (after obligatory fixed contributions to the state budget) has the right to dispose of income from the sale of products itself, is itself responsible for the results of its economic activities, independently uses profits and covers losses. Under the conditions of the NEP, Lenin wrote, "state enterprises are being transferred to the so-called economic calculation, that is, in fact, to a large extent to commercial and capitalist principles."

The Soviet government tried to combine two principles in the activities of trusts - market and planning. Encouraging the former, the state, with the help of trusts, sought to borrow technology and methods of work from the market economy. At the same time, the principle of planning in the activities of trusts was strengthened. The state encouraged the spheres of activity of trusts and the creation of a system of concerns by joining the trusts of enterprises producing raw materials and finished products. Concerns were to serve as centers of planned economic management. For these reasons, in 1925, the motivation for "profit" as the purpose of their activities was removed from the provision on trusts, and only a mention of "commercial settlement" was left. So, the trust as a form of government combined planned and market elements that the state tried to use to build a socialist planned economy. This was the complexity and contradiction of the situation.

Almost at the same time, syndicates began to be created - associations of trusts for the wholesale distribution of products, lending and regulation of trade operations in the market. By the end of 1922, the syndicates controlled 80% of the industry covered by the trusts. In practice, there are three types of syndicates:

1. with a predominance of trading function (Textile, Wheat, Tobacco);
2. with a predominantly regulatory function (Council of Congresses of the Basic Chemical Industry);
3. syndicates created by the state on a compulsory basis (Solesyndikat, Oil, Ugolny, etc.) to maintain control over the most important resources.

Thus, syndicates as a form of management were also dual in nature: on the one hand, they combined elements of the market, since they were focused on improving the commercial activities of the trusts included in them, on the other hand, they were monopoly organizations in this industry, regulated by higher state bodies (VSNKh and people's commissariats).

Financial reform of the NEP

The transition to NEP required the development of a new financial policy. Experienced pre-revolutionary financiers took part in the reform of the financial and monetary system: N. Kutler, V. Tarnovsky, professors L. Yurovsky, P. Hansel, A. Sokolov, Z. Katsenelenbaum, S. Volkner, N. Shaposhnikov, N. Nekrasov, A. Manuilov, former assistant to the minister A. Khrushchev. The People's Commissar of Finance G. Sokolnikov, member of the board of the People's Commissariat for Finance V. Vladimirov, Chairman of the Board of the State Bank A. Sheiman did a lot of organizational work. The main directions of the reform were determined: the termination of money emission, the establishment of a deficit-free budget, the restoration of the banking system and savings banks, the introduction of a single monetary system, the creation of a stable currency, and the development of an appropriate tax system.

By a decree of the Soviet government of October 4, 1921, the State Bank was formed as part of the People's Commissariat for Finance, savings and loan banks were opened, payment for transport, cash and telegraph services was introduced. The system of direct and indirect taxes was restored. To strengthen the budget, they sharply cut all expenditures that did not correspond to state revenues. Further normalization of the financial and banking system required the strengthening of the Soviet ruble.

In accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars, in November 1922, the issue of a parallel Soviet currency, the "chervonets", began. It was equated to 1 spool - 78, 24 shares or 7.74234 g of pure gold, i.e. the amount that was contained in the pre-revolutionary golden ten. It was forbidden to repay the budget deficit with chervonets. They were intended to service the lending operations of the State Bank, industry, wholesale trade.

To preserve the stability of the chervonets, a special part (OCH) of the currency department of the Narkomfin bought or sold gold, foreign currency and chervonets. Despite the fact that this measure corresponded to the interests of the state, such commercial activities of the OCH were regarded by the OGPU as speculation, therefore, in May 1926, arrests and executions of the leaders and employees of the OCH began (L. Volina, A.M. Chepelevsky and others, rehabilitated only 1996).

The high nominal value of chervonets (10, 25, 50 and 100 rubles) created difficulties in their exchange. In February 1924, a decision was made to issue state treasury notes in denominations of 1, 3, and 5 rubles. gold, as well as small bargaining chips of silver and copper.

In 1923 and 1924. were carried out two devaluations of the sovznak (the former settlement banknote). This gave the monetary reform a confiscatory character. On March 7, 1924, a decision was made on the issue of Soviet signs by the State Bank. For every 500 million rubles handed over to the state. sample of 1923, their owner received 1 kopeck. Thus, the system of two parallel currencies was eliminated.

On the whole, the state has made some progress in carrying out the monetary reform. The chervonets began to be produced by stock exchanges in Constantinople, the Baltic countries (Riga, Revel), Rome, and some eastern countries. The course of the gold coin was equal to 5 dollars. 14 US cents.

The revival of credit and tax systems, the creation of stock exchanges and a network of joint-stock banks, the spread of commercial credit, and the development of foreign trade contributed to the strengthening of the country's financial system.

However, the financial system, created on the basis of the NEP, began to destabilize in the second half of the 1920s. for several reasons. The state has strengthened the planning principles in the economy. The control figures for the 1925-26 economic year approved the idea of \u200b\u200bmaintaining monetary circulation by increasing emission. By December 1925, the money supply increased in comparison with 1924 by 1.5 times. This led to an imbalance between the volume of trade and the money supply. Since the State Bank constantly introduced gold and foreign currency into circulation in order to withdraw money surpluses and maintain the chervonets exchange rate, the state's foreign exchange reserves soon depleted. The fight against inflation was lost. From July 1926 it was forbidden to export the chervonets abroad and the purchase of chervonets on the foreign market was stopped. The chervonets turned from a convertible currency into the internal currency of the USSR.

Thus, the monetary reform of 1922-1924. was a comprehensive reform of the sphere of circulation. The monetary system was being rebuilt simultaneously with the establishment of wholesale and retail trade, the elimination of the budget deficit, and the revision of prices. All these measures helped to restore and streamline money circulation, overcome emission, and ensure the formation of a solid budget. At the same time, financial and economic reform helped to streamline taxation. A hard currency and a solid state budget were the most important achievements of the financial policy of the Soviet state in those years. In general, the monetary reform and financial recovery contributed to the restructuring of the mechanism of action of the entire national economy on the basis of the NEP.

The role of the private sector during the NEP

During the NEP period, the private sector played an important role in the restoration of the light and food industries - it produced up to 20% of all industrial products (1923) and prevailed in wholesale (15%) and retail (83%) trade.

Private industry took the form of handicraft, rental, joint-stock and cooperative enterprises. Private entrepreneurship has become noticeable in the food, clothing and leather industries, as well as in the oil-processing, flour-milling and tobacco industries. About 70% of private enterprises were located on the territory of the RSFSR. In total, in 1924-1925. in the USSR, there were 325 thousand private enterprises. They employed about 12% of the total workforce, with an average of 2-3 workers per enterprise. Private enterprises produced about 5% of all industrial production (1923). the state constantly restricted the activities of private entrepreneurs by using the tax press, depriving entrepreneurs of electoral rights, etc.

At the end of the 20s. in connection with the curtailment of the NEP, the policy of restricting the private sector was replaced by a course towards its elimination.

The consequences of the NEP

In the second half of the 1920s, the first attempts to curtail the NEP began. Syndicates were liquidated in industry, from which private capital was administratively squeezed out, and a rigid centralized system of economic management (economic people's commissariats) was created.

In October 1928, the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy began, the country's leadership set a course for forced industrialization and collectivization. Although no one officially canceled the NEP, by that time it had actually been phased out.

Legally, the NEP was terminated only on October 11, 1931, when a resolution was adopted to completely ban private trade in the USSR.

The undoubted success of the NEP was the restoration of the destroyed economy, and if we consider that after the revolution Russia lost highly qualified personnel (economists, managers, production workers), then the success of the new government becomes a "victory over devastation." At the same time, the absence of those very highly qualified personnel became the reason for miscalculations and mistakes.

Significant rates of economic growth, however, were achieved only due to the return of pre-war capacities to service, because Russia only by 1926-1927 reached the economic indicators of the pre-war years. The potential for further economic growth was extremely low. The private sector was not allowed to enter the "commanding heights in the economy", foreign investments were not welcomed, and the investors themselves were not in a hurry to visit Russia due to the continuing instability and the threat of nationalization of capital. The state was unable to make long-term capital-intensive investments only from its own funds.

The situation in the village was also controversial, where the "kulaks" were clearly oppressed.

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