Years of NEP in the USSR. "The Soviet country during the NEP years"

The first attempts to curtail the NEP began. Syndicates in industry were liquidated, from which private capital was administratively squeezed out, and a rigid centralized system of economic management was created (economic people's commissariats). Stalin and his entourage headed for the forced confiscation of grain and the forced collectivization of the countryside. Repressions were carried out against management personnel (the Shakhty case, the Industrial Party trial, etc.). By the beginning of the 1930s, the NEP was actually curtailed.

Prerequisites for the NEP

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

Society has degraded, its intellectual potential has weakened significantly. Most of the Russian intelligentsia were 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, create a material, technical and socio-cultural basis for building socialism, promised by the Bolsheviks to the people.

The peasants, outraged by the actions of the food detachments, not only refused to hand over grain, but also rose up in armed struggle. Uprisings spanned the Tambov region, Ukraine, Don, Kuban, Volga region and Siberia. The peasants demanded a change in agrarian policy, the elimination of the dictates of the RCP (b), and the convening of a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal equal suffrage. Units of the Red Army were sent to suppress these protests.

Discontent spread to the army. On March 1 of the year, sailors and Red Army soldiers of the Kronstadt garrison under the slogan “For Soviets without Communists!” demanded the release from prison of all representatives of socialist parties, re-election of the Soviets and, as follows from the slogan, the expulsion of all communists from them, granting freedom of speech, meetings and unions to all parties, ensuring freedom of trade, allowing peasants to freely use their land and dispose of the products of their farms , that is, the elimination of surplus appropriation. Convinced of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the rebels, the authorities launched an assault on Kronstadt. By alternating artillery shelling and infantry actions, Kronstadt was captured by March 18; Some of the rebels died, the rest went 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, and economic devastation have been holding us in an iron grip for three years now. The Communist Party, which rules the country, has become disconnected from the masses and has been unable to bring it out of the state of general devastation. It did not take into account the unrest that had recently occurred in Petrograd and Moscow and which quite clearly indicated that the party had lost the trust of the working masses. It also did not take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them the machinations of counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken. These unrest, these demands are the voice of all the people, all the working people. All workers, sailors and Red Army soldiers clearly see at the moment that only through common efforts, the common will of the working people, can we give the country bread, firewood, coal, clothe the shoeless and undressed, and lead the republic out of the dead end...

The uprisings that swept across the country convincingly showed that the Bolsheviks were losing support in society. Already in the year there were calls to abandon the food appropriation system: for example, in February 1920, Trotsky submitted a corresponding proposal to the Central Committee, but received only 4 votes out of 15; At about the same time, independently of Trotsky, the same question was raised by Rykov at the Supreme Economic Council.

The policy of war communism had exhausted itself, but Lenin, despite everything, persisted. Moreover, at the turn of 1920 and 1921, he strongly insisted on strengthening this policy - in particular, plans were made for the complete abolition of the monetary system.

V. I. Lenin

Only by the spring of 1921 did it become obvious that the general discontent of the lower classes and their armed pressure could lead to the overthrow of the power of the Soviets led by the Communists. Therefore, Lenin decided to make a concession in order to maintain power.

Progress of development of NEP

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, the simplest primary forms - marketing, supply and credit cooperation - covered more than half of all peasant farms. By the end of the year, non-production cooperation of various types, primarily peasant cooperation, covered 28 million people (13 times more than in the city). In socialized retail trade, 60-80% was accounted for by cooperatives and only 20-40% by the state itself; in industry in 1928, 13% of all production was provided by cooperatives. There was cooperative legislation, lending, and insurance.

To replace the depreciated and actually already rejected by the circulation of Sovznak notes, the city began issuing a new monetary unit- chervonets, which had a gold content and exchange rate in gold (1 chervonets = 10 pre-revolutionary gold rubles = 7.74 g of pure gold). In the city, the sovznaki, which were quickly being replaced by chervonets, stopped printing altogether and were withdrawn from circulation; in the same year the budget was balanced and the use of money emissions to cover government expenses was prohibited; new treasury notes were issued - rubles (10 rubles = 1 chervonets). On the foreign exchange market both within the country and abroad, chervonets were freely exchanged for gold and basic foreign currencies at the pre-war rate Tsar's ruble(1 American dollar = 1.94 rubles).

The credit system has been revived. In the city, the State Bank of the USSR was recreated, which began lending to industry and trade on a commercial basis. In 1922-1925. was created whole line specialized banks: joint-stock banks, in which the shareholders were the State Bank, syndicates, cooperatives, private and even at one time foreign, for lending to certain sectors of the economy and regions of the country; cooperative - for lending to consumer cooperation; agricultural credit societies organized on shares, linked to the republican and central agricultural banks; mutual credit societies - for lending to private industry and trade; savings banks - to mobilize the population's savings. As of October 1, 1923, there were 17 independent banks operating 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 State Bank’s share in lending National economy decreased to 48%.

Economic mechanism during the NEP period was based on market principles. Commodity-money relations, which they had previously tried to banish from production and exchange, in the 1920s penetrated into all 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 group appeared in the party - the “workers' opposition”, which demanded the transfer of all power in production to trade unions. In order to stop such attempts, the X Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921 adopted a resolution on party unity. According to this resolution, decisions made by the majority must be implemented by all party members, including those who disagree with them.

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

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

In parallel with the change in the position of the party in the country, the degeneration of the party itself took place. It is obvious that there will always be much more people willing to join the ruling party than to join the underground party, membership in which cannot provide any other privileges than iron bunks or a noose around the neck. At the same time, the party, having become the ruling party, began to need to increase its numbers 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 it was spurred on by mass recruitments, such as the "Lenin recruitment" 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 thousand people who were members of the party, only 8 thousand had pre-revolutionary experience; Most of the rest did not know communist theory at all.

Not only the intellectual and educational level, but also the moral level of the party decreased. In this regard, the results of the party purge carried out in the second half of 1921 with the aim of removing “kulak-proprietary and petty-bourgeois elements” from the party are indicative. Out of 732 thousand, only 410 thousand members were retained in the party (slightly more than half!). At the same time, a third of those expelled were expelled for passivity, another quarter for “discrediting the Soviet regime,” “selfishness,” “careerism,” “bourgeois lifestyle,” and “decay in everyday life.”

In connection with the growth of the party, the initially inconspicuous position of secretary began to acquire increasing importance. Any secretary is a secondary position by definition. This is a person who ensures that the necessary formalities are observed during official events. Since April of the year, the Bolshevik Party has had the position of General Secretary. He connected the leadership of the secretariat of the Central Committee and the accounting and distribution department, which distributed lower-level party members to various positions. Stalin received this position.

Soon the privileges of the upper layer of party members began to expand. Since 1926, this layer has received a special name - “nomenclature”. This is how they began to call party-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 bureaucratization of the party and centralization of power took place against the backdrop 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 this year, he was struck by the first blow - his brain was damaged, so the almost helpless Lenin was given a very gentle work schedule. In March of the year, a second attack occurred, after which Lenin dropped out of life altogether for six months, almost learning to pronounce words all over again. He had barely begun to recover from the second attack when the third and last one occurred in January. As an autopsy showed, for the last almost two years of Lenin’s life, only one hemisphere of his brain was active.

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 congress delegates to the most dangerous trend - the degeneration of the party. In letters to the congress, known as his “political testament” (December 1922 - January 1923), Lenin proposed expanding the Central Committee at the expense of the workers, choosing a new Central Control Commission (Central Control Commission) - from the proletarians, cutting back the enormously swollen and therefore ineffective RKI (Workers' -peasant inspection).

There was one more component in “Lenin’s Testament” - the personal characteristics of the largest party leaders (Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Pyatakov). This part of the Letter is often interpreted as a search for a successor (heir), but Lenin, unlike Stalin, was never a sole dictator, could not make a single fundamental decision without the Central Committee, and not so fundamental - without the Politburo, despite the fact that in The Central Committee, and even more so the Politburo at that time, contained independent people who often disagreed with Lenin in their views. Therefore, there could be no question about any “heir” (and it was not Lenin who called the Letter to the Congress a “testament”). Assuming that the party would retain its collective leadership after him, Lenin gave mostly ambivalent characteristics to the supposed members of this leadership. There was only one definite indication in his Letter: the post of General Secretary gives Stalin too much power, which is dangerous given his rudeness (this was dangerous, according to Lenin, only in the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky, and not in general). Some modern researchers believe, however, that Lenin's 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 participants only in fragments, and the letter, in which personal characteristics were given to the comrades, was not shown to the party by the immediate circle at all. We agreed among ourselves that Stalin would promise 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, pushing Trotsky away from the helm. In the autumn of the year the struggle became open. In October, Trotsky addressed the Central Committee with a letter in which he pointed out the formation of a bureaucratic intra-party regime. A week later, a group of 46 old Bolsheviks (“Statement 46”) wrote an open letter in support of Trotsky. The Central Committee, of course, responded with a decisive denial. The leading role in this was played by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. This was not the first time that heated disputes arose within 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, deviationism and other mortal sins. The substitution of labels for actual dispute is a new phenomenon: it has not happened before, but it will become increasingly common as the political process develops in the 1920s.

Trotsky was defeated quite easily. The next party conference, held in January of the year, published a resolution on party unity (previously kept secret), and Trotsky was forced to remain silent. Until autumn. In the fall of 1924, however, he published the book “Lessons of October,” in which he unequivocally stated that he and Lenin made the revolution. 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 his post as People's Commissar of Military Affairs, but remained in the Politburo.

Curtailment of the NEP

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

As a result of these measures, unification into collective farms really became widespread, which gave Stalin reason in November of the same 1929 to make a statement that the middle peasants joined collective farms. Stalin’s article was called “The Great Turning Point”. 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 take into account 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 lack of those highly qualified personnel became the cause of miscalculations and mistakes.

New Economic Policy (abbr. NEP or NEP) is an economic policy pursued in the 1920s in Soviet Russia and the USSR.

It was adopted on March 14, 1921 by the X Congress of the RCP (b), replacing the policy of “war communism” carried out during the Civil War, which led Russia to economic decline. The New Economic Policy aimed to introduce private entrepreneurship and revive market relations, with the restoration of the national economy. The NEP was a forced measure and largely improvised. However, over the seven years of its existence, it has become one of the most successful economic projects Soviet period.

Auction house "Apollo" on Nevsky Prospekt, 1920.

By 1920, the RSFSR was literally in ruins. The territories of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Western Belarus, Western Ukraine, and Bessarabia emerged from the former Russian Empire. According to experts, the population in the remaining territories barely reached 135 million. During the hostilities, the Donbass, the Baku oil region, the Urals and Siberia were especially damaged, many mines and mines were destroyed. Factories shut down due to a lack of fuel and raw materials. Workers were forced to leave the cities and go to the countryside. The volume of industrial production decreased significantly, and as a result, agricultural production.

Society has degraded, its intellectual potential has weakened significantly. Most of the Russian intelligentsia were destroyed or left the country.

Line at a grocery store, 1920.

By the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of March 21, 1921, adopted on the basis of the decisions of the X Congress of the RCP (b), the surplus appropriation system was abolished and replaced by an in-kind tax in kind, which was approximately half as much. Such a significant relaxation gave a certain incentive to the war-weary peasantry to develop production. The introduction of a tax in kind was not an isolated measure. The 10th Congress proclaimed the New Economic Policy. Its essence is the assumption of market relations. The NEP was seen as a temporary policy aimed at creating the conditions for socialism.

The main political goal of the NEP is to relieve social tensions, strengthen the social base of Soviet power in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants - “a bond between city and countryside.” The economic goal is to prevent further deterioration, get out of the crisis and restore the economy. The social goal is to provide favorable conditions for building a socialist society, without waiting for the world revolution. In addition, the NEP was aimed at restoring normal foreign policy relations and overcoming international isolation.

NEPman Nikolai Vlasov with his wife in a car near his store on Sadovaya 28.

Contrary to popular belief, the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) did not make a decision on introducing free trade and legalizing private entrepreneurship. Moreover, at this congress, Lenin unequivocally declared that free trade was for the Bolsheviks “no less a danger than Kolchak and Denikin combined.” The congress decided to replace the surplus appropriation system, which extremely irritated the peasants, with a lighter tax in kind, giving the villages the freedom to dispose of the surplus remaining after the payment of the tax in kind and personal consumption. It was assumed that the state would centrally exchange these surpluses for industrial goods in demand in the countryside - chintz, kerosene, nails, etc.

However, life soon overturned these calculations, divorced from reality. In the conditions of post-war devastation, the state simply did not have a sufficient amount of industrial goods for exchange. The very logic of events forced the Bolsheviks, having abandoned the surplus appropriation system, to gradually legalize free trade.

Selling fruits and vegetables in the Apraksin yard, 1924.

In July 1921, a permitting procedure for opening retail establishments was established. State monopolies on various types of products and goods were gradually abolished. For small industrial enterprises it was established simplified procedure registration, the permissible amounts of hired labor were revised (from ten workers in 1920 to twenty workers per enterprise according to the July decree of 1921). The denationalization of small and handicraft enterprises was carried out.

In connection with the introduction of the NEP, certain legal guarantees were introduced for private property. Thus, on May 22, 1922, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a decree “On basic private property rights recognized by the RSFSR, protected by its laws and protected by the courts of the RSFSR.” Then, by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of November 11, 1922, on January 1, 1923 it was put into effect Civil Code RSFSR, which, in particular, provided that every citizen has the right to organize industrial and commercial enterprises.

Members of the Consumer Cooperative at Cooperative Day, 1924.

The task of the first stage of the monetary reform, implemented within the framework of one of the directions of the state’s economic policy, was to stabilize the monetary and credit relations of the USSR with other countries. After two denominations, as a result of which 1 million rubles in the old banknotes were equated to 1 ruble in the new sovznak, parallel circulation of depreciating sovznak was introduced to service small trade turnover and hard chervonets, backed by precious metals, stable foreign currency and easily marketable goods. Chervonets was equal to the old 10-ruble gold coin, which contained 7.74 grams of pure gold.

The line for vodka before the Glavspirt store, 1925.

A skillful combination of planned and market instruments for regulating the economy, which ensured the growth of the national economy, a sharp reduction in the budget deficit, an increase in gold and foreign currency reserves, as well as an active foreign trade balance, made it possible during 1924 to carry out the second stage of the monetary reform of the transition to one stable currency. Canceled Sovznak were subject to redemption with treasury notes at a fixed ratio within one and a half months. A fixed ratio was established between the treasury ruble and the bank chervonets, equating 1 chervonets to 10 rubles. Bank and treasury notes were in circulation, and gold chervonets were used, as a rule, in international payments. Their rate in 1924 became higher than the official gold parity against the pound sterling and the dollar.

In the 1920s, commercial credit was widely used, servicing approximately 85% of the volume of transactions in the sale of goods. Banks controlled mutual lending to business organizations and, through accounting and collateral operations, regulated the amount commercial loan, its direction, timing and interest rate. However, its use created the opportunity for unplanned redistribution of funds in the national economy and complicated banking control.

Financing of capital investments and long-term lending developed. After the Civil War, capital investments were financed irrevocably or in the form of long-term loans. To invest in industry, the joint-stock company "Electrocredit" and Industrial Bank, later transformed into the Electric Bank and the Commercial and Industrial Bank of the USSR. Long-term lending local economy was carried out by local communal banks, transformed in 1926 into the Central Communal Bank (Tsekombank). Agriculture was provided with long-term loans by state credit institutions, credit cooperation, the Central Agricultural Bank formed in 1924, and cooperative banks - Vsekobank and Ukrainbank. At the same time, Vneshtorgbank was created, which provided credit and settlement services foreign trade, purchase and sale of foreign currency.

Goznak store 1925.

The country needed money - to maintain the army, to restore industry. In addition, the Bolsheviks spent significant public funds to support the world revolutionary movement. In a country where 80% of the population was the peasantry, the main burden of the tax burden fell on them. But the peasantry was not rich enough to provide all the needs of the state necessary tax revenues. Increased taxation on especially wealthy peasants also did not help, therefore, from the mid-1920s, other non-profits began to be actively used. tax methods replenishment of the treasury, such as forced loans and reduced prices for grain and inflated prices for industrial goods. As a result, industrial goods, if we calculate their value in pounds of wheat, turned out to be several times more expensive than before the war, despite less high quality.

A phenomenon emerged that, thanks to Trotsky’s light hand, began to be called “price scissors.” The peasants reacted simply - they stopped selling grain beyond what they needed to pay taxes. The first crisis in the sales of industrial goods arose in the fall of 1923. The peasants needed plows and other industrial products, but refused to buy them at inflated prices. The next crisis arose in the 1924-1925 business year (that is, in the fall of 1924 - spring of 1925). The crisis was called the “procurement” crisis, since procurement amounted to only two-thirds of the expected level. Finally, in the 1927-1928 business year - new crisis: It was not possible to collect even the most necessary things.

So, by 1925, it became clear that the national economy had come to a contradiction: further progress towards the market was hampered by political and ideological factors, the fear of the “degeneration” of power; a return to the military-communist type of economy was hampered by memories of the peasant war of 1920 and mass famine, and fear of anti-Soviet protests.

Pavilion of the Rabocheye Delo cooperative on Lassalya (Mikhailovskaya) street, 1925.

A private sector emerged in industry and trade: some state-owned enterprises were denationalized, others were leased out; private individuals with no more than 20 employees were allowed to create their own industrial enterprises (later this “ceiling” was raised). Among the factories rented by “private owners” there were those that employed 200-300 people, and in general the private sector during the NEP period accounted for about a fifth of industrial production, 40-80% of retail trade and a small part of wholesale trade.

The organizing committee of the Alexander Market in the red corner, 1926.

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 the simplest primary forms - marketing, supply and credit cooperation - covered more than half of all by the end of the 1920s. peasant farms. By the end of 1928. Non-production cooperation of various types, primarily peasant cooperation, covered 28 million people (13 times more than in 1913). In socialized retail trade, 60-80% was accounted for by cooperatives and only 20-40% by the state itself; in industry in 1928, 13% of all production was provided by cooperatives. There was cooperative legislation, lending, and insurance.

Predtechensky market, 1929.

Commodity-money relations, which they had previously tried to banish from production and exchange, in the 1920s penetrated into all pores of the economic organism and became the main connecting link between its individual parts.

In just 5 years, from 1921 to 1926, the index of industrial production increased more than 3 times; agricultural production doubled and exceeded the 1913 level by 18%. But even after the end of the recovery period, economic growth continued at a rapid pace: in 1927 and 1928, the increase in industrial production was 13 and 19%, respectively. In general, for the period 1921-1928, the average annual growth rate of national income was 18%.

Napman from the tax inspector. 1930

The state put pressure on producers, forced them to find internal reserves for increasing profits, to mobilize efforts to increase production efficiency, which alone could now ensure profit growth.

A broad campaign to reduce prices was launched by the government at the end of 1923, but truly comprehensive regulation of price proportions began in 1924, when circulation completely switched to a stable red currency, and the functions of the Internal Trade Commission were transferred to the People's Commissariat of Internal Trade with broad rights in the field of rationing prices The measures taken then turned out to be successful: wholesale prices for industrial goods decreased from October 1923 to May 1, 1924 by 26% and continued to decline further.

Market day at the Predtechensky market. 1932

The immediate reason for the complete curtailment of NEP was the disruption of state grain procurements at the end of 1927. At the end of December, measures of forced confiscation of grain reserves were applied to the kulaks for the first time since the end of “war communism”. In the summer of 1928 they were temporarily suspended, but then resumed in the autumn of the same year.

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 accelerated industrialization and collectivization. Although no one officially canceled the NEP, by that time it had already been effectively curtailed.

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

Collective farm market, 1932.

The undoubted success of the NEP was the restoration of the destroyed economy, and if we take into account that after the revolution the USSR lost many highly qualified personnel (economists, managers, production workers), then the success of the new government becomes a “victory over devastation.” At the same time, the lack of those highly qualified personnel became the cause of miscalculations and mistakes.

Significant economic growth rates, however, were achieved only due to the return to operation of pre-war capacities, Soviet Union by 1926 it exceeded the economic indicators of 1913 by approximately two times. The potential for further economic growth turned out to be extremely low. The private sector was not allowed to the “commanding heights of the economy,” foreign investment was not welcomed, and investors themselves were in no particular hurry to come to the Soviet Union due to ongoing instability and the threat of nationalization of capital. The state was unable to make long-term capital-intensive investments using its own funds alone.

Entrance to the Predtechensky market, 1932.

Sale of milk at the Kuznetsk market. 1934

At the Kuznetsk market, 1934.

Entrance to the Klinsky market, October 1936.

By 1921, the Soviet leadership was faced with an unprecedented crisis that affected all areas of the economy. Lenin decided to overcome it by introducing the NEP (New Economic Policy). This sharp turn was the only possible way out of this situation.

Civil War

The Civil War complicated the situation for the Bolsheviks. The grain monopoly and fixed grain prices did not suit the peasantry. The exchange of goods also did not justify itself. The supply of bread to large cities was significantly reduced. Petrograd and Moscow were on the verge of famine.

Rice. 1. Petrograd children receive free lunches.

On May 13, 1918, a food dictatorship was introduced in the country.
It boiled down to the following provisions:

the grain monopoly and fixed prices were confirmed, peasants were obliged to hand over surplus grain;
creation of food detachments;
organization of committees of the poor.

These measures led to the Civil War breaking out in the village.

Rice. 2. Leon Trotsky predicts a world revolution. 1918

The policy of “war communism”

In the conditions of an irreconcilable struggle with the white movement, the Bolsheviks accept a series of emergency measures , called the policy of “war communism”:

grain surplus appropriation according to class principles;
nationalization of all large and medium-sized enterprises, strict control over small ones;
universal labor conscription;
ban on private trade;
introduction of a card system based on class principles.

Peasant protests

The tightening of policies led to disappointment among the peasantry. The introduction of food detachments and committees of the poor caused particular anger. Increasing cases of armed clashes have led to mass uprisings:

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Izhevsk-Votkinsk uprising in the Volga region (August-October 1918);
“Grigorievshchina” in the south of Ukraine (May-July 1919);
“Antonovschina” in the Tambov province (1920-1921).

Antonov's uprising in the Tambov province was called the “Russian Vendee” by analogy with the revolt of French peasants at the end of the 18th century.

Policy change

By the fall of 1920, the main hostilities of the Civil War had ended. The first priority was the transition to a peaceful path. Home economic reason transition to the NEP was the restoration of industry and Agriculture.

The NEP eased the situation of the peasantry (the introduction of a tax in kind in March 1921) and gave some freedom to private capital. It was a temporary concession to capitalism to create a solid economic base.

Rice. 3. Collection of tax in kind in the city of Yegoryevsk. 1922

Briefly point by point, the reasons for the transition to the NEP were as follows:

the surplus appropriation system did not justify itself, causing mass uprisings;
the ban on private trade practically destroyed commodity-money relations;
workers' control made most small and medium enterprises unprofitable;
The class principle led to the dismissal of old specialists; there were simply no new ones.

New Economic Policy- economic policy pursued in Soviet Russia since 1921. It was adopted on March 21, 1921 by the X Congress of the RCP (b), replacing the policy of “war communism” pursued during the Civil War. The New Economic Policy aimed at restoring 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 confiscated during surplus appropriation, and about 30% with a tax in kind), the use of the market and various forms property, attracting foreign capital in the form of concessions, carrying out a monetary reform (1922-1924), as a result of which the ruble became a convertible currency.

The Soviet state faced the problem of stabilizing money, and, therefore, deflation and achieving a balanced state budget. The state's strategy, aimed at survival under the conditions of the credit blockade, determined the primacy of the USSR in compiling production balances and distributing products. The New Economic Policy assumed state regulation of a mixed economy using planned and market mechanisms. The state, which retained its commanding heights in the economy, used directive and indirect methods of state regulation, based on the need to implement the priorities of the forerunner of the strategic plan - GOELRO. The NEP was based on the ideas of the works of V.I. Lenin, discussions about the theory of reproduction and money, the principles of pricing, finance and credit. The NEP made it possible to quickly restore the national economy destroyed by the First World War and the Civil War.

In the second half of the 1920s, the first attempts to curtail the NEP began. Syndicates in industry were liquidated, from which private capital was administratively squeezed out, and a rigid centralized system of economic management was created (economic people's commissariats). Stalin and his entourage set a course for collectivization of the countryside. Repressions were carried out against management personnel (the Shakhty case, the Industrial Party trial, etc.). By the beginning of the 1930s, the NEP was actually curtailed.

Prerequisites for the NEP

By 1921, Russia was literally in ruins. The territories of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Western Belarus, Western Ukraine, the Kara region of Armenia and Bessarabia departed from the former Russian Empire. According to experts, the population in the remaining territories barely reached 135 million. Losses in these territories as a result of wars, epidemics, emigration, and a decline in the birth rate have amounted to at least 25 million people since 1914.

During the hostilities, the Donbass, the Baku oil region, the Urals and Siberia were especially damaged; many mines and mines were destroyed. Factories shut down due to a lack of fuel and raw materials. Workers were forced to leave the cities and go to the countryside. The total volume of industrial production decreased by 5 times. The equipment has not been updated for a long time. Metallurgy produced as much metal as it was smelted under Peter I.

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

Society has degraded, its intellectual potential has weakened significantly. Most of the Russian intelligentsia were destroyed or left the country.

The peasants, outraged by the actions of the food detachments, not only refused to hand over grain, but also rose up in armed struggle. The uprisings covered the Tambov region, Ukraine, Don, Kuban, Volga region and Siberia. The peasants demanded a change in agrarian policy, the elimination of the dictates of the RCP (b), and the convening of a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal equal suffrage. Units of the Red Army were sent to suppress these protests.

Discontent spread to the army. On March 1, 1921, sailors and Red Army soldiers of the Kronstadt garrison under the slogan “For Soviets without Communists!” demanded the release from prison of all representatives of socialist parties, re-election of the Soviets and, as follows from the slogan, the expulsion of all communists from them, granting freedom of speech, meetings and unions to all parties, ensuring freedom of trade, allowing peasants to freely use their land and dispose of the products of their farms , that is, the elimination of surplus appropriation. Convinced of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the rebels, the authorities launched an assault on Kronstadt. By alternating artillery shelling and infantry actions, Kronstadt was captured by March 18; Some of the rebels died, the rest went 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, and economic devastation have been holding us in an iron grip for three years now. The Communist Party, which rules the country, has become disconnected from the masses and has been unable to bring it out of the state of general devastation. It did not take into account the unrest that had recently occurred in Petrograd and Moscow and which quite clearly indicated that the party had lost the trust of the working masses. It also did not take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them the machinations of counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken. These unrest, these demands are the voice of all the people, all the working people. All workers, sailors and Red Army soldiers clearly see at the moment that only through common efforts, the common will of the working people, can we give the country bread, firewood, coal, clothe the shoeless and undressed, and lead the republic out of the dead end...

Already in 1920, there were calls to abandon the food appropriation system: for example, in February 1920, Trotsky submitted 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 at the Supreme Economic Council.

Progress of development of NEP

Proclamation of the NEP

By the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of March 23, 1921, adopted on the basis of the decisions of the X Congress of the RCP (b), the surplus appropriation system was abolished and replaced by a tax in kind, which was approximately half as much. Such a significant relaxation gave a certain incentive to the war-weary peasantry to develop production.

Lenin himself pointed out that concessions to the peasantry were subordinated to only one goal - the struggle for power: “We openly, honestly, without any deception, declare to the peasants: in order to maintain the path to socialism, we, comrade peasants, will make a whole series of concessions to you, but only within such and such limits and to such and such a degree, and, of course, we ourselves will judge what measure this is and what limits” (Complete Collection of Works, vol. 42 p. 192).

The introduction of a tax in kind was not an isolated measure. The 10th Congress proclaimed the New Economic Policy. Its essence is the assumption of market relations. The NEP was viewed as a temporary policy aimed at creating conditions for socialism - temporary, but not short-term: Lenin himself emphasized that “NEP is serious and for the long haul!” Thus, he agreed with the Mensheviks that Russia at that time was not ready for socialism, but in order to create the preconditions for socialism, he did not at all consider it necessary to give power to the bourgeoisie.

The main political goal of the NEP is to relieve social tensions and strengthen the social base of Soviet power in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants. The economic goal is to prevent further deterioration, get out of the crisis and restore the economy. The social goal is to provide favorable conditions for building a socialist society, without waiting for the world revolution. In addition, the NEP was aimed at restoring normal foreign policy relations and overcoming international isolation.

NEP in the financial sector

The task of the first stage of the monetary reform, implemented within the framework of one of the directions of the state’s economic policy, was to stabilize the monetary and credit relations of the USSR with other countries. After two denominations, which resulted in 1 million rubles. previous banknotes was equal to 1 rub. new sovznak, parallel circulation of depreciating sovznak was introduced to service small trade turnover and hard chervonets, backed by precious metals, stable foreign currency and easily marketable goods. Chervonets was equal to the old 10-ruble gold coin, which contained 7.74 g of pure gold.

The issue of depreciating Soviet notes was used to finance the state budget deficit caused by economic difficulties. Their share in the money supply was steadily declining from 94% in February 1923 to 20% in February 1924. The peasantry, who sought to delay the sale of their products, and the working class, who received wages in Sovznakh. To compensate for the losses of the working class, it was used fiscal policy, aimed at increasing private sector taxation and reducing taxation public sector. Excise taxes on luxury goods were increased and reduced or even eliminated on essential goods. Greater role in supporting stability national currency During the entire period of the NEP, government loans played a role. However, the threat to the trade link between city and countryside required the elimination of parallel money circulation and stabilization of the ruble in the domestic market.

In the 20s Commercial credit was widely used, servicing approximately 85% of the volume of transactions for the sale of goods. Banks exercised control over mutual lending business organizations and, with the help of accounting and collateral operations, regulated the size of a commercial loan, its direction, terms and interest rate. However, its use created the opportunity for unplanned redistribution of funds in the national economy and complicated banking control.

Financing of capital investments and long-term lending developed. After the Civil War, capital investments were financed irrevocably or in the form of long-term loans. To invest in industry, the Electrocredit joint-stock company and the Industrial Bank were created in 1922, later transformed into the Electric Bank and the Commercial and Industrial Bank of the USSR. Long-term lending to the local economy was carried out by local communal banks, transformed in 1926 into the Central Communal Bank (Tsekombank). Agriculture was provided with long-term loans by state credit institutions, credit cooperation, formed in 1924, the Central Agricultural Bank, cooperative banks - Vsekobank and Ukrainbank. At the same time, Vneshtorgbank was created, which provided credit and settlement services for foreign trade and the purchase and sale of foreign currency.

NEP in agriculture

... By a resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, the appropriation system is abolished, and a tax on agricultural products is introduced in its place. This tax should be less than grain appropriation. It should be appointed even before the spring sowing, so that each peasant can take into account in advance what share of the harvest he must give to the state and how much will remain at his full disposal. The tax should be levied without mutual responsibility, that is, it should fall on an individual householder, so that a diligent and hardworking owner does not have to pay for a sloppy fellow villager. Upon completion of the tax, the surplus remaining with the peasant comes to his full disposal. He has the right to exchange them for products and equipment that the state will deliver to the village from abroad and from its factories and factories; he can use them to exchange for the products he needs through cooperatives and in local markets and bazaars...

The tax in kind was initially set at approximately 20% of the net product of peasant labor (that is, to pay it it was necessary to hand over almost half as much grain as during the surplus appropriation system), and subsequently it was planned to be reduced to 10% of the harvest and converted into cash.

On October 30, 1922, the Land Code of the RSFSR was issued, which repealed the law on the socialization of land and declared its nationalization. At the same time, peasants were free to choose their own form of land use - communal, individual or collective. The ban on the use of hired workers was also lifted.

It is necessary, however, to note the fact that wealthy peasants were taxed at higher rates. Thus, on the one hand, the opportunity was provided to improve well-being, but on the other, there was no point in expanding the economy too much. All this taken together led to the “middleization” of the village. The well-being of peasants as a whole has increased compared to the pre-war level, the number of poor and rich has decreased, and the share of middle peasants has increased.

However, even such a half-hearted reform yielded certain results, and by 1926 the food supply had improved significantly.

In general, the NEP had a beneficial effect on the condition of the village. Firstly, the peasants had an incentive to work. Secondly (compared to pre-revolutionary times), many people have increased their land allotment - the main means of production.

The country needed money - to maintain the army, to restore industry, to support the world revolutionary movement. In a country where 80% of the population was the peasantry, the main burden of the tax burden fell on them. But the peasantry was not rich enough to provide all the needs of the state and the necessary tax revenues. Increased taxation on especially wealthy peasants also did not help, therefore, from the mid-1920s, other, non-tax methods of replenishing the treasury, such as forced loans and reduced prices for grain and inflated prices for industrial goods, began to be actively used. As a result, industrial goods, if we calculate their cost in pounds of wheat, turned out to be several times more expensive than before the war, despite their lower quality. A phenomenon emerged that, thanks to Trotsky’s light hand, began to be called “price scissors.” The peasants reacted simply - they stopped selling grain beyond what they needed to pay taxes. The first crisis in the sales of industrial goods arose in the fall of 1923. The peasants needed plows and other industrial products, but refused to buy them at inflated prices. The next crisis arose in the 1924-25 business year (that is, in the fall of 1924 - spring of 1925). The crisis was called the “procurement” crisis, since procurement amounted to only two-thirds of the expected level. Finally, in the 1927-28 business year there was a new crisis: it was not possible to collect even the most necessary things.

Thus, in 1925, Bukharin called on the peasants: “Get rich, accumulate, develop your farm!”, but after a few weeks he actually retracted his words. Others, led by E.A. Preobrazhensky, demanded an intensification of the fight against the “kulaks” (who, as they claimed, were taking into their own hands not only economic, but also political power in the countryside) - without, however, thinking about either the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” or the violent “ complete collectivization,” nor about the curtailment of the NEP (unlike Bukharin, who from 1930 began to theoretically substantiate Stalin’s new policy, and in 1937, in his letter to future party leaders, swore that for 8 years he had no disagreements with Stalin , E.A. Preobrazhensky condemned Stalin’s policies at Lubyanka in 1936). However, the contradictions of the NEP strengthened the anti-NEP sentiments of the lower and middle sections of the party leadership.

NEP in industry

From the resolution of the XII Congress of the RCP (b), April 1923:

The revival of state industry, given the general economic structure of our country, will necessarily be closely dependent on the development of agriculture, the necessary working capital must arise in agriculture as a surplus of agricultural products over rural consumption before industry can take a decisive step forward. But it is equally important for state industry not to lag behind agriculture, otherwise, on the basis of the latter, a private industry would be created, which would ultimately absorb or dissolve the state one. Only an industry that gives more than it absorbs can be victorious. Industry living off the budget, that is, from agriculture, could not create a stable and long-term support for the proletarian dictatorship. The question of creating surplus value in state industry is a question about the fate of Soviet power, that is, about the fate of the proletariat.

Radical changes also took place in industry. The chapters were abolished, and in their place trusts were created - associations of homogeneous or interconnected enterprises that received complete economic and financial independence, up to the right to issue long-term bond issues. By the end of 1922, about 90% of industrial enterprises were united into 421 trusts, with 40% of them being centralized and 60% of local subordination. The trusts themselves decided what to produce and where to sell the products. The enterprises that were part of the trust were withdrawn from state supplies and began purchasing resources on the market. The law provided that “the state treasury is not responsible for the debts of trusts.”

VSNKh, having lost the right to intervene in the current activities of enterprises and trusts, turned into a coordination center. His staff was sharply reduced. It was at that time that economic accounting appeared, in which an enterprise (after mandatory fixed contributions V the state budget) has the right to independently dispose of income from the sale of products, is itself responsible for the results of its economic activity, independently uses profits and covers losses. Under the conditions of the NEP, Lenin wrote, “state enterprises are transferred to the so-called economic accounting, that is, in fact, to a large extent to commercial and capitalist principles.”

Trusts had to allocate at least 20% of profits to the formation of reserve capital until it reached a value equal to half authorized capital(soon this standard was reduced to 10% of profits until it reached a third initial capital). And the reserve capital was used to finance the expansion of production and compensation for losses in economic activity. The bonuses received by members of the board and workers of the trust depended on the size of the profit.

The decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of 1923 stated the following:

Syndicates began to emerge - voluntary associations of trusts on the basis of cooperation, engaged in sales, supply, lending, and foreign trade operations. By the end of 1922, 80% of the trust industry was syndicated, and by the beginning of 1928 there were 23 syndicates that operated in almost all sectors of industry, concentrating in their hands the bulk of wholesale trade. The board of syndicates was elected at a meeting of representatives of the trusts, and each trust could, at its discretion, transfer a greater or lesser part of its supply and sales to the management of the syndicate.

The sale of finished products, the purchase of raw materials, materials, and equipment were carried out on a full-fledged market, through wholesale trade channels. A wide network of commodity exchanges, fairs, and trading enterprises emerged.

In industry and other sectors, cash wages were restored, tariffs and wages were introduced, excluding equalization, and restrictions were lifted to increase wages with an increase in output. Labor armies were liquidated, compulsory labor service and the main restrictions on changing jobs were abolished. The organization of labor was built on the principles of material incentives, which replaced the non-economic coercion of “war communism”. The absolute number of unemployed people registered by labor exchanges increased during the NEP period (from 1.2 million people at the beginning of 1924 to 1.7 million people at the beginning of 1929), but the expansion of the labor market was even more significant (the number of workers and employees in all sectors of the national economy increased from 5.8 million in 1924 to 12.4 million in 1929), so that in fact the unemployment rate decreased.

A number of enterprises were leased to foreign firms in the form of concessions. In 1926-27 There were 117 existing agreements of this kind. They covered enterprises that employed 18 thousand people and produced just over 1% of industrial output. In some industries, however, the share of concession enterprises and mixed joint-stock companies in which foreigners owned part of the shares was significant: in the mining of lead and silver - 60%; manganese ore - 85%; gold - 30%; in the production of clothing and toiletries - 22%.

In addition to capital, a flow of immigrant workers from all over the world was sent to the USSR. In 1922, the American garment workers' union and the Soviet government created the Russian-American Industrial Corporation (RAIK), to which six textile and clothing factories were transferred in Petrograd, four in Moscow.

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, the simplest primary forms - marketing, supply and credit cooperation - covered more than half of all peasant farms. By the end of 1928, non-production cooperation of various types, primarily peasant cooperation, covered 28 million people (13 times more than in 1913). In socialized retail trade, 60-80% was accounted for by cooperatives and only 20-40% by the state itself; in industry in 1928, 13% of all production was provided by cooperatives. There was cooperative legislation, lending, and insurance.

To replace the depreciated and in fact already rejected by the turnover of Sovznak in 1922, the issue of a new monetary unit was started - chervonets, which had a gold content and exchange rate in gold (1 chervonets = 10 pre-revolutionary gold rubles = 7.74 g of pure gold). In 1924, the sovznaki, which were quickly being replaced by chervonets, stopped printing altogether and were withdrawn from circulation; in the same year the budget was balanced and the use of money emissions to cover government expenses was prohibited; new treasury notes were issued - rubles (10 rubles = 1 chervonets). On the foreign exchange market, both domestically and abroad, chervonets were freely exchanged for gold and major foreign currencies at the pre-war exchange rate of the Tsar's ruble (1 US dollar = 1.94 rubles).

The credit system has been revived. In 1921, the State Bank of the USSR was recreated and 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 shareholders were the State Bank, syndicates, cooperatives, private and even at one time foreign, for lending to certain sectors of the economy and regions of the country; cooperative - for lending to consumer cooperation; agricultural credit societies organized on shares, linked to the republican and central agricultural banks; mutual credit societies - for lending to private industry and trade; savings banks - to mobilize the population's savings. As of October 1, 1923, there were 17 independent banks operating 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 State Bank's share in lending to the national economy decreased to 48%.

In just 5 years, from 1921 to 1926, the index of industrial production increased more than 3 times; agricultural production doubled and exceeded the level of 1913 by 18%. But even after the end of the recovery period, economic growth continued at a rapid pace: in 1927 and 1928. the increase in industrial production was 13 and 19%, respectively. In general, for the period 1921-1928. the average annual growth rate of national income was 18%.

The most important result of the NEP was that impressive economic successes were achieved on the basis of fundamentally new, hitherto unknown history public relations. In industry, key positions were occupied by state trusts, in credit financial sector- state and cooperative banks, in agriculture - small peasant farms covered by the simplest types of cooperation. Under the NEP conditions, the economic functions of the state also turned out to be completely new; The goals, principles and methods of government economic policy have changed radically. If previously the center directly established natural, technological proportions of reproduction by order, now it has moved on to regulating prices, trying to ensure balanced growth through indirect, economic methods.

The state put pressure on producers, forced them to find internal reserves for increasing profits, to mobilize efforts to increase production efficiency, which alone could now ensure profit growth.

A broad campaign to reduce prices was launched by the government at the end of 1923, but truly comprehensive regulation of price proportions began in 1924, when circulation completely switched to a stable red currency, and the functions of the Internal Trade Commission were transferred to the People's Commissariat of Internal Trade with broad rights in sphere of price regulation. The measures taken then turned out to be successful: wholesale prices for industrial goods decreased from October 1923 to May 1, 1924 by 26% and continued to decline further.

Throughout the subsequent period until the end of the NEP, the issue of prices continued to remain the core of state economic policy: raising them by trusts and syndicates threatened to repeat the sales crisis, while their excessive reduction, given the existence of a private sector along with the state sector, inevitably led to the enrichment of the private owner at the expense of state industry, to transfer of resources from state-owned enterprises to private industry and trade. The private market, where prices were not standardized, but were set as a result of the free play of supply and demand, served as a sensitive “barometer”, the “arrow” of which, as soon as the state made mistakes in pricing policy, immediately “pointed to bad weather.”

But price regulation was carried out by a bureaucratic apparatus that was not sufficiently controlled by direct producers. The lack of democracy in the decision-making process regarding pricing became the “Achilles heel” of a market socialist economy and played a fatal role in the fate of the NEP.

No matter how brilliant the successes in the economy were, its rise was limited by strict limits. Reach pre-war level It was not easy, but this also meant a new clash with the backwardness of yesterday’s Russia, now already isolated and surrounded by a world hostile to it. Moreover, the most powerful and wealthy capitalist powers began to strengthen again. American economists calculated that national income per capita in the late 1920s in the USSR was less than 19% of the US.

Political struggle during the NEP

Economic processes during the NEP period overlapped with political development and were largely determined by the latter. These processes throughout the entire period of Soviet power were characterized by a tendency toward dictatorship and authoritarianism. While Lenin was at the helm, one could speak of a “collective dictatorship”; he was a leader solely due to his authority, but since 1917 he had to share this role with L. Trotsky: the supreme ruler at that time was called “Lenin and Trotsky”, both portraits adorned not only state institutions, but sometimes even peasant huts. However, with the beginning of the internal party struggle at the end of 1922, Trotsky’s rivals - Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin - not possessing his authority, contrasted him with the authority of Lenin and in a short time inflated him into a real cult - in order to gain the opportunity to proudly call themselves “faithful Leninists” and "Defenders of Leninism."

This was especially dangerous in combination with the dictatorship of the Communist Party. As Mikhail Tomsky, a senior Soviet leader, said in April 1922, “We have several parties. But, unlike abroad, we have one party in power, and the rest are in prison.” As if to confirm his words, in the summer of the same year an open trial of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries took place. All more or less major representatives of this party who remained in the country were tried - and more than a dozen sentences were handed down to capital punishment (the convicts were later pardoned). In the same year, 1922, more than two hundred of the largest representatives of Russian philosophical thought were sent abroad simply because they did not hide their disagreement with the Soviet system - this measure went down in history under the name “Philosophical Steamship.”

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

All these processes led to the fact that the actual position of a person, his authority played a greater role in the 20s than his place in the formal structure of state power. That is why, when speaking about the figures of the 20s, we first of all name not their positions, but their surnames.

In parallel with the change in the position of the party in the country, the degeneration of the party itself took place. It is obvious that there will always be much more people willing to join the ruling party than to join the underground party, membership in which cannot provide any other privileges than iron bunks or a noose around the neck. At the same time, the party, having become the ruling party, began to need to increase its numbers in order to fill government posts at all levels. This led to the rapid growth of the Communist Party after the revolution. On the one hand, periodic “purges” were carried out, designed to free the party from a huge number of “co-opted” pseudo-communists, on the other, the growth of the party was spurred from time to time by mass recruitment, the most significant of which was the “Lenin Call” in 1924, after the death of Lenin. The inevitable consequence of this process was the dissolution of old, ideological Bolsheviks among young party members and not at all young neophytes. In 1927, out of 1,300 thousand people who were members of the party, only 8 thousand had pre-revolutionary experience; Most of the rest did not know communist theory at all.

In connection with the growth of the party, the initially inconspicuous position of secretary began to acquire increasing importance. Any secretary is a secondary position by definition. This is a person who ensures that the necessary formalities are observed during official events. Since April 1922, the Bolshevik Party had the position of General Secretary. He connected the leadership of the secretariat of the Central Committee and the accounting and distribution department, which distributed lower-level party members to various positions. Stalin received this position.

Soon the privileges of the upper layer of party members began to expand. Since 1926, this layer has received a special name - “nomenklatura”. This is how they began to call party-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 bureaucratization of the party and centralization of power took place against the backdrop 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 1922, he was struck by the first blow - his brain was damaged, so the almost helpless Lenin was given a very gentle work schedule. In March 1923, a second attack occurred, after which Lenin dropped out of life altogether for six months, almost learning to pronounce words all over again. He had barely begun to recover from the second attack when the third and last one occurred in January 1924. As the autopsy showed, for the last almost two years of Lenin’s life, only one hemisphere of his brain was active.

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 congress delegates to the most dangerous trend - the degeneration of the party. In letters to the congress, known as his “political testament” (December 1922 - January 1923), Lenin proposed expanding the Central Committee at the expense of the workers, choosing a new Central Control Commission (Central Control Commission) - from the proletarians, cutting back the enormously swollen and therefore ineffective RKI (Workers' -peasant inspection).

The note “Letter to the Congress” (known as “Lenin’s Testament”) had one more component - personal characteristics of the largest party leaders (Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Pyatakov). This part of the Letter is often interpreted as a search for a successor (heir), but Lenin, unlike Stalin, was never a sole dictator, could not make a single fundamental decision without the Central Committee, and not so fundamental - without the Politburo, despite the fact that in The Central Committee, and even more so the Politburo at that time, contained independent people who often disagreed with Lenin in their views. Therefore, there could be no question about any “heir” (and it was not Lenin who called the Letter to the Congress a “testament”). Assuming that the party would retain its collective leadership after him, Lenin gave mostly ambivalent characteristics to the supposed members of this leadership. There was only one definite indication in his Letter: the post of General Secretary gives Stalin too much power, which is dangerous given his rudeness (this was dangerous, according to Lenin, only in the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky, and not in general). Some modern researchers believe, however, that Lenin's Testament was based more on the psychological state of the patient than on political motives.

Even before Lenin’s physical death, at the end of 1922, a struggle began between his “heirs,” or rather, pushing Trotsky away from the helm. In the fall of 1923, the struggle took on an open character. In October, Trotsky addressed the Central Committee with a letter in which he pointed out the formation of a bureaucratic intra-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 a decisive denial. The leading role in this was played by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. This was not the first time that heated disputes arose within 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, deviationism and other mortal sins. The substitution of labels for a real dispute is a new phenomenon: it did not exist before, but it will become increasingly common as the political process develops in the 20s.

Trotsky was defeated quite easily. The next party conference, held in January 1924, published a resolution on party unity (previously kept secret), and Trotsky was forced to remain silent. Until autumn. In the fall of 1924, however, he published the book “Lessons of October,” in which he unequivocally stated that he and Lenin made the revolution. Then Zinoviev and Kamenev “suddenly” remembered that before the VI Congress of the RSDLP(b) in July 1917, Trotsky was a Menshevik. In December 1924, Trotsky was removed from his post as People's Commissar of Military Affairs, but remained in the Politburo.

Curtailment 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, it was not the project developed by the USSR State Planning Committee that was adopted as a plan for the first five-year plan, but an inflated version drawn up by the Supreme Economic Council, not so much taking into account objective possibilities, but under the pressure of party slogans. In June 1929, mass collectivization began (which contradicted even the plan of the Supreme Economic Council) - it was carried out with the widespread use of coercive measures. In the autumn it was supplemented by forced grain procurements.

As a result of these measures, unification into collective farms really became widespread, which gave Stalin reason in November of the same 1929 to make a statement that the middle peasants joined collective farms. Stalin’s article was called “The Great Turning Point.” Immediately after this article, the next plenum of the Central Committee approved new, increased and accelerated plans for collectivization and industrialization..

Conclusions and Conclusions

Significant rates of economic growth, however, were achieved only through the return to operation of pre-war capacities, because Russia only reached the economic indicators of the pre-war years by 1926/1927. The potential for further economic growth turned out to be extremely low. The private sector was not allowed to the “commanding heights of the economy,” foreign investment was not welcomed, and investors themselves were in no particular hurry to come to Russia due to ongoing instability and the threat of nationalization of capital. The state was unable to make long-term capital-intensive investments using its own funds alone.

The situation in the village was also contradictory, where the “kulaks”, the most decisive and effective owners, were clearly oppressed. They had no incentive to do better.

NEP and culture

One cannot fail to mention the very important influence of the NEP, its influence on culture. The newly rich Nepmen - private traders, shopkeepers and artisans, not concerned with the romantic revolutionary spirit of universal happiness or opportunistic considerations about successfully serving the new government, found themselves in the leading roles during this period.

The new rich were of little interest in classical art - they lacked the education to understand it. They remembered their hungry childhood and there was no force that could stop the satisfaction of that childhood hunger. They set their own fashion.

Cabarets and restaurants became the main entertainment - a pan-European trend of that time. The Berlin cabarets were especially famous in the 1920s. One of the most famous couplet artists of the time was Mikhail Savoyarov.

The cabaret featured artists-couplets with simple song plots and simple rhymes and rhythms, performers of funny feuilletons, sketches, and entertainment. The artistic value of those works is highly controversial, and many of them have long been forgotten. But nevertheless, simple, unpretentious words and light musical motifs of some songs have entered the cultural history of the country. And they not only entered, but began to be passed on from generation to generation, acquiring new rhymes, changing some words, merging with folk art. It was then that such popular songs as “Bagels”, “Lemons”, “Murka”, “Lanterns”, “The blue ball is spinning and spinning”...

These songs were repeatedly criticized and ridiculed for being apolitical, lacking ideas, bourgeois taste, and even outright vulgarity. But the longevity of these couplets proved their originality and talent. The author of the lyrics to the songs “Babliki” and “Lemonchiki” was the disgraced poet Yakov Yadov. And many other of these songs carry the same style: at the same time ironic, lyrical, poignant, with simple rhymes and rhythms - they are similar in style to “Bagels” and “Lemonchiki”. But the exact authorship has not yet been established. And all that is known about Yadov is that he composed a huge number of simple and very talented couplet songs of that period.

Light genres also reigned in dramatic theaters. And here not everything was kept within the required boundaries. Moscow Vakhtangov Studio, future theater named after. Vakhtangov, in 1922 turned to the production of Carlo Gozzi’s fairy tale “Princess Turandot”. It would seem that a fairy tale is such a simple and unpretentious material. The actors laughed and joked while they rehearsed. So, with jokes, sometimes very sharp, a performance appeared that was destined to become a symbol of the theater, a pamphlet performance, concealing within itself, behind the lightness of the genre, wisdom and a smile at the same time. Since then, there have been three different productions of this play. A somewhat similar story happened with another performance of the same theater - in 1926, Mikhail Bulgakov’s play “Zoyka’s Apartment” was staged there. The theater itself turned to the writer with a request to write a light vaudeville on a modern NEP theme. The vaudeville cheerful, seemingly unprincipled play hid serious social satire behind its external lightness, and the performance was banned by decision of the People's Commissariat of Education on March 17, 1929 with the wording: “For distortion of Soviet reality.”

In the 1920s, a real magazine boom began in Moscow. In 1922, several satirical humor magazines began to be published at once: “Crocodile”, “Satyricon”, “Smekhach”, “Splinter”, a little later, in 1923 - “Prozhektor” (under the newspaper “Pravda”); in the 1921/22 season, the magazine “Ekran” appeared, among the authors of which were A. Sidorov, P. Kogan, G. Yakulov, J. Tugendhold, M. Koltsov, N. Foregger, V. Mass, E. Zozulya and many others . In 1925, the famous publisher V. A. Reginin and poet V. I. Narbut founded the monthly “30 Days”. This entire press, in addition to news from working life, constantly publishes humoresques, funny, unpretentious stories, parody poems, and caricatures. But with the end of the NEP, their publication ends. Since 1930, Krokodil remained the only all-Union satirical magazine. The era of the NEP ended tragically, but the traces of this riotous time remained forever.

In Soviet times, they tried not to cover this complex of events in too much detail - it was viewed exclusively as “temporary” and “forced.” Today they tend to consider it the greatest success of the Soviet regime, which is also illogical. The NEP was simply a set of measures that significantly contributed to the country's recovery from a deep economic crisis.

Two wars and a revolution

This is how we can briefly formulate the reasons for the introduction of the NEP. The country was exhausted by two wars (worldwide and civil), the poor management of the last years of tsarism and the rise to power of people, even hard-working and honest (and not all of them can be said that way), but who had no practice in real management activities.

In some regions (for example, in the Donbass), industrial losses amounted to 80% of the pre-war volume, and these were enterprises that could only be rebuilt (it is impossible to restart a blast furnace clogged with petrified cooled slag). Unrest was brewing in the village due to surplus appropriation. It also reduced production volumes (the peasants were not interested in increasing them) and deprived the country of the only reliable source of income - the opportunity to sell agricultural products.

Essence of the program

The NEP was in force in the country in the period 1921-1928. His task was to solve the problem of obtaining funds for the development and restoration of industry (the conditions of a real military threat made this vital) and to improve the situation in the countryside. V.I. Lenin was the main initiator of the introduction of the NEP. The beginning of the period is counted from the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) (March 1921).

As part of the NEP, a number of reforms were carried out.

Commodity-money relations were returned, monetary reform was carried out, the currency became convertible, several banks were opened in the country (under state control, but with a certain degree of independence).
In the villages, the surplus appropriation system was replaced by a tax in kind, the amount of which the peasant knew in advance. He could use the remaining product at his own discretion - sell, exchange, or keep it for himself. The state introduced measures to increase purchase prices for agricultural products.
Industrial enterprises received the right to dispose of profits after paying taxes and contributing to the enterprise development fund.
In many non-strategic areas (trade, light industry, services) private entrepreneurship was allowed. Peasants also received the right to hire labor.
Foreign capital was attracted to the country in the form of concessions.
The state has ceased to be the only regulatory force in the economy, having transferred some of its powers to associations of state-owned enterprises - syndicates and trusts.

Simultaneously with the implementation of the NEP, other measures were taken to strengthen the economy. One of them, thanks to Yu. Semenov, is known as “diamonds for the dictatorship of the proletariat” - products from precious metals and stones were collected in the country for sale for foreign currency. Also, collectivization of agriculture was encouraged in every possible way (with help from machinery, seeds, tax benefits), but there were no forced unifications.

Good results

In general, the NEP fulfilled its tasks. Russia's total industrial output reached pre-war levels in 1926 (of course, figures varied greatly across industries). Construction of new enterprises and electrification began (implementation of the GOELRO plan). Agricultural production increased noticeably, and the emergence of machine and tractor stations (MTS) marked the beginning of mechanization in rural areas. Collective farms created during the NEP period turned out to be successful in the 30s (unlike those created by force).

Politics, of course, played a role in the cancellation of the NEP and the transition to 5-year planning. But what was more important was that the NEP had exhausted itself - in the 30s the country needed industrialization, rapid industrial development, and not restoration and salvation from hunger and devastation. And the new owners, who began to feel like masters, were also not needed by the Soviet government...

Something similar to the economic structure of the NEP period can be observed today in the PRC. There, such an economy allows for the rapid development of industrial production. But we must take into account that Chinese leaders had the opportunity to carefully study the experience of the NEP, and the Soviet leaders had to be the first.