SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY DURING THE NEP PERIOD

Reasons for the transition to the NEP. The events of the spring of 1921 were regarded by the Bolsheviks as a serious political crisis. The Kronstadt “rebellion,” as defined by V.I. Lenin, was more dangerous for the Bolshevik government than Denikin, Yudenich and Kolchak combined, because it combined the spontaneous discontent of the peasants with the military power of the army. Moreover, the slogans put forward by the rebels coincided with the program of the socialist opponents of the Bolsheviks - the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Kronstadt showed the real possibility of uniting these three forces. Lenin was the first to understand this danger. He learned two fundamental lessons from the events that took place: firstly, in order to maintain power it is necessary to come to an agreement with the peasantry and, secondly, to tighten the fight against all opposition political forces, right up to their complete destruction, so that no one except the Bolsheviks could exert influence to the masses.

In March 1921, at the X Congress of the RCP(b), the Bolsheviks abandoned war communism and proclaimed a new economic policy (NEP).

The main directions and essence of the NEP. The first step of the new economic policy was the abolition of food appropriation. Instead, a tax in kind was introduced, which was half the size of the surplus appropriation system and was announced in advance (on the eve of the sowing season). It could not be increased within a year. All surpluses remaining after paying the tax went to the disposal of the peasants. The introduction of a tax in kind created a material incentive to increase agricultural production. But for this incentive to work, the Bolsheviks had to allow free trade.

Fundamental changes have also occurred in the field of industrial production. First of all, the decree on the complete nationalization of industry was canceled. Now small and even some medium-sized enterprises have again been transferred into private hands. Some large industrial enterprises were allowed to be rented by private individuals. The creation of concessions with the involvement of foreign capital, mixed joint-stock companies and joint ventures was allowed.

All these “innovations” required the abolition of forced labor and the introduction of a labor market, reform of the wage system (a tariff system of remuneration was introduced). A monetary reform was carried out, the result of which was the introduction in the country of a hard currency backed by gold - the “golden chervonets”, which was highly valued on the world foreign exchange market. The Soviet chervonets was equal to 5 dollars 14.5 US cents.

At the same time, a significant part of industry and all foreign trade remained in the hands of the state. Decrees of the Council of People's Commissars in 1923 determined a new structure and charter of state industrial enterprises (trusts) and state trade (syndicates). They gained greater economic independence, their activities were based on the principles of self-sufficiency.

At first, Lenin and his comrades viewed the NEP as a forced retreat caused by an unfavorable balance of forces, as a forced respite before a decisive assault on the heights of communism. But already in the fall of 1921 Lenin came to understand the NEP as one of the possible ways of transition to socialism. He stated that the NEP is “serious and long-term.” The essence of this long transition period was reduced to peaceful economic competition between different structures in the economy, as a result of which the socialist system should gradually supplant private capitalist forms of economy. The key to this victory, Lenin believed, would be the political power of the proletariat, or more precisely, its party, and the concentration in the hands of the proletarian state of the “commanding heights” in the economy, that is, the most important spheres of industrial production, foreign trade and finance.

Socio-economic results of the NEP. Small industry, retail trade and the countryside quickly adapted to the NEP. The recovery of heavy industry proceeded at a slower pace. But the introduction of self-financing, material interest, and the newly emerging concept of profit still bore fruit.

After the terrible drought of 1921 and the famine of 1922, agriculture began to gradually increase production volumes. By 1923, pre-revolutionary sown areas had largely been restored. By 1927, the pre-war level had been achieved in general and in livestock farming. In the village, middle peasant farms mainly predominated (over 60%), there were 3-4% of kulaks, 22-26% of poor people, and 10-11% of farm laborers.

Industrial production also developed. By 1928, the country had reached pre-war levels in terms of basic economic indicators, including national income. And yet, there was a sharp shortage of industrial goods, which led to an increase in prices, and this, in turn, hampered the growth of the population's living standards.

The introduction of the NEP caused a change in the social structure and way of life of people. The most colorful figures of that time were representatives of the new Soviet bourgeoisie - the “NEPmen”. These people largely determined the face of the era, but they were, as it were, outside of Soviet society: they were deprived of voting rights and could not become members of a trade union. Entrepreneurs were keenly aware of the precariousness of their position. Therefore, the share of private industry in total production was low. Private capital flowed primarily into trade.

Significant changes have occurred in the traditional segments of the population. During the civil war, the already small Russian bourgeoisie, as well as the landowners, were completely destroyed. The intelligentsia suffered serious damage.

The proletariat emerged from the civil war and the devastation that accompanied it, in Lenin’s words, “weakened and, to a certain extent, declassed by the destruction of its life basis - large-scale machine industry.” In 1920, there were 1.7 million industrial workers in Russia, with regular workers making up no more than 40%. By 1928, the size of the working class increased 5 times, mainly due to the rural population.

The workers' financial situation has improved. Wages increased, coming very close to pre-war levels. Workers received the right to annual leave, which was at least two weeks. However, the growth of living standards was hampered by high prices, a shortage of essential goods, and an acute housing problem. In addition, despite the growth of industry, unemployment was increasing in the country.

The equal redistribution of land, as well as the policy of restraining the growth of wealthy farms through taxation and state support for the poor led to the “middleization” of the countryside. Many peasant farms were rapidly growing. Rural residents began to eat better than before the revolution, they began to eat more bread and meat.

The peasants expressed dissatisfaction with the political restrictions for village residents that existed in the “state of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Having received significant economic relief from the NEP, they were not averse to receiving the right to defend their interests with the help of their own political organizations.

Another social result of the NEP was the exorbitant increase in the bureaucratic apparatus. This was facilitated not only by the active intervention of the state in the sphere of production and distribution, but also by the low qualifications of personnel, which forced several people to work in one area. In 1917, about 1 million officials worked in institutions, in 1921 - 2.5 million. Most people went to work in Soviet institutions for the privileges, primarily for food rations.

Economic contradictions of the NEP. The significant rates of economic growth during the NEP period were largely explained by the “restorative effect”: in industry - by the introduction into operation of existing equipment that was not used during the era of wars and revolutions; in agriculture - restoration of abandoned arable land. When in the late 20s. these reserves dried up, the country needed huge capital investments to reconstruct old factories and create new industries.

The Bolsheviks were unable to follow the beaten path of attracting foreign investment, although they tried. Foreign entrepreneurs did not want to risk their capital in the conditions of complete unpredictability of the Bolshevik regime. In addition, they had already been taught by the experience of the gratuitous nationalization of foreign property carried out after the October Revolution. The last hopes that “abroad will help us” collapsed in 1929, when a large-scale economic crisis broke out in the West.

Internal reserves were minimal. Private capital was not allowed into large and, to a large extent, even into medium-sized industry; the lack of legal guarantees forced the population to hide their savings, keep them in hiding places, and use them for speculation. Thus, private capital was unable to modernize the Russian economy. The public sector, although recognized as the leading one, was low-income. It was also impossible to count on agriculture, which had once been a supplier of export products. The fragmentation of peasant farms and the middleization of the countryside led to a decrease in the production of marketable products, since the middle peasant produced products primarily for his own consumption and had almost no connection with the market. Before the revolution, the main suppliers of commercial grain were landowners' farms. Now they have been eliminated. Low marketability led to a decrease in the volume of exports of agricultural products, and consequently, imports of equipment so necessary for modernizing the country, not to mention the import of consumer goods. In 1928, half as much equipment was imported into the USSR as in the pre-revolutionary period.

Agricultural problems were aggravated by a hunger for manufactured goods. The peasants lost the incentive to expand commodity production: why bother if there is nothing to buy with the money raised.

Grain procurement crisis. In 1927, due to a shortage of industrial goods that the state provided in exchange for grain, low state purchasing prices, and crop failure in a number of regions, the sale of grain and other products to the state decreased. The situation was aggravated by diplomatic conflicts with European countries. The smell of war was in the air. Taught by bitter experience, the townspeople rushed to buy essential goods. This was an additional incentive for peasants to hide more grain away. The plan to export grain abroad was thwarted, the country received less foreign currency, which led to a reduction in industrial programs. As a result, the commodity shortage worsened even more, and prices jumped sharply. In the fall of 1927, city stores presented a long-forgotten spectacle: butter, cheese, and milk disappeared from the shelves. Then there were shortages of bread, and long lines formed for it.

To eliminate the crisis, extraordinary measures were taken: 30 thousand party members were sent to the villages to beat out bread. All party leaders went “to the field” to conduct explanatory work. The leader of the party, J.V. Stalin, went to Siberia. He allowed local party workers to apply criminal measures to peasants who do not hand over grain. The “poor” were again invited to forcibly confiscate the hidden grain, and were given 25% of the confiscated grain for a low fee or on credit. Stalin's "Ural-Siberian" method spread throughout the country.

However, these measures did not bring the desired results. In April 1929, rationing for bread was introduced. By the end of the year, the card system extended to all food products, and then to industrial products. It became clear that immediate adjustments to economic policy were required.

POLITICAL LIFE IN THE 1920s

Merging of the state and party apparatus. During the civil war, a political system emerged, which at the XII Party Congress was called the “dictatorship of the party.” In emergency conditions, the RCP(b) actually began to perform the functions of state leadership and administration. The most important decisions were first made by the Party's Central Committee. Previously, they were discussed in the governing body created in 1919 - the Political Bureau (Politburo) of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). The Politburo in 1921 included G. E. Zinoviev, L. B. Kamenev, V. I. Lenin, I. V. Stalin, L. D. Trotsky, as well as N. I. Bukharin, M. I. Kalinin, V.M. Molotov as candidates. The decisions made by the party leadership were “fixed” in state documents, i.e. Soviet authorities. However, among the leaders of the state we meet all the same names familiar to us from the party.

At the same time, the Communist Party itself turned into a strictly centralized organization based on the principles of unity of command. A group called the “workers’ opposition” spoke out against the party monopoly on control over all spheres of life of society and the state. It was headed by prominent party and trade union figures A. G. Shlyapnikov, A. M. Kollontai, S. P. Medvedev. The “worker opposition” accused the party leadership of degeneration, of unwillingness to deal with the problems of life and everyday life of workers, and also put forward a demand for freedom of factions and groupings in the party.

It was decided to discuss the disagreements that arose in the party ranks at the X Congress of the RCP(b). However, a few days before the start of the congress (it opened on March 8, 1921), an uprising broke out in Kronstadt. This event changed not only the agenda of the congress, but also the mood of the delegates who took part in suppressing the “rebellion.” The leitmotif of the congress was the idea of ​​party unity. It sounded in numerous speeches by Lenin. The congress adopted a resolution “On Party Unity,” which prohibited the creation in the RCP(b) of factions or groups that had a point of view different from the party leadership and defended it at all levels and using various methods (all-party discussions were popular at that time). The congress recognized the views of the “workers’ opposition” as incompatible with the party line on the leading role of the RCP(b) in socialist construction.

The final formation of the one-party political system. Having introduced unanimity in its ranks, the Bolshevik leadership began to attack political opponents outside the ranks of the party. In December 1921, at the proposal of the Chairman of the All-Russian Cheka F. E. Dzerzhinsky, the Central Committee decided to hold an open trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries, which took place in June-August 1922. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee Tribunal accused prominent Socialist Revolutionary figures arrested at different times of organizing conspiracies to the overthrow of Soviet power, in aiding the White Guards and interventionists, as well as in counter-revolutionary propaganda. Twelve defendants were sentenced to death. But after protests from the world community, the execution was postponed and made dependent on the behavior of the members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party who remained free. In June 1923, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) developed a secret instruction “On measures to combat the Mensheviks,” which set the task of “uprooting Menshevik ties in the working class, completely disorganizing and breaking up the Menshevik party, completely discrediting it before the working class ". The Bolsheviks did not risk holding the same “show” trial against the Mensheviks as against the Socialist Revolutionaries, given the negative reaction of the world socialist movement. However, a powerful campaign was launched to defame his recent party comrades. For many years, the word “Menshevik” became almost a dirty word, among other negative ideological concepts. In 1923, the collapse of the Menshevik party began.

Political opposition outside the Bolshevik Party ceased to exist. A one-party political system was finally established in the country.

The main contradiction of the NEP. The "leader" problem. There was a deep contradiction between the NEP economic and political systems. If there was liberalization in the economy, then in the political sphere there was a tightening of the regime. The one-party system deprived the various social groups that emerged during the NEP of the opportunity to defend their interests. However, this contradiction was largely smoothed over by the fact that the head of the state was a man who enjoyed unconditional authority in the party and the trust of the majority of the population - V. I. Lenin. Formally, he did not hold the most important party position, but nevertheless led meetings of the plenums of the Central Committee and the Politburo. The secretariat of the Central Committee helped him manage party work.

In 1922, Lenin became seriously ill. The position of head of the secretariat was required so that he could conduct party affairs in Lenin’s absence. The choice fell on Stalin, who, on behalf of the Politburo, was involved in all organizational work in the Central Committee. At the same time, in order to raise the authority of this position, it was decided to give it a name - general secretary. At the end of December 1922 - beginning of January 1923, Lenin dictated a “Letter to the Congress”, in which he gave political characteristics to his closest associates - L. D. Trotsky, L. B. Kamenev, G. E. Zinoviev, N. I. Bukharin , L. G. Pyatakov, I. V. Stalin. In each of them he found certain shortcomings that did not allow Lenin to name his successor. He saw the main danger for the party in the rivalry between Stalin and Trotsky. Lenin paid special attention to the characterization of Stalin.

From “Letter to the Congress” by V. I. Lenin:

“Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use this power carefully enough. Stalin is too rude, and this deficiency, quite tolerable in the environment and in communications between us communists, becomes intolerant in the position of General Secretary. Therefore, I suggest that the comrades consider a way to remove Stalin from this place and appoint another person to this place, who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in only one advantage, namely, he is more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to his comrades, less moodiness, etc.”

Stalin versus Trotsky. In October 1923, L. D. Trotsky and his supporters criticized the established order in the party. They were alarmed by the “progressive division of the party into a secretarial hierarchy and “laymen”, into professional party functionaries elected from above, and into the party masses who do not participate in party life.” This was an attack against Stalin, who led the party apparatus.

On January 21, 1924, V.I. Lenin died. In May, the XIII Congress of the RCP(b) took place, where Lenin’s “Letter to the Congress” was announced. The delegates to the congress spoke out in favor of leaving Stalin as General Secretary of the Central Committee, citing the difficult situation within the party and the threat of a split in the party ranks from Trotsky.

Gradually relying on individual statements of Lenin, Stalin began to replace the central idea of ​​Bolshevism - the idea of ​​world revolution - with the theory of the possibility of building socialism in “one, separate country.” This new attitude allowed the party to extricate itself from a delicate situation when the proletariat of European countries was in no hurry to carry out a world socialist revolution. Stalin accused Trotsky and his supporters of not believing in the possibility of building socialism in the USSR. The XV Conference of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in October 1926 (in December 1925, the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks was renamed the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)) approved the Stalinist thesis as the main party principle.

Period 1924 -1925 was difficult for the party: crop failure, increasing commodity hunger, attempts to create a peasant political organization. The threat of getting a new Kronstadt forced the party leadership to satisfy some peasant demands in both the political and economic spheres. In the spring of 1925, agricultural taxes were reduced by 100 million rubles. Peasants, under certain conditions, were allowed to lease land and use hired labor; handicraftsmen and artisans received tax breaks. The inspirer of this shift “to the right” was N.I. Bukharin. He addressed the peasants with the words: “Get rich, develop your farm and don’t worry about being squeezed. We must ensure that our poor disappear as quickly as possible, and cease to be poor.”

Bukharin’s course was supported by Stalin; Kamenev and Zinoviev opposed it, believing that such a policy would lead to “erosion of the proletarian line.” Lenin's widow N.K. Krupskaya joined them. They also raised serious objections to Stalin’s idea of ​​“building socialism in one country.” The so-called “new opposition” arose. In the ensuing discussion, Trotsky initially took a wait-and-see attitude. But the sharp strengthening of Stalin’s positions, his assignment of the functions of the sole custodian of Lenin’s “testaments” forced the opposition to act as a single bloc, which Stalin dubbed “Trotskyist-Zinovievsky.”

In 1927, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev were expelled from the party for attempting to organize an alternative demonstration in honor of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. At the beginning of 1928, a large group of oppositionists led by Trotsky was expelled from Moscow to Alma-Ata. In 1929, Trotsky was expelled from the USSR.

"Right bias." Political disagreements within the party leadership flared up with renewed vigor in 1927 due to the grain procurement crisis. An analysis of its causes and the search for ways out of a difficult situation led to the formation of two points of view. Stalin believed that the crisis was caused by a violation of economic proportions. Weak industry could not provide the production of necessary goods. The commodity famine did not allow the peasants to obtain bread economically - in exchange for manufactured goods. At the same time, small peasant farming was, in principle, unable to satisfy the needs of growing industry. The large kulak producer deliberately sabotaged grain procurements. Stalin proposed concentrating all financial and material resources on solving the problem of industrialization and reorganizing agriculture on the basis of creating high-quality collective farms, which were supposed to be not only more effective than individual farms, but also more consistent with the socialist ideal.

Bukharin had a different opinion. He believed that subjective factors led to the crisis: a reserve fund for manufactured goods was not created; the growth of cash income in the village was not balanced by taxes, which exacerbated commodity hunger; Low purchase prices for bread were set. Bukharin proposed eliminating all the reasons mentioned. He did not oppose the creation of large collective farms, but believed that individual peasant farms should remain the basis of the agricultural sector for a long time.

Stalin accused Bukharin of deviating from the general line “to the right.” Now he launched a fight against the “right deviation,” which included all adherents of the NEP. At the November (1929) plenum of the Central Committee, belonging to the “right deviation” was recognized as incompatible with being a member of the party. In a short period of time, 149 thousand people were expelled from it. Bukharin was removed from the Politburo; Rykov lost his post as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Stalin's faithful follower V.M. Molotov was appointed in his place.

The reasons for Stalin's victory in the struggle for power. Stalin's victory in the struggle for personal power was due to a number of reasons. As the role of the apparatus in the life of the party and the role of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in state affairs grew, the influence of Stalin, who, as General Secretary, led the entire party apparatus and controlled all personnel appointments in the party, also grew. In addition, he very sensitively managed to grasp the mood that reigned in the party and society. The people were impressed by the prospect put forward by Stalin of the possibility of quickly building socialism in one country. By this time, in certain sections of the population, both in the countryside and in the city, irritation was growing over the lack of real results of the revolution with its initial goals for universal equality. Stalin's new program instilled certain hopes in people.

The atmosphere in the party itself also changed. Immediately after Lenin's death, Stalin, seeking to strengthen his position, initiated the so-called "Leninist call." From February to August 1924, 203 thousand people were admitted to the party, which increased its composition by one and a half times. Many joined the party not at the behest of their souls, but in order to receive a number of privileges that were due to members of the RCP (b). And the party leaders are already quite tired of endless discussions, of the need to understand the complex nuances that distinguished the “right” from the “left,” “Trotskyists” from “Zinovievites,” “Zinovievites” from “Bukharinites.” Everyone wanted to put an end to the personal squabbles of the party leaders as soon as possible, to find a single leader, a clear goal for which they could fight using the usual revolutionary methods.

Stalin not only grasped the mood of the masses and the party, but also skillfully fueled them. He stated that the financial situation of the people is not improving because the country is overrun with “internal enemies” and “external enemies.” The first “proof” of this was the so-called “Shakhty trial” in 1928, in which the leaders and specialists of the Donbass coal industry were accused of sabotage and espionage. The word "pest" became one of the most common words of the time. During the work of the Supreme Court, which considered this case, a noisy newspaper campaign was launched to harass the accused. Its culmination was the publication of a statement by the 12-year-old son of one of the arrested with a request to shoot his father.

Stalin, summing up the results of the Shakhty affair at the plenum of the Central Committee in July 1928, put forward a thesis that became fundamental for all his subsequent policies: as the country moves towards socialism, the class struggle will inevitably intensify. This attitude made it possible to explain why the old revolutionaries suddenly became “enemies of the people” and led people to the idea of ​​the need to rally around the leader.

SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE USSR IN THE 1920s

The fight against illiteracy. Construction of a Soviet school. IN AND. Lenin, identifying the main enemies of the socialist revolution, among others, also named the illiteracy of the Russian population.

In 1918, the restructuring of public education began. On September 30, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved the “Regulations on the Unified Labor School of the RSFSR.” This document was based on the most advanced ideas of both Russian and foreign teachers for that time. The new Soviet school was free, and elements of self-government were introduced into it. Pedagogical innovation was encouraged and respect for the child’s personality was cultivated. However, sometimes the pedagogical searches of that time crossed all boundaries of reason: desks were expelled from school, the lesson system, homework, textbooks, and grades were abolished.

By the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of August 2, 1918, “On the Rules for Admission to Higher Educational Institutions,” the workers and poor peasants received priority when entering universities. In order to raise their general educational level to the minimum required for studying in higher education, workers' faculties (workers' faculties) were created at universities and institutes. By 1925, graduates of workers' faculties, sent to study on party and Komsomol vouchers, made up half of all applicants. The state provided them with scholarships and hostels. This is how the Soviet intelligentsia began to be created.

Power and the intelligentsia. The luminaries of artistic culture of the “Silver Age” met the proletarian revolution in the prime of their creative powers. Some of them very soon realized that in the new conditions, Russian cultural traditions would either be trampled upon or brought under the control of the authorities. Valuing creative freedom above all else, they chose the lot of emigrants. By the mid-20s, many of the most prominent cultural masters found themselves abroad (I. A. Bunin, A. I. Kuprin, A. K. Glazunov, S. S. Prokofiev, S. V. Rachmaninov, F. I. Shalyapin, I. E. Repin, V. V. Kandinsky, M. 3. Chagall and many others). M. Gorky also took a critical position towards the Bolshevik government, who in 1921 went abroad and settled on the island. Capri (Italy). However, not everyone chose the fate of emigrants. Some outstanding cultural figures, having gone into deep spiritual opposition to the ruling regime, continued to create in the traditions of Russian dissent - A. A. Akhmatova, M. A. Voloshin, M. M. Prishvin, M. A. Bulgakov.

The Bolsheviks, having come to power, sought to attract scientists to close cooperation, especially those who in one way or another contributed to strengthening the defense and economy of the country or had unconditional world recognition. They were provided with more tolerable living and working conditions compared to other segments of the population. Many famous scientists considered it their duty to work for the good of the Motherland, although this did not mean that they shared the political and ideological views of the Bolsheviks. Among them we find the names of the founder of the theory of modern aircraft construction N. E. Zhukovsky, the creator of geochemistry and biochemistry V. I. Vernadsky, the outstanding chemist N. D. Zelinsky, biochemist A. N. Bach, the father of astronautics K. E. Tsiolkovsky, Nobel laureate Prizes of the physiologist I. P. Pavlov, test agronomist I. V. Michurin, the largest specialist in plant growing K. A. Timiryazev and others.

The beginning of party control over spiritual life. After the end of the civil war and especially after the events in Kronstadt, the Bolsheviks began to increasingly take control of the spiritual life of the country. In August 1921, newspapers published sensational material about the exposure of the so-called Petrograd combat organization, which was allegedly preparing a “bloody coup.” A group of famous Russian scientists and cultural figures was declared active participants in this organization. Although the investigation was carried out hastily and did not have convincing evidence of the guilt of those arrested, some of them were sentenced to death. Among those executed were the famous chemist Professor M. M. Tikhvinsky and the greatest Russian poet N. S. Gumilyov.

At the end of August 1922, the Soviet government expelled 160 of the largest Russian scientists from the country - the pride of not only Russian but also world science. Among those expelled were philosophers N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, L.P. Karsavin, E.N. Trubetskoy, historian A.A. Kizevetter, sociologist P.A. Sorokin and others. These people did not at all strive leave Russia. While not sharing the ideological principles of Bolshevism, they nevertheless were not active fighters against it.

In 1922, a special censorship committee was established - Glavlit, which was obliged to exercise control over all printed products so that materials that were not acceptable to the authorities did not leak onto its pages. A year later, Glavlit was supplemented by the Glavrepertkom, designed to control the repertoire of theaters and other entertainment events.

Nevertheless, until 1925, culture developed in conditions of relative spiritual freedom. Stormy internal party disputes between the Bolshevik leaders prevented them from developing a unified line in the field of ideology. With the strengthening of the positions of J.V. Stalin, the party “turns its face to culture.” In 1925, the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was adopted “On the Party’s Policy in the Field of Fiction.” It marked the beginning of ideologization and party dictatorship regarding artistic creativity. Speaking to the intelligentsia, N.I. Bukharin invited them to “go under the banner of the workers’ dictatorship and Marxist ideology.” The abolition of artistic diversity began.

Bolsheviks and the Church. The Bolsheviks set themselves the goal of raising a “new man” worthy of living in a communist society. One of the directions of communist education was the moral improvement of the individual, which at all times was the prerogative of the church. Therefore, the fight against religion was determined not only by the atheistic views of the Bolsheviks, but also by their desire to remove a dangerous competitor from the spiritual sphere of society.

The first act of eliminating the church from public life was the decree of January 23, 1918 on the separation of church from state and school from church. This decree served as the basis for complete arbitrariness in the localities in relation to the church and its ministers. Temples and monasteries began to close everywhere. Their property and religious objects were confiscated “for revolutionary needs.” Clergymen were arrested and sent to forced labor. They were deprived of voting rights and subjected to the highest taxes.

After the restoration of the patriarchate in 1917, Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow became the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. In January 1918, he anathematized the Bolsheviks. When a terrible famine broke out in the Volga region in 1921, Patriarch Tikhon turned to the heads of Christian churches with an appeal to help the starving. The Church Relief Committee he created began active work, rousing all believers in Russia to fight hunger.

Bolshevik leaders could not accept the fact that the church had seized the initiative from the state. In February 1922, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree on the confiscation of church valuables in favor of the starving. The implementation of the decree in some places resulted in a genuine robbery of church property. This caused a massive protest; over the course of three months, more than a thousand clashes between believers and detachments carrying out requisitions occurred. Lenin decided to use these events to deal a decisive blow to the church.

In April-May 1922, noisy trials of church leaders were organized in Moscow and in July in Petrograd. Several clergy - bishops and metropolitans - were sentenced to death on charges of counter-revolutionary activities. Patriarch Tikhon was placed under house arrest and then transferred to prison.

Anti-religious propaganda intensified, the Union of Militant Atheists was created, and the mass magazine “Atheist” began to be published. After Tikhon's death in 1925, the authorities did not allow the election of a new patriarch. Metropolitan Peter, who took on patriarchal duties, was exiled to Solovki in 1926.

The beginning of a "new" art. New trends and phenomena in the field of artistic culture were gaining strength. The literary, artistic, cultural and educational organization, called Proletkult, began to make itself known more and more loudly. The Proletcultists considered their main task to be the formation of a special, socialist culture through the development of the creative initiative of the proletariat. To do this, they created special art studios and clubs that united creatively inclined proletarians. By 1920, Proletkult organizations numbered up to 400 thousand members. The Theater of Working Youth (TRAM) was created. Future luminaries of Soviet art began their creative activity there: film directors S. M. Eisenstein and I. A. Pyryev, actors M. M. Shtraukh, E. P. Garin and others. Preaching the idea of ​​“pure” proletarian culture, the Proletcultists called for throwing out “to the dustbin of history” all the cultural achievements of the past.

In 1925, the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) was formed, which also evaluated literary works based not on their artistic merits, but from the point of view of the social origin of the authors. Therefore, everything that came from the pens of writers who were not of worker-peasant origin was declared “ideologically harmful.”

Writers of a new generation appeared, participants in the revolution and civil war. They not only glorified revolutionary romance, but also explored the most complex life problems and psychological conflicts. Works by I. E. Babel (“Cavalry”), A. S. Serafimovich (“Iron Stream”), K. A. Trenev (“Yarovaya Love”), M. A. Sholokhov (“Don Stories”), D. A. Furmanova (“Chapaev”) were talented and reflected the mood of the people. With their help, literature descended from the transcendental heights of “pure” art and became more accessible to the understanding of the broad masses.

Significant changes have occurred in the visual arts. The communists who seized power needed new forms to appeal to the feelings agitating for a communist future. The art of posters flourished, and talented masters of this genre appeared - V. N. Denis, D. S. Moor. At the same time, a variety of groups emerged in the fine arts with their own platforms, manifestos, and systems of visual media. Among them, the leading place was occupied by the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AHRR). In their declaration, the “Ahrrovites” declared that the civic duty of every master is “the artistic and documentary recording of the greatest moment in history in its revolutionary impulse.” This idea was embodied in the works of I. I. Brodsky, A. M. Gerasimov, M. B. Grekov.

The architects had a lot of ideas. They created gigantic plans for the construction of previously unseen “cities of the future,” the style of which was dominated by the ideas of constructivism. In 1919, V. E. Tatlin designed a unique work, “Tower of the Third International,” which laid the foundations of modern industrial design.

Cinema continued to develop. In the 20s The history of world cinema included the films of S. M. Eisenstein “Battleship Potemkin”, “October”, which marked the beginning of the development of a revolutionary theme in this art form.

What you need to know about this topic:

Socio-economic and political development of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Nicholas II.

Internal policy of tsarism. Nicholas II. Increased repression. "Police Socialism"

Russo-Japanese War. Reasons, progress, results.

Revolution 1905 - 1907 Character, driving forces and features of the Russian revolution of 1905-1907. stages of the revolution. The reasons for the defeat and the significance of the revolution.

Elections to the State Duma. I State Duma. The agrarian question in the Duma. Dispersal of the Duma. II State Duma. Coup d'etat of June 3, 1907

Third June political system. Electoral law June 3, 1907 III State Duma. The alignment of political forces in the Duma. Activities of the Duma. Government terror. Decline of the labor movement in 1907-1910.

Stolypin agrarian reform.

IV State Duma. Party composition and Duma factions. Activities of the Duma.

Political crisis in Russia on the eve of the war. Labor movement in the summer of 1914. Crisis at the top.

International position of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

The beginning of the First World War. Origin and nature of the war. Russia's entry into the war. Attitude to the war of parties and classes.

Progress of military operations. Strategic forces and plans of the parties. Results of the war. The role of the Eastern Front in the First World War.

The Russian economy during the First World War.

Worker and peasant movement in 1915-1916. Revolutionary movement in the army and navy. The growth of anti-war sentiment. Formation of the bourgeois opposition.

Russian culture of the 19th - early 20th centuries.

The aggravation of socio-political contradictions in the country in January-February 1917. The beginning, prerequisites and nature of the revolution. Uprising in Petrograd. Formation of the Petrograd Soviet. Temporary Committee of the State Duma. Order N I. Formation of the Provisional Government. Abdication of Nicholas II. The reasons for the emergence of dual power and its essence. The February revolution in Moscow, at the front, in the provinces.

From February to October. The policy of the Provisional Government regarding war and peace, on agrarian, national, and labor issues. Relations between the Provisional Government and the Soviets. Arrival of V.I. Lenin in Petrograd.

Political parties (Cadets, Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks): political programs, influence among the masses.

Crises of the Provisional Government. Attempted military coup in the country. The growth of revolutionary sentiment among the masses. Bolshevization of the capital's Soviets.

Preparation and conduct of an armed uprising in Petrograd.

II All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Decisions about power, peace, land. Formation of government and management bodies. Composition of the first Soviet government.

Victory of the armed uprising in Moscow. Government agreement with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Elections to the Constituent Assembly, its convocation and dispersal.

The first socio-economic transformations in the fields of industry, agriculture, finance, labor and women's issues. Church and State.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, its terms and significance.

Economic tasks of the Soviet government in the spring of 1918. Aggravation of the food issue. Introduction of food dictatorship. Working food detachments. Combeds.

The revolt of the left Socialist Revolutionaries and the collapse of the two-party system in Russia.

The first Soviet Constitution.

Causes of intervention and civil war. Progress of military operations. Human and material losses during the civil war and military intervention.

Domestic policy of the Soviet leadership during the war. "War communism". GOELRO plan.

The policy of the new government regarding culture.

Foreign policy. Treaties with border countries. Russia's participation in the Genoa, Hague, Moscow and Lausanne conferences. Diplomatic recognition of the USSR by the main capitalist countries.

Domestic policy. Socio-economic and political crisis of the early 20s. Famine 1921-1922 Transition to a new economic policy. The essence of NEP. NEP in the field of agriculture, trade, industry. Financial reform. Economic recovery. Crises during the NEP period and its collapse.

Projects for the creation of the USSR. I Congress of Soviets of the USSR. The first government and the Constitution of the USSR.

Illness and death of V.I. Lenin. Intra-party struggle. The beginning of the formation of Stalin's regime.

Industrialization and collectivization. Development and implementation of the first five-year plans. Socialist competition - goal, forms, leaders.

Formation and strengthening of the state system of economic management.

The course towards complete collectivization. Dispossession.

Results of industrialization and collectivization.

Political, national-state development in the 30s. Intra-party struggle. Political repression. Formation of the nomenklatura as a layer of managers. Stalin's regime and the USSR Constitution of 1936

Soviet culture in the 20-30s.

Foreign policy of the second half of the 20s - mid-30s.

Domestic policy. Growth of military production. Emergency measures in the field of labor legislation. Measures to solve the grain problem. Armed forces. The growth of the Red Army. Military reform. Repressions against the command cadres of the Red Army and the Red Army.

Foreign policy. Non-aggression pact and treaty of friendship and borders between the USSR and Germany. The entry of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus into the USSR. Soviet-Finnish war. Inclusion of the Baltic republics and other territories into the USSR.

Periodization of the Great Patriotic War. The initial stage of the war. Turning the country into a military camp. Military defeats 1941-1942 and their reasons. Major military events. Surrender of Nazi Germany. Participation of the USSR in the war with Japan.

Soviet rear during the war.

Deportation of peoples.

Guerrilla warfare.

Human and material losses during the war.

Creation of an anti-Hitler coalition. Declaration of the United Nations. The problem of the second front. "Big Three" conferences. Problems of post-war peace settlement and comprehensive cooperation. USSR and UN.

The beginning of the Cold War. The USSR's contribution to the creation of the "socialist camp". CMEA education.

Domestic policy of the USSR in the mid-40s - early 50s. Restoration of the national economy.

Social and political life. Policy in the field of science and culture. Continued repression. "Leningrad case". Campaign against cosmopolitanism. "The Doctors' Case"

Socio-economic development of Soviet society in the mid-50s - the first half of the 60s.

Socio-political development: XX Congress of the CPSU and condemnation of Stalin’s personality cult. Rehabilitation of victims of repression and deportation. Internal party struggle in the second half of the 50s.

Foreign policy: creation of the Department of Internal Affairs. Entry of Soviet troops into Hungary. Exacerbation of Soviet-Chinese relations. Split of the "socialist camp". Soviet-American relations and the Cuban missile crisis. USSR and "third world" countries. Reduction in the size of the armed forces of the USSR. Moscow Treaty on the Limitation of Nuclear Tests.

USSR in the mid-60s - first half of the 80s.

Socio-economic development: economic reform of 1965

Increasing difficulties in economic development. Declining rates of socio-economic growth.

Constitution of the USSR 1977

Social and political life of the USSR in the 1970s - early 1980s.

Foreign policy: Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Consolidation of post-war borders in Europe. Moscow Treaty with Germany. Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Soviet-American treaties of the 70s. Soviet-Chinese relations. Entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. Exacerbation of international tension and the USSR. Strengthening Soviet-American confrontation in the early 80s.

USSR in 1985-1991

Domestic policy: an attempt to accelerate the socio-economic development of the country. An attempt to reform the political system of Soviet society. Congresses of People's Deputies. Election of the President of the USSR. Multi-party system. Exacerbation of the political crisis.

Exacerbation of the national question. Attempts to reform the national-state structure of the USSR. Declaration of State Sovereignty of the RSFSR. "Novoogaryovsky trial". Collapse of the USSR.

Foreign policy: Soviet-American relations and the problem of disarmament. Agreements with leading capitalist countries. Withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Changing relations with the countries of the socialist community. Collapse of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact Organization.

Russian Federation in 1992-2000.

Domestic policy: “Shock therapy” in the economy: price liberalization, stages of privatization of commercial and industrial enterprises. Fall in production. Increased social tension. Growth and slowdown in financial inflation. Intensification of the struggle between the executive and legislative branches. Dissolution of the Supreme Council and the Congress of People's Deputies. October events of 1993. Abolition of local bodies of Soviet power. Elections to the Federal Assembly. Constitution of the Russian Federation 1993 Formation of a presidential republic. Exacerbation and overcoming national conflicts in the North Caucasus.

Parliamentary elections of 1995. Presidential elections of 1996. Power and opposition. An attempt to return to the course of liberal reforms (spring 1997) and its failure. Financial crisis of August 1998: causes, economic and political consequences. "Second Chechen War". Parliamentary elections of 1999 and early presidential elections of 2000. Foreign policy: Russia in the CIS. Participation of Russian troops in “hot spots” of the neighboring countries: Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan. Relations between Russia and foreign countries. Withdrawal of Russian troops from Europe and neighboring countries. Russian-American agreements. Russia and NATO. Russia and the Council of Europe. Yugoslav crises (1999-2000) and Russia’s position.

• Danilov A.A., Kosulina L.G. History of the state and peoples of Russia. XX century.

After seven years of the First World War and the Civil War, the country's situation was catastrophic. It has lost more than a quarter of its national wealth. There was a shortage of basic food products.

According to some reports, human losses since the beginning of the First World War from combat, hunger and disease, “red” and “white” terror amounted to 19 million people. About 2 million people emigrated from the country, and among them were almost all representatives of the political, financial and industrial elite of pre-revolutionary Russia.

Until the fall of 1918, huge supplies of raw materials and food were carried out, according to peace terms, to Germany and Austria-Hungary. Retreating from Russia, the interventionists took with them furs, wool, timber, oil, manganese, grain, and industrial equipment worth many millions of gold rubles.

Dissatisfaction with the policy of “war communism” became more and more evident in the villages. In 1920, one of the most massive peasant insurgent movements unfolded under the leadership of Antonov - “Antonovshchina”.

Dissatisfaction with the Bolshevik policies also spread in the army. Kronstadt, the largest naval base of the Baltic Fleet, “the key to Petrograd,” rose up in arms. The Bolsheviks took emergency and brutal measures to eliminate the Kronstadt rebellion. A state of siege was introduced in Petrograd. An ultimatum was sent to the Kronstadters, in which those who were ready to surrender were promised to spare their lives. Army units were sent to the walls of the fortress. However, the attack on Kronstadt launched on March 8 ended in failure. On the night of March 16-17, the 7th Army (45 thousand people) under the command of M.N. moved across the already thin ice of the Gulf of Finland to storm the fortress. Tukhachevsky. Delegates from the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b), sent from Moscow, also took part in the offensive. By the morning of March 18, the performance in Kronstadt was suppressed.

The Soviet government responded to all these challenges with the NEP. It was an unexpected and strong move.

History.RF: NEP, infographic video

HOW MANY YEARS LENIN GAVE NEP

The expression “Seriously and for a long time.” From the speech of the Soviet People's Commissar of Agriculture Valerian Valerianovich Osinsky (pseudonym of V.V. Obolensky, 1887-1938) at the X Conference of the RCP (b) on May 26, 1921. This is how he defined the prospects for the new economic policy - NEP.

The words and position of V.V. Osinsky are known only from the reviews of V.I. Lenin, who in his final speech (May 27, 1921) said: “Osinsky gave three conclusions. The first conclusion is “seriously and for a long time.” And; “seriously and for a long time - 25 years.” I'm not such a pessimist."

Later, speaking with a report “On the internal and foreign policy of the republic” at the IX All-Russian Congress of Soviets, V.I. Lenin said about the NEP (December 23, 1921): “We are pursuing this policy seriously and for a long time, but, of course, how right already noticed, not forever.”

It is usually used in the literal sense - thoroughly, fundamentally, firmly.

ABOUT REPLACEMENT OF PRODRAZAPERSTERY

The decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee “On replacing food and raw material allocation with a tax in kind”, adopted on the basis of the decision of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) “On replacing appropriation with a tax in kind” (March 1921), marked the beginning of the transition to a new economic policy.

1. To ensure correct and calm management of the economy on the basis of more free disposal of the farmer with the products of his labor and his own economic means, to strengthen the peasant economy and raise its productivity, as well as for the purpose of accurately establishing state obligations falling on farmers, appropriation as a method of state procurement food, raw materials and fodder, is replaced by a tax in kind.

2. This tax should be less than that imposed hitherto through appropriation. The amount of the tax should be calculated so as to cover the most necessary needs of the army, urban workers and the non-agricultural population. The total amount of the tax should be constantly reduced as the restoration of transport and industry allows the Soviet government to receive agricultural products in exchange for factory and handicraft products.

3. The tax is levied in the form of a percentage or share of the products produced on the farm, based on the harvest, the number of eaters on the farm and the presence of livestock on it.

4. The tax must be progressive; the percentage of deductions for farms of middle peasants, low-income owners and for farms of urban workers should be reduced. The farms of the poorest peasants may be exempt from some, and in exceptional cases from all types of taxes in kind.

Diligent peasant owners who increase the sowing area on their farms, as well as increase the productivity of farms as a whole, receive benefits for the implementation of the tax in kind. (...)

7. Responsibility for fulfilling the tax is assigned to each individual owner, and the bodies of Soviet power are instructed to impose penalties on everyone who has not complied with the tax. Circular liability is abolished.

To control the application and implementation of the tax, organizations of local peasants are formed according to groups of payers of different tax amounts.

8. All supplies of food, raw materials and fodder remaining with farmers after they have fulfilled the tax are at their full disposal and can be used by them to improve and strengthen their economy, to increase personal consumption and for exchange for products of factory and handicraft industries and agricultural production. Exchange is allowed within the limits of local economic turnover, both through cooperative organizations and in markets and bazaars.

9. Those farmers who wish to hand over the surplus remaining to them after completing the tax to the state, in exchange for these voluntarily surrendered surpluses, should be provided with consumer goods and agricultural implements. For this purpose, a state permanent stock of agricultural implements and consumer goods is created, both from domestically produced products and from products purchased abroad. For the latter purpose, part of the state gold fund and part of the harvested raw materials are allocated.

10. Supply of the poorest rural population is carried out in the state order according to special rules. (...)

Directives of the CPSU and the Soviet government on economic issues. Sat. documents. M.. 1957. T. 1

LIMITED FREEDOM

The transition from “war communism” to the NEP was proclaimed by the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party on March 8-16, 1921.

In the agricultural sector, surplus appropriation was replaced by a lower tax in kind. In 1923‑1924 it was allowed to pay tax in kind in food and money. Private trade in surplus was allowed. The legalization of market relations entailed a restructuring of the entire economic mechanism. The hiring of labor in the village was facilitated, and land rental was allowed. However, tax policy (the larger the farm, the higher the tax) led to the fragmentation of farms. The kulaks and middle peasants, dividing farms, tried to get rid of high taxes.

The denationalization of small and medium-sized industry was carried out (transfer of enterprises from state ownership to private lease). Limited freedom of private capital in industry and trade was allowed. The use of hired labor was allowed, and the possibility of creating private enterprises became possible. The largest and most technically developed factories and plants united into state trusts that operated on self-support and self-sufficiency (“Khimugol”, “State Trust of Machine-Building Plants”, etc.). Metallurgy, the fuel and energy complex, and partly transport were initially supplied by the state. Cooperation developed: consumer agricultural, cultural and commercial.

Equal wages, characteristic of the Civil War, were replaced by a new incentive tariff policy that took into account the qualifications of workers, the quality and quantity of products produced. The card system for distributing food and goods was abolished. The “ration” system has been replaced by a monetary form of wages. Universal labor conscription and labor mobilizations were abolished. Large fairs were restored: Nizhny Novgorod, Baku, Irbit, Kiev, etc. Trade exchanges opened.

In 1921-1924 financial reform was carried out. A banking system has been created: the State Bank, a network of cooperative banks, the Commercial and Industrial Bank, the Bank for Foreign Trade, a network of local communal banks, etc. Direct and indirect taxes have been introduced (trade, income, agricultural, excise taxes on consumer goods, local taxes), as well as fees for services (transport, communications, utilities, etc.).

In 1921, monetary reform began. At the end of 1922, a stable currency was released into circulation - the Soviet chervonets, which was used for short-term lending in industry and trade. Chervonets was provided with gold and other easily sold valuables and goods. One chervonets was equivalent to 10 pre-revolutionary gold rubles, and on the world market it cost about 6 dollars. To cover the budget deficit, the old currency continued to be issued - depreciating Soviet notes, which were soon replaced by the chervonets. In 1924, instead of Sovznak, copper and silver coins and treasury notes were issued. During the reform, it was possible to eliminate the budget deficit.

The NEP led to a rapid economic recovery. The economic interest that appeared among peasants in the production of agricultural products made it possible to quickly saturate the market with food and overcome the consequences of the hungry years of “war communism.”

However, already at the early stage of the NEP, recognition of the role of the market was combined with measures to abolish it. Most Communist Party leaders viewed the NEP as a “necessary evil,” fearing that it would lead to the restoration of capitalism.

Fearful of the NEP, the party and state leaders took measures to discredit it. Official propaganda treated the private trader in every possible way, and the image of the “NEPman” as an exploiter, a class enemy, was formed in the public consciousness. Since the mid-1920s. measures to curb the development of the NEP gave way to a course towards its curtailment.

NEPMANS

So what was he like, a NEP man of the 20s? This social group was formed by former employees of commercial and industrial private enterprises, millers, clerks - people who had certain skills in commercial activities, as well as employees of government offices at various levels, who initially combined their official service with illegal commercial activities. The ranks of the Nepmen were also replenished by housewives, demobilized Red Army soldiers, workers who found themselves on the street after the closure of industrial enterprises, and “downsized” employees.

In terms of their political, social and economic status, representatives of this stratum differed sharply from the rest of the population. According to the legislation in force in the 1920s, they were deprived of voting rights, the opportunity to teach their children in the same schools with children of other social groups, could not legally publish their own newspapers or promote their views in any other way, and were not conscripted into military service. army, were not members of trade unions and did not hold positions in the state apparatus...

The group of entrepreneurs who used hired labor both in Siberia and in the USSR as a whole was extremely small - 0.7 percent of the total urban population (1). Their incomes were tens of times higher than those of ordinary citizens...

Entrepreneurs of the 20s were distinguished by amazing mobility. M. Shaginyan wrote: “The Nepmen are leaving. They magnetize vast Russian spaces, moving around them at courier speed, now to the extreme south (Transcaucasia), now to the far north (Murmansk, Yeniseisk), often back and forth without respite” (2).

In terms of culture and education, the social group of “new” entrepreneurs differed little from the rest of the population and included a wide variety of types and characters. The majority were “nepmen-democrats,” as described by one of the authors of the 20s, “nimble, greedy, strong-minded and strong-headed guys” for whom “the air of the bazaar was more useful and profitable than the atmosphere of a cafe.” In the event of a successful deal, the “bazaar Nepman” “grunts joyfully,” and when the deal falls through, “from his lips comes a juicy, strong, like himself, Russian “word.” Here “mother” sounds in the air often and naturally.” “The well-bred Nepmen,” as described by the same author, “in American bowler hats and boots with mother-of-pearl buttons, made the same billion-dollar transactions in the twilight of a cafe, where subtle conversation was conducted on subtle delicacy.”

E. Demchik. “New Russians”, 1920s. Homeland. 2000, No. 5

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 spread across 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 the simplest primary forms - marketing, supply and credit cooperation - covered by the end of the 1920s 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 in fact already rejected by the turnover of Sovznaki, 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 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 the city, the State Bank of the USSR was recreated, 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 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%.

The 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 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 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 1920s than his place in the formal structure of 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,” “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, he 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 prospective 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-in-arms was not shown to the party by those closest to them 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 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

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.

NEP (reasons, goals, content, results) New Economic Policy- economic policy pursued in Soviet Russia and the USSR in the 20s. 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 had purpose restoration of the national economy and 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 of ownership, attracting foreign capital in the form of concessions, carrying out a monetary reform (1922-1924), in as a result of which the ruble became a convertible currency.

NEP: goals, objectives and main contradictions. Results of the NEP

Reasons for the transition to the NEP. During the civil years war, the policy of “military” was pursued. communism." While the citizen was walking. war, the peasants put up with the surplus appropriation policy, but when the war began to come to an end, the peasants began to express dissatisfaction with the surplus appropriation system. It was necessary to immediately cancel the policy of “war communism”. 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 spread Tambov region, Ukraine, Don, Kuban, Volga region and Siberia. The peasants demanded a change in the agrarian black policy, the elimination of the dictatorship of the RCP (b), the convening of a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal equal suffrage [ source not specified 1970 days] . 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 “ BehindAdviсewithoutcommunists! “demanded the release from imprisonment of all representatives of socialist parties, holding re-elections 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 economy, that is, liquidation

surplus appropriation

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...

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.

In March 1921, at the Tenth Congress of the Bolshevik Party (RCP (b)), the transition to the NEP was proclaimed. NEP - new economics. politics is a transition period from capitalism to 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.

1. Replacement of surplus appropriation with tax in kind. In a short time, hunger was ended and agriculture began to improve. In 1922, according to the new land code, long-term lease of land (up to 12 years) was allowed.

2. Introduction of the TAR . Transferring the economy to a market economy. From 1922-1924 A monetary reform was carried out in the country, and the chervonets (hard currency) was put into circulation. The all-Russian domestic market was restored. Large fairs have been recreated.

3. Remuneration for labor has become monetary in quantity and quality.

4. Labor conscription was abolished.

5. Small and medium-sized industrial enterprises were leased to private owners. The private sector emerged in industry and trade.

6. Allowed to create cooperatives.

7. The commanding heights of the country's economy were in their hands.

8. Few enterprises were leased to foreign firms in the form of concessions.

9. From 1922-1925 A number of banks were created. Inflation was stopped; the financial system has been stabilized; The financial situation of the population has improved.

10. As a result of the admission of capitalist enterprises and private trade, a new figure appeared in the social structure of the country - NEPmen.

Results of NEP.

In just 5 years, from 1921-1926. the level of industrial production reached the level of 1913. Agriculture exceeded the level of 1913 by 18%.

In industry, key positions were occupied by state trusts, in the credit and financial sphere - by state and cooperative banks, in agriculture - by peasant farms covered by the simplest types of cooperation.

The following were adopted: a labor code, land and civil codes, and judicial reform was prepared. The revolutionary tribunals were abolished, the activities of the prosecutor's office and the legal profession were resumed.

NEP crises:

Autumn 1923- crisis in the sales of industrial goods, “commodity famine”.

Autumn 1924, autumn 1925- crisis of shortage of industrial goods.

Winter 1927/1928- grain procurement crisis. The Soviet government virtually eliminated the free sale of bread.

Against the backdrop of economic difficulties, the NEP was gradually rolled back. Chervonets stopped converting. By the end of the 1920s, commodity exchanges and wholesale fairs were closed, and commercial credit was liquidated. Nationalization of many private enterprises was carried out. Cooperatives are closed. Peasants began to be forcibly driven into collective farms. Having abandoned the NEP, they wanted a minimum. time to build socialism.

Consequences of the NEP

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).

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 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 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.

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” were clearly oppressed.

Additional Information

Acceptance at 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.

V.I. Lenin and K.E. Voroshilov among the delegates of the X Congress of the RCP (b). 1921

It is quite obvious that the introduction of a tax in kind is not the only characteristic of the NEP, which became a definite feature for the Soviet country. system of political and economic measures carried out over almost a decade. But these were the first steps, and taken very carefully. Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of March 29, 1921 Was installed grain tax in the amount of 240 million poods (with an average harvest) instead of 423 million poods during the 1920 allocation.

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

To form a market and establish trade exchanges, it was necessary to revive industry and increase the output of its products. There have been radical changes in industrial management. 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 trusts.

began to arise syndicates - voluntary associations trusts on the basis of cooperation, engaged in sales, supply, lending, and foreign trade operations.

A wide network of commodity products has emerged exchanges, fairs. By 1923, there were 54 exchanges in the country, the largest of which was Moscow.

With the proclamation of NEP, the Decree on the nationalization of small and handicraft industries was canceled. During the years of the civil war and “war communism,” the process of nationalization took almost total forms. New Decree of July 7, 1921 provided for the right of any citizen to open artisanal or industrial production. In December 1921 it was adopted Decree on the denationalization of small and part of medium-sized industrial enterprises. They were returned to the previous owners or their heirs. It was allowed and rental of means of production, and more than a third of all industrial establishments (mainly small and medium-sized) were leased out.

They began to attract foreign capital. Arose concessions, i.e. leasing of Soviet enterprises by foreign enterprises. The first concession was established in 1921, in 1922 there were 15 of them, in 1926 - 65. The concessions were large enterprises and operated mainly in the capital-intensive branches of heavy industry of the RSFSR and Georgia: mining, mining, woodworking.

To streamline and improve finances, at the end of 1921, it was formed National Bank. Since 1922, he was given the right to issue a new monetary unit in exchange for the depreciated and actually already rejected by the circulation of sovznak. chervonets, which had a gold content and an 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 1922 - 1925 a number of specialized banks. By October 1, 1923, there were 17 banks operating in the country, and by October 1, 1926, 61 banks.

In the first half of the 20s. A mixed economy was established in the country, which gradually acquired its own internal logic of development. But NEP is not only an economic policy. Development of market relations organically implies democratization political system, state apparatus of power and management.

The turn to NEP was carried out under the severe pressure of general discontent - peasants, workers, intelligentsia, and not as a result of a revision of the political and ideological foundations of the ruling party - they remained the same: “ dictatorship of the proletariat”, “leadership role of the party”, “The state is the main instrument for building socialism.” Continuing the course towards socialism, the new economic policy was designed to move towards the intended goal through maneuvering, social compromise with the petty-bourgeois majority of the population, albeit more slowly, but with less risk. Therefore, nothing has changed in the relationship between the Communist Party and states - the party monopolized all state structures.

The functioning of the NEP, a mixed economy, was accompanied by a revival of differences of opinion in ideological area. There were demands for freedom of speech and press. Even Lenin himself at first spoke out in favor of expanding these freedoms, but within “certain limits.” However, frightened by the “penetration of bourgeois ideas,” the Bolshevik leadership declared war on them.

Nevertheless, under the pressure of objective economic demands related to the expansion of commodity-market relations, the government had to slightly weaken the prohibitions on “freedom of the press.” Since the autumn of 1921, private publishing houses began to appear, magazines critical of the intelligentsia towards the Soviet regime were published: “The Economist”, “New Life”, etc. In them, liberal-minded scientists, philosophers, economists, and publicists expressed the hope that the new economic realities will encourage the authorities to stop persecuting dissidents and create conditions for the free exchange of ideas. Already in June 1922, many magazines were closed. This corresponded to the Bolshevik attitude: the party leads not only politics, but also ideology and culture.

Preparations began for the deportation of “dissident scientists and representatives of the intelligentsia” from the country.

Arrests of scientific and cultural figures were carried out in large cities. Prominent philosophers were sent abroad ON THE. Berdyaev,

N.A. Berdyaev.

S.L. Frank, L.P. Karsavin; historians A.A. Kiesewetter, S.P. Melgunov, A.V. Florovsky; economist B.D. Brutzkus et al.

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

The New Economic Policy combined two contradictory trends from the very beginning: one - to liberalize the economy, the other - to maintain the Communist Party's monopoly on power. These contradictions could not help but be seen by V.I. Lenin and other party leaders.

Formed in the 20s. The NEP system, therefore, was supposed to promote 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 contained internal inconsistency, which inevitably led to deep crises directly resulting from the nature and essence of NEP.

Soviet society in the 20s. The fate of the NEP in the USSR

The first steps in liberalizing the economy and introducing market relations contributed to solving the problem restoration of the national economy country destroyed by civil war. A clear rise was evident by the beginning of 1922. The implementation of the plan began GOELRO.

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

Railway transport began to emerge from its state of devastation, and train traffic was restored throughout the country. By 1925, large-scale industry had reached the level of 1913. The Nizhny Novgorod, Shaturskaya, Yaroslavl, and Volkhov hydroelectric power stations were launched.

Launch of the 1st stage of Kashirskaya GRES. 1922

The Putilov Machine-Building Plant in Petrograd, and then the Kharkov and Kolomensky plants began to produce tractors, and the Moscow AMO Plant - trucks.

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

The rise in agriculture has begun. 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 procurements of butter increased 3.1 times, eggs - 6 times.

The transition to a tax in kind improved the socio-political situation in the village. In the information reports of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), dating back to the summer of 1921, it was reported: “Peasants everywhere are increasing the area under cultivation, armed uprisings have subsided, the attitude of the peasants is changing in favor of the Soviet government.”

But the first successes were hindered by extraordinary disasters that struck the main grain-growing regions of the country. 25 provinces of the Volga region, Don, North Caucasus and Ukraine were struck by severe drought, which, in the conditions of the post-war food crisis, led to famine that claimed 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 civil war, remained, the threat of rebellion became real, and banditry intensified.

On first plan a new problem arises. The peasantry showed its dissatisfaction with the in-kind tax rate, which turned out to be unbearable.

In the GPU reports for 1922 “On the political state of the Russian village,” the extremely negative impact of the tax in kind on the financial situation of the peasants was noted. Local authorities took drastic measures against debtors, including repression. In some provinces, an inventory of property, arrests and trials were carried out. Such measures met active resistance from the peasants. For example, residents of one of the villages in the Tver province shot a detachment of Red Army soldiers who had arrived to collect taxes.

According to the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars “On a single natural tax on agricultural products for 1922 - 1923.” dated March 17, 1922, instead of a whole variety of food taxes, single tax in kind, which assumed the unity of the salary sheet, payment periods and a common unit of calculation - a pound of rye.

IN May 1922 All-Russian Central Executive Committee accepted Basic Law on Labor Land Use, the content of which later, almost without changes, formed the basis of the Land Code of the RSFSR, approved on October 30 and came into force on December 1 of the same year. Within the framework of state ownership of land, confirmed by the code, peasants were given freedom to choose forms of land use up to the organization of individual farms.

The development of individual farms in the village led to strengthening class stratification. As a result, low-capacity 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 transactions in the countryside. This meant that the poor, in order to get a loan or equipment from the kulaks, were forced to pawn their crops “on the ground” for next to nothing. These phenomena are also the face of NEP in the countryside.

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

Spring 1922 erupted financial crisis, directly related to the introduction of capitalist forms of economy.

The decrees of the Council of People's Commissars of 1921 on free trade and the denationalization of enterprises marked the abandonment 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 Nepman entrepreneur, a “Soviet capitalist,” also showed himself, who, in conditions of a commodity shortage, inevitably became an ordinary reseller and speculator.

Strastnaya (now Pushkinskaya) Square. 1920s

IN AND. Lenin, assessing the speculation, said that “the car breaks out of your hands, it doesn’t drive exactly as the one who sits at the helm of this car imagines.”

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

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

The causes of the crisis that struck 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” - that’s what they began to call him after the famous diagram that L.D. Trotsky, who spoke about this phenomenon, showed it to the delegates of the congress. The crisis was associated with the divergence in prices for industrial and agricultural goods (this was called “price scissors”). This happened because during the restoration period the village was ahead in terms of the scale and pace of restoration. Handicraft and private production grew faster than large-scale industry. By mid-1923, agriculture had been restored to 70% of its pre-war level, and large-scale industry by only 39%.

Discussion on the problem “ scissors” took place at October Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) in 1923. A decision was made to lower prices for industrial goods, which certainly prevented the deepening of the crisis, which created a serious threat of social explosion in the country.

The entire socio-political crisis that struck the USSR in 1923 cannot be limited only to the narrow framework of the “price scissors” problem. Unfortunately, the problem was even more serious than it might seem at first glance. Serious contradiction between the government and the people, who was dissatisfied with the policies of the authorities, the policies 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 the Soviet regime.

IN 1923. many provinces of the country were covered strike movements. The OGPU reports “On the Political State of the USSR” highlighted a whole range of reasons: long-term delays in wages, their low level, increased production standards, staff reductions, mass layoffs. The most acute unrest occurred at textile enterprises in Moscow, at metallurgical enterprises in the Urals, Primorye, Petrograd, and in railway 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 “price scissors.” In some areas of the Primorsky and Transbaikal provinces, in the Mountain Republic (North Caucasus), peasants generally refused to pay the tax. Many peasants were forced to sell their livestock and even equipment to pay the tax. There was a threat of famine. In the Murmansk, Pskov, and Arkhangelsk provinces they have already begun to use surrogates for food: moss, fish bones, straw. Banditry became a real threat (in Siberia, Transbaikalia, the North Caucasus, and 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 ways out of it. Trotsky’s conviction that “chaos comes from above,” that the crisis was based on subjective reasons, was shared by many heads of economic departments and organizations.

This position of Trotsky was condemned by the majority of members of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), and then he turned to the party masses. December 11, 1923 V " Truth” Trotsky’s “Letter to Party Conferences” was published, where he accused the party of bureaucratic degeneration. 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 20s inevitably led to internal party disputes. Emerging “ left direction”, defended by Trotsky and his supporters, actually reflected disbelief of a certain part of 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 their petty-bourgeois deviation. Accusations of factionalism, anti-Bolshevism, and revisions of Leninism shook his authority and marked the beginning of the collapse of his political career.

IN 1923 In connection with Lenin’s illness, there is a gradual process of concentration of power in the hands of the main “ threes“Central Committee: Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev. In order to exclude opposition within the party in the future, the seventh paragraph of the resolution “On Party Unity,” adopted at the Tenth Congress and until that time kept secret, was made public at the conference.

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

While Lenin actually headed the party, his authority in it was indisputable. Therefore, the struggle for power between representatives of the political trends emerging in connection with the transition to NEP could only have the nature of hidden rivalry.

WITH 1922., when I.V. Stalin took office General Secretary 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 and poverty at the other; the other - through the most understandable, accessible forms of cooperation - to socialism.”

WITH end of 1924. the course begins facing the village”, elected by the party as a result of the growing dissatisfaction of the peasantry with the policies being pursued, the emergence of mass demands for the creation of a peasant party (the so-called Peasant Union), which, unlike the RCP (b), would protect the interests of peasants, resolve tax issues, and contribute to the deepening and expansion of private property in the countryside.

NEP 1921-1928- one of the important stages in the development of the USSR. After the end, the situation in the country became catastrophic. A significant part of production was stopped, there was no coordination, as well as the distribution of labor. Major changes were needed to rebuild the country.

The previously existing surplus appropriation system did not justify itself. It caused people's discontent and riots; a country without governance still could not provide itself with food. During the transition, the tax was reduced by half, creating a favorable situation for further development.

NEP period.

During the founding of the NEP, the party began to restore production, and began to build some factories that were necessary for the new state. Workers began to be recruited. The main task is to provide everyone with opportunities for full-fledged work for the benefit of the USSR.

Elements of a market economy were introduced. This was inevitable, because its complete destruction at the founding of the Soviet Union dealt a serious blow to the country.

During this period, a command economy was built. From now on, the state managed production, sent norms and orders to factories. The party could connect several enterprises into a single system and establish contacts between them. All this was necessary for the consistent production of products, because some complex products require the involvement of several factories.

During the NEP period, enterprises and other participants in economic processes received significant funding. Factories could issue their own bonds to attract funds from people and invest them in upgrading production.

Basic goals:

• establishing economic ties;
• the gradual introduction of a command economy and the adaptation of enterprises to the new system of relationships between industries;
• stimulating the development and renovation of factories;
• providing maximum opportunities for enterprise growth;
• rational use of labor and financial resources;
• carrying out monetary reform and introducing a new payment unit.

Results of the NEP.

Results conditioned by victory over devastation and chaos, which was poorly controlled by the state. The economy was restored, relationships between participants in economic processes were established, and equipment renewal at enterprises began. But the problem was the lack of management personnel and the qualifications of these people, the minimum amount of foreign investment, and the inhibition of the development of the private sector.