War communism:

Historic Conditions:

a) During the Civil war-
b) an attempt to replace the semi capitalist system of the early months with
a state-run economy; called war communism
in retrospect- a jump to communism at once;
c) Lenin’s position: at first- the right policy,
the only one possible in economic disaster; later- incorrect policy (but Lenin
wanted to preserve his power by any means as with Brest-Litovsk peace treaty with Germans in March 1918)

Main Principles in Economics:

a) Main: “food dictatorship”- food requisitioning (taking provisions from the peasantry
by force) to procure food for
the cities:
== Food Requisition Detachments were created
in the cities and sent to the villages (up to 60,000 people);
== Committees of poor Peasants were created instead of Soviets (landless laborers);
Results: ransack of the villages by the state; executions with the help of the Red Army;
resistance; famine in 1921- 1922; 30% of planned grain were gathered

b) Nationalization of the industry

c) private trade and money were replaced by barter, unequal and unfair to peasants;

== black market- backside of ruining private trade- people with bags went into the country
and returned with foodstuffs); Results: 1918-70% of food people in Moscow and
Petrograd bought from black market; 1919- about 60%

d) State co-ops- became a state body of rations distribution;
e) egalitarian payment

f) General compulsory labor system

War Communism in Politics:

a) the changed character of the political structure; the civil war just strengthened it: one party; dictatorship; violence and terror; only state property, etc.:
= centralization process in party and in the system of power; power belongs not to the Soviets (representing state) any more,
but to the party, even to a small group within its leadership- Political bureau- so Lenin and his
closest collaborators;
= bureaucratization- opposite side of centralization: all the state and party positions were occupied not by elections, but by
appointment;
= militarization: both in the state and in the party the military spirit and style were implanted; any order was equal to a military
order and demanded strict subordination

NEP:

Historic conditions:

a) in the period of restoring the economy
after the Civil war as a temporally back down
from Marxist principles To get Russia out of crisis and strengthen the unity
between the workers and the peasantry,
”NEP- seriously and for a long time, but no
forever”; a compromise with capitalism and
the market, a mixed economy

NEP: Main principles in Economics:

a) to go out of crisis (peasants uprisings + in
the navy- “Power to the Soviets, but not to the
parties!”; “Soviets without communists!”;”For free market!”)-
==creating ambitious state plans of electrification
== end of grain requisition for a new and lower tax on agricultural produce
announced and fixed beforehand; surplus grain
could now be sold legally on the free market

b)Permission to rent
small and middlenenterprises by
cooperatives and private people (+employ up to 10-20 workers);
==transfer the state enterprises on self
financing, self- supplying, and self
management;

c) free market in local area, but the main
principle is to keep “ the commanding heights of the economy” in state hands:
== foreign trade;
== banking;
== railroads;
== all major industries;
== Monetary reform in 1922-1923

== Free activities of
different co-ops;
== egalitarian payment cancelled

Keeping in state hands “the commanding heights of the economy”

== compulsary labor Cancelled

NEP in Politics:

a) Lenin’s prohibition of “factionalism”
within the communist party :(no other opinions,
no parties within the party); Dictatorship of
Proletariat was replaced by Dictatorship of the Party, and then by its leadership;
=“scissors crisis”: (unequal change between
the city and the village);
== state control for every part of economy: 3 crisis within NEP- 1923 (peasants
couldn’t buy the goods from the cities); 1925;
1928-(vice versa)

Marxist Principles and War Communism:

MARXIST PRINCIPLES- A MAJOR
LINE IN LENIN’S POLITICS:

*Under Socialism there will not be free
market relations, but only state property
under directing role of only one party-
Communist party- and the Soviet state (the
same party control and rule) in all spheres
of social life:
== in economics;
== in politics;
== in culture;
== in social life

General Economic Features of the NEP:

allowance of free market in economics;
== allowance of freedom for production;
== variety of forms of property
*All these features of NEP could have become
the premises of some democratization,
multiparty society, legal state

RESULTS OF NEP.

a) the prewar level in industrial and agricultural
development was restored;
However agriculture gave only half of the
production in comparison with 1913:
== return to archaic agriculture with low level of machinery; lower productivity; return to peasant communities;

== flow to towns and cities from famine;
== necessity to modernize the agriculture;
 b) NEP didn’t lead to democratic changes in
the Soviet system and in 7-8 years ended with
the Great Breakthrough. NEP with its relative
pluralism was doomed from the start.

NEP: DUPLICITY OF FOREIGN
POLICY

1) interest to establish mutually beneficial
business cooperation with capitalist
countries;
2) “principle of Proletarian
Internationalism”- through Communist
international structures (Comintern) to help
the Communist movement all over the world
to destabilize the political situation and
seize the power

War communism: Historic Conditions:

War communism:

Historic Conditions:

a) During the Civil war-
b) an attempt to replace the semi capitalist system of the early months with
a state-run economy; called war communism
in retrospect- a jump to communism at once;
c) Lenin’s position: at first- the right policy,
the only one possible in economic disaster; later- incorrect policy (but Lenin
wanted to preserve his power by any means as with Brest-Litovsk peace treaty with Germans in March 1918)

Main Principles in Economics:

a) Main: “food dictatorship”- food requisitioning (taking provisions from the peasantry by force) to procure food for
the cities:
== Food Requisition Detachments were created
in the cities and sent to the villages (up to 60,000 people);
== Committees of poor Peasants were created instead of Soviets (landless laborers); Results: ransack of the villages by the state; executions with the help of the Red Army;
resistance; famine in 1921- 1922; 30% of planned grain were gathered

b) Nationalization of the industry

c) private trade and money were replaced by barter, unequal and unfair to peasants;

== black market- backside of ruining private trade- people with bags went into the country and returned with foodstuffs);

d) State co-ops- became a state body of rations distribution;
e) egalitarian payment

f) General compulsory labor system

NEP: Historic conditions:

NEP:

Historic conditions:

a) in the period of restoring the economy
after the Civil war as a temporally back down from Marxist principles To get Russia out of crisis and

strengthen the unity between the workers and the peasantry,
”NEP- seriously and for a long time, but no
forever”; a compromise with capitalism and the market, a mixed economy

War Communism in Politics:

a) the changed character of the political structure; the civil war just strengthened it: one party; dictatorship; violence and terror; only state property, etc.:
= centralization process in party and in the system of power; power belongs not to the Soviets (representing state) any more,
but to the party, even to a small group within its leadership- Political bureau- so Lenin and his closest collaborators;
= bureaucratization- opposite side of centralization: all the state and party positions were occupied not by elections, but by
appointment;
= militarization: both in the state and in the party the military spirit and style were implanted; any order was equal to a military
order and demanded strict subordination

NEP: Main principles in Economics:

a) to go out of crisis (peasants uprisings + in
the navy- “Power to the Soviets, but not to the
parties!”; “Soviets without communists!”;”For free market!”)-
==creating ambitious state plans of electrification
== end of grain requisition for a new and lower tax on agricultural produce announced and fixed beforehand; surplus grain could now be sold legally on the free market

b)Permission to rent
small and middle enenterprises by cooperatives and private people (+employ up to 10-20 workers);
==transfer the state enterprises on self financing, self- supplying, and self management;

c) free market in local area, but the main
principle is to keep “ the commanding heights of the economy” in state hands:
== foreign trade;
== banking;
== railroads;
== all major industries;
== Monetary reform in 1922-1923

== Free activities of different co-ops;
== egalitarian payment cancelled

==Keeping in state hands “the commanding heights of the economy”

== compulsary labor Cancelled

NEP in Politics:

a) Lenin’s prohibition of “factionalism”
within the communist party :(no other opinions,no parties within the party); Dictatorship of Proletariat was replaced by Dictatorship of the Party, and then by its leadership;
=“scissors crisis”: (unequal change between the city and the village);
== state control for every part of economy: 3 crisis within NEP- 1923 (peasants couldn’t buy the goods from the cities); 1925;
1928-(vice versa)

Marxist Principles and War Communism:

MARXIST PRINCIPLES- A MAJOR
LINE IN LENIN’S POLITICS:

Marxist Principles and War Communism:

MARXIST PRINCIPLES- A MAJOR
LINE IN LENIN’S POLITICS:

*Under Socialism there will not be free
market relations, but only state property
under directing role of only one party-
Communist party- and the Soviet state (the same party control and rule) in all spheres of social life:
== in economics;
== in politics;
== in culture;
== in social life

General Economic Features of the NEP:

allowance of free market in economics;
== allowance of freedom for production;
== variety of forms of property
*All these features of NEP could have become the premises of some democratization, multiparty society, legal state

a) the prewar level in industrial and agricultural
development was restored;
However agriculture gave only half of the
production in comparison with 1913:
== return to archaic agriculture with low level of machinery; lower productivity; return to peasant communities;

== flow to towns and cities from famine;
== necessity to modernize the agriculture;
 b) NEP didn’t lead to democratic changes in the Soviet system and in 7-8 years ended with the Great Breakthrough. NEP with its relative
pluralism was doomed from the start.

NEP: DUPLICITY OF FOREIGN
POLICY

1) interest to establish mutually beneficial
business cooperation with capitalist
countries;
2) “principle of Proletarian
Internationalism”- through Communist
international structures (Comintern) to help
the Communist movement all over the world
to destabilize the political situation and
seize the power

CONCEPTION OF SOCIAL-ECONOMIC
“GREAT BREAKTHROUGH”.

By 1929- a “socialist offensive” ended the
mixed economy of the New Economic Policy
(NEP), shaking the Soviet society to its
foundations:
1) outlawed private capital;
2) introduced centralized economic planning;
3) launched a furious drive to heavy
industrialization;
4) collectivized agriculture;
5) cultural revolution: shutdown the remnants of intellectual freedom and of open debate within the party;
 6) political system: a tyrannical personal
dictatorship and reign of terror

MAIN PARTS OF THE
“GREAT BREAKTHROUGH”.

I. Industrialization;
II. Collectivization or “revolution from
above” in the Soviet villages;
III. New Political system;
IV. New Soviet Culture
V. New National structure of the state -
USSR;


I. Industrialization:

1) Debates within the party on issues of
modernization:
a) by 1925/26 the prewar (WWI) industrial
level of production was reached. Necessity to
industrialize the country as a part of Russia’s
modernization. Reasons:
== army needed contemporary weapons;
== agriculture needed machinery;
2) 2 main questions of industrialization:
== speed;
== sources

c) 3 main points of view in the Communist Party:
==Lev Trotsky’s: rapid industrialization with the
sacrifice of the villages (through raising taxes on peasantry, especially wealthy ones; however to preserve NEP, but to make it narrower);
== Nicolai Bukharin’s : moderate speed of
industrialization with simultaneous rise of industry and agriculture (stable rates of industrial development are possible only with simultaneous rise of agriculture, but not
ruining the villages; preserving NEP);
==Stalin’s (General Secretary of the All-Russia Communist party (Bolsheviks) since 1922): while struggling with the leftists (led by Trotsky), he followed Bukharin’s position (rights); but after leftists’ fail in 1927, and then rightists’ fail in 1929, Stalin realized Trotsky’s line, having enforced it- idea of FORCED INDUSTRIALIZATION (Trotsky, being already in emigration, protested against it and logical violent collectivization)

Collectivization or “revolution from
above” in the Soviet villages:

II. COLLECTIVIZATION OF The
COUNTRYSIDE.

1) conception:
a) shared land;
b) cooperative labor;
c) state control;
2) 2 aims:
a) to provide for the fast-growing cities;
b) to provide harsh social changes;

NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM

1) main principles:
a) party control of state organs at all levels,
especially at the top; appointed in 1937-1938
Brezhnev, Ustinov, Andropov;
b) cult of the leader;
c) the authoritarian mentality of officials who
appointed and co-opted instead of holding
elections;
d) Power flowed outward from Moscow apparat,
or permanent corps of Communist officials,
and downward ; the bureaucracy expanded
and stiffened, being self-important, aloof, and
arrogant to petitioners, staying in lines, at all
levels;

e) unified ideology, obligatory for all:
== monopoly on mass media + strict censorship;
== surveillance on everybody;
 == 3 main Stalin’s ideas in his “Short course ofSoviet Communist Party history” in 1938:
(1) to build socialism in one country (from
N.Bukharin);

(2) the class struggle is increasing while developing and strengthening socialist society;
(3) strengthening the statehood

New Soviet Culutre:

1) Historic conditions:
a) Decisive role of unprecedented State
control (by party and union organizations,
secrete Police offices) over all sides of social
life : Dictatorship of the Party leaders; +
introducing the cult of the main leader +
elimination of freedom of speech, stadial
dominance of one obligatory ideology;
b) the paths of creative intelligentsia:
1918-1925:
== the left radical part supported the October
overturn; by the end of 1917-about 10% of them are members of the Bolshevik party;
==rejection and condemn of the major part: no
cooperation with the Soviet power; massive sabotage of employees; protest against chaos;
== major group is on the position of noninterference into politics (later will become or loyal employee or emigrate- about 2 million people)
== emigration;
== death in detention camps and prisons;
= falling silent

In late 1920s-1930s:
== emigration;
== death in detention camps and prisons;
= = falling silent;
== seeking for roundabout creative paths;
== majority- conformation with the
ideological demands and working within the
pattern of “socialist realism”

C) DIFFERENCES IN CULTURAL
DEVELOPMENT IN 1920S AND 1930S

1920s:

== splash of variable currents, groups, ideas-
to solve some world-wide cultural task; rush to
renew the society, brought by the Silver age;
== literature: 30 groups; the Bolsheviks party in 1925 called for tactful relations among them and free competition; interest to corn stone issues in Russia’s history or personnel life:
reforms of Peter the Great, peasants wars, First
Russian Revolution-Boris Pasternak’s poem “
year1905”; October revolution and Civil War,
labor in heroic-romantic novels; satire topics in
A.Platonov’s (“Chevengur”), M.Bulgakov’s (Dog’s heart”; “White Guard”)

==1929-1930s:
rejection from NEP, “Great Breakthrough” meant creation of unified ideological pattern: all private publishing- houses, independent scientific and literature journals were closed;
== 1932- Ordinance of the Communist
party Central Committee: all groups were
liquidated; instead in 1934 Unified Union of
the Soviet Writers under party control was
created

V. NEW NATIONAL STRUCTURE OF
THE STATE - USSR


1) National issue after the Civil war:
a) from 134 million people about 40 million were of different nationalities were on precapitalist stage of development, including about 10 million with the features of primitive tribal culture;
b) 9 republics primarily, which had union agreements with the Russian Soviet republic; common features:
== one party ruling every one republic- Bolshevik party;
== Russia was proclaimed a Federation, but this principle didn’t touch the Bolshevik party. It
was united for all 9 republics; so republics were
different, but only one party, when the party
replaces the state, sovereignty and independence do not value

I. Industrialization:

1) Debates within the party on issues of
modernization:
a) by 1925/26 the prewar (WWI) industrial level of production was reached.

Necessity to industrialize the country as a part of Russia’s modernization.

Reasons:
== army needed contemporary weapons;
== agriculture needed machinery;
2) 2 main questions of industrialization:
== speed;
== sources

c) 3 main points of view in the Communist Party:
==Lev Trotsky’s: rapid industrialization with the sacrifice of the villages (through raising taxes on peasantry, especially wealthy ones; however to preserve NEP, but to make it narrower);
== Nicolai Bukharin’s : moderate speed of
industrialization with simultaneous rise of industry and agriculture (stable rates of industrial development are possible only with simultaneous rise of agriculture, but not
ruining the villages; preserving NEP);
==Stalin’s (General Secretary of the All-Russia Communist party (Bolsheviks) since 1922): while struggling with the leftists (led by Trotsky), he followed Bukharin’s position (rights); but after leftists’ fail in 1927, and then rightists’ fail in 1929, Stalin realized Trotsky’s line, having enforced it- idea of FORCED INDUSTRIALIZATION (Trotsky, being already in emigration, protested against it and logical violent collectivization)

Collectivization or “revolution from
above” in the Soviet villages:

II. COLLECTIVIZATION OF The
COUNTRYSIDE.

1) conception:
a) shared land;
b) cooperative labor;
c) state control;
2) 2 aims:
a) to provide for the fast-growing cities;
b) to provide harsh social changes;

NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM

1) main principles:
a) party control of state organs at all levels, especially at the top;
b) cult of the leader;
c) the authoritarian mentality of officials who appointed and co-opted instead of holding elections;
d) Power flowed outward from Moscow apparat, or permanent corps of Communist officials, and downward ; the bureaucracy expanded and stiffened

e) unified ideology, obligatory for all:
== monopoly on mass media + strict censorship;
== surveillance on everybody;
 == 3 main Stalin’s ideas in his “Short course ofSoviet Communist Party history” in 1938:
(1) to build socialism in one country (from
N.Bukharin);

(2) the class struggle is increasing while developing and strengthening socialist society;
(3) strengthening the statehood

New Soviet Culutre:

1) Historic conditions:
a) Decisive role of unprecedented State
control (by party and union organizations,
secrete Police offices) over all sides of social
life : Dictatorship of the Party leaders; +
introducing the cult of the main leader +
elimination of freedom of speech, stadial
dominance of one obligatory ideology;
b) the paths of creative intelligentsia:
1918-1925:
== the left radical part supported the October
overturn; by the end of 1917-about 10% of them are members of the Bolshevik party;
==rejection and condemn of the major part: no
cooperation with the Soviet power; massive sabotage of employees; protest against chaos;
== major group is on the position of noninterference into politics (later will become or loyal employee or emigrate- about 2 million people)
== emigration;
== death in detention camps and prisons;
= falling silent

In late 1920s-1930s:
== emigration;
== death in detention camps and prisons;
= = falling silent;
== seeking for roundabout creative paths;
== majority- conformation with the
ideological demands and working within the pattern of “socialist realism”

C) DIFFERENCES IN CULTURAL
DEVELOPMENT IN 1920S AND 1930S

1920s:

== splash of variable currents, groups, ideas-
to solve some world-wide cultural task; rush to
renew the society, brought by the Silver age;
== literature: 30 groups; the Bolsheviks party in 1925 called for tactful relations among them and free competition; interest to corn stone issues in Russia’s history or personnel life:
reforms of Peter the Great, peasants wars, First
Russian Revolution-Boris Pasternak’s poem “
year1905”; October revolution and Civil War,
labor in heroic-romantic novels; satire topics in
A.Platonov’s (“Chevengur”), M.Bulgakov’s (Dog’s heart”; “White Guard”)

==1929-1930s:
rejection from NEP, “Great Breakthrough” meant creation of unified ideological pattern: all private publishing- houses, independent scientific and literature journals were closed;
== 1932- Ordinance of the Communist
party Central Committee: all groups were
liquidated; instead in 1934 Unified Union of the Soviet Writers under party control was created