War communism components. War communism in brief

The politics of War Communism in brief- This is widespread centralization with the aim of destroying market relations, as well as the concept of private property. Instead, centralized production and distribution were cultivated. This measure was introduced due to the need to subsequently introduce a system of equal rights for any resident of the future country of the Soviets. Lenin believed that the policy of war communism was a necessity. Quite naturally, having come to power, it was necessary to act actively and without the slightest delay in order to consolidate and implement the new regime. The last stage before the final transition to socialism.

The main stages in the development of the policy of war communism, briefly:

1. Nationalization of the economy. With the introduction of a new government strategy, factories, lands, factories and other property in the hands of private owners were unilaterally and forcefully transferred into state ownership. The ideal goal is for subsequent equal distribution among everyone. According to the ideology of communism.

2. Surplus appropriation. According to the policy of war communism, peasants and food producers were entrusted with the function of obligatory delivery of certain volumes of products to the state in order to centrally maintain a stable situation in the food sector. In fact, surplus appropriation turned into robberies of the middle class of peasants and total famine throughout Russia.

The result of the policy at this stage of development of the new Soviet state was a severe drop in the rate of production development (for example, steel production decreased by 90-95%). The surplus appropriation deprived the peasants of their reserves, causing a terrible famine in the Volga region. However, from a management point of view, the goal was achieved 100%. The economy came under state control, and with it, the country’s residents became dependent on the “distribution body.”

In 1921 policy of war communism was quite quietly replaced by the New Economic Policy. Now the time has come to return to the issue of increasing the pace and development of industrial and production capacities, but under the auspices of Soviet power.

The essence of the policy of “war communism”. The policy of “war communism” included a set of measures that affected the economic and socio-political spheres. The basis of “war communism” were emergency measures to supply cities and the army with food, the curtailment of commodity-money relations, the nationalization of all industry, including small industry, surplus appropriation, supplying the population with food and industrial goods on ration cards, universal labor service and maximum centralization of management of the national economy and the country generally.

Chronologically, “war communism” falls on the period of the Civil War, but individual elements of the policy began to emerge at the end of 1917 - beginning of 1918. This applies primarily nationalization of industry, banks and transport. The “Red Guard attack on capital,” which began after the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the introduction of workers’ control (November 14, 1917), was temporarily suspended in the spring of 1918. In June 1918, its pace accelerated and all large and medium-sized enterprises became state property. In November 1920, small enterprises were confiscated. Thus it happened destruction of private property. A characteristic feature of “war communism” is extreme centralization of economic management.

At first, the management system was built on the principles of collegiality and self-government, but over time the inconsistency of these principles becomes obvious. Factory committees lacked the competence and experience to manage them. The leaders of Bolshevism realized that they had previously exaggerated the degree of revolutionary consciousness of the working class, which was not ready to govern. The emphasis is placed on state management of economic life.

On December 2, 1917, the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) was created. Its first chairman was N. Osinsky (V.A. Obolensky). The tasks of the Supreme Economic Council included the nationalization of large industry, management of transport, finance, establishment of trade exchange, etc.

By the summer of 1918, local (provincial, district) economic councils, subordinate to the Supreme Economic Council, emerged. The Council of People's Commissars, and then the Defense Council, determined the main directions of work of the Supreme Economic Council, its headquarters and centers, each representing a kind of state monopoly in the corresponding branch of production.

By the summer of 1920, almost 50 central administrations had been created to manage large nationalized enterprises. The name of the departments speaks for itself: Glavmetal, Glavtextile, Glavsugar, Glavtorf, Glavstarch, Glavryba, Tsentrokhladoboynya, etc.

The centralized management system dictated the need for an orderly leadership style. One of the features of the policy of “war communism” was emergency system, whose task was to subordinate the entire economy to the needs of the front. The Defense Council appointed its commissioners with emergency powers. Thus, A.I. Rykov was appointed extraordinary commissioner of the Defense Council for the supply of the Red Army (Chusosnabarm). He was endowed with the rights to use any apparatus, remove and arrest officials, reorganize and reassign institutions, confiscate and requisition goods from warehouses and from the population under the pretext of “military urgency.” All factories working for defense were transferred to the jurisdiction of Chusosnabarm. To manage them, the Industrial Military Council was formed, whose regulations were also mandatory for all enterprises.

One of the main features of the policy of “war communism” is curtailment of commodity-money relations. This was evident primarily in introduction of unequal natural exchange between city and countryside. In conditions of galloping inflation, peasants did not want to sell bread for depreciated money. In February - March 1918, the consuming regions of the country received only 12.3% of the planned amount of bread. The rationed bread quota in industrial centers was reduced to 50-100 grams. in a day. Under the terms of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, Russia lost grain-rich areas, which worsened the food crisis. Famine was approaching. It should also be remembered that the Bolsheviks had a twofold attitude towards the peasantry. On the one hand, he was viewed as an ally of the proletariat, and on the other (especially the middle peasants and kulaks) - as a support for the counter-revolution. They looked at the peasant, even a low-power middle peasant, with suspicion.

Under these conditions, the Bolsheviks headed for establishment of a grain monopoly. In May 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted the decrees “On granting the People’s Commissariat of Food emergency powers to combat the rural bourgeoisie hiding grain reserves and speculating on them” and “On the reorganization of the People’s Commissariat of Food and local food authorities.” In the context of an impending famine, the People's Commissariat for Food was granted emergency powers, and a food dictatorship was established in the country: a monopoly on the trade of bread and fixed prices was introduced. After the adoption of the decree on the grain monopoly (May 13, 1918), trade was actually prohibited. To seize food from the peasantry, they began to form food squads. The food detachments acted according to the principle formulated by the People's Commissar of Food Tsuryupa: “if you cannot take grain from the village bourgeoisie by ordinary means, then you must take it by force.” To help them, on the basis of the decrees of the Central Committee of June 11, 1918, committees of the poor(combat committees ) . These measures of the Soviet government forced the peasantry to take up arms.

On January 11, 1919, in order to streamline the exchange between city and countryside, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was introduced by decree surplus appropriation It was prescribed to confiscate surpluses from peasants, which were initially determined by “the needs of the peasant family, limited by the established norm.” However, soon the surpluses began to be determined by the needs of the state and the army. The state announced in advance the figures for its needs for bread, and then they were divided by provinces, districts and volosts. In 1920, instructions sent to places from above explained that “the allocation given to the volost is in itself a definition of surplus.” And although the peasants were left with only a minimum of grain according to the surplus appropriation system, the initial set of deliveries introduced certainty, and the peasants considered the surplus appropriation system as a benefit compared to food detachments.

The collapse of commodity-money relations was also facilitated by prohibition in the fall of 1918 in most provinces of Russia wholesale and private trade. However, the Bolsheviks still failed to completely destroy the market. And although they were supposed to destroy money, the latter were still in use. The unified monetary system collapsed. In Central Russia alone, 21 banknotes were in circulation, and money was printed in many regions. During 1919, the ruble exchange rate fell 3,136 times. Under these conditions, the state was forced to switch to wages in kind.

The existing economic system did not stimulate productive work, the productivity of which was steadily falling. Output per worker in 1920 was less than one-third of the pre-war level. In the fall of 1919, the earnings of a highly skilled worker exceeded the earnings of a general worker by only 9%. Material incentives to work disappeared, and along with them the desire to work itself disappeared. At many enterprises, absenteeism amounted to up to 50% of working days. To strengthen discipline, mainly administrative measures were taken. Forced labor grew out of leveling, from the lack of economic incentives, from the poor living conditions of workers, and also from a catastrophic shortage of labor. Hopes for the class consciousness of the proletariat were also not realized. In the spring of 1918 V.I. Lenin writes that “revolution... requires unquestioning obedience masses common will leaders of the labor process." The method of the policy of “war communism” becomes militarization of labor. At first it covered workers and employees of defense industries, but by the end of 1919 all industries and railway transport were transferred to martial law.

On November 14, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the “Regulations on workers' disciplinary comradely courts.” It provided for such punishments as sending malicious violators of discipline to heavy public works, and in case of “stubborn refusal to submit to comradely discipline” to be subjected “as a non-labor element to dismissal from enterprises and transfer to a concentration camp.”

In the spring of 1920, it was believed that the civil war had already ended (in fact, it was only a peaceful respite). At this time, the IX Congress of the RCP (b) wrote in its resolution on the transition to a militarized economic system, the essence of which “should consist in bringing the army closer to the production process in every possible way, so that the living human power of certain economic regions is at the same time the living human power of certain military units." In December 1920, the VIII Congress of Soviets declared farming to be a state duty.

Under the conditions of “war communism” there was universal labor conscription for persons from 16 to 50 years old. On January 15, 1920, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree on the first revolutionary army of labor, thereby legalizing the use of army units in economic work. On January 20, 1920, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution on the procedure for carrying out labor conscription, according to which the population, regardless of permanent work, was involved in performing labor duties (fuel, road, horse-drawn, etc.). Redistribution of labor and labor mobilizations were widely practiced. Work books were introduced. To control the implementation of universal labor service, a special committee was created headed by F.E. Dzerzhinsky. Persons evading community service were severely punished and deprived of food cards. On November 14, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the above-mentioned "Regulations on workers' disciplinary comradely courts."

The system of military-communist measures included the abolition of fees for urban and railway transport, for fuel, fodder, food, consumer goods, medical services, housing, etc. (December 1920). Approved egalitarian class principle of distribution. Since June 1918, card supply in 4 categories has been introduced.

The third category supplied directors, managers and engineers of industrial enterprises, most of the intelligentsia and clergy, and the fourth category included persons using hired labor and living on income from capital, as well as shopkeepers and peddlers.

Pregnant and lactating women belonged to the first category. Children under three years old received an additional milk card, and children under 12 years old received products in the second category.

In 1918 in Petrograd, the monthly ration in the first category was 25 pounds of bread (1 pound = 409 grams), 0.5 pounds. sugar, 0.5 lb. salt, 4 lbs. meat or fish, 0.5 lb. vegetable oil, 0.25 lbs. coffee surrogates.

In Moscow in 1919, a worker on ration cards received a calorie ration of 336 kcal, while the daily physiological norm was 3600 kcal. Workers in provincial cities received food below the physiological minimum (in the spring of 1919 - 52%, in July - 67%, in December - 27%).

“War communism” was considered by the Bolsheviks not only as a policy aimed at the survival of Soviet power, but also as the beginning of the construction of socialism. Based on the fact that every revolution is violence, they widely used revolutionary coercion. A popular poster from 1918 read: “With an iron hand we will drive humanity to happiness!” Revolutionary coercion was used especially widely against peasants. After the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted the Resolution of February 14, 1919 “On Socialist Land Management and Measures for the Transition to Socialist Agriculture,” propaganda was launched in defense creation of communes and artels. In a number of places, authorities adopted resolutions on the mandatory transition in the spring of 1919 to collective cultivation of the land. But it soon became clear that the peasantry would not agree to socialist experiments, and attempts to impose collective forms of farming would completely push the peasants away from Soviet power, so at the VIII Congress of the RCP(b) in March 1919, delegates voted for an alliance of the state with the middle peasants.

The inconsistency of the Bolsheviks' peasant policy can also be observed in their attitude to cooperation. In an effort to introduce socialist production and distribution, they eliminated such a collective form of initiative of the population in the economic field as cooperation. The Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of March 16, 1919 “On Consumer Communes” placed cooperation in the position of an appendage of state power. All local consumer societies were forcibly merged into cooperatives - “consumer communes”, which were united into provincial unions, and they, in turn, into the Central Union. The state entrusted consumer communes with the distribution of food and consumer goods in the country. Cooperation as an independent organization of the population ceased to exist. The name “consumer communes” aroused hostility among the peasants, since they identified them with the total socialization of property, including personal property.

During the civil war, the political system of the Soviet state underwent serious changes. The RCP(b) becomes its central unit. By the end of 1920, there were about 700 thousand people in the RCP (b), half of them were at the front.

In party life, the role of the apparatus that practiced military methods of work grew. Instead of elected collectives, narrowly composed operational bodies most often acted at the local level. Democratic centralism - the basis of party building - was replaced by a system of appointment. The norms of collective leadership of party life were replaced by authoritarianism.

The years of war communism became the time of establishment political dictatorship of the Bolsheviks. Although representatives of other socialist parties took part in the activities of the Soviets after the temporary ban, the communists still constituted an overwhelming majority in all government institutions, at congresses of Soviets and in executive bodies. The process of merging party and government bodies was intensive. Provincial and district party committees often determined the composition of executive committees and issued orders for them.

The communists, welded together by strict discipline, voluntarily or unwittingly transferred the order that developed within the party to the organizations where they worked. Under the influence of the civil war, a military dictatorship took shape in the country, which entailed the concentration of control not in elected bodies, but in executive institutions, strengthening of unity of command, the formation of an bureaucratic hierarchy with a huge number of employees, a reduction in the role of the masses in state building and their removal from power.

Bureaucracy for a long time it becomes a chronic disease of the Soviet state. Its reasons were the low cultural level of the bulk of the population. The new state inherited much from the previous state apparatus. The old bureaucracy soon received places in the Soviet state apparatus, because it was impossible to do without people who knew managerial work. Lenin believed that it was possible to cope with bureaucracy only when the entire population (“every cook”) would participate in governing the state. But later the utopian nature of these views became obvious.

The war had a huge impact on state building. The concentration of forces, so necessary for military success, required strict centralization of control. The ruling party placed its main emphasis not on the initiative and self-government of the masses, but on the state and party apparatus, capable of implementing by force the policies necessary to defeat the enemies of the revolution. Gradually, the executive bodies (apparatus) completely subordinated the representative bodies (Councils). The reason for the swelling of the Soviet state apparatus was the total nationalization of industry. The state, having become the owner of the main means of production, was forced to provide management of hundreds of factories and plants, to create huge management structures engaged in economic and distribution activities in the center and in the regions, and the role of central bodies increased. Management was built “from top to bottom” on strict directive and command principles, which limited local initiative.

In June 1918 L.I. Lenin wrote about the need to encourage “the energy and mass character of popular terror.” The decree of July 6, 1918 (revolt of the left Socialist Revolutionaries) restored the death penalty. True, executions became widespread in September 1918. On September 3, 500 hostages and “suspicious persons” were shot in Petrograd. In September 1918, the local Cheka received an order from Dzerzhinsky, which stated that they were completely independent in searches, arrests and executions, but after they have been carried out security officers must report to the Council of People's Commissars. There was no need to account for single executions. In the fall of 1918, the punitive measures of the emergency authorities almost got out of control. This forced the VI Congress of Soviets to limit terror to the framework of “revolutionary legality.” However, the changes that had taken place by this time both in the state and in the psychology of society did not make it possible to really limit arbitrariness. Speaking about the Red Terror, it should be remembered that in the territories occupied by the whites, no less atrocities were committed. The white armies included special punitive detachments, reconnaissance and counterintelligence units. They resorted to mass and individual terror against the population, hunting down communists and representatives of the Soviets, participating in the burning and execution of entire villages. In the face of declining morality, terror quickly gained momentum. Due to the fault of both sides, tens of thousands of innocent people died.

The state sought to establish total control not only over the behavior, but also over the thoughts of its subjects, into whose heads the elementary and primitive basics of communism were introduced. Marxism becomes the state ideology.

The task was set to create a special proletarian culture. Cultural values ​​and achievements of the past were denied. There was a search for new images and ideals. A revolutionary avant-garde was formed in literature and art. Particular attention was paid to the means of mass propaganda and agitation. Art has become completely politicized.

Revolutionary fortitude and fanaticism, selfless courage, sacrifice in the name of a bright future, class hatred and ruthlessness towards enemies were preached. This work was supervised by the People's Commissariat of Education (Narkompros), headed by A.V. Lunacharsky. He launched active activities Proletkult- Union of proletarian cultural and educational societies. Proletkultists were especially active in calling for a revolutionary overthrow of old forms in art, a violent onslaught of new ideas, and the primitivization of culture. The ideologists of the latter are considered to be such prominent Bolsheviks as A.A. Bogdanov, V.F. Pletnev and others. In 1919, more than 400 thousand people took part in the proletkult movement. The spread of their ideas inevitably led to the loss of traditions and the lack of spirituality of society, which was unsafe for the authorities in war conditions. The leftist speeches of the Proletkultists forced the People's Commissariat for Education to pull them back from time to time, and in the early 1920s to completely dissolve these organizations.

The consequences of “war communism” cannot be separated from the consequences of the civil war. At the cost of enormous efforts, the Bolsheviks, using methods of agitation, strict centralization, coercion and terror, managed to turn the republic into a “military camp” and win. But the policy of “war communism” did not and could not lead to socialism. By the end of the war, the inadmissibility of running ahead and the danger of forcing socio-economic changes and escalating violence became obvious. Instead of creating a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a dictatorship of one party arose in the country, to maintain which revolutionary terror and violence were widely used.

The national economy was paralyzed by the crisis. In 1919, due to the lack of cotton, the textile industry almost completely stopped. It provided only 4.7% of pre-war production. The flax industry produced only 29% of the pre-war level.

Heavy industry was collapsing. In 1919, all blast furnaces in the country went out. Soviet Russia did not produce metal, but lived on reserves inherited from the tsarist regime. At the beginning of 1920, 15 blast furnaces were launched, and they produced about 3% of the metal smelted in Tsarist Russia on the eve of the war. The catastrophe in metallurgy affected the metalworking industry: hundreds of enterprises were closed, and those that were working were periodically idle due to difficulties with raw materials and fuel. Soviet Russia, cut off from the Donbass mines and Baku oil, experienced a fuel shortage. The main type of fuel was firewood and peat.

Industry and transport lacked not only raw materials and fuel, but also workers. By the end of the Civil War, less than 50% of the proletariat in 1913 was employed in industry. The composition of the working class had changed significantly. Now its backbone consisted not of regular workers, but of people from the non-proletarian strata of the urban population, as well as peasants mobilized from the villages.

Life forced the Bolsheviks to reconsider the foundations of “war communism”, therefore, at the Tenth Party Congress, military-communist economic methods based on coercion were declared obsolete.

4.1. As a result of the policy of war communism, socio-economic conditions for the victory of the Soviet Republic over the interventionists and the White Guards. The Bolsheviks managed to mobilize forces and subordinate the economy to the goals of providing the Red Army with ammunition, uniforms, and food.

4.2. Economic crisis. At the same time, the war and the policy of war communism had dire consequences for the country's economy. By 1920, national income had fallen from 11 to 4 billion rubles compared to 1913; production of large-scale industry was 13% of the pre-war level, incl. heavy industry - 2-5%. The workers went to the village, where they could still feed themselves. The end of hostilities did not bring relief. At the beginning of 1921, many of the enterprises that were still operating closed, including several dozen of the largest Petrograd factories.

The surplus appropriation system led to a reduction in plantings and the gross harvest of major agricultural crops. Agricultural production in 1920 was two-thirds of the pre-war level. In 1920-1921 famine broke out in the country.

4.3. Socio-political crisis. The policy of war communism, based on violence and emergency measures, primarily against the peasantry, caused a real war in the countryside and called into question the very fact of maintaining the power of the Bolsheviks. During the Civil War, when the White governments tried to ensure the return of land to large owners, the peasants' struggle with the Bolsheviks weakened and turned against the Whites. But with the end of active hostilities, it flared up with renewed vigor.

Until August 1921, the army operated N. Makhno. At the end of 1920 and beginning of 1921, peasant uprisings continued in a number of regions of Russia (including Western Siberia, Don, Kuban). In January 1921, peasant detachments with a total number of 50 thousand people under the command of A.S. Antonova liquidated the power of the Bolsheviks in the Tambov province, demanding not only the abolition of the surplus appropriation system, but also the convening of the Constituent Assembly. Only in the summer of the army M.N. Tukhachevsky managed to suppress the uprising using artillery, tanks and even aviation.

At the same time, workers' strikes and protests in the army and navy took place, the largest of which was the uprising of Kronstadt sailors, who spoke out under the slogan Soviets without Bolsheviks. It is significant that the rebels were supported by the majority of the Kronstadt Bolsheviks.

4.4. Abolition of the policy of war communism. The phenomenon of war communism included not only economic policy, but also a special political regime, ideology and type of social consciousness. In the process of implementing the policy of war communism, certain ideas about the model of socialism developed in the public consciousness, which included the destruction of private property, the creation of a unified national non-market system through the elimination of commodity-money relations, and the naturalization of wages as the most important condition for building a communist cashless economy.

But the acute political and economic crisis pushed the party leaders to reconsider their entire point of view on socialism. After a wide discussion at the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921 with the X Congress of the RCP (b) (March 1921), the abolition of the policy of war communism began.

QUESTIONS AND TASKS

1. Name the main elements of the Bolshevik economic policy in the field of distribution during the Civil War.
2. What consequences did this policy have for the public administration system?
3. What were the doctrinal (theoretical) foundations of the policy of war communism?
4. Show what the attempt to accelerate the introduction of socialist forms of management in the countryside led to?
5. Why, in your opinion, did the dictatorship of the proletariat during the war inevitably lead to the dictatorship of the party? Compare the size of the RCP(b) on the eve and after the end of the Civil War.

In the view of the classics of orthodox Marxism, socialism as a social system presupposes the complete destruction of all commodity-money relations, since these relations are the breeding ground for the revival of capitalism. However, these relations may disappear no sooner than the complete disappearance of the institution of private ownership of all means of production and instruments of labor, but an entire historical era is needed to realize this most important task.

This fundamental position of Marxism found its visible embodiment in the economic policy of the Bolsheviks, which they began to pursue in December 1917, almost immediately after seizing state power in the country. But, having quickly failed on the economic front, in March-April 1918 the leadership of the Bolshevik Party tried to return to Lenin’s “April Theses” and establish state capitalism in the country devastated by war and revolution. A large-scale Civil War and foreign intervention put an end to these utopian illusions of the Bolsheviks, forcing the top leadership of the party to return to the previous economic policy, which then received the very capacious and accurate name of the policy of “war communism”.

For quite a long time, many Soviet historians were confident that the very concept of military communism was first developed by V.I. Lenin in 1918. However, this statement is not entirely true, since he first used the very concept of “war communism” only in April 1921 in his famous article “On the Food Tax.” Moreover, as established by “late” Soviet historians (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov, V. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov), this term was first introduced into scientific circulation by the famous Marxist theorist Alexander Bogdanov (Malinovsky) back in 1917.

In January 1918, returning to the study of this problem in his famous work “Questions of Socialism,” A.A. Bogdanov, having examined the historical experience of a number of bourgeois states during the First World War, equated the concepts of “war communism” and “military state capitalism.” In his opinion, there was a whole historical abyss between socialism and war communism, since “war communism” was a consequence of the regression of productive forces and epistemologically was a product of capitalism and a complete negation of socialism, and not its initial phase, as it seemed to the Bolsheviks themselves, first of all, “ left communists" during the Civil War.

The same opinion is now shared by many other scientists, in particular, Professor S.G. Kara-Murza, who argue convincingly that “war communism” as a special economic structure has nothing in common either with communist teaching, much less with Marxism. The very concept of “war communism” simply means that during a period of total devastation, society (society) is forced to transform into a community or commune, and nothing more. In modern historical science, there are still several key problems associated with the study of the history of war communism.

I. From what time should the policy of war communism begin?

A number of Russian and foreign historians (N. Sukhanov) believe that the policy of military communism was proclaimed almost immediately after the victory of the February Revolution, when the bourgeois Provisional Government, at the instigation of the first Minister of Agriculture, cadet A.I. Shingarev, having issued the law “On the transfer of grain to the disposal of the state” (March 25, 1917), introduced a state monopoly on bread throughout the country and established fixed prices for grain.

Other historians (R. Danels, V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov) connect the approval of “war communism” with the famous decree of the Council of People’s Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR “On the nationalization of large industry and railway transport enterprises,” which was issued on June 28, 1918. According to V. .IN. Kabanova and V.P. Buldakov, the policy of military communism itself went through three main phases in its development: “nationalizing” (June 1918), “Kombedovsky” (July - December 1918) and “militaristic” (January 1920 - February 1921) .

Still others (E. Gimpelson) believe that the beginning of the policy of war communism should be considered May - June 1918, when the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted two important decrees that marked the beginning of the food dictatorship in the country: “On the emergency powers of the People's Commissar for Food” ( May 13, 1918) and “On the Committees of the Village Poor” (June 11, 1918).

The fourth group of historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov) is confident that after a “year-long period of trial and error,” the Bolsheviks, having issued the decree “On food distribution of grain grain and fodder” (January 11, 1919), made their final the choice in favor of surplus appropriation, which became the backbone of the entire policy of war communism in the country.

Finally, the fifth group of historians (S. Pavlyuchenkov) prefers not to name the specific date of the beginning of the policy of war communism and, referring to the well-known dialectical position of F. Engels, says that “absolutely sharp dividing lines are not compatible with the theory of development as such.” Although S.A. himself Pavlyuchenkov is inclined to begin the countdown of the policy of war communism with the beginning of the “Red Guard attack on capital,” that is, from December 1917.

II. Reasons for the policy of “war communism”.

In Soviet and partly Russian historiography (I. Berkhin, E. Gimpelson, G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov, I. Ratkovsky), the policy of military communism has traditionally been reduced to a series of exclusively forced, purely economic measures caused by foreign intervention and the Civil War. Most Soviet historians strongly emphasized the smooth and gradual nature of the implementation of this economic policy.

In European historiography (L. Samueli) it has traditionally been argued that “war communism” was not so much determined by the hardships and deprivations of the Civil War and foreign intervention, but had a powerful ideological basis, going back to the ideas and works of K. Marx, F. Engels and K. Kautsky.

According to a number of modern historians (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov), subjectively “war communism” was caused by the desire of the Bolsheviks to hold out until the start of the world proletarian revolution, and objectively this policy was supposed to solve the most important modernization task - to eliminate the gigantic gap between the economic structures of the industrial city and patriarchal village. Moreover, the policy of war communism was a direct continuation of the “Red Guard attack on capital”, since both of these political courses were related by the frantic pace of major economic events: the complete nationalization of banks, industrial and commercial enterprises, the displacement of state cooperation and the organization of a new system of public distribution through productive-consumer communes, an obvious tendency towards the naturalization of all economic relations within the country, etc.

Many authors are convinced that all the leaders and major theoreticians of the Bolshevik Party, including V.I. Lenin, L.D. Trotsky and N.I. Bukharin, viewed the policy of war communism as a high road leading directly to socialism. This concept of “Bolshevik utopianism” was presented especially clearly in the famous theoretical works of the “left communists,” who imposed on the party the model of “war communism” that it implemented in 1919–1920. In this case we are talking about two famous works by N.I. Bukharin “Program of the Bolshevik Communists” (1918) and “Economy of the Transition Period” (1920), as well as about the popular opus N.I. Bukharin and E.A. Preobrazhensky’s “The ABCs of Communism” (1920), which are now rightly called “literary monuments of the collective recklessness of the Bolsheviks.”

According to a number of modern scientists (Yu. Emelyanov), it was N.I. Bukharin, in his famous work “Economics of the Transition Period” (1920), derived from the practice of “war communism” an entire theory of revolutionary transformations, based on the universal law of the complete collapse of the bourgeois economy, industrial anarchy and concentrated violence, which will completely change the economic system of bourgeois society and build on its ruins is socialism. Moreover, according to the firm conviction of this "the favorite of the whole party" And "the largest party theorist" as V.I. wrote about him Lenin, “proletarian coercion in all its forms, from executions to labor conscription, is, strange as it may seem, a method for developing communist humanity from the human material of the capitalist era.”

Finally, according to other modern scientists (S. Kara-Murza), “war communism” became an inevitable consequence of the catastrophic situation in the country’s national economy, and in this situation it played an extremely important role in saving the lives of millions of people from inevitable starvation. Moreover, all attempts to prove that the policy of war communism had doctrinal roots in Marxism are absolutely groundless, since only a handful of Bolshevik maximalists in the person of N.I. Bukharin and Co.

III. The problem of the results and consequences of the policy of “war communism”.

Almost all Soviet historians (I. Mints, V. Drobizhev, I. Brekhin, E. Gimpelson) not only idealized “war communism” in every possible way, but actually avoided any objective assessments of the main results and consequences of this destructive economic policy of the Bolsheviks during the Civil War . According to the majority of modern authors (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov), this idealization of “war communism” was largely due to the fact that this political course had a huge impact on the development of the entire Soviet society, and also modeled and laid the foundations of that command- administrative system in the country, which finally took shape in the second half of the 1930s.

In Western historiography, there are still two main assessments of the results and consequences of the policy of war communism. One part of Sovietologists (G. Yaney, S. Malle) traditionally speaks of the unconditional collapse of the economic policy of war communism, which led to complete anarchy and the total collapse of the country's industrial and agricultural economy. Other Sovietologists (M. Levin), on the contrary, argue that the main results of the policy of war communism were etatization (a gigantic strengthening of the role of the state) and archaization of socio-economic relations.

As for the first conclusion of Professor M. Levin and his colleagues, there is indeed hardly any doubt that during the years of “war communism” there was a gigantic strengthening of the entire party-state apparatus of power in the center and locally. But what concerns the economic results of “war communism”, then the situation here was much more complicated, because:

On the one hand, “war communism” swept away all the previous remnants of the medieval system in the agricultural economy of the Russian village;

On the other hand, it is absolutely obvious that during the period of “war communism” there was a significant strengthening of the patriarchal peasant community, which allows us to talk about the real archaization of the country’s national economy.

According to a number of modern authors (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov, S. Pavlyuchenkov), it would be a mistake to try to statistically determine the negative consequences of “war communism” for the country’s national economy. And the point is not only that these consequences cannot be separated from the consequences of the Civil War itself, but that the results of “war communism” have not a quantitative, but a qualitative expression, the essence of which lies in the very change in the socio-cultural stereotype of the country and its citizens.

According to other modern authors (S. Kara-Murza), “war communism” became a way of life and a way of thinking for the vast majority of Soviet people. And since it occurred at the initial stage of the formation of the Soviet state, at its “infancy,” it could not but have a huge impact on its entirety and became the main part of the very matrix on the basis of which the Soviet social system was reproduced.

IV. The problem of determining the main features of “war communism”.

a) total destruction of private ownership of the means and instruments of production and the dominance of a single state form of ownership throughout the country;

b) total liquidation of commodity-money relations, the monetary circulation system and the creation of an extremely rigid planned economic system in the country.

In the firm opinion of these scholars, the main elements of the policy of war communism were the Bolsheviks borrowed from the practical experience of the Kaiser’s Germany, where, starting from January 1915, the following actually existed:

a) state monopoly on essential food products and consumer goods;

b) their normalized distribution;

c) universal labor conscription;

d) fixed prices for main types of goods, products and services;

e) the allotment method of removing grain and other agricultural products from the agricultural sector of the country's economy.

Thus, the leaders of “Russian Jacobinism” made full use of the forms and methods of governing the country, which they borrowed from capitalism, which was in an extreme situation during the war.

The most visible evidence of this conclusion is the famous “Draft Party Program” written by V.I. Lenin in March 1918, which contained main features of the future policy of war communism:

a) the destruction of parliamentarism and the unification of the legislative and executive branches of government in Councils of all levels;

b) socialist organization of production on a national scale;

c) management of the production process through trade unions and factory committees, which are under the control of Soviet authorities;

d) state monopoly of trade, and then its complete replacement by systematically organized distribution, which will be carried out by unions of commercial and industrial employees;

e) forced unification of the entire population of the country into consumer-production communes;

f) organizing competition between these communes for a steady increase in labor productivity, organization, discipline, etc.

The fact that the leadership of the Bolshevik Party turned the organizational forms of the German bourgeois economy into the main instrument for establishing the proletarian dictatorship was directly written by the Bolsheviks themselves, in particular by Yuri Zalmanovich Larin (Lurie), who in 1928 published his work “Wartime State Capitalism in Germany” (1914―1918)". Moreover, a number of modern historians (S. Pavlyuchenkov) argue that “war communism” was a Russian model of German military socialism or state capitalism. Therefore, in a certain sense, “war communism” was a pure analogue of the “Westernism” traditional in the Russian political environment, only with the significant difference that the Bolsheviks managed to tightly envelop this political course in the veil of communist phraseology.

In Soviet historiography (V. Vinogradov, I. Brekhin, E. Gimpelson, V. Dmitrenko), the entire essence of the policy of war communism was traditionally reduced only to the main economic measures carried out by the Bolshevik Party in 1918–1920.

A number of modern authors (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov, V. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov, S. Pavlyuchenkov, E. Gimpelson) pay special attention to the fact that a radical change in economic and social relations was accompanied by radical political reform and the establishment of a one-party dictatorship in country.

Other modern scientists (S. Kara-Murza) believe that the main feature of “war communism” was the shift of the center of gravity of economic policy from the production of goods and services to their equal distribution. It is no coincidence that L.D. Trotsky, speaking about the policy of war communism, frankly wrote that “We nationalized the disorganized economy of the bourgeoisie and established a regime of “consumer communism” in the most acute period of the struggle against the class enemy.” All other signs of “war communism”, such as: the famous surplus appropriation system, the state monopoly in the field of industrial production and banking services, the elimination of commodity-money relations, universal labor conscription and the militarization of the country’s national economy - were structural features of the military-communist system, which in specific historical conditions, it was characteristic of the Great French Revolution (1789–1799), and of the Kaiser’s Germany (1915–1918), and of Russia during the Civil War (1918–1920).

2. Main features of the policy of “war communism”

According to the overwhelming majority of historians, the main features of the policy of war communism, which were finally formulated in March 1919 at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b), were:

a) The policy of “food dictatorship” and surplus appropriation

According to a number of modern authors (V. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov), the Bolsheviks did not immediately come to the idea of ​​surplus appropriation, and initially intended to create a state grain procurement system based on traditional market mechanisms, in particular, by significantly increasing prices for grain and other agricultural products . In April 1918, in his report “On the Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power,” V.I. Lenin directly stated that the Soviet government would pursue the previous food policy in accordance with the economic course, the contours of which were determined in March 1918. In other words, it was about preserving the grain monopoly, fixed grain prices and the traditional system of commodity exchange that had long existed between the city and the village. However, already in May 1918, due to a sharp aggravation of the military-political situation in the main grain-producing regions of the country (Kuban, Don, Little Russia), the position of the country's top political leadership changed radically.

At the beginning of May 1918, according to the report of the People's Commissar of Food A.D. Tsyurupa, members of the Soviet government for the first time discussed a draft decree introducing a food dictatorship in the country. And although a number of members of the Central Committee and the leadership of the Supreme Economic Council, in particular L.B. Kamenev, A.I. Rykov and Yu.Z. Larin, opposed this decree, on May 13 it was approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR and was formalized in the form of a special decree “On granting the People's Commissar of Food emergency powers to combat the rural bourgeoisie.” In mid-May 1918, a new decree of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee “On the organization of food detachments” was adopted, which, together with the committees of the poor, were to become the main instrument for knocking out scarce food resources from tens of millions of peasant farms in the country.

At the same time, in furtherance of this decree, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopt Decree “On the reorganization of the People’s Commissariat of Food of the RSFSR and local food authorities”, in accordance with which a complete structural restructuring of this department of the country was carried out in the center and locally. In particular, this decree, which was quite rightly dubbed “the bankruptcy of the idea of ​​local Soviets”:

a) established the direct subordination of all provincial and district food structures not to local Soviet authorities, but to the People’s Commissariat of Food of the RSFSR;

b) determined that within the framework of this People's Commissariat a special Food Army Directorate would be created, which would be responsible for the implementation of the state grain procurement plan throughout the country.

Contrary to traditional opinion, the very idea of ​​​​food detachments was not an invention of the Bolsheviks and the palm here should still be given to the Februaryists, so “dear to the hearts” of our liberals (A. Yakovlev, E. Gaidar). Back on March 25, 1917, the Provisional Government, having issued the law “On the transfer of grain to the disposal of the state,” introduced a state monopoly on bread throughout the country. But since the plan for state grain procurements was carried out very poorly, in August 1917, in order to carry out forced requisitions of food and fodder from the marching units of the active army and rear garrisons, special military detachments began to be formed, which became the prototype of those very Bolshevik food detachments that arose during the Civil War.

The activities of food brigades still evoke absolutely polar opinions.

Some historians (V. Kabanov, V. Brovkin) believe that, in fulfilling grain procurement plans, the majority of food detachments were engaged in the wholesale plunder of all peasant farms, regardless of their social affiliation.

Other historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov, S. Kara-Murza) argue that, contrary to popular speculation and legends, food detachments, having declared a crusade to the village for bread, did not plunder peasant farms, but achieved tangible results precisely where They obtained bread through traditional barter.

After the start of the frontal Civil War and foreign intervention, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted on June 11, 1918 the famous decree “On the organization and supply of committees of the rural poor,” or kombedahs, which a number of modern authors (N. Dementyev, I. Dolutsky) called the trigger mechanism of the Civil War war.

For the first time, the idea of ​​​​organizing the Committee of Poor People was heard at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in May 1918 from the mouth of its chairman Ya.M. Sverdlov, who motivated the need to create them to incite "second social war" in the countryside and a merciless struggle against the class enemy in the person of the rural bourgeois - the village “bloodsucker and world-eater” - kulak. Therefore, the process of organizing committees of poor people, which V.I. Lenin regarded it as the greatest step of the socialist revolution in the countryside, it went at a rapid pace, and by September 1918, more than 30 thousand committees of poor people had been created throughout the country, the backbone of which was the village poor.

The main task of the poor committees was not only the fight for bread, but also the crushing of the volost and district bodies of Soviet power, which consisted of the wealthy strata of the Russian peasantry and could not be bodies of the proletarian dictatorship on the ground. Thus, their creation not only became the trigger for the Civil War, but also led to the virtual destruction of Soviet power in the countryside. In addition, as a number of authors (V. Kabanov) noted, the Pobedy Committees, having failed to fulfill their historical mission, gave a powerful impetus to chaos, devastation and impoverishment of the Russian countryside.

In August 1918, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted a package of new regulations, which marked the creation of a whole system of emergency measures to confiscate grain in favor of the state, including the decrees “On the involvement of workers’ organizations in the procurement of grain”, “On the organization of harvesting and -requisition detachments”, “Regulations on barrage requisition food detachments”, etc.

In October 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted a new decree “On imposing a tax in kind on rural owners in the form of deductions of part of agricultural products.” Some scientists (V. Danilov), without sufficient evidence, expressed the idea of ​​a genetic connection between this decree and the 1921 tax in kind, which marked the beginning of the NEP. However, most historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov) rightly argue that this decree marked the abandonment of the “normal” taxation system and the transition to a system of “emergency” taxation, built on a class principle. In addition, according to the same historians, it was from the end of 1918 that there was a clear turn of the entire Soviet state machine from a disorderly “emergency” to organized and centralized forms of “economic and food dictatorship” in the country.

The crusade against the kulak and the village world-eater, announced by this decree, was greeted with delight not only by the rural poor, but also by the overwhelming mass of the average Russian peasantry, whose number made up more than 65% of the country’s total rural population. The mutual attraction between the Bolsheviks and the middle peasantry, which arose at the turn of 1918–1919, predetermined the fate of the poor committees. Already in November 1918, at the VI All-Russian Congress of Soviets, under pressure from the communist faction itself, which was then headed by L.B. Kamenev, a decision was made to restore a uniform system of Soviet government bodies at all levels, which, in essence, meant the liquidation of the Pobedy Committees.

In December 1918, the First All-Russian Congress of Land Departments, Communes and Committees of Poor People adopted a resolution “On the collectivization of agriculture,” which clearly outlined a new course for the socialization of individual peasant farms and their transfer to large-scale agricultural production built on socialist principles. This resolution, as suggested by V.I. Lenin and People's Commissar of Agriculture S.P. Sereda was met with hostility by the overwhelming mass of the multi-million Russian peasantry. This situation forced the Bolsheviks to again change the principles of food policy and, on January 11, 1919, issue the famous decree “On food distribution of grain grain and fodder.”

Contrary to traditional public opinion, surplus appropriation in Russia was introduced not by the Bolsheviks, but by the tsarist government of A.F. Trepov, which in November 1916, at the suggestion of the then Minister of Agriculture A.A. Rittich issued a special resolution on this issue. Although, of course, the surplus appropriation system of 1919 differed significantly from the surplus appropriation system of 1916.

According to a number of modern authors (S. Pavlyuchenkov, V. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov), contrary to the prevailing stereotype, surplus appropriation was not a tightening of the food dictatorship in the country, but its formal weakening, since it contained a very important element: the initially set amount of state needs for bread and fodder In addition, as shown by Professor S.G. Kara-Murza, the scale of the Bolshevik allocation was approximately 260 million poods, while the tsarist allocation was more than 300 million poods of grain per year.

At the same time, the surplus appropriation plan itself proceeded not from the real capabilities of peasant farms, but from state needs, since, in accordance with this decree:

The entire amount of grain, fodder and other agricultural products that the state needed to supply the Red Army and cities was distributed among all grain-producing provinces of the country;

In all peasant farms that fell under the surplus appropriation molokh, a minimum amount of food, fodder and seed grain and other agricultural products remained, and all other surpluses were subject to complete requisition in favor of the state.

On February 14, 1919, the regulation of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR “On socialist land management and on measures for the transition to socialist agriculture” was published, but this decree no longer had fundamental significance, since the bulk of the Russian peasantry, having rejected the collective “commune”, compromised with the Bolsheviks, agreeing with temporary food appropriation, which was considered the lesser evil. Thus, by the spring of 1919, from the list of all Bolshevik decrees on the agrarian issue, only the decree “On surplus appropriation” was preserved, which became the supporting frame for the entire policy of war communism in the country.

Continuing the search for mechanisms capable of forcing a significant part of the Russian peasantry to voluntarily hand over agricultural and handicraft products to the state, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR issued new decrees “On benefits for collecting tax in kind” (April 1919) and “On compulsory exchange of goods” (August 1919). .). They did not have much success with the peasants, and already in November 1919, by decision of the government, new allocations were introduced throughout the country - potato, wood, fuel and horse-drawn.

According to a number of authoritative scientists (L. Lee, S. Kara-Murza), only the Bolsheviks were able to create a workable food requisitioning and supply apparatus, which saved tens of millions of people in the country from starvation.

b) Policy of total nationalization

To implement this historical task, which was a direct continuation of the “Red Guard attack on capital,” the Council of People’s Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR issued a number of important decrees, including “On the nationalization of foreign trade” (April 1918), “On the nationalization of large industry and enterprises railway transport" (June 1918) and "On establishing a state monopoly on domestic trade" (November 1918). In August 1918, a decree was adopted that created unprecedented benefits for all state industrial enterprises, since they were exempt from the so-called “indemnity” - emergency state taxes and all municipal fees.

In January 1919, the Central Committee of the RCP (b), in its “Circular Letter” addressed to all party committees, directly stated that at the moment the main source of income of the Soviet state should be "nationalized industry and state agriculture." In February 1919, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee called on the Supreme Economic Council of the RSFSR to accelerate the further restructuring of the country’s economic life on a socialist basis, which actually launched a new stage of the proletarian state’s offensive against “medium-sized private business” enterprises that had retained their independence, the authorized capital of which did not exceed 500 thousand rubles. In April 1919, a new decree of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR “On the Handicraft and Craft Industry” was issued, according to which these enterprises were not subject to total confiscation, nationalization and municipalization, with the exception of special cases according to a special resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council of the RSFSR.

However, already in the fall of 1920, a new wave of nationalization began, which mercilessly hit small industrial production, that is, all handicrafts and handicrafts, into whose orbit millions of Soviet citizens were drawn. In particular, in November 1920, the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council, headed by A.I. Rykov adopted a decree “On the nationalization of small industry”, under which 20 thousand handicraft and craft enterprises in the country fell. According to historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov, I. Ratkovsky, M. Khodyakov), by the end of 1920 the state concentrated in its hands 38 thousand industrial enterprises, of which more than 65% were handicraft and craft workshops.

c) Liquidation of commodity-money relations

Initially, the country's top political leadership tried to establish normal trade exchange in the country, issuing in March 1918 a special decree of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR "On the organization of trade exchange between city and countryside." However, already in May 1918, a similar special instruction from the People's Commissariat of Food of the RSFSR (A.D. Tsyurupa) to this decree de facto abolished it.

In August 1918, at the height of a new procurement campaign, having issued a whole package of decrees and tripling fixed prices for grain, the Soviet government again tried to organize normal commodity exchange. The volost committees of poor people and councils of deputies, having monopolized in their hands the distribution of industrial goods in the countryside, almost immediately buried this good idea, causing general anger among the multi-million Russian peasantry against the Bolsheviks.

Under these conditions, the country's top political leadership authorized the transition to barter trade, or direct product exchange. Moreover, on November 21, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted the famous decree “On organizing the supply of the population with all products and items of personal consumption and household”, according to which the entire population of the country was assigned to the “Unified Consumer Societies”, through which they began to receive all food and industrial rations. According to a number of historians (S. Pavlyuchenkov), this decree, in fact, completed the legislative formalization of the entire military-communist system, the building of which would be brought to barracks perfection until the beginning of 1921. Thus, policy of "war communism" with the adoption of this decree it became system of "war communism".

In December 1918, the Second All-Russian Congress of Economic Councils called on the People's Commissar of Finance N.N. Krestinsky to take immediate measures to curtail monetary circulation throughout the country, but the leadership of the country’s financial department and the People’s Bank of the RSFSR (G.L. Pyatakov, Ya.S. Ganetsky) avoided making this decision.

Until the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919. The Soviet political leadership was still trying to restrain itself from a complete turn towards the total socialization of the entire economic life of the country and the replacement of commodity-money relations with the naturalization of exchange. In particular, the communist faction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which was headed by the leader of the moderate Bolsheviks L.B. Kamenev, playing the role of informal opposition to the government, created a special commission, which at the beginning of 1919 prepared a draft decree “On the restoration of free trade.” This project met with stiff resistance from all members of the Council of People's Commissars, including V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky.

In March 1919, a new decree of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR “On Consumer Communes” was issued, according to which the entire system of consumer cooperation with one stroke of the pen turned into a purely state institution, and the ideas of free trade were finally put to death. And at the beginning of May 1919, a “Circular Letter” was issued by the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR, in which all government departments of the country were asked to switch to a new system of settlements among themselves, that is, to record traditional cash payments only in “accounting books”, avoiding, if possible, cash operations among themselves.

For the time being, V.I. Lenin still remained a realist on the issue of the abolition of money and monetary circulation within the country, so in December 1919 he suspended the introduction of a draft resolution on the destruction of banknotes throughout the country, which the delegates of the VII All-Russian Congress of Soviets were supposed to adopt. However, already in January 1920, by decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the country's only credit and emission center, the People's Bank of the RSFSR, was abolished.

According to the majority of Russian historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Buldakov, M. Gorinov, V. Kabanov, V. Kozlov, S. Pavlyuchenkov), a new major and final stage in the development of the military-communist system was the IX Congress of the RCP(b), held in March - April 1920. At this party congress, the entire top political leadership of the country quite consciously decided to continue the policy of war communism and build socialism in the country as soon as possible.

In the spirit of these decisions, in May - June 1920, almost complete naturalization of wages of the overwhelming majority of the country's workers and employees took place, which N.I. Bukharin (“Program of the Communist-Bolsheviks”) and E.A. Shefler (“Naturalization of wages”) was considered the most important condition back in 1918 “building a communist cashless economy in the country.” As a result, by the end of 1920, the natural part of the average monthly wage in the country amounted to almost 93%, and cash payments for housing, all utilities, public transport, medicines and consumer goods were completely abolished. In December 1920, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted a number of important decrees in this regard - “On the free supply of food products to the population”, “On the free supply of consumer goods to the population”, “On the abolition of monetary payments for the use of mail, telegraph, telephone and radiotelegraph”, “On the abolition of fees for medicines dispensed from pharmacies”, etc.

Then V.I. Lenin drew up a draft resolution for the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR “On the abolition of cash taxes and the transformation of surplus appropriation into a tax in kind,” in which he directly wrote that “The transition from money to non-monetary product exchange is indisputable and is only a matter of time.”

d) Militarization of the country's national economy and the creation of labor armies

Their opponents (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov) deny this fact and believe that the entire top political leadership, including V.I. himself, were supporters of the militarization of the country’s national economy. Lenin, as clearly evidenced by the theses of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) “On the mobilization of the industrial proletariat, labor conscription, militarization of the economy and the use of military units for economic needs,” which were published in Pravda on January 22, 1920.

These ideas contained in the theses of the Central Committee, L.D. Trotsky not only supported, but also creatively developed in his famous speech at the IX Congress of the RCP (b), held in March - April 1920. The overwhelming majority of the delegates of this party forum, despite the sharp criticism of the Trotskyist economic platform from A.I. Rykova, D.B. Ryazanova, V.P. Milyutin and V.P. Nogina, they supported her. This was not at all about temporary measures caused by the Civil War and foreign intervention, but about a long-term political course that would lead to socialism. This was clearly evidenced by all the decisions made at the congress, including its resolution “On the transition to a police system in the country.”

The process of militarization of the country's national economy, which began at the end of 1918, proceeded quite quickly, but gradually and reached its apogee only in 1920, when War Communism entered its final, “militaristic” phase.

In December 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR approved the “Code of Labor Laws,” according to which universal labor conscription was introduced throughout the country for citizens over 16 years of age.

In April 1919 they published two resolutions of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR, according to which:

a) universal labor conscription was introduced for all able-bodied citizens aged 16 to 58 years;

b) special forced labor camps were created for those workers and government employees who voluntarily switched to another job.

The strictest control over compliance with labor conscription was initially entrusted to the bodies of the Cheka (F.E. Dzerzhinsky), and then to the Main Committee for General Labor Conscription (L.D. Trotsky). In June 1919, the previously existing labor market department of the People's Commissariat of Labor was transformed into a department for accounting and distribution of labor, which eloquently spoke for itself: now a whole system of forced labor was created in the country, which became the prototype of the notorious labor armies.

In November 1919, the Council of People's Commissars and the STO of the RSFSR adopted the provisions "On Workers' Disciplinary Courts" and "On the Militarization of State Institutions and Enterprises", according to which the administration and trade union committees of factories, factories and institutions were given full right not only to dismiss workers from enterprises , but also send them to concentration labor camps. In January 1920, the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted a decree “On the procedure for universal labor service,” which provided for the involvement of all able-bodied citizens in performing various public works necessary to maintain the country's municipal and road infrastructure in proper order.

Finally, in February - March 1920, by decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the creation of the notorious labor armies began, the main ideologist of which was L.D. Trotsky. In his note “Immediate tasks of economic development” (February 1920), he came up with the idea of ​​​​creating provincial, district and volost labor armies, built according to the type of Arakcheevsky military settlements. Moreover, in February 1920, by the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR L.D. Trotsky was appointed chairman of the interdepartmental commission on issues of labor conscription, which included almost all the heads of the central people's commissariats and departments of the country: A.I. Rykov, M.P. Tomsky, F.E. Dzerzhinsky, V.V. Schmidt, A.D. Tsyurupa, S.P. Sereda and L.B. Krasin. A special place in the work of this commission was occupied by the issues of recruiting labor armies, which were to become the main instrument for building socialism in the country.

e) Total centralization of management of the country's national economy

In April 1918, Alexey Ivanovich Rykov became the head of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, under whose leadership its structure was finally created, which lasted throughout the entire period of war communism. Initially, the structure of the Supreme Economic Council included: the Supreme Council of Workers' Control, industry departments, a commission of economic people's commissariats and a group of economic experts, consisting mainly of bourgeois specialists. The leading element of this body was the Bureau of the Supreme Economic Council, which included all the heads of departments and the expert group, as well as representatives of the four economic people's commissariats - finance, industry and trade, agriculture and labor.

From now on The Supreme Economic Council of the RSFSR, as the main economic department of the country, coordinated and directed the work:

1) all economic people's commissariats - industry and trade (L.B. Krasin), finance (N.N. Krestinsky), agriculture (S.P. Sereda) and food (A.D. Tsyurupa);

2) special meetings on fuel and metallurgy;

3) workers' control bodies and trade unions.

Within the competence of the Supreme Economic Council and its local bodies, that is, regional, provincial and district economic councils, included:

Confiscation (free seizure), requisition (seizure at fixed prices) and sequestration (deprivation of the right to dispose) of industrial enterprises, institutions and individuals;

Carrying out forced syndication of industrial production and trade sectors that have retained their economic independence.

By the end of 1918, when the third stage of nationalization was completed, an extremely rigid system of economic management had developed in the country, which received a very capacious and precise name - “Glavkizm”. According to a number of historians (V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov), it was this “Glavkism”, which was based on the idea of ​​​​transforming state capitalism into a real mechanism for the planned management of the country’s national economy under the conditions of the state dictatorship of the proletariat, that became the apotheosis of “war communism”.

By the beginning of 1919, all industry departments, transformed into the Main Directorates of the Supreme Economic Council, endowed with economic and administrative functions, completely covered the entire range of issues related to the organization of planning, supply, distribution of orders and sales of finished products of the majority of industrial, commercial and cooperative enterprises in the country . By the summer of 1920, within the framework of the Supreme Economic Council, 49 branch departments had been created - Glavtorf, Glavtop, Glavkozha, Glavzerno, Glavstarch, Glavtrud, Glavkustprom, Tsentrokhladoboynya and others, in the depths of which there were hundreds of production and functional departments. These headquarters and their sectoral departments exercised direct control over all state-owned enterprises in the country, regulated relations with small-scale, handicraft and cooperative industries, coordinated the activities of related branches of industrial production and supply, and distributed orders and finished products. It became quite obvious that a whole series of vertical economic associations (monopolies) isolated from each other had arisen, the relationship between which depended solely on the will of the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council and its leader. In addition, within the framework of the Supreme Economic Council itself there were many functional bodies, in particular the financial-economic, financial-accounting and scientific-technical departments, the Central Production Commission and the Bureau for the Accounting of Technical Forces, which completed the entire framework of the system of total bureaucracy that struck the country towards the end Civil War.

During the Civil War, a number of the most important functions previously belonging to the Supreme Economic Council were transferred to various emergency commissions, in particular the Extraordinary Commission for Supply of the Red Army (Chrezkomsnab), the Extraordinary Authorized Defense Council for Supply of the Red Army (Chusosnabarm), the Central Council for Military Procurement (Tsentrovoenzag), Council for the Military Industry (Promvoensovet), etc.

f) Creation of a one-party political system

According to many modern historians (W. Rosenberg, A. Rabinovich, V. Buldakov, V. Kabanov, S. Pavlyuchenkov), the term “Soviet power”, which came into historical science from the field of party propaganda, in no case can claim to adequately reflect the structure of political power that was established in the country during the Civil War.

According to the same historians, the actual abandonment of the Soviet system of government of the country occurred in the spring of 1918, and from that time the process of creating an alternative apparatus of state power through party channels began. This process, first of all, was expressed in the widespread creation of Bolshevik party committees in all volosts, districts and provinces of the country, which, together with the committees and bodies of the Cheka, completely disorganized the activities of Soviets at all levels, turning them into appendages of party administrative authorities.

In November 1918, a timid attempt was made to restore the role of Soviet authorities in the center and locally. In particular, at the VI All-Russian Congress of Soviets, decisions were made to restore a unified system of Soviet authorities at all levels, to strictly observe and strictly implement all decrees issued by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR, which in March 1919, after the death of Ya.M. Sverdlov was headed by Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, but these good wishes remained on paper.

In connection with the assumption of the functions of the highest state administration of the country, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) itself is being transformed. In March 1919, by decision of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) and in pursuance of its resolution “On the organizational issue,” several permanent working bodies were created within the Central Committee, which V.I. Lenin in his famous work “The Infantile Disease of “Leftism” in Communism” called the real party oligarchy - the Political Bureau, the Organizational Bureau and the Secretariat of the Central Committee. At the organizational Plenum of the Central Committee, which took place on March 25, 1919, the personal composition of these highest party bodies was approved for the first time. Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, which was charged with the right “make decisions on all urgent matters” included five members - V.I. Lenin, L.D. Trotsky, I.V. Stalin, L.B. Kamenev and N.N. Krestinsky and three candidate members - G.E. Zinoviev, N.I. Bukharin and M.I. Kalinin. Member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, which was supposed to “to direct all organizational work of the party”, five members also included - I.V. Stalin, N.N. Krestinsky, L.P. Serebryakov, A.G. Beloborodov and E.D. Stasova and one candidate member - M.K. Muranov. The Secretariat of the Central Committee, which at that time was responsible for all technical preparations for the meetings of the Politburo and the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, included one executive secretary of the Central Committee, E.D. Stasov and five technical secretaries from among experienced party workers.

After the appointment of I.V. Stalin as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), it is these party bodies, especially the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee, that will become the real bodies of the highest state power in the country, which will retain their enormous powers until the XIX Party Conference (1988) and the XXVIII Congress of the CPSU (1990).

At the end of 1919, broad opposition to administrative centralism also arose within the party itself, led by the “decists” led by T.V. Sapronov. At the VIII Conference of the RCP(b), held in December 1919, he spoke with the so-called platform of “democratic centralism” against the official party platform, which was represented by M.F. Vladimirsky and N.N. Krestinsky. The platform of the “decists,” which was actively supported by the majority of delegates at the party conference, provided for the partial return of real local power to Soviet government bodies and the limitation of arbitrariness on the part of party committees at all levels and central government institutions and departments of the country. This platform was also supported at the VII All-Russian Congress of Soviets (December 1919), where the main struggle unfolded against supporters of “bureaucratic centralism.” In accordance with the decisions of the congress, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee tried to become a real body of state power in the country and at the end of December 1919 created a number of working commissions to develop the foundations of a new economic policy, one of which was headed by N.I. Bukharin. However, already in mid-January 1920, at his suggestion, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) proposed to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to abolish this commission and henceforth not to show unnecessary independence in these matters, but to coordinate them with the Central Committee. Thus, the course of the VII All-Russian Congress of Soviets to revive the organs of Soviet power in the center and locally was a complete fiasco.

According to the majority of modern historians (G. Bordyugov, V. Kozlov, A. Sokolov, N. Simonov), by the end of the Civil War, the bodies of Soviet power were not only affected by the diseases of bureaucracy, but actually ceased to exist as a system of state power in the country. The documents of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets (December 1920) directly stated that the Soviet system is degrading into a purely bureaucratic, apparatus structure, when the real bodies of local power are not the Soviets, but their executive committees and presidiums of executive committees, in which the main role is played by party secretaries, who have fully assumed the functions of local bodies of Soviet power. It is no coincidence that already in the summer of 1921, in his famous work “On the Political Strategy and Tactics of Russian Communists,” I.V. Stalin wrote extremely frankly that the Bolshevik Party is the very “Order of the Sword Bearers” that “inspires and directs the activities of all bodies of the Soviet state in the center and locally.”

3. Anti-Bolshevik uprisings of 1920–1921.

The policy of war communism became the cause of a huge number of peasant uprisings and rebellions, among which the following were particularly widespread:

An uprising of the peasants of the Tambov and Voronezh provinces, which was led by the former chief of the Kirsanov district police, Alexander Sergeevich Antonov. In November 1920, under his leadership, the Tambov partisan army was created, the number of which amounted to more than 50 thousand people. In November 1920 - April 1921, units of the regular army, police and the Cheka were unable to destroy this powerful center of popular resistance. Then, at the end of April 1921, by decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee, the “Plenipotentiary Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to combat banditry in the Tambov province” was created, headed by V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko and the new commander of the Tambov Military District, M.N. Tukhachevsky, who particularly distinguished himself during the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion. In May - July 1921, units and formations of the Red Army, using all means, including mass terror, the institution of hostages and poisonous gases, literally drowned the Tambov popular uprising in blood, destroying several tens of thousands of Voronezh and Tambov peasants.

An uprising of the peasants of the Southern and Left Bank of New Russia, which was led by the ideological anarchist Nestor Ivanovich Makhno. In February 1921, by decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)U, the “Permanent Conference on Combating Banditry” was created, headed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR Kh.G. Rakovsky, who entrusted the defeat of the troops of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army to N.I. Makhno on the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Soviet troops M.V. Frunze. In May - August 1921, units and formations of the Soviet army in the most difficult bloody battles defeated the peasant uprising in Ukraine and destroyed one of the most dangerous centers of the new Civil War in the country.

But, of course, the most dangerous and significant signal for the Bolsheviks was the famous Kronstadt rebellion. The background to these dramatic events was as follows: at the beginning of February 1921, in the northern capital, where mass protests by workers of the largest St. Petersburg enterprises (Putilovsky, Nevsky and Sestroretsky factories) closed by decision of the Soviet government took place, martial law was introduced and a city Defense Committee was created, which was headed by the leader of St. Petersburg communists G.E. Zinoviev. In response to this government decision, on February 28, 1921, the sailors of two battleships of the Baltic Fleet, Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol, adopted a tough petition in which they opposed the Bolshevik omnipotence in the Soviets and for the revival of the bright ideals of October, desecrated by the Bolsheviks.

On March 1, 1921, during a meeting of thousands of soldiers and sailors of the Kronstadt naval garrison, it was decided to create a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, headed by Sergei Mikhailovich Petrichenko and the former tsarist general Arseniy Romanovich Kozlovsky. All attempts by the head of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to reason with the rebel sailors were unsuccessful, and the All-Russian headman M.I. Kalinin went home “without a sip.”

In this situation, units of the 7th Army of the Red Army, led by the favorite L.D., were urgently transferred to Petrograd. Trotsky and the future Soviet Marshal M.N. Tukhachevsky. On March 8 and 17, 1921, during two bloody assaults, the Kronstadt Fortress was taken: some of the participants in this rebellion managed to retreat to the territory of Finland, but a significant part of the rebels were arrested. Most of them met a tragic fate: 6,500 sailors were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, and more than 2,000 rebels were executed by verdicts of the revolutionary tribunals.

In Soviet historiography (O. Leonidov, S. Semanov, Yu. Shchetinov), the Kronstadt rebellion was traditionally regarded as an “anti-Soviet conspiracy”, which was inspired by “the undead White Guard and agents of foreign intelligence services.”

At the moment, such assessments of the Kronstadt events are a thing of the past, and most modern authors (A. Novikov, P. Evrich) say that the uprising of the combat units of the Red Army was caused by purely objective reasons for the economic state of the country in which it found itself after the end of the Civil War and foreign intervention.

War communism is a policy carried out on the territory of the Soviet state during the civil war. The peak of war communism occurred in 1919-1921. The conduct of communist politics was aimed at creating a communist society by the so-called left communists.

There are several reasons for the Bolsheviks' transition to such a policy. Some historians believe that this was an attempt to introduce communism using the command method. However, it later turned out that the attempt was not successful. Other historians believe that War Communism was only a temporary measure, and the government did not consider such a policy to be put into practice in the future after the end of the civil war.

The period of war communism did not last long. War communism was ended on March 14, 1921. At this time, the Soviet state set a course for the NEP.

The basis of war communism

The policy of war communism was characterized by one distinctive feature - the nationalization of all possible sectors of the economy. The Bolsheviks' coming to power became the starting point for the policy of nationalization. “lands, mineral resources, waters and forests” was announced on the day of the Petrograd Revolution.

Nationalization of banks

During the October Revolution, one of the first actions that the Bolsheviks committed was the armed seizure of the State Bank. This began the economic policy of War Communism under the leadership of the Bolsheviks.

After some time, banking began to be considered a state monopoly. The funds of the local population were confiscated from banks subject to monopoly. Funds that were acquired through “dishonest, unearned means” were subject to confiscation. As for the confiscated funds, these were not only banknotes, but also gold and silver. was carried out if the contribution was more than 5,000 rubles per person. Subsequently, account holders of monopoly banks could receive no more than 500 rubles per month from their account. However, the balance that was not confiscated was quickly absorbed - it was considered almost impossible for their owners to get theirs from bank accounts.

Capital flight and nationalization of industry

“Capital flight” from Russia intensified in the summer of 1917. Foreign entrepreneurs were the first to flee Russia. They were looking for cheaper labor here than in their homeland. However, after the February Revolution, it was practically impossible to profit from cheap force. The working day was clearly established, and there was a struggle for higher wages, which would not be entirely beneficial for foreign entrepreneurs.

Domestic industrialists also had to resort to fleeing, because the situation in the country was unstable, and they fled so that they could fully engage in their work activities.

The nationalization of enterprises had not only political reasons. The Minister of Trade and Industry believed that the constant conflicts with the labor force, which in turn held rallies and strikes on a regular basis, needed some kind of adequate resolution. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks were faced with the same labor problems as before. Naturally, there was no talk of any transfer of factories to workers.

The Likinsky manufactory of A.V. Smirnov became one of the first factories that was nationalized by the Bolsheviks. In less than six months (from November to March 1917-1918), more than 836 industrial enterprises were nationalized. On May 2, 1918, the nationalization of the sugar industry began to be actively carried out. On June 20 of the same year, the nationalization of the oil industry began. In the fall of 1918, the Soviet state managed to nationalize 9,542 enterprises.

Capitalist property was nationalized quite simply - through gratuitous confiscations. Already in April of the following year, there was practically not a single enterprise left that had not been nationalized. Gradually, nationalization reached medium-sized enterprises. Production management was subjected to brutal nationalization by the government. The Supreme Council of the National Economy became the dominant body in the management of centralized enterprises. The economic policy of war communism, undertaken in relation to the nationalization of enterprises, brought virtually no positive effect, since most of the workers stopped working for the benefit of the Soviet state and went abroad.

Control of trade and industry

Control of trade and industry came in December 1917. Less than six months after War Communism became the main way of conducting politics in the Soviet state, trade and industry were declared a state monopoly. The merchant fleet was nationalized. At the same time, shipping enterprises, trading houses and other property of private entrepreneurs in the merchant fleet were declared the property of the state.

Introduction of forced labor service

For the “non-labor classes” it was decided to introduce forced labor service. According to the adopted labor code in 1918, forced labor service was established for all citizens of the RSFSR. Starting next year, it was prohibited for citizens to move without permission from one workplace to another, and absenteeism was strictly punished. Strict discipline was established at all enterprises, over which managers constantly maintained control. On weekends and holidays, work was no longer paid, which in turn led to mass discontent among the working class.

In 1920, the law “On the procedure for universal labor service” was adopted, according to which the working population was involved in performing various works for the benefit of the country. The presence of a permanent job did not matter in this case. Everyone had to fulfill the duty.

Introduction of rations and food dictatorship

The Bolsheviks decided to continue to adhere to the grain monopoly, which was adopted by the Provisional Government. Private trade in grain products was officially prohibited by the Decree on the State Monopoly of Bread. In May 1918, local people's commissars had to independently fight against citizens who were hiding grain reserves. To conduct a full-fledged fight against sheltering and speculation in grain reserves, the people's commissars were granted additional powers by the government.

The food dictatorship had its goal - to centralize the procurement and distribution of food among the population. Another goal of the food dictatorship was to combat the fraud of the kulaks.

The People's Commissariat for Food had unlimited powers in the methods and means of food procurement, which was carried out during the period of the existence of such a thing as the policy of war communism. According to the decree of May 13, 1918, the norm of food consumption per person per year was established. The decree was based on food consumption standards introduced by the Provisional Government in 1917.

If the amount of bread per person exceeded the norms specified in the decree, he had to hand it over to the state. The transfer was carried out at prices set by the state. After which the government could dispose of grain products at its discretion.

To control the food dictatorship, the Food Requisition Army of the People's Commissariat of Food of the RSFSR was created. In 1918, a resolution was adopted to introduce food rations for four classes of the population. Initially, only residents of Petrograd could use the ration. A month later - residents of Moscow. Subsequently, the opportunity to receive food rations extended to the entire state. After food ration cards were introduced, all other methods and systems for obtaining food were abolished. In parallel with this, a ban on private things was introduced.

Due to the fact that all the worlds to maintain the food dictatorship were adopted during the civil war in the country, in reality they were not supported as strictly as was indicated in the documents confirming the introduction of various decrees. Not all regions were under Bolshevik control. Accordingly, there could be no talk of any implementation of their decrees in this territory.

At the same time, not all regions that were subordinate to the Bolsheviks also had the opportunity to carry out government decrees, since the local authorities did not know about the existence of various decrees and decrees. Due to the fact that communication between the regions was practically not maintained, local authorities could not receive instructions on the conduct of food or any other policy. They had to act at their own discretion.

Until now, not all historians can explain the essence of war communism. Whether it was truly an economic policy is impossible to say. It is possible that these were just measures of the Bolsheviks in order to win victory in the country.

Stay up to date with all the important events of United Traders - subscribe to our

The policy of war communism of 1918-1921 is the internal policy of the Soviet state, which was carried out during the Civil War.

Prerequisites and reasons for the introduction of the policy of war communism

With the victory of the October Revolution, the new government began the most daring transformations in the country. However, the outbreak of the Civil War, as well as the extreme depletion of material resources, led to the fact that the government was faced with the problem of finding solutions to its salvation. The paths were extremely harsh and unpopular and were called the “policy of war communism.”

Some elements of this system were borrowed by the Bolsheviks from the policies of the government of A. Kerensky. Requisitions also took place, and a ban on private trade in bread was practically introduced, however, the state kept control over its accounting and procurement at persistently low prices.

In the countryside, the seizure of landowners' lands was in full swing, which the peasants themselves divided among themselves, according to their food intake. This process was complicated by the fact that embittered former peasants returned to the village, but in military overcoats and with weapons. Food supplies to the cities practically ceased. The peasant war began.

Characteristics of War Communism

Centralized management of the entire economy.

The practical completion of the nationalization of all industry.

Agricultural products completely fell into the state monopoly.

Minimize private trading.

Limitation of commodity-money turnover.

Equalization in all areas, especially in the sphere of essential goods.

Closing of private banks and confiscation of deposits.

Nationalization of industry

The first nationalizations began under the Provisional Government. It was in June-July 1917 that the “flight of capital” from Russia began. Among the first to leave the country were foreign entrepreneurs, followed by domestic industrialists.

The situation worsened with the Bolsheviks coming to power, but a new question arose: what to do with enterprises left without owners and managers.

The first-born of nationalization was the factory of the Likinsky Manufactory Partnership of A.V. Smirnov. This process could no longer be stopped. Enterprises were nationalized almost daily, and by November 1918 there were already 9,542 enterprises in the hands of the Soviet state. By the end of the period of War Communism, nationalization was generally completed. The Supreme Council of the National Economy became the head of this entire process.

Monopolization of foreign trade

The same policy was followed in relation to foreign trade. It was taken under control by the People's Commissariat of Trade and Industry and subsequently declared a state monopoly. At the same time, the merchant fleet was nationalized.

Labor service

The slogan “he who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat” was actively put into practice. Labor conscription was introduced for all “non-labor classes,” and a little later compulsory labor service extended to all citizens of the Land of Soviets. On January 29, 1920, this postulate was even legalized in the decree of the Council of People's Commissars “On the procedure for universal labor service.”

Food dictatorship

The food problem has become a vitally important issue. Famine gripped almost the entire country and forced the government to continue the grain monopoly introduced by the Provisional Government and the surplus appropriation system introduced by the tsarist government.

Per capita consumption standards for peasants were introduced, and they corresponded to the standards that existed under the Provisional Government. All remaining grain passed into the hands of the state authorities at fixed prices. The task was very difficult, and to carry it out, food detachments with special powers were created.

On the other hand, food rations were adopted and approved, which were divided into four categories, and measures were provided for the accounting and distribution of food.

Results of the policy of war communism

Tough policies helped the Soviet government turn the overall situation in its favor and win on the fronts of the Civil War.

But in general, such a policy could not be effective in the long term. It helped the Bolsheviks hold out, but destroyed industrial ties and strained the government's relations with the broad masses of the population. The economy not only failed to rebuild, but began to fall apart even faster.

The negative manifestations of the policy of war communism led to the fact that the Soviet government began to look for new ways to develop the country. It was replaced by the New Economic Policy (NEP).