New Economic Policies 1921-1929

1
New Economic Policies1921-1929
2
Effects of Civil War andWar Communism (1917-1920)

• Decline of industry and agriculture
• Social leveling landowners and the better-off
  flee
• Peasants got the land and retreated to a communal
  lifestyle
• Still subject to taxes and expropriations of
  grain
• Great suffering by workers, who made up the
  armies
• Factories closed, industries wiped out
• Workers returned to the countryside and the farms
• Bolsheviks in charge but remain paranoid, feel
  enemies are waiting to pounce
• 1920 Bolshevik Democratic opposition
  objections to bureaucratization, demands for
  democracy within the party and for worker control
  of the workplace
• 1921 Kronstadt uprising sailors demand soviets
  without Bolsheviks, free elections, freedom for
  workers and peasants
• 10th. Party Congress Far-reaching decision to
  outlaw factions within the Party
• Reaching out to minorities Stalin becomes
  Commissar of Nationalities

3
1921 NEP begins Partybecomes all-powerful

• Abandon war communism
• Government enterprises must show a profit
• Free trade in grain tax rather than
  expropriation
• Encourage small-scale private enterprise
• Mining, banking, foreign trade under govt.
  control
• Primacy of the Party
• Government subordinated, soviets lose influence
• Central Committee makes all major decisions
• Party controls key citizen organizations
• Labor union branches at every workplace
• Komsomol, the Communist youth league
• Lenin uses show trials to repress dissidence and
  demonstrate correct line
• Arrested and imprisoned members of Cadet Party
• 1922 - two dozen Socialist Revolutionaries
  placed on trial
• Gregory Pyatakov sat as chief judge
• Central committee members were sentenced to
  death. But all the sentences were commuted.

4
A quasi-capitalist economy

• Russia imported most of its heavy
  equipment,including railroad engines, and most
  machinery
• Expense drained domestic budget
• Wild fluctuation in industrial and
  agriculturalprices high inflation
• Economy stabilized by 1924. Currency based on
  gold.
• Private enterprise accounts for more than 50 of
  national income
• Social class distinctions wealth amidst poverty
• NEPmen, traders who sold goods to farmers and
  produce to city dwellers (above photograph)
• Citizens free to change jobs skilled much better
  pay than unskilled
• Opportunities for the better-educated in
  government work
• Wages low, unemployment major factor
• Large rural population too large 80 percent of
  Russians live on farms
• People from countryside flock to cities for jobs

5
Agriculture during NEP

• Weak Government authority outside cities
• Farmers isolated, farming is primitive
• Farms small, land has been excessivelydivided
• Primitive growing practices
• Use food for their own needs, sell whats left to
  the cities
• Bolshevik ideology clashes with peasant practices
• Enraged by peasants pricing based on supply
  demand
• Exaggerated view of class distinctions. Kulaks
  (wealthy farmers) are compared to NEPmen
  (photo shows Kulaks being dispossessed)
• Kulaks feared for their political power
• Bolsheviks want more efficient, large-scale
  communal farming
• Two obstacles insufficient machinery and a
  hostile rural population

6
Society during NEP

• Bolsheviks appalled at Russias
  backwardness,anxious to advance culture
• Material aspects, including hygiene and
  electrification
• Science, engineering and the arts
• Scientists and professors highly valued
• They establish laws of nature, much like Marx
  established laws of society
• Writers, musicians, painters valued because they
  can help spread the gospel
• Censorship relatively light-handed
• Commissariat for Enlightenment had lists of
  banned books
• Many artists fled, but those who remained got
  remarkablyfree rein the Avant-garde flourished
  (graphic part of 1905-1930 Russian Avant-garde
  exhibit)
• Exception Newspapers and writings by competing
  socialist factions Mensheviks and Socialist
  Revolutionaries are strictly censored

7
Socialist legality

• Criminal Code of 1922 formalizes
  therevolutionary justice of war communism
• Art. 45 socialist conception of justice
• Art. 46 crimesagainst the regime
• Art. 47 harm to the interests of the Stateor
  the toilers even when not directed at either
• Art. 58-1 directed towards the overthrow,
  undermining or weakening of the Workers and
  Peasants Soviets
• Art. 58-7 undermining of state industryby
  working against their normal activities
• Art. 58-13 Any act or active struggle against
  the working class
• Heaviest penalties for counter-revolutionary
  rather than ordinary crimes
• Concept of wrecking

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1922 Stalin or Trotsky?A question of succession

• 1922 Lenin incapacitated (dies in 1924)
• Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev in ruling troika
  (triumvirate)
• But real struggle is between Stalin and Trotsky
• Trotsky
• War hero, popular with military, lower levels of
  bureaucracy, students
• Abrasive, doctrinaire
• Backs leftist economics, pushes to tax peasants
  and force industrialization
• An internationalist Communism first requires
  a world revolution
• Stalin
• Commissar for Nationalities
• 1922 Chairman of Communist Party Central
  Committee, in charge of Party bureaucracy
• Excellent politician, coalition builder,
  practical-minded
• Counseled by Bukharin to go easy on peasants and
  workers
• Sees world revolution as wildly premature
• Championed socialism in one country Russia
  can go it alone

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1923-1924 Trotsky Stalinstruggle for supremacy

• 1923 Left Opposition Trotsky,
  Serebryakov,Piatakov, Smirnov, Radek...
• Circulates Letter of the 46
• Criticizes bureaucratization, lack of democracy
  within the Party, top-down decision-making
• Claims regime farther away from workers
  democracy than before
• 1923 Trotsky calls for purge of bureaucrats
• Hostile reception by triumvirate and others is
  Trotsky splitting the Party?
• 1924 13th. Party Conference majority condemns
  Left Opposition
• Stalin and Zinoviev attack Trotsky for
  factionalism
• Trotsky Contradicts NEP, argues against Stalins
  Socialism in one country.
• Demands more pressure on kulaks and
  capitalists
• Endorses forced industrialization
• Criticizes Zinoviev and Kamenev in 1917 (they
  said Revolution premature)
• Left Opposition censured, Trotsky booted from
  post as War Commissar

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1924-25 Leftist opposition to Stalin

• 1924 Full members of Politburo (top of the
  Party Central Committee)
• Stalin, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov,
  Tomsky, Trotsky
• Bukharin allies with Stalin, becomes chief
  promoter of NEP
• Urges relaxations against Kulaks
• 1924-25 opposition develops. Includes
  Zinovievists and Trotskyists.
• Zinoviev and Kamenev form New Opposition
• Accuse Stalin of becoming a dictator, argue for
  democracy in the Party
• Criticize Kulakization rich farmers say
  its a retreat
• Endorse concept of world revolution
• 1925 Party Congress repudiates the New
  Opposition
• Kamenev reduced to candidate member of Politburo
• United Opposition forms Kamenev and Zinoviev
  ally withTrotsky, Muralov, Pyatakov, Radek,
  Smirnov, Bakayev

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United Opposition defeated,Trotsky exiled to
Europe

• December 1927 15th. Party Congress
• Trotsky, Zinoviev expelled from Party CC(Central
  Committee)
• Recommended for expulsion Kamenev, Pyatakov,
  Radek, Smirnov
• They attempt a demonstration supporters
  arrested
• Zinovievists capitulate
• Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bakayev readmitted, later gain
  Party posts
• Trotskyists refuse to capitulate
• Trotsky gets internal exile, then deported to
  Europe in 1929
• First in Turkey, then France in 1933, Norway in
  1935 Norway, finally Mexico in 1937
• Radek exiled to Siberia
• Capitulates in 1929, readmitted to the PartyBut
  its not over until the rude Georgian sings...

12
Stalin moves left,Right Opposition forms

• 1928 Peasants hoard grain, demand better prices
• Stalin changes course to the Left
• Like Trotsky, demands expropriations
• Endorses forced collectivization and rapid
  industrialization
• Bukharin, a moderate, opposes these moves.
  Supported by Rykov and Tomsky.
• 1929 they publish the Platform of the Three
• Accuse Stalin of military-feudal exploitation of
  the peasantry
• Warn of rupture between peasants and workers
• Suggest incentives rather than coercion
• Want to expand and improve NEP
• Stalin and supporters criticize the three and
  their followers as Right Deviationists who are
  defending capitalism
• 1930-31 political campaign against the Rightists
• Rightists lose influence, capitulate
• The rude Georgian is now the de-facto
  Dictator of the USSR