Key Guidance for Step 1: Type in key words (highlighted in the text and located in the Glossary
notetaking Pages 94-95 Revision Guide)
Step 2: Type in subheadings and summarise the key points from each subheading
in each section in note format
Step 3: Provide a summary at the end of your notes assessing: What changed over
time? What stayed the same?
Step 4: Tick off PLC descriptors for Key Topic 2 on Page 3 of the Revision Guide
Key Words: Notes on: Industrial and Agricultural change in the USSR, 1917-85, Pages 20-35
Revision Guide Challenge Task: Read and make notes on relevant chapters from
one of the recommended reading titles on Page 61 Communist States Textbook
Collectivisation Section 1:
Command Lenin’s economy, 1918-21
economy The nationalisation of Industry: key measures of Lenin’s initial economic
State capitalism policy were: the land degree of October 1917 – abolished private ownership
Bartering of land, the degree on Worker’s Control of November 1917 placed control of
Mir the factories into the hands of industrial workers, on 27th December all
Nepmen private banks were nationalised into the People’s Bank of the Russian
Republic. These measures gave power to the workers and peasants. It
meant workers councils voted to give themselves huge pay rises causing
inflation. Managers were dismissed and those with technical expertise were
removed by workers seeking revenge. In December 1917, the Supreme
Council of the National Economy (Vesenkha) was set up to supervise the
economy.
War Communism and the new economic Policy: Nationalisation, Supreme
Council of National Economy, Hierarchical structures in industry, harsh
military discipline, the death penalty was introduced to workers who went
on strike, unemployed were forced to join 'Labour Armies' such as road
building and woodland clearance, all workers were expected to volunteer
for unpaid work on 'Communist Saturday', private trading was banned,
bartering was introduced and wages were given in goods, the forcible
requisitioning of food making malnutrition and starvation was a common
place. The collapse of Russian Currency and its replacement by bartering
seen as a liberation from communism, causing raging inflation. The
nationalisation of all industries with ten or more workers in June 1918.
Why was the NEP introduced in 1921? Because heavy industry had fallen to
20% of its 1913 level and food production had also fallen to only 48%
resulting in widespread famine. 20 million died from famine and disease in
the 1920s causing the government to abandon war communism.
Additionally, war communism was disliked due to the system of rationing,
especially as members of the bourgeoisie received little to none at all.
The Tambov Rising: there were risings in the important grain areas of the
Volga basin, North Caucasus and Western Siberia. The Tambov rising
happened in central Russia, where peasants reacted violently to
requisitioning teams. The revolt was only put down after 50,000 Red Army
, troops were sent into areas. This put pressure on the government to change
its policy.
The Kronstadt Mutiny: a revolt by sailors outside Petrograd. The mutiny was
over the increase in the power of the Party and its officials at the expense of
the workers. Its slogan was ‘Soviets without Bolsheviks’. The mutiny was
supressed by Red Army troops but was a shock to leaders and was a key
factor in Lenin’s decision to change his economic policy.
The New Economic Policy
What were the key features of the NEP? In agriculture: an end to
requisitioning and replaced with a system of taxation allowing peasants to
sell any remaining food at market for a profit. No forced programme of
collectivisation and the mir would stay. In industry: returned small scale
industry to private hands, piecework and bonuses were used to try and
increase production, reintroduction of currency for paying wages in 1921,
development of Nepmen.
How successful was the NEP? Industrial output rose rapidly during the first
3 years. Due to repairing roads and bridges as well as putting existing
factories back into production. Better harvests in 1922 and 1923. However,
there was corruption through the black market, prostitution was
widespread, and gangs of children roamed. One problem was imbalance
between agriculture and industry. Low prices for grain discouraged peasants
from growing grain (the scissors crisis). The government stepped into
regulate prices in December 1923.
Command economy: by 1926, the economy had been restored. The key to
further growth was increasing food production to support more industrial
workers and gain foreign exchange for new technology and machinery. With
government direction and control, the economic resources of the Soviet
Union could be maximised, trade with the rest of the world had been
severely reduced. Greater state control would remove the Nepmen and
kulaks. The Five-Year Plan, with its large-scale nationalisation and state
control would get rid of these people. Moving away from the NEP also gave
Stalin an opportunity to consolidate his hold over the Party leadership. The
launching of the five-Year Plan saw an effective removal of leaders of the
right in the early 1929. By 1928, decision had been made to extend state
control and implement a command economy as the best way to bring about
rapid industrialisation, while consolidating power of the Communist Party.
Socialism in one Section 2:
country The Stalin era: Five-Year Plans and Industrial Change, 1928-41
Bourgeois experts The five-year plans and industrial change: the five-year plans were
Super designed to break away from the NEP with its capitalist elements and bring
industrialisers about rapid industrialisation to modernise the economy and move towards
Gulag socialism. Fear of foreign invasion was to lead Stalin to declare ‘We are 50 to
100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance
in 10 years. Either we do it or we shall be crushed’ this was Stalin’s cry of
‘Socialism in one country’
The implementation of the five-year Plans: decision to abandon NEP was
made after the Fifteenth Party Congress in 1927. Plans aimed to use most
advanced technology. Industrialisation was placed under the direction of
Gosplan, the State Planning Authority. Targets were set for those industries
the government saw as priority. People’s Commissariats were set up to co-
ordinate the differing branches of industry and party officials were used at
