Notes for Edexcel International A Level history option 2c- russia 1917-95, provides notes, information and details about everything in the history IAL specification, the student who wrote these notes received 95/100 UMS points in the paper, provides essay plans and is organised by part
SOVIET ECONOMY SUMMARY:
October 1917- Bolsheviks took over → economy damaged due to WW1 and made
even worse after the civil war
Bolsheviks had ro restore the current economy and modernise the inefficient
agricultural and industrial system → Communists believed all aspects of the
economy should be in the hands of the workers and peasants but this was inefficient in
current situation
- Stalin frustrated by lack of progress → launched 5-Year Plans and the
collectivization of agriculture.
- Collectivisation- creating larger agricultural units where the peasants would farm
collectively rather than on individual farms.
- Stalin’s policies would transform the SU, but at an enormous cost.
1953- After Stalin’s death in economic policy changed. Consumer goods received greater
attention as the government tried to bring material benefits to the population.
1985- evident that this approach had achieved only limited success and the whole economy
was stagnating as growth came to a halt.
INCREASED CONTROL OVER ECONOMY IN 1917-28
Lenin, in a declaration issued on 5 Nov 1917.- “Comrade workers, remember that you
yourselves are administering the state. Nobody is going to help you if you do not yourselves
unite and take over all state affairs.”
^ Lenin’s words encouraged those who believed industry and agriculture was in
the hands of workers and peasants → that the aristocracy and bourgeoisie would
not exploit workers anymore. Lenin knew his words underestimated the situation.
- equal distribution of goods according to need could only happen if there were
goods to distribute → power to the workers and peasants was not
achievable
- Effects of WW1 on economy and revolution damaged the economy
- State control over the economy limited workers but was the only way to stablisise
economy
- Economic policy from 1917 until the launching of the First Five-Year Plan in 1928
was a series of attempts to resolve this key issue.
NATIONALISING AGRICULTURE
Lenin stated there was no blueprint when going from capitalism to communism.
→ it would take trial and error
Bolshevik wanted production in the hands of the proletariat but bourgeoisie had
expertise in management and technical skills → Lenin worked with these groups,
at least initially, until Bolshevik experts could take their place → This transitional
phase was called ‘state capitalism’.
State capitalism- transitional stage between the old bourgeois economy and a
new proletarian one → highlights ension between placing the economy into
Bolshevik hands yet ensuring that economic production returned to the levels it
,had reached before WW1 → middle of 1918, state capitalism submerged beneath
War Communism
- issue of how Bolshevik Party could retain control when workers and peasants were
often acting on their own initiative and without Bolshevik involvement.
- Once in power, the workers and peasants might be unwilling to give up, even to
a party that claimed to be working in their interests.
KEY MEASURES OF LENIN'S INITIAL ECONOMIC POLICY
- The Land Decree of Oct 1917- abolished private ownership of land → land in
the hands of ‘the people’ → vague statement, but enough to please the
peasantry, who viewed the decree as giving them control over the land
they farmed and worked.
- The Decree on Workers’ Control of Nov 1917- placed control of the factories into
the hands of the industrial workers.
- 27 Dec nationalising banks- , and, along with the State Bank, amalgamated into the
People’s Bank of the Russian Republic.
EFFECTS OF THESE POLICIES:
- Gave power to workers and peasants → but neg effect of economy
→ worker council voted to hire pay which did little to improve prod and
inflation
- Managers dismissed sometimes forcefully → those with industrial skills
removed by workers as protest from harsh conditions
- Bolsheviks realised they needed to increase controls on economy
- Dec 1917- Supreme Council of the National Economy (Vsenkha) set up and
supervised economy.
- Summer 1918- increased tensions between self management and gov controls in
economy
WAR COMMUNISM
Created due to damaged economy during the civil war in order to increase gov
controls and fix issues caused by the early decrees → inefficiencies
WHAT DID WAR COMMUNISM LEAD TO:
- Abolishing private enterprise
- Vsenkha set up
- In factories → workers councils replaced by high management → creating
hierarchy and discipline, military style control on workers, death penalty
on those who strike
- Private trading banned
- ‘Communist saturdays’ → unpaid working days created to ‘serve the party’
- Limiting transaction of money to limit inflation
- Collapsed currency replaced by bartering → seen as a form of capitalism,
workers paid by goods rather than money
- Requisitioning introduced- 150,000 volunteers used to seize grain, introducing
rationing
- Radicalisation- increased bolshevik control on nationalisation
- June 1918- industries with 10 or more workers followed a set of rules given by gov
, War communism was highly effective when ensuring that red army
members gained resources needed to win civil war → but failed to take
ordinary citizens into consideration and increased suffering on peasants
2) THE NEP AND STATE CONTROL
1921- introduced after war communism → war communism allowed the red army
to prepare for the war however led to criticism and suffering of peasants
ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS
- By end of war- production levels to 20% of its 1913 levels and some sectors
stopped completely
- Food prod fell- 48% of 1913 levels- famine across russia → lack of
food led to diseases such as typhus & smallpox → 20million people died
from famine and disease in the 1920s
- Army soldiers had to resettle in civillian lifestyle → unpopularity of
war communism due to: rationing, requisitioning and return of
hierarchy, criticism of WC (war communism) and gov plans to
remove mir
Mir- org of village elders that controlled the peasants and their agricultural work. post
feb rev 1917- peasants able to gain control over mir and used it for their own
benefit → bolsheviks dislike mir since it halt control over the countryside and aim
of collective farms. Under War Communism, the Bolsheviks drew up plans for the
removal of the mir.
KRONSDAT MUTINY 1921
- at the Kronstadt naval base against the imposition of orders on the local soviet from
the Bolshevik government.
- The slogan of the mutineers was ‘Soviets without Bolsheviks’.
Reforms that the sailors wanted were introduced…
- The immediate free and fair election of new soviets.
- Release of all anarchist, Menshevik and SR political prisoners.
- A restoration of freedom of speech and the press.
- The abolition of the Cheka.
- An end to War Communism.
The mutiny crushed by the Red Army but caused shock to lenin since sailors were
previously supporters and were the ‘reddest of the red’
TAMBOV RISING (1920-21)
- peasant uprising in Tambov region of central Russia
- sparked doff due to requisition grain for use in the cities and the army.
- The uprising was largely spontaneous initally but peasants were able to build a
Green Army and establishing control over a large area.
- took over 50,000 Bolshevik troops to put down
FEATURES OF THE NEP
IN AGRICULTURE…
- End of requsitioning
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