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NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (NEP)- the policy of the Soviet government, under which all enterprises of one industry were subordinate to a single central management body - the main committee (head office). Changed the policy of “war communism”. The transition from “war communism” to the NEP was proclaimed by the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party in March 1921. The initial idea of ​​the transition was formulated in the works of V.I. Lenin 1921–1923: the ultimate goal remains the same - socialism, but the situation in Russia after the civil war dictates the need resort to a “reformist” method of action in fundamental issues of economic construction. Instead of directly and completely breaking the old system to replace it with a new socio-economic structure, carried out during the years of “war communism”, the Bolsheviks took a “reformist” approach: not to break the old socio-economic structure, trade, small farming, small business, capitalism, but carefully and gradually master them and get the opportunity to expose them government regulation. In Lenin's last works, the concept of NEP included ideas about the use of commodity-money relations, all forms of ownership - state, cooperative, private, mixed, self-financing. It was proposed to temporarily retreat from the achieved “military-communist” gains, to take a step back in order to gain strength for the leap to socialism.

Initially, the framework of the NEP reforms was determined by the party leadership by the extent to which the reforms strengthened its monopoly on power. The main measures taken within the framework of the NEP: surplus appropriation was replaced by a food tax, followed by new measures designed to interest broad social strata in the results of their economic activity. Free trade was legalized, private individuals received the right to engage in handicrafts and open industrial enterprises with up to a hundred workers. Small nationalized enterprises were returned to their former owners. In 1922 the right to lease land and use hired labor was recognized; The system of labor duties and labor mobilizations was abolished. Payment in kind was replaced by cash, a new state bank was established and the banking system was restored.

The ruling party carried out all these changes without abandoning its ideological views and command methods of managing socio-political and economic processes. “War communism” gradually lost ground.

For its development, the NEP needed the decentralization of economic management, and in August 1921 the Council of Labor and Defense (SLO) adopted a resolution to reorganize the central administration system, in which all enterprises of the same industry were subordinate to a single central management body - the main committee (main committee). The number of branch headquarters was reduced, only large industry and basic industries farms.

Partial denationalization of property, privatization of many previously nationalized enterprises, a system of running the economy based on cost accounting, competition, introduction of leasing joint ventures- all this character traits NEP. At the same time, these “capitalist” economic elements were combined with coercive measures adopted during the years of “war communism.”

The NEP led to a rapid economic recovery. The economic interest that appeared among peasants in the production of agricultural products made it possible to quickly saturate the market with food and overcome the consequences of the hungry years of “war communism.”

However, already at the early stage of the NEP (1921–1923), recognition of the role of the market was combined with measures to abolish it. Most Communist Party leaders viewed the NEP as a “necessary evil,” fearing that it would lead to the restoration of capitalism. Many Bolsheviks retained “military-communist” illusions that the destruction of private property, trade, money, equality in the distribution of material goods lead to communism, and the NEP is a betrayal of communism. In essence, the NEP was designed to continue the course towards socialism, through maneuvering, social compromise with the majority of the population, to move the country towards the party’s goal - socialism, although more slowly and with less risk. It was believed that in market relations the role of the state was the same as under “war communism,” and that it should carry out economic reform within the framework of “socialism.” All this was taken into account in the laws adopted in 1922 and in subsequent legislative acts.

The admission of market mechanisms, which led to economic recovery, allowed the political regime to strengthen. However, its fundamental incompatibility with the essence of the NEP as a temporary economic compromise with the peasantry and bourgeois elements of the city inevitably led to the rejection of the idea of ​​the NEP. Even in the most favorable years for its development (until the mid-20s), progressive steps in pursuing this policy were made uncertainly, contradictorily, with an eye to the past stage of “war communism.”

Soviet and, for the most part, post-Soviet historiography, reducing the reasons for the collapse of the NEP to purely economic factors, deprived herself of the opportunity to fully reveal its contradictions - between the requirements normal functioning economy and the political priorities of the party leadership, aimed first at limiting and then completely ousting the private producer.

The country’s leadership’s interpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the suppression of all those who disagree with it, as well as the continued adherence of the majority of the party’s cadres to the “military-communist” views adopted during the civil war, reflected the communists’ inherent desire to achieve their ideological principles. At the same time, the strategic goal of the party (socialism) remained the same, and the NEP was seen as a temporary retreat from the “war communism” achieved over the years. Therefore, everything was done to prevent the NEP from going beyond limits dangerous for this purpose.

Market methods of regulating the economy in NEP Russia were combined with non-economic methods, with administrative intervention. The predominance of state ownership of the means of production and large-scale industry was the objective basis for such intervention.

During the NEP years, the party and state leaders did not want reforms, but were concerned that the private sector would gain an advantage over the public sector. Fearful of the NEP, they took measures to discredit it. Official propaganda treated the private trader in every possible way, and the image of the “NEPman” as an exploiter, a class enemy, was formed in the public consciousness. Since the mid-1920s, measures to curb the development of the NEP were replaced by a course towards its curtailment. The dismantling of NEPA began behind the scenes, first with measures to tax the private sector, then depriving it of legal guarantees. At the same time, loyalty to the new economic policy was proclaimed at all party forums. At the end of the 1920s, considering that the new economic policy no longer served socialism, the country's leadership canceled it. The methods by which it curtailed the NEP were revolutionary. During its implementation, the rural “bourgeoisie” (kulaks) were “dekulakized”, all their property was confiscated, exiled to Siberia, and the “remnants of the urban bourgeoisie” - entrepreneurs (“NEPmen”), as well as members of their families were deprived of political rights (“disenfranchised” ); many were prosecuted.

Efim Gimpelson

APPLICATION. DECREE OF THE ALL-Russian Central Executive Committee ON REPLACEMENT OF DISTRIBUTION BY NATURAL TAX.

1. To ensure correct and calm farming based on freer disposal of the farmer with the products of his labor and his economic means, in order to strengthen the peasant economy and increase its productivity, as well as in order to accurately establish the state obligations falling on farmers, appropriation, as a method of state procurement of food, raw materials and fodder, is replaced by a tax in kind.

2. This tax should be less than that imposed hitherto through appropriation. The amount of the tax should be calculated so as to cover the most necessary needs of the army, urban workers and the non-agricultural population. total amount tax should be constantly reduced as the restoration of transport and industry allows the Soviet government to receive products Agriculture in exchange for factory and artisanal products.

3. The tax is levied in the form of a percentage or share of the products produced on the farm, based on the harvest, the number of eaters on the farm and the presence of livestock on it.

4. The tax must be progressive; the percentage of deductions for farms of middle peasants, low-income owners and for farms of urban workers should be reduced. The farms of the poorest peasants may be exempt from some, and in exceptional cases from all types of taxes in kind.

Diligent peasant owners who increase the sowing area on their farms, as well as increase the productivity of farms as a whole, receive benefits for the implementation of the tax in kind.

7. Responsibility for fulfilling the tax is assigned to each individual owner, and the bodies of Soviet power are instructed to impose penalties on everyone who has not complied with the tax. Circular liability is abolished.

To control the application and implementation of the tax, organizations of local peasants are formed according to groups of payers different sizes tax

8. All supplies of food, raw materials and fodder remaining with farmers after they have fulfilled the tax are at their full disposal and can be used by them to improve and strengthen their economy, to increase personal consumption and for exchange for products of factory and handicraft industries and agricultural production. Exchange is allowed within the limits of local economic turnover, both through cooperative organizations and in markets and bazaars.

9. Those farmers who wish to hand over the surplus remaining to them after completing the tax to the state, in exchange for these voluntarily surrendered surpluses, should be provided with consumer goods and agricultural implements. For this purpose, a state permanent stock of agricultural implements and consumer goods is created, both from domestically produced products and from products purchased abroad. For the latter purpose, part of the state gold fund and part of the harvested raw materials are allocated.

10. Supplying the poorest rural population produced in state order according to special rules.

11. In furtherance of this Law, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee proposes to the Council of People's Commissars to issue corresponding detailed regulations no later than one month.

Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee

M. Kalinin

Secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee

NEP 1921-1928- one of the important stages in the development of the USSR. After the end, the situation in the country became catastrophic. A significant part of production was stopped, there was no coordination, as well as the distribution of labor. Major changes were needed to rebuild the country.

The previously existing surplus appropriation system did not justify itself. It caused people's discontent and riots; a country without governance still could not provide itself with food. During the transition to taxation, the tax was halved, creating a favorable situation for further development.

NEP period.

During the founding of the NEP, the party began to restore production, and began to build some factories that were necessary for the new state. Workers began to be recruited. The main task is to provide everyone with opportunities for full-fledged work for the benefit of the USSR.

Elements entered market economy. This was inevitable, because its complete destruction at the founding Soviet Union dealt a serious blow to the country.

During this period, a command economy was built. From now on, the state managed production, sent norms and orders to factories. The party could connect several enterprises in unified system and established contacts between them. All this was necessary for the consistent production of products, because some complex products require the use of several factories.

During the NEP period, enterprises and other participants economic processes received significant funding. Factories could issue their own bonds to attract funds from people and invest them in upgrading production.

Basic goals:

• establishing economic ties;
• gradual introduction command economy and adaptation of enterprises to the new system of relationships between industries;
• stimulating the development and renovation of factories;
• providing maximum opportunities for enterprise growth;
• rational use of labor and financial resources;
• carrying out monetary reform and introducing a new payment unit.

Results of the NEP.

Results conditioned by victory over devastation and chaos, which was poorly controlled by the state. The economy was restored, relationships between participants in economic processes were established, and equipment renewal at enterprises began. But the problem was the lack of management personnel and the qualifications of these people, the minimum amount of foreign investment, and the inhibition of the development of the private sector.

Prerequisites

During the hostilities, the Donbass, the Baku oil region, the Urals and Siberia were particularly affected, and many mines and mines were destroyed. Factories shut down due to a lack of fuel and raw materials. Workers were forced to leave the cities and go to the countryside. The volume of industrial production decreased significantly, and as a result, agricultural production.

Society has degraded, its intellectual potential has weakened significantly. Most of the Russian intelligentsia were destroyed or left the country.

Thus, the main task domestic policy The RCP(b) and the Soviet state consisted of restoring the destroyed economy, creating the material, technical and socio-cultural basis for building socialism, promised by the Bolsheviks to the people.

The peasants, outraged by the actions of the food detachments, not only refused to hand over grain, but also rose up in armed struggle. Uprisings spread across the Tambov region, Ukraine, Don, Kuban, Volga region and Siberia. The peasants demanded a change in agrarian policy, the elimination of the dictates of the RCP(b), and the convening of a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal equal suffrage. Units of the Red Army were sent to suppress these protests.

Discontent also spread to the army. On March 1, 1921, sailors and Red Army soldiers of the Kronstadt garrison under the slogan “ For Soviets without communists!"demanded the release from imprisonment of all representatives of socialist parties, holding re-elections of the Soviets and, as follows from the slogan, the expulsion of all communists from them, granting freedom of speech, meetings and unions to all parties, ensuring freedom of trade, allowing peasants to freely use their land and dispose of the products of their economy, that is, the elimination of surplus appropriation.

From the appeal of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt:

V. I. Lenin

Comrades and citizens! Our country is going through a difficult moment. Hunger, cold, and economic devastation have been holding us in an iron grip for three years now. The Communist Party, which rules the country, has become disconnected from the masses and has been unable to bring it out of the state of general devastation. With those worries that Lately took place in Petrograd and Moscow and which quite clearly indicated that the party had lost the trust of the working masses, it was not considered. It also did not take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them the machinations of counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken. These unrest, these demands are the voice of all the people, all the working people. All workers, sailors and Red Army soldiers clearly see at the moment that only through common efforts, the common will of the working people, can we give the country bread, firewood, coal, clothe the shoeless and undressed, and lead the republic out of the dead end...

Convinced of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the rebels, the authorities launched an assault on Kronstadt. By alternating artillery shelling and infantry actions, Kronstadt was captured by March 18; Some of the rebels died, the rest went to Finland or surrendered.

Progress of development of NEP

Proclamation of the NEP

In connection with the introduction of the NEP, certain legal guarantees were introduced for private property. Thus, on May 22, 1922, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a decree “On basic private property rights recognized by the RSFSR, protected by its laws and protected by the courts of the RSFSR.” Then, by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of November 11, 2022, the Civil Code of the RSFSR was put into effect from January 1, 2023, which, in particular, provided that every citizen has the right to organize industrial and commercial enterprises.

NEP in the financial sector

The task of the first stage of the monetary reform, implemented within the framework of one of the directions of the state’s economic policy, was to stabilize the monetary and credit relations of the USSR with other countries. After two denominations, which resulted in 1 million rubles. previous banknotes was equal to 1 rub. new sovznak, parallel circulation of depreciating sovznak was introduced to service small trade turnover and hard chervonets secured precious metals, stable foreign exchange and easily traded goods. The Chervonets was equal to the old 10-ruble gold coin, which contained 7.74 g of pure gold.

It is necessary, however, to note the fact that wealthy peasants were taxed at higher rates. Thus, on the one hand, the opportunity was provided to improve well-being, but on the other, there was no point in expanding the economy too much. All this taken together led to the “middleization” of the village. The well-being of peasants as a whole has increased compared to the pre-war level, the number of poor and rich has decreased, and the share of middle peasants has increased.

However, even such a half-hearted reform yielded certain results, and by 1926 the food supply had improved significantly.

The Nizhny Novgorod Fair, the largest in Russia, resumed (1921-1929).

In general, the NEP had a beneficial effect on the condition of the village. Firstly, the peasants had an incentive to work. Secondly (compared to pre-revolutionary times), many have increased land allotment- the main means of production.

The country needed money - to maintain the army, to restore industry, to support the world revolutionary movement. In a country where 80% of the population was peasantry, the main burden of the tax burden fell on them. But the peasantry was not rich enough to provide all the needs of the state and the necessary tax revenues. Increased taxation on especially wealthy peasants also did not help, therefore, from the mid-1920s, other, non-tax methods of replenishing the treasury, such as forced loans, reduced prices for grain and inflated prices for industrial goods, began to be actively used. As a result, industrial goods, if we calculate their cost in pounds of wheat, turned out to be several times more expensive than before the war, despite their lower quality. A phenomenon emerged that, thanks to Trotsky’s light hand, began to be called “price scissors.” The peasants reacted simply - they stopped selling grain beyond what they needed to pay taxes. The first crisis in the sales of industrial goods arose in the fall of 1923. The peasants needed plows and other industrial products, but refused to buy them at inflated prices. The next crisis arose in the - business year (that is, in the fall of 1924 - spring of 1925). The crisis was called the “procurement” crisis, since procurement amounted to only two-thirds of the expected level. Finally, in the business year there was a new crisis: it was not possible to collect even the most necessary things.

So, by 1925, it became clear that the national economy had come to a contradiction: further progress towards the market was hampered by political and ideological factors, the fear of the “degeneration” of power; a return to the military-communist type of economy was hampered by memories of the peasant war of 1920 and mass famine, and fear of anti-Soviet protests.

Cooperation of all forms and types developed rapidly. The role of production cooperatives in agriculture was insignificant (in 1927 they provided only 2% of all agricultural products and 7% of marketable products), but the simplest primary forms- sales, supply and credit cooperation - by the end of the 1920s, more than half of all peasant farms. By the end of the year, non-production cooperation various types, primarily peasant, covered 28 million people (13 times more than in the city). In a socialized retail trade 60-80% came from cooperatives and only 20-40% from the state itself; in industry in 1928, 13% of all production came from cooperatives. There was cooperative legislation, lending, and insurance.

To replace the depreciated and actually already rejected by the circulation of Sovznak notes, the city began issuing a new monetary unit- chervonets, which had a gold content and exchange rate in gold (1 chervonets = 10 pre-revolutionary gold rubles = 7.74 g of pure gold). In the city, the sovznaki, which were quickly being replaced by chervonets, stopped printing altogether and were withdrawn from circulation; in the same year the budget was balanced and the use of money emissions to cover government expenses was prohibited; new treasury notes were issued - rubles (10 rubles = 1 chervonets). On foreign exchange market both within the country and abroad, chervonets were freely exchanged for gold and basic foreign currencies at the pre-war exchange rate of the Tsar's ruble (1 U.S. $= 1.94 rubles).

The credit system has been revived. Was created in National Bank RSFSR (reformed in 1923 into the State Bank of the USSR), which began lending to industry and trade on a commercial basis. In 1922-1925. a number of specialized banks were created: joint-stock banks, in which the shareholders were the State Bank, syndicates, cooperatives, private and even at one time foreign, for lending to certain sectors of the economy and regions of the country; cooperative - for lending to consumer cooperation; agricultural credit societies organized on shares, linked to the republican and central agricultural banks; mutual credit societies - for lending to private industry and trade; savings banks - to mobilize the population's savings. As of October 1, 1923, there were 17 independent banks operating in the country, and the State Bank’s share in the total credit investments of the entire banking system was 2/3. By October 1, 1926, the number of banks increased to 61, and the State Bank's share in lending to the national economy decreased to 48%.

Commodity-money relations, which they had previously tried to banish from production and exchange, in the 1920s penetrated into all pores of the economic organism and became the main link between its individual parts.

Discipline within the Communist Party itself was also tightened. At the end of 1920, an opposition group appeared in the party - the “workers' opposition”, which demanded the transfer of all power in production to trade unions. In order to stop such attempts, the X Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921 adopted a resolution on party unity. According to this resolution, decisions made by the majority must be implemented by all party members, including those who disagree with them.

The consequence of one-party rule was the merging of the party and the government. The same people occupied the main positions in both the party (Politburo) and government agencies(SNK, All-Russian Central Executive Committee, etc.). At the same time, the personal authority of the people's commissars and the need in the conditions of the Civil War to make urgent, urgent decisions led to the fact that the center of power was concentrated not in the legislative body (the All-Russian Central Executive Committee), but in the government - the Council of People's Commissars.

All these processes led to the fact that the actual position of a person, his authority played a greater role in the 20s than his place in the formal structure of state power. That is why, when speaking about figures of the 20s, we first of all name not their positions, but their surnames.

In parallel with the change in the position of the party in the country, the degeneration of the party itself took place. It is obvious that there will always be much more people willing to join the ruling party than to join the underground party, membership in which cannot provide any other privileges than iron bunks or a noose around the neck. At the same time, the party, having become the ruling party, began to need to increase its numbers in order to fill government posts at all levels. This led to the rapid growth of the Communist Party after the revolution. On the one hand, periodic “purges” were carried out, designed to free the party from a huge number of “co-opted” pseudo-communists, on the other, the growth of the party was spurred from time to time by mass recruitment, the most significant of which was the “Lenin Call” in 1924, after the death of Lenin. The inevitable consequence of this process was the dissolution of old, ideological Bolsheviks among young party members and not at all young neophytes. In 1927, out of 1,300 thousand people who were members of the party, only 8 thousand had pre-revolutionary experience; Most of the rest did not know communist theory at all.

Not only the intellectual and educational level, but also the moral level of the party decreased. In this regard, the results of the party purge carried out in the second half of 1921 with the aim of removing “kulak-proprietary and petty-bourgeois elements” from the party are indicative. Out of 732 thousand, only 410 thousand members were retained in the party (slightly more than half!). At the same time, a third of those expelled were expelled for passivity, another quarter for “discrediting the Soviet regime,” “selfishness,” “careerism,” “bourgeois lifestyle,” “decay in everyday life.”

In connection with the growth of the party, the initially inconspicuous position of secretary began to acquire increasing importance. Any secretary is a secondary position by definition. This is a person who ensures that the necessary formalities are observed during official events. Since April 1922, the Bolshevik Party had the position of General Secretary. He connected the leadership of the secretariat of the Central Committee and the accounting and distribution department, which distributed lower-level party members according to various positions. Stalin received this position.

Soon the privileges of the upper layer of party members began to expand. Since 1926, this layer has received a special name - “nomenklatura”. This is how they began to call party-state positions included in the list of positions, the appointment to which was subject to approval in the Accounting and Distribution Department of the Central Committee.

The processes of bureaucratization of the party and centralization of power took place against the backdrop of a sharp deterioration in Lenin's health. Actually, the year of the introduction of the NEP became for him last year a full life. In May 1922, he was struck by the first blow - his brain was damaged, so the almost helpless Lenin was given a very gentle work schedule. In March 1923, a second attack occurred, after which Lenin dropped out of life altogether for six months, almost learning to pronounce words all over again. He had barely begun to recover from the second attack when the third and last one occurred in January. As an autopsy showed, for the last almost two years of Lenin’s life, only one hemisphere of his brain was active.

But between the first and second attacks, he still tried to participate in political life. Realizing that his days were numbered, he tried to draw the attention of the congress delegates to the most dangerous trend - the degeneration of the party. In letters to the congress, known as his “political testament” (December 1922 - January 1923), Lenin proposed expanding the Central Committee at the expense of the workers, choosing a new Central Control Commission (Central Control Commission) - from the proletarians, cutting back the enormously swollen and therefore ineffective RKI (Workers' -peasant inspection).

Even before Lenin’s death, at the end of 1922, a struggle began between his “heirs,” or rather, pushing Trotsky away from the helm. In the fall of 1923, the struggle took on an open character. In October, Trotsky addressed the Central Committee with a letter in which he pointed out the formation of a bureaucratic intra-party regime. A week later, a group of 46 old Bolsheviks (“Statement 46”) wrote an open letter in support of Trotsky. The Central Committee, of course, responded with a decisive denial. The leading role in this was played by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. This was not the first time that heated disputes had arisen within the Bolshevik Party, but, unlike previous discussions, this time the ruling faction actively used labeling. Trotsky was not refuted with reasonable arguments - he was simply accused of Menshevism, deviationism and other mortal sins. The substitution of labels for a real dispute is a new phenomenon: it did not exist before, but it will become increasingly common as the political process develops in the 20s.

Trotsky was defeated quite easily - the next party conference, held in January 1924, published a resolution on party unity (previously kept secret), and Trotsky was forced to remain silent, but not for long. In the fall of 1924, however, he published the book “ Lessons from October”, in which he unequivocally stated that he and Lenin made the revolution. Then Zinoviev and Kamenev “suddenly” remembered that before the VI Congress of the RSDLP(b) in July 1917, Trotsky was a Menshevik. In December 1924, Trotsky was removed from his post as People's Commissar of Military Affairs, but remained in the Politburo.

results

The NEP, that is, Lenin's retreat from communism to some free market practices and the emergence of a free economic incentive, led to a rapid improvement in living conditions. Peasants began to sow again, private trade and handicrafts began to bring long-disappeared goods to the market, and the country began to revive. The monetary reform that had begun led to the replacement of worthless billions with a solid and solid red ruble.

Curtailment of the NEP

Conclusions and Conclusions

The undoubted success of the NEP was the restoration of the destroyed economy, and if we take into account that after the revolution Russia lost highly qualified personnel (economists, managers, production workers), then the success of the new government becomes a “victory over devastation.” At the same time, the lack of those highly qualified personnel became the cause of miscalculations and mistakes.

Significant rates of economic growth, however, were achieved only due to the return to operation of pre-war capacities, because Russia only reached economic indicators pre-war years. The potential for further economic growth turned out to be extremely low. Private sector was not allowed to “commanding heights in the economy”, foreign investment were not welcomed, and investors themselves were in no particular hurry to come to Russia due to ongoing instability and the threat of nationalization of capital. The state was unable to make long-term capital-intensive investments using its own funds alone.

The situation in the village was also contradictory, where the “kulaks” were clearly oppressed.

Women's fashion during the New Economic Policy

Lenin's opinion

When asked whether Lenin believed that the NEP was the collapse of communist theory, the leader of the world proletariat in a private conversation gave the following answer:

Of course we failed. We thought of implementing a new communist society at the behest of the pike. Meanwhile, this is a matter of decades and generations. So that the party does not lose its soul, faith and will to fight, we must portray to it the return to an exchange economy, to capitalism, as some kind of temporary retreat. But for ourselves we must clearly see that the attempt failed, that it is impossible to suddenly change the psychology of people, the habits of their age-old life. You can try to drive the population into new system by force, but the question is still whether we would have retained power in this all-Russian meat grinder.

NEP and culture

One cannot fail to mention the very important influence of the NEP - its influence on culture. The wealthy Nepmen - private traders, shopkeepers and artisans, not concerned with the romantic revolutionary spirit of universal happiness or opportunistic considerations about successfully serving the new government, found themselves in the leading roles during this period.

The new rich were of little interest in classical art - they lacked the education to understand it. They set their own fashion. The main entertainment became cabarets and restaurants - a pan-European trend of that time (Berlin cabarets were especially famous in the 20s).

The cabaret featured artists-couplets with simple song plots and simple rhymes and rhythms, performers of funny feuilletons, sketches, and entreprise (one of the most famous artist-couplets of the time was Mikhail Savoyarov). The artistic value of such performances was highly controversial, and many of them have long been forgotten. But, nevertheless, simple and unpretentious lyrics and light musical motifs of some songs have entered the cultural history of the country. And they not only entered, but began to be passed on from generation to generation, acquiring new rhymes, changing some words, merging with folk art. It was then that such popular songs as “Bagels”, “Lemons”, “Murka”, “Lanterns”, “The blue ball is spinning and spinning”...(the author of the lyrics to the songs “Babliki” and “Lemonchiki” was the disgraced poet Yakov Yadov).

These songs have been repeatedly criticized and ridiculed for being apolitical, lacking ideas, bourgeois taste, and even outright vulgarity. But the longevity of these couplets proved their originality and talent. And many other of these songs carry the same style: at the same time ironic, lyrical, poignant, with simple rhymes and rhythms - they are similar in style to “Bagels” and “Lemonchiki”. But the exact authorship has not yet been established. And all that is known about Yadov is that he composed a huge number of simple and very talented couplet songs of that period.

Postcard from the time of the New Economic Policy

Light genres also reigned in dramatic theaters. And here not everything was kept within the required boundaries. The Moscow Vakhtangov Studio (the future Vakhtangov Theater) in 1922 turned to the production of Carlo Gozzi's fairy tale “Princess Turandot”. It would seem that a fairy tale is such a simple and unpretentious material. The actors laughed and joked while they rehearsed. So, with jokes, sometimes very sharp, a performance appeared that was destined to become a symbol of the theater, a pamphlet performance, concealing within itself, behind the lightness of the genre, wisdom and a smile at the same time. Since then, there have been three different productions of this play. A somewhat similar story happened with another performance of the same theater - in 1926, Mikhail Bulgakov’s play “Zoykina’s Apartment” was staged there. The theater itself turned to the writer with a request to write a light vaudeville on a modern NEP theme. The vaudeville fun, seemingly unprincipled play hid a serious social satire behind its external lightness, and the performance was banned by decision of the People's Commissariat of Education on March 17, 1929 with the wording: “For distortion of Soviet reality.”

In the 1920s, a real magazine boom began in Moscow. In 1922, several satirical humor magazines began to be published at once: “Crocodile”, “Satyricon”, “Smekhach”, “Splinter”, a little later, in 1923 - “Prozhektor” (under the newspaper “Pravda”); in the 1921/22 season, the magazine “Ekran” appeared, among the authors of which were A. Sidorov, P. Kogan, G. Yakulov, J. Tugendhold, M. Koltsov, N. Foregger, V. Mass, E. Zozulya and many others . In 1925, the famous publisher V. A. Reginin and poet V. I. Narbut founded the monthly “30 Days”. This entire press, in addition to news from working life, constantly publishes humoresques, funny, unpretentious stories, parody poems, and caricatures. But with the end of the NEP, their publication ends. Since 1930, Krokodil remained the only all-Union satirical magazine. The era of the NEP ended tragically, but the traces of this riotous time remained forever.

Ulyanovsk State Agricultural

Academy

Department of National History

Test

Discipline: “National History”

On the topic: “New economic policy of the Soviet state (1921-1928)”

Completed by a 1st year SSE student

Faculty of Economics

Correspondence department

Specialty "Accounting, analysis"

and audit"

Melnikova Natalya

Alekseevna

Code No. 29037

Ulyanovsk - 2010

Prerequisites for the transition to the New Economic Policy (NEP).

The main task of the Bolsheviks' domestic policy was to restore the economy destroyed by the revolution and civil war, to create a material, technical and socio-cultural basis for building the socialism promised by the Bolsheviks to the people. In the fall of 1920, a series of crises broke out in the country.

1. Economic crisis:

Decrease in population (due to losses during the civil war and emigration);

Destruction of mines and mines (Donbass, Baku oil region, Ural and Siberia were especially affected);

Lack of fuel and raw materials; shutdown of factories (which led to a decline in the role of large industrial centers);

Massive exodus of workers from the city to the countryside;

Stop movement for 30 railways;

Rising inflation;

Reduction of sown areas and disinterest of peasants in expanding the economy;

A decrease in the level of management, which affected the quality of decisions made and was expressed in the disruption of economic ties between enterprises and regions of the country, and a decline in labor discipline;

Mass hunger in the city and countryside, a decline in living standards, an increase in morbidity and mortality.

2. Social and political crisis:

Workers' dissatisfaction with unemployment and food shortages, infringement of trade union rights, the introduction of forced labor and its equalization of pay;

The expansion of strike movements in the city, in which workers advocated for the democratization of the country's political system and the convening of the Constituent Assembly;

Peasants' indignation at the continuation of surplus appropriation;

The beginning of the armed struggle of peasants demanding changes in agrarian policy, the elimination of the dictates of the RCP (b), the convening of a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal equal suffrage;

Intensification of the activities of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries;

Fluctuations in the army, often involved in the fight against peasant uprisings.

3. Internal party crisis:

Stratification of party members into an elite group and the party mass;

The emergence of opposition groups that defended the ideals of “true socialism” (the “democratic centralism” group, the “workers’ opposition”);

An increase in the number of people claiming leadership in the party (L.D. Trotsky, I.V. Stalin) and the emergence of a danger of its split;

Signs of moral degradation of party members.

4. Crisis of theory.

Russia had to live in conditions of capitalist encirclement, because hopes for world revolution. And this required a different strategy and tactics. V.I. Lenin was forced to reconsider the internal political course and admit that only satisfying the demands of the peasantry could save the power of the Bolsheviks.

So, with the help of the policy of “war communism” it was not possible to overcome the devastation caused by 4 years of Russia’s participation in the First World War, revolutions (February and October 1917) and deepened by the civil war. A drastic change was needed economic course. In December 1920, the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets took place. Among his most important decisions, the following can be noted: a commitment to the development of “war communism” and the material and technical modernization of the national economy based on electrification (GOELRO plan), and on the other hand, a refusal to mass create communes and state farms, relying on the “diligent peasant” was supposed to provide financial incentives.

NEP: goals, essence, methods, main activities.

After the congress, the State Planning Committee was created by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of February 22, 1921. In March 1921, at the X Congress of the RCP(b), two important decisions were made: to replace surplus appropriation with a tax in kind and on party unity. These two resolutions reflected the internal contradictions of the new economic policy, the transition to which was signaled by the decisions of the congress.

NEP - an anti-crisis program, the essence of which was to recreate a multi-structured economy while maintaining the “commanding heights” in the hands of the Bolshevik government. The levers of influence were to be the absolute power of the RCP(b), government sector in industry, decentralized financial system and monopoly foreign trade.

NEP goals:

Political: relieve social tension, strengthen the social base of Soviet power in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants;

Economic: prevent devastation, overcome the crisis and restore the economy;

Social: without waiting for the world revolution, to ensure favorable conditions for building a socialist society;

Foreign policy: overcome international isolation and restore political and economic relations with other states.

Achieving these goals led to the gradual collapse of the NEP in the second half of the 20s.

The transition to the NEP was legislatively formalized by the decrees of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, decisions of the IX All-Russian Congress of Soviets in December 1921. The NEP included a complex economic and socio-political events:

Replacement of surplus appropriation with food tax (until 1925 in in kind); products remaining on the farm after paying the tax in kind were allowed to be sold on the market;

Allowing private trade;

Attracting foreign capital to industrial development;

Leasing by the state of many small enterprises and retaining large and medium-sized industrial enterprises;

Land lease under state control;

Attracting foreign capital to the development of industry (some enterprises were concessioned to foreign capitalists);

Transfer of industry to full self-supporting and self-sufficiency;

Hiring work force;

Abolition of the card system and equal distribution;

Payment for all services;

Replacing wages in kind with cash wages, established depending on the quantity and quality of labor;

Abolition of universal labor conscription, introduction of labor exchanges.

The introduction of the NEP was not a one-time measure, but was a process extended over several years. Thus, initially trade was allowed to peasants only close to their place of residence. At the same time, Lenin counted on commodity exchange (exchange of production products at fixed prices and only

through state or cooperative stores), but by the autumn of 1921 he recognized the need for commodity-money relations.

NEP was not only economic policy. This is a set of measures of an economic, political, and ideological nature. During this period, the idea of ​​civil peace was put forward, the Code of Labor Laws and the Criminal Code were developed, the powers of the Cheka (renamed OGPU) were somewhat limited, an amnesty was declared for white emigration, etc. But the desire to attract to one’s side the specialists necessary for economic progress (increased salaries technical intelligentsia, creating conditions for creative work, etc.) were simultaneously combined with the suppression of those who could pose a danger to the dominance of the Communist Party (repressions against church ministers in 1921-1922, the trial of the leadership of the Right Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1922, deportation abroad of about 200 prominent figures of the Russian intelligentsia: N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, A.A. Kiesewetter, P.A. Sorokin, etc.).

In general, the NEP was assessed by contemporaries as a transitional stage. Fundamental difference in positions was associated with the answer to the question: “What is this transition leading to?”, according to which there were different points of view:

1. Some believed that, despite the utopian nature of their socialist goals, the Bolsheviks, by moving to the NEP, opened the way to evolution Russian economy to capitalism. They believed that the next stage of the country's development would be political liberalization. Therefore, the intelligentsia needs to support Soviet power. This point of view was most clearly expressed by the “Smena Vekhites” - representatives of the ideological movement among the intelligentsia, who received their name from the collection of articles by the authors of the cadet orientation “Smena Vekh” (Prague, 1921).

2. The Mensheviks believed that on the basis of the NEP the preconditions for socialism would be created, without which, in the absence of a world revolution, there could be no socialism in Russia. The development of the NEP would inevitably lead to the Bolsheviks abandoning their monopoly on power. Pluralism in economic sphere will create pluralism in the political system and undermine the foundations of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

3. The Social Revolutionaries in the NEP saw the possibility of implementing the “third way” - non-capitalist development. Taking into account the peculiarities of Russia - a diverse economy, the predominance of the peasantry - the Socialist Revolutionaries assumed that socialism in Russia required combining democracy with a cooperative socio-economic system.

4. The liberals developed their own concept of the NEP. He saw the essence of the new economic policy in the revival of capitalist relations in Russia. According to liberals, the NEP was an objective process that made it possible to solve the main task: to complete the modernization of the country begun by Peter I, to bring it into the mainstream of world civilization.

5. Bolshevik theorists (Lenin, Trotsky and others) viewed the transition to the NEP as a tactical move, a temporary retreat caused by an unfavorable balance of forces. They were inclined to understand the NEP as one of the possible

paths to socialism, but not direct, but relatively long-term. Lenin believed that, although the technical and economic backwardness of Russia did not allow the direct introduction of socialism, it could be gradually built, relying on the state of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” This plan did not involve “softening”, but the complete strengthening of the regime of the “proletarian”, but in fact the Bolshevik dictatorship. The “immaturity” of the socio-economic and cultural prerequisites of socialism was intended to compensate (as in the period of “war communism”) with terror. Lenin did not agree with the measures proposed (even by individual Bolsheviks) for some political liberalization - allowing the activity of socialist parties, a free press, the creation of a peasant union, etc. He proposed expanding the use of execution (with replacement by deportation abroad) to all types of activities of the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, etc. Remains of a multi-party system in the USSR

were liquidated, persecution of the church was launched, and the internal party regime was tightened. However, some Bolsheviks did not accept the NEP, considering it a capitulation.

Development of the political system of Soviet society during the NEP years.

Already in 1921-1924. reforms are being carried out in the management of industry, trade, cooperation, and the credit and financial sphere, and a two-level banking system: State Bank, Commercial and Industrial Bank, Bank for Foreign Trade, network of cooperative and local communal banks. Money issue(issue of money and valuable papers, which is a state monopoly) as the main source of income state budget is replaced by a system of direct and indirect taxes(commercial, income, agricultural, excise taxes on consumer goods, local taxes), fees for services (transport, communications, public utilities and etc.).

The development of commodity-money relations led to the restoration of the all-Russian domestic market. Large fairs are being recreated: Nizhny Novgorod, Baku, Irbit, Kiev, etc. Opening trading exchanges. A certain freedom of development of private capital in industry and trade is allowed. The creation of small private enterprises (with no more than 20 workers), concessions, leases, and mixed companies is allowed. According to the conditions of economic activity, consumer, agricultural, and handicraft cooperation were placed in a more advantageous position than private capital.

The rise of industry and the introduction of hard currency stimulated the restoration of agriculture. The high growth rates during the NEP years were largely explained by the “restorative effect”: existing but idle equipment was loaded, and old arable lands abandoned during the civil war were put into use in agriculture. When these reserves dried up at the end of the 20s, the country was faced with the need for huge capital investments in industry - in order to reconstruct old factories with worn-out equipment and create new industrial facilities.

Meanwhile, due to legal restrictions(private capital was not allowed into large, and to a large extent also into medium-sized industry), high taxation of private owners in both towns and villages, non-state investments were extremely limited.

Doesn't succeed Soviet authority and in attempts to attract foreign capital in any significant amount.

So, the new economic policy ensured the stabilization and restoration of the economy, but soon after its introduction, the first successes gave way to new difficulties. Your inability to overcome crisis phenomena economic methods and the use of command-directive functions was explained by the party leadership as the activities of class “enemies of the people” (NEPmen, kulaks, agronomists, engineers and other specialists). This was the basis for the deployment of repression and the organization of new political processes.

Results and reasons for the collapse of the NEP.

By 1925, the restoration of the national economy was largely completed. The total industrial output over the 5 years of the NEP increased more than 5 times and in 1925 reached 75% of the 1913 level; in 1926, in terms of gross industrial output, this level was exceeded. There was an upswing in new industries. In agriculture, the gross grain harvest amounted to 94% of the 1913 harvest, and in many livestock indicators, pre-war indicators were left behind.

The mentioned recovery can be called a real economic miracle financial system and stabilization of the domestic currency. In the 1924/1925 business year, the state budget deficit was completely eliminated, and the Soviet ruble became one of the hardest currencies in the world. The rapid pace of restoration of the national economy in the conditions of a socially oriented economy, set by the existing Bolshevik regime, was accompanied by a significant increase in the living standards of the people, the rapid development of public education, science, culture and art.

The NEP also created new difficulties, along with successes. The difficulties were mainly due to three reasons: an imbalance between industry and agriculture; purposeful class orientation of the government's internal policy; strengthening of contradictions between the diversity of social interests of different layers of society and authoritarianism. The need to ensure the country's independence and defense capability required further development of the economy and, first of all, heavy defense industry. The priority of industry over the agricultural sector resulted in an open transfer of funds from villages to cities through price and tax policy. Market prices for industrial goods were artificially inflated, and purchase price raw materials and products were undervalued, that is, the notorious “scissors” prices were introduced. The quality of supplied industrial products was low. On the one hand, there was an overstocking of warehouses with expensive and inferior manufactured goods. On the other hand, peasants who reaped good harvests in the mid-20s refused to sell grain to the state at fixed prices, preferring to sell it on the market.

Bibliography.

1) T.M. Timoshina " Economic history Russia", "Filin", 1998.

2) N. Vert “History of the Soviet State”, “The Whole World”, 1998

3) “Our Fatherland: Experience of Political History” Kuleshov S.V., Volobuev O.V., Pivovar E.I. et al., "Terra", 1991

4) " Recent history fatherland. XX century" edited by Kiselev A.F., Shchagin E.M., "Vlados", 1998.

5) L.D. Trotsky “The Betrayed Revolution. What is the USSR and where is it going? (http://www.alina.ru/koi/magister/library/revolt/trotl001.htm)

When did the NEP end?

One of the problems in the history of the NEP, which is invariably in the field of view of domestic and foreign authors, is the question of its chronological boundaries. The conclusions that economists and historians reach on this issue are far from clear-cut.

Almost all domestic and foreign experts associate the beginning of the NEP with the X Congress of the RCP (b), held in March 1921. However, recently one can find attempts to clarify the initial boundaries of the NEP. In particular, it is proposed to consider that “Lenin’s speech in March 1921 was a tactical step to get bread and reduce the intensity of the insurrectionary war. This policy will become new only with the beginning of the introduction of self-financing in industry and especially after the complete legalization of trade.” Therefore, “the milestone of the NEP was not the 10th Party Congress, as traditionally stated in historiography, but reforms in the commercial and industrial sector. In the village, previously unrealized... ideas were implemented, only refined in March 1921.”

IN Soviet period In domestic historiography and in economic literature, the position was postulated that the new economic policy continued until the complete victory of socialism. This point of view was formulated by I.V. Stalin. The “History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)” stated that “the new economic policy was designed for the complete victory of socialist forms of economy,” and “the USSR entered a new period of development, the period of completion of the construction of a socialist society and a gradual transition to a communist society.” adoption of the Constitution of the USSR in 1936. This interpretation of the chronological boundaries of the NEP was reflected in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, which, in full accordance with the “Short Course,” stated that the new economic policy “ended in the 2nd half of the 30s.” victory of socialism in the USSR." This problem was interpreted in a similar way by Soviet political economists.

In the second half of the 1980s. In our country, conditions have arisen for a comprehensive discussion of this problem and clarification of the chronological boundaries of the NEP. Some Russian researchers drew attention to the fact that the NEP was not a frozen economic policy, that it evolved and went through a number of stages in its development, characterized by important features and at the same time preserving common essential features.

So, V.P. Dmitrenko identifies the following stages of the NEP:

1) spring 1921 - spring 1922 (transition to NEP); 2) 1922-1923 (“ensuring close interaction of NEP management methods” as a result of the monetary reform to overcome the “price scissors”); 3) 1924-1925 (expansion and streamlining of market relations while strengthening the planning principle in management state enterprises); 4) 1926-1928 (“ensuring the intensive expansion of the socialist sector and its complete victory over capitalism within the country”); 5) 1929-1932 (the final stage of the NEP, when the tasks of building the economic foundation of socialism were solved in the shortest possible time). M.P. Kim also adheres to the point of view according to which “NEP exhausts itself... in the early 30s - 1932-1933.” G.G. Bogomazov and V.M. Shav-shukov believe that the attack on capitalist elements in the late 1920s. “did not cancel the new economic policy; on the contrary, it was carried out within the framework of the latter.” From their point of view, 1928-1936. - “the second stage of the NEP”, “the stage of the extensive construction of socialism”.

This point of view has well-known grounds, especially since J.V. Stalin at the 16th Congress of the Communist Party (b) (1930) said: “By going on the offensive along the entire front, we are not yet canceling the NEP, because private trade and capitalist elements still remain, “free” trade turnover still remains, but we will certainly cancel the initial stage of the NEP, deploying its subsequent stage, the current stage of the NEP, which is the last stage of the NEP.”

Many Western, and currently a number of Russian researchers, adhere to the point of view, originally formed in foreign historiography, according to which the NEP lasted only until the first five-year plan, and was canceled with the beginning of industrialization and collectivization.

So, in the early 1960s. American Sovietologist N. Yasny, referring to the opinion of the Polish economist O. Lange, linked the end of the NEP with the 15th century Congress of the All-Union Communist Party(b) (December 1927).

N. Vert states that the grain procurement crisis of 1927/28 prompted I.V. Stalin “to shift the emphasis from cooperation... to the creation of “pillars of socialism” in the countryside - giant collective farms and machine and tractor stations (MTS).” According to this historian, “in the summer of 1928, Stalin no longer believed in the NEP, but had not yet finally come to the idea of ​​general collectivization.” However, the November (1929) plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which supported the postulate of I.V. Stalin about a radical change in the attitude of the peasantry towards collective farms and approved the course towards the accelerated development of industry, meant, according to N. Werth, “the end of the NEP”.

R. Munting also writes that “in April 1929, the party formally approved the first five-year plan, which... was implemented from October 1928. The plan meant the real end of the NEP; the market has been replaced." J. Boffa dates the process of “convulsive extinction” of the NEP to 1928-1929. The same conclusion is drawn in the works of A. Ball (USA), R.V. Davis (Great Britain), M. Mirsky, M. Harrison (Great Britain) and other authors.

Russian historians in their works of recent decades are inclined to a similar point of view. So, according to V.P. Danilov, the “breakdown” of the NEP took place in 1928-1929. E.G. Gimpelson states that “by the end of 1929, the NEP was finished.” V.A. Shestakov is one of the authors of the Russian history course recently published by the Institute Russian history RAS, also states that “the departure from the NEP began already in the mid-20s,” and “the choice of forced industrialization meant the end of the NEP...”.

Russian economists also agree with this position. So, O.R. Latsis believes that the economic policy towards the peasantry, which was based on Leninist principles, was carried out “until the end of 1927.” V.E. Manevich also comes to the conclusion that “the credit reform of 1930 (together with the reorganization of industrial management and tax reform) meant the final liquidation of the NEP, including its credit system, which was the core economic regulation in the 20s. Of course, the NEP was not eliminated overnight; it was dismantled gradually in 1926-1929.” . According to G.G. Bogomazov and I.A. Blagikh, “the curtailment and abandonment of the New Economic Policy” refers to the late 1920s - early 1930s, when the complex economic reforms, which ensured the formation of an administrative-command management system.

Obviously, the problem of periodization of the NEP continues to be controversial. But it is already clear that the conclusion of Western researchers about the “cancellation” of the NEP in the late 1920s. with the transition to five-year planning and collectivization of the peasantry is not without reason.

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that planning itself is not the antithesis of NEP. The State Planning Committee, as you know, was created in 1921. During the “classical” period of the NEP, the first long-term plan was implemented in our country - the GOELRO plan, and since 1925 unified national economic plans (control figures) have been developed.

We should not forget that even in 1932, collective farms covered only 61.5% of peasant farms. This means that the problem of the economic bond between the working class and the non-cooperative peasantry, ensured through the market, remains relevant. However, on relations between city and village, as well as on other areas economic life, in the early 1930s. The influence of the administrative-command system was increasingly exerted.

• URL: htpp: www.sgu.ru/files/nodes/9B19/03.pdf
• Cm.: Stalin I.V. Essays. T. 12. P. 306-307; It's him. Questions of Leninism. M., 1953. P. 547.
• History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)... P. 306.
• Right there. P. 331.
• Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Article "New Economic Policy".
• For example, the authors of the Course political economy» state that transition period from capitalism to socialism, which corresponded to an economic policy such as the NEP, “ends... with the complete victory of socialism” (Course of Political Economy / Edited by N.A. Tsagolov... P. 8).
• Economic policy of the Soviet state... P. 25-26.
• The main stages of the development of Soviet society // Communist. 1987. No. 12. P. 70.
• Bogomazov G.G., Shavshukov V.M. Anti-scientific character of Sovietological interpretations of the new economic policy // Bulletin of Leningrad University. Series 5. Economics. 1988. Vol. 2 (No. 12). pp. 99, 100.