One Step Backward

1921: Lenin’s New Economic Policy

In february 1921, the Bolsheviks were in serious danger of losing their hold on power. Yet just one month later, their grip was securely restored. What happened over the course of that one month to so change the situation?

At the start of 1921 Soviet Russia lay in ruins. The Civil War was essentially over and all or almost all of the forces arrayed against the Bolsheviks were vanquished. Admiral Kolchak had been shot and the White generals Denikin and Wrangel had fled the country in defeat. England and France, which had tried to aid the White cause, now saw their intervention as futile. Not only were they bringing home their troops, who were utterly exhausted after years of war, but they were even considering recognizing the new government and entering into negotiations with it.

But at the same time the Bolsheviks were beginning to confront an enemy more powerful than all the White armies put together. It turned out that the “exploiters” – landowners deprived of their lands, entrepreneurs whose factories and stores had been expropriated, priests outraged by the desecration of churches – were not the only ones unhappy with the new government. By early 1921, the very “masses” on whose behalf the revolution had supposedly been perpetrated – the workers and peasants who, in theory, should have been enjoying unprecedented well-being under the new government – were now turning against the Bolsheviks.

In the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution, it looked as if working people had much to rejoice about, and many of them did indeed rejoice. The peasants, whose dream of taking possession of the vast lands of the nobility was finally being fulfilled, had the greatest cause for celebration. Workers also had plenty to shout about. They were told that the dictatorship of the proletariat had arrived, that the working class would be given tremendous power, and that all private enterprises would be taken out of the hands of their hated owners.

Soon, however, it became clear that the revolution’s leaders and the masses had very different visions of the future. The peasants considered the fields that they had taken from the nobility and that they were now working to be their own, and the workers assumed that now they held power and would be able to solve their problems as they saw fit. Nobody was interested in building some sort of communist heaven on earth – nobody, that is, except for the Bolsheviks. As they saw it, you could not stop at giving land to the peasants and factories to the workers. Ahead lay the creation of a classless society that would be free of personal property and state violence.

In reality, the dream of a classless society turned out to be more a nightmare of famine and death. No sooner had the peasants begun working their new fields than, in 1919, they were told that they had no right to sell their crops. They were only allowed to keep an insignificant portion of their harvest and everything else had to be turned over to the state – on pain of death. To prevent farmers from trying to hide their grain, prodotryads (продовольственные отряды or food brigades) were sent into villages to take the fruits of peasant labor by force. The confiscated grain was supposed to go to the cities and the Red Army, but before long a horrific famine gripped the entire country.

The plan was to give peasants industrial goods in exchange for their grain, but in the cities, where factories had virtually stopped paying their workers, nobody felt like doing any work. So clothing, shoes, and farm equipment simply vanished. Once goods disappeared, money was soon to follow. What food there was began to be sold for ration cards, and payment for apartments and public transportation was simply abolished. It started to look as if the promises made in the classics of Marxism were being fulfilled: there was no money, there were no exploiters. But somehow these works had not foreseen that the promised “paradise” would feature raging typhus, famine, cold, and the execution of anyone who raised a voice in protest.

Later, the horrible interregnum from 1919 to early 1921 would be labeled “War Communism,” and it was explained that all these measures had been necessitated by the Civil War, which is why the “communism” that ensued was of the military rather than paradisiacal variety. Had it not been for the war, the official line had it, everything would have turned out quite differently. But in fact, while it could not be said that communist  ideologues were thrilled with what was going on from 1919-1921, things were generally felt to be proceeding according to plan. The torment of cold and hungry millions was seen as representing one step along the path to a bright future, one in which everyone would fully appreciate the joys of communal living and begin to labor in a new way. Then a land of plenty would finally be achieved, along with universal prosperity, happiness, and freedom.

But for now, this rosy picture belonged to the distant future. In 1920 Trotsky, one of the communist leadership’s shrewdest political minds, suggested that the Central Committee slow movement toward this bright future and permit, at least partially, private enterprise. His party comrades indignantly refused this idea. How could the great success already achieved possibly be reversed? Trotsky did not insist, and, apparently equally open to a strong-armed approach, immediately drafted plans for the creation of a labor army that would work under military discipline, and desertion from which would be punishable by death.

By late 1920, when the Civil War was coming to a close, the people’s patience with the march toward communism was running out. The notorious Tambov Rebellion, known to Soviet history as the Antonovshchina – a revolt by the peasants of Tambov Province – should perhaps have brought Lenin and Trotsky to their senses, since virtually the entire adult population, approximately 70 percent of the province, had taken part. Of course, it was easily explained away: the rebels had yet to achieve a proper appreciation of the new system’s advantages. Troops were sent to Tambov Province and the protests were brutally suppressed.

Several months passed. In early March 1921, the Tenth Party Congress convened. There were plenty of raging political passions, but almost no one spoke about the terrible suffering of the people. It took an uprising of sailors based at the Kronstadt naval fortress, which was considered one of the strongholds of the revolution, for the Bolsheviks to finally understand that there was serious trouble afoot. The Kronstadt rebellion was doused in blood and some delegates even left the party congress to take part in putting down the uprising. But, by the time they returned to the congress in Moscow, it was clear that something had to be done. That something was the New Economic Policy.

Under NEP, private commerce was permitted. Peasants were required to hand over only a small portion of their harvest and could do as they wished with the rest. They were even permitted to rent land and employ farm laborers. Private businesses, stores, and restaurants sprung up in cities, and life began to return to normal.

In his novel Chevengur, Andrei Platonov paints an amazingly symbolic picture of the transformations that took place under NEP. The story’s protagonist, Alexander Dvanov, after wandering the steppe in search of true communism, returns to the city, unaware of the changes that have taken place (excerpt below).

This is how people saw it – “Lenin taketh away, and Lenin giveth.” And what would have happened if Lenin had not made up his mind to deviate so from his own ideology? Among his comrades in arms there were many who were deeply troubled by the retreat from War Communism. Many communists were appalled to see the new bourgeoisie (Nepmen they were called) riding down city streets in elegant carriages, proudly flaunting their new-found wealth. “What were we fighting for? What were we spilling all that blood for during the Civil War?” many party activists were asking themselves.

What would have happened if Lenin had listened to them, if NEP had not been introduced, if the Bolsheviks had continued to stubbornly follow their mad march toward communism? Perhaps within a few months, having endured all the hunger, poverty, and executions they could stand, the entire country would have risen up against them and swept them away. Perhaps the country would have sunk into even greater chaos and then… And then the surviving Romanovs would perhaps have returned and the White detachments that had not yet disbanded in immigration would have sailed to Russian shores and another sea of blood would have been spilled. Then the horror-filled communist paradise would have been forgotten like a bad dream.

But Lenin was always true to his own ideals – except in those cases where these ideals threatened his hold on power. He had no trouble choosing between his utopia and his staying on top. This is why in March 1921 the peasants were met halfway, this is why stores and businesses again flourished, this is why Lenin said that  NEP was being adopted “in earnest and for a long time.”

Collectivization, the kolkhoz, the Five Year Plan, and an even more devastating famine were less than a decade away.