Dmytro Ostapenkod.ostapenko@latrobe.edu.au

Bolshevik’s Economic Policies in 1917–1921

Presentation outline• Russia’s economic development in the pre-Revolution

period• Bolshevik's economic policies in November 1917-June

1918• Bolshevik's economic policies in June 1918 – March 1921

http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist111/BalanceofPower.html

Little advancement Substantial Improvement

Agriculture Railways

Small-scale industry (5 mil workers)

Large industry (2 mil workers)

Uneven regional development Education and science

How did Russia change over the period of 1861-1917?

Per Capita GDP ($), 1913

Paul Gregory, Before Command: An Economic History of Russian from Emancipation to the First Five-Year Plan, 1994, p. 19.

Marx’s five stages of historical development

• 1.Primitive Communism• 2.Slave Society• 3.Feudalism• 4.Capitalism• 5.Socialism (proletarian revolution)• 6.Communism: a classless and stateless society.

October 1917 – June 1918, attempts to maintain mixed economy. Land decree, November 1917

,

Serov V. Land Decree http://www.mglin-krai.ru/images/Baturko_Ocherk/T19/Dekret_o_Zemle.jpg

Vladimirov, I, Peasants loot landlord’s property http://petroart.ru/art/v/vladimirov/art1.php

October 1917 – June 1918, attempts to maintain mixed economy. ,

• Decree of workers’ control, November 1917• Decree on the nationalisation of the banks, December

1917• Decree on the VSNKh (Supreme Economic Council of

National Economy), December 1917

Main causes of the change -

Food shortages in large cities

The effect of the Brest-Litovsk treaty

Civil War

Transport problems

June 1918-March 1921, attempts to maintained a tough control over economy and trade (War Communism) ,

http://www.answers.com/topic/czech-legion

War Communism policy

Decree on Prodrazvyorstka, January 1919.

Grain requisitioned by the state

1918/1919 — 1,7 mil tons; 1919/1920 — 3,4; 1920/1921 — 6

Ivan, Vladimirov, Prodrazvyorstka, http://petroart.ru/art/v/vladimirov/art1.php

Anatoliy Nasedkin, Prodotryad (Food Squad), http://rushist.clow.ru/4/information/096.html

War Communism policy

• Decree on the nationalisation of large-scale industry and railways, June 1918

• Banning private trade• Abolition of money as a means of exchange• Militarisation of labour

Failure of the War Communism?

The State control of all industry and agriculture (though inefficient in many ways) gave the Red Army (3 million men) the supplies it needed, thus helping the Bolsheviks to win the Civil War.