Lenin's Policies

Motivations

Motivations

• Ideological - build an egalitarian system

• Political - economic stability to keep power

• Modernisation - revolution relied on it

• Military victory - provide means to win war

Worker’s Control

• 1917 - Decree on Land

• Decree on Workers Control

• Mass support & ideological

• Free for all

• Naive and Idealistic

• Incompatible with productivity & efficiency

• Technical experts & managers removed

• Threated Bolshevik income & control

State Capitalism

• Vesenkha -

  • Supreme Council of National Economy to supervise

• Larger industries nationalised

• Banks nationalised to form “People’s Bank of Russia Republic”

• Alienated bourgeoise & land owners

  • Tensions → Civil War

• Grain production fell

  • Shortages in cities

• Workers weren’t effective

  • Gave themselves huge pay rises

  • Inflation

War Communism

• Forced Grain requisitioning using Cheka

• Industries nationalised

• Class based rationing introduced

• Partial militarisation of labour (peasants forced to become soldiers or labourers)

• State monopoly on goods and services

• Return of managers & discipline

  • Fines for absenteeism & lateness

• Very unpopular with masses

  • Tambov Rising

  • Krondstadt Mutiny 20,000 died “Flash Light that lit up Reality” Lenin

• Grain production fell

• Famine 1921 - 5 million died

NEP

• Larger industries stayed nationalised

  • Forced to budget properly

• Smaller industries returned to private ownership

  • Could run for profit

• Agriculture

  • Allowed to sell for profit after quota

  • Tax in Kind introduced

10th Party Congress 1921 → Ban on Factions to pass the NEP despite Party resistance

NEP Consequences

Positive

• Returned grain production to 1913 levels

  • Ended Famine

• Political stability - no new uprisings

• Peasantry & Traders were appeased

Negative

• Not sufficient for an agricultural revolution

• Divided Party - splits exploited by Stalin

  • Trotsky hated it → Ban on Factions

  • Ideological betrayal

• Rise of Nepmen (new bourgeoise)

• Kulaks got richer, harder to remove later

• Conditions for Proletariat didn’t improve

• Scissors Crisis

  • Cheap grain + goods shortage

  • Gov introduced price controls