Features of War Communism

Compulsory requisitioning

Bolshevik solution to peasant grain hoarding. 'Food brigades' were sent out from the cities to extract grain from the peasantry by force. Where necessary, the 'food brigades' were assisted by the army and the Cheka. In theory, peasants were supposed to be paid a fixed price for their grain but, in practice, requisitioning often meant straightforward theft.

The ban on private trade

designed to prevent peasants from supplying grain to middlemen and speculators who then sold it at inflated prices. The ban did not succeed: a thriving 'black market' in illegally traded foodstuffs soon developed.

rationing

In the cities, food was distributed on the basis of a strict rationing system. The way in which food rationing worked reflected the Bolsheviks' priorities and values. The biggest rations went to the army and workers in heavy industry. Then came the civil servants and workers in light industry, who received barely enough to live on. At the bottom of the scale were 'capitalists, landlords and parasites', in other words, the middle classes, who, said Zinoviev, were given 'just enough bread so as not to forget the smell of it'.

 

wholesale nationalisation of industry

Large-scale industrial enterprises were put under direct state control in mid-1918. Smaller firms were nationalised later. Nationalised industries operated under the overall supervision of the Vesenkha. Individual industries were controlled by departments, or glavki, of the Vesenkha.

one-man management

The experiment with workers' control in industry was ended. In its place came a return to traditional, top-down methods of management- 'one-man management', as the Bolsheviks called it. The idea was to make the industrial workforce more disciplined and productive. In addition, the Bolsheviks introduced a system of internal passports in an attempt to halt the flight of industrial workers to the countryside. Trotsky wanted to go further and impose military-style discipline in the factories. Lenin, however, overruled him.