The main provisions of the NEP. NEP is the country's new economic policy

By the beginning of 1921, the Red Army had established complete control over a significant part of the territory of the former Russian Empire, with the exception of Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, and Bessarabia. But the internal situation of the Soviet state forced the Bolshevik leadership to abandon “war communism” and move to the NEP.

Reasons for the transition to the NEP:

1) The socio-economic crisis caused by the First World War and the Civil War, the policy of “war communism”. Industrial production decreased in 1920 compared to 1913 by 7 times, agricultural production by a third. Total population losses for 1914-1920 amounted to more than 20 million people. There was massive unemployment. Large cities became depopulated. The economic devastation was aggravated by the drought of 1920-1921. Famine gripped the most fertile regions - the Volga region, southern Ukraine, Crimea, the North Caucasus, and the Southern Urals. According to various sources, from 1 to 8 million people became victims of famine.

2) Political crisis, expressed in a decrease in popular support for the Bolshevik government. Dissatisfaction with surplus appropriation became the cause of numerous peasant uprisings. The most widespread uprising was in the Tambov province under the leadership of A.S. Antonov (“Antonovschina”) and the uprising in Western Siberia. At the beginning of 1921, spontaneous strikes took place in Petrograd and a number of other cities. Unrest began in the army and navy. In March 1921, a sailors' uprising broke out in Kronstadt, during which political demands were put forward. All these protests were suppressed, but the threat of losing their social support forced the country's leadership to abandon the policy of “war communism” and look for new ways.

The essence and main features of the NEP.

The X Congress of the RCP(b) in March 1921 decided to change the course of domestic policy. The developer of this course, V.I. Lenin called it the “new economic policy.” Its essence was the partial resolution of the market economy while maintaining control in the hands of the state.

Initially, the NEP was considered by the Bolsheviks as a temporary measure. Then the NEP was assessed as one of the possible paths to socialism through the coexistence of socialist and market economies and the gradual displacement of non-socialist economic forms.

The main goal of the NEP is to restore the country's economy and strengthen the social base of Bolshevik power on this basis.

The NEP began with the decision to replace surplus appropriation with a food tax, adopted at the X Congress of the RCP(b) in March 1921. The food tax was 2 times less than appropriation; from 1924 it took monetary form. Its size was announced in advance and could not be increased during the year. The surplus that remained with the peasants was allowed to be sold at market prices. Renting land and hiring labor were allowed. As a result of the measures taken, agriculture in 1925 restored its pre-war levels.

In industry and trade, individuals were allowed to open small and lease medium-sized enterprises. Large enterprises united into trusts that operated on the basis of self-financing and self-sufficiency. To increase labor productivity, the material interest of workers was stimulated. Instead of remuneration in kind, a monetary system based on a tariff scale was introduced. Labor conscription was abolished. Cooperation developed.

In 1922-1924. under the leadership of People's Commissar of Finance G.Ya. Sokolnikov, a monetary reform was carried out, a hard currency appeared - the golden chervonets. Payments for services (communications, transport, utilities) were introduced.

Monetary reform helped attract foreign investment in the form of concessions - enterprises with foreign capital. True, concessions, which were created mainly in the extractive industries, produced about 1% of industrial output.

As a result of the new economic policy in 1926, industry also restored to pre-war levels. The living conditions of urban and rural populations have improved.

Contradictions in the implementation of the NEP and its collapse.

Along with the successes, contradictions emerged in the implementation of the NEP, due to which in the late 1920s. it was folded:

1) The main thing was the contradiction between politics (socialist) and economics (capitalist). The Bolshevik leadership could not ignore the mood in the party and society. The attitude towards the NEP was negative, because it was considered a return to the old order (they asked “what did they fight for in the civil war?”). The attitude towards the Nepmen was especially negative - the “new bourgeoisie”, which earned much more than the working people. The concept of “NEP frenzy” appeared - the desire to flaunt one’s wealth, similar to the behavior of the “new Russians”. The NEP reality was very different from the Bolshevik ideology with its idea of equality.

2) The contradiction between industry and agriculture. Agriculture recovered faster than industry. Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks were interested precisely in the accelerated development of industry. For its development, funds were needed that were withdrawn from agriculture through “price scissors”, i.e. artificially inflating prices for manufactured goods, and understating prices for agricultural goods (primarily bread). The peasants did not want to sell grain at low prices and buy low-quality manufactured goods. All this caused constant grain procurement crises, known as NEP crises.

3) Contradiction between rich and poor. Having proclaimed a classless society, the Bolsheviks tried to equalize everyone. In the taxation system, the main burden fell on private entrepreneurs in the city and kulaks in the countryside. The poor were exempt from paying taxes, the middle peasants paid half. The kulaks, in order to free themselves from the tax burden, split up their farms. Thus, the marketability of agriculture decreased. In fact, during the NEP years, peasants for the first time were able to eat to their fill, supplying only excess amounts of food to the market.

Low marketability led to a decrease in the volume of exports of agricultural products, and, accordingly, the import of equipment for industry. At the end of the 1920s. The international situation worsened, a new world war became obvious. The NEP allowed our country to restore its economy, but could not solve the problem of modernizing the country in a short time. Therefore, Stalin and his entourage decided to curtail the NEP, which was replaced by industrialization and collectivization.

The content of the article

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 gain the opportunity to subject them to 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 activities. 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, and only large industry and basic sectors of the economy remained in the hands of the state.

Partial denationalization of property, privatization of many previously nationalized enterprises, a system of running the economy based on cost accounting, competition, and the introduction of leasing of joint ventures are all characteristic features of the 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 itself of the opportunity to fully reveal its contradictions - between the requirements for the normal functioning of the economy and the political priorities of the party leadership, aimed first at limiting and then completely crowding out private manufacturer.

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 management of the economy on the basis of more free disposal of the farmer with the products of his labor and his own economic means, to strengthen the peasant economy and raise its productivity, as well as for the purpose of accurately establishing state obligations falling on farmers, appropriation as a method of state procurement 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. The total amount of the tax should be constantly reduced as the restoration of transport and industry allows the Soviet government to receive agricultural products in exchange for factory and handicraft 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 of different tax amounts.

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. Supply of the poorest rural population is carried out in the state order according to special rules.

11. In furtherance of this Law, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee invites 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

NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (NEP)(1921-1929)

NEP is a 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 X 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 a direct and complete breakdown of 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 gain the opportunity to subject them to 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.

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

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-20s, measures to curb the development of the NEP gave way to 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. On December 27, 1929, in a speech at a conference of Marxist historians, Stalin stated: “If we adhere to the NEP, it is because it serves the cause of socialism. And when it ceases to serve the cause of socialism, we will throw the new economic policy to hell.”

At the end of the 20s, considering that the new economic policy had ceased to serve socialism, the Stalinist leadership discarded it. The methods by which it curtailed the NEP indicate the difference in the approaches of Stalin and Lenin to the new economic policy. According to Lenin, with the transition to socialism, the NEP will become obsolete in the course of the evolutionary process. But by the end of the 20s there was no socialism in Russia yet, although it had been proclaimed, the NEP had not outlived its usefulness, but Stalin, contrary to Lenin, made the “transition to socialism” by violent, revolutionary means.

One of the negative aspects of this “transition” was the policy of the Stalinist leadership to eliminate the so-called “exploiting classes”. During its implementation, the village “bourgeoisie” (kulaks) were “dekulakized”, all their property was confiscated, exiled to Siberia, and the “remnants of the urban bourgeoisie” - entrepreneurs engaged in private trade, crafts and the sale of their products (“NEPmen”), as well as their family members were deprived of political rights (“disenfranchised”); many were prosecuted.

NEP (details)

In the extreme conditions of the civil war, the internal policy pursued by the Soviet government was called “war communism.” The prerequisites for its implementation were laid by the widespread nationalization of industry and the creation of a state apparatus to manage it (primarily the All-Russian Council of the National Economy - VSNKh), the experience of military-political solutions to food problems through committees of the poor in the countryside. On the one hand, the policy of “war communism” was perceived by part of the country’s leadership as a natural step towards the rapid construction of market-free socialism, which supposedly corresponded to the principles of Marxist theory. In this they hoped to rely on the collectivist ideas of millions of workers and poor peasants who were ready to divide all property in the country equally. On the other hand, it was a forced policy, caused by the disruption of traditional economic ties between city and countryside, and the need to mobilize all resources to win the civil war.

The internal situation in the Soviet country was extremely difficult. The country is in crisis:

Political- in the summer of 1920, peasant uprisings broke out in the Tambov and Voronezh provinces (as they were called - “kulak revolts”) - Antonovism. Peasants' dissatisfaction with surplus appropriation grew into a real peasant war: Makhno's detachments in Ukraine and Antov's “peasant army” in the Tambov region numbered 50 thousand people at the beginning of 1921, the total number of detachments formed in the Urals, Western Siberia, Pomerania , in the Kuban and Don, reached 200 thousand people. On March 1, 1921, the sailors of Kronstadt rebelled. They put forward the slogans “Power to the Soviets, not parties!”, “Soviets without communists!” The rebellion in Kronstadt was eliminated, but peasant uprisings continued. These uprisings were not an accident.” In each of them, to a greater or lesser extent, there was an element of organization. It was contributed by a wide range of political forces: from monarchists to socialists. These disparate forces were united by the desire to take control of the emerging popular movement and, relying on it, to eliminate the power of the Bolsheviks;

Economic- The national economy was fragmented. The country produced 3 percent of pig iron; oil was produced 2.5 times less than in 1913. Industrial production fell to 4-2 percent of 1913 levels. The country lagged behind the United States in iron production by 72 times, in steel by 52 times, and in oil production by 19 times. If in 1913 Russia smelted 4.2 million tons of pig iron, then in 1920 it was only 115 thousand tons. This is approximately the same amount as was received in 1718 under Peter I;

Social- Hunger, poverty, unemployment were rampant in the country, crime was rampant, and child homelessness was rampant. The declassification of the working class intensified, people left the cities and went to the countryside so as not to die of hunger. This led to a reduction in the number of industrial workers by almost half (1 million 270 thousand people in 1920 versus 2 million 400 thousand people in 1913). In 1921, about 40 provinces with a population of 90 million were starving, of which 40 million were on the verge of death. 5 million people died from hunger. Child crime, compared to 1913, has increased 7.4 times. Epidemics of typhoid, cholera, and smallpox raged in the country.

Immediate, most decisive and energetic measures were needed to improve the situation of the working people and increase the productive forces.

In March 1921, at the X Congress of the RCP (b), a course towards a new economic policy (NEP) was adopted. This policy was introduced seriously and for a long time.

The purpose of adopting the NEP was aimed at:

To overcome the devastation in the country, restore the economy;

Creating the foundation of socialism;

Development of large industry;

Displacement and liquidation of capitalist elements;

Strengthening the alliance of the working class and peasantry.

“The essence of the new economic policy,” said Lenin, “is the union of the proletariat and the peasantry, the essence lies in the union of the avant-garde, the proletariat, with the broad peasant field.”

The ways to accomplish these tasks were:

All-round development of cooperation;

Widespread encouragement of trade;

The use of material incentives and economic calculations.

Replacing the surplus appropriation system with a tax in kind (the peasant could sell the remaining products after paying the tax in kind at his own discretion - either to the state or on the free market);

Introduction of free trade and circulation;

Allowance of private small commercial and industrial enterprises, while maintaining the leading industries (banks, transport, large-scale industry, foreign trade) in the hands of the state;

Permission to rent concessions, mixed companies;

Providing freedom of action to state-owned enterprises (introducing self-financing, self-financing, product sales, self-sufficiency);

Introduction of material incentives for workers;

Elimination of rigid sectoral formations of an administrative nature - headquarters and centers;

Introduction of territorial - sectoral industrial management;

Carrying out monetary reform;

Transition from in-kind to cash wages;

Streamlining the income tax (income tax was divided into basic, which was paid by all citizens except pensioners, and progressive - paid by NEPmen, privately practicing doctors, and all those who received additional income). The greater the profit, the greater the tax. A profit limit was introduced;

Permission to hire labor, rent land, enterprises;

Revival of the credit system - the State Bank was recreated, a number of specialized banks were formed;

The introduction of the NEP caused a change in the social structure and way of life of people. The NEP provided organizational economic freedom to people and gave them the opportunity to show initiative and entrepreneurship. Private enterprises were created everywhere in the country, self-financing was introduced at state enterprises, a struggle arose against bureaucracy and administrative-command habits, and culture improved in all spheres of human activity. The introduction of a tax in kind in the countryside made it possible for the broad development of agriculture, including strong owners, who were later called “kulaks.”

The most colorful figure of that time was the new Soviet bourgeoisie - the “NEPmen”. These people largely defined the face of their era, but they were, as it were, outside of Soviet society: they were deprived of voting rights and could not be members of trade unions. Among the Nepmen, the old bourgeoisie had a large share (from 30 to 50 percent, depending on their occupation). The rest of the Nepmen came from among Soviet employees, peasants and artisans. Due to the rapid turnover of capital, the main area of activity of the Nepmen was trade. Store shelves began to quickly fill with goods and products.

At the same time, criticism of Lenin and the NEP as a “disastrous petty-bourgeois policy” was heard throughout the country.

Many communists left the RCP (b), believing that the introduction of the NEP meant the restoration of capitalism and a betrayal of socialist principles. At the same time, it should be noted that, despite partial denationalization and concession, the state retained at its disposal the most powerful sector of the national economy. Basic industries remained completely outside the market - energy, metallurgy, oil production and refining, coal mining, defense industry, foreign trade, railways, communications.

Important points of the new economic policy:

The peasant was given the opportunity to truly become a master;

Small and medium-sized entrepreneurs were given freedom of development;

Monetary reform, the introduction of convertible currency - the chervonets - stabilized the financial situation in the country.

In 1923, all types of natural taxation in the countryside were replaced by a single agricultural tax in cash, which, of course, was beneficial to the peasant, because allowed you to maneuver crop rotation at your own discretion and determine the direction of development of your farm in terms of growing certain crops, raising livestock, producing handicrafts, etc.

On the basis of the NEP, rapid economic growth began in the city and countryside and a rise in the living standards of the working people. The market mechanism made it possible to quickly restore industry, the size of the working class and, most importantly, increase labor productivity. Already by the end of 1923 year it more than doubled. By 1925, the country had restored the destroyed national economy.

The New Economic Policy made it possible:

Economic relations between city and countryside;

Development of industry based on electrification;

Cooperation based on the country's population;

The widespread introduction of cost accounting and personal interest in the results of labor;

Improving government planning and management;

The fight against bureaucracy, administrative and command habits;

Improving culture in all spheres of human activity.

Showing a certain flexibility in economic policy, the Bolsheviks had no doubts or hesitations in strengthening the control of the ruling party over the political and spiritual life of society.

The most important instrument in the hands of the Bolsheviks here were the bodies of the Cheka (from the 1922 congress - the GPU). This apparatus was not only preserved in the form in which it existed during the era of the civil war, but also developed rapidly, surrounded by the special care of those in power, and more and more fully embraced state, party, economic and other public institutions. There is a widespread opinion that the initiator of these repressive and fiscal measures and their implementer was F.E. Dzerzhinsky, in fact, this is not so. Archival sources and research by historians allow us to note that at the head of the terror was L.D. Trotsky (Bronstein), who, as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, and then the People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs, had punitive bodies unaccountable to the party that administered their own justice and reprisals, were in his hands a valid means of usurping power and establishing a personal military-political dictatorship in the country.

During the NEP years, many legally published newspapers and magazines, party associations, and other parties were closed, and the last underground groups of right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks were liquidated.

Through an extensive system of secret employees of the Cheka-GPU, control was established over the political sentiments of civil servants, workers and peasants. Particular attention was paid to kulaks and urban private entrepreneurs, as well as the intelligentsia. At the same time, it should be noted that the Soviet government sought to involve the old intelligentsia in active labor activity. Specialists in various fields of knowledge were provided with more tolerable living and working conditions compared to the general population.

This was especially true for those who were in one way or another connected with strengthening the scientific, economic and defense potential of the state.

The transition to the NEP contributed to the return of emigrants to their homeland. For 1921-1931 181,432 emigrants returned to Russia, of which 121,843 (two thirds) - in 1921,

However, the class approach remained the main principle of building government policy towards the intelligentsia. If opposition was suspected, the authorities resorted to repression. In 1921, many representatives of the intelligentsia were arrested in connection with the Petrograd Combat Organization case. Among them there were few scientific and creative intellectuals. By decision of the Petrograd Cheka, 61 of those arrested, including the prominent Russian poet N.S. Gumilyov, were shot. At the same time, remaining in the position of historicism, it should be noted that many of them opposed the Soviet regime, involving in public and other organizations, including military and combat organizations, all those who did not accept the new system.

The Bolshevik Party is heading towards the formation of its own socialist intelligentsia, devoted to the regime and serving it faithfully. New universities and institutes are opening. The first workers' faculties (workers' faculties) were created at higher educational institutions. The school education system also underwent radical reform. It ensured continuity of education, from preschool institutions to universities. A program to eliminate illiteracy was proclaimed.

In 1923, the voluntary society “Down with Illiteracy” was established, headed by the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee M.I. Kalinin. By the end of the 1920s, about 40 percent of the population could read and write (versus 27 percent in 1913), and a decade later the figure was 80 percent.

During the years of the NEP, the literary and artistic life of Soviet Russia was distinguished by its diversity and abundance of various creative groups and movements. In Moscow alone there were over 30 of them.

The NEP made it much easier for the USSR to break through the economic blockade, enter international markets, and gain diplomatic recognition.

In just 5 years - from 1921 to 1926. the index of industrial production increased more than 3 times, agricultural production increased 2 times and exceeded the level of 1913 by 18 percent. But even after the end of the recovery period, economic growth continued at a rapid pace: in 1927, 1928. the increase in industrial production was 13 and 19 percent, respectively. In general, for the period 1921-1928. the average annual growth rate of national income was 18 percent.

Monetary reform played an important role in the restoration of the national economy and its further development. At the beginning of 1924, the Soviet government stopped issuing unstable banknotes. Instead, a gold-backed chervonets was introduced into circulation. This contributed to the stabilization of the Soviet ruble and the strengthening of the country's financial system.

An important point during the years of the new economic policy was that impressive economic successes were achieved on the basis of fundamentally new social relations, hitherto unknown to history. The private sector emerged in industry and commerce; some state-owned enterprises were denationalized, others were leased out: private individuals were allowed to create their own industrial enterprises with no more than 20 employees (later this “ceiling” was raised). Among the factories rented by private owners there were those that employed 200-300 people, and in general the private sector during the NEP period accounted for from 1/5 to 1/4 of industrial output and 40-80 percent of retail trade. A number of enterprises were leased to foreign firms in the form of concessions. In 1926-1927, there were 117 existing agreements of this kind. They covered enterprises that employed 18 thousand people and produced just over one percent of industrial output.

In industry, key positions were occupied by state trusts, in the credit and financial sphere - by state and cooperative banks. The state put pressure on producers, forced them to find internal reserves for increasing production, to mobilize efforts to increase production efficiency, which alone could now ensure an increase in profits.

NEP Russia, whether it wanted it or not, created the basis of socialism. NEP is both a strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks. “From NEP Russia,” said V.I. Lenin, “Russia will be socialist.” At the same time, V.I. Lenin demanded that we reconsider our entire point of view on socialism. The driving force of the NEP should be the working people, the alliance of the working class and the peasantry. The taxes paid by the Nepmen made it possible to expand the socialist sector. New plants, factories, and enterprises were built. In 1928, industrial production surpassed the pre-war level in a number of important indicators. Since 1929, the country has become a huge construction site.

NEP meant the economic competition of socialism with capitalism. But this was an unusual competition. It took place in the form of a fierce struggle of capitalist elements against socialist forms of economy. The struggle was not for life, but for death, according to the principle of “who will win.” The Soviet state had everything it needed to win the fight against capitalism: political power, commanding heights in the economy, natural resources. There was only one thing missing - the ability to run a household and trade culturally. Even in the first days of Soviet power, V.I. Lenin said: “We, the Bolshevik Party, convinced Russia. We won Russia - from the rich for the poor, from the exploiters for the working people. We must now govern Russia.” The matter of management turned out to be extremely difficult. This was also evident during the years of the New Economic Policy.

The priority of politics over economics, proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in the process of social development, introduced disruptions into the mechanisms of the NEP. During the NEP period, many crisis situations arose in the country. They were caused by both objective and subjective reasons.

First crisis in economics arose in 1923. It went down in history as a sales crisis. 100 million peasants who received economic freedom filled the city market with cheap agricultural products. To stimulate labor productivity in industry (5 million workers), the state artificially inflates prices for industrial goods. By the fall of 1923, the price difference was more than 30 percent. This phenomenon, at the instigation of L. Trotsky, began to be called “scissors” of prices.

The crisis threatened the “link” between city and countryside and was aggravated by social conflicts. Workers' strikes began in a number of industrial centers. The fact is that the loans that enterprises previously received from the state were closed. There was no way to pay the workers. The problem was complicated by rising unemployment. From January 1922 to September 1923, the number of unemployed increased from 680 thousand to 1 million 60 thousand.

At the end of 1923 - beginning of 1924, prices for industrial goods were reduced by an average of more than 25 percent, and in light industry serving the mass consumer - by 30-45 percent. At the same time, prices for agricultural goods were increased almost 2 times. Much work has been done to improve state and cooperative trade. In May 1924, the People's Commissariat of Domestic and Foreign Trade was created. 30-year-old A.I. Mikoyan, the youngest People's Commissar of the USSR, was appointed to this post.

The economic crisis at this time is closely intertwined with the intensification of the struggle for power within the party due to the illness of the leader, V.I. Lenin. The fate of the country was influenced by internal party discussions that covered a wide range of issues: about worker and party democracy, bureaucracy and the apparatus, about the style and methods of leadership.

Second crisis arose in 1925. It brought new economic problems and difficulties. If during the recovery period the country immediately received a return in the form of agricultural and industrial goods, then during the construction of new and expansion of old enterprises, the return came after 3-5 years, and the construction paid off even longer. The country still received few goods, and wages had to be paid to workers regularly. Where can I get money backed by goods? They can be “pumped out of the village by raising prices for manufactured goods, or they can be printed further. But raising prices for manufactured goods did not mean getting more food from the village. The peasantry simply did not buy these goods, leading a subsistence economy; He had less and less incentive to sell bread. This threatened to reduce the export of bread and the import of equipment, which, in turn, in turn, hampered the construction of new and expansion of old industries.

In 1925-1926 got out of difficulties due to foreign currency reserves and allowing state sales of alcohol. However, there was little prospect of the situation improving. In addition, in just one year, unemployment in the country, due to agrarian overpopulation, increased by a thousand people and amounted to . 1 million 300 thousand.

Third crisis NEP was associated with industrialization and collectivization. This policy required the expansion of planning principles in the economy, an active attack on the capitalist elements of the city and countryside. Practical steps to implement this party line led to the completion of the reconstruction of the administrative-command system.

Collapsing NEP

Until recently, scientists disagreed regarding the end of the NEP. Some believed that by the mid-1930s the tasks set for the new economic policy had been solved. The New Economic Policy “ended in the second half of the 1930s. victory of socialism. Nowadays, the beginning of the NEP restrictions dates back to 1924 (after the death of V.I. Lenin). V.P. Danilov, one of the most authoritative researchers of the agrarian history of Russia, believes that 1928 was the time of transition to the frontal scrapping of the NEP, and in 1929 it was finished. Modern historians A.S. Barsenkov and A.I. Vdovin, the authors of the textbook “History of Russia 1917-2004,” connect the end of the NEP with the beginning of the first five-year plan.

History shows that the assumption of multi-structure and the determination of the place of each of these structures in the socio-economic development of the country occurred in an atmosphere of intense struggle for power between several party groups. In the end, the struggle ended in victory for the Stalinist group. By 1928-1929 she mastered all the heights of the party and state leadership and pursued an openly anti-NEP line.

The NEP was never officially cancelled, but in 1928 it began to wind down. What did this mean?

In the public sector, planned principles of economic management were introduced, the private sector was closed, and in agriculture, a course was taken to eliminate the kulaks as a class. The collapse of the NEP was facilitated by internal and external factors.

Domestic:

Private entrepreneurs have strengthened economically, both in the city and in the countryside; The restrictions on profits introduced by the Soviet government reached their maximum. The experience of socio-political development shows: whoever has a lot of money wants power. Private owners needed power to remove restrictions on making profits and to increase them;

The party's policy of collectivization in the countryside aroused resistance from the kulaks;

Industrialization required an influx of labor, which only the countryside could provide;

The peasantry demanded the abolition of the foreign trade monopoly, claiming access to the world market, and refused to feed the city under conditions of low purchase prices for agricultural products, primarily grain;

In the country, dissatisfaction with the everyday behavior of the “Nepmen” was becoming more and more acute among the general population, who staged carousings and various entertainments in full view.

External:

The aggressiveness of capitalist states against the USSR increased. The very fact of the existence of the Soviet state and its successes aroused the furious hatred of the imperialists. International reaction aimed to disrupt the industrialization that had begun in the USSR at any cost and to create a united front of capitalist powers for anti-Soviet military intervention. An active role in anti-Soviet politics during this period belonged to the British imperialists. It is enough to note that W. Churchill, an outstanding politician of that time, repeatedly noted that we did not leave Soviet Russia out of our attention for a single day, and constantly directed efforts to destroy, at any cost, the communist regime. In February 1927, an attack was organized on the Soviet plenipotentiary mission in London and Beijing, and the plenipotentiary representative in Poland P.L. was killed. Voikova;

The Kuomintang government of China in 1927 suspended diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and closed all Soviet diplomatic missions.

In 1929, emergency measures to limit the free sale of bread were legalized. Priority sale of grain under government obligations is established. Already in the second half of 1929, partial expropriation of the kulaks began. The year 1929 was essentially decisive in the rejection of the NEP. The year 1929 went down in the history of the USSR as the “Year of the Great Turning Point.”

In the early 30s, there was an almost complete displacement of private capital from various sectors of the economy. The share of private enterprises in industry in 1928 was 18%, in agriculture - 97%, in retail trade - 24%, and by 1933 - 0.5%, 20% and zero, respectively.

The period from 1917 to 1921 was a truly difficult time for Russia. The revolution and civil war hit economic well-being hard. After the end of the alarming events, the country needed reform, since military innovations were helpless in peacetime conditions.

Historical background of the proclamation

NEP, or new, was the need of the time. The crisis “war communism” adopted during the civil war was unacceptable for the development of the country in a period of peace. The surplus appropriation system was an unbearable burden for ordinary people, and the nationalization of enterprises and complete centralization of management prevented development. The introduction of the NEP is a response to general dissatisfaction with “war communism”.

The situation in the country before the introduction of the NEP

By the end of the civil war, the country was destroyed in every way. The former Russian Empire lost Poland, Latvia, Estonia, part of Ukraine and Belarus, and Finland. Mining development areas were affected - Donbass, oil regions, Siberia. Industrial production declined, and agriculture showed signs of a serious crisis. In addition, the peasants, outraged by the surplus appropriation system, refused to hand over their grain, and the situation became tense. Uprisings swept the Don region, Ukraine, Kuban, and Siberia. The wave of discontent spread to the army. In 1920, the question of abolishing the surplus appropriation system was raised. These were the first attempts to introduce the NEP. Reasons: the crisis state of the economy, the destroyed industrial and agricultural sectors, the burdens of surplus appropriation that fell on the shoulders of ordinary people, foreign policy failures, currency instability.

Proclamation of a new path in the economy

The transformations began in 1921, when the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) adopted a resolution on the transition to a tax in kind. The NEP was originally planned as a temporary measure. The reforms dragged on for several years. The essence of the NEP is to carry out changes in industry, agriculture, and the financial sector, which will make it possible to remove the tasks set by the authors of the project for economic reforms related to the political, economic, social, and foreign policy spheres.

It is believed that free trade was the first innovation, but this is not so. Initially, she was considered dangerous to the authorities. The Bolsheviks did not immediately come to the idea of entrepreneurship. The NEP period was a time of innovations that were an attempt to combine socialist power with elements of a market economy.

Industry reforms

The first innovation was the creation of trusts. They were associations of homogeneous enterprises that had a certain freedom of activity and financial independence. The introduction of the NEP is the beginning of a complete reform of industry. New associations - trusts - could decide for themselves what to produce, from what and to whom to sell it. The scope of activity was wide: both the purchase of resources and production under government orders. The trusts created reserve capital, which was supposed to cover losses.

The NEP was a policy that provided for the formation of syndicates. These associations consisted of several trusts. The syndicates were engaged in foreign trade, providing loans, selling finished products, and supplying raw materials. Until the end of the NEP period, most trusts were members of such associations.

Fairs were held to organize wholesale trade. A full-fledged market began to function, where raw materials and finished products were purchased. The original progenitor of market relations in the USSR was the NEP, the reasons for which lay in the disorganization of the economy.

One of the main achievements of the period was the return of cash wages. The NEP is the time of the abolition of labor conscription, the unemployment rate has decreased. During the period of the New Economic Policy, the private sector in industry actively developed. The process of denationalization of some enterprises is characteristic. Private individuals received the right to open industrial factories and factories.

A concession has become popular - a form of lease when the tenants are foreign individuals or legal entities. The share of foreign investment was particularly high in the metallurgy and textile industries.

Innovations in agriculture

NEP is a policy that affected all sectors of the economy, including the agricultural sector. The overall assessment of the consequences of innovations is positive. In 1922, the Land Code was approved. The new law prohibited private ownership of land; only leasehold use was allowed.

The NEP policy in agriculture influenced the social and property structure of village residents. It was unprofitable for wealthy peasants to develop their farms; moreover, they paid increased taxes. The poor were given the opportunity to improve their financial situation. Thus, there were fewer poor and rich - “middle peasants” appeared.

Many peasants have increased their plots of land and their motivation to work has increased. In addition, it was the village residents who bore the brunt of taxes. And the state's spending was enormous - on the army, on industry, on economic restoration after the civil war. Taxes from wealthy peasants did not help raise the level of development, so new ways had to be used to fill the treasury. Thus, the practice of buying grain from peasants at reduced prices arose - this led to a crisis and the emergence of the concept of “price scissors.” The climax of the economic depression was 1923. In 1924-25, the crisis repeated again - its essence was a significant drop in the amount of grain harvested.

NEP is a time of change in agriculture. Not all of them led to positive results, but features of a market economy appeared. By the end of the NEP period, the crisis was only growing.

Financial sector

To carry out reforms, changes were necessary in the sphere of monetary circulation. The main task of the NEP is to stabilize the financial sector and normalize currency relations with other countries.

The first step of the reformers was the denomination of the monetary unit. The currency was backed by gold reserves. The resulting emission was used to cover the financial changes in the state that mainly affected the peasants and the proletariat. The practice of government borrowing, increasing luxury taxes and lowering taxes on basic necessities was widespread.

At the beginning of the NEP, reforms in the financial sector were successful. This made it possible to carry out the second stage of reforms in 1924. It was decided to introduce hard currency. Treasury notes were in circulation, and chervonets were used for international payments. Credit became popular, thanks to which most purchase and sale transactions took place. Several large banking structures were opened on the territory of the USSR that worked with industrial enterprises. At the local level, financial support was provided by utility banks. Gradually the financial system expanded. Banks appeared that worked with agricultural institutions and foreign economic structures.

Political development of the country during the NEP

Economic reforms were accompanied by political struggle within the state. Authoritarian tendencies were growing in the country. The period of Vladimir Lenin's reign can be called a “collective dictatorship.” Power was concentrated in the hands of Lenin and Trotsky, but from the end of 1922 the situation changed. Trotsky's opponents created Lenin, and Leninism became a direction of philosophical thought.

The struggle within the Communist Party itself intensified. There was no homogeneity within the organization. An opposition formed that advocated giving full power to workers' trade unions. Connected with this was the appearance of a resolution that proclaimed the unity of the party and the obligation to implement the decisions of the majority by all its members. Almost everywhere, party positions were occupied by the same people as government employees. Belonging to the ruling circles became a prestigious goal. The party was constantly expanding, so over time they began to carry out “purges” aimed at “lying” communists.

The period of crisis was after the conflict between old and young party members intensified. The organization gradually stratified - more and more privileges were given to the top, which received the name “nomenklatura”.

So, even in the last years of Lenin’s life, his “heirs” began to divide power. They tried to push old-style leaders out of management. First of all, Trotsky. They fought him in different ways, but most often they simply accused him of various “sins.” Among them are deviationism and Menshevism.

Completion of reforms

The positive features of the NEP, which appeared at the initial stage of the reforms, were gradually erased due to the unsuccessful and uncoordinated actions of the party leadership. The main problem is the conflict between the authoritarian communist system and attempts to introduce a market model of the economy. These were two poles that did not feed each other, but destroyed each other.

The New Economic Policy - NEP - has been gradually fading since 1924-1925. Market features were replaced by a centralized management system. In the end, planning and government leadership prevailed.

In fact, the NEP ended in 1928, when the first five-year plan and the course towards collectivization were proclaimed. From then on, the new economic policy ceased to exist. Officially, the NEP was ended only 3 years later - in 1931. Then a ban on private trade was issued.

Results

The NEP is a policy that helped restore a destroyed economy. The problem was the lack of qualified specialists - this deficiency did not allow building effective governance of the country.

In industry, it was possible to achieve high levels, but problems remained in the agricultural sector. She was given insufficient attention and finances. The system was ill-conceived, so there was a strong imbalance in the economy. A positive feature is the stabilization of the currency.

New Economic Policy- economic policy pursued in Soviet Russia since 1921. It was adopted on March 21, 1921 by the X Congress of the RCP (b), replacing the policy of “war communism” pursued during the Civil War. The New Economic Policy aimed at restoring the national economy and the subsequent transition to socialism. The main content of the NEP is the replacement of surplus appropriation with a tax in kind in the countryside (up to 70% of grain was confiscated during surplus appropriation, and about 30% with a tax in kind), the use of the market and various forms of ownership, attracting foreign capital in the form of concessions, carrying out a monetary reform (1922-1924), in as a result of which the ruble became a convertible currency.

The Soviet state faced the problem of stabilizing money, and, therefore, deflation and achieving a balanced state budget. The state's strategy, aimed at surviving under the credit blockade, determined the USSR's primacy in compiling production balances and distributing products. The New Economic Policy assumed state regulation of a mixed economy using planned and market mechanisms. The state, which retained its commanding heights in the economy, used directive and indirect methods of state regulation, based on the need to implement the priorities of the forerunner of the strategic plan - GOELRO. The NEP was based on the ideas of the works of V.I. Lenin, discussions about the theory of reproduction and money, the principles of pricing, finance and credit. The NEP made it possible to quickly restore the national economy destroyed by the First World War and the Civil War.

In the second half of the 1920s, the first attempts to curtail the NEP began. Syndicates in industry were liquidated, from which private capital was administratively squeezed out, and a rigid centralized system of economic management was created (economic people's commissariats). Stalin and his entourage set a course for collectivization of the countryside. Repressions were carried out against management personnel (the Shakhty case, the Industrial Party trial, etc.). By the beginning of the 1930s, the NEP was actually curtailed.

Prerequisites for the NEP

By 1921, Russia was literally in ruins. The territories of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Western Belarus, Western Ukraine, the Kara region of Armenia and Bessarabia departed from the former Russian Empire. According to experts, the population in the remaining territories barely reached 135 million. Losses in these territories as a result of wars, epidemics, emigration, and a decline in the birth rate have amounted to at least 25 million people since 1914.

During the hostilities, the Donbass, the Baku oil region, the Urals and Siberia were especially damaged; 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 total volume of industrial production decreased by 5 times. The equipment has not been updated for a long time. Metallurgy produced as much metal as it was smelted under Peter I.

Agricultural production fell by 40% due to the depreciation of money and a shortage of industrial goods.

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

Thus, the main task of the internal policy of the RCP (b) and the Soviet state was to restore the destroyed economy, create a 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. The uprisings covered 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 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 prison of all representatives of socialist parties, re-election 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 farms , that is, the elimination of surplus appropriation. 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.

From the appeal of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt:

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. It did not take into account the unrest that had recently occurred in Petrograd and Moscow and which quite clearly indicated that the party had lost the trust of the working masses. 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...

Already in 1920, there were calls to abandon the food appropriation system: for example, in February 1920, Trotsky submitted a corresponding proposal to the Central Committee, but received only 4 votes out of 15; At about the same time, independently of Trotsky, Rykov raised the same question at the Supreme Economic Council.

Progress of development of NEP

Proclamation of the NEP

By the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of March 23, 1921, adopted on the basis of the decisions of the X Congress of the RCP (b), the surplus appropriation system was abolished and replaced by a tax in kind, which was approximately half as much. Such a significant relaxation gave a certain incentive to the war-weary peasantry to develop production.

Lenin himself pointed out that concessions to the peasantry were subordinated to only one goal - the struggle for power: “We openly, honestly, without any deception, declare to the peasants: in order to maintain the path to socialism, we, comrade peasants, will make a whole series of concessions, but only within such and such limits and to such and such a degree, and, of course, we ourselves will judge what measure this is and what limits” (Complete Collection of Works, vol. 42 p. 192).

The introduction of a tax in kind was not an isolated measure. The 10th Congress proclaimed the New Economic Policy. Its essence is the assumption of market relations. The NEP was viewed as a temporary policy aimed at creating conditions for socialism - temporary, but not short-term: Lenin himself emphasized that “NEP is serious and for the long haul!” Thus, he agreed with the Mensheviks that Russia at that time was not ready for socialism, but in order to create the preconditions for socialism, he did not at all consider it necessary to give power to the bourgeoisie.

The main political goal of the NEP is to relieve social tensions and strengthen the social base of Soviet power in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants. The economic goal is to prevent further deterioration, get out of the crisis and restore the economy. The social goal is to provide favorable conditions for building a socialist society, without waiting for the world revolution. In addition, the NEP was aimed at restoring normal foreign policy relations and overcoming international isolation.

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, backed by precious metals, stable foreign currency and easily marketable goods. The Chervonets was equal to the old 10-ruble gold coin, which contained 7.74 g of pure gold.

The issue of depreciating Soviet notes was used to finance the state budget deficit caused by economic difficulties. Their share in the money supply was steadily declining from 94% in February 1923 to 20% in February 1924. From the depreciation of Sovznak, large losses were suffered by the peasantry, who sought to delay the sale of their products, and by the working class, who received wages in Sovznak. To compensate for the losses of the working class, fiscal policies were used to increase taxation for the private sector and reduce taxation for the public sector. Excise taxes on luxury goods were increased and reduced or even eliminated on essential goods. Government loans played a major role in maintaining the stability of the national currency throughout the NEP period. However, the threat to the trade link between city and countryside required the elimination of parallel monetary circulation and stabilization of the ruble on the domestic market.

A skillful combination of planned and market instruments for regulating the economy, which ensured the growth of the national economy, a sharp reduction in the budget deficit, an increase in gold and foreign currency reserves, as well as an active foreign trade balance, made it possible during 1924 to carry out the second stage of the monetary reform of the transition to one stable currency. Canceled Sovznak were subject to redemption with treasury notes at a fixed ratio within one and a half months. A fixed ratio was established between the treasury ruble and the bank chervonets, equating 1 chervonets to 10 rubles. Bank and treasury notes were in circulation, and gold chervonets were used, as a rule, in international payments. Their rate in 1924 became higher than the official gold parity against the pound sterling and the dollar.

In the 20s Commercial credit was widely used, servicing approximately 85% of the volume of transactions for the sale of goods. Banks exercised control over mutual lending to business organizations and, through accounting and collateral operations, regulated the size of a commercial loan, its direction, terms and interest rate. However, its use created the opportunity for unplanned redistribution of funds in the national economy and complicated banking control.

Financing of capital investments and long-term lending developed. After the Civil War, capital investments were financed irrevocably or in the form of long-term loans. To invest in industry, the Electrocredit joint-stock company and the Industrial Bank were created in 1922, later transformed into the Electric Bank and the Commercial and Industrial Bank of the USSR. Long-term lending to the local economy was carried out by local communal banks, transformed in 1926 into the Central Communal Bank (Tsekombank). Agriculture was provided with long-term loans by state credit institutions, credit cooperation, formed in 1924, the Central Agricultural Bank, cooperative banks - Vsekobank and Ukrainbank. At the same time, Vneshtorgbank was created, which provided credit and settlement services for foreign trade and the purchase and sale of foreign currency.

NEP in agriculture

... By a resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, the appropriation system is abolished, and a tax on agricultural products is introduced in its place. This tax should be less than grain appropriation. It should be appointed even before the spring sowing, so that each peasant can take into account in advance what share of the harvest he must give to the state and how much will remain at his full disposal. The tax should be levied without mutual responsibility, that is, it should fall on an individual householder, so that a diligent and hardworking owner does not have to pay for a sloppy fellow villager. Upon completion of the tax, the surplus remaining with the peasant comes to his full disposal. He has the right to exchange them for products and equipment that the state will deliver to the village from abroad and from its factories and factories; he can use them to exchange for the products he needs through cooperatives and in local markets and bazaars...

The tax in kind was initially set at approximately 20% of the net product of peasant labor (that is, to pay it it was necessary to hand over almost half as much grain as during the surplus appropriation system), and subsequently it was planned to be reduced to 10% of the harvest and converted into cash.

On October 30, 1922, the Land Code of the RSFSR was issued, which repealed the law on the socialization of land and declared its nationalization. At the same time, peasants were free to choose their own form of land use - communal, individual or collective. The ban on the use of hired workers was also lifted.

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.

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 people have increased their 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 the 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 and 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 1924-25 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 1927-28 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.

Thus, in 1925, Bukharin called on the peasants: “Get rich, accumulate, develop your farm!”, but after a few weeks he actually retracted his words. Others, led by E.A. Preobrazhensky, demanded an intensification of the fight against the “kulaks” (who, as they claimed, were taking into their own hands not only economic, but also political power in the countryside) - without, however, thinking about either the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” or the violent “ complete collectivization,” nor about the curtailment of the NEP (unlike Bukharin, who from 1930 began to theoretically substantiate Stalin’s new policy, and in 1937, in his letter to future party leaders, swore that for 8 years he had no disagreements with Stalin , E.A. Preobrazhensky condemned Stalin’s policies at Lubyanka in 1936). However, the contradictions of the NEP strengthened the anti-NEP sentiments of the lower and middle sections of the party leadership.

NEP in industry

From the resolution of the XII Congress of the RCP (b), April 1923:

The revival of state industry, given the general economic structure of our country, will necessarily be closely dependent on the development of agriculture; the necessary working capital must be formed in agriculture as a surplus of agricultural products over the consumption of the countryside, before industry can take a decisive step forward. But it is equally important for state industry not to lag behind agriculture, otherwise, on the basis of the latter, a private industry would be created, which would ultimately absorb or dissolve the state one. Only an industry that gives more than it absorbs can be victorious. Industry living off the budget, that is, from agriculture, could not create a stable and long-term support for the proletarian dictatorship. The question of creating surplus value in state industry is a question about the fate of Soviet power, that is, about the fate of the proletariat.

Radical changes also took place in industry. The chapters were abolished, and in their place trusts were created - associations of homogeneous or interconnected enterprises that received complete economic and financial independence, up to the right to issue long-term bond issues. By the end of 1922, about 90% of industrial enterprises were united into 421 trusts, with 40% of them being centralized and 60% of local subordination. The trusts themselves decided what to produce and where to sell the products. The enterprises that were part of the trust were withdrawn from state supplies and began purchasing resources on the market. The law provided that “the state treasury is not responsible for the debts of trusts.”

VSNKh, having lost the right to intervene in the current activities of enterprises and trusts, turned into a coordination center. His staff was sharply reduced. It was at that time that economic accounting appeared, in which an enterprise (after mandatory fixed contributions to the state budget) has the right to independently dispose of income from the sale of products, is itself responsible for the results of its economic activities, independently uses profits and covers losses. Under the conditions of the NEP, Lenin wrote, “state enterprises are transferred to the so-called economic accounting, that is, in fact, to a large extent to commercial and capitalist principles.”

Trusts had to allocate at least 20% of profits to the formation of reserve capital until it reached a value equal to half of the authorized capital (soon this standard was reduced to 10% of profits until it reached a third of the initial capital). And the reserve capital was used to finance the expansion of production and compensation for losses in economic activity. The bonuses received by members of the board and workers of the trust depended on the size of the profit.

The decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of 1923 stated the following:

Syndicates began to emerge - voluntary associations of trusts on the basis of cooperation, engaged in sales, supply, lending, and foreign trade operations. By the end of 1922, 80% of the trust industry was syndicated, and by the beginning of 1928 there were 23 syndicates that operated in almost all industries, concentrating in their hands the bulk of wholesale trade. The board of syndicates was elected at a meeting of representatives of the trusts, and each trust could, at its discretion, transfer a greater or lesser part of its supply and sales to the management of the syndicate.

The sale of finished products, the purchase of raw materials, supplies, and equipment were carried out on a full-fledged market, through wholesale trade channels. A wide network of commodity exchanges, fairs, and trading enterprises emerged.

In industry and other sectors, cash wages were restored, tariffs and wages were introduced, excluding equalization, and restrictions were lifted to increase wages with increased output. Labor armies were liquidated, compulsory labor service and the main restrictions on changing jobs were abolished. The organization of labor was built on the principles of material incentives, which replaced the non-economic coercion of “war communism.” The absolute number of unemployed people registered by labor exchanges increased during the NEP period (from 1.2 million people at the beginning of 1924 to 1.7 million people at the beginning of 1929), but the expansion of the labor market was even more significant (the number of workers and employees in all sectors of the national economy increased from 5.8 million in 1924 to 12.4 million in 1929), so that in fact the unemployment rate decreased.

A private sector emerged in industry and trade: some state-owned enterprises were denationalized, others were leased out; private individuals with no more than 20 employees were allowed to create their own industrial enterprises (later this “ceiling” was raised). Among the factories rented by “private owners” there were those that employed 200-300 people, and in general the private sector during the NEP period accounted for about a fifth of industrial production, 40-80% of retail trade and a small part of wholesale trade.

A number of enterprises were leased to foreign firms in the form of concessions. In 1926-27 There were 117 existing agreements of this kind. They covered enterprises that employed 18 thousand people and produced just over 1% of industrial output. In some industries, however, the share of concession enterprises and mixed joint-stock companies in which foreigners owned part of the shares was significant: in the mining of lead and silver - 60%; manganese ore - 85%; gold - 30%; in the production of clothing and toiletries - 22%.

In addition to capital, a flow of immigrant workers from all over the world was sent to the USSR. In 1922, the American garment workers' union and the Soviet government created the Russian-American Industrial Corporation (RAIK), to which six textile and clothing factories were transferred in Petrograd, four in Moscow.

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 - marketing, supply and credit cooperation - covered by the end of the 1920s more than half of all peasant farms. By the end of 1928, non-production cooperation of various types, primarily peasant cooperation, covered 28 million people (13 times more than in 1913). In socialized retail trade, 60-80% was accounted for by cooperatives and only 20-40% by the state itself; in industry in 1928, 13% of all production was provided by cooperatives. There was cooperative legislation, lending, and insurance.

To replace the depreciated and actually already rejected by the turnover of Sovznak in 1922, the issue of a new monetary unit was started - 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 1924, 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 the foreign exchange market, both domestically and abroad, chervonets were freely exchanged for gold and major foreign currencies at the pre-war exchange rate of the Tsar's ruble (1 US dollar = 1.94 rubles).

The credit system has been revived. In 1921, the State Bank of the USSR was recreated and 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.

In just 5 years, from 1921 to 1926, the index of industrial production increased more than 3 times; agricultural production doubled and exceeded the level of 1913 by 18%. But even after the end of the recovery period, economic growth continued at a rapid pace: in 1927 and 1928. the increase in industrial production was 13 and 19%, respectively. In general, for the period 1921-1928. the average annual growth rate of national income was 18%.

The most important result of the NEP was that impressive economic successes were achieved on the basis of fundamentally new, hitherto unknown history of social relations. In industry, key positions were occupied by state trusts, in the credit and financial sphere - by state and cooperative banks, in agriculture - by small peasant farms covered by the simplest types of cooperation. Under the NEP conditions, the economic functions of the state also turned out to be completely new; The goals, principles and methods of government economic policy have changed radically. If previously the center directly established natural, technological proportions of reproduction by order, now it has moved on to regulating prices, trying to ensure balanced growth through indirect, economic methods.

The state put pressure on producers, forced them to find internal reserves for increasing profits, to mobilize efforts to increase production efficiency, which alone could now ensure profit growth.

A broad campaign to reduce prices was launched by the government at the end of 1923, but truly comprehensive regulation of price proportions began in 1924, when circulation completely switched to a stable red currency, and the functions of the Internal Trade Commission were transferred to the People's Commissariat of Internal Trade with broad rights in sphere of price regulation. The measures taken then turned out to be successful: wholesale prices for industrial goods decreased from October 1923 to May 1, 1924 by 26% and continued to decline further.

Throughout the subsequent period until the end of the NEP, the issue of prices continued to remain the core of state economic policy: raising them by trusts and syndicates threatened to repeat the sales crisis, while their excessive reduction, given the existence of a private sector along with the state sector, inevitably led to the enrichment of the private owner at the expense of state industry, to transfer of resources from state-owned enterprises to private industry and trade. The private market, where prices were not standardized, but were set as a result of the free play of supply and demand, served as a sensitive “barometer”, the “arrow” of which, as soon as the state made mistakes in pricing policy, immediately “pointed to bad weather.”

But price regulation was carried out by a bureaucratic apparatus that was not sufficiently controlled by direct producers. The lack of democracy in the decision-making process regarding pricing became the “Achilles heel” of a market socialist economy and played a fatal role in the fate of the NEP.

No matter how brilliant the successes in the economy were, its rise was limited by strict limits. Reaching the pre-war level was not easy, but this also meant a new clash with the backwardness of yesterday's Russia, now isolated and surrounded by a world hostile to it. Moreover, the most powerful and wealthy capitalist powers began to strengthen again. American economists calculated that national income per capita in the late 1920s in the USSR was less than 19% of the US.

Political struggle during the NEP

Economic processes during the NEP period overlapped with political development and were largely determined by the latter. These processes throughout the entire period of Soviet power were characterized by a tendency toward dictatorship and authoritarianism. While Lenin was at the helm, one could speak of a “collective dictatorship”; he was a leader solely due to his authority, but since 1917 he had to share this role with L. Trotsky: the supreme ruler at that time was called “Lenin and Trotsky”, both portraits adorned not only state institutions, but sometimes even peasant huts. However, with the beginning of the internal party struggle at the end of 1922, Trotsky’s rivals - Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin - not possessing his authority, contrasted him with the authority of Lenin and in a short time inflated him into a real cult - in order to gain the opportunity to proudly call themselves “faithful Leninists” and "Defenders of Leninism."

This was especially dangerous in combination with the dictatorship of the Communist Party. As Mikhail Tomsky, a senior Soviet leader, said in April 1922, “We have several parties. But, unlike abroad, we have one party in power, and the rest are in prison.” As if to confirm his words, in the summer of the same year an open trial of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries took place. All more or less major representatives of this party who remained in the country were tried - and more than a dozen sentences were handed down to capital punishment (the convicts were later pardoned). In the same year, 1922, more than two hundred of the largest representatives of Russian philosophical thought were sent abroad simply because they did not hide their disagreement with the Soviet system - this measure went down in history under the name “Philosophical Steamship.”

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 party (Politburo) and government bodies (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 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 the last year of 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 1924. As the 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).

The note “Letter to the Congress” (known as “Lenin’s Testament”) had one more component - personal characteristics of the largest party leaders (Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Pyatakov). This part of the Letter is often interpreted as a search for a successor (heir), but Lenin, unlike Stalin, was never a sole dictator, he could not make a single fundamental decision without the Central Committee, and not so fundamental - without the Politburo, despite the fact that in The Central Committee, and even more so the Politburo at that time, contained independent people who often disagreed with Lenin in their views. Therefore, there could be no question about any “heir” (and it was not Lenin who called the Letter to the Congress a “testament”). Assuming that the party would retain its collective leadership after him, Lenin gave mostly ambivalent characteristics to the prospective members of this leadership. There was only one definite indication in his Letter: the post of General Secretary gives Stalin too much power, which is dangerous given his rudeness (this was dangerous, according to Lenin, only in the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky, and not in general). Some modern researchers believe, however, that Lenin's Testament was based more on the psychological state of the patient than on political motives.

But the letters to the congress reached the rank-and-file participants only in fragments, and the letter in which personal characteristics were given to the comrades-in-arms was not shown to the party by those closest to them at all. We agreed among ourselves that Stalin would promise to improve, and that was the end of the matter.

Even before Lenin’s physical 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 wrote an open letter in support of Trotsky (“Statement 46”). 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 arose 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. Until autumn. In the fall of 1924, however, he published the book “Lessons of 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.

Curtailment of the NEP

In October 1928, the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy began. At the same time, it was not the project developed by the USSR State Planning Committee that was adopted as the plan for the first five-year plan, but an inflated version drawn up by the Supreme Economic Council, not so much taking into account objective possibilities, but under the pressure of party slogans. In June 1929, mass collectivization began (which contradicted even the plan of the Supreme Economic Council) - it was carried out with the widespread use of coercive measures. In the autumn it was supplemented by forced grain procurements.

As a result of these measures, unification into collective farms really became widespread, which gave Stalin reason in November of the same 1929 to make a statement that the middle peasants joined collective farms. Stalin’s article was called “The Great Turning Point.” Immediately after this article, the next plenum of the Central Committee approved new, increased and accelerated plans for collectivization and industrialization..

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 through the return to operation of pre-war capacities, because Russia only reached the economic indicators of the pre-war years by 1926/1927. The potential for further economic growth turned out to be extremely low. The private sector was not allowed to the “commanding heights of the economy,” foreign investment was 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”, the most decisive and effective owners, were clearly oppressed. They had no incentive to do better.

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 remembered their hungry childhood and there was no force that could stop the satisfaction of that childhood hunger. They set their own fashion.

Cabarets and restaurants became the main entertainment - a pan-European trend of that time. The Berlin cabarets were especially famous in the 1920s. One of the most famous couplet artists of the time was Mikhail Savoyarov.

The cabaret featured artists-couplets with simple song plots and simple rhymes and rhythms, performers of funny feuilletons, sketches, and entertainment. The artistic value of those works is highly controversial, and many of them have long been forgotten. But nevertheless, simple, unpretentious words 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”...

These songs were 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. The author of the lyrics to the songs “Babliki” and “Lemonchiki” was the disgraced poet Yakov Yadov. 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.

Light genres also reigned in dramatic theaters. And here not everything was kept within the required boundaries. Moscow Vakhtangov Studio, future theater named after. Vakhtangov, 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 “Zoyka’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 cheerful, seemingly unprincipled play hid 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.