War communism or wartime communism (1918 - 1921) was the economic policy adopted by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War with the aim of keeping towns and the Red Army supplied with weapons and food, in conditions when all normal economic mechanisms and relations were being destroyed by the war. "War communism", which began in June 1918, was enforced by the Supreme Economic Council, known as the Vesenkha. It took an end on March 21, 1921 with the beginning of the NEP (New Economic Policy) which lasted until 1930.

Policies

War communism included the following policies:

1. All large factories to be controlled by the government.
2. Production planned and organized by the government.
3. Discipline for workers was strict, and strikers could be shot.
4. Obligatory labor duty was imposed onto "non-working classes".
5. Bourgeois experts replaced factory soviets in the management of industry.
6. Prodrazvyorstka – requisition of agricultural surpluses from peasants in excess of absolute minimum for centralized distribution among the remaining population.
7. Food and most commodities were rationed and distributed in a centralized way.
8. Private enterprise became illegal.
9. Military-like control of railroads was introduced.

Because all of these measures were implemented in a time of civil war, they were far less coherent and coordinated in practice than they might appear on paper. Large areas of Russia were outside the Bolsheviks' control, and poor communications meant that even those regions loyal to the Bolshevik government often had to act on their own, lacking any orders or central coordination from Moscow. It has long been debated whether "War communism" represented an actual economic policy in the proper sense of the word or merely a set of desperate measures intended to win the civil war at any cost. See Nicolas Werth, Histoire de l'Union Soviétique de Lénine à Staline, 1995

The goals of the Bolsheviks in implementing War communism are a matter of controversy. As noted above, some commentators, including a number of Bolsheviks, have argued that its sole purpose was to win the war. Others hold different views. The historian Richard Pipes, for example, has argued that War communism was actually an attempt to immediately implement communist economics and that the Bolshevik leaders expected an immediate and large scale increase in economic output. It may be that different Bolsheviks had different goals in mind.

Although War communism helped achieved the aim of winning the war, it aggravated many hardships experienced by the population as a result of the war. Peasants refused to co-operate in producing food, as the government took away far too much of it. Workers began migrating from the cities to the countryside, where the chances to feed oneself were higher, thus further decreasing the possibility of the fair trade of industrial goods for food and worsening the plight of the remaining urban population. Between 1918 and 1920, Petrograd lost 75% of its population, whilst Moscow lost 50%. A black market emerged in Russia, despite the threat of the martial law against profiteering. The Ruble collapsed and was replaced by a system of bartering and, by 1921, heavy industry had fallen to output levels of 20% of those in 1913. 70% of Locomotives were in need of repair and the food requisitioning, combined with the effects of 7 years of war and a severe drought, contributed to a famine that caused between 3 and 10 million deaths.^*

As a result, a series of workers' strikes and peasants' rebellions, such as the Tambov rebellion rolled over the country. The turning point was the Kronstadt rebellion at the naval base on February, 1921. The rebellion had a startling effect on Lenin, even though it was eventually crushed by the Red Army, because the Kronstadt sailors had been among the strongest supporters of the Bolsheviks. After the rebellion, Lenin ended the policy of War Communism and replaced it with the New Economic Policy.

Other uses

The term wartime communism was also reportedly in use in Serbia during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s .

References