14. New Economic Policy

Question 1

Key Measures (ARRS) - Abolition of grain requisitioning

Answer 1

• Replaced grain requisitioning with a 10% ‘tax in kind’ (goods rather than cash)
• Peasants had to give a fixed proportion of their grain to the state, much less than amounts taken by requisitioning.
• Surpluses could be sold on the open market.

Question 2

Key Measures - Reopening of small businesses

Answer 2

• Small-scale businesses under private ownership allowed to reopen and profit.
• Businesses like workshops and factories were allowed to reopen.

Question 3

Key Measures - Removal of ban on private trade

Answer 3

• Enhanced flow of food and goods between countryside and towns.
• Privately owned shops reopened.
• Rationing abolished, allowing people to buy food and goods from their own income.

Question 4

Key Measures - State control of heavy industry

Answer 4

• State retained control of large-scale heavy industries, transport, and banking systems.
• Industry was organised into trusts that had to buy materials and pay their workers from their own budgets.

Question 5

Impact

Answer 5

• Grain harvesting reached 77 million tons in 1926 (almost back to 1913 levels of 80 million tons)
• Factory production up 7 billion roubles (1924-26)
• By 1923, Nepmen handled as much as three-quarters of the retail trade

Question 6

Repression (CAECA): Censorship

Answer 6

In the spring of 1922, dozens of outstanding Russian writers and scholars were deported to convince the intelligentsia that it was not a good idea to criticise the government.

Question 7

Repression: Attacks on political rivals

Answer 7

• Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries had become much more popular during the strikes and revolts and had played some part in encouraging them.
• ‘Show trials’ → 34 SRs condemned as terrorists → 11 executed.

Question 8

Repression: Establishment of the GPU

Answer 8

• CHEKA renamed to GPU in 1922.
• GPU harassed and arrested Nepmen as speculators and class enemies.
• Aimed to control capitalistic tendencies among left Communists and urban workers.

Question 9

Repression: Crushing of peasant revolts

Answer 9

• The Tambov region was swamped by Red Army troops in 1922, around 100,000 soldiers.
• Villages that supported Reds rewarded with salt and manufactured goods.

Question 10

Repression: Attacks on the church

Answer 10

• Communists targeted Church as a rival to their power.
• Union of the Militant Godless established in 1921 to challenge Church more directly.
• 1922 orders to strip churches of precious items to aid famine victims.
• Violent clashes occurred when clergy and locals tried to protect churches. Death penalties for Russian Orthodox Church leaders and imprisonment of thousands of priests.

Question 11

Evidence

Answer 11

First Hand Quotes
Bukharin - “Economic concessions to avoid political concessions”

Historian Interpretations
Corin - “…life began to flow back into the cities”
Ulam - “…forced compromise [for the Bolsheviks] to retain power”