The policy of cooperating the peasantry in the era of the NEP assumed. New Economic Policy (NEP) briefly

The first attempts to curtail the NEP began. Syndicates in industry were liquidated, from which private capital was administratively ousted, and a rigid centralized system of economic management (economic people's commissariats) was created. Stalin and his entourage headed for the forced seizure of grain and the forcible collectivization of the countryside. Repressions were carried out against managerial personnel (Shakhty case, the process of the Industrial Party, etc.). By the beginning of the 1930s, the NEP was effectively curtailed.

Prerequisites for the NEP

The volume of agricultural production decreased by 40% due to the depreciation of money and the shortage of manufactured goods.

Society has degraded, its intellectual potential has significantly weakened. Most of the Russian intelligentsia was 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 their bread, but also rose to armed struggle. The uprisings swept the Tambov region, Ukraine, Don, Kuban, the Volga region and Siberia. The peasants demanded a change in agrarian policy, the elimination of the dictates of the RCP (b), the convening of the Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal equal suffrage. Units of the Red Army were sent to suppress these demonstrations.

Discontent spread to the army. On March 1, the 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 the socialist parties, the holding of re-elections of the Soviets and, as follows from the slogan, the exclusion of all communists from them, the granting of 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 economy , that is, the elimination of surplus appropriation. Convinced of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the rebels, the authorities stormed Kronstadt. By alternating artillery shelling and infantry actions, Kronstadt was taken by March 18; some of the rebels died, the rest went to Finland or surrendered.

From the appeal of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of the city of Kronstadt:

Comrades and citizens! Our country is going through a difficult moment. Hunger, cold, economic ruin have been holding us in an iron grip for three years now. The Communist Party, ruling the country, broke away from the masses and proved unable to lead it out of the state of general ruin. It did not take into account the unrest that had recently taken place in Petrograd and Moscow, and which showed quite clearly that the Party had lost the confidence of the working masses. Nor did they take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them the intrigues of the counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken. These unrest, these demands are the voice of the entire people, of all working people. All workers, sailors and Red Army soldiers clearly see at the present moment that only by joint efforts, by the common will of the working people, can bread, firewood, coal be provided to the country, to clothe the barefooted and undressed, and lead the republic out of the impasse...

The uprisings that swept across the country convincingly showed that the Bolsheviks were losing support in society. Already in the year there were calls to abandon the surplus appropriation: 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, the same question was raised by Rykov in the Supreme Council of National Economy.

The policy of war communism has exhausted itself, but Lenin, in spite of everything, persisted. Moreover - at the turn of 1920 and 1921 he resolutely insisted on strengthening this policy - in particular, plans were made for the complete abolition of the monetary system.

V. I. Lenin

Only by the spring of 1921 it became obvious that the general discontent of the lower classes, their armed pressure could lead to the overthrow of the power of the Soviets, led by the Communists. Therefore, Lenin decided to make a concession in order to maintain power.

The course of development of the NEP

Proclamation of the NEP

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 - by the end of the 1920s covered more than half of all peasant farms. By the end of the year, various types of non-production cooperatives, primarily peasant cooperatives, covered 28 million people (13 times more than in the city). In the socialized retail trade, 60-80% accounted for the cooperative and only 20-40% - for the state proper, in industry in 1928, 13% of all products were produced by cooperatives. There was cooperative legislation, lending, insurance.

Instead of the depreciated and actually already rejected by the turnover of the Soviet signs, a new monetary unit was launched in the city - chervonets, which had a gold content and a gold exchange rate (1 chervonets \u003d 10 pre-revolutionary gold rubles \u003d 7.74 g of pure gold). In the city, the Soviet signs, which were quickly supplanted by the chervonets, ceased to be printed altogether and were withdrawn from circulation; in the same year, the budget was balanced and the use of money emission to cover state expenses was prohibited; new treasury notes were issued - rubles (10 rubles = 1 gold piece). On the foreign exchange market, both within the country and abroad, chervonets were freely exchanged for gold and major foreign currencies at the pre-war rate of the tsarist ruble (1 US dollar = 1.94 rubles).

The credit system has revived. In the city, the State Bank of the USSR was recreated, which began lending to industry and trade on a commercial basis. In 1922-1925. a number of specialized banks were created: joint-stock, in which the State Bank, syndicates, cooperatives, private and even at one time foreign, were shareholders, for lending to certain sectors of the economy and regions of the country; cooperative - for lending to consumer cooperation; organized on the shares of the agricultural credit society, closed on the republican and central agricultural banks; mutual credit societies - for lending to private industry and trade; savings banks - to mobilize the savings of the population. As of October 1, 1923, there were 17 independent banks operating in the country, and the share of the State Bank 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 share of the State Bank in lending to the national economy decreased to 48%.

The economic mechanism during the NEP period was based on market principles. Commodity-money relations, which were previously tried to be banished from production and exchange, in the 1920s penetrated into all the pores of the economic organism, became the main link between its individual parts.

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 the trade unions. In order to stop such attempts, the X Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921 adopted a resolution on the unity of the party. According to this resolution, the decisions taken by the majority must be carried out by all members of the party, including those who do not agree with them.

The consequence of the one-party system was the merging of the party and the government. The same people occupied the main positions in the party (Politburo) and state bodies (SNK, All-Russian Central Executive Committee, etc.). At the same time, the personal authority of the people's commissars and the need to make urgent, urgent decisions in the conditions of the Civil War led to the fact that the center of power was concentrated not in the legislative body (VTsIK), 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 1920s than his place in the formal structure of state power. That is why, speaking about the figures of the 1920s, we first of all name not positions, but surnames.

In parallel with the change in the position of the party in the country, the rebirth of the party itself took place. It is obvious that there will always be many more people wishing to join the ruling party than an underground party, membership in which cannot give other privileges than iron bunks or a noose around the neck. At the same time, the party, having become the ruling one, began to need to increase its membership in order to fill government posts at all levels. This led to a rapid growth in the size of the Communist Party after the revolution. From time to time he was spurred on by mass sets, such as the "Lenin Set" after Lenin's death. The inevitable consequence of this process was the dissolution of the old, ideological, Bolsheviks among the young party members. In 1927, out of 1,300,000 people who were members of the party, only 8,000 had pre-revolutionary experience; most of the rest did not know the communist theory at all.

Not only the intellectual and educational, but also the moral level of the party went down. Indicative in this regard are 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. Of the 732,000 members, only 410,000 members remained 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 government", "selfishness", "careerism", "bourgeois lifestyle", "decomposition in everyday life".

In connection with the growth of the party, the initially inconspicuous post of secretary began to acquire more and more importance. Any secretary is a secondary position by definition. This is a person who, during official events, monitors compliance with the necessary formalities. Since April, the Bolshevik Party has had the post 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. This position was given to Stalin.

Soon the expansion of the privileges of the upper stratum of party members began. Since 1926, this layer has received a special name - "nomenclature". So they began to call the party and state posts included in the list of posts, the appointment to which was subject to approval in the Accounting and Distribution Department of the Central Committee.

The processes of party bureaucratization 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 was for him the last year of a full life. In May of the year, he was struck by the first blow - his brain was damaged, so that the almost helpless Lenin was given a very sparing work schedule. In March of the year, a second attack occurred, after which Lenin fell out of life for half a year, almost learning to pronounce words anew. As soon as he began to recover from the second attack, in January the third and last happened. As the autopsy showed, for the last almost two years of his life, only one hemisphere of the brain was active in Lenin.

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 his letters to the congress, known as his "political testament" (December 1922 - January 1923), Lenin proposes to expand the Central Committee at the expense of the workers, to elect a new Central Control Commission (Central Control Commission) from among the proletarians, to cut the excessively swollen and therefore incapacitated RCI (Workers - peasant inspection).

There was another component in the "Lenin's Testament" - the personal characteristics of the largest party leaders (Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Pyatakov). Often this part of the Letter is interpreted as a search for a successor (heir), but Lenin, unlike Stalin, was never a sole dictator, he could not take 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 was occupied by independent people who often disagreed with Lenin in their views. Therefore, there could be no question of any "heir" (and it was not Lenin who called the Letter to the Congress a "testament"). Assuming that after him the party would continue to have a collective leadership, Lenin characterized the alleged members of this leadership, for the most part ambiguous. Only one specific indication was in his Letter: the post of general secretary gives Stalin too much power, dangerous in 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 its rank-and-file participants only in fragments, and the letter, in which comrades-in-arms were given personal characteristics, was not shown to the party at all by the inner circle. We agreed among ourselves that Stalin promised to improve, and that was the end of the matter.

Even before the physical death of Lenin, at the end of the year, a struggle began between his "heirs", more precisely, the pushing of Trotsky from the helm. In the fall of the year, the struggle took on an open character. In October, Trotsky addressed a letter to the Central Committee, in which he pointed out the formation of a bureaucratic intra-party regime. A week later, an open letter in support of Trotsky was written by a group of 46 old Bolsheviks ("Statement 46"). The Central Committee, of course, responded with a decisive refutation. The leading role in this was played by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. It was not for the first time that sharp disputes arose in the Bolshevik Party. But unlike previous discussions, this time the ruling faction actively used labeling. Trotsky was not refuted by reasonable arguments - he was simply accused of Menshevism, deviationism and other mortal sins. The substitution of labeling for a real dispute is a new phenomenon: it did not exist before, but it will become more common as the political process develops in the 1920s.

Trotsky was defeated quite easily. The next party conference, held in January of the year, promulgated a resolution on the unity of the party (previously kept secret), and Trotsky was forced to silence. Until autumn. In the autumn of 1924, however, he published the book Lessons of October, in which he unequivocally stated that he made the revolution with Lenin. Then Zinoviev and Kamenev "suddenly" remembered that before the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) in July 1917, Trotsky had been a Menshevik. The party was in shock. In December 1924, Trotsky was removed from the post of People's Commissar of the Navy, but left 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 a plan for the first five-year plan, but an overestimated version, drawn up by the Supreme Council of National Economy, not so much taking into account objective possibilities, but under the pressure of party slogans. In June 1929, mass collectivization began (contradicting even the plan of the Supreme Council of National Economy) - it was carried out with the widespread use of coercive measures. In autumn, it was supplemented by forced grain procurements.

As a result of these measures, the unification into collective farms really acquired a mass character, which gave Stalin reason in November of the same 1929 to make a statement that the middle peasant went to the collective farms. Stalin's article was called that - "The Great Break". Immediately after this article, the next plenum of the Central Committee approved new, increased and accelerated plans for collectivization and industrialization.

Findings and Conclusions

The undoubted success of the NEP was the restoration of the destroyed economy, and, given that after the revolution, Russia lost highly qualified personnel (economists, managers, production workers), the success of the new government becomes a "victory over devastation." At the same time, the lack of those same highly qualified personnel has become the cause of miscalculations and errors.

"Soviet country in the years

NEP (1921 - 1927) »

INTRODUCTION

1. Transition to the New Economic Policy

2. The essence of the new economic policy

2.1. Goals and objectives of the NEP

2.2. Characteristics of NEP measures

2.3. The results of the NEP events and its collapse

3. Cultural revolution

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

A special place in the history of Russia and the USSR is occupied by the beginning
20s. This is, first of all, the transition from civil war to peace, the rejection of the policy of "war communism", which led to a serious political crisis. The transition to the New Economic Policy (NEP) was objectively conditioned and vital. The main reason for replacing politics with the NEP was that the internal political crisis led to discontent not only among a significant part of the peasantry, but also among the workers.

The NEP period is perhaps the most difficult of all periods of Soviet history. At the same time, it is he who is most significant for us today.

The purpose of this work is to reveal the meaning of the introduction of a new economic policy.

The task is to consider the causes that led to the emergence of the NEP, the course of development of the new economic policy and the results of its implementation for the country.

Thus, the urgent problem of Russia for this period was the need for a radical change in economic policy in order to improve the state of the country - to prevent economic devastation, hunger, and the growing mass strikes of the public. To this end, the Bolsheviks came to the decision to introduce a new course, called the new economic policy.

1. Transition to the New Economic Policy

The First World War and the Civil War caused enormous damage to the welfare of the country. The total loss of the population, since 1914, amounted to more than 20 million people.

The reasons that led to the deepest economic, food and political crisis in the country:

Significant reduction in industrial and agricultural production;

The rupture of economic ties between the city and the countryside as a result of the policy of "war communism";

Crop failure 1920-1921

Peasant dissatisfaction with the food requisition resulted in a wave of anti-Bolshevik uprisings, the largest of which was the performance of the peasants of the Tambov and Voronezh provinces under the leadership of A. Antonov (“Antonovshchina”).

The most dangerous for the Soviet government was the Kronstadt uprising, which broke out in February 1921. The sailors adopted a resolution in which they demanded the re-election of the Soviets on the basis of free elections, political freedoms, the release of all political prisoners, and an end to forced confiscations. The slogans "For Soviets without Communists!" and "Power to the Soviets, not to the parties!". The uprising in Kronstadt was suppressed by troops led by M. Tukhachevsky.

In order to bring the country out of the crisis as soon as possible, the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b), which met in March 1921, adopted a fundamental decision to replace the surplus appropriation with the tax in kind. This marked the beginning of the transition to a new (in relation to "war communism") economic policy (NEP).

2. The essence of the new economic policy

2.1. Goals and objectives of the NEP

In March 1921, at the X Congress of the Bolshevik Party, many issues were resolved, but the main ones were:

About trade unions

About the unity of the party

· On the replacement of the surplus tax with the tax in kind.

On the first question, the so-called "workers' opposition" (Shlyapnikov and others) spoke, which insisted on the transfer of all management of the economy to the workers' trade unions. But the congress adopted the "Platform of Ten" (Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and others), where it was declared that only the Communist Party could exercise the dictatorship of the proletariat; Only the party should manage the national economy.

There was a very sharp discussion about intra-Party democracy, about factional struggle within the Party. At the insistence of Lenin, the resolution "On the Unity of the Party" was adopted, which for many decades became the basis of the intra-party regime. According to the faction's decision, factionalists could be expelled from the party for violation.

The issue of replacing the surplus with the tax in kind was considered on the seventh day of the congress. The decision was made practically without discussion on the basis of Lenin's report.

In May 1921, the New Deal was called the New Economic Policy (NEP). Legislatively, the transition to the NEP was formalized in December of the same 1921 by decrees of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, decisions of the IX All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

It was an anti-crisis program, the essence of which was to recreate a multi-structural economy and use the organizational and technical experience of the capitalists while maintaining the "commanding heights" of the Bolsheviks - political and economic levers of influence: the sovereignty of the RCP (b), the public sector in industry, a centralized financial system and a monopoly foreign trade.

The leading ideologists of the New Economic Policy, except for V.I. Lenin, were N.I. Bukharin, G.Ya. Sokolnikov, Yu. Larin, who developed the main tactical goals of the NEP:

The political goal of the NEP is to provide favorable conditions for building a socialist society without waiting for the world revolution.

The economic goal is to prevent further aggravation of the devastation, get out of the crisis and restore the economy through the development of private initiative and the attraction of foreign capital.

Internationally, the NEP was aimed at restoring foreign policy and foreign economic relations and at overcoming Russia's international isolation.

In addition, the NEP had to solve the following tasks:

Strengthen the economic ties between the city and the countryside

Develop the industry on the basis of electrification

Cooperate the population of the country

Implement cost accounting based on personal interest in the results of labor

Improve state planning and management

Use commodity-money relations, ensure freedom of trade

· Introduce capitalist elements into the economy, develop market relations.

2.2. Characteristics of NEP measures

The new economic policy included a set of economic and socio-political measures.

In the economy, the introduction of the NEP began with agriculture:

· Replacing the surplus tax with a tax in kind. Its size was set before the sowing campaign (until spring), was maintained throughout the year and was 2 times less than the allotment. After the implementation of state deliveries, free trade in the remaining products of their economy was allowed.

· It was allowed to open a handicraft or industrial production for one owner (up to 20 hired workers).

· The forcible planting of communes was stopped, which made it possible for the private, small-scale commodity sector to gain a foothold in the countryside. Individual peasants provided 98.5% of agricultural products.

· Introduced material incentives for workers, increased wages.

· It was allowed to rent premises and entire enterprises in the city, land and equipment in the countryside.

In industry and trade, private individuals were allowed to open small and rent medium-sized enterprises. The decree on general nationalization was repealed. Concessions were granted to large domestic and foreign capital - joint-stock and joint ventures with the state. A state-capitalist sector emerged.

State enterprises were transferred to self-financing, which made it possible to switch to self-sufficiency and self-financing, which, at their own discretion, disposed of part of their profits.

The sectoral management system was replaced by a territorial-sectoral one - the Supreme Council of National Economy and its head offices led the industry through local economic councils (sovnarkhozes) and sectoral economic trusts.

The process of formation of the Nepman bourgeoisie (Nepmen) began. Their main area of ​​activity was trade and, to a lesser extent, entrepreneurship. Thus, the new economic policy gave people economic freedom, the opportunity to show initiative and enterprise.

In the financial sector, in addition to the unified State Bank, restored in October 1921, private and cooperative banks, insurance companies appeared, and cooperation developed. In the early years of the NEP, cooperation gained a certain independence, which was freed from state control. But on the whole, the Soviet government behaved extremely inconsistently towards the cooperators: either their economic functions were narrowed, or they were given economic autonomy.

The provision of free services to the population was stopped - fees were charged for the use of transport, communication systems and utilities.

State loans, the system of taxes, credits were forcibly placed among the population with the aim of flexible state regulation, as well as for the development of industry.

It was necessary to conduct a monetary reform, which was started by the People's Commissar for Finance G.Ya. Sokolnikov together with a group of old specialists. At the end of 1922, the issue of paper money was reduced, and the gold Soviet chervonets, which was highly valued on the world currency market, was introduced into circulation. This made it possible to strengthen the national currency and put an end to inflation. The introduction of a hard convertible currency into the USSR required a flexible tax policy. Income tax was divided into basic and progressive. The basic was paid by all citizens, and the progressive by those who received additional profit: NEPmen, private doctors, lawyers, etc.

In the social sphere, the NEP caused some changes:

· In 1922, a new Labor Code was adopted, which abolished general labor service and introduced free employment of labor through the labor exchange.

· Labor mobilizations have ceased, labor armies have been disbanded.

· Remuneration in kind was replaced by cash payment.

However, social policy had a pronounced class orientation:

· In the elections of deputies to the organs of power, the workers still had the advantage. Part of the population, as before, was deprived of the right to vote.

· In the system of taxation, the main burden fell on private entrepreneurs in the city and kulaks in the countryside. The poor were exempted from paying taxes, the middle peasants paid half.

The NEP did not change the methods of political leadership of the country.

State issues were decided by the party apparatus, the number of which increased and its influence increased. The resolutions of the congress prohibiting the creation of factions made it possible to strengthen unanimity in the party and its unity, as the most important link in the system of government.

The second link in the political system of Soviet power continued to be the apparatus of coercion - the Cheka, renamed in 1922 into the Main Political Directorate.

Strengthening the unity of the party, the defeat of political and ideological opponents made it possible to strengthen the one-party political system.

2.3. Outcomes of New Economic Policy Measures

and its decay

By the end of 1922, the New Economic Policy began to take on the form of a definite economic model. IN AND. Lenin raised the question of the need to revise the "point of view on socialism." However, it would be wrong to consider the Soviet government a supporter of the market. The founder of the NEP himself said that "the NEP is not introduced forever." According to Lenin, this was a temporary measure. Although he assumed a relatively long-term coexistence of socialist and non-socialist (state-capitalist, private-capitalist, small-scale, patriarchal) structures with the gradual displacement of the latter from the economic life of the country.

One of the tasks of the NEP - overcoming the devastation - was solved. The NEP ensured the stabilization and restoration of the economy, but soon the first successes were replaced by new difficulties due to three reasons:

Imbalance of industry and agriculture

class orientation of domestic policy

· Strengthening contradictions between the interests of different strata of society and the authoritarianism of the Bolshevik leadership.

The Soviet state controlled large-scale industry and banks, the principles and tasks of further strengthening the proletarian dictatorship, ensuring the leading role of the working class, and the one-party system remained unchanged. Lenin considered the NEP a bypass, indirect path to socialism. In 1923, 1924, 1928, the NEP crises arose, which led to its curtailment.

In the autumn of 1923, a "sales crisis" broke out - overstocking with expensive and poor manufactured goods, which the population refused to buy.

In 1924, a "price crisis" arose - the peasants, who had harvested a good harvest, refused to give grain to the state at fixed prices, deciding to sell it on the market. Attempts to force the peasants to hand over their grain at the tax in kind caused mass uprisings in the Amur region, Georgia and other regions.

In the mid-1920s, the volume of state procurements of grain and raw materials fell - a grain procurement crisis formed. This reduced the ability to export agricultural products and reduced the foreign exchange earnings needed to buy industrial equipment from abroad.

To overcome the newly formed economic crisis, the government has taken a number of administrative measures:

Strengthened centralized management of the economy

Limited autonomy of enterprises

Began the seizure of bread from the peasants

· Increased taxes for private entrepreneurs, merchants and kulaks.

This practice meant only the curtailment of the NEP by 1928.

It should be noted that in a short time the New Economic Policy has achieved significant positive results.

First, the sown area has reached the pre-war level. In 1925, the gross grain harvest exceeded the average annual harvest of 1909-1913 by 20%; a year later, animal husbandry reached the level of three years.

Secondly, by 1925 it was possible to achieve 75% of the output of heavy industry; labor productivity increased 1.5 times; the production of new equipment began; 200 power plants were built; small and handicraft industries rose sharply.

Thirdly, the convertible ruble received an international calling.

Fourthly, the living conditions of the urban and rural population have improved; the abolition of the food distribution rationing system began.

Fifthly, culture developed fruitfully.

3. Cultural revolution

The main goal of the cultural transformations carried out by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s and 1930s was the subordination of science and art to Marxist ideology.

A huge thing for Russia was the elimination of illiteracy (literacy program). A state unified system of public education was created, a Soviet school of several levels arose. In the 1st Five-Year Plan, compulsory four-year education was introduced, and in the 2nd Five-Year Plan, seven-year education. Universities and technical schools were opened, workers' faculties (faculties for preparing workers for admission to higher and secondary educational institutions) operated. The training was ideological in nature. A new, Soviet intelligentsia was formed, while the Bolshevik authorities treated the old intelligentsia with suspicion.

In the autumn of 1922, 160 prominent scientists, philosophers, historians, and economists were expelled from Russia, who did not share the ideological principles of Bolshevism. The dominance of the Bolshevik ideology was also established in anti-church propaganda, the destruction of churches, and the looting of church property. Patriarch Tikhon, elected in November 1917 by the Local Council, was arrested. Agrarian scientists N.D. Kondratiev, A.V. Chayanov, philosopher P.A. Florensky, the largest genetic biologist N.M. Vavilov, writers O.E. Mandelstam, A.B. Babel, B.A. Pilnyak, actor and director V.E. Meyerhold and many others. Aircraft designers A.N. Tupolev, N.N. Polikarpov, physicist L.D. Landau, one of the founders of the Aerodynamic Institute S.P. Korolev and others.

At the same time, research centers were being created. Geochemists V.I. Vernadsky, A.E. Fersman, physicists P.L. Kapitsa, N.N. Semenov, chemists S.V. Lebedev, A.E. Favorsky, the creator of the theory of cosmonautics K. E. Tsiolkovsky.

In literature and art, the method of "socialist realism" was introduced, affixing the party, its leaders, the heroics of the revolution. A.N. Tolstoy, M.A. Sholokhov, A.A. Fadeev, A.T. Tvardovsky came forward among the writers. The largest phenomena in the musical life were the works of S.S. Prokofiev (music for the film "Alexander Nevsky"), A.I. Khachaturian (music for the film "Masquerade"), D.D. Shostakovich (opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District", banned in 1936 for formalism). The songs of I.Dunaevsky, A.Aleksandrov, V.Soloviev-Sedogo gained wide popularity. Cinematography made a significant step in its development: the films “Chapaev” by S. and G. Vasiliev, “Alexander Nevsky” by S. Eisenstein, the comedies by G. Alexandrov “Merry Fellows”, “Circus”). The most outstanding sculptural work of the 1930s was the monument to V. Mukhina "Worker and Collective Farm Girl". Through various creative unions, the state directed and controlled all the activities of the creative intelligentsia.

The main reference point in social and political research was the “Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks” published in 1938, edited by I.V. Stalin.

CONCLUSION

In this work, the topic “The Soviet country during the years of the NEP (1921 - 1927)” was raised, from which it follows that the NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (NEP), adopted in the spring of 1921 by the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b), replaced the policy of “war communism” designed for the restoration of the national economy and the subsequent transition to socialism.

During its short existence, the New Economic Policy affected all spheres of public life and successfully solved its most important tasks - it coped with economic ruin, restored the pre-war level of Russia, and strengthened the peasant economy.

However, the NEP period (1921-1928) is one of the most interesting and mysterious periods in the history of the Soviet state. Thanks to the NEP, the standard of living of the people has risen, the monetary system has been strengthened, and culture has fruitfully developed.

NEP is a whole complex of economic, political, social, ideological measures. The new economic policy of the Soviet state became known throughout the country, and its abbreviation was forever fixed in the history of Russia.

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NEP

The NEP is an economic policy that replaced the policy of "war communism" in Soviet Russia.

This abbreviation stands for "new economic policy". Surprisingly, the NEP became a whole era, although all stages of its existence fit into one decade: the new economic policy was adopted by the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921.

The main purpose of the proclamation of the NEP was the restoration of the national economy, destroyed by two fierce wars (World War I and Civil War).

Prerequisites for the emergence of the NEP

The state of Soviet Russia in 1921 was very unstable. The young country lay in ruins.

Immediately after the Great October Revolution, at the end of 1917, the US government terminated relations with Russia, and in 1918 the governments of England and France followed its example. Soon (in October 1919), the Supreme Council of the military alliance of the leading capitalist states - the Entente - announced the complete cessation of all economic ties with Soviet Russia. An attempt at an economic blockade was accompanied by military intervention. The blockade was lifted only in January 1920. Then, on the part of Western states, an attempt was made to organize the so-called gold blockade: they refused to accept Soviet gold as a means of payment in international settlements.

The ideology of the Bolsheviks demanded a course towards socialism, but in order to implement this project, it was first necessary to create a material, technical and socio-cultural basis for it.

The policy of war communism, which was carried out until 1921, turned the peasants against the new government, which was embodied for them mainly in the form of food detachments taking bread. The most dissatisfied was the surplus appraisal. It was time to restore the economy and change a lot. All this was the prerequisite for the emergence of the NEP.

The transition from the policy of war communism to the NEP

To relieve social tension, the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) took a number of measures, the most important of which were:

Cancellation of the surplus appropriation and its replacement with a tax in kind;

Permission of market relations and denationalization of small enterprises;

The abolition of a number of state monopolies and the introduction of legal guarantees for private property.

Allowing concession agreements with foreign companies (to improve the international environment).

The essence of the NEP

In general, the new economic policy consisted in establishing a balance between planned and market instruments for regulating the country's economy.

The set of principles underlying the New Economic Policy made it possible to:

Ensure significant growth rates of the national economy in Soviet Russia,

Reduce the budget deficit;

To increase the reserves of gold and foreign currency through active communication with foreign countries;

As a result, by 1924, the gold chervonets began to cost more than the pound sterling and the dollar.

Activities and contradictions of the NEP

Thanks to the NEP, in the 1920s. commercial credit became widely used. Banks controlled mutual lending to economic organizations, and also regulated the amount of commercial credit, which at the heyday of the NEP served at least 80% of the volume of all transactions for the sale of goods.

Long-term lending also developed. The recovering industry required investments, and for this the first Soviet banks were created - the Commercial and Industrial Bank of the USSR and Electrobank.

For investment in agriculture, long-term loans were provided by state credit institutions and credit cooperatives.

However, rather quickly, the use of commercial credit created opportunities for an unscheduled redistribution of funds in the areas of the national economy. This was a negative consequence of the measures taken.

The Land Code abolished the right of private ownership of land and subsoil in Soviet Russia, but regulated the leasing of land. It was also allowed to use hired labor in agriculture, however, with reservations: all able-bodied members of the farm had to work on an equal basis with hired workers, and if the farm itself was able to perform this work, then hired labor was not allowed.

These measures in agriculture led to an increase in the proportion of "middle peasants" in comparison with the pre-war level, while the number of poor and rich decreased.

There were also contradictions in the implementation of these measures: on the one hand, the peasants got the opportunity to improve their well-being, and on the other hand, there was no point in developing the economy beyond a certain limit.

Trusts were created in the sphere of industry. A trust is an association of enterprises that has complete economic and financial independence. The enterprises that were part of the trust ceased to receive state supplies and purchased resources on the market. The trusts were given the opportunity to decide for themselves what products to produce and where to sell them.

On the basis of the voluntary association of trusts, syndicates began to arise - organizations engaged in marketing, supply and lending on the basis of cooperation.

The following peculiarities in the life of the country that remained from the time were completely eliminated:

Leveling (under the New Economic Policy, restrictions were lifted on increasing wages with an increase in productivity);

Labor armies (compulsory labor service during the New Economic Policy was canceled);

Job change restrictions.

The complex of these measures led to a dual effect: on the one hand, the number of unemployed increased, and on the other hand, the labor market expanded significantly.

Curtailment of the NEP

Already in the second half of the 1920s. the first symptoms of NEP clotting appeared. Syndicates began to be liquidated in industry, and private capital began to be squeezed out of the main sectors of the economy. The creation of economic people's commissariats was the beginning of the establishment of a rigid centralized system of economic management.

In principle, even at the stages of the development and heyday of the NEP (until the mid-1920s), the implementation of the New Economic Policy was quite contradictory, not without regard to the legacy of the era of war communism.

Traditional Soviet historiography defines the reasons for the curtailment of the NEP by a complex of economic factors. But a more careful analysis of the contradictions of the New Economic Policy suggests that, first of all, the reasons for the curtailment of the NEP were the contradictions between the requirements of the natural functioning of the economy and the political course of the top of the party leadership.

So, since the mid-1920s. measures are being actively taken to limit, and soon to completely oust the private producer.

Finally, since 1928, the economy finally became planned: the development of the national economy began to operate.

The new course, which put economy at the forefront, meant that the era of the NEP was fading into the past.

Legally, the new economic policy was completed on October 11, 1931, with the adoption of a decree prohibiting private trade.

Results of the NEP

The implementation of the new economic policy achieved its intended goal: the ruined economy was restored. Taking into account the fact that highly qualified personnel were either oppressed or forced to leave the country because of their social origin, the emergence of a new generation of economists, managers and production workers can also be considered a significant success of the new government.

Impressive successes in the restoration and development of the national economy in the era of the NEP were achieved in the context of fundamentally new social relations. This makes the country's economic recovery environment truly unique.

In the era of the NEP, key positions in industry belonged to state trusts, in the credit and financial sphere - primarily to state banks, in agriculture, small peasant farms were the basis.

Significance of the NEP

Paradoxically, from the height of history, the NEP seems more like a short step, retreating from the socio-economic development programmed by the revolution, and therefore, without denying its achievements, one cannot but say that other measures could lead to the same results.

And the uniqueness of the era of the new economic policy lies primarily in its impact on culture.

As mentioned above, after the Great October Revolution, Russia lost most of the intellectual elite of society. The general cultural and spiritual level of the population fell sharply.

The new era puts forward new heroes - among the Nepmen who rose to the highest social levels, the lion's share is made up of wealthy private merchants, former shopkeepers and handicraftsmen, who were absolutely not touched by the romance of revolutionary trends.

To understand classical art, these "heroes of the new time" did not have enough education, and yet they became trendsetters. In accordance with this, cabarets and restaurants became the main entertainment of the NEP. However, one can say that this was a pan-European trend of those years, but it is in Soviet Russia, sandwiched between the reluctantly fading war communism and the looming dark era of repression, that this makes a special impression.

The artistic value of cabaret performances by coupletists with uncomplicated song plots and primitive rhymes, of course, is more than debatable. However, it was these unpretentious texts and motifs that entered the cultural history of the young country, and then began to be passed on from generation to generation, merging with folk art in their best examples.

The general lightness of the era affected even the genres of dramatic theaters. The Moscow Vakhtangov Studio (now the Vakhtangov Theatre) in 1922 staged the fairy tale "Princess Turandot" by the Italian Carlo Gozzi. And in the dual atmosphere of reigning lightness and premonitions of the future, a performance was born that became a symbol of the theater.

The 1920s were also the time of a real magazine boom in the new capital of a new country - in Moscow. Since 1922, several satirical and humorous magazines (Splinter, Satyricon, Smekhach) that immediately gained popularity began to appear. All these magazines were aimed at publishing far from only news from the life of workers and peasants, but published primarily humoresques, parodies, caricatures.

However, their publication ends with the end of the NEP. In 1930, Crocodile remained the only satirical magazine. The era of the NEP is over, but the trace of that time is forever preserved in the history of a great country.

NEP 1921-1928- one of the important stages in the development of the USSR. After the end, the situation in the country became catastrophic. A significant part of the production was stopped, there was no coordination, as well as the distribution of labor. Major changes were needed to rebuild the country.

The surplus appraisal that existed earlier did not justify itself. It caused people's discontent and riots, the country without control still could not provide itself with food. During the transition to the tax was reduced twice, a favorable situation was created for further development.

NEP period.

During the founding of the NEP, the party took up the restoration of production, began to build some factories that were necessary for the new state. Workers were brought in. The main task is to provide everyone with opportunities for full-fledged work for the benefit of the USSR.

Elements of a market economy have been introduced. This was inevitable, because its complete destruction at the founding of the Soviet Union dealt a serious blow to the country.

During this period, a command economy was built. From now on, the state managed production, sent norms and orders to factories. The party could link several enterprises into a single system and establish contacts between them. All this was necessary for the consistent production of products, because to create some complex products, you need to attract several factories.

During the NEP period, enterprises and other participants in economic processes received significant funding. Factories could issue their own bonds to raise funds from people and invest them in the renewal of production.

Basic goals:

• establishing economic ties;
• the gradual introduction of a command economy and the adaptation of enterprises to a new system of relationships between industries;
• stimulating the development and renovation of factories;
• providing maximum opportunities for the growth of enterprises;
• rational use of labor and financial resources;
• carrying out a monetary reform and the introduction of a new payment unit.

Results of the NEP.

Results due to the victory over devastation and chaos, which was poorly controlled by the state. The economy was restored, relationships between the participants in economic processes were established, and equipment was upgraded at enterprises. But the problem was the lack of managerial personnel and the qualifications of these people, the minimum amount of foreign investment, and curbing the development of the private sector.

At the very end of the Civil War, the leadership of the RCP(b) decided to move from the policy of war communism to the NEP. On the one hand, this decision was dictated by the need to revive the economy destroyed by the war, and on the other hand, by the desire of the Soviet government to achieve recognition on the world stage. For the inhabitants of Soviet Russia, the NEP was an era of temporary revival of small private business and the resumption of commodity-money relations. In foreign policy, the NEP and the associated issuance of the first stable Soviet currency, the gold chervonets, were the first steps towards international recognition for Soviet Russia.

Many of the hallmarks of the NEP ran counter to fundamental communist teachings. By the end of the 1920s, the NEP performed the function of improving the economy, and the state switched to a policy of coercive cooperation of privately owned farms, followed by the establishment of full state control over established enterprises and the elimination of the free market.

The NEP policy assumed:

1. high food tax on peasants
2. limiting the number of large private banks to a list
3. replacement of food surplus with tax in kind
4. accurate fixation of limited norms for the delivery of grain by peasants to the state
5. some freedom of enterprise of citizens
6. free trade in consumer goods
7. allowing industrial enterprises to freely enter the foreign market
8. permission to lease small businesses by private individuals
9. creation of concessions with the attraction of foreign capital
10. opening labor exchanges to eliminate unemployment
11. introduction of a hard national currency
12. creation of a national banking system
13. development of state capitalism in its various forms
14. cash wages
15. introduction of a tariff wage system
16. development of industrial and consumer cooperation
17. close economic interaction between the city and the countryside
18. government-granted right to engage in self-employment for profit
19. government-granted right to employ wage labor
20. the right granted by the state to engage in trade and intermediary activities.
21. During the years of the New Economic Policy, "solid", fixed prices for industrial and food products were introduced.

From a letter written during the years of the NEP by a “bourgeois specialist” (as he calls himself): “Of course, there are limits to nationalization, and the new economic policy, returning to the former owners a number of small enterprises in vain and unreasonably taken from them, itself clearly outlines these limits” . Name a word that explains what (in terms of size) enterprises we are talking about.

The food tax, introduced in 1921, implied the gratuitous delivery to the state of part of the production of the peasant economy, with the right to sell the rest on the market.

Socio-economic consequences of the NEP:

1. revival of trade
2. raising the standard of living
3. agricultural recovery

Excess - rising unemployment

The absolute number of unemployed registered by labor exchanges during the NEP increased (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 fell.

NEP is the introduction of economic methods of managing the economy.

During the years of the NEP, the size of the working class:

In 1921 Russia literally lay in ruins. The territories of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Western Belarus, the Kars 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 decrease in the birth rate amounted to at least 25 million people since 1914. During the hostilities, the Donbass, the Baku oil region, the Urals and Siberia were especially affected, many mines and mines were destroyed. Factories stopped due to lack of fuel and raw materials. The 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. The volume of agricultural production decreased by 40% due to the depreciation of money and the shortage of manufactured goods. Society has degraded, its intellectual potential has significantly weakened. Most of the Russian intelligentsia was destroyed or left the country.

Kronstadt uprising (mutiny)

The peasants, outraged by the actions of the food detachments, not only refused to hand over their bread, but also rose up in armed struggle. The uprisings swept the Tambov region, Ukraine, Don, Kuban, the Volga region and Siberia. The peasants demanded a change in agrarian policy, the elimination of the dictates of the RCP (b), the convening of the Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal equal suffrage. Units of the Red Army were thrown into the suppression of these speeches.

Discontent spread to the army. On March 1, 1921, the 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 the socialist parties, the holding of re-elections of the Soviets and, as follows from the slogan, the exclusion of all communists from them, the granting of 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 economy , that is, the elimination of surplus appropriation. Convinced of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the rebels, the authorities stormed Kronstadt. By alternating artillery shelling and infantry actions, Kronstadt was taken by March 18; some of the rebels died, the rest went to Finland or surrendered.

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 New Economic Policy was aimed at restoring the national economy and the subsequent transition to socialism. The main content of the NEP is the replacement of the surplus appropriation tax in the countryside, the use of the market and various forms of ownership, the attraction of foreign capital in the form of concessions, the implementation of the monetary reform (1922-1924), as a result of which the ruble became a convertible currency.

The main political goal of the NEP is to relieve social tension, to strengthen the social base of Soviet power in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants. The economic goal is to prevent further aggravation of the devastation, to 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 ties, at overcoming international isolation.

What are the main reasons for the rejection of the NEP in the USSR?

The NEP made it possible to quickly restore the national economy, destroyed by the First World War and the Civil War.

But by 1925, it became clear that the national economy had come to a contradiction: political and ideological factors, the fear of the “degeneration” of power, prevented further progress towards the market; the return to the military-communist type of economy was hampered by memories of the peasant war of 1920 and mass famine, the fear of anti-Soviet speeches.

All this led to disagreement in political assessments of the situation. 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 ousted, and a rigid centralized system of economic management (economic people's commissariats) was created. Stalin and his entourage headed for the forced seizure of grain and the forcible collectivization of the countryside. Repressions were carried out against managerial personnel (the Shakhty case, the process of the Industrial Party, etc.). By the beginning of the 1930s, the NEP was effectively curtailed.