Bolshevism in Retreat: The Transition to the New Economic Policy, 1920-1922

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Order N u m ber 872306

B olsh evism in retreat: The transition to th e N ew Econom ic P olicy, 1920—1922. (Volum es I and II) Patenaude, B ertrand M a rk , P h .D . Stanford University, 1987

Copyright © 1987 by P aten au d e, B ertrand M ark. A ll rights reserved.

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BOLSHEVISM IN RETREAT: THE TRANSITION TO THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY, 1920-1922

VOLUME I

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

By Bertrand Mark Patenaude June 1987

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^

Copyright 1987 by

Bertrand Mark Patenaude

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I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree^-of Doctor of Philosophy.

Alexander Daliin I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosopy.

Terence Emmons I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

r

/l/"f . /' ~t I Gregory Freidin (Slavic hang. & Literature)

Approved for the Universitv^fiommittee on GradudRkei Studies*

Dean of Graduate Studies

111

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PREFACE

Research International

for this dissertation was Research

and

Exchanges

supported by the

Board

(IREX)

and

a

Fulbright-Hays grant. I wish to express my gratitude to several individuals who

in one way or another are responsible

for this work

having been undertaken and completed. I

am

deeply

University

indebted

of Vienna

to

Walter

Leitsch

of

the

for providing me with two years of

intense academic training and guidance, during which time he mercilessly held me to his own rigorous scholarly standards. Roberta Manning of Boston College offered me timely career advice

and

direction,

and

properly

introduced me to

study of Soviet Russia in the 1920s.

At Stanford,

the

I was

fortunate to have the opportunity to study under Michael Confino,

from

whom

historian's craft. knowledge

of

I

learned

a

great

deal

about

the

Gregory Freidin shared with me his deep

Soviet

literature,

and

inspired

me

to

use

literature as an historical source. My advisers, me,

greatest

debt

of

gratitude

is

to

Alexander Dallin and Terence Emmons,

above all,

to think critically,

my

academic

who taught

and who tolerated my

many transitions in good humor and with great patience, much more than I had a right to expect. This dissertation was written in New York City, where iv

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Eugene Beshenkovsky answered my many queries on language and sources.

Loraine Sinclair acted as my lifeline to Stanford

in several ways and always with supreme efficiency. special

thanks

to Joan and Phil Naber

I owe

for the boundless

generosity and familial support they have shewn me since the day I arrived at Stanford. Finally, to Mary Ann, for her affectionate support and encouragement, I am, as ever, deeply grateful.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PREFACE . .

1

INTRODUCTION PART ONE: OLD AND NEW ECONOMIC POLICIES I.

FEEDING THE REVOLUTION, 1917-1920 ..............

7

- Narkomprod and the Evolution of Food Policy - Razverstka or nalog? - Valerian Osinskii and the State Regulation of Agriculture - "On the Bloodless Front" II.

THE END OF WAR COMMUNISM (January-March 1921) . .

118

- The Economic Crisis of January 1921 - The Moscow Non-Party Metal Workers' Conference - The Bolshevik Response - Lenin and the khodoki - Petrograd and Kronstadt - The Tenth Party Congress, March 8-16 - The Evolution of the Tax Decree - Was "NEP" Late? - "Free Trade" III.

BOLSHEVISM ADRIFT (March 1921-March 1922) . . . . -

202

The Awkward First Steps The Failure of tovaroobmen Narkomprod: the apparat Self-Destructs The "Newest Economic Policy" 'The Retreat is Over'

PART TWO: OLD AND NEW MENTALITIES IV.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSITION PERIOD -

Enthusiasm Demilitarization Contradictions Praktika and the Poet The "Peasant Brest" vi

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296

V.

RATIONALIZING THE R E T R E A T ........................ 384 -

Lenin on Lenin The ’’Notorious Mistake" NEP and Thermidor The "Strategic Retreat" Lenin's "State Capitalism" Lenin's Ambiguous Legacy

CONCLUSION...........................................

452

BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................

458

vii

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INTRODUCTION

In March

1921,

the

Tenth Congress

of the

Bolshevik

Party voted unanimously to replace its de facto policy of grain requisitioning with a fixed tax on grain, leaving the peasant with limited freedom to trade his surplusses.

The

Congress took place in a crisis atmosphere, when peasants and recently-demobilized Red Army soldiers were in violent rebellion on the Volga and in Western Siberia, when workers in the factories of Moscow and Petrograd were openly engaged in anti-Bolshevik demonstrations,

and when the sailors at

Kronstadt were in armed revolt against Bolshevik power.

The

economic reforms introduced at the Tenth Party Congress were a response to this crisis, and they are generally recognized as comprising the first major step away from the economic policy

of

War

Communism

and

the

beginning

of

the

New

Economic Policy (NEP). Generally more

careful

Stalin birth.

speaking, attention

Revolution

at

Western to

the

the end

historians

end of

have

of NEP— the

the

devoted

so-called

1920s— than

to

its

Although there are a number of Western studies of

various aspects of War Communism, there is no study solely concerned with the period of transition from War Communism to

the

New

Economic

Policy.

Soviet

historians,

on

the

contrary, have given close scrutiny to the origins of NEP. This is in part the case, of course, because of the Soviet 1

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fixation

on

Lenin,

whose personality dominated the Party

during

the transition period.Although much of

Soviet

secondary

material

on the

the varied

subject is

quite

interesting and informative, it has serious shortcomings in a

number

of

political example,

areas,

constraints Soviet

Lenin's

due

mainly

of

Soviet

historians

leadership

or

to

are

reveal

the

ideo ;gical

historiography.

unable to the

and

depth

For

be

critical

of

the

of

popular

opposition to Bolshevik rule ir. 1921. The present work proposes to fill a gap in the Western literature

by

examining

in

detail

the

events

and

developments that make up what we call the "transition to NEP." this

Although the latter phrase conveys forward movement, study

is

essentially

backward-looking

in

that

it

considers the transition period as the dismantling of the old economic policy, War Communism. and

issues

occupied principal

it

proposes

earlier

to

students

objective

is

Thus, the main problems

address of

to

Civil

explore

are War the

those

that

Bolshevism. most

have A

fundamental

question concerning War Communism: To what extent was it the product of Bolshevik ideology, and to what extent was it the Soviet

government's

response

to the

emergency conditions

brought on by the Russian Civil War? This study will discuss many features of the Bolshevik economic policy during the years 1917 to 1922.

However, the

specific focus of the examination— the thread it will follow 2

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from the October Revolution through the transition period— is Bolshevik food policy.

This is an obvious choice.

It

was the change in food policy that was the first and most important

of

the

economic

reforms

of

1921.

Soviet

and

Western studies of earlier and recent vintage agree that Bolshevik

food

Communism. shalx the

policy

was

the

key

ingredient

The Bolshevik participants

of

themselves,

War

as we

- aeTcnowledged uhxs fact before. durxng and after transition

to

NEP.

The

Tsarist

and

Provisional

governments collapsed in part because they could not find an effective response to the wartime food supply crisis. the

Bolsheviks

dealt

with

this

problem

and

How

successfully

fought a civil war is the starting point of our inquiry.

The study is divided into two parts. of

three

chronologically-arranged

Part One consists

chapters:

Chapter

One

discusses the evolution of Bolshevik food policy from 1917 to

1920;

Chapter Two provides an account of the dramatic

events of January to March 1921 that led to the introduction of the major economic reforms at the Tenth Party Congress; Chapter Three describes the unfolding of the New Economic Policy into 1922, emphasizing the developments in the area of food collection and distribution. Part Two consists of two analytical chapters: Four

attempts

economic

to

policy

provide by

a

examining

context various

for

the

Chapter

change

(principally

3

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in

non-

economic)

issues

and problems

confronting

during their transition period. the

change

psychological

in

economic

the

Bolsheviks

some of these grew out of

policy

and

were

part

of

the

"fall-out" that accompanied the introduction

of NEP; others wera part of the natural transition from a wartime to a peacetime

society and economy,

and

in some

cases these directly contributed to the need for economic reform.

Chapter Five examines the strategic and ideological

definitions that the Bolsheviks, Lenin chiefly among them, applied to their new course, and, relatedly, how the Party explained the introduction and abandonment of War Communism and assessed its significance. The line of inquiry common to Part One and Part Two is the

question

of

the

relative

importance

of

ideology

and

expediency as determinants of Bolshevik behavior during the period of War Communism and the transition to NEP.

There are several explanatory points to be made at the outset. The reader is advised that this is not a study of the transition to NEP "from below."

Our primary focus is on the

central leadership of the Bolshevik Party, with a good deal of attention given to those individuals

in the

important

state economic organs who had a significant influence in the shaping

of

discussion.

economic

policy

during

the

period

under

Examples of the activities and attitudes of 4

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those at the local Party and state level are included and add detail to the general picture of what the central Party leadership had to contend with during the transition period. This study deals primarily with the Russian Republic, not including Siberia. about

economic

We will restrict all generalizations

conditions

unless otherwise noted.

and

policy

to

this

territory,

The Ukraine and Siberia played a

very important part in the outcome of this story, as will be seen.

However, these territories experienced the Civil War

differently outlying

from central

regions

different

the

fashion,

Russia.

In these and in other

transition

with

to

different

NEP

occurred

starting

according to a different timetable.

in

points

a and

There is a distinct

body of literature concerning the transition period in the Ukraine,

in Siberia,

and in various

other locations,

and

only a portion of this literature has been consulted for the present study. It is important to note at the start that the term "War Communism,"

generally

accepted

as

a

description

of

the

Bolshevik economic policy roughly coincident with the Civil War

period,

was

introduced

abandonment in 1921.

only

after

that

policy's

During our narrative treatment of the

economic policy of 1918 to 1920, we shall not shy away from employing the term, where appropriate,

although quotation marks will be used and caution will be exercised to avoid

anachronistic usage throughout the text. 5

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The

notion

of

somewhat flexibly. 1920 to 1922.

the

"transition period"

will

be used

The focus of this study is on the period

The question of when the transition to NEP

can be said to have begun is a part of the investigation and will

be

discussed

transition period, will

stop

in the

in the

text.

As

our discussion spring of

to the

of the

1922,

end

of

the

economic policy

with a brief

covering the relevant subsequent developments. other areas we will stray beyond these limits.

epilogue

However, in For example,

the discussion of Lenin's ideas concerning the old and new economic policies will include material from his last active months, essentially up to January 1923.

For the most Fart,

we will restrict the statements of Polshevik participants assessing the events under discussion to the early 1920s. Finally, the system of transliteration employed here is that of the Library of Congress with two exceptions: certain familiar customary

Russian

names

English-language

measurement finds

proper

more

is

rendered

agreeable

form;

"pood," than

are

rendered

and

the

which the

in

Russian

this

their weight

reader's

technically

alternative.

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eye

correct

PART ONE: OLD ANP NEW ECONOMIC POLICIES

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CHAPTER ONE FEEDING THE REVOLUTION, 1917-1920 The force of state coercion is the basic measure of our activity. Everything else is subordinated to this. Alexander Tsiurupa, 1919

Narkomprod and the Evolution of Food Policy

The People's Commissariat for Food Supply (Narkomprod) was established the day after the Bolsheviks took power in November 1917. to

the

War

ministry.

By the middle of 1920, it had become, next Commissariat,

the

most

powerful

government

And by the time the Civil War ended in November

1920 and all attention turned to economic reconstruction, Narkomprod

dominated most

collection

and

agricultural apparatus

distribution

goods.

with

aspects

its

Bythat notorious

of

of

food,

time, food

the

the raw

production,

materials

cumbersome

detachments

and

and

food stiff

requisition policies was the object of hatred on the part of peasants

and

increasingly

of workers,

and the

object

of

jealousy on the part of the other economic commissariats, particularly the Supreme Economic Council

(VSNKh), many of

whose functions had been usurped by Narkomprod during the course of the Civil War. 7

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Narkomprod rose to its position of prominence as the problem of

food supply became a critical concern of the

Bolshevik regime,

especially with the onset of civil war.

To defeat the White armies, the Red Army would have to be fed— this became the overriding objective of economic policy in the years 1918-1920.

The amalgam of emergency measures

and forced policies of these years later came to be known as "War

Communism."

In the aftermath,

no other government

institution was so closely associated with those policies as Narkomprod. especially because the latter's swift demise in the early 1920s placed in sharp relief

its extraordinary

status during the Civil War. This chapter will discuss "War Communism" by focusing on a principal feature, food policy, and that policy's main institutional enable us

protagonist,

Narkomprod.

This

will

best

in further chapters to explain and analyze the

significance of the "transition to NEP."

What follows in

this first section is a broad-brush account of the evolution of

food

policy

into

the

year

1920,

describing

developments and reviewing the essential decrees.

the

key

Questions

concerning the Bolsheviks' actual intentions and motivations in the area of economic policy during the Civil War will be discussed further below. It. should

be

noted

at

the

outset

that

to

try

to

generalize about economic policy in the first three years of Soviet power, par '.cularly about food policy, is hazardous 8

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and

frustrating.

There

is

the

"official”

side,

with

pyramidal bureaucratic structures, reorganizations, decrees, resolutions,

and

statistics— all

indicators

of

the

government's intentions. as vague and confused and shifting as these often were;

and there is, masked by all of this

paper, the more elusive reality of the Soviet economy during the Civil War.

The standard caution the historian exercises

in distinguishing between intention and reality must here be heightened, for the discrepancy is often staggering. this

disparity

that

supplies

a

tension

It is

throughout

this

narrative.

When the Bolsheviks came to power, they inherited both the problem of inadequate food supply to the urban centers and the lessons of their predecessors' resolve it.

failed attempts to

Already during the 1914-1915 grain collection,

Nicholas's ministers were

faced with a breakdown

in food

supply and responded with the establishment of special army units ("grain armies") to aid in grain collection, and with the selective use of fixed prices and grain requisitioning. The

following

year,

more

stringent

measures

were

introduced under Agricultural Minister Rittikh in the form of what was called the "razverstka." literally meaning an apportionment or sub-allocation of an obligation or task, here

of

razverstka

a

pre-established meant

that

the

quota

of

state

set

grain. a

grain

9

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Rittikh's total

it

required to cover its needs and passed on shares of that total to the provincial

level, which

in turn distributed

shares down to the next administrative level, and so on down to the local community.

The system entailed the traditional

Russian practice of collective responsibility, entire

village

was

held

responsible

for

whereby an meeting

its

obligation in grain, apportioning its quota the way it saw fit.

In

theory,

these

"shares-

of

grain

were

to

be

purchased by the state at fixed prices. While the term wrazverstka" really referred only to a method of grain collection, in popular usage it came to mean the grain obligation generally. pursuing the same policy, collected

shares

of

Later, when the Bolsheviks,

proved unable to compensate the grain

with

industrial

items,

"razverstka" came to be understood as "requisitions" (which, in practical terms, it had by then become), and this is the meaning that we associate with the term today. important

to

be

clear

that

in

the

But it is

beginning

it

meant

something different, both in theory and in practice.^ By the time of the February Revolution, these measures had failed to produce the desired results. grain upward,

was

rampant,

forcing

"fixed"

Speculation in

prices

continually

which in turn drove the agricultural ministry to

1 The best discussion of this terminology is in Lars Lih, "Bread and Authority in Russia: Food Supply and Revolutionary Politics, 1914-1921," (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1984), pp.115-118, 150. 10

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stiffen its enforcement measures, though to no avail. a

pattern

was

established

that

would

continue

Thus,

over

the

course of the next four years.2 The step

Provisional

further

monopoly on

on

Government

March

grain.

25,

All

carried

1917,

reserves

in

these policies

announcing

a

a

state

of grain were declared

state property and had to be sold to the state at fixed prices. the

An effective monopoly implies that the state has

ability

to

perform

entire grain supply,

the

registration

measure

collect

of

the

peasants'

this,

not

simply

requires. incapable

The of

of

the

and to calculate what it needs above

the peasantry's minimum necessity. a

(uchet)

enforcing

surplusses

setting

Provisional the

That is, the state takes

the

and

sets

total

of

Government, monopoly.

out

to

what

it

however, Prices

proved rose

uncontrollably and at the end of August the fixed prices on grain were doubled.

Its inability to rectify the problem of

grain shortages in the capitals was a principal reason for the demise of Kerenskii's government.3 2 N. A. Orlov, Prodovol'stvennoe delo v Rossii vo vremia voinv i revoliutsii (Moscow, 1919), pp.6-11? Vtoroi god bor'bv s golodom (Moscow, 1919), pp.I-X (hereafter: Vtoroi god)? I. A. Iurkov, Ekonomicheskaia oolitika partii v derevne. 1917-1920 (Moscow, 1980), pp.69-77 (hereafter all references to Iurkov refer to this work unless otherwise noted). Lih, pp.21-136. 3 Orlov, pp.15—19; Prodovol'stvennaia oolitika (Moscow, 1920), pp.135-140. Lih (pp.137-216, 237-251) attributes to the August price doubling an importance equal to that of the Kornilov affair as a factor in the radicalization of the political situation in the capitals in the second half of 11

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The

first

months

extremely unsettled. of

the

Provisional

of

Narkomorod's

existence

were

The Commissariat inherited the staff Government's

food

supply

organs,

who

wished to remain politically neutral until the Constituent Assembly could be convened.

Narkomnrod's first task was to

overcome this "neutrality" and absorb the old administrative structure. the

Also early on, there was a serious rift among

leading

socialists

Bolshevik

as

to the

economic

authorities

and

Food Supply Commissariat's

functions and bureaucratic structure.

other

intended

Alexander Tsiurupa

was named People's Commissar for Food Supply on February 25, 1918.

He

staffed the collegium of the Commissariat with

several trusted colleagues from his adopted province, Ufa, including Aleksei Sviderskii and Nikolai Briukhanov, and by spring a measure of authority and order began to take shape at the center.4 1917. 4 M. I. Davydov, Bor'ba za khleb (Moscow. 1971), pp.31-42; M. I. Davydov, Khleb i revoliutsiia (Moscow, 1972) pp.16-30; Iu. P. Kizin, Aleksei Ivanovich Sviderskii (Ufa, 1971), pp.103-106; S. A. Chemomorets, "Obrazovanie narkomata prodovol'stviia RSFSR i ego deiatel'nost,' 1917-20gg.," (Candidate's dissertation, Saratov University, 1973), pp.l35; Orlov, p.21. There is a good brief account of these events in John H. L. Keep, The Russian Revolution; A Study in Mass Mobilization (New York, 1976), pp.422-426. Lih (pp.256-263) discusses the situation in Tver province during this period. Tsiurupa's diligence and asceticism made him in the eyes of his colleagues an appropriate choice for the position. Lenin valued these qualities as well as his reputed toughness very highly, and the two remained close through these years despite several serious policy disagreements. 12

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In January 1918,

severe food shortages in Moscow and

Petrograd dashed any Bolshevik

illusions that

they might

somehow remain immune to the disease that had plagued their predecessors.

In

the

first

months

of

the

year,

the

Bolshevik response was an unfocused attempt to elbow aside the unreliable food officials and to bring into line the existing local food committees.

These latter were mostly

concerned with their own food problems,

setting

prices

consuming

on

grain,

independently

sent

while

those

their

own

in

the

representatives

own regions

into

the

producing regions to purchase grain.5 As local chaos continued, however, the Bolsheviks were moved to take radical measures, which served to sever the few remaining ties between the Party and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries

(SRs),

whose

coalition— founded

on

the

ambiguous land decree of November 8, 1917— had already been disrupted by disagreements over the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and Bolshevik pressures for the promotion of collective land tenure.6 5

Lih, pp.266-267.

6 K. Ogrin', Prodovol/stvennaia politika sovetskoi vlasti (Moscow, 1920), p.6; Orlov, pp.21-23; E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution. 1917-1922 (3 vois., New York, 13511953), vol. 2, pp.48-49 (hereafter all references to Carr refer to this volume unless otherwise noted). The questions left open by the Soviet land decree began to be answered early in 1918 when unambiguous collectivist principles found their way into the decree "On the Socialization of the Land" in February 1918. See Carr, pp.43-44, 50-51. Direktiw KPSS i sovetskoao pravitel'stva po khoziaistvennvm voprosam. S b omik dekretov (4 vols., Moscow, 1957-58), vol. 1, pp.9713

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The

standard

treatment

of

the

Bolsheviks'

turn

to

extreme measures in the area of food supply points to the dramatic decrees of May 1918, which are often said to have been introduced under the pressures of civil war.

However,

two recent Western studies make a convincing argument that the May decrees only deepened the Bolshevik policies and tendencies that were evident much earlier.

These decrees

were not provoked by the start of the Civil War, but by growing

Bolshevik

government's

insecurity

resulting

from

the

Soviet

failure to collect adequate amounts of grain

from the territories under its control.

In fact, when the

Civil War began in earnest in the summer,

it forced the

Bolsheviks to pull back from their extremist activities.7 Already in January 1918, the Bolsheviks revealed their intention

to

apparatus.

control

food

supply

Bolshevik-sponsored

through

a

centralized

resolutions

on

food

questions in the winter of 1917-18 promoted policies that paved the way for the later introduction of committees of •’poor" peasants, and they established the concept of "food detachments"

forodotriadv) set up to collect, transport and

guard grain.

In February, Trotsky was made "Extraordinary

Commissar" over food supply with an emphasis on protecting the railway lines transporting grain.

He enforced anti-

114 (hereafter: Direktiw) . 7 Sylvana Malle, The Economic Organization Communism. 1918-1921 (Cambridge, 1985), pp.340, 373-379; Lih, pp.269-285. 14

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of War 350-351,

-trade measures using coercive methods carried out by hastily formed "food detachments'1 and border patrols.

Toward the

end of March, the Soviet government took measures to enforce state-controlled collective goods exchange (tovaroobmen) as an alternative to private trade, and it increasingly relied upon the "poor" peasants in the village to find and take grain from the "rich."8 On March

3 the Treaty of

Srest—Lixtovsk was

signed,

which removed the grain-rich Ukraine from Bolshevik control. This

did

not

produce

a panic

among

the

Bolsheviks,

who

thought they could still collect the necessary grain from the producing regions under their control.

But by May, they

found that they were unable to meet their grain needs, and they felt their political position

increasingly

insecure.

Their response was to introduce two decrees establishing the "food

dictatorship,"

which

marked

the

emergence

of

Narkomprod as a major force in the execution of food policy. The Sovnarkom decree of May 13 "On the extraordinary powers

of Narkomprod" gave the Food Commissariat sweeping

powers in the area of grain collection, designating Tsiurupa himself (not the Commissariat) time, 8

the

grain

monopoly,

"dictator.1,9

introduced

by

For the first the

Provisional

Malle, pp.350-351; Lih, pp.269-275.

9 Sistematicheskii sbornik dekretov i rasporiazhenii pravitel/stva do prodovol;stvennomu delu. 7 Books, (Nizhnii Novgorod and Moscow, 1919-1923), Book 1, pp.28-32 (hereafter; Sbornik dekretov). Davydov, Bor/ba za khleb. p. 81. 15

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Government, was officially reaffirmed. hand over all grain surplusses

The peasants were to

(izlishki) (though limited

local trade was allowed), and Narkomprod was authorized to use armed force in cases of resist?nee.

The decree called

upon all workers and peasants to unite in relentless battle against the "rich" peasants (kulaki), which, in the language of the decree,

could have meant anyone with a surplus of

grain.10 A

second

labelled

a

Sovnarkom

decree,

"reorganization"

issued of

on

May

Narkomprod.

27

and

further

centralized the collection of grain under Narkomprod. and for the first time gave the Commissariat extensive control over

grain

second

decree

initiative, and

distribution.11

"poor"

provinces.

was

the

An

important

large-scale

result

formation,

at

of this Lenin's

of requisition detachments made up of workers peasants

recruited

from

the

"consuming"

These were essentially a substitute for the lack

of a local Narkomprod organization.

The day before, Lenin

had drawn up a set of "Theses on the present moment," in which he called for a three month "grain war" (June-August) and the declaration of martial law throughout the country

10 Orlov, pp.22-23. The decree is reproduced in Malle (pp. 359-361) and William Henri’ Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution (2 vols., New York, 1935), vol. 1, pp.509-511. 11

Orlov, pp.22-23; Ogrin', pp.6-7; Malle, pp.361-362. 16

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during that period.12 The shift in Bolshevik rhetoric in May and June 1918 was dramatic.

Lenin’s tone changed remarkably.

He spoke

openly of a new "crusade," a "going to the people."

On June

4 he called upon "detachments of agitators" to "sanctify and legitimize our grain war, our war against the kulaki." and he called for a "terroristic struggle against peasants and other

bourgeois

concealing

surpiusses.

There

was

desperation in his call for "class war" in the countryside, and

he

made

liberal

use

of

the

words

"crisis"

and

"famine.”13 The

revolt

of

the

Czech

legion,

an

act

commonly

associated with the onset of the Russian Civil War, did not begin until May 26,

Neither the May 13 nor the May 27 food

decrees mentioned any outside pressures as the reasons for their introduction.

In fact, in one of his sets of theses

from

Lenin

this

Commissariat

period, into

called

for

the Military-Food

turning

Commissariat,

the not

War an

action he would have considered at a time of civil war.14 These were desperate measures taken to meet a grain crisis, 12 V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochineniia. (5th ed. , 55 vols., Moscow, 1958-1965), vol. 36, pp.374-376 (hereafter: PSS): Prodovol1stvie i revoliutsiia. 1923, No. 5-6, p.173. Lenin telegraphed the Petrograd workers to "save the revolution by enrolling in the food detachments of the Food Supply Commissariat." PSS. vol. 36, pp.316. 13

For example, ibid., pp.56, 61, 63.

14

Lih, pp.278-281.

PSS. vol. 36, p.374. 17

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a crisis used by the Bolsheviks to push ahead with their designs to centralize the food apparatus and introduce the coercive policies they had earlier pursued with caution and discretion. On June 11, the regime turned to more extreme measures, when the All-Union Executive Committee Narkomprod's proposal Poor

Peasants

for the

(kombedy).

(VTsIK)

sanctioned

formation of Committees of These

committees

were

to

participate in the registration and collection of grain with a share in the spoils, agricultural

and also to distribute grain and

products.

The

general

aim

behind

their

establishment was the usurpation of food collection duties from unreliable local peasant soviets, giving the Bolsheviks a dependable organization in the countryside.15

To

understand

this

Bolshevik

initiative,

it

is

necessary to say a few words about how the peasantry fit into the Bolshevik concept of a socialist revolution. Lenin wrote a good deal on the Russian peasantry before the

Revolution

of

1917.

In

general,

he

portrayed

the

peasants as fiercely individualistic, and he minimized the influence of th?'. commune (obshchina) on peasant behavior. Lenin's

emphasized

the

need

to

encourage

the

15 A copy of the VTsIK decree is in Chamberlin, vol. 2, pp.465-468 (hereafter all references to Chamberlin are to this volume). Sbornik dekretov. Book 1, pp.101-103. Davydov (Bor'ba za khleb. p.81) attibutes the concept of poor peasants' committees to Tsiurupa. 18

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polarization of the countryside into a "rural bourgeoisie" and

a

"rural

proletariat."

His

analysis

portrayed

the

peasantry as stratified into loosely defined categories of "rich,"

"middle,"

and

"poor."16

These

always employed somewhat arbitrarily.

categories

were

The "rich" peasant

was said to possess a sizeable amount of land and to hire peasant

labor.

"capitalist."

He

was

portrayed

Lenin

defined

"proletarian."

straightforward

and was forced to hire himself

the

"poor"

souls"— one

peasant

as

a

rural

The "middle" peasant was one who did not

employ labor or hire himself out. "two

a

The "poor" peasant was either landless or

possessed meagre holdings, out.

as

"capitalist,"

vacillate between maintaining

He was said to possess

one

"proletarian"— and

solidarity with

the

to

"poor"

peasant and following his own "capitalistic" instincts.17 The peasant violence that began

in 1902

important element of the Revolution of 1905, impact on the way Social Democrats,

Lenin

and was an had a major

in particular,

thought about the potential role of the peasant in a future revolution

in

Russia.

The

peasant

insurrections

16 The most complete study of Lenin's and the Social Democrats' views on the peasantry up to the October Revolution is Esther Kingstcn-Mann, Lenin and the Problem of Marxist Peasant Revolution (Oxford, 1985). On peasant stratification, see also Harry Willets, "Lenin and the Peasants," in Leonard Schapiro and Peter Reddaway, eds., Lenin; the Man. the Theorist, the Leader. A Reappraisal (New York, 1967), p.216; Carr, p.22; Malle, pp.335-336. 17 In the 1890s, by Lenin's calculations, the peasantry was divided into 20% "rich," 30% "middle," and 50% "poor." 19

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demonstrated to Lenin that the peasantry was open to radical revolutionary appeals and should be considered a potential ally cf the working class in the coming revolution.

The

proletariat, he now thought, could work with the peasantry to

establish

a provisional

revolutionary

government

that

would eradicate the remnants of feudalism, nationalize the land

and proceed

countryside

into

to

promote

"capitalise"

a policy and

of polarizing

"proletarian"

the

peasants.

Thus, the first, "bourgeois," stage of the revolution would involve

an alliance

peasantry, involve

while

of

the

the

proletariat

second,

an alliance

of

the

and the

"socialist," proletariat

entire

stage

and the

would "poor"

peasantry against the "capitalist" peasantry.18 What remained constant through the years was the way Lenin,

and Marxists

generally,

viewed

the

peasantry,

especially the Russian peasantry, as backward and pathetic, the chief obstacle to historical progress. were

always depicted

as

either

The peasants

futureproletarians

or

capitalists, never as peasants with their own traditions and behavior.

The

best

a Marxist

could

hope

for

from

the

Russian peasantry was that it would quickly divide itself according

to

Marxist

categories

of

progressive

and

18 Kingston-Mann, p.80. Carr, p.15; Malle, pp.329-338; Llh, pp.287-297. Lenin's ideas on Russia's peasantry were ■~ften out of the mainstream of Russian Social Democratic opinion, and his colleagues and rivals alike were often taken aback by what they regarded as his "opportunism" on the peasant question. 20

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reactionary elements. The

post-1905

Stolypin

land

reforms

were

aimed

at

breaking the hold of the peasant commune (seen as a major source of the violence of 1902-1906) and creating a reliable group

of

well-off

strong."

peasants:

the

so-called

"wager on the

Whatever the actual effect of the Stolypin reforms

on socio-economic conditions in the countryside, Lenin was not

discouraged.

In

the

inter-revolutionary

years

he

perceived an increasing differentiation taking place among the peasantry.19 When

he

returned

to

Russia

after

the

February

Revolution of 1917, Lenin was an open advocate of unleashing the peasant specific

revolution in the countryside,

circumstances

of

the

time,

which,

meant

in the

primarily

encouraging the immediate seizure of land from the gentry and well-off peasants.

His ideas were seriously out of step

not only with those of other socialists in and out of the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet,

but also

with those of many of his fellow Bolsheviks. By

1917,

Lenin

had

come

to

believe

that

a worker-

peasant alliance need not confine itself to accomplishing the tasks of the "bourgeois" revolution, but could quickly advance to the tasks of the "socialist" revolution.

In this

he had now come to a general notion of the revolutionary 19 By October 1917, Lenin calculated that 65% of the peasants were "poor." That is, 65% were ready to join the proletariat in revolutionary activity. Willetts, p.216. 21

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process

in

Russia

revolution."

similar

By the

to

autumn of

Trotsky's

1917,

"permanent

Lenin was

able to

persuade his Bolshevik colleagues that they should assume power

in the

peasant

name

of

revolution.

the As

proletariat

to what

and

encourage

the

should take place after

that,

Lenin was able to offer little more than assurances

that

things

would

somehow

work

themselves

out.

The

Bolsheviks leaped into their October Revolution with only a vague idea as to how the worker-peasant alliance in power would actually function.20 When the Bolsheviks took power and introduced the SR land decree with its call for a "black partition" of the land,

this fit in with the idea of first working with the

entire peasantry to consolidate the "bourgeois" phase of the revolution.

Although the partitioning of the land among the

peasants would encourage equalization and fragmentation and at first cut back the number of "proletarian" elements in the

countryside,

period, units

this

could

be

tolerated

for

a

certain

until a process of re-establishing larger peasant could

get

started.

So

at

the

beginning,

the

politically-expedient adoption of the SR land decree could be

reconciled

with

the

general

Bolshevik

revolutionary

strategy.21 As the Bolsheviks began to wrestle with the food supply 20

Kingston-Mann, p.172.

21

Ibid., p.180.

Carr, pp.18-20. 22

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problem in the first months of 1918, they were essentially using the categories of the SRs to define the peasantry, dividing them into the overwhelming majority of "working" peasants and the small minority of "rich" peasants (kulaki), with no allowance for "middle" peasants. Bolshevik usage

in early

1918,

Increasingly in

the term "kulak" came to

designate not the peasant hiring labor or lending money, but one who did not hand over his surplus of grain,

or, when

convenient, one who even possessed such a surplus.

It is

important to note that the Bolsheviks began their

"class

war"— with the May "food dictatorship" decrees and the June decree

on

"poor"

peasants'

committees— using

these

categories of "rich" and "poor," having dropped their own notion of a "wavering" "middle" peasant.22 In

November

1917,

Lenin

had

presented

the

Party's

shorthand policy in the countryside as: "help the working peasant, do not offend the middle peasant, coerce the rich peasant."23

With the May decrees and especially with the

creation of kombedy, however, there began a forced drive to split the peasantry along the lines of the haves and havenots,

a

phenomenon

"October.1,24

Lenin

later portrayed

as the peasant

To be sure, this "class war" began under the

pressures of a grain crisis, but the concept of "splitting 22

Malle, pp.365-366; Lih, pp.287-299.

23

PSS. vol. 35, p.64.

24

Ibid., vol. 37, pp.314-315. 23

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the

peasantry"

revolution,

as

the

however

second

vaguely

stage

of

defined,

a was

worker-peasant part

of

the

Bolsheviks' general game plan in 1917. The

motivating

spirit

of

the

formation

of

"poor

peasants' committees was described in a Bolshevik pamphlet in 1919, after the kombedv had been dissolved: The proletarian of the lathe and the semiproletarian of the plough, the working peasant, having met face-to-face in living work, will understand each other sooner and unite fsolidariziruiutsial for the achievement of great tasks.215 What in fact took place, according to this same author, was a

"monstrous

perversion"

of

these

intentions.

By

all

accounts, those who populated the kombedv were of highly questionable character.

Michael

Farbman describes

themas

. . . outsiders returning soldiers who had been demoralized by the War, urban laborers who came to the villages in search of food and opportunity, hangers-on and slackers in general.26 Though this is perhaps something of an exaggeration, an immediate

effect

of

the

introduction of

kombedv was

the

establishment of a kind of "dual power" in the countryside, as the kombedv nudged aside land committees and challenged the authority of the local soviets, disbanding those found 25

Orlov, pp.24-25; Chamberlin, p.43.

26 Michael Farbman, Bolshevism in Retreat (London, 1923), p.222 (hereafter all references to Farbman refer to this work unless otherwise noted). 24

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hostile to Bolshevik power.

In places where there were no

local soviets the VoTnh^dv simply took charge.27 It was not long before the Party leadership realized its mistake.

Already in July there occurred a noticeable

shift in Bolshevik rhetoric and action. month

tripled

the

price

on

grain

Legislation of that

and

allowed

trade

in

certain non-monopolized food products.28 By autumn the disastrous consequences of the new policy were clear.

The "class war" in the countryside had taken on

more the features of a war between town and country, with some of the "poor" peasantry playing the role of a Fifth Column.

The Civil War— to some extent brought on by these

measures— had begun in earnest,

and for the Bolsheviks to

continue to alienate the bulk of the peasantry was to court disaster.

By

November,

the

kombedv

were

demanding

the

transfer of full power to them from the local soviets, and in December, the central authorities put their foot down and ordered

the

kombedv

to

tactful order to dissolve.

fuse

with

the

local

soviets,

a

S. H. Carr calls the decision a

"timely recognition of failure— a retreat from an untenable 27 Iu. K. Strizhkov, Prodovol/stvennve otriady v gody qrazhdanskoi voinv i inostrannoi interventsii. 1917—1921 (Moscow, 1973), p.149; Orlov, p.24; Carr, p.147. Chamberlin (pp.43-47) estimates the peak number of poor peasants' committees at "several tens of thousands." Malle (pp.367368) calculates that by November 1918 there were 122,000 poor peasants' committees active in 3 3 provinces of the RSFSR. Lih, pp.313-316. 28

Lih, pp.296-297, 333-334. 25

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position."29 The

Bolsheviks'

retreat

from

"class war"

marked the

return of the "middle" peasant to their conception of the countryside.

The August tripling of grain prices was said

to be primarily intended to appease the "middle" peasant, and

the

removal

significant

shift

from the wager

of in

the

ostensibly

Bolshevik agricultural

on the

"middle" peasant.30

koTnhedv

"poor"

marked

policy,

a

away

peasant to a wager on the

This new approach was sanctioned by the

Eighth Party Congress in March 1919 in a resolution on the "attitude toward the middle peasantry," remarkable for its conciliatory

tone.

Point

l

of

the

resolution

read

as

follows: To confuse the middle peasants with the kulaki, to apply to the former in some degree measures which are directed against the kulaki. means the crudest violation not only of all the decrees of the Soviet government and of its entire policy, but also of all the basic principles of communism, which point to the agreement of the proletariat with the middle peasantry during the period of the decisive struggle of the proletariat for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie as to one of the conditions for a painless transition to the elimination of any exploitation. 29 Carr, pp.157-159. Also Orlov, pp.24-25; Lih, pp.375383. Malle, p.371. Malle (p.500) regards the Bolshevik policy revision as coming "too late." The Ukraine, with its more stratified peasantry, was deemed more appropriate territory for poor peasants committees. Introduced there in early 1919, they survived into the NEP period. Malle (p.398) provides evidence that poor peasants' committees continued to exist in parts of the RSFSR through the end of 1919. 30

Malle, pp.369-370. 26

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A fitting symbol of the new policy was the nomination of Mikhail Kalinin, a former "middle" peasant, to succeed the deceased Iakov Sverdlov as Chairman of VTsIK on the eve of the Eighth Party Congress.31

Although there was now an ostensible effort to deal carefully with the dominant "middle" peasant, circumstances in the second half of 1918 were preventing the Bolsheviks from pursuing a food policy that could live up to the new spirit. peasant

With for

few his

manufactured surplusses

goods of

to

grain,

compensate and

with

the no

organization to calculate the actual stocks of each peasant household and thereby to distinguish between the essential and "leftover" grain belonging to each household, local food

31 Chamberlin (pp. 478-481) reprints the text of the resolution on the middle peasant, which called for the "elimination of arbitrariness on the part of the local authorities." The common assumption among the Bolsheviks during the Civil War was that the peasants were divided in the following proportions: 10% rich, 50% middle, 40% poor. See Carr, p.160. The new emphasis cn the middle peasant did not on the surface seem to slacken Bolshevik interest in promoting collective forms of land tenure. The numbers of various collective holdings rose relatively sharply in the course of 1919. However, the "forced" element of collectivization was now severely restricted and toward the end of 1919 the question was discussed with far less enthusiasm about the short-range prospects for the rapid introduction of collective forms of agriculture. E. G. Gimpei'son, "Voennvi kommunizm": politika. praktika, ideoloaiia (Moscow, 1973), p.80, provides a summary of statistics for communal holdings during the Civil War. See also Robert Wesson, Soviet Communes (Rutgers, 1963), pp.8593, 119-120; Malle, pp.410-418. 27

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committees and Party and soviet organs

increasingly were

reverting to a practice of calculating the sum of grain they absolutely had to collect, giving no thought to a proper accounting (uchet) of the total amount of grain. of 1918,

By the end

this practice of local "razverstka" was becoming

widespread.

The method was sanctioned nationally first by

the All-Russian Food Conference that met from December 30 to January 6, 1919, and approved in a decree of Sovnarkom on January 11, 1919. The idea behind the Bolshevik razverstka was the same as Rittikh's. of

grain

The central authorities determined the amount

needed

to

support

the

army

ar.d

industry.

Narkomprod set the overall figure and assigned each province a grain quota to fulfill; the provincial food organs in turn passed on quotas to local authorities do*n to the village soviets, who would figure the breakdown by household.

Thus,

the center relieved itself of the task of registering grain (uchet).

Just as under Rittikh, the principle of collective

responsibility for grain deliveries was enforced. this method applied only to grain and fodder, products peasants7

being

channeled

through

cooperatives.

But

the

trade

experience

At first, other food unions

taught

and the

Bolsheviks that where there was no razverstka. there was speculation and rising prices,

and in the course of 1919-

1920 most other agricultural products and raw material came

28

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to be collected in this manner.32 It is important to note that although the razverstka total set at the top was supposed to represent the minimum needs

of

the

approximately

state,

equal

to

it

was

the

total

legally grain

stated

to

surplus.

be This

preserved the notion of the state monopoly on grain, giving the state the legal right to the entire surplus. confused the terminology.

In fact,

But it

the razverstka was a

kind of tax, but to emphasize this would be to admit the abandonment of the monopoly. in

the

minds

of

many

Thus, in the popular mind, and

Bolsheviks,

synonymous with "monopoly."

"razverstka11 became

We shall see below the cost of

the confusion surrounding these terms.33 In

theory,

compensated

for

requisitioned in

grain

manufactured

was

supposed

goods

through

sponsored goods exchange (tovaroobmen). the principle

of collective

to

be

state

In accordance with

responsibility,

only

when an

entire village was able to deliver its quota of grain was it eligible for compensation with industrial goods.

And when

such goods were supplied, they were handed out collectively to the local level, so that there was no direct relationship 32 L. Kritsman, Geroicheskii period velikoi russkoi revoliutsii (2nd ed., Moscow, 1926), p.214; Kalendar'spravochnik prodovol'stvennika na 1921 god (Moscow, 1921), p.46 (hereafter; Kalendari); Carr, pp.150-151; Ogrin', pp.12-15. 33 Lih (pp.331-342, 353) is typically very good discussion of such terminology. 29

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on the

between the amount of grain an individual household handed over

and

the

amount

of

industrial

goods

it

However, after a while, this mattered little. the most generous estimates,

received.

According to

only about 50% of all grain

requistioned in 1919 was compensated for in any fashion, and the total was said to be around 20% in 1920.34 The figures for the grain razverstka over the period of the Civil War are at best very approximate.

The figures for

grain collection published by Narkomprod in the early 1920s are as follows:35

grain in millions of) poods

1916/17

1917/18

1918/19

1919/20

323,1

47,5

107,9

212,5

34 Malle, pp.405-406. One food official wrote in 1921 that during the Civil War, the amount of industrial goods exchanged for grain was so small that "many [food] workers could not formulate what tovaroobmen was." Chetvre qoda prodovo1'stvennoi rabotv (Moscow, 1922), p. 69 (hereafter: Chetvre coda). Kritsman (p.217) noted that the poor peasants received most of the available goods and gave little or r -ning in return for them. Z. Atlas, "Iz istorii razvitiia tovaroobmena mezhdu gorodom i derevnei (19181921)," Voorosv ekonomiki. 1967, No. 9, p.79 (hereafter: Atlas, "Iz istorii"). Gimpel'son, p.58. Later in the 1920s, a participant in these events wrote that tovaroobmen was introduced not as a true exchange for agricultural goods, but was a "method of encouraging the poorest peasantry to grab grain from kulak farms." In Vnutreniaia torgovlia soiuza SSSR za X let (Moscow, 1928), p.33 (hereafter: Vnv.treniaia) . 35 Chetvre qoda. pp.18-19. to thirty-six pounds

One pood is approximately equal

30

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The guiding principle of the razverstka as stated by Narkomprod was a re-phrasing of Lenin's 1917 dictum:

"Rob

(ograb') from the kulak, don't offend the middle peasant, and give to the poor peasant."

Indeed the razverstka was

intended to conciliate a good number of peasants.

No longer

was the state saying it wanted to confiscate all surplusses outright;

it

was

stating

an

amount

it

required,

though

peasants were not free to dispose of what was left to them, but were supposed to hold on to such surplusses or to trade them to the state at fixed prices. razverstka

was

set

so

high

over

But the amount of the what

the

peasantry

collectively was able to give that it made no difference that this amount was stated. fewer

industrial

peasantry

for

goods

his

were

grain,

the

And as there were fewer and available

to

razverstka

compensate became

a

the

grain

requisition. That the village collectively was responsible for grain deliveries

and

that

the

peasant

could

not

trade

his

surplusses encouraged the concealment of such surplusses and a decrease in sowing.

Here it was impossible to distinguish

between the "middle" peasant and the kulak because both had an interest in not cooperating, and the assumption from the outset was

that few peasants would voluntarily part with

their surplusses. the

entire

The element of coercion directed against

peasantry

was

to become

the

hallmark

razverstka. 31

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of

the

As we

noted above,

the

"food detachments"

fotriadv)

were first established on a large scale in May 1918, though they were in fact used by the Bolsheviks in the winter of 1917-1918.36

These

detachments

began

as

a

desperate

response to the absence of reliable local food committees. Their formations were largely voluntary and their operations were

unregulated

and

chaotic.

The detachments

played a

major role in setting up "poor" peasants' committees in June 1913. The decisive move to bring workers' organizations into the

grain

detachments

collection in a more

process

and

organize

workers'

systematic and disciplined fashion

began with a series of decrees

in August 1918,

when the

Bolsheviks were abandoning their policy cf "class war."

By

then the unrestricted formation of detachments by factories and workers' organizations had resulted in self-provisioning at the local level, which increased competition among the detachments and forced the price of grain to rise.

The

arbitrary activities of these reckless detachments played a major role in alienating the rural population in the summer of 1918.37 The August decrees,

beginning with that of August 6,

36 For ^ e use 0f food detachments in the winter of 19171918, see Keep, pp.429-431; Malle, p.362. 37

Lih, pp.360-363; Malle, pp.363-364. 32

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sought: to

impose

central

control

over these

activities.

Trade unions, factory committees and urban and rural soviets were encouraged to create detachments to requisition grain, though only with central authorization.

Late in August,

measures were taken to improve the quality of the members of these detachments. been voluntary. prospective

Earlier in the month,

Now the voluntary element was removed, as

members

required

professional

organizations

attesting

their

to

Revolution.

membership had

good

and

character

recommendations workers' and

from

collectives

devotion

to

the

The otriadv at first were required to provide

one-half of what they collected to Narkomprod. the other half left to the organization that dispatched it.

In time,

all

and

grain

otriadv

had

were

to

be handed

rewarded

with

over

to

Narkomprod

"premiums"

for

the

fulfilling

quotas There is abundant testimony to the immediate popularity of the food detachments as a form of employment.

One Soviet

authority on the subj ect notes that in the course of 1918, one-fourth of the Petrograd Party organization participated in

prodotriadv . while

the

Moscow

Party

organization was

"disappearing" into the otriadv.39 38 Strizhkov, pp.100-106, 130; Orlov, p.25; Prodovol'stvie i revoliutsiia. p.173; Vtoroi god, pp.7-8; Carr, pp.148-9; Ogrin', pp.8-10. 39 Strizhkov, p.108. At the end of September, Tsiurupa called a halt to the formation of detachments, who, he said, were overwhelming the producing regions. Ibid., p.128. 33

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Organizational responsibility for these operations was divided

between

special

body,

Central

Union

Narkomprod

with

its

“food

V o e n p r o d b i u r o . attached

of

detachments."40

Trade

Unions

to

army"

the

directing

and

a

All-Russian

its

"workers'

The recruits in Narkomprod's "food army"

included many "working peasants," and were clearly inferior to their more proletarian counterparts under Voenprodbiuro. One

Soviet

source

describes

the

Focd

Army

in

1919

as

increasingly recruiting "mainly the recovering wounded, the sick,

and

conscripts

judged

unsuitable

for

construction

service."41 The often

lines

became

of command entangled

over these various detachments

and

Narkomprod

and

continually battled over their direction. Civil

War

growing worse,

it was

Internal

Protection

Commissariat general

for

direction

(VOKhR)

Internal of

all

In 1919, with the

decided

various armies under one command. was

Affairs otriadv.

Voenprodbiuro

In May,

to

bring

the Armies of

established and

these

under

the

with

the

charged

Narkomprod, however,

retained a considerable amount of control over the use of 40 The modern Soviet literature is not always careful to specify whose "detachments" it is discussing. At the time, the term "otriadv" was generally used to describe forces under both organizations, while the "prodarmiia" defined the sum of otriadv under Narkomprod. Voenprodb iuro was established on June 27, 1913. Vtoroi god, pp.7-10. 41 Strizhkov, pp.255-256; also A. Sviderskii, Prodovol'stvennaia politika (Moscow, 1920), p.4? Vtoroi god, p.VII. Several departments of Supreme Economic Council also controlled their own detachments. 34

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its own contingents.42 The sizes of these detachments varied considerably from 25

(known as

Their

total

llmoskovskie,,) to 500-1000 numbers

fluctuated

course of the Civil War.

("petroaradskie11) .

considerably

during

the

..e prodarmiia totalled 41,505 in

December 1918 when conscription for the front decreased its ranks to 7,357.

By October 1919— at one of the critical

periods of the Civil War, with the white armies of ludenich and Denikin

on the

offensive— it was back up to 45,444,

dropping by August 1, 1920 to 20,417. crisis of War Communism, peaked

at

62,043.43

On the eve of

in December 1920,

The

prodotriadv

the

the Food Army

totals

fluctuated

similarly, and these also peaked at the end of 1920 at 1,019 detachments comprising 30,570 people.44 From the beginning, the functions of these otriadv were intended

to

go

further

distribution

of

grain.

than

simplythe

Among

their

collection basic

tasks

and were

supervising the harvesting, overseeing grain deliveries, and acting as border guards at trains stations, ports and roads. These activities often took place in newly-regained Soviet 42 Chemomorets, pp.100, 134-135; Strizhkov, pp.153-161; Vtoroi aod. p. 6; Ogrin', pp.8-9; Prodovol'stvie i revoliutsiia. p.176. 43 Strizhkov, khleb. p.105.

pp.210,

246,

249-255;

Davydov,

Bor/ba

za

44 Strizhkov, p. 254; Davydov, Bor'ba za khl*?hr p.105; Biulleten' Narodnoco Komissariata po Prodovol'stviiu. November 9, 1920. Cf. Tri qoda bor/bv s qolodom (Moscow, 1920), p.VII (hereafter: Tri qoda). 35

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territory

and

the

otriadv

sometimes

found

themselves

involved in the establishment or re-establishment of Soviet power

and

in

the

reorganization

of

volost7 and

village

soviets.45 Also much discussed and highly valued at the time was the "cultural enlightenment" role of the food detachments. The otriadv under V o e n p r o d b iuro in particular were charged with organizing meetings, distributing literature among the peasants,

setting up village reading rooms and organizing

Communist cells.46

Tsiurupa gave the official view early on

at the Fifth Congress of Soviets in July 1918: We do not regard these detachments merely as a military force; we see in these detachments people who go into the country armed, it is true, but at the same time as agitators who will conduct propaganda in the country.47 A Soviet publication in 1923 presented the Civil War view of the food army as . . . not only a military force, landing on the population with the goal of taking away food products, but to a significant degree . . . a kind of strictly organized delegation from the hungry cities to the satiated countryside. One must not only take with the help of the bayonet, but 45 Farbman, pp.223-224; Strizhkov, p.95; Prodovol7stvie i revoliutsiia. pp.175-176; Vtoroi god, p.VII. 46 Ogrin7, pp.8-1-; Davydov, Bor7ba za khleb. pp.101-106. Petrokommuna (Petrograd, 1920), p.22. 47 Cited in Carr, p.149. Bednota, on January 6, 1921, stated it very plainly: "The food detachments should bring light fnesti svetl to the countryside." 36

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untiringly explain why he is taking and why the peasants themselves should meet the government halfway.48 No doubt some of the food "soldiers1' took their role as "enlighteners" quite seriously. that many were drawn to immediate

and

edible

The evidence, however, says

food work by the promise of an

reward.

of

force

appears to have been frequent and, by many reports,

often

excessive and misdirected.

The

application

By 1920, their reputation firmly

established, the food detachments could rely on intimidation to accomplish their ends.

The local food committees and

otriadv were associated with a widespread abuse of their power,

which

cultural

overshadowed

work

among

the

any

positive

peasantry.

reputation

Their

methods made the otriadv a very effective collecting food. fact

that

dominant

when local

committees)

numbers

for and

instrument for

There is an abundance of testimony to the the

detachments

force,

relied

those

heavily

were

in

on

uprisings and bring in the grain.

themselves

power

them

to

(Party ward

not and

off

the food

"kulak"

Often their arrival alone

to a locale reportedly could make grain suddenly "appear." All sources agree that without the otriadv. the razverstka

48 Prodovol/stvie i revoluiutsiia. p.175. V. I. Shishkin, "Prodovol'stvennye otriadv v Sibiri (iul' 1920-mai 1921g.)," Sotsial'no-politicneskoe razvitie sovetsko-sibirskoi derevni (Novosibirsk, 1980), p.94, calls the food detachments the Party's "most important canal of influence on the peasantry" during the Civil War. 37

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was unenforceable.49

One of the Bolsheviks' assumptions from the day they took power was that "trade" was a feature of a bourgeois economy,

was

inconsonant

with

the

construction

of

full

socialism, and would be squeezed out of the Russian economy during the transition from capitalism to socialism.

Just

how "immediate" a task the abolition of trade and the money economy was

was not

something that

were very clear on.50

individual Bolsheviks

In place of "free trade," during the

transition to a moneyless exchange of goods under

socialism,

establishment

of

the

Bolshevik

leadership

(produktobmen) envisioned

"collective tovaroobmen11— an exchange

the of

goods, partly in kind, partly in money, with no middleman between important

the to

state

and

remember

peasants' that

even

collectives. with

the

It

is

policy

of

razverstka. the principle of tovaroobmen was kept in place. But although it was retained as the short-term goal through 49 Vtoroi god, pp.VII, 6; Kritsman, p.182, Prodovol'stvie i revoliutsiia. pp.174-175; Sviderskii, Prodovol'stvennaia politika, p.4. 50 A Hungarian study of War Communism argues that Marx and Engels did not advocate the removal of commodity exchange and the naturalization of the economy during the transition to socialism, and that the notion that these latter goals should be "immediate tasks" of a revolutionary government became part of the socialist doctrine thanks to the writings of Karl Kautsky and his German Social Democratic colleagues. Laszlo Szamuely, First Models of the Socialist Economic Systems: Principles and Theories (Budapest, 1974), pp.23-28. See also Carr, pp.6-7. 38

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autumn 1921,

tovaroobmen remained the ideal and trade the

reality. In the winter of 1917-18, virtually the only existing form

of

"distribution"

personified by the

was

"sackmen"

the

growing

private

(meshochniki), who

trade,

rode the

railroad car rooftops into town with their sacks of grain. "Sackmen" were branded by the Bolsheviks as "speculators," but their ranks included, aside from genuine "speculators," representatives of workers' organizations and many peasants from consumer provinces involved in the life-and-death hunt for food.51 The Bolsheviks had inherited fixed grain prices from the Provisional Government and in 1918 attempted to enforce these as part: of a policy of tovaroobmen.

A decree of March

26

collective

first

exchange.

established

the

principle

of

goods

But local Party and soviet organs ignored the

fixed prices and allowed free trade to go on in a desperate attempt to attract agricultural goods.52 In April 1918, the regime took a major step forward in the area of distribution policy. to

set

up

a

fund of manufactured goods

agricultural goods.52 11,

the

Narkomprod was authorized

Soviet

to

exchange

for

By the decrees of March 20 and April

government

effectively

assimilated

51

Lih, p.356.

52

Orlov, pp.21-23.

53

Vtoroi god, p.IV; Ogrin', p.5; Carr, p.119. 39

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the

cooperatives,

which

were

now

to

become

the

principal

mechanism of distribution policy under state guidance.

Once

again, the move was a logical response to the absence of a local Party or Soviet personnel or organization.54 The May decree on the "food dictatorship" reaffirmed the fixed price of grain, but "sacking" continued rampant and led the regime to stiffen its stand with a decree on "compulsory

tovaroobmen"

on

August

8,

1918,

which

established that unless the state received 100% of a given quota

of

agricultural

products

from a given village,

industrial

items would be supplied.

government

announced

the

no

On November 21, the

nationalization

of

all

private

trade, introducing a state monopoly on a number of consumer goods.

These measures strengthened the hand of Narkomprod

in

area

the

cooperative

of

were

distribution, given

an

and

though

the

increasing role both

consumers in grain

collection and distribution, the reality was an increase in state control

over cooperation,

a process

that

continued

throughout the Civil War.55 The Bolsheviks proved no more effective at enforcing 54 Chernomorets, p.148; Vtoroi god, pp.10-12; Carr, pp.121123. The April 11 decree placed cooperation under the control of VSNKh. but the latter7s authority progressively shifted to Narkomprod. 55 Orlov, p.25; Ogrin-', p.10; Tri goda. p.58; Vtoroi cod, p.IV; Carr, pp.235-236; Lih, pp.387-388; Malle, pp.348-349. The November decree established an inter-ministerial Committee for Utilization attached to VSNKh which was made responsible for drawing up the allocation plans for various goods. 40

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the grain monopoly than had been the Provisional Government, a fact recognized by official concessions to private trade. In August 1918, Sovnarkom. over the vehement objections of Tsiurupa

and

the

collegium

of

Narkomprod.

allowed

the

transport of up to one and one-half poods of grain from the consuming

into

the

producing

regions,

a

concession

to

workers and "sackmen" and an admission of the failure of the central

distribution

system.

October

1918,

time

"sackmen"

enough

(meshochniki)

lexicon

by

Decrees

in

to

to

This

was

tolerated

allow

the

derogatory

be

replaced

"one-and-a-half-pood December

1918

and

men"

January

transport of non-monopolized food items

in

the

until term

popular

(polutorapudniki). 1919

allowed

the

(such as potatoes,

vegetables, milk, cheese, game, mushrooms and fruit).

From

that point on there were periodic concessions to private trade, but these narrowed as the number of non-monopolized products grew smaller in 1919 and 1920.56 56 There were occasional allowances to carry one-and-a-half or two poods (dvukhpudnichestvo) of grain during holidays or other occasions. There is disagreement in the literature on the specific dates the measures on non-monopolized food products were introduced and, to some extent, on their significance. There is general agreement, however, on the fact that from the beginning of 1919, there were no significant experiments in legalizing private trade. Orlov, p.28; Chetvertaia qodovshchina Narkomproda (Moscow, 1921), pp.3-5 (hereafter: Chetvertaia); Vtoroi god, p.27; Farbman, pp.239-240; Kritsman, p.140; Malle, pp.421-422; Z. V. Atlas, Sotsialisticheskaia denezhnaia sistema (Moscow, 1969), pp.159-160. Maurice Dobb, Soviet Economic Development Since 1917 (New York, 1948), pp.107-108. Cf. Lih, pp.332-333, 365-367. According to Kritsman, in the month of September 1918, the polutorapudniki managed to bring into Moscow more than four and one-half million poods of grain, twice as much 41

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Illegally -trade flourished.

The rough estimate is that

around half of all exchange was illegal, and this figure is probably generous

to Narkomprod.57

Chamberlin notes the

irony that trade had been made illegal and yet more people were engaged in it than at any time in Russian history.58 There were simply so few manufactured goods and no apparatus to enforce tovaroobmen that dual distihution

(circulation)

mechanisms arose; on the official side, the requistioning of grain

and

the

rationing

of

goods;

and

unofficial

and

illegal, though tolerated, the buying and selling of goods. In both systems money played a diminishing role.

The regime

could do little to counter free trade; indeed the workers would

have

Ukrainian

opposed food

resignation

serious

official

of the

measures

writing

state to the

in

to 1920

restrict

it.

A

underscored

the

existence of the

"other

as intended for the capital in Narkomprod/s plan. The Food Commissariat, meanwhile, could only fulfill less than one half its own plan. There is a very interesting discussion of trade in Petrograd during the Civil War in the paper by Mary McAuley, "Bread Without the Bourgeoisie," delivered at the National Seminar on the Social History of Russia, the Colloquium on the Civil War, University of Pennsylvania, 1984. 57 Kritsman (p. 137) puts the ratio at 60/40 in favor of private trade. lu. A. Poliakov, Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika (Moscow, 1982), p.49, estimates 44% private trade and 56% state collection and distribution in 1920, but cites no source for the figures. Atlas ("Iz istorii," pp.79-80) notes the same 44% citing an article by the economist Strumilin from the 1920s. 58 Chamberlin, p.107. A memoir from the period notes the widespread adaptation of a Bolshevik aphorism, "He who does not speculate, shall not eat." A. Terne, V tsartsve Lenina (Berlin, 1922), p.334. 42

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economy": In the house of a critically ill person one rarely speaks of the disease inflicting the head of the household. The Soviet Republic is critically ill with the "sacking" ailment, and maybe that is why no one talks about it.59 In the towns and cities markets and bazaars thrived. Emma Goldman describes the market activity in Moscow in early 192 0 i Most of the [markets], as also the famous Sukharevka, were in full operation. Occasionally soldiers would raid the markets; but as a rule they were suffered to continue. They presented the most vital and interesting part of the city's life. Here gathered proletarian and aristocrat, Communist and bourgeois, peasant and intellectual. Here they were bound by the common desire to sell and buy, to trade and bargain. Here one could find for sale a rusty iron pot alongside of an exquisite icon; an old pair of shoes and intricately worked lace; a few yards of cheap calico and a beautiful old Russian shawl. The rich of yesterday, hungry and emaciated, denuded themselves of their last glories; the rich of today buying— it was indeed an amazing picture of revolutionary Russia.60 The

steady

encouraged trading.

naturalization

of

the

economy

only

Workers increasingly received a portion

of their wage in the product they produced.

These in-kind

59 M. Vladimirov, Meshochnichestvo i ego politicheskie otrazheniia (Khar'kov, 1920), p.3.

sotsialno-

60 Emma Goldman, Mv Disillusionment in Russia (New York, 1925), p.23, also pp.15-17. Fedor Dan, Dva qoda skitanii (Berlin, 1922), pp.30-35, notes the high number of soldiers among the traders. Also, Kritsman, pp.141-142. Paul Dukes, Red Dusk and the Morrow (Garden City, NY, and Toronto, 1922), pp.160-163. 43

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wages more often than not found their way onto the black market in exchange for something to eat. What

actions

the

regime

distribution

came

in

the

tighten

grip

as

much

the

agricultural goods. tied

the

did

form as

take

of

in

the

measures

possible

on

area

of

intended

to

all

available

A decree of August 5, 1919 more firmly

distribution

of

manufactured

goods

to

the

compulsory giving of agricultural products and broadened the element of collective responsibility.61 At

the

Ninth

Party

Congress

in

March

1920,

the

Bolsheviks came close to taking the next "logical" step in this process, resolution

to

the nationalization of the cooperatives. that

effect

gained

a

majority

vote

A in

committee, and only Lenin's intervention in general session steered the Congress toward the adoption of a more moderate proposal.

The defeat of the resolution probably made little

difference.

After

two

years

of

Bolshevik

efforts

to

"cleanse" the cooperatives of unwanted elements and harness their

organization,

effectiveness.

they

had

lost

much

of

their

Sviderskii's description of cooperation in

1920 as a "living corpse” was not inappropriate.62 61 Kritsman, p.216; Vtoroi god, pp.IV, 37; Carr, p.234; Ogrin', p.11. Peasants were to be compensated for their goods with a "proportional" (as opposed to "equivalent") amount of manufactured goods. 62 Sviderskii is in Ekonomichsskaia zhizr.'. June 25, 1920. Deviatvi s"ezd RKPfb). Protokolv (Moscow, 1960), pp.262302, 361-379. By a decree of January 27, 1920, all forms of cooperation were united and placed under Narkomprod's 44

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By the middle of 1920, Narkomprod had steadily managed to centralize and improve its grain collecting operation, and this was partly the reason for the yearly increases of the razverstka through the Civil War period.

However,

by

the end of 1920, Narkomprod still found itself unable to bring order to the rationing system.

In this area,

apparat was most overextended and disorganized. distribution

system

was

incapable

of

the

The state

displacing

private

trade. A limited system of food rationing had been implemented by the Provisional Government.

The Bolsheviks came to power

intending their rationing policy to be guided by the Marxist principle:

"From

each

according to his need."

according

to his

ability,

to each

But the principles of equality were

in fact never brought to bear on rationing policy and the principle itself was quietly abandoned in the autumn of 1918 when centrally controlled rationing and a system of ration

authority. Tri coda. p.10-12. A Narkomprod periodical observed in the autumn of 1920, that the Narkomprod apparatus had proven incapable of exercising effective authority over the cooperatives. Biulleten/ Narodnoqo Komissariata po Prodovol'stviiu. October 14, 1920. Carr's suggestion that Lenin may have been motivated to maintain the nominal independence of the cooperatives out of a desire to attract foreign trade has merit. A symbolic substitute for nationalization of the cooperatives was the admission to the Party of the president of the central organ of the cooperatives, Tsentrosoiuz. the former Menshevik Khinchuk. 45

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cards were introduced in the major urban centers.63 The

arrangement

of

the

autumn

of

IS18

envisioned

rationing according to the "class principle,” the ultimate goal being the creation of a "single class ration" (paek).64 However,

from

compromised

the

by

start the

the

"humanitarian

"class

principle,"

categories of rationsbased on difficulty surface.65

It

was

principle" as

was

various

of labor began to

civil war, however,

that

led

the

Bolsheviks far astray from their original intentions in this field.

The needs of military industry forced the regime to

introduce a system of special rewards for those who were, theoretically at least, most directly involved in producing the hardware to defeat the White armies. the

subsequent

special

year

categories

and

and

a half was

loopholes.

The result over

a proliferation Narkomprod

set

up

of a

"Bureau on the Transfer to the Red Army Ration" to handle the traffic.

Soon artists, professors, office workers and

63 Chernomorets, pp.146-147. The prikaz #79 of Narkomprod in October 1918 set up four categories of rations for the entire country. 64 On the "single workers' ration," see Kommunisticheskii trud, December 18, 1920; Izvestiia Narodnoao Komissariata po Prodovol'stviiu. January-February 1920, No. 1-2, p.28. 65 A. I. Vyshinskii, Voorosy raspredeleniia i Revoliutsii (Moscow, 1922), pp.5-6. Vyshinskii (pp.6-8) wrote that the goal was to systematize the rationing process and avoid local deviations, such as in Tver province, where of the four operative ration categories, category 3 pertained to "loafers . . . not doing anything" (nichego ne delaiushc'nie) and category 4 covered "loafers . . . not occupying themselves" fnichem ne zanimaiushchiesia). 46

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factory workers for various reasons were receiving the Red Army ration.66 By the same token, the regime went to great lengths to compensate

the

families

of

deceased

or

living

Red

Army

soldiers, especially with the inauguration in August 1919 of a special ration called "Red Star"

fKrasnaia zvezda).

The

definition of those who qualified for this ration was left somewhat

ambiguous

beginning

of

and

abuses

were

1920 there were over

numerous.

By

30 different

the

norms of

rations.67 Andrei Vyshinskii of Narkomprod lamented that,

given

the plethora of categories and sub-categories, "the wife of a speculator and marauder received . . . the same right and the same ration as the proletarian working in an underground mine."68

Narkomprod

and

the

central

trade

union

‘organizations were continually attempting to simplify the hierarchy of norms and wipe out all lccal categories, results were never lasting.

In November 1919, the Committee

for the Provisioning of Workers

(KSR) was established for

the purpose of regulating the eligibility of workers various levels of provisioning. various 66

branches

of

but

industry

for

The departments uniting the under VSNKh. the

so-called

See Dukes, pp.42, 48, 120.

67 Kalendarl, p.72; Vyshinskii, pp.7-10; Chetvre goda, pp. 53-54. The system took on the perjorative label "tsekhovshchina." Kommunisticheskii trud. January 14, 1921. 68

Vyshinskii, p.6. 47

with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

glavki

(short for "alavnve upravleniiai:) , were ordered to

draw up

lists

of workers

and

office workers under their

domain.

Then in January 1920, the 30 or so categories were

replaced by a new system of 5 categories, which however, were back up to 25 by December 1920.69 By the second quarter of 1920 the Bolsheviks began to make concessions to worker incentives by tying wages and rationing to the actual amount of work hours performed and the qualifications of the worker.

Premiums and bonuses were

introduced with the aim of increasing productivity.

This

new policy was called "tselevoe snabzhenie." and it meant the effective abandonment of the notion of a "single class ration."70

In

fact,

with

fewer

and

fewer

goods

to

distribute, there was little at hand with which to stimulate productivity. they

were

Bolsheviks

The sizes of the rations and premiums, when

given

out

at

ail,

were

so

small

that

the

in fact drew nearer to achieving the equality

they had earlier striven to attain,

thougn what they now

were able to supply fell far short of satisfying anyone's "need."

To keep

from starving,

one had to trade at the

69 Tri qoda. p.70; Chetvre qoda. p.173; Izvestiia VTsIK. December 31, 1920; Kommunisticheskii trud. January 14, 1921. On the glavki. see Dobb, pp.86-87, 110-111. 70 Kritsman, p.221; Kalendar'. p.69; Vyshinskii, p.17; Chetvre qoda. p.55. Ogrin', p.55; Malle, pp.484-485. The important decrees came on April 30 and June 8, 1920, the latter introducing the principle of premiums. See also Vyshinskii in Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. June 29, November 7, 1920. 48

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marketplace. Narkomprod.

together

with

the

trade

unions

and

Narkomtrud and the glavki. came to perform most official distribution functions. state

provided

for

over

On paper, by the end of 1920, the 37 million people

including

entire urban population, not counting the army.

the

The number

of workers receiving special rations had risen from 300,000 in November These

1313 to ever 2.5 million in December 1920.

numbers

cases,

were

impressive,

and

as

in

so

many

other

were often blindly cited as evidence of increasing

economic prosperity.

In fact, no one from Tsiurupa on down

to the worker with the highest ration was satisfied with the system and problem

of

continually

few seemed to understand how the

shortage

seeking

of

a better

food

it worked.

aside,

and simpler

Narkomprod

The was

organization of

rationing. Nor did the utter lack of food make workers any less dissatisfied with

an arrangement they

sensed

favored the

increasing number of office workers on rationing lists and, theoretically,

receiving

premiums.

There

was

a

growing

71 Kalendar*. p.70. Vyshinskii, pp.12, 15. Izvestiia VTsIK, December 31, 1920; Malle, pp.424, 482; Chetvertaia. p.24; Chetvre. p.174 Provisioning of the army was shared by VSNKh and the Food and War commissariats and the relationships were bureaucratically complex and seldom cordial. Kalendar*. pp.15-16; S. Vunderlikh, Doklad v ekonomicheskii otdel VTsSPS "Rabota Komproda 1917-1920" (Moscow, 1920), pp.8-10. Tri goda. pp.87-91; Chetvertaia, pp.24-35; Chetvre. pp.238-246; Chernomorets, pp.143-144; Kritsman p. 114. The fullest and best account of the organization of military supply is in Malle, pp.466-478. 49

with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

mistrust of the glavki. which had a hand in the distribution of

rations

to

those

within

During the Civil War, dramatically, rise.

The

while workers

their

administrative

realm.

the urban population had decreased

the

numbers

smelled

of

rations

corruption

and

continued

to

blamed

the

glavki.72 Workers were particularly displeased at the reported and suspected abuses of the Red Army and "Krasnaia zvezda" rations, the number of recipients of the latter having grown to over three million by the end of 1920.73 food

conference

in

Moscow,

metal

and

At a November

textile

workers7

representatives expressed a strong disliking for the entire rationing system and did so with such vehemence that Lenin felt it wise to acquiesce in the workers7 demand for the removal,

over

Tsiurupa7s

outraged

objections,

of

Mikhail

72 According to Kritsman (p.220), the census of 1920 counted an urban population of 12.3 million, while the food organizations estimate was 21.9 million, or 78% more. The decline in urban population from 1917-1920 varied considerably with Petrograd dropping 70% (from 2.4 to .7 million) and Moscow over 40%, with the populations of other urban centers falling off at average rates of 24% in the north and 14% in the south. These figures are from the journal of the Central Statistical Administration, Biulleten7 Ts. S. U. . No. 77, August, 25, 1923. Throughout 1920 there were calls to abolish the provisioning departments of the glavki (which, by the end of 1920, n u m b e r e d about fifty) and to end the "parallelism" of food supply. See Ekonomicheskaia zhizn7. December 10, 1920; Biulleten7 Narodnogo Komissariata po Prodovol7stviiu. November 11, 1920. 73

Vyshinskii, p.9; Kalendar7. p.72. 50

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Frumkin and Sviderskii from the collegium of Narkomprod.74

Thus, by 1920, Narkomprod had evolved into a monstrous bureaucratic

apparatus

whose

tentacles

reached

activities of the other economic commissariats.75

into

the

Despite

the retreat from the "class war" in the countryside in the middle of 1918, and the reversion to a razverstka system in place of a genuine monopoly system, beginning with the May 1918 "food dictatorship" decrees, food operations came to be increasingly centralized under Narkomprod7s authority. The major bureaucratic loser was VSNKh.

Intended at

the beginning to be a kind of super-economic organ, VSNKh found its functions confined to industry,

and for a time

even surrendered considerable control in this area to the War Commissariat and the Council on Labor and Defense (STO). At

most

of

the

major

turning

points

in

the

rise

of

74 Why these two in particular aroused the ire of the workers is unclear. A major source of the workers7 anger at this time was the lack of worker representation in the food apparatus. For the next several weeks the demand for the increase of workers ("orabochenie") in Narkomprod and the other economic commissariats was a recurring theme at workers7 meetings, and reflected workers7 suspicions of privileges accruing to office workers. This incident caused a scandal of some proportion at the time (though there is not a trace of it in the press) , but was only a taste of things to come. Leninskii s b o m i k . (39 vols., Moscow, 13241980), vol. XXXIX, pp.260-263; vol. XXXIV, p.388; vol. XXXVI, p.148. The published statistics on the number of workers in the Narkomprod apparatus at the end of 1920 would not likely have satisfied many workers. See Izvestiia VTsIK. December 25, 1920. 75 on the structure of the Narkomprod apparatus in 1920, see Chetvre qoda. pp.101-107. 51

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Narkomprod formation

(the creation of

razverstka

the

and

cooperatives,

"food

of

"food dictatorship,"

army,55

state

etc.)

opposition.76

of the

the

control

VSNKh

extension

over

stood

the

in

of

the the

peasants'

unsuccessful

Though there remained considerable ambiguity

in the divisions of VSNKh's and Narkomprod's functions, as long as the struggle for food took prime importance over industry, Narkomprod was regarded as the more important and more powerful commissariat. commissariat

of many who

It was clearly the "favorite" desired

a

strong hand

in

food

policy, but by 1920 it had acquired many enemies within the Bolshevik Party.77 The accepted,

policies were

Narkomprod

not

universally

pursued,

though

understood

and

generally embraced.

Having sketched the general picture of the development of the

Food

Supply

Commissariat

and

food

policy,

in

the

following two sections we turn to two discussions of food policy, which occurred, one in the first, the other in the 76 M. I. Davydov, Aleksandr Dmitrievich Tsiurupa (Moscow, 1961), p.58; Carr, pp.123-125. In June 1920, when VSNKh was told to relinquish its control over the collection of raw materials, the response of the central and local VSNKh officials was at best creative foot-dragging and at worst outright sabotage of the transfer of its operation to Narkomprod. Biulleten' Narodnoao Komissariata po Prodovol'stviiu. October 12, November 9, 1920. 77 Kritsman, pp.106-107, 213. Rykov's barbs at the Food Commissariat during the Ninth Party Congress in March 1920 were those of a vanquished combatant. See Deviatvi s"ezd, pp.127, 179. Narkomprod's relations with the People's Commissariat of Agriculture (Narkomzem) are discussed below. 52

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second half of will

shed

1920.

The treatment of these discussions

light on Bolshevik motivations

and assumptions

regarding peasant policy in the year 1920.

Kaz v e r s t k a o r n a l o g ?

The economic policy of the Bolsheviks during the Civil War came to be centered around the forced requisition of grain and other products from the countryside. the

beginning

the

regime

did

not

However, at

in principle

rule

out

taxation as a way to extract agricultural products from the peasants.

In

late October

currency plummeting,

VTsIK

1918, issued

with the value a decree

of the

introducing a

tax-in-kind on peasant surplusses.

It was aimed mainly at

the kulaki. as the poor peasants

and many of the middle

peasants were excluded. hand

over

necessary

all to

stocks maintain

The above

individual household was to those

itself.

which The

were

measure

absolutely was

never

enforced, and although efforts were made to collect the tax into 1920, collection through the razverstka system became the rule and the tax-in-kind was effectively abandoned.78 78 Malle (p. 372) notes that 40% of all peasants were excused from the tax. In Lenin's draft of the tax decree, he identified 40% of the peasantry as "rural poor" and 20% 53

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Theoretically,

however,

this

tax

along

with

several

monetary taxes remained in force throughout the Civil War. Once taxation was introduced as the first principle of the new

course

in

1921,

several

Bolsheviks

pointed

to

this

precedent as evidence of continuity in Bolshevik economic policy.79

Even as these taxes were introduced the requisitioning of

grain— that

is,

the razverstka

system

but

without

effective compensation of industrial items to peasants for grain delivered— was fast becoming the standard practice in the countryside.

During the course of 1919,

grain became another front in the Civil War. the food armies

the hunt for The battles of

anddetachments as they brought in an ever

increasing amount of grain were enthusiastically hailed in the press in the fashion of heroic military clashes. often

now

did

extraordinary

one hear about measure,

to

the

be

requisitions

enforced

until

Less as

an

normal

"tovaroobmen" could be established. The word "razverstka11 came to stand for something more as "middle" peasants. By these criteria, all "poor" peasants were freed from taxation, while "middle" peasants were to be moderately taxed. Also see Billik, p.146. 79 The VTsIK decree also introduced the "extraordinary revolutionary fax," designed to bring in 10 billion rubles. This tax was abandoned early in 1919 with about a billion and a half rubles collected. Carr, pp.246-250; Gimpel'son, pp.57-58; Chamberlin, p.104. 54

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them simply "requisitions."

As the year 1919 wore on and

the widespread black market proved

irrepressible,

a true

state monopoly on grain came to be viewed unofficially as unrealizable.

The word "monopoly" was used less and less

and

to

gave

way

"razverstka"

as

a

catch-all

for

the

principle of state ownership of all grain surplusses and as a statement

of

intent to squeeze

out all

illegal trade.

There came to be a considerable fuzziness about what the razverstka really entailed.

One of the consequences of this

was that in 1920 when some began to question aspects of the policy of razverstka. they were automatically (and unjustly) accused

of wanting to abandon the grain monopoly and of

favoring "free trade"— in short, of wanting to undercut the entire economic policy. The

guiding

principle

of

those

who

enforced

the

requisitions was supposed to be to "rob" grain only from the kulak. local

In practice, food

peasantry. and

the

officials

the food armies and detachments and "robbed"

from

every

layer

of

the

The operative principle was "food at all costs,"

coercive

methods

of the

Narkomprod

apparat were

employed ruthlessly and with great effect whenever anyone stood in the way.

Lenin, in a much quoted passage from a

pamphlet published in April

1921,

described the

state of

affairs of the razverstka policy during this period: This peculiar "war communism" consisted in fact of our taking from the peasant all surplusses and sometimes not surplusses, but a part of the 55

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peasant's necessary food supply, talcing it to cover expenditures for the array and for the support of the workers.80 Comparative

figures

for grain collection— in monthly

and semi-monthly summaries— were published at the time to demonstrate how

increasingly effective was the method of

requisitioning.

It is instructive to compare the increasing

amounts of grain taken

in during the Civil War with the

actual collection targets for the RSFSR:81

YEAR

GRAIN TARGETS (in millions of poods)

GRAIN COLLECTED

1917/18

----------

47.539.128

1918/19

260,100,000

107,922,507

1919/20

319,415,150

212,507,408

1920/21

423,041,000

283,875,145

The

collection

figures,

if

they

accurate, were misleading by themselves. them often

failed to

were

even

near

Those who cited

qualify them by accounting for the

acquisition of territories regained during the Civil War and to the improved organization of the collection of grain. Instead,

in

the

effort

to

maintain

optimism,

Bolshevik

commentators pointed to the absolute rise in requisitioned 80

PSS, vol. 43, pp.219-220.

81 Chetvertaia. p.7. For an analysis of these and other statistical data on requisitions, see Iurkov, pp.78-81. 56

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grain as proof that their agricultural policy was correct. But if the figures masked the fact that the peasants were hiding their stocks of grain, other statistics revealed the long-term peasant response to the razverstka. one that made the Bolsheviks increasingly uneasy: the cutting back on the area under cultivation.

By the end of 1920, the area of

sown acreage in Russia had decreased to as little as threefifths its size in 1913.82

Accompanying this was a dramatic

drop

specialized

in

the

planting

of

crops.83

With

no

incentive to produce more than the minimum for himself, the peasant was reverting to tactics as old as Russian history.

It

was

against

this

darkening

background

in

the

beginning of the year 1920 that voices were heard calling for

a

clearer

razverstka.

definition,

even

a

rethinking

of,

the

There is considerable evidence that during the

first "breathing spell" of January-April of that year— with Kolchak having been driven back into Siberia at the end of 82 Malle (pp.425-439) has a thorough discussion of the relationship of the razvertska policy to the decrease in sown area. She cites contemporary Soviet statistics showing that between 1916 and 1921 the total sown area in the RSFSR was reduced by 35%. Kritsman's figure (pp.153-154) is a reduction of one-eighth, mostly occurring since 1917. He notes a decline of 56% in the sown acreage of intensive crops over the period 1916-1920 (p.156). Dobb (p.117) cites Kritsman's calculation that the amount of actual sowing concealed from the authorities reached 33% in 1920. 83 The rye crop, used for home consumption, had been steadily replacing the more marketable wheat crop since before the Revolution. 57

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1919— a limited "discussion" of sorts took place among the top Party leaders and among local Party and food officials about the razverstka. indicating a certain hesitation over the direction of food policy. is

difficult

to

gauge,

since

Ths extent of the discussion much

available is of an in-?'rect nature. pillars of economic

of

the

documentation

Doubts about one of the

~icy would be unlikely to find their

way into print.54 The

one

well-known

instance

cf

a

major

Bolshevik

advocating the abandonment of the razverstka in 1920 was the case of Lev Trotsky.

Trotsky's proposal is familiar to us

because he chose to remind his colleagues of it at both the Tenth and Eleventh Party Congresses, and he referred to it in his autobiography.55

This in turn led his biographer,

Isaac Deutscher, to present the episode as further evidence of Trotsky's "prophetic" gift.

To paraphrase: Trotsky was a

proponent of NEP one year before its introduction.86 84 A. Dembo, Nasha novaia ekonomicheskaia politika (2nd ed., Kiev, 1921), p. 10, claims that "every time the political situation changed the question of replacing the prodrazverstka with a tax—in-kind was raised in the ranks of our party." 85 Desiatvi s"ezd RKPfb). Stenooraficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1963), pp.349-350; Odinnadtsatvi____ s"ezd____ RKP(b) . Stenoqraficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1961), p.286; Leon Trotsky, Mv Life (New York, 1930), pp.462-4. There is a useful exchange on this subject by Thomas Remington ^and Richard Day in Studies in Comparative Communism, Spring/Summer 1977. 85 Isaac Deutscher, pp.496-498.

The

Prophet

Armed

(Oxford,

58

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1980),

It

is

important

before proceeding. thin,

to

be

clear

on

Trotsky's

Though the available documentation is

the following facts are demonstrable.

1919,

Trotsky

position

proposing

the

replacement of requistions with a state tax-in-kind.

He

presented his

composed

a

set

of

ideas to the Central

theses

In December

Committee

in February

1920 in a proposal called "The Fundamental Questions of Food 9 *7

and Agricultural Policy."'"

Directing economic activity in the Urals in the winter of 1919/1920 gave Trotsky the opportunity to see first-hand the basic problem with the razverstka; peasant not to

cultivate his

land except

needs.

At

time,"

. . .

the

same

he

"It prompts the for his

family

continued,

"the

semiproletarian elements of the towns are settling in the villages, where they are starting their own farms. is

losing

its workers,

and

Industry

in agriculture the number of

self-sufficient farms tends to increase constantly.

By that

very fact, the basis of our food policy, established on the requisitioning of surplus, is undermined."88 To combat the drop-off in production, Trotsky proposed two measures: 87 No complete copy of the theses was ever published. There is a partial text of the proposal to the Central Committee in Leon Trotsky, The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1923—25) (New York, 1975), pp.108-109. See also The Trotskv Papers. Jan M. Meijer, ed., (Mouton, The Hague, 1971), vol. 2, pp.126-129. 88

Ibid., p.108. 59

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1) Replace the requisitioning of surplusses with a levy proportional to the quantity of production (a sort of progressive tax on agricultural income), set up in such a way that it is nevertheless more profitable to increase the acreage sown or to cultivate it better. 2) Institute a more rigorous correlation between the delivery to the peasants of industrial products and the quantity of grain furnished by them, not only by cantons and towns, but also by rural farms. He concluded: In any case, it is clear that the present policy— requisitioning food products according to norms of consumption, joint responsibility for delivery of these products, and equal distribution of industrial products— is lowering agricultural production and bringing about the atomization of the industrial proletariat, and threatens to disorganize completely the economic life of the country.59 Trotsky

had

hit

upon

the

fundamental

problem

with

Bolshevik agricultural policy— that of a lack of incentives for

increased

consequences

production— and

he

pointed

of the current policies,

to

the

social

ones that would be

much exacerbated by the time of the reforms one year later. Yet, though Trotsky was pointing in the right direction, his proposed remedy fell short of the measures introduced at the Tenth Party Congress:

Trotsky did not question the state

monopoly on grain and trade and his plans most certainly entailed

state

measures

introduced

89

coercion

as

in March

a

principle

1921 went

feature.

The

further and were

Ibid., p.109. 60

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introduced in a different spirit in the frenzy of events at the

time.

proposal

Nonetheless, closely

it

resembled

Bolsheviks in February 1921.

does the

appear ideas

of

that a

Trotsky's number

of

The "New Economic Policy"—

with its money economy and free trade— only came together during the course of 1921 and by the time of the Eleventh Party Congress in March 1922 the Bolsheviks had retreated far from their initial designs one year before.

Thus, tc

say that Trotsky anticipated NEP or wanted to "abandon war communism" is incorrect and misleading.

But he had at least

stated part of the problem.90 Trotsky's

proposal

was

defeated

in

Committee in February 1920 by 11 votes to 4.

the

Central

During the

course of the discussion he was accused of favoring "freetradism," a familiar jibe at all who wished to tamper with

90 Mv Life, p.463. Soon after his defeat on the tax proposal, Trotsky championed the militarization of labor, a policy approved in principle by the Ninth Party Congress in March 1920. Deutscher fThe Prophet Armed, p.498) writes: "Trotsky, rebuked for his wisdom, plunged back into the acceptable folly. . . . " Deutscher's assumption is one that Trotsky put forward in his autobiography: namely, that his idea for a tax was a plan to "abandon war communism," while his militarization scheme was a response to the rebuff on his tax proposal. In fact, had Trotsky's tax-in-kind been accepted, it is fair to assume that he would have proceeded with the militarization of labor anyway. These prcposals were fully compatible in Trotsky's mind in 1920. Only later when the "War Communism" vs. "NEP" divisions took shape did it become convenient for Trotsky to juxtapose the two proposals as components of entirely different programs. 61

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the razverstka. Bolshevik and non-Bolshevik alike .91

*

The

troubling

*

picture

*

presented

by

Trotsky

was

a

familiar one to the local food officials who convened in Moscow

in June

Conference.

of

1920

for

the

Second All-Russian

Food

Soviet Russia's "breathing spell" had come to

an end as the Russo-Polish War had broken out and the White General Wrangel was beginning an offensive northward out of the

Crimea.

However,

this

did

not

inhibit

discussion of food policy at the Conference. record we

have

of

these proceedings

a

lively

The archival

offers the

clearest

testimony of the extent to which the razverstka policy had become a point of contention among both central and local Party

leaders

and

food

officials.

The

discussion

also

reveals the level of confusion among the local authorities 91 The Bolshevik Iurii Larin of VSNKh claims to have recommended in the beginning of 1920 the halving of the razverstka and the genuine implementation of goods exchange between town and country. His suggestion is said to have been accepted by the "All-Russian Conference of sovnarkhozy" (date?). Larin maintains that the resolution was never acted upon and was not published "so as not to confuse people." See Deiateli soiuza sovetskikh sotsialisticheskikh resoublik i oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii: avtobiocrraf ii i bioarafii: prilozhenie k tsiklu "Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Resoublik11. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' Russkoao biblioqraficheskoao instituta. Granat. 3 parts in 1, Moscow, 1927, part 1, p.280. He recalled this incident in 1923 when he was accused of being against the "link" (smvchka) with the peasantry. Pravda. April 15, 1923. 62

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over long- and short-term agricultural policy and outlines the limits of their dissent.52 Mikhail Narkomprod

Frumkin,

perhaps

food policy,

set

the

staunchest

the tone

of the

defender

of

conference,

leading off with his report, "Razverstka as the basic method of state collection." the

razverstka

He began his remarks by saying that

enjoyed less than unanimous

support among

officials: Comrades, the razverstka. as the basic method of state collection, no one now argues against. I would say a bit more cautiously that the razverstka as the method of collection is now not disputed in the center. A half-year ago, even three months ago here in Moscow we had to do battle over this issue, to listen to the objections on the part of other economic commissariats— VSNKh, Narkomzem-—but now those objections have grown weaker. However, if the method of razverstka has finally been strengthened in the minds of the center, still it must be definitely stated that in the localities it is far from popular. 92 Tsentral/nvi____ aosudarstvennvi____ arkhiy____ narodnogo khoziaistva Thereafter: TsGANKhl . fond 1943, op. 1, ed609, 11. 1-55. The First Food Conference was held from December 30, 1918 to January 6, 1919. The conference was marked by a power struggle between Narkomprod and its local organs over control of the collection of grain. See Vtoroi god, pp.13-16. A Narkomprod publication in 1920, looking back at this conference, noted its delegates' "timidity" at the notion of going over to an "obligatory razverstka," with Briukhanov and Frumkin at that time speaking of "coercion" only as a last resort. It also noted that the conference had placed goods exchange on the same level of importance as the razverstka. and regarded the peasant cooperatives as "counter—agents" of the state and not as the "subordinate organs" they would become by 1920. The Narkomprod writer, probably Sviderskii, noted with satisfaction the centralization of grain collection and the strengthening of the principle of razverstka which had occurred since the end of 1918. See Tri qoda. pp.13-15. 63

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He went on to list the resistance from local authorities in Siberia, the Ukraine and the Caucasus, oblast/ committee level. he

claimed,

once

the

reaching up to the

But these hold-outs came around, collection

of

agricultural

goods

through economic incentives alone (samotek) proved a failure and existing

stocks of grain were depleted.

Finally he

recounted how one colleague had approached him earlier in the day and suggested the transition to a fixed tax-in-kind. He stated flatly: That is not the razverstka. that is not even the monopoly— it is for us totally unacceptable.93 Frumkin's

message

upset

some

of

the

delegates,

not

because it rejected a replacement of requisitions by a tax, but because nowhere did Frumkin speak of the razverstka as a temporary measure, was

over.

principle:

to be enforced only until the Civil War

Frumkin's a tax

tone

spelled

implied

the

loss

a

rigid

of

the

therefore the only alternative was the

statement monopoly,

of and

razverstka. which

93 Ibid., 11. 7-13. Tsiurupa was ill and did not attend the conference. In a letter of June 24, 1920, Frumkin noted that beginning in January 1920, certain provincial food organs had been suggesting the introduction of a food tax. See V. E. Iustuzov, "V. I. Lenin o perekhode k novoi ekonomicheskoi politike," (Candidate's dissertation, Leningrad University, 1972), p.201. See also Prodovol'stvennaia politika. p.173. On the eve of the food conference, Sviderskii wrote that the food representatives should state clearly that "buying and selling" was part of the "unreturaab1e past." Biulleten' Narodnogo Komissariata p o Prodovol'stviiu. June 28, 1920, p.5. 64

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implied that the monopoly was the working ideal.94 The delegate Prigozhin

from the Kuban

region became

Frumkin's most troublesome opponent during the discussion on his

report.

Prigozhin was the

leading spokesman at the

conference for the introduction of an in-kind tax to replace the

razverstka.

Frumkin

His

because

distinction

of

he tax

argument rejected and

was the

razverstka

most

threatening

latter's and

to

hard-line

demanded

that

Narkomprod add certain features to the razverstka and make it a genuine tax. I believe that we should dot the "i" and say definitely: the razverstka is nothing other than a type of tax, a tax on a certain part of the population for the good of the whole government. Prigozhin simply proposed that the amount of the razverstka be fixed: Above all, every tax takes into account a certain object of taxation. We don't have that object of taxation. . . . With us it's as if we requisition eggs by the desiatina. and grain, you could almost say, by the chicken.9* Prigozhin went on to outline a scheme for a progressive tax-in-kind broken down by geographic divisions and scaled 94 See Lih, p. 398. Once the New Economic Policy was underway, those who wrote about Civil War food policy felt the need to clarify the point that the razverstka had not itself been the monopoly, but only a method of implementing the monopoly. See, for example, Chetvertaia, pp.9-10. 95 One desiatina quarters acres.

equals

approximately

two

and

65

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three-

for the level of the harvest and with a minimum cut-off point

for

the

poor

peasants— an

outline

that

bears

resemblance to the policy put into effect in March 1921. Where

he

did not elaborate and where his plan was most

viciously attacked was on the question of what would happen to what was left over to the peasant after payment of the tax.

His assumption appears to have been state-controlled

tovaroobmen. Prigozhin came to the heart of the matter near the end of his speech.

Citing the taxes introduced in October 1918,

he declared that Soviet power was not in principle against taxation and that the Conference should take the steps to turn the razverstka point

of view

of

into a fully-fledged tax.

theory

and

from

the point

"From the of view of

revolutionary consciousness there is nothing terrible about it."

He

referred

to

the

fear

of

the

word

"nalog" as

"buggaboo" (zhupell. In closing, he pointed to the fundamental psychological factor

working

corrected

by

against

the

the

measures

razverstka he

that

proposed:

the

would

be

producing

provinces were saying, "Don't look in my pocket, just tell me how much you need and I'll give it to you."96 It

is

difficult

96 TsGANKh. 11. the Third Food identified as an qazeta. June 21,

to

establish

exactly

what

kind

of

20-28. In an account of the proceedings of Conference in June 1921, Prigozhin is "anarchist-communist." Prodovol'stvennaia 1921. 66

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response Prigozhin7s proposal received.

No other speaker

matched his enthusiasm for turning the razverstka tax,

but

none

matched

Frumkin7s

razverstka as it existed.

enthusiasm

into a

for

the

Perhaps the majority sentiment

was expressed by the delegate Nepriakhin, who, while stating that the idea of a tax was unrealizable at the present time, nonetheless cautioned

said

it was

Frumkin

the right

against

idea in principle and

portraying

requisitions

as

a

panacea.97 The delegates7 criticisms of Prigozhin7s plan centered on

the

lack

measures;

of

the

a

statistical

apparatus

to

execute

the

fear that if an exemption was declared for

peasants with a certain minimum amount of sown area all the peasants

would

immediately

sow

leaving the state with nothing;

just

under

the

minimum,

the fear of "free trade"

breaking out; and charges that he was ignoring the need for state coercion. belittling

One delegate came to Prigozhin7s support in

the

danger

of

countryside with the words:

capitalism7s

return

to

the

"The state has enough means to

prevent that."98 What lines

Prigozhin

between

succeeding

nalog

and

in doing was

razverstka. and

blurring the

the

subsequent

discussion revealed the level of confusion among the food 97

TsGANKh. 11. 28-37.

98 Ibid., 11. 39-40. One delegate mentioned that a broad discussion of the razvertska system and the idea of a tax was going on in local soviet and Party circles. Ibid., 1.. 38. 67

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officials as to the meaning of razverstka. trying to clarify the differences, worse. as

a

Osinskii,

in

seemed to make matters

He said Prigozhin was wrong to think of a tax simply more

razverstka.

individualized

and

calculated

(razchitannaia^

He insisted that a tax in principle entailed

free trade, and that although the razverstka could in theory tolerate trade, that

there

difference

in the service of the monopoly it ensured

would be between

no

the

free trade. terms

He underscored the

"monopoly"

and

razverstka.

explaining that the latter was simply the best method of ensuring the former and that in principle taxes could exist alongside the razverstka. The

discussion

semantics.

One

increasingly turned

delegate

asked

why,

into if

in

a debate on reality

the

monopoly did not exist, was the razverstka held so sacred? Others

wondered

encompass

all

aloud grain

whether surplusses,

requisitioning and

whether

should under

99 Ibid., 11.. 34-37. Osinskii also said he favored "fixed norms" on the razverstka down at the lower levels ("v nizakh"), but not broken down by household. Thus, he stood by the principle of collective responsibility for grain delivery. In the Narkomprod publication Prodovol/stvennaia politika in 1920 (pp.189-191), Osinskii admitted that the idea of registering all grain surplusses (i.e., a true enforcement of the monopoly as opposed to working backwards from a calculation only of the amount of grain required by the state) was utopian, given the absence of a state apparatus to perform the task. He recognized that the idea of a tax on grain per desiatina was gaining strength among local food workers, but that such a tax was unacceptable because it would mean the end of the monopoly. See also his article in Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. July 2, 1920. 68

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Prigozhin's plan the goal would be the same.100 By the time Frumkin rose to comment on the discussion there appears to have been considerable confusion in the room.

Frumkin

was

clearly

outraged

at

the

course

the

discussion had taken, and seemed irritated with Osinskii's role in it.

He came right to the point:

Inasmuch as the question is here being raised about removing the monopoly, we should in the most categorical way speak against every kind of

Frumkin reiterated that the principle of food policy was not to measure what the peasant could provide, state needed.

but what the

The peasant could not be trusted to measure

his own grain stocks and the state lacked the apparatus to perform this task. Frumkin seemed determined to end the discussion once and for all. the

The resolution he sponsored was explicity for

razverstka

and

against

the

principle

of

nalog.

Prigozhin rose to oppose this juxtapositioning of the two terms,

100

but

Frumkin

moved

to

cut

off

the

"superfluous

TsGANKh. 11. 38, 39, 48.

101 In fact, according to the transcript not one delegate who discussed the tax ever spoke of removing the monopoly. In the summer of 1921, at the Third Food Conference, Sviderskii responded to Prigozhin's criticism's of Narkomprod's hostility to the tax concept in 1920 with an unchallenged statement that in 1920 Prigozhin never proposed abandoning the state monopoly on grain. Prodovol'stvennaia gazeta. June 21, 1921. 69

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discussion" and pressed for a vote.102 was overwhelmingly accepted.

Frumkin's resolution

Point 1 included the sentence:

. . The collection of the most important products on the basis of buying and selling should be totally excluded." Further, it called for calculating the razverstka quotas so that,

after

surplus."

collection, Another

they

leave

resolution

no

called

room for

for

a

"free

extending

the

monopoly to other food products and raw materials.103

*

Several

weeks

later

Conference followed suit.

*

*

the

Second

Ukrainian

Food

Several speakers ridiculed those

who had defended the tax idea at the Moscow conference. delegate brought out the bogeyman of the anti-tax

One

forces

when he stated: I am convinced, as are other comrades, that as long as Soviet power exists we will never have

102

TsGANKh, 11. 50-55.

103 Vtoroe vserossiiskoe prodovol'stvennoe soveshchanie. Rezoliutsii (n.d., n.p.), p.l. A draft of the resolution included after "buying and selling" the words "and of socalled samotek" (meaning the collection of grain through material incentives alone). TsGANKh. _1. 2. On the word "samotek," see Lih, p.343. In the September 28 issue of Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. Briukhanov could say that there were no longer objections raised to the razverstka. See alsc Sorokin in Kommunisticheskii trud. December 18, 1920. 70

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free and private trade.104 For

a

Bolshevik,

the words

"free trade*' evoked the

image of a great tidal wave of agrarian capitalism sweeping away the proletarian government.

Advocates of "free trade"

of whichever political affiliation were likened to the civil war enemy.

Thus, Lenin at the Ninth Party Congress in March

1920: There are still many people, lacking in consciousness, unenlightened rtemnvel. who rtand fully for any kind of free trade, but who, when they see discipline, self-sacrifice in the struggle over the exploiters, cannot fight, they are not for us, but passively come out against us.105 One pamphlet for food officials written at the end of 1920 declared: At the present time, when all bases of capital in Russia have been destroyed, there is no political party, not one healthy-minded person who would stand for free trade.10®

However, enormous.

the The

gap

between

"black

market"

intention was

and

reality was

everywhere.

Indeed,

104 Vtoroe vseukrainskoe prodovol'stvennoe soveshchanie (Kharkov, 1920), p.92. A delegate from Kiev stated (p.73): "In the law we should not say a thing about surplusses remaining above the razverstka. Theoretically, our task amounts to calculating such that there is nothing left over." 105

Deviatvi s"ezd. p.23.

106

Kalendarl, p.47. 71

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without

it

the

economy would have broken down

entirely.

Vladimirov spelled out the dilemma at the Ukrainian Food Conference: They say that we have no biting speeches, that one notices no sharp dissatisfaction, but this is sooner sad than joyful. Because in fact the dissatisfied have found themselves an escape. The majority of workers and office workers have turned into traders.107 Although the regime was

aware of the extent of the

problem, the intention remained firm to remove trade as soon as the apparatus was strong enough to dc so. sought

to

revise

the

razverstka. even

stature of Lev Trotsky, trade,"

though,

to

a

Those who

figure

of

were accused of supporting

reiterate,

the

evidence

is

Bolshevik questioned the state trade monopoly.

the

"free

that

no

Those who

advocated giving the peasant a measure of freedom to dispose of his surplusses appear to have believed that the regime was strong enough to prevent the rise of capitalism in the countryside.

The widespread assumption, however, was that

it was not. From here it was an easy step to seeing the razverstka as a long-term principle,

forgetting its introduction as a

desperate measure for feeding the army,

a substitute

for

107 Vtoroe vseukrainskoe prodovol'stvennoe soveshchanie, p.33. Alexander Berkman notes that trade was so widespread that a current joke explained that the nationalization of trade meant that the whole nation was involved in trade. In The Bolshevik Myth (New York, 1925), p.249. 72

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uchet

(registration)

by

a

strong

apparatus.

Those

who

thought as Mikhail Frumkin— and they were many— seldom spoke about the temporary nature of the radical food policy, and instead began to make a virtue of necessity. began

to

ascribe

a

special

emphasize its positive,

role

to

the

The Bolsheviks razverstka. to

lasting effects on the peasantry.

Much was said and written that would be regretted later, excessive statements even from the moderates.

This would

make the subsequent retreat all the more difficult. The perception of the razverstka as a necessary policy gave way to a widely-shared notion of the razverstka as a conveyor

of

peasantry.

"enlightenment"

and

"consciousness"

to

the

The general belief was that the razverstka would

somehow instill in the peasantry a sense of "citizenship," and

in

effect,

to

adapt

a

phrase,

turn

"peasants

into

Russians." One Narkomprod worker in a newspaper article entitled, "The Educational Significance of the razverstka." concluded that

the

razverstka

Russian political consciousness. Soviet power.108

had

life,

drawn millions

of peasants

causing a "leap forward"

They

now

understood

At

the

Seventh

their

into

in their

obligation

to

Congress of Soviets

in

February 1919, Tsiurupa said that the razverstka "penetrates into the consciousness of the masses. . . .

The peasant

108 Biulleten' narodnogo komissariata po prodovol'stviiu. December 4, 1920 (also December 21). Tri goda. p.VIII. 73

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population slowly but firmly recognizes the necessity and unavoidability of the razverstka." 105

A handbook for food

officials agreed: As a general rule, one can say that the more energetically the razverstka has been enforced, the more the peasants' consciousness has worked and the more they have developed an understanding of the tasks of Soviet power. The

peasants,

it

continued,

have

started

to

think

of

themselves as "part of one social whole."110 Curiously, one of the worst offenders here was Mikhail Kalinin, symbol of the middle peasant and, one would assume, someone with a sensitive eye for the peasantry.

Writing in

November 1920, Kalinin proclaimed: . The very method of grain razverstka has changed, having become an educational measure. Never could any kind of book so captivate the peasant as the grain monopoly has seized him. Now he is beginning to be interested in where the grain taken away from him is going [!], how it is used. . . . Thus, the peasant masses are beginning to prepare themselves for participation in running the government. . . .111

100 Izvestiia narodnogo komissariata p o prodovol'stviiu. Nos. 1-2, January-February 1920, p.26. Vtoroi god (pp.XIXIII) noted a "revolution [perevorot] in peasant consciousness," and called this the "greatest victory of Soviet power." 110 Kalendari, p.50. pp.56-57.

Also see Prodovol•stvennaia politika,

111 M. I. Kalinin, Voorosv sovetskoao stroitel'stva: statj'i i rechi. 1919-1946 (Moscow, 1958), p.65 (hereafter: Kalinin, Voorosv). 74

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In

the

November

7

issue

of

Ekonomicheskaia

zhizn7.

Kalinin wrote that Narkomorod had produced a "tremendous change in the heads of the peasant masses . . .

a tremendous

jolt toward the awakening of political consciousness of the peasants."

The peasant new possessed an "understanding of

gosudarstvennost/" and has recognized the "moral correctness of the razverstka."

He concluded:

Taking stock of the last three years we can bravely say that in that time the mind of the peasant has grown more than in the past one hundred years.*12 Increasingly,

the image of the peasantry as a rural

proletariat was invoked.

Thus, Teodorovich:

There is much basis for thinking that the peasant, not without hesitation of course, but all the same is adapting to the situation where in the present state of things he is a state worker on state land, that he must work according to the tasks of the state under one leadership according to one

The

use

of

coercion

to

enforce

the

razverstka

was

112 To be fair to Kalinin, these anniversary issues were usually the occasion for romantic descriptions of the road just travelled and the road ahead. 113 Teodorovich, O qosudarstvennom recrulirovanii krest7ianskoqo khoziiastva (Moscow, 1921), p.8. A. Khrushcheva wrote in the November 7 issue of Ekonomicheskaia zhizn/: "The peasants have become part of one state enterprise." See also A. Sviderskii, Kak organizovano borot/sia s padeniem zemledeliia (Moscow, 1920), p.6; M. Smit, "Peasants and Workers as Participants in One Economy," Prodovol/stvennaia politika. pp.51-57; and the article by M. Shefler in Ekonomicheskaia z h i z n November 3, 1920. 75

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similarly rationalized.

The peasant,

increasingly

about

enlightened

his

the

argument went,

place

in

the

larger

scheme, was exercising "self-coercion.1,114 It cannot be argued that these voices were those of the extremists within the

Party.

One

could

argue that,

for

cases like Kalinin, such statements were made simply to whip up

enthusiasm

among

peasants

and

local

officials,

particularly in the autumn of 1920 when it seemed on the wane.

The

Bolsheviks, allowed

evidence,

however, points

influenced by their

themselves

to

be

swept

to

fact that

many

success in the Civil War, along

by

these

utopian

notions of a revolutionary change in peasant attitudes and behavior.

They invoked these ideas to justify the use of

coercive measures by the town against the village for the purpose of feeding the revolution. At the local level, the razverstka never achieved the acceptance that

the center

sought to

cultivate.

In the

autumn of 1920,

local authorities as a rule requested the

lowering of the razverstka quotas assigned to them and many began to suggest the

establishment

of

a fixed "norm"

on

114 Ekonomicheskaia zhizn7. December 21, 1920; Izvestiia VTSIK, December 15, 1920. In his Ekonomika perekhodnooo perioda (Moscow, 1920), Bukharin used phrases such as "self­ coercion of the working class" and "coercion of a new type" (pp.143-144). At a provincial agricultural conference in January 1921, one speaker mocked the idea of incentives (stimuly); "The stimul is the workers-peasants power. Consumer interests cannot and should not be stimuly in the reconstruction of the economy." Iu. A. Poliakov, Perekhod k nepu i sovetskoe krestianstvo (Moscow, 1967), p.228, n.71. 76

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grain per desiatina of land .115 local

resistance

occurred

One notable incident of

during

a

conference

cf

local

soviet executive committees in Moscow in mid-October 1920, where the razverstka was heavily critized and Lenin, called in to save the day,

was accused by the hostile crowd of

ducking the issue by harping on the theme of the foreign aggressor.116 By

December the

newspapers

and

agitational

were barking their orders with particular vigor.

journals Vestnik

aaitatsii i oropagandi on September 21, 1920 declared: "Any kind of criticism of the razverstka in agitational work is not allowed."

Employing the military analogy, it called the

razverstka a . . . fighting task rboevaia zadachal, without the fulfillment of which one cannot return. Returning without having fulfilled the razverstka even only by a few percentage points, will be in fact premature flight [sic] from the field of battle. 115 E. B. Genkina, "V.I. Lenin i perekhod k novoi ekonomicheskoi politike," Voprosv istorii. 1964, No. 5, pp.10-11 [hereafter: Genkina, "1964"]; Poliakov, Perekhod, p.216; Vestnik aaitatsii i oropaqandv. November 25, 1920, pp. 20 -2 2 . 116 PSS. vol. 41, pp.362-366; V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia. (2nd ed., 30 vols., Moscow, 1925-1932) vol. 25, pp.637-8.(The second edition of Lenin's works— also reprinted as the third edition— contains valuable annotations and supplementary material, and will be cited hereafter as Sochineniia.) Sol'ts in Pravda, October 19, 1920. Two good discussions of the increasing peasant dissatisfaction with the razverstka toward the end of 1920 are E. B. Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia deiatel'nost V.I. Lenina (Moscow, 1969), pp.44-46 [hereafter: Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia1; and Poliakov, Perekhod. pp.193-202.

77

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If no leading Bolsheviks row called for the replacement of the razverstka by some form of a tax, non-Bolsheviks by this

point

seemed

unanimously

in

favor

of

it.

The

Bolsheviks faced their criticism at the Eighth Congress of Soviets

on

December 22-29,

1920.

The clearest and most

forceful proposal for change came from the Menshevik David Dallin.

Referring to a Bolshevik proposal under discussion

for regulating the sowing of crops, he said it was foolish to

try

to

regulate

15,000,000

farms

and that the result

would be an even worse bureaucratic mess than existed in industry.

Introducing an alternative proposal, he began:

Recently it has often been said that the peasant should be free to dispose of the surplusses remaining with him (Voices from the floor: "Free trade.") No, not free trade. I am speaking about that which you hear not only from the broad masses, but also from some of the visible actors of the Soviet food policy, especially in the south. They say that if you give the peasants— after he has fullflled the razverstka and all duties— the wide right to freely dispose of what remains with him, then this will give a strong impulse to the expansion of production. . . .117 Dallin went on to read the resolution of the RSDRP and the Bund (SD), which among other things,

called for individual

and

of

voluntary

peasantry

and

tovaroobmen. the the

leasing

by

use the

premiums

government

for of

the non-

H 7 Vos/moi vserossiiskii s"ezd sovetov. Stenoaraficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1920), p.198. 78

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profitable

enterprises.118

The

Bolshevik

Kaliuzhnyi

responded predictably: "The ideology of the Mensheviks is the ideology of our kulaki ."119 The

toughest

response

to

these

proposals

came

from

Valerian Osinskii of the Narkomprod collegium, whose plans to regulate agricultural production

(discussed below)

become by now something of a cause ceiebre. the

idea

of

a

fixed percentage

of

grain

had

He dismissed

per

desiatina

saying one could never predict the size of the harvest and therefore would need to keep the razverstka possible total.

"This

suggestion,"

strongly of the kulak element."

he

at the lowest

declared,

"smells

He continued:

We do not at the present time have a fund of industrial goods and we say openly to the peasant, that we are taking grain from him on a loan to revive industry. Since we dc not have a fond of goods, no kind of state collection, be it by tax or by razverstka. call it what you will, will ever succeed if parallel to it there begins the free trade of grain. Then all the goods would swim away into that channel. Just open that little door and immediately there will be no bread. And the person who opens that little door to free trade will bring our food policy to ruin and our economy to destruction. Therefore we must reject all these measures inthe most decisive fashion.120 The description of the razverstka as a "forced loan" 118 Ibid., pp.200-201. The resolution proposed by the Left SRs sounded similar themes (pp.120-123). 119

Ibid., p.202.

120

Ibid., pp.146-147. 79

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was

especially

current

from

late

in

1919.121

No

one,

however, elaborated on the timetable for re-payment, and it seems never to have occurred to the Bolsheviks that their credit was good only so long as the White armies were in the field.

By the end of 1920, the notion of a ’’loan" had by

and large been replaced by the razverstka as a "tribute." And with their excessive words about the special powers of the

razverstka

and

the

evils

of

the

alternatives,

the

Bolsheviks were ensuring that their retreat in the coming months would be especially painful.

Valerian Osinskii and the State Regulation of Agriculture

A

severe

drought

in the

Black

Earth

region

in the

summer of 1920 and the resulting crop failure forced the Bolsheviks

to

move

beyond

questions

of

collection

and

distribution and onto serious consideration of how to stem the

tide

of

the

shrinkage

of sown

acreage

and

increase

121 See the resolution of the Seventh Congress of Soviets, in S"ezdv sovetov v dokumentakh. 1917-1936. vol. 1 (Moscow, 1959), p.117. Also see Prodovol*stvennaia politika. pp.5657; Farbman, p.241; Billik, p.147. Lih, pp.352-354. Lenin used the "loan" description on several occasions. See PSS. vol. 39, pp.357-358; vol. 40, pp.109, 120, 186; vol. 42, p.148; vol. 44, p.7 (from 1922). Other interesting statements from Lenin on the importance of the razverstka are in vol. 39, pp.167, 274. *

80

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production.12 2 By definition, such natters came under the authority of the

People's

However

Commissariat

People's

for

Commissar

Agriculture

Sereda

and

(Narkomzem). key

Narkomzem

officials remained proponents of forced collectivization as a way of improving agricultural production, an idea that by mid-1920 enjoyed little support at the center as a short­ term

measure.

Narkomprod. deep

Instead,

new

campaign

emanated

from

This is not unnatural, considering the letter's

involvement

logical

the

that

in

with

agricultural

the

matters.

razverstka

Also,

threatened

by

it the

is new

climatic factor, Narkomprod would take the initiative in the production area. The idea of state sowing committees to distribute seed, organize

sowing

developed was

and

specify

originally

the

types

introduced

in

of

crops

several

to

be

provinces

earlier in the year— reportedly with good results— and back in 1919 in Tula, the darling province of all agricultural experimenters.

In

autumn

1920,

Valerian

Osinskii

(who,

incidentally, earlier in the year had acted as chairman of the executive committee of the Tula provincial addition Narkomprod

to

performing

staff)

centrally-directed

became sowing

his

duties

the

champion

campaign

as of

with

soviet in

member the a

of

idea

the of

hierarchy

a of

122 pew sources point out the significance of the drought as a catalyst to the search for new solutions. Farbman (p.246) and Iurkov (p.56) are among these.

81

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organizations down to the sowing committees (posevkomy) at the local level.

The idea was neatly rationalized as the

extension

razverstka

of

the

to

production.

The

scheme

became known as the "state regulation of agriculture."123 As

Sviderskii

wrote

at

the

time,

the

idea

was

so

appropriate for the time it seemed to be "in the air ."124 As the Civil War wound down and full attention was turned to the economy., there was much talk about the need for better organization and above all planning in industry.

This then

seemed to be the perfect match on the agricultural side— it would serve to rationalize the entire economy.

The project

came to be widely supported and was approved by the Eighth Congress of Soviets in December.125 Osinskii introduced his ideas in a series of articles in Pravda in the autumn of 1920.126

The first of these on

September 5, according to one observer, produced "all the effect of a bombshell."127

In it Osinskii described the

regime

said

at

a

crossroads

and

there

was

no

sense

in

123 Iurkov, pp.56-57. Among the other provinces said to be experimenting with sowing committees were Penza, Ekaterinburg and Kursk. 124

Ekonomicheskaia zhizn/. December 22, 1920.

Carr (p.171) gives short shrift to this episode and mentions Osinskii only in a footnote. 125

12 6 Tjje fcey articles are collected in N. Osinskii, Gosudarstvennoe recrulirovanie krest/ianskoqo khoziaistva (Moscow, 1920). 127

Farbman, p.248. 82

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turning to "bourgeois" ways.

The only way to break out of

the present production dilemma resulting from the reduction in

sown

acreage,

intervention

of

"militarization should

he

become

felt,

the of

a

was

through

state."

the

He

economy"

"fighting

and

organ."

"massive called

said

for

that

Osinskii

forced the

Narkomzem

assured

the

reader that his plan would still be geared to the middle y C C lO C IlA W

C IA 1 W

X 1* *

■> V '**111 *

~vi

v

m

u

^ V* o>

1

w « i v »

a

w

T.T/^1 iT

n/Mna

m

4*a w v

realize that cutting back on planting and trading on the black market only hurt him. In later articles, he confidently maintained that this idea

was

evidence

already that

being

it would

implemented

at

the

local

level,

enjoy widespread popularity.

He

presented evidence of how effective the Tula and other food committees had been in halting the drop in planting .128 he

promised

that his

proposal

would

And

enable the state to

target the crops it wanted increased, in particular favoring the declining oats over cereals. moderate

concessions

incentive,

notably

"diligent"

peasants.

to

Osinskii's plan did make

the principle

with

its system

of

of

individual

premiums

But in his scheme of things,

for these

were but crutches for the walk down the road to full state control: . . . It is not necessary to shed tears over the evil influence of the grain monopoly and 128

Pravda. November 5 and 9, 1920. 83

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helplessly grab for the old incentives [stimuly], but to understand that to the new form of produlctobmen must be added the new form of production— the system of the state regulation of agriculture.129 The

idea

Sviderskii,

quickly

caught up

gained

substantial

in the enthusiasm,

support.

wrote

that

the

measure was being accepted on the local level "so quickly, so easily, almost spontaneously." would

be

more

popular

in

the

Naturally such a measure consuming

provinces,

and

Sviderskii was forced to admit that the food committees in the Ukraine and Sioeria were resisting the idea .130

A small minority of economic administrators expressed less enthusiasm for Osinskii's ideas. his

proposal

defects;

were

of

two

kinds:

The arguments against 1)

its

organizational

and 2 ) its unrealistic assumptions regarding the

psychology of the peasantry and the latter's willingness to go along with such a policy.

Narkomzem's criticism, which

often was hard to distinguish from institutional directed

at

However,

aside

about

its

rival,

from the

came

under

the

expression of

long-range planning beyond

the

first

jealousy category.

a general

concern

coming campaign,

it

offered no original ideas and agreed in principle with the 129

Ibid., November 9, 1920.

130 Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. December 22, 1920. Commissar of the Ukraine, Vladimirov, called "politically risky."

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The Food the plan

general thinking behind the plan .131 If

Narkomzem

as

an

institution

offered

little,

one

Narkomzem official provided the most forceful and sensible arguments

against

Osinskii's

plan.

Nikolai

Bogdanov's

sweeping criticisms came under both categories, and although they

were

discussion thinking

rejected that that

at

the

time,

helps

elucidate

went

into

the

they

some

forced

of the

"state

a

lively

fundamental

regulation

of

agriculture." Bogdanov's counter-articles to Osinskii's appeared in Ekonomicheskaia

zhizn'.

His

response

to

Osinskii's

"bombshell" of September 5 offered an alternative approach to

the

problem,

reflected

in

its

use

of

different

terminology. Psychologically and technically, the intervention of the state in the very production process is totally unrealizable. . . . Do not tell the peasant what to plant and how to plant it, tell him what you want to take and condition the failure to fulfill that demand with whips and lashes rbichami i skorpionamil in the form of punitive commissions; show the peasant by example of the sovkhoz and the kolkhoz and in the fields with the best methods of performing tasks and you will gradually come to have a production plan in agriculture. He criticized Osinskii's reliance on "fighting tasks" and on extraordinary organs to coerce the peasantry.

Then he came

On Narkomzem. see Ibid., November 26, December 21, 1920; Biulleten' narodnogo komissariata po prodovol'stviiu, November 30, 1920. 131

85

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to a most: sensitive point: The middle peasant hesitates. . . . His recognition of the state's right to his surplusses will increase proportionately to the increase in the amount of goods the state can provide him. . . . The market in its present form is the basic method of state regulation during the transition period .132 By

December,

increasingly

Bogdanov

isolated.

His

must

have

article

in

sensed

himself

Ekonomicheskaia

zhizn' on December 2 led with a disclaimer from the editors expressing

strong

disagreement with

the author.

In the

article, Bogdanov maintained that the use of coercion, key to Osinskii's

conception,

though denied or unspoken,

was

only a "temporary measure of the period of dictatorship" and that the correct principle was incentives (stimulirovanie). On the eve of the Eighth Congress of Soviets, Bogdanov was walking a tightrope. he paid

In a further article on December 19,

lip-service to

the need

for coercion,

yet stood

firmly for the importance of the "psychological readiness" of the peasantry. as the nalog,

By now the notion of stimulirovanie. much

had unpleasant associations with a certain

political party.

Thus, Bogdanov's apologetic tone:

The concern for the readiness of the psychology of the masses leads us to the "Menshevik" and "pettybourgeois" ideas about stimulirovanie. It seems to us that this is necessary since the peasant petty-bourgeois economy is a fact and its collectivization ftrestirovanie1 is a matter of 122

Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. September 16

1920.

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the distant future. He

then

linked

the

present

discussion

to

the

debate

on

razverstka vs naloa: It does not make sense that in the course of two to three critical years we should so decidedly be driven away from the method of the food tax, which in no way excludes the principle of the grain monopoly, but only alters it according to the unanimous desire of the countryside. Now, however, with the Congress of Soviets about to begin, Bogdanov

finished

in a

conciliatory tone,

and

four days

later in another article published during the Congress, he seemed

reconciled

to

the

implementation

of

Osinkii's

plan .133

Bogdanovas objections went not without effect, however. By the time the Eighth Congress convened, the enthusiasm for Osinskii's project had somewhat diminished.

Everyone seemed

to sense that the peasants' mood was growing ugly.

At the

Congress,

Rykov)

naturally

all

the

Bolsheviks

(even

lined up behind Narkomnrod.

the

touchy

The non-Bolshevik

133 Ibid., December 23, 1920. Soviet historians unfairly dismiss Bogdanov's opposition, probably for fear of portraying him as a "Leninist before Lenin." In fact, Bogdanov at this time was practically writing Lenin's script for the first half of 1921. See Poliakov, Perekhod, p.221; Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. p.48. See also the attack on him in Vestnik aqitatsii i propaqandv. February 4, 1921, p.14.

87

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delegates, however, were universally critical.134 interesting

development

began

when

several

The one

non-Bolshevik

delegates pointed to the inconsistency of the Bolshevik goal of equality

in the countryside and the inclusion in the

Narkomorod resolution of a clause on premiums (premirovanie) for the most "diligent" peasants.

Dallin first raised the

issue: Here it was said that [on the basis of trade] the kulaki will grow. But with respect to equality among the peasants, in the decree [on agriculture] it states that if a peasant plants more, produces more, then he will receive for this a premium. But that means that you are retreating from the overall equality of all the peasantry, independent of where and how he works .135 This Bolshevik

criticism sentiment

seemed

to

for

provoke

removing

a

the

groundswell

of

principle

of

premirovanie for individual households, restricting its use to the encouragement of the collectivization of agriculture. It was due only to Lenin's vigorous intervention during the discussion

in

the

Party

fraction

that

the

section

on

individual premirovanie was restored.13 6

134 The non-party peasant Buianov was applauded when he stated that he could not understand why the Bolsheviks were attaching such tremendous significance to the idea of posevkomv. Vos'moi s"ezd. p.135. 135 Ibid., p.199. Dan made a similar point about foreign concessions and the supposedly firm principle of nationalization of the economy. 136

PSS. vol. 42, pp.178-189, p.199. 88

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Lenin

did

manage

-to

Bolshevik position at the

inject

some

Congress,

realism

into

the

though throughout he

seemed to be trying to convince his own party of its proper position.

In his opening speech, he sounded a general note

of caution: Are they convinced, the members of the trade unions and the majority of the non-partisans, of the necessity of our new methods, of our great tasks of economic construction, are they convinced of all of it as they were convinced of the necessity to give all for the war, to sacrifice all for the sake of victory on the front of war? If the question is put this way, then you have to answer: undoubtedly not. They are far from convinced of it. . . .137 He

went

on

to

underscore

the

importance

of

persuasion

fubezhdenie) and agitation in gaining popular support for the new policies, element of recent

though by no means did he leave out the

coercion

closing

of

forinuzhdenie) .138 the

Sukharevka

Referring to the

market

in

Moscow,

he

offered a sobering assessment of the strength of _apitalism in Soviet Russia: Frightening is that Sukharevka that lives in the souls and activities of each petty-landowner. That Sukharevka has to be closed. That Sukharevka is the basis of capitalism.139 137

Ibid., p.33.

138

Ibid., pp.36-38.

139 Ibid., p.46. In an address to the Party fraction, Lenin, referring to this form of "Sukharevka," asked: "Can we move away from this in one or two years? We cannot." Ibid., p.193.

89

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Osinskii's proposal was approved by the Congress and the

"state regulation of agriculture" became

program. ailing

an official

On January 4, 1921, Osinskii filled in for the Sereda

as

"substitute"

People's

Commissar

for

Agriculture.140

140 As an epilogue, mention should be made of two articles by S. Strumilin, a member of the presidium of Gosplan, in Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. On October 30, 1920, he wrote that it would not do to ignore the free market "as if it had nothing to do with us." He proposed supplementing the use of coercion with economic incentives by collecting one-half of the needed grain "without premiums, in the form of a tax." The remainder of the required grain could be attracted through premiums of industrial items. He went further in his article of January 14, 1921. While praising Osinskii's ideas, he proposed the introduction of a "planned razverstka" on grain, i.e., the fixing of a "norm" per dessiatina with limited freedom for the peasant to exchange his surplus grain in "tovaroobmen." "There is no basis for fearing that word. Tovaroobmen in no way threatens us with a return to free trade." Strumilin insisted that his plan would not result in an "all-Russian Sukharevka," and as to whether it would spell the end of the monopoly and the introduction of capitalism into the countryside, he wrote: "We do not think so."

90

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"On the Bloodless Front"

There

is

general

agreement

among

Soviet

historians

about what the transition of 1921 was to, but the matter of what it was from is controversial.

The disagreements about

the period 1917-1920 concern fundamental questions on the periodization and characterization of "War Communism."

In

the following chapters we will discuss the transition to and the nature of the new course.

Before we proceed, however,

and at the risk of anticipating debates that belong to the post-"War

Communism"

period

(both

historical

and

historiographical) , we must be clear on the assumptions and intentions that the Bolsheviks shared about economic policy as a whole at the end of 1920. One area of disagreement is the extent to which "War Communism"

was

a

set

of

measures

the

Bolsheviks

were

"forced" to adopt in response to "bourgeois sabotage" and especially civil war, intended program.

and thus was an aberration of their

Those who hold to the interpretation that

Bolshevik economic policy from the summer of 1918 onward was largely "forced," emphasize the policies of the "first eight months" of Bolshevik power as reflecting the more "moderate" initial designs of the Party.141 Gimpel'son's "Voennvi kommunizm": politika. praktika, ideoloqiia is the strongest presentation of this point of view. Dobb, who introduced the phrase "first eight months" to Western studies of the Russian Revolution, saw War Communism as an "empirical creation, not . . . the a priori 141

91

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Those who minimize the "forced" nature of War Communist policies contend that, though the Civil War no doubt forced a more rapid pace in some areas of economic policy, policies

pursued

were

essentially

an

extension

of

the

those

introduced during the "first eight months ."142 The issue of Bolshevik economic policy before the Civil War

will

be

connection

discussed

with

the

further

questions

in

of

later

chapters

continuity

and

in

change

between 1918 and 1921, and it need not be further addressed at this point. the

vantage

However, it should be reiterated that from

point

of

food

policy,

it

seems

that

most

Bolshevik measures from November 1917 on were responses to crises and that food policy was "forced" from the outset. The Bolsheviks inherited the food shortages that had helped topple the Tsarist government and the Provisional Government before them.

The problem turned into a severe crisis in the

first months of 1918 and the regime, late to organize itself in this area,

used extreme measures to deal with it well

before the Civil War began.

Given Bolshevik notions of the

product of theory, . . . an improvisation in the face of economic scarcity and military urgency in conditions of exhausting Civil War." See pp.120-124. 142 This is presently a minority view among Soviet historians. See S.S. Dzarasov, "Leninskie idei khozrascheta i ikh znachenie dlia osuchshestvleniia khosiaistvennoi reformy," Vestnik MGU. Ekcnomika. 1971, No. 4; and V. I. Billik, "V. I. Lenin o sushchnosti i periodizatsii sovetskoi ekonomicheskoi politiki v 1917-1921gg. i o povorote k nepu," Istoricheskie zaniski. 1967, vol. 80. To be sure, the arguments on both sides are never presented in pure form as an either/or proposition. 92

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role of the peasantry in the revolutionary process and the Party's ideas about the market and state control (which, as we stated above,

led to policies that helped to cause the

Civil War), there is no reason to think that the use of food armies and kofflhedv would not have been introduced had civil war

not

begun.

Revolution

The

"forced"

policies used

to

feed the

(as well as those applied to problems in other

areas vluch grew out of the feed crisis) were inherent in the Bolsheviks having taken power in the first place .143 A more

important and relevant issue

for the present

analysis is the question of whether these "War Communist" policies— forced or not— came to be accepted by the Party leadership as a program for building communism in Russia. Those

Soviet

historians

who

emphasize

the

"moderate"

intentions of the Party in "spring 1918" here divide over the question of Bolshevik intentions in 1920.

Some believe

that the "forced" policies had acquired a certain momentum and legitimacy by 1920.

Other insist that the Party never

intended to continue these measures in peacetime, but always intended to return to the policies of 1918.144 143 See the discussion in Malle (pp.345, 357, 373, 379380) , who concludes that the Civil War in many ways served to reinforce the original Bolshevik policies. On continuity from 1917-1919 in food policy see Vtoroi god, p.VI, and Billik, p.127. 144 The notion that the Civil War economic policies were never more than emergency measures employed to secure victory over the White armies was virtually the sole interpretation advanced in the Soviet Union from the 1930s into the lS50s. A. V. Venediktov (Organizatsiia

93

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In order to answer the question of the "temporary" vs. "permanent" nature of War Communist policies, one must look for the indications of what course the Bolsheviks intended to follow once they anticipated the end of the Civil War. During the four-month period January-April 1920, Soviet Russia enjoyed a "breathing spell" fperedvshka1, as the most serious threats from the White armies had been repelled and the

coming

war

anticipated.

with

Poland

in

the

spring

was

not

During this peredvshka. the Bolsheviks showed

little sign of "reverting" to any "moderate" policies.

Some

argue that the peace was uncertain, but the press accounts and Bolshevik statements from the period refute this point of view.

The peredvshka may have been

fragile,

but the

Bolshevik leadership does not appear to have perceived it qosudarstvennoi promvshlennosti v SSSR. 2 vols., Leningrad, 1957) was the first modern Soviet historian to conclude that "War Communism" took hold as a program for a direct transition to communism. His interpretation was supported by I. B. Berkhin (Leninskii plan postroeniia sotsializma. Moscow, 1960). Today some of the best Soviet works in the field (including those by Poliakov and Genkina) accept this thesis. Gimpel'son's "Voennvi kommunizm" and Iurkov's Ekonomika admit to such a "tendency" within the Party but reject the notion that "the Party" or "Soviet power" accepted "War Communism" as a "program" for economic construction. The matter of how contemporary Bolsheviks in 1921 came to link their new course with the policies of 1918 will be discussed in subsequent chapters. A theoretical layer in these historiographical arguments is whether the "forced" policies of the Civil War should be regarded simply as a sum of "forced" measures used to win the Civil War, or whether they amounted to a "socialist program," since they grew out of a "class struggle." The former opinion dominated the Stalinist historiography, while the latter is shared by many Soviet historians today, uniting even those who disagree over the nature of the policies of "spring 1918." 94

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that way .145 This

was

the

period

when

Trotsky's

ideas

for

"militarizing"

the labor force enjoyed a good measure of

Party

and

support

began

limited

implementation.146

The

Ninth Party Congress in March 1920 approved of Trotsky's ideas.

The

same

Congress

also

would

have

voted

nationalize cooperation had not Lenin intervened.147

to The

speeches at die congress inciUQc no uinu that in peacetime the Party would adopt "peacetime" measures.

Now there was

talk of shifting all resources to economic reconstruction using

the

same methods.

Lenin

summed up

the

challenge

facing the Party: Before us now stands a very difficult task: having won on the bloody front, to win on the bloodless front.148 And the delegate Sapronov, in the discussion on the economy, summed up the consensus view of economic reconstruction:

145 Gimpel'son, pp.191-2; Billik, p.143; Iurkov, pp.96-97. Cf. Szamuely, p. 6 6 . Chamberlin (p.291) concludes that in spite of the peredvshka. the Russian economy was in such bad shape that a militarized economy was required. 146 Carr, pp.211-227. Nor did the revolution appear to make the Party speech to the Ninth Party Congress on conditioned none of his proposals and abroad. Deviatvi s"ezd. pp.91-115. 147

absence of foreign pause. In a major the economy, Trotsky forecasts on events

Ibid., pp.262-302, 360-379.

148 Ibid., p.25. "On the Bloodless Front" became a popular newspaper headline in 1920.

95

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I am convinced that the military character of our economy should be preserved, even though the counterrevolution has been crushed. We cannot return to peaceful construction, to a normal economy.149 The Ninth Party Conference, which met in September 1920 v when the Polish Army had been securely driven back and peace talks were underway in Riga, was almost totally devoted to a discussion of organizational questions with little attention to economic policy.

On October 19, with Wrangel's forces in

retreat in the south. Lenin drew up a list of priorities for the Tenth Party Congress planned for the following February. At the top of Lenin's list were the words "struggle with bureaucratism" and at the bottom "tractors and kolkhozy. ,,i5°

The primary period of focus for the debate about "War Communism," however, concerns the final weeks of 1920.

By

that point the entire country was nearing exhaustion,

and

within the Party leadership there was, compared to the first peredvshka.

little

optimism

international revolution.

about

the

prospects

for

One interpretation is that the

end of 1920 represents the "culmination" of War Communism. Another interpretation sees in this period evidence of a "search" (poiski) for a new economic policy. Aside

from

the

Narkomorod

initiative

149

Ibid., p.143.

150

Leninskii sbornik. vol. XXXIV, p.371.

for

the

96

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state

regulation of agriculture, the evidence for "culmination" is seen

in

a

adopted

series

of

economic measures which the

near the end of the year,

which,

"deepened" the War Communist program.151 various 1320

stages of completion)

introducing

services

the

gratis

(besplatnost') and

Meanwhile

the

discussion

regime

in this view, Legislation

(in

was passed in autumn/winter distribution removing about

all a

of

goods

monetary

and

taxes.

labor-measurement

substitute for money was intensified in the second half of 1920. mean

These combined elements are interpreted by some to that

enforce

a

the

Party

was

moving

fully naturalized

to

eradicate

economy.152

money

Furthermore,

and in

For Pokrovskii, only the economic policy at the end of 1920/beginning of 1921 was "War Communism." See M. N. Pokrovskii, Oktiabr/skaia revoliutsiia. Sbomik statei. 1917-1927 (Moscow, 1929), p.380. The French journalist Morizet saw the "culmination" of War Communism as having occurred in January-February 1921. Andre Morizet, Chez Lenine et Trotskii. Moscou 1921 (Paris, 1921), p.38. Cf. Farbman, p.261; Michael Farbman, After Lenin (London, 1924), p.145. 151

152 The basic Sovnarkom decrees on gratis distribution were the following: December 4, 1920 on rationed food products; December 17 on "consumer" items; December 23 on fuel, post, telegraph, telephone, radiotelegraph; January 27, 1921, on housing, water, plumbing, cleaning, electricity, the baths, gas. See Izvestiia VTsIK. December 7, 1920 and January 5, 1921. For the discussion of labor-equivalents, see Gimpel'son, p.132; and Iurkov, "Finansovaia politika Sovetskogo gosudarstva i tovarao-denezhnye otnosheniia v gody grazhdanskoi voiny (1918-1920gg.)," Voprosy istorii. 1981, No. 10, pp.68-69 [hereafter: Iurkov, "Finansovaia politika"]. Regarding taxation: On December 18, 1920, Sovnarkom in principle confirmed a decreeremoving all monetary taxes and setting up a commission to work out the details. VTsIK approved of the decree on February 3 and it was published in Izvestiia VTsIK on February 26 and was to be confirmed by a general session of VTsIK in March. A

97

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December 1920,

the major markets

of Petrograd and Moscow

were closed,

most notably the famous Sukharevka market in

the capital.

This is interpreted by some as the start of a

general crackdown on all markets and bazaars .153

Finally,

evidence of a "deepening” of "War Communist" economic policy is

seen

in

the

further

nationalization

resolution of VSNKh on November 29,

of

industry.

A

1920 nationalized all

mechanized enterprises with more that 5 workers and all non­ mechanized factories with more than 10 workers .154 The

issue here

were introduced, they

were

is not whether or not these measures

rather the point of contention is whether

introduced

revolutionary

gesture

as or

matters whether

of they

expediency were

and/or

premeditated

steps in an evolving radical economic policy. With regard to gratis distribution and the removal of monetary taxes, the question is whether the Bolsheviks were convincing argument for the position that the Bolsheviks were actively engaged in ending the use of money is offered in Atlas, Sotsialisticheskaia denezhnaia sistema. pp.138-158. 153 Izvestiia VTsIK. December 14, 1920. The reoffiTnunisticheskii trud announcement the same day, "LIKVIDATSIIA SUKHAREVKI." was triumphantly printed in bold letters across the front page. The Sukharevka market was employed as a symbol of the evils of the "speculation" pervading various areas of Soviet life. Thus, for example, there was the "medical Sukharevka" and the "theatrical Sukharevka." See Kommunisticheskii trud. February 17 and 23, 1921; Izvestiia VTsIK. January 19, 1921. Terne (p.254) recalls that the closing of the Sukharevka was a signal to local authorities to crack down on trade. He describes the closing of the bazaar in Rostov-na-Donu in December 1920. 154

Gimpel'son, p.50; Kritsman, p.131. 98

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actively

taking

steps

to wipe

out money

or whether

the

measures they took were ones of expediency (growing out of the

ruble's

hopelessly

introduced until

the

inflated

currency

condition),

could be

temporarily

stabilized.

The

answer seems to be that it was some of both. Bolshevik ideology at this time still assumed that in a socialist relations. how

society

there

would

be

no

money

or

trade

Individual Bolsheviks disagreed over timetable:

quickly would this

transition to socialism?

happen

during

the

period

of

the

The Party did not start out to

abolish money immediately upon taking power.

Instead of

pursuing a radical course toward abolition, the regime was forced to print large amounts of new currency in order to pay for its activities.

The collapse of the ruble was not

an intended consequence of that policy, but became for many a post facto rationalization for it:

'We came to power to

abolish money,' the reasoning went, 'and through our policy of currency emission we succeeded in making the ruble nearly worthless .'155 By the end of 1920 with the currency nearly worthless, 155 The instability of the currency was another problem the Bolsheviks had inherited. The approximate buying power of the total currency in circulation in Russia in 1916 was 3.9 billion rubles; in July 1917 it was 2.6 billion; in July 1918, 487 million; and in July 1920, 63 million. At various times in the Civil War the Kerensky and Tsarist rubles were more coveted than the Soviet ruble, and foreign currencies are known to have been in limited internal circulation. Kritsman, p.144. The public adopted various humorous names for the currency, including for the word ’’million’5 the substitute "lemon." 99

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the

question was

no

longer whether the

actively seek to wipe out money, bestir themselves to save it.

Bolsheviks would

but whether they would

The force of inertia worked

against any effort to

stabilize and rescue

could not be expected

that the Party that

theruble.

It

envisioned the

eventual disappearance of money (and not merely as a distant eventuality) natural

would reverse what seemed to many to be the

course

of events

sanctioned by Marxist ideology.

Put in these terms, one can conclude that the urge within the

Party

to

allow

money

to

"wither

away” was

indeed

dominant by the end of 1920. However, an examination of the sources makes it clear that the immediate motivation for the introduction of the besolatnost# decrees was simple expediency.

The purchasing

power of the ruble being catastrophically low by the end of 1920,

the

point

was

reached where

it was

no

longer

worthwhile for the government to collect payment for certain goods and services. The

example

distibution

of

potrebleniia) Narkomorod

as

appears

of

the

legislation

"consumer it to

was

goods"

discussed

be

regarding

the

fpredmety in

the

representative

of

free

shirokoqo

collegium

of

the

of

kind

thinking that went on at this time with regard to the use of money.

At

collegium met

the to

beginning discuss

of

December

the matter.

the

Narkomprod

A newspaper

report

summarized their deliberations which led to a vote in favor 100

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of removal of payments for "consumer goods": . . . [I]t was explained that according to the estimate for 1920, the payment for all consumer items should total 20 billion rubles. According to the presently available figures, it appears, however, that the general stock of consumer goods in 1920 is no higher than 50%, which represents 10 billion rubles. And since one-fourth of the general collection of consumer goods are supposed to go to the countryside . . . the general sum of consumer goods subject to distribution among the city and factory population is no higher than 7 1/2 billion rubles. The latter figure is lowered still (by 4 billion rubles) in view of the fact that according to the decree of August 14 of last year, consumer items should be given out at a discount of 50% Thus, the profit to the state through the realization of the above measure is insignificant. At the same time the free distribution of consumer goods on the one hand improves the material situation of office workers and workers and on the other hand it significantly simplifies the operation of the distributive organs.156 If

this

is

a

fair

description

of

the

actual

and

immediate motivations behind the legislation, however, these original designs were not made clear in the press. There was little

attempt

to

explain

the

rationale

behind

the

new

decrees to the public or to include this in the internal Party discussions in the central press. measures was left open to interpretation.

The meaning of the And they fed the

anti-money sentiment that was already strong in the Party

156 Biulleten/ narodnoqo komissariata no prodovol/stviiu. November 30, 1920. 101

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and on the rise in the second half of 1920.157 The described

cold above

calculation contrasts

of

the

starkly

Narkomprod

reasoning

with

following

the

interpretation of the besolatnost' decrees in the Party's journal for agitators at the end of December 1920: Now after the brilliant results cf the large scale food campaign, the consequences of the [legislation on the besolatnost' of food products] represent a fully palpable real [sic] good. Before us is an undeniable piece of the future, a real incarnation into life [sic] of a dream, about the realization of which we have dreamed, but as to the time of whose coming and whose precise form we did not know. The free receiving from the government of food products is a purely socialist act, possible only in a workers' state. . . . The idea of socialism becomes incarnate before our eyes .158 Though the florid (and awkward) language of this assessment is

hardly

typical,

few

Bolsheviks

later

secretly shared in these utopian hopes .159

denied

having

The important

157 For example: Larin in Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. November 7, 1920; Ibid., November 13; Biulleten' narodnogo komissariata d o prodovol'stviiu. November 9. For a promoney argument, see Ibid., December 16, and Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. February 4, 1920. Larin addressed the issue as always with an eye on the glorious future: ’’When our children grow up they will only know money as something dimly recalled, and our grandchildren will learn of it only from colored pictures in history books.” Pravda, October 17, 1920. Anti-money sentiment seems to have been quite strong at Narkomfin. Iurkov, pp.113, 132-136; and his "Finansovaia politika," pp.67-76. 158

Vestnik aaitatsii i prooaqandv. December 25, 1920.

159 In September 1921, Nikolai Krestinskii, People's Commissar for Finance, told a conference of finance officials: "We thought we could achieve our goal without returning temporarily to a commodity economy. This was the 102

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point here is that the Bolsheviks did little to hinder such interpretations,

and they would later come to regret this

deeply. The issue of the removal of monetary taxes is a similar case. The initial motivation for dropping monetary taxes— for the most part, spare

the

brought

it

existing only on paper anyway— was to

government no

from

profit.

an

exercise

However

even

that as

in

the

end

Narkomf in

and

Sovnarkom deliberated the matter, they brought into guestion the

basic

principle

of

the

use

of

money

taxation in a society building socialism.

and

monetary

Lenin's note to

the commission charged with resolving the issue is evidence that some were moving far ahead of him: To remove the surrogate (money) before the peasantry has been provided with that which obviates the need for the surrogate is economically incorrect. This must be thought through very seriously.160 One participant of these discussions later claimed that the majority of the commission was against the very idea of basis of our attitude to the problem of money. We thought that the time would finally come when banknotes would be unnecessary and we could be rid of them without any harm to the economy. That was why we had such a casual attitude to an economy where money is printed and why we took no steps to raise the exchange rate of paper money." Quoted in Iurkov, "Finansovaia politika," pp.70-71. Even the clear­ headed Strumilin wanted to proceed with the eradication of money. See Vestnik truda. 1921, No. 1-2, pp.64-65. See also Bukharin, Ekonomika. p.135. 160

pS S . voi. 5 2 , pp.22-23. 103

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taxes because they thought "taxes could not be compatible with a plan for state construction.

Alone comrade Lenin

came to the defense of the temporary significance of taxes in the transition period."161 Again here, while there is a good argument to be made for the

position that

taxation

was

money

in fact the move

not motivated

completely

from

the

to

end monetary

by the principle economy,

there

of

was

removing a

prediliction at the time to interpret it that way.

strong

Measures

of expediency became revolutionary gestures, which fed the Bolshevik

desire

to

speed

up

what they

perceived

as

an

other markets

in

inevitable and immanent outcome.162 The

closingof

the

Sukharevka and

December 1920 and the move to nationalize small follow a

similar pattern

and

fit

toward increased state control. logical

steps

industry

into the general

trend

These seemed to be the next

in economic policy.

No matter that actual

state control of trade went unrealized or that the state did not have

the wherewithal

enterprises state 161

to

it nationalized.

regulation— even

if

administer most of the tiny The for

principle

now

only

of extending on

paper— was

Quoted in Iurkov, p.126.

162 The VTsIK resolution on the "removal of all monetary and natural taxes" stated that it was a seep made possible only because . . in the city and in the countryside socialist construction has already reached the stage of development that excludes the necessity for the existence of a tax system. . . . " Izvestiia VTsIK. February 26, 1921. 104

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unambiguous.163

The historiographical debates about economic policy at the

end

of

quotations

1920 from

are

untidy

Lenin

and

affairs, other

with

figures

selective improperly

introduced as evidence for one or another viewpoint.

The

essential point here is that, while opinion within the Party and the State was clearly divided about the specifics of how to proceed,

the inertia of the existing general economic

policy was

overwhelming at the end

thought

could

it

rebuild

the

of 1920.

economy

using

The the

Party

"shock"

methods and state control that won the Civil War and effect the transition to socialism at a rapid pace.

As Pokrovskii

later admitted: It seemed that just as brilliantly as we had succeeded on the war front, so too we would succeed with education and with the economy. . . . We— and I say this openly because I experienced it myself— we became to a certain extent intoxicated by that pace. Things went at such a pace, that it seemed to us that we were very close to communism-communism created with our own hands, and not waiting for the victory of proletarian revolution 163 Gimpel'son (pp.142-164) plays down the anti-trade measures by emphasizing the strength of illegal trade at the end of 1920, thereby blurring the distinction between reality and the regime's actual intention. He is on firmer ground when discussing the limits of the VTsIK nationalization resolution (pp.48-52), though his general argument on the relative insignificance of the resolution as a statement of principle is ultimately unconvincing. Iurkov (p.158) argues that the latter resolution was never made into a decree and thus was not genuine "legislation." 105

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in the West .164 Thus, the new measures described above sooner represent the continuation or extension of previous policies than a culmination. though they were interpreted at the time by many

as

the

transition

to

a

higher

stage

of

the

Revolution.165 However,

the discussions about the use of money and

about trade and

nationalization, while important,

essential point

about War Communism.

miss the

To characterize the

regime's economic policy by its nationalization policies in industry (Gimpel'son) or its finance policies (Iurkov) is to overlook

the

fundamental

fact

that

the

rockbed

of

War

Communism was the Bolshevik peasant policy and the Party's underlying assumption about kto—kogo between the city and the countryside: the proletariat was to be at the

controls

in the vehicle

informed

every position nationalization,

of

Revolution.

in the

This

debates

over

naturalization

of

assumption

individual policies— the

economy,

equal

distribution, industrial planning— and they were the guiding spirit of the regime's requisitions policy. any

other

associated

specific with

the

policy, policy

"War of

More than with

Communism"

was

razverstka. the

164 M. N. Pokrovskii, Sero' let proletarskoi (Moscow, 1924), p.8 (written in 1922).

later

point

of

revoliutsii

165 The questions of the "tempo" of the Revolution and "Civil War methods" will be discussed in more detail below when contrasted with the new ground rules of 1921. 106

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departure for the entire economic policy.166 Using

this

definition

of

"War

Communism,"

one

is

tempted to speak of a "culmination" of economic policy at the end of 1920 with the introduction of Osinskii's "state regulation

of

circumstances there was

agriculture." in the

a need

to

However,

second half extend

the

of

as

we

have

seen,

1920 were such that

razverstka

principle

production in order to preserve the razverstka at all.

to The

Party was afraid that if the razverstka were compromised, the entire economic policy would unravel. It was pushed to intervene further in the economy,

but as so often in the

past, Osinskii's plan was rationalized as the next logical step

in the Revolution.

By the end of the year,

there

seemed to be no middle road.

The choice was between a

deepening of

or

state

intervention

"Menshevism," and the

Party chose the former familiar road, only to be forced to retreat down the latter several weeks later.

Those who profess to see evidence of a "search" for a new course at the end of 1920 focus on agricultural policy, particularly as it was discussed at the Eighth Congress of Soviets.

From the 1930s to the 1950s, Soviet historiography

portrayed the Congress as the first decisive step away from "War Communism."

In the late 1950s, an increasing number of

166 See PSS. vol. 43, p.219; Carr, p.198; Billik, pp.148, 158. As we have noted, even those Bolsheviks who wanted to revise the razverstka. shared the assumptions about "kto-koqo.11 107

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historians began to contest this view and today the Congress is generally placed "within the War Communist system," and the debate is about the extent and nature of the re-thinking that

went

on

Congress.167

among

the

Bolsheviks

at

the

time

of

the

The particular evidence used to support the

notion of a shift in attitude if not in policy at the Eighth Congress is the introdution to the Bolshevik vocabulary of new terminology— "persuasion" (stimulirovaniel— and

the

(ubazhdenie) and "incentives"

inclusion

of

the

premirovanie

clause in the decree on agricultural policy.168 Naturally, Soviet historians place the primary emphasis on Lenin.

His key role in reversing the Party fraction's

decision to remove legislation on premiums for individual households at the Congress is presented in much the same 167 Osinskii, in his pamphlet Vosstanovlenie krest'ianskogo khoziaistva v Rossii i nashi zadachi (Moscow, 1922), was one of the first to misrepresent the significance of the Eighth Congress of Soviets. Genkina began in 1954 with the Stalinist interpretation and in later works retreated to firmer ground on this question. Compare E. B. Genkina, Perekhod sovetskoao aosudarstva k novoi ekonomicheskoi politike. 1921-1922 (Moscow, 1954), pp.59-75; and Gosudarstvennaia (pp.58-59). On the extremes, Iu. N. Kliiuov fVoprosv istorii KPSS. 1966, No. 5) maintains that the Congress was the first step in the New Economic Policy, while I. A. Gladkov (Voorosv Istorii KPSS, 1966, No. 10) firmly rejects such an interpretation. 168 For the premirovanie section, see PSS, vol. 42, p.199. Genkina's attempt to link foreign concessions with the transition is unsupportable and has been criticized by her colleagues. See Genkina, "1964," p.12. The discussions about foreign concessions began immediately after the blockade was removed in January 1920, though it became more serious in the autumn of 1920. See Carr, p.244, and Billik, p.142. 108

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fashion as his rescue of cooperation from the clutches of nationalization at the Ninth Party Congress in March 1920. Beyond Lenin's performance at the Eighth Congress of Soviets,

the

Soviet

literature

usually

points

to

three

documents in Lenin's collected works, which some interpret as evidence that Lenin had already begun at that time to move in the direction of radical economic reform.

The first

item is a "Draft resolution of Sovnarkom On direct taxes" (November 30, 1920) in which Lenin advises looking into the necessity to prepare and introduce simultaneously with the removal of monetary taxes the transformation of the prodrazverstka into a tax-in-kind.169 Several

Soviet

historians

see

in

this

evidence that Lenin was anticipating Their

arguments,

however,,

are

one

document

"NEPist"

not

the

reforms.170

convincing.

An

examination of the circumstances in which this was written tells us that Lenin, in resisting the rising tide of opinion against the very principle of taxation, was making a point of

principle

to

his

colleagues

in

suggesting

transformation of the razverstka into a tax-in-kind.

the This

was connected with the discussion of the removal of monetary taxes

and has no relation to the prodnalog introduced in

169

PSS. vol. 42, p.51.

170

For example, Gimpel'son, pp.64-65; Iurkov, p.127. 109

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March 1921.171 The second item is a few lines of notes Lenin wrote at the end of December under the heading "The basic tasks of economic construction."

Here he jotted down the following

formula:172 Relationship to the peasantry: naloq + premii E.

B.

Genkina

attributes

great significance to this

cr.e

line, which, she believes, is proof of Lenin's rethinking of agricultural policy.

However, she neglects to continue the

citation one more line: naloq = razverstka To reiterate,

Lenin was writing these lines as plans were

underway to remove all monetary taxes. calling

Here he was at most

for the simplification of in-kind levies:

razverstka and naloq under one heading.

placing

The formula "naloq

= razverstka" tells us that Lenin might have been adopting a new vocabulary, same.

but

that his

ideas were

essentially the

The idea that any one sentence of this kind could be

the "first step" in the transition to NEP misrepresents the nature

of

the

reforms

about to be

introduced.

The key

171 See lustuzov, pp. 115-116. Even in her first book (Perekhod, p.91), Genkina was not misled by the note. Unfortunately, some very good Western historians borrow the incorrect interpretation. For example, Avrich. p.221; Malle, p.451. 172

PSS, vol. 42, p.387. 110

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moment at the Tenth Party Congress would not be the swapping of

the

razverstka

for

a tax,

but what

the

tax

implied for state collection and internal trade.

package

It is not

what you call it— "razverstka" or "naloq"— rather it is how much

you

collect and what you

allow to happen with the

surplusses.173

During the Eighth Congress cf Soviets, Lenin, met with a group of non-party peasants to listen to their complaints. The extensive notes he took during the session, preserved in his collected works,

is the third item included in Soviet

treatments of this period.*74 These notes are truly interesting for their insights into

peasant

concerns

at

this

time.

One

repeated

suggestion, which by now was familiar to Lenin, was that the regime set a "norm,-" a fixed percentage for the razverstka in order to "interest" the peasant in planting more crops. However, aside

these notes actually tell us little about Lenin,

from

the

fact

unfiltered peasants'

of

his

remarks.

having

listened

Soviet

sources

to

these

imply that

because Lenin was listening to the people, he was preparing to act.

But there is no evidence that Lenin intended to act

as these peasants prescribed until the crisis of January173 Genkina, "1964," p.13. 174

Gosudarstvennaia. Iustuzov, p.117.

pp.58-59;

and

PSS. vol. 42, pp.382-386. Ill

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Genkina,

February 1921 convinced him that this was necessary.-75 As for the inclusion of the principle of premiums to "diligent" peasants,

one need only read the supplement to

the agricultural resolution approved by the Party fraction (and only at Lenin's insistence) to understand that this was hardly a "moderate" document.176

The anti-kulak message was

clear

specifically

and

strong

and

it

was

stated

that

premiums were to be granted first to collectives and only to individual

households

that

did

not

demonstrate

their

"diligence" using "kulak" methods.177 Thus, one can speak of a "search" for a way out of a growing crisis in agriculture, but to call this a "search for

NEP"

is

revolutionary

highly nature

of

misleading: the

changes

Though there was not a premeditated

it

understates

introduced

in

"culmination"

the 1921.

of War

1*75 ipjjg collected works position the above "nalog + premii" document directly after these notes. However, aside from the limited significance of the former document, there is no evidence that it was indeed written after the non-party peasant meeting, or even in "late December," as the works say. (Ibid., vol. 42, p.387) Iustuzov (p.117) believes it was written before the Eighth Congress of Soviets. Genkina (Gosudarstvennaia. p.59; and "1964," pp.13-14) irresponsibly places great weight on a quote of Krupskaia in 1930: "After that meeting [with the non-party peasants] [Lenin] more decisively began to speak out for NEP." 176

PSS. vol. 42, pp.192-193.

177 It is ironic how the Bolsheviks compensated for the psychology of the "vanguard" and "collectivist" working class with a system of premiums and special rations, which bred inequality, yet when it came to the "backward" peasantry, they stubbornly resisted compromising the principle of equality. 112

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Communism at the end of 1920,

the force of inertia led to

its deepening in several policy areas.

As

the

discussion

about

"culmination"

vs.

"poiski"

demonstrates, Soviet historians use "Lenin" and "the Party" interchangeably: every example of Lenin's moderation and re­ thinking

is made

whole.

Their

to

speak

evidence,

different conclusion.

for the however,

Bolshevik Party as adds up

to

a

a

rather

In fact, in the total picture we are

left with— especially by those who minimize the strength of "War Communism" at the end of 1920— Lenin stands quite apart from

"the

Party.”

Sometimes,

this

is

the

result

of

conflicting tendencies at work in the Soviet historiography: on

the

one

"moderation" the

other

progressive, is the

hand,

it

is

eager

to

demonstrate

Lenin's

in 1920 as representative of "the Party"; hand,

Lenin

must

be

far-sighted Bolshevik.

portrayed

as

the

on

most

What we are left with

image of the level-headed Lenin isolated from his

mostly naive, radical colleagues.178 The

challenge

for

the

Western historian

is to

look

178 A good example of the awkwardness of this wanting to have it both ways is Iurkov's discussion of Bolshevik attitudes toward money in 1920. After ridiculing the interpretation of Atlas and others that "Soviet power" was in fact intent on letting money die a quick death, Iurkov approvingly cites Atlas's statement that had it not been for Lenin, the Party would have abandoned money. See "Finansovaia politika," p.74. Dobb (pp.120-124) characterizes "War Communist" attitudes as "flights of leftist fancy," from which Lenin, of course, was immune. 113

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beyond the caricatured portrayals of the other Bolsheviks to see the complex, often conflicting attitudes they expressed. This

stated,

one

is nonetheless

forced to

conclude

that

Lenin's published writings and speeches in the second half of

1920 are in fact not a good barometer of the Party's

general mood or spirit at that time.

Throughout this period

Lenin time and again used his enormous authority to act as a brake on the extremist tendencies within the Party.

Often

it appeared that Lenin alone believed in this or another measure, which others went along with and approved because of his sponsorship, but which they themselves would not have initiated.

Michael Farbman, who observed Lenin as a leader,

reminds us of the latter's singular authority within the Party: [T]he belief in his instinct and in his force such that whenever a Bolshevik decision producing a certain stir and mistrust, it sufficient to proclaim that Lenin is in favor it to allay this uneasiness.179

is is is of

Lenin was the voice of reason, though he himself was not above making extremist statements,

especially when the

voices of moderation were those of non—Bolsheviks.

It is

important to be clear about one thing, however: though there 179 Farbman, p.53. During the discussion on premirovanie in the Party fraction of the Eighth Congress of Soviets, one delegate implied that, once again, Lenin was single-handedly reversing the decision of a large Party body. It is a charge to which Lenin wasespecially sensitive and one that would be heard with even more frequency in 1921. PSS, vol. 42, p.195. 114

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were

differences

between

Lenin

and

his

more

militant

colleagues about the tempo of the Revolution, he along with every

other

Bolshevik

shared the

fundamental

assumptions

about the nature of the proletarian and peasant revolutions, assumptions at the heart of the entire economic policy.

Not

until January-February 1921 did this base begin to crumble and the serious re-thinking begin. was

As we shall see, Lenin

later the first to admit this.

No amount of clever

quotation juggling can alter that fact.180 As

for the trade union controversy of the winter of

1920/21

in which some purport to see a shift in Lenin's

thinking, the evidence does not support this. it desired,

by the

end of

1920,

Whatever else

the exhausted Bolshevik

Party had little appetite for Trotsky's renewed call for the militarization of labor, an experiment that had not produced the

desired

results.

Lenin was

aware

of

this

and his

position in the debate, from from a turn to moderation, was simply an effort to maintain the status quo.181

180 In the summer of 1920, Lenin annotated a statement by Varga concerning the Hungarian revolution that "requisitions do not load to the goal since they bring in their wake a decrease of production" with two question marks. Later in the autumn a statement in Bukharin's Ekonomika perekhodnocro perioda to the effect that state coercion against the peasantry was not to be regarded as "pure constraint," since it "lies on the path of general economic development" Lenin annotated with a "very good." Cited in Carr (p.169) from Leninskii s b o m i k . 181

Farbman, p.272. 115

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In 1921, when the scale of the forced economic retreat had become clear, Lenin looked back on this period and saw that

his

Party

reconstruction

had

mistakenly

envisioned

"on the same rails."1®2

peaceful

According to the

accepted wisdom in the Party, without a revolution in the West,

the

Russian

Revolution

agrarian capitalism.

would

be

swallowed

up

by

However, by the end of 1920, though no

one dared utter the thought, many of the leading Bolsheviks had given up on a short-term victory for the international proletariat.

Rather them mull over their options and buoyed

by their success

in civil war,

the Bolsheviks put their

heads down and allowed themselves to be swept along by the course of events. At every step from 1S17-1920, the Bolsheviks managed to convince

themselves

that

the

radical

measures

that

were

partly forced on them by circumstances— the razverstka, food armies, the state regulation of agriculture, the devaluation of money, etc.— were new elements of a program for building socialism,

forged by a bloody civil war against the class

enemy

sanctioned by the

and

traumatic

events

of

laws

of history.

January-February

1921

Only the

stripped

away

these illusions and made the Bolsheviks realize that they

182

PSS. vol. 43, p.384. 116

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could not go on as before .183

183 Even those Soviet historians who place the Eighth Congress of Soviets within the War Communist system maintain that the transition to NEP was somehow brewing at the end of 1920 and would have occurred anyway without the crisis of January-February 1921. Thus, as we shall now see, they minimize the importance of the Kronstadt rebellion. The position here is that it took the jolt of January-February to awaken the leadership to the fragility of its situation, though by the time the Kronstadt rebellion broke out the necessity for fundamental reform had already been made clear. See V. P. Dmitrenko, "Nekotorye voprosy nepa v sovetskoi istoriografii 60-kh godov," Voprosy istorii, 1972, No. 3, p.22 (hereafter: Dmitrenko, "Nekotorye voprosy"). 117

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CHAPTER TWO THE END OF WAR COMMUNISM (January-March 1921) Now the republic hangs by a hair. Nikolai 1921

Bukharin,

March

The Economic Crisis of January 1921

The Bolsheviks came away from the Eighth Congress of Soviets

(December 22-29, 1920)eager to get on

business

of economic reconstruction.

able

apply

to

themselves

to

the

with the

At last,

task,

their

they were energy

attention undiverted by the requirements of civil war. mood was one of impatience to move ahead.1

and The

In short, the

Bolsheviks entered the year 1921 unprepared to wrestle with the traumatic events about to take place in the next ten weeks, events that would threaten the very existence of the regime. In retrospect, clear signs of a brewing economic crisis of major proportions were visible in the autumn and early

1 The economic reports to the Eighth Congress of Soviets reflect the general optimism of this period. See Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. p.65. Carr (p.196) uses the word "complacency" to describe theBolshevik mood in 1920. Farbman (p.263) writes of Bolshevik "optimism" and "confidence" in December 1920. Also Terne, p.14. 118

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winter of 1920, but no one on the scene put all the pieces of evidence together. The 1920/21 grain requisitioning campaign had been set back at the start by a poor harvest and a summer drought that affected almost the entire country.2

The target for

grain collection in European Russia was set in August at 224.5 million poods, 1919/20.3 Russia

down from the 327 million target of

By the end of December the target for European

was

lowered to

1919/20 target.

193 million poods,

or 41%

of the

As of December 10, only 51% of this total

had been collected.4 What

one

year

before

would

have

been

viewed

as

a

catastrophic development— the failure of grain requisitions in European Russia— was in December 1920 only the cause of some concern.

In the course of 1920 Soviet Russia had come

to encompass substantial new territories regained from the White Armies.

Narkomorod was now counting on the periphery

(okra inv ) to make up for the poor performance in European Russia.

Nikolai Briukhanov noted in September 1920 that

2 The figures for grain collection in the Civil War years vary considerably from source to source, though the general pattern for the collecting periods from 1916/17 to 1920/21 is the same. We will use Narkomorod's totals, published at the time, since these are most appropriate for gauging the perceptions of those making food policy during the 1920/21 grain campaign. For a discussion of the discrepancies of the grain totals, see Iurkov, pp.79-80. 3 Only 180 million poods of grain were actually collected in 1919/20. Ekonomicheskaia zhizn7. September 28, 1920. 4

Ekonomicheskaia zhizn/. December 29, 1920. 119

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both Siberia and the Northern Caucasus would be sources of abundant grain

"left over" from previous years-5

targets of 110million and 120

The grain

million poods of

grain for

Siberia and the Caucasus respectively, it was assumed, would easily be met since Siberia's about

100

million

poods,

"surplusses"

while

those

alone totaled

of

the

Northern

Caucasus totalled 120 million.6 In November-Decemher 1920, there were increasing calls from provincial party organizations for the center to cut back the size of the requisitions in their locality or to drop it altogether.

As compromises were made on the size of

grain requisitions in the central provinces, or as they were simply

abandoned

periphery Briukhanov prospective

was

by

the

locals,

increased.By

was results

late

becomingmuch less of

the

pressure

December, sanguine

requisitioning

on

the

on

the

however, about

the

periphery.

Figures for the period up to December 10 showed that Siberia 5 There is a noticeable hostile streak during this period in Bolshevik statements about the Siberian peasants, who had not previously been subject to requisitioning and thus, it was felt, had not contributed to the Revolution. For example, see PSS, vol. 41, pp.363-364; vol. 42, pp.361-362; Izvestiia VTsIK. December 3, 1920. A British journalist in Soviet Russia at this time refers to Siberia's "mythical millions of poods" of grain. F. A. Mackenzie, Russia Before Dawn (London, 1923), p.230. The war-torn Ukraine was not expected to contribute significant amounts of agricultural products. 6 Thus, the total target for the entire country was 454 million poods. The estimate of the minimum amount needed to feed the republic was 400 million poods. Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. December 29, 1920. J.20

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had provided only 26 1/2 million and the Northern Caucasus only 27 million poods of grain.7 The problem of the periphery was twofold.

First, the

Narkomorod apparatus had barely penetrated these regions. The armed food detachments, so dreaded and often effective in European Russia, territories. beef up the

had no

foothold

in the newly gained

Thus, as Briukhanov saw it, the answer was to food detachments

as

quickly as possible.

In

September 1920, twenty thousand workers and peasants from "hungry"

regions

were mobilized

for service

in the

food

detachments in Siberia.8 A second and obvious problem with the periphery was transport.

As one food worker put it, "We have more grain

than last year, but the regions from which we are getting grain are further away than last year."9

In addition, most

Siberian peasants lived far from railway lines. on the periphery was meant

fuel.

And

a wager

it was

The wager

on transport and transport

with

respect to

fuel

that

the

Bolsheviks made their biggest miscalculation. Here, optimism.

as with grain,

there

seemed to be reason for

In May 1920, the regime had regained the Baku oil

fields, and in the autumn the Donets region.

Narkomput• and

VSNKh were counting on a growing supply of coal and oil, 7

Ekonomicheskaia zhizn*. December 29, 1920.

8

Ibid., September 28, 1920.

9

Izvestiia VTsIK. December 1, 1920. 121

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from the Donets region in particular. only

did

not

expand

but

from

the

In fact, supply not autumn

of

1920,

it

decreasedc10 There had been scattered early warnings of a potential fuel

crisis.

November

An

1920

factories

in

article

entitled

in

Ekonomicheskaia

"Alarming

Ekaterinoslav,

Signal”

Iaroslavl' and

forced tc close due to lack of fuel = same

newspaper

under

the

heading

zhizn'

on

reported

that

Kolomna

were

On December 18 - the

”In

the

Collegium

of

Narkomorod" noted that in view of the insufficiency of fuel, Narkomorod would likely be unable to attain its goals for the distribution of food rations.11 As these "alarming signals" accumulated, the country's demand

for

fuel was

rising sharply.

Railway lines were

expanded with no thought to fuel supply. of 1920,

At the beginning

Russia's railroads covered 36,000 versts; by the

end of the year they had expanded to 60,000 versts.12 In its haste to revive industry, VSNKh sought to open as many supply

factories as possible, of

fuel

in

storage.

many with but one month's Later

the

10 See Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. p.65; March 2, 1921. Malle, pp.512-513. 11

derogatory Izvestiia

word VTsIK,

Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. November 21, December 18, 1920.

12 Izvestiia VTsIK. February 16, 1921; E. B. Genkina, "Gosudarstvennaia deiatel'nost' V. I. Lenina v period perekhoda k m i m o m u stroitel'stvu," Voprosy istorii. 1948, No. 1, p.4 (hereafter: Genkina, "1948"). One verst equals .66 miles. 122

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"stikhiino"

(anarchically)

would be used to describe this

premature expansion of industry.13 Adding to this burden on the fuel supply, as a result of a decree of June 11, provisioningw

1920 there was widespread "self-

Isamo 2agotovok ) of

fuel

by

the population,

which caused a sharp rise in the domestic use of fuel and led to large-scale "plundering" of supplies.14 Given supply,

this

threatening

forecast

for

fuel

and

food

extreme caution should have been exercised in the

rationing of

food.

In fact,

the opposite was happening.

Just as VSNKh was overeager to get industry on its feet, so Narkomorod

seemed

to

become

intoxicated

increasing numbers of those it provisioned.

by

the

fast

As we have seen

in Chapter One, the number of workers with special rations rose steadily throughout 1920 to a total of over 2,500,000 (not counting families) by the end of the year.15 The increase in food provisioning is illustrated below:

13 Farbman, p.264; Chamberlin, trud, February 17, 1921.

p.432;

Kommunisticheskii

14 Izvestiia VTsIK. March 2, 1921. An additional factor was the increasingly poor quality of the fuel that did reach the cities. See Ibid., February 4, 1921. 15 Ibid., December 31, 1920. One month later, Khalatov put the figure at 3 million. See Ibid., February 1, 1921.

123

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1st 6 mos

2nd 6 mos

TOT’A ij

1919

90 mill poods

30 mill poods

120

1920

150

90

240

Thus,

the

regime was

irresponsibly distributing

its food

supply.16 Here, then, is the immediate context for the economic and,

in

turn,

political

crises

of

J anuary-March

1321.

Bolshevik miscalculation could hardly have come at a worse time. and

Observers noted that the winter of 1920-21 came early was

especially

country was

"cold,

embittered."17 frozen, signs.

While

conditions, shortage

the

of

hungry,

The

strangely

harsh.

Chamberlin

disease-ridden,

Bolsheviks

inert there

was

"mood,"

concrete

in

of

writes

themselves

the

face

concern the

actions

of for

on

January

22,

too

late

would

to

and

somehow

troubling

improving there

the

was

correct

a

the

It was as if the

Bolsheviks were sleepwalking into a crisis. came

exhausted

these

disastrous course the Party was following.

call

the

seemed

peasantry, that

that

Their wake-up

avert

a

serious

political challenge to Bolshevik rule.

16 Krasnaia qazeta. February 27, refer to this as not "saving for 42, pp.358-359.

1921. LaterLenin would a rainy day." PSS, vol.

17 Chamberlin, p.431. Elizaveta Drabkina, pereval," N o w i mir. October 1968, p. 26124

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"Zimnii

*

On

January

extraordinary

20

joint

*

*

the

Moscow

meeting

with

Soviet the

convened

Committee

for

an the

Supply of the Capitals (under STO) to discuss why the supply of

grain

to

significantly

Moscow over

and

Petrograd

the previous

had

two weeks.

dropped

so

A published

report of its findings cited the insufficiency of fuel on the railroads, blizzards, and the normal disruptions of the holiday

period

difficulties. Moscow,

as

the

main

reasons

Ivanovo-Voznesensk,

red garrison of the capital.

Kronstadt,

sudden

cut

in

food

and the

The report maintained that the

problem was due not to a lack of grain, a

the

The areas most affected by the shortages were

Petrograd,

announced

for

rations

but of fuel.

in the

It

above-mentioned

cities by one-third from January 22 to February 1.

It ended

with a call to all workers not to let their productivity slip,

but to soldier on until the temporary difficulties

passed.18 Paul Avrich calls this announcement the "spark" that set

off

an

explosion

of

activity

in the

already

highly

18 Izvestiia VTsIK. January 22, 1921. As a result of this new measure, the three basic rationed groups A ( 1 1 / 2 funts of bread), B (1 funt) and C (1/2 funt) would receive their ration every three days instead of every two days. (One funt is approximately equal to one pound.) 125

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charged atmosphere of the major industrial centers.19 To save fuel, STQ began closing railway lines. beginning

of

February,

altogether.20 razverstka

Narkomorod's

on

But the most

31

lines

had

response

the periphery

with

was

been to

By the stopped

enforce

extraordinary measures.

immediate result of the announcement was a

burst of activity to reform the rationing system. have

seen,

the

it was

in this aspect

Narkomorod

was

most

vulnerable

discontent

had been most

of and

focused.

As we

its operation on

which

Throughout

that

workers' 1920,

the

stated goal of Narkomorod and its Committee for the Supply of Workers (KSR) was the creation of a "single labor ration" to replace the chaotic,

exception-riddled rationing system

that

attempts to

resulted

selected

from the

groups

of

special

rations

despite

increasing

cumbersome

"shock"

workers

appease and

during the Civil War.

system

calls of

for

its

rationing

bureaucrats By January

complete

remained

or encourage with 1921,

overhaul,

intact

and

the was

increasingly referred to as the "most urgent question.1,21 Worker dissatisfaction with the system ran deep and was 19 Paul Avrich, Kronstadt 1 9 2 1 (New York, 1 9 7 0 ) , p. 3 5 . The sudden scarcity of fuel seemed to take everyone by surprise. See Kommun ist icheski i____ trud. February 17, 1921; Ekonomicheskaia zhizn' for the month of February 1 9 2 1 ; Ivestiia VTsIK. February 2 0 , 1 9 2 1 . 20

Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. p. 6 2 .

21 Izvestiia VTsIK. December 4, 1 0 , 1 7 , 3 1 , 1 9 2 0 . At one point in December 1 9 2 0 there were 2 5 different categories of rations. 126

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well-known to the Bolsheviks.

By the end of 1920, workers'

outrage at the privileged rations, the corruption and abuses by bureaucrats

(especially of the Red Army ration), and at

the inequality even among workers themselves had reached a dangerous level.

The announcement on January 22, then, was

made to an already highly volatile working class. Just as the peasant had been victimized by the abuses of Narkomorod's food brigades on the requisitioning side, so,

too,

the

worker

felt

victimized

by

Narkomorod's

distribution policies— its perceived catering to specialists and office workers. despise

the

Both peasant and worker had come to

"border

patrols"

otriady)

(zagraditel'nye

guarding against the illegal transportation of food.22

As

more and more workers joined the search for food outside the cities, And

more

now

found the

with

the

regime's

Civil

War

food policy intolerable.

over,

for most

workers

and

peasants contact with Narkomorod was the most direct point of

contact

with

the

regime— and

increasingly,

hostility

directed at the former was becoming a more general hostility directed at the latter. A vigorous and well-publicized campaign to clean up the rationing

system,

to

blunt

its

inequality

and

demonstrate the regime's good will, began at once.

thereby A. B.

22 Lih (pp.368-371) calls the border patrol the "most hated institution of the civil-war period, including even the Cheka." There is a chilling description of a patrol in action in Dukes, pp.196-197. Quoted in Lih, pp.370-371. 127

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Khalatov of the KSR wasted no time in fingering the clavki— already the object of considerable resentment from a number of quarters— as the main culprit in rationing abuse.

On

January 26, the KSR ordered VSNKh to have all qlavki draw up current

lists

provisioning,

of

nshock”

factories

under

Narkomorod's

an attempt to weed out the undeserving.

It

also warned its local affiliates to stop making up its own norms

and

advised that Workers'

and

Peasants'

Inspection

representatives be allowed to monitor local KSR meetings.23 Moscow required a minimum of 44 cars (vagony) of grain per day to feed itself. it averaged 33.4

Between January 20 and February 1,

cars per day,

other major cities.24

a performance repeated in

On February 1, further rations cuts

were announced: those of physical laborers were cut by onethird and those of office workers by one-half.

The Moscow

soviet voted to recommend to Sovnarkcm that it remove all special rations. It also sent out 200 "comrades" along the railroads "in battle array" that

grain

reached

the

(v boevom poriadke) to insure

capital.

The

Moscow

soviet

announcement closed with the words: Order in the ranks! The most difficult already behind; vigorously forward

days are to Ae

23 Izvestiia VTsIK. January 26, 1921. For theterrible chaos in the drawing up of these lists, see Kommunisticheskii trud. January 14, 1921. 24 Kommunisticheskii trud. February 1, 1921. One equal to one thousand poods. 128

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car was

unavoidable victory of the workers' cause!25 In fact,

the worst was yet to come.

with 55% of the total grain goal met,

By February 1,

for all practical

purposes the collection of grain was over in the central provinces.

Local party organizations were putting a stop to

requisitioning

without

permission

of

the

center.

The

Politburo instructed Narkomnrod to drop the razverstka in 13 central provinces.26

The Moscow Non-Party Metal Workers' Conference February 2-4, 1921 The Russian working class in 1921 was vastly different from that which helped the Bolsheviks gain power in 1917. By 1921 it was less than half its size in 1916; in Petrograd its

ranks

had

thinned

by

four-fifths.

The

heaviest

depletion was of the most skilled workers, who had either joined the Red Army or were absorbed into Party or state service. to

the

Many workers returned permanently or periodically countryside

where

food

was

easier

to

come

by.

Russian workers had always maintained a relatively close tie to the land.

During the Civil War years this contact was

25

Izvestiia VTsIK. February 2, 1921.

26

Ibid.. 129

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reinforced.

The

label

"peasants

in

the

factories"

had

seldom been more appropriate them in 1921.27 Though the Civil War was over, the winter of 1920/21 brought no reprieve for city dwellers.

The battle with the

foreign enemy had ended, but the desperate battle for food and

fuel beceune more

intense.

Fedor Dan observed that,

unlike in February 1917, the thoughts of Russian workers in February

1921

"went

no

further

than

the

immediate

satisfaction of the elemental needs of food and warmth."28 Productivity levels plummeted as workers spent much of their

day

looking

for

food and

fuel and trading on the

illegal but tolerated black market.

Now in January 1921, as

the situation grew still worse, the grumblings of workers about

insufficient

and

unequal

rations

and

about

the

presence of border patrols on the outskirts of the cities and at train stations began to translate into more organized activity. The new arena for workers in the major industrial areas to

air

their

conference." conferences

grievances

was

the

so-called

"non-party

A recent borrowing from the countryside, these in the

spontaneously.

cities

They

appear to have been

were

always

covered a broad range of subjects.

large

and

organized

noisy,

and

One source estimates

that in the first three months of 1921 there were about 1000 27

Carr, pp.194-195.

28

Dan, p.lll. 130

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non-party conferences of workers or peasants involving about 02,875 delegates.29

One foreign journalist observed:

These meetings, indeed, became so frequent, so well attended, and so assertive that the Bolshevik leaders had to recognize them as a formidable opposition and went so far as to send official speakers to some of them charged with the task of justifying their policy. In many cases, however, these speakers were violently howled down.30 The tone of these conferences was increasingly anti­ intelligentsia— the ("elite"

and

anti-semitic.

loaded

"masses")

terms

becoming

"yerkhi"

the

new

and

code

"nizy"

words— and

The Bolsheviks meanwhile were doing much to

contribute to their own

image of

aloofness.

While they

seemed half-aware of the growing crisis "below," the Party's leaders were engaged in a fierce debate over the trade union issue.

The controversy involved the place of trade union's

in Soviet society, with Trotsky and his supporters proposing their

"statization"

and

"militarization,"

another

group

proposing "syndicalist" policies, and Lenin's group favoring strong state intervention, ideas.31

The

Party

but opposing Trotsky's

divided

itself

into

extreme

"platforms"

and

29 V. M. Shekhvatov, Lenin i sovetskoe qosudarstvo. 1921-22 (Moscow, 1960), p.266. For the spread of non-party peasant conferences at this time, see A. Iakovlev, "Leninskii dekret o prodnaloge i krestianstvo," Istoricheskii zhurnal. 1945, Book 5, p .15. 30

Farbman, p.275.

31 Good summaries are in Carr, pp.219-227; Leonard Schapiro, Origins of the coTnmunist Autocracy (New York, 1965), pp.253-295 (hereafter: Schapiro, Origins). 131

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prepared

to

Congress.

submit

these

The debate

to

raged

the

upcoming

for weeks

Tenth

Party

in the Party and

government press, and local Party committees were drawn into the discussion as representatives of the various "platforms" came from the capitals to solicit their support. While

the

debate

exposition

of

about

nature

the

the

was

in

conceptions of

a of

sense the

Bolshevik rule,

relevant

leading at the

as

an

Bolsheviks

time

it was

highly damaging to the Party as it diverted its attention from the critical problems of the moment.

From the workers'

point of view, the debate was only so much theorizing.

From

newspaper accounts, they appear to have put little stock in the

trade

unions

to

help

them

out

of

their

predicament of finding something to eat.

immediate

And the sight of

Lenin and Trotsky, the two most dynamic Bolshevik leaders, battling so fiercely in public reinforced for the workers their sense of alienation from the Party.32 Lenin spent the first three weeks of January IS21 in Gorki, driving in to Moscow for an occasional meeting. most

important

that he was difficult

Bolshevik returned to

The

the Kremlin unaware

about to be called upon to perform his most

and

important

political

task

since

the

Brest-

32 See the discussion in Chamberlin, pp.433-6. Alec Nove calls the trade union question a "pseudo-issue" that wasted "acres of scarce paper and tons of scarcer ink." See his An Economic History of the USSR (London, 1969), pp.71-74. Dobb (p. 118) notes that to the workers the trade unions were "little different from any ordinary State department." 132

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Litovsk crisis of March 1918. On February 2, a conference of Moscow non-party metal workers convened Unions.

The

in the Hall of Columns in the House of

delegates

representatives

of

numbered

nearly

about

all

the

850

large

enterprises of Moscow city and province. conference

officially

opened

the

and

included

industrial

Even before the

delegates

were

venting

their hatred for Narkomorod and Bolshevik food policy.33 From the moment it got underway, the meeting threatened to boil over. up.34

For each question 25 to 35 orators signed

The conference sat for three days and the whole time

it was in a burning rage. chief prosecutor

Andrei Vyshinskii,

at the Moscow purge

Narkomorod at the conference.

trials,

the future represented

He noted that the delegates

"listened only to those who angrily and provokingly lashed at the shortcomings of our apparatus (mekhanizm)."

Several

times the delegates interrupted the meeting so they could verify

each

desire

to

other's keep

credentials— a

the

foostoronnie). i.e.,

gathering

members

of

reflection free

political

of

of

their

"outsiders"

parties.

The

delegates mistrusted their own non-party presidium, even the 33 Sochineniia. vol. 26, p.640. One participant put the delegate total at over 1000. Pravda, February 8, 1921. The day before the conference opened, Narkomorod had announced further cuts in food rations. 34 A. A. Matiugin, Rabochii klass SSSR v gody vosstanovleniia narodnooo khoziaistva (Moscow, 1962), pp.9192. 133

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results of their own votes.35 The

Bolshevik

fNarkomzem),

I

representatives,

Lozovskii

Kamenev,

fNarkomtrud),

and

Kuraev

Vyshinskii,

addressed the conference and were repeatedly prevented from speaking.

During

agriculture,

the

the

discussion

delegates

on

rejected

Kuraev's the

idea

report of

on

sowing

committees and some called for the creation of a "peasant trade union."36

The

trade union

discussion was no less

lively, with the delegates protesting the ineffectiveness of Soviet trade unions, their remoteness from the people.37 The most savage of the delegates' criticism was saved for Vyshinskii's report on the food situation, a topic that took up two sessions on February 2 and 3. sentiment poured forth.

Anti-Narkomprod

During these sessions notes were

passed up to the presidium calling for the election of a Constituent Assembly and an All-Russian Peasant Union.38 The

delegates

demanded that

became

so

Lenin address

full

them.

of

themselves

they

On February 4,

Lenin

entered the hall during the speech of the worker Levshev, who

was

criticizing

the

sowing

campaign.

There

is

stenographic record of Lenin's speech to the delegates.

nc His

35 Pravda, February 8, 1921; Drabkina, "Zimnii Pereval," p. 36; Trud. April 2, 1960, published the testimony of a participant. 36

Sochineniia. vol. 26, p.640.

37 KmnTntmisticheskii February 8, 1921. 38

trud.

February

8,

1921;

Sochineniia. vol. 26, p.640. 134

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Pravda,

collected works contain an abridged and approximate record of his

remarks.

describe depiction

the of

Soviet historians,

context Lenin

when they choose to

of this speech, coming

to

the

offer a rescue,

improving the mood of ••’he meeting.39

comforting

dramatically

But as

one might

assume and according to at least one account, Lenin himself was given rough treatment.

When he began by evoking the

familiar threat of the White reaction, one delegate stood up and countered, "Let come who may— whites, blacks, or devils themselves— just you clear out.”40 Caution must be exercised in analyzing the summary of Lenin's remarks, approximate as it is.

But two points are

worth noting: Lenin insisted that to abandon the centrallydirected sowing campaign would be to "throw oneself from the fifth floor."

But further along he added significantly,

"Let us reconsider the relationship of the workers to the peasants.1,41 In view of the importance the Bolsheviks later attached to this meeting, it is worth summarizing its most important resolutions.

The resolution passed on food policy called

for the removal of all special rations, even the Sovnarkom and academic rations, and for equal distribution except for 39 PSS, vol. 42, pp.306-309. Sochineniia. vol. 26, p.640, notes that Lenin received "friendly applause" after his address, a good indication that all did not go well. 40

The New York Times. March 6, 1921, quoted in Avrich, p.36.

41

PSS. vol. 42, pp.306-9. 135

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-those in especially hazardous work.

It also demanded that

the distribution of goods be taken out of the hands of the qlavki and tsentrv as well as the Moscow food committee.

In

addition, it elected a ten-member committee to ensure that these measures would be properly executed.42 Even

more

Relationship

significant

of

was

the Workers

Kuraev's report.

the

to the

resolution Peasants,"

M0n passed

the on

It called the razverstka "inappropriate"

because it "not only does not answer the interests of the peasant masses, but also in a pernicious

fcmbitel'nvi) way

it reflects on the situation of the working class."

The

resolution called for the replacement of the razverstka by a fixed tax-in-kind corresponding to local conditions and not so large as "to be a burden for the peasantry and at the same

time

give

it

agriculture."

the

The

opportunity tax

should

to

raise

be

and

develop

administered

by

agricultural cooperatives.

What remained after the tax was

extracted

for

should

be

left

the

"direct

use"

of

the

peasant, though the sale of excess products should be made only to workers'

organizations

for their own use through

agricultural cooperatives. Further, the resolution called for the organization of a

special

type

of

trade union

proletarian elements" encouraged 42

the

from the

promotion

of

to

be made

countryside.

trade

with

up

of

"semi­

Finally,

Western

Kommunisticheskii trud. February 5, 1921. 136

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it

Europe,

especially

for

agricultural

cooperatives.43 for

the

tools,

again

through

the

This was the first instance of a call

replacement

of

the

razverstka

by

a

tax

in

a

Bolshevik-sanctioned resolution. There exists various testimony to the genuine shock of the Moscow Bolsheviks at the events of February 2-4. metal

workers

had

been

considered

Bolshevik working class support. changed

as

the

Trudovo i out '

working

(The

Path

class of

to

be

the

rockbed

The of

But the metal workers had as

a

whole

had

changed.

Labor) , the newspaper of the

Moscow Province Council of Trade Unions, summarized— proudly and somewhat ominously— the meaning of the conference: Metal workers always and everywhere are the avantgarde of every progressive movement in the battle of labor with capital. Russia's metal workers always were the instigators r zastrel'shchikil of the revolution. They always went ahead of the revolutionary masses and held aloft the banner of labor. Metal workers lay at the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat of Soviet Russia. But this time the conference of metal workers clearly underscored the two camps: "we” and "they," "nizv" and "verkhi." and attempted to lash out at the present order, in which c&XuOHCj great acts and beginnings there are little deeds [delishki] and little people niudishkil. The workers are ready to carry the fight further for revolutionary conquests. The workers are prepared together with the laboring masses of Russia to starve, freeze, and endure all kinds of deprivations in the name of the coming worldwide well-being. But they do now want to carry forward privileges and elitism rverkhovodstvo1 of any kind and for anybody. The consciousness of the working 43

Kommunisticheskii trud. February 16, 1921. 137

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class is growing. The workers are beginning to penetrate more deeply into Russian reality and see into the roots of developing events.44 The level of Bolshevik shock and concern was reflected in

Andrei

Vyshinskii's

Pravda

article

entitled, "The Lessons of One Conference."

of

February

8,

Vyshinskii noted

that because the delegates represented the "best of Moscow's workers," the "steel spine of the proletarian revolution," it

was

closely.

important

that

Though he

the

paid

Party

examine

lip-service

the

conference

to a Menshevik and

Black Hundred "campaign," Vyshinskii made it clear that the conference was truly non-party.

The cause of the crisis, he

wrote, could be summed up in two words: "enough privileges. . Workers are tired of privileges.

They don't want

inequality in anything, and first and foremost not in food relations." What really disturbed Vyshinskii was the "semi-peasant" psychology of the workers.

No longer the avant-garde of the

working class— no longer even workers!— the metal workers were promoting "peasant" demands such as "free trade." In a word, one could sense the complete break between the masses and the party. . . . "We" and "they," "nizv" and "verkhi"— that was the basic tone of the predominant mood at the conference.45

44

Trudovoi out'. February 14, 1921.

45 Pravda. February 8, 1921. Chamberlin (p.432), writing in 1934, cites Vyshinskii as a "Pravda correspondent." 138

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Similar scenes took place

at other conferences,

but

this one touched personally the Moscow leadership and in particluar the two men who would now play the most important role in preparing the transition from the razverstka to the tax, Lenin and Kamenev. When these events had long passed, the Bolsheviks would well remember this one conference.

Here for the first time

they saw clearly that beyond the complaints about privilege and inequality,

lay deeper issues concerning the relations

between classes and the very social support of the Bolshevik regime.

Kamenev would later recall:

The events of the spring of 1921 confirmed what the figures were saying: the conclusions were drawn in the political arena and demonstrated that several basic leading groups, leading detachments of the revolution were sujected to a peasant psychology, the psychology of that ruined peasantry, which was beginning to rebel. The first, most characteristic expression of this change in the balance of forces between the city and the countryside, in other words, between the proletariat and the peasantry, was the spring [sic] conference of metal workers in Moscow.4® As Trudovoi put7 concluded: The recent conference of metal workers set up a noticeable boundary between the past and the

46 Vserossiiskaia konferentsia RKP (b) ♦ Biulleten' (Eleventh), No. l, December 1921, p.9; See also Nikolai Bukharin, The New Policies of Soviet Russia (Chicago, n.d. [1921?]), p.55; and in Desiatvi s"ezd. p.225; Shliapnikov in Ibid., p.74. B. Kuraev, "Ot voiny k miru," Krasna.ia nov'. 1921, No. 3, p.305. 139

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future, yesterday and tomorrow.47 Workers were being

asking to be

applied

somewhere.

to

fed without a further squeeze

the peasantry.

Lenin

and

several

Something had leading

experienced their first "Kronstadt."

to

Bolsheviks

give had

They woke up to the

fact that some fundamental re-thinking had to be done and appropriate changes made and quickly.

It remained to be

seen just how quickly and effectively the Party could act.

The Bolshevik Response

The Moscow Bolsheviks now made a vigorous effort to cut through workers.

the

deep

mistrust

that

lay

between

it

and

the

For most of the month of February, representatives

of Moscow's

factories

were

invited

to

sit

in on the

meetings of the Presidium of the Moscow soviet, so that, as one soviet member put it, "the comrade workers can see how the

presidium

works."

This

uneasy

partnership

especially active in questions of food distribution.48

was In

its effort to defuse this issue, the leadership was most demonstrative in its measures to revise the rationing system 47

Trudovoi put'. February 14, 1921.

48 Ko-mmunisticheskii trud. February 16, 27, 1921; Izvestiia VTsIK. February 18, 1921. 140

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in the direction of more equality. On February 16,

a joint committee of metal workers'

representatives and members of the Moscow soviet met with Sovnarkom to discuss the removal of all privileged rations. They claimed that the Sovnarkom ration was larger than the norm by 1 pound and handed out to "tens of thousands" of employees;

that

there

were

4,449

people

in

the

country

receiving the academic rations, in Moscow alone 1,900 people consuming one-half car of grain

(500 poods)

per day;

and

that the Red Army ration supplemented the diet of as many as 60,000 office workers (sluzhashchie) in Moscow alone. totalled,

All

one and one-half cars of grain per day were set

aside for special rations in Moscow.

Beyond the removal of

these rations, the joint committee asked Sovnarkom to take the "most energetic measures" to put a stop to the illegal distribution of food and other products.49 Three days later, Sovnarkom announced the suspension of all special rations except for the academic ration; rations for local political,

professional and Soviet workers;

and

the Red Army ration for a limited number of personnel in the rear.

49 TCommunisticheskii trud. February 16, 1921; Trud, February 19, 1921. Khalatov, the best informed source on the subject, listed about 300,000 sluzhashchie on the Red Army ration for the rear and front of the army and navy institutions in March 1921. In addition, there were 136,000 "administrative-economic personnel of the war-medical establishment" on the Red Army ration. Kommunisticheskii trud. March 23, 1921. 141

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Later,

when the

situation calmed

itself,

the Moscow

Soviet reported on its investigation into glavki abuse of food rationing. presented

The picture of

chaos and corruption it

showed that those who pointed

alavki. had done so with good reason.

a finger at the

Just about all the

producing alavki were found guilty of illegally distributing their products to their employees.

The chief culprits in

this area were Glavneft. Giavsoi *. and Glavtabak. the latter handing out 750 cigarettes per month (w s s h e g o sorta) to its employees.

There was a widespread presence of "dead souls"

(non-existent employees on the payroll) to

50%

in

Affairs,

Glavtabak.

180

At

"responsible

the

in many glavki, up

Commissariat

employees"

receiving some 380 Sovnarkom rations.

were

for

Domestic

irresponsibly

Most disturbing of

all the findings was that often the "illegal" distribution was done with the permission of Sovnarkom.50 The regime made a similar demonstration of its intent to do things differently in a remarkable public upbraiding of local Narkomorod workers. itself

issued

a

circular

It began when the Commissariat to

its

local

staff

which

was

(apparently without Tsiurupa7s permission) published by the central newspapers officials

that

on February 18.

they

"should

show

It reminded the food themselves

not

as

a

repressive apparatus, but as comrades-organizers in an area

50

Ibid., March 23, 1921. 142

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very dear and understandable to the later,

peasantry."51 One week

the Presidium of VTslk issued its own circular to

local authorities urging sensitivity in the performance of their tasks "so that the peasants can take full measure of the

difference

of

approach

of

countryside before and now."52 Commissariat

of

Strengnthening

Justice

of

coercion

power

to

the

That same day, the People's

issued

of Responsibility

Committed in Food Work."53

Soviet

a

stern decree

of Officials

"On

for

the

CniucS

Thus, by February 1921, the use

(prinuzhdenie),

so

cherished

in

1920

as

an

instrument of "enlightenment" in the countryside, had become discredited. local

The regime was signalling its intent to end

arbitrariness,

compromise

in

selected

areas

and

satisfy key demands of workers and peasants.

51 Izvestiia. February 18, 1921; Dva mesiatsa ra’ ..->ty V. I. Lenina (Moscow, 1934), p.85. 52 Bednota. February 26, 1921, published the text under the title: "War to Illegality." 53

S b o m i k dekretov. Book 6, 1921, pp. 15-16.

143

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*

*

*

The metal workers' meeting set in motion the Politburo discussion

and

drafting

of

razverstka with a tax-in-kind.

the

decree

to

replace

the

Sometime around February 8,

Lenin penned his "Preliminary Draft of Theses Regarding the Peasants," the first major step in the direction of a new economic

policy

in the

countryside.

Reflecting the new

realism of Bolshevik attitudes toward the peasant, it listed four basic guidelines for new legislation: 1. Satisfy the desire of the non-party peasantry for the replacement of the razverstka (meaning the taking of surpluses) by a grain tax. 2. Reduce the level of this tax in comparison with last year's razverstka. 3. Approve the principle of bringing the level of tax into relation with the effort of the cultivator in the sense of lowering the percentage of the tax in proportion to an increase of effort by the cultivator. 4. Extend the freedom of the cultivator to use his surplus over and above the tax for local economic exchange, on condition of prompt and full payment of the tax.54 On February 8, the Politburo discussed the tax for the first time,

in connection with Osinskii's report,

"On the

54 PSS. vol. 42, p.333. Soviet authors and editors, beginning in the 1930s when this document was discovered, have fixed February 8 as the day of authorship. In fact, there is no firm evidence to substantiate this. Only one (unpublished) Soviet account of the period points this out. Iustuzov, p.132. 144

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Sowing Campaign and the Condition of the Peasant." meeting,

a

commission

of

Kamenev, Tsiurupa

and

At this Osinskii

(later called the "Kamenev commission") was set up to work out a draft

resolution of the Central committee for the

forthcoming Tenth Party Congress on "improving the condition of the peasant." On February 19, the commission's report was presented to the Politburo and on February 24 passed on to the Central Committee for review.

It was called "Draft Resolution of

the Central Committee on the Replacement of the Requisitions by

a

Natural

Tax."

After

its

discussion,

the

Central

Committee set up a new commission under Tsiurupa for further editing. On March 7, a plenary session of the Central Committee discussed the project further and set up another commission under Lenin for final editing. This text would be approved by the Central Committee on March 14 an:? the next day by the Party Congress.55 Though, as we shall see, there was fierce debate about some aspects of the new proposal, it seems that there was no fundamental opposition among the leading Bolsheviks to the idea of a tax. prospect

of

That

embracing

is not to the

concept

say, was

however,

that the

not

cause

the

considerable embarrassment to these same Bolsheviks.

55 The various drafts of these commissions discussions behind them are discussed below. 145

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and

of

After

the

all,

they were

now

about

to

implement the very measure

proposed by the Menshevik delegates to the Eighth Congress of

Soviets

ridicule.

only

weeks

before,

one

they had

held

up

to

And so when it came to breaking the logjam in the

press about the razverstka vs.

tax question,

there was a

considerable amount of hesitation. On February 16, several leading Bolsheviks "discussed"-through notes and conversation at a Politburo meeting— the idea of publishing an article in Pravda on the feasibility of a tax.

Kamenev had submitted an article authored by the

Moscow food commissar,

Pavel Sorokin,

Moscow oubzemotdel. Mikhail Rogov, tax-in-kind

over

the

razverstka.

and the head of the

on the advantages of a The

article

closely

reflected the Politburo's thinking and Kamenev probably had a hand in its authorship.

Nikolai Meshcheriakov, a Pravda

staffer, had expressed to Lenin his doubts about the need for immediate publication.

Krestinskii expressed the same

sentiment in a note to Lenin during the Politburo session. Lenin'? written response to Krestinskii stated that Kamenev "would not recommend anything bad. article] tomorrow." his

apprehension

I vote to publish [the

Krestinskii then communicated to Lenin about

the

official

character

of

the

article— written almost in the name of the Moscow Soviet. Lenin

recommended

individuals

and

not

that as

the

authors

official

sign

figures,"

article be published as a discussion article.

as and

"private that

the

Krestinskii

146

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would not budge.

He wrote back to Lenin:

Stalin considers it strategically disadvantageous that is is not we who provide the basis fkanva 1 for an unavoidable discussion. For that reason he is for not publishing the article without a previous discussion of it by us. Thus, the question will be decided by Bukharin.56 The

article

was

published

in

Pravda

in

the

way

Lenin

suggested in two parts on February 17 and 26. Thus, from early February the Party leadership was busy preparing deteriorate

a

change

of

considerably

opening of the Tenth

course. in

the

But four

conditions weeks

would

before

the

Party Congress when the new policy

would be introduced.

*

*

*

The fuel crisis was the dominant topic of the major newspapers

in

February,

with

questions

asked

about

its

origins and the potential short- and long-term solutions. There

was

a

good

deal

of

finger-pointing

by

and

at

Narkomput'. Glavtop. the alavki in general, VSNKh, and, of course, Narkomprod.57 56

PSS. vol., 52, p.73, and pp.366-7.

57 See, for example, Ekonomicheskaia zhizn7. February 19 and 26, 1921. Press reports on the heroic efforts to procure food and fuel for the industrial centers were much like depictions of Civil War battles. 147

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In Petrograd citizens were divided into two groups— one with electric light from 7 to 9 PM, the other from 9 to 11 PM.58 that

A lead article in Izvestiia VTsIK informed readers "Petersburg

streets

are

almost

totally

unlit."59

According to one report, Moscow needed at minimum 469 cars of fuel per day, but by mid-February was averaging only 380 cars.60 Suspicion of foul play led to investigations, which in Petrograd calls

for

took a

on

a

decidedly

wholesale

purge

anti-specialist of

the

tone with

energy

organs.61

Glavtop. already rocked by corruption trials in December and January, was once again in the spotlight. it

was announced that Felix Dzerzhinskii

On February 17, had been put in

charge of investigating the embezzlement of

fuel and was

setting off for the Donbass region.62 With the fuel supply dwindling, to close.

On February 10,

factories were forced

it was announced that all of

Petrograd's large enterprises would be shut down days.

All totalled,

in the month of February,

58

Izvestiia VTsIK. February 11, 1921.

59

Ibid., February 15, 1921.

60

Ibid., February 20, 1921.

61

Krasnaia gazeta. February 4, 1921.

for ten over 100

62 For Glavtop/s difficulties, see Kommunisticheskii trud. January 6, 1921. On Dzerzhinskii, see Izvestiia VTsIK, February 17, 1921.

348

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factories would lock their doors in Petrograd.63

*

*

*

As the food situation steadily worsened in the major cities, were

the mood of workers further deteriorated.

now

scattered

demonstrations

in

strikes

both

in

Petrograd

capitals.

Iurii

and

There workers'

Steklov's

lead

article in Izvestiia on February 12 observed that at various demonstrations workers could be heard saying, the

October

Revolution

give

[us]

"So what did

anyway?"

countryside, peasant rebellion was rampant.

In

the

To the Tambov

region and its Antonovshchina Western Siberia was now added as a crisis area of peasant violence.64 The

Bolsheviks

demobilization

of

Red

were Army

caught

in

troops

was

a

bind:

feeding

the

peasant

63 Pravda. February 12, 1921; Genkina, "1948," p.4. S. N. Semanov, "Likvidatsiia antisovetskogo Kronshtadtskogo miatezha 1321 goda," Voprosv istorii, 1971, No. 3, p.26. In the search for fuel, the citizens of Petrograd took to dismantling wooden buildings. According to one report, by February about 150 structures had been torn down, with 50 more slated for destruction. The Petrograd Soviet issued a special appeal to the people to halt this practice. See Ibid., p.25. 64 Oliver Radkey, The Unknown Civil War in Soviet Russia (Stanford, 1976), pp.229. Radkey is correct to emphasize the importance of developments in Western Siberia in February for the change in the Bolshevik program, but he somewhat overstates his case. 149

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rebellion, yet the lack of fuel was stranding troops in the process

of

being

demobilized,

for

some

a

discomforting

reminder of the events of spring 1918.65 If all of this were not unnerving enough, during this tumultuous period, the anarchist Peter Kropotkin, a figure of tremendous authority well beyond the anarchist movement, died in Moscow after a long illness.

Kropotkin's feelings

about Bolshevik rule and its mistreatment of anarchists were well-known. scene

of

Moscow.

His

one

funeral on Sunday,

of the

February 13, was the

largest demonstrations

in post-1917

While the demonstration did not assume a political

character,

it no doubt strenghthened the Bolsheviks' sense

of isolation, a feeling they would later describe as worse than the darkest days of White encirclement in 1919.66

65

izvestiia VTsIK. February 20, 1921.

66

On Kropotkin's funeral, see Goldman, pp.191-2. 150

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Lenin and -the khodoki

Soviet

historians

devote

considerable

attention

to

Lenin's meetings in February 1921 with visiting peasants or men of peasant origin, who travelled to Moscow to offer the leader their suggestions countryside— recalling revolutionary Tsar.

One

importance

khodoki must

of

be

for

improving conditions

the

tradition

presenting cautious

these

their

not

encounters,

to

of

in the

the

petitions

pre­ to

the

overemphasize

the

as

some

of

their

participants (and some Soviet historians) no doubt do.

But

this series of meetings of rural representatives with Lenin came at a critical juncture, when the leader's thinking on the

peasant

documented

question with

was

memoir

somewhat

fluid.

literature

and

Several it

is

are

worth

considering these in some detail.67 Lenin's

concern

about

peasant

attitudes

toward

Bolshevik agrarian policy increased toward the end of 1920 as the area of sown acreage in European Russia continued to decline and as Narkomzem prepared to put into effect the first centrally directed sowing campaign. Lenin's

extreme

attentiveness

to

We noted earlier

peasant

concerns at the Eighth Congress of Soviets.

grievances

and

From October

67 Artistic depictions of Lenin seeking the simple wisdom of peasant visitors to his Kremlin office have become something of a cottage industry in the Soviet Union. For a description of the khodok. see Louis Fischer, The Life of Lenin (New York, 1964), p.459. 151

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1920

into

February

1921,

peasants

addressed

a

flood

of

letters in the names of the Central Committee, the Presidium of VTsIK. Lenin and Kalinin, complaining about the burden of the

requisitions

and

the

abhorrent

behavior

of

local

Narkomorod officials and Party bureaucrats in carrying it out.

Increasingly,

percentage,

they demanded the setting of a fixed

"norma,"

of

grain

and

other

products

to

be

in

cities

required of each peasant.68 Now

with

deteriorating more

the

economic

rapidly

widespread,

and

Lenin

situation

with peasant

sought

the

violence

face-to-face

becoming

contact

with

peasants and others from the countryside in order to get a better feel for the problems there.

Most with whom he met

in February 1921 were from Siberia— not surprising given, on the regime's side, its determination to make up lost ground on the razverstka in this region and its concern over the recent peasant

outbreak side,

of the

peasant fact

violence

that

the

there,

and,

razverstka.

on

the

recently

introduced to the area, was tremendously unpopular. Barely 40% of the minimum target for grain requisitions in Siberia had been met by February 1. V.

N.

Sokolov,

of

peasant

origin

and

a

member

of

Sibrevkom. had fallen out of favor with his colleagues in Siberia for his anti-razverstka attitudes.

Strongman Petr

68 Poliakov, pp.193-201; Iustuzov, pp.120-1; Genkina, pp. 45; Iakovlev (p.8) reproduces what he claims is a typical peasant letter in this vein. 152

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Kaganovich,

head

of Sibbiuro. had recently

forbidden all

criticism of the razverstka. referring to the idea of a tax as "petit-bourgeois" and "speculative" (meshochnicheskii).69 Sokolov met with Lenin on February 2 and suggested a twopoint plan for dealing with Siberia: 1) set a "norm" of 100 million poods of grain for Siberia; and 2) whatever is left over leave to the peasant for his own use or for voluntary "exchange" with the government

(tovaroobmsn^ A c c o r d i n g

to Sokolov, Lenin asked: "You believe that if it is declared beforehand responded,

what

is

wanted,

they

will

sow

more?"

He

"No doubt they will, it is economic instinct."71

Lenin asked Sokolov to present his ideas to the collegium of Narkomzem

and to Tsiurupa, which he did the following day.

The Narkomzem collegium barely heard him out, labelling him a "Girondist." to

speaking

about

the

one member

Another added: "When it comes muzhik.

Il'ich

is

a

known

opportunist."72 Sokolov's encounter with the ailing Tsiurupa went no better.

The Siberian had barely begun to discuss his ideas,

when Tsiurupa rose from his sickbed yelling: "NonsenseI . . 69

Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. p.78.

70

Don (Rostov na Donu), 1957, No. 4, p.116.

71

"Nakanune NEPa," Starvi bol'shevik. 1930, No. 1,

p.116-

72 Ibid., p.117. Sokolov added: "To appear a Girondist in the company of Lenin was in no way an insult." Part of this account is confirmed from separate sources by Iustuzov, p.130. 153

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. You want us to work for you?!

You want the dictatorship

to adapt to the peasant appetite?!"73 Sokolov's "theses" on the food question, drawn up for the

review

of the

Central

never got a hearing.

Committee

at Lenin's

request,

As he was leaving Moscow, he was told

by Krestinskii, "It appears that your theses won't even get into the archives."74 Things went more smoothly for the non-party Siberian peasant,

Osip

Chernov,

who met with

Lenin on February 9

(five days after the metal workers' conference) and who also recommended the introduction of a tax on grain.

Two days

later, he was able to see his ideas in print in a Pravda article.75 Tambov

On February 14, Lenin met with a delegation of 6

peasants

who came to ask that

razverstka be lightened.76

the burden

of the

On February 28, he met with the

peasant Chekunov of Vladimir province. Lenin seems to have 73 Ibid., p.119. Sokolov points our that Lenin never bothered sending him to the militant collegium of Narkomnrod. which would have been "totally useless." 74

Ibid., p.123.

For the theses, see pn, 120-122.

75 Pravda. February 11, 1921. Chamberlin (p.446) calls this the "first sign" of the coming changes. See Chernov's later article in Bednota, March 9, 1921. For his memoir, eee Vospominaniia o V.I. Lenine. 5 vols. (Moscow, 1969-70), vol. 4, pp.300-303; and Krest'iane o Lenine (Moscow, 1927), pp.9-19. In 1928, Chernov, then a Bednota staffer, called for a broadening of NEP. This time he was less successful. Stalin called his position a "defense of the kulak" and labelled him a "Trotskyite." See Stalin, Sochineniia. 13 vols. (Moscow, 1946-51), vol. 11, pp.167-168. 76

Recounted in Iakovlev, p.7. 154

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been very impressed with this non-Communist "sympathizer," and arranged for him to publish his ideas on the advantages of a tax on grain in Bednota.77

The next day Lenin wrote to

Osinskii: It is people such as these that we have to grab hold of with all our might to regain the trust of the masses of peasants. This is the basic political task, which will not tolerate delay. I ask you: do not be taken up by a too administrative rapparatskoi1 point of view. Don’t get totally upset because of it. Pay more attention to political relations with the peasant. Maybe we should create immediately (rather, set about to create) a "soviet of working peasants" or a "soviet of non-party peasants". . . Chekunov + Siberian + another from a non-grain growing province. We will turn this trio of old men rstarikil either into collegium members [of Narkomzem1 with advisory voting capacity, or into the kernel of a "soviet of non-party peasants," or into a similar association rkorooratsiial. Strike while the iron is hot.78 This is the only evidence we have that Lenin considered this kind of political concession to the peasantry.

He soon

dropped the idea, one that no doubt would have engendered considerable opposition from the top leadership. true to

form,

Osinskii,

took hold of the idea and pursued it well

after Lenin had cooled to it.79

Chekunov was later made a

77 Bednota, March 3, 1921. Chekunov's memoir is in Vosoominaniia o V.I Lenina, vol. 4, pp.318-321. See also Leninskii Sbornik. vol. XXXV, p.228; and vol. XXXVI, pp.201202.

78

PSS. vol. 52, pp.85-86.

79 As a rule, Soviet secondary sources do not dwell on this passage in Lenin's note to Osinskii. A more attractive topic is the fierce criticism directed at Osinskii by fellow 155

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member of the collegium of Narkomzem. charged with the task of "receiving khodoki."

The bolder concept of a "peasant

soviet" gave way to Kalininist cosmetics. On March worker,

V.

N.

1,

Lenin received a

Kaiurov.

Kaiurov

letter from the Tomsk wrote

that

the

food

detachments were causing "enormous moral harm to the state of the republic," ignoring the centuries-old "psychology of such an enormous mass.**

He, too, auvxsed the establishment

of a grain quota, the remaining grain left to the peasants for "commercial" use.80

If they tell us anything, the records of these meetings show us how deeply embedded were the attitudes of some key Bolshevik officials as late as February 1921, how far the Party had to travel in such a short time.

They also suggest

that Lenin was abandoning the old positions more quickly than some of his colleagues— or perhaps he had held to them with less conviction before.

From this point onward Lenin

stood further and further apart from most leading Bolsheviks on the peasant question.81 Bolsheviks for suggesting the idea later in 1921. p.437.

Poliakov,

80 Proletarskaia revoliutsiia. 1924, No. 3, p.57. For Lenin's notations on and reply to Kaiurov's letter, see Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, pp.71-72. Lenin underlined the word "commercial." 81 At a Central Committee meeting in early March, Lenin was criticized for his association with the "SRs" Chernov and Sokolov. Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, pp. 66-67. In fact, 156

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It is unlikely that Lenin learned a great deal from these conversations that staff reports and his reading of the press had not told him already.

What he heard, however,

probably reinforced some of his notions of the solutions that

needed

to

be

implemented:

the

replacement

of

the

razverstka and the harnessing of Narkomprod. Above all, the records of these meetings underscore the central

concern

Lenin

shared

with

most

every

Bolshevik

whenever the tax issue was discussed: namely, the question of what the peasants would do with the surplusses.

Of one

visitor Lenin asked: "And where will the surplusses be put? Will they be sold?

You mean we need trade?"82

Petrograd and Kronstadt

Toward the threatening

end

of

the

scene

of

anti-Bolshevik activity shifted to

and then on to Kronstadt. Moscow.

February,

the

most

Petrograd,

But the tension did not let up in

The trade union debate raged on.

On February 24,

Lenin told a gathering of the Party aktiv: "We have to pull ourselves together and understand that one more step into

Chernov had briefly been an SR before the Revolution. 82

Vospominaniia o V. I. Lenina, vol. 3, p.99. 157

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discussions and we are not a party."83

Two days later, a

Moscow conference of non-party female workers worked itself into

a

frenzied

Semashko speak

state,

and

refusing

demanding

to

that

let

Lenin

the

Bolshevik

address

them,

threatening to march on the Kremlin if he did not.84 On February 28, with rumors of a major anti-Bolshevik demonstration in the making in a Moscow raion, an emergency meeting

of

the

plenum

of

soviets

and

called.

There were heated exhanges involving the Menshevik

representatives

the of

Moscow

Soviet,

factory

the

raion

committees

was

speakers, V. G. Epifanov and A. Iugov, in what was perhaps the

last

Menshevik

major

Moscow

Soviet

participation.

meeting

Responding

with to

significant

criticism

of

Bolshevik agricultural policy, Lenin said: Here someone spoke about a tax. There is a lot of good sense in that, but the speaker incorrectly forgot to add that in the newspaper Pravda. which is the Central Organ of the Russian Communist Party, (and earlier than we spoke of it from this podium) in the pages of Pravda the suggestion of a tax was made over the signature of not just any colleagues, but of responsible rotvetstvennyel ones. When the non-party peasant says to us: "Think more closely about what the small peasant needs; he needs assurance: I will give so much, and then run my business [khoziainichaiu]," we say, yes, that makes good sense and it completely corresponds to local conditions. And as long as we don't have machines, and as long as the peasant himself doesn't want to go over from petty- to large-scale farming, we are inclined to take 83

PSS. vol. 42, p.350.

84 Leninskii sbornik. vol. XXXV, p.226. Lenin did address the group, though there is no record of his remarks. 158

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account of that idea. And in a week at the party congress we will pose this question, figure it out and bring forth a decision that will satisfy the non-party peasant, satisfy the broad masses.®5 If

Lenin was

frustrated that the

Bolshevik plan to

institute a tax in the coming days was somehow not public knowledge, the

his frustration was partly self-inflicted.

conference

ended,

it

issued

a

proclamation

"To

As All

Workers . . . ," which made no mention of the changes under consideration.86 In Petrograd, workers were told in a more direct way of the intention to drop the razverstka ♦ front

page

of

Krasnaia

gazeta

on

A statement on the

February

27

over

the

signature of Zinoviev and Kalinin read: In order to improve the situation of all peasants. Soviet power is planning the transition from the grain requisiton to a natural tax so that only a fixed percentage of bread goes to the government and the rest remains at the full disposal of the peasant.87 Border patrols were instructed to apprehend only "genuine speculators"

and

not

ordinary workers.

On March

1,

the

border patrols were removed from Petrograd altogether.88 85 PSS, vol. 42, p. 363. For the background meeting, see Sochineniia. vol. 26, pp.644-645. 86

Pravda. March 1, 1921.

87

Krasnaia gazeta. February 27, 1921.

88 Strizhkov, p.287, n.215. mid-March.

on

the

Elser.here they were removed in

159

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The Bolsheviks could ill-afford to be any less direct in Petrograd. a

general

With factories closed, the workers had called

strike

declared.89

it

fell that

program

echoed

rising

is on

because

Bolsheviks,

on

February

24,

martial

law

was

Though the February strikes in Petrograd were

spontaneous, agitation

and

clear

that

sympathetic

party's the

to

a

at

of

saw

Menshevik

time, and

the

fit

speeches

the

economic

demands

characteristically,

discontent

ears

short-run

basic

Menshevik

simply

political

workers.

to

and

The

attribute

conspiracy.

the

Wholesale

arrests of Petrograd and Moscow Mensheviks began.

As the

month of February wore on, however, the "Menshevik threat" had worn thin, and more and more the Bolsheviks invoked the threat of White reaction to remind angry workers of what lay in

wait

for

them

down

the

treacherous

path

they

were

pursuing.90 Thus,

it was like a self-fulfilling prophecy when at

the end of February the Kronstadt sailors revolted.

The

rebellion grew out of the sailors' expression of solidarity with the striking Petrograd workers.

Paul Avrich's study

concludes that while the Kronstadt uprising was not in fact inspired by foreign or emigre^ organizations or individuals of

any

political

shading

and was

genuinely

spontaneous,

89 Krasnaia gazeta. February 25, 1921. Paul Avrich's Kronstadt 1921 is the best source on Petrograd in February 1921. 90 See, for example, Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. February 13, 1921; and Izvestiia VTsIK. February 24, 25, 26, 1921. 160

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enough circumstantial evidence to the contrary existed so that the Bolsheviks were able to convince the people themselves)

that the event was

(and

connected with a host of

Bolshevik ghosts and goblins— Chernov, Miliukov, Makhno, the White generals, etc..91

The foreign enemy, so valuable to

the Bolsheviks in the past when they required sacrifices of the population, returned to the scene. The

revolt

at

Kronstadt

for

a

time

pres e n t e d

substantial military challenge to the Red Army.

a

It later

became a heavy load in the historical baggage of Bolshevism. But

at

the

time

of

its

outbreak,

it

actually

proved

beneficial to the Party. With

the

imagined

foreign

enemy

before

Bolsheviks seemed to become themselves again.

them,

the

Their spines

stiffaiied, they intensified the rounding up and jailing of Mensheviks, to

be

like.92

SRs, and anarchists,

in league with the

now conclusively "proven"

exiled Kadet Miliukov and the

Furthermore, and as we shall now see, the uprising

helped to close the ranks of the Party at the Tenth Party 91

Avrich, p.221.

92 On the arrests of the Mensheviks, see Dan, p. 131. Kalinin said later that if the Bolsheviks had not acted against the leaders of the Mensheviks and SRs when they did, there would have been a "Moscow Kronstadt." Matiugin. p.95. The evidence suggests, however, that the anti-party sentiment among the workers was so strong that while the Mensheviks could encourage the workers and associate with their cause, they could not lead them. However, the arrests of the Mensheviks, did make it easier for the Bolsheviks to implement "Menshevik" policies. 161

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Congress and enabled the leadership at the Congress to pass the new economic measures with relatively little foot-dragging,

defuse

the

trade

union

fuss or

controversy,

and

disarm the Workers' Opposition with ease. The Kronstadt rebellion did not move the Bolsheviks to "implement" the "New Economic Policy," as is often stated or implied.93

Kronstadt

assisted

Lenin

and

some

leading

Bolsheviks in taking a bold and necessary first step in a series of measures that collectively would later come to be called the "New Economic Policy," or "NEP."

At the Tenth

Party Congress in March, the delegates passed a resolution on the replacement of the razverstka by a tax-in-kind,

a

measure the Party was moving to adopt before the uprising occurred.

The

Bolsheviks

who

experienced their own "Kronstadt."

mattered

had

The sailors'

already rebellion

93 Most Soviet historians correctly conclude that the events at Kronstadt had little effect on the eventual course of Bolshevik economic policy. Avrich shares their conclusion, as does Louis Fisher (p.472) and Carr (p.272). Some argue that the Kronstadt rebellionhastened NEP. See Chamberlin (p.439), and Schapiro, Origins (p.308). Others see it differently. For example, Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Unarmed (Oxford, 1959, p.510), and Adam Ulam, The Bolsheviks (New York, 1965, p.473), view Kronstadt as the primary reason for the retreat. (Inexplicably, Deutscher describes the revolt beginning while the Congress is in session.) Two passages from Lenin on Kronstadt are routinely cited. On March 27, 1921, Lenin said: "The Kronstadt events were like a flash that lit up reality more clearly than anything else." In April 1921 he wrote: "The economics of spring 1921 turned into politics: 'Kronstadt.'" PSS. vol. 43, pp.138, 387. Trotsky said in 1926 that at Kronstadt "the middle peasant spoke with the Soviet government through naval guns." Quoted in Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow (Oxford, 1986), p.53. 162

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only

served

to

pre-empt

opposition

at

the

Congress

and

thereby ensure the appearance of the Party performing its volte-face as one.

The Tenth Party Congress (March 8-16)

The Tenth Party Congress was one of the most unusual Bolshevik gatherings ever held.

It opened on the day of the

first assault on Kronstadt, which was a miserable failure. In

the

end,

participate

about

450

delegates

and

"guests"

in putting down the rebellion— most

would

of these

were absent from the bulk of the Congress proceedings.94 The Petrograd delegation of 35 never showed up.95 the

end

of

the

Congress,

several

delegations

Toward

requested

permission to leave early, so that various issues were voted on out of proper order. Before the Congress, Lenin's address on agrarian policy was to be called "On the Basis of Economic Reconstruction." By the time the Congress began, however, this was changed to 94 The figures on the numbers of delegates who went to Kronstadt vary substantially from source to source. The best analysis is A. S. Pukhov, "Ob uchastii delegatov X s"ezda RKP(b) v likvidatsii antisovetskogo Kronshtadtskogo miatezha 1921g.," Voorosv istorii KPSS, 1972, No. 2, p.107. The total number of delegates at the Congress was approximately 1,135. Desiatvi s"ezd. pp.756-759. Fifteen delegates died in the assault. Avrich, p.211. 9^ All except for Lenin and, periodically, Trotsky. Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, p.53.

Zinoviev and

163

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"On Politics and the Tasks with Respect to the Relationship to the Peasant," indicating things to come.

This was to

have been the trade union Congress, but the business at hand was far more fundamental.

The trade union issue was dealt

with in one session, with Lenin's platform winning handily. In his brief opening statement to the Congress, Lenin spelled out t h e •gravity of the issues before the delegates: . The very relations between classes have undergone a change, and this question should be— I think you will all agree— one of the main questions, which stand before you to work out and decide upon.96 In his report a short while later on the work of the Central Committee, Lenin spoke of the latter body's sloppiness and miscalculation in managing the economy and its mistake in letting the

trade-union discussion get out

of hand.

In

speaking of the lessons to be learned from these mistakes, Lenin again came to the fundamental question at hand: . Now we will draw from these lessons a political conclusion, not only a conclusion pointing out that or another mistake, but a political conclusion relating to the relations between classes, between the working classes [sic] and the peasantry. These relations are not what we thought they were. These relations demand from the proletariat immeasurably more unity and concentration of strength and they present for the dictatorship of the proletariat a danger many times more serious than all Denikins, Kolchaks and 96 Desiatvi s"ezd. p.2. Hereafter, references to the stenographic report of the Tenth Party Congress will be designated by the appropriate page numbers placed within the text. 164

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Iudeniches put together. On this account, no one should make an error because it would be the most costly. The difficulties arising from this petitbourgeois anarchy are many and in order to overcome them, we need a single friendly labor, a single will, because only with such a will of the proletarian masses can the proletariat execute the enormous tasks of its dictatorship and leadership in a peasant country, (p.29) The

problem,

bourgeois encouraged

Lenin

character

continued, of

the

to violence by

was

not

enormous

only

mass

the

of

a demobilizing army,

petit-

peasants, but that

their influence was spreading to the cities. . . . This mood has had a very wide effect on the proletariat. It has had an effect on the factories of Moscow, it has had an effect on the factories in a whole series of provincial areas. . . . (pp.33-4) Lenin now cautiously advanced the

idea

of a tax to

replace the razverstka. immediately pointing to the chief danger of the proposed new direction, contained in the words "free trade." We should attentively look into this petitbourgeois counterrevolution that puts forth the slogan "free trade." The words "free trade," even if they in the beginning are not so tied to the White Guardists as was Kronstadt, nevertheless inevitably lead to that White Guardism, to the victory of capitalism, to full restoration. And I repeat, we should be clearly aware of this political danger, (p.34)97 Lenin concluded by rationalizing the proposed new course as 97 This passage was left out of the 1921 edition of the stenographic report. 165

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building on the Party's past program, an argument he would attempt

to

refine

in the weeks

after the

Congress.

observed that the Bolsheviks had issued a tax decree at end

of

1918,

but

that

it had been

He the

pushed aside by the

exigencies of civil war. We were forced by the civil war to go over to wartime measures. But it would be the greatest mistake if we were to draw from this the conclusion that only those kinds of measures and relations were possible, (p.38) In the discussion that

followed this

report several

speakers underscored the central message of Lenin's speech, namely that the relationship between classes had changed. Some

noted

the

rising

anti-intelligentsia

sentiment

of

workers toward the Party and also within the local party organizations, the spread of syndicalism in the cities and "banditism"

in

the

countryside.

Sosnovskii

noted:

"The

biggest danger is that the party organization has turned into a peasant organization.” (p.81) Iaroslavskii said that if

the

local

razverstka. that layer

[sloi]

party must

organizations mean

were

that there

against

is a

of peasants in the party."

the

"significant

(p.105) Kollontai

revealed the apprehension shared by all the delegates: ". . . The principal misfortune, hidden

mistrust

for the

comrades,

broad masses;

is we

that we feel

feel a

that

the

masses are shrinking away from us." (p.101) On the impending reforms, Sosnovskii claimed it may be 166

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too

little too

late and pointed out that

"somebody" had

proposed such a plan one year before but had been voted down. (p.79)98 The scholarly David Riazanov, complained about the lack of

the

discussion

of

the

impending

tax

resolution

("I

consider it already accepted") and the suddenness of the new policy

("like

snow

falling

on

our

head")— even

for

the

Narkomprod staff. After a whole series of agitators today at the factories stood up and cried, "Prodrazverstka. without the orodra zverstka we cannot get b y ," on the next day— following comrade Lenin— they say, "There is good sense in the tax-in-kind and you must think that there is a new change in policy." This, comrades, we must avoid, (p.89) In

his

concluding

especially sensitive been

no

Party

razverstka.

remarks,

to Riazanov's

discussion

about

Lenin

seemed

charge that the

to

be

there had

scrapping

of

the

He referred to the two-part Pravda article in

February by Rogov and Sorokin, an article, he said, backed by the Central Committee. Lenin,

That no one responded to it, said

shows that no one wished to work on this subject,

(p.113)99

Lenin was irked that the discussion of his report

98 The "somebody" was Trotsky, who could be counted on to elaborate. See Ibid., pp.349-350. 99 We have seen how these articles came to have a rather "unofficial" wrapping. In fact, Riazanov was correct about the lack of published "discussion," though the word about what was brewing did get out. In Pravda. after the second installment on February 26, there was nothing more about the tax until March 15 and its official announcement on 167

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had

involved

the

usual

finger-pointing

and

that

some

delegates did not seem to understand the seriousness of the Bolshevik predicament.

However, the theme of the changing

balance of social forces in the country and the questions it raised (or implied) about the security and legitimacy of the regime became the leitmotif of the Congress.

March 16. In Izvestiia VTsIK the tax idea was first embraced on March 10. The following day a "discussion" article signed by A. Beliakov proposed a "firm planned requisition instead of a tax," but went undiscussed. In Kommunisticheskii trud on February 23, N. Ovsiannikov wrote: "The question advanced by several comrades about the transition from the methods of the requisition to the methods of a tax-in-kind and premiums for 'diligent' peasants without doubt deserves further discussion and elaboration." (He added: "We are calling the peasantry to self-activity, but we should take care that this self­ activity flows under our guidance.") The next word in this newspaper about the tax was the official announcement on March 17. Trud curtly noted on February 25 that a tax was under consideration. Professional'noe dvizhenie wrote on March 3: ". . . On the order of the day is the question of the replacement of the razverstka." In Bednota. Chekunov's March 3 article and Chernov's of March 9 intimated the changes to come. Ironically, Bogdanov of Narkomzem objected to the tax as proposed by Sorokin and Rogov, claiming it would cut off allroads to collectivizing peasant production. He defended a planned sowing, combined with a "fixed razverstka." as the best way to measure and retrieve peasant surplusses. See Ekonomicheskaia zhizn', March 5, 1921. Iustuzov (p.136) has analyzed the local press during February and March and finds it "in the spirit of the Eighth Congress of Soviets." 168

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*

*

*

What on the surface might have appeared a favorable atmosphere for the Workers' Opposition, led by Shliapnikov (incidentally, the chairman of the Metal Workers' Union), to score

some

points

was

in

fact

highly

unfavorable.

The

working class has become peasantized, the argument went, and therefore, to suggest more rights and power for workers is to encourage this "petit-bourgeois spontaneity.” this

reasoning

Opposition

is

continued, a

direct

the phenomenon result

of

this

In fact,

of the Workers' petit-bourgeois

influence among the workers and Party members.

And, taking

it one step further, the Workers' Opposition could only be encouraging the petit-bourgeoisie in arms at Kronstadt.100 The one top Bolshevik leader who appeared to have been most

affected

by

recent

events

and

who

verbalized

the

conclusions Lenin wanted aired at the Congress was Bukharin. He was (p.218)

clearly

shaken by the

recent

"big social

shift.”

In his report on Party structure, he remarked:

The most basic point is that at the present time the petit-bourgeois element not only whips at the proletariat, but drives through the proletariat. 100 ipije most direct charges of the connection of the Workers' Opposition to Kronstadt were made by Lenin (pp.113, 121), though innuendo was rampant. Kollontai vehemently denied the charge (p.300). Shliapnikov was less than tactful at the Congress under the circumstances, at one point wondering aloud why Tsiurupa had not been arrested for the mistakes of Narkomprod. See p.173 and Lenin's rejoinder that it was Shliapnikov who deserved arrest (pp.123-124). 169

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This is 'the most basic danger. . . . If the Party were to take this course toward toilers' power rtrudovlastiel, the proletarian dictatorship would not be able to hold on for one second, (pp.200201 ) Therefore,

the Workers'

opposition."

(p.223)

understanding

about

Opposition was

really

a "peasant

Bukharin pointed to the "absence of the

difference

between

the

leading

avant-garde [sic] of the working class and the significantly peasantized

mass

of

the

working

class.

If

you

demand

absolute democratism also for the peasantized mass of the working class, which comes forward with the demand for 'free trade'

and with a whole series of such demands then you

also,

probably,

admit

that

[your

demand]

is

also

an

expression of the same urge." (p.224) Bukharin referred to the impending concession to that petit-bourgeois

element,

peasant Brest."

the

tax-in-kind,

as

"a kind

of

(Riazanov later in the Congress used the

same expression to describe the tax measure,

p.468)

The

measure puts things in a holding pattern, he said, until a Western European revolution can help out. (p.224) Bukharin

criticized

period: the "shock work" fb o e w e prikazi).

the

methods

of

the

Civil

War

(udarnost'), the "fighting tasks"

These were now unacceptable.

The wartime

habits acquired over the previous three years had to give

170

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way to the methods of peacetime.101 In

the

featured

discussion

topic

sentiment

among

was

on

the

workers

Bukharin's widespread

and

report,

again

a

anti-intelligentsia

lower-level

Party

members.

Again, the Workers' Opposition was portrayed as an outgrowth of

this.

Workers' local

Iaroslavskii, Opposition,

comrades

Workers'

noted,

can

intelligentsia!'"

in

citing "From

draw

the

(p.263)

The

Opposition occupied

bashing"

the

these

of

the

suggestions,

the

conclusion: delegate

'Beat

Rafail

itself with (p.274),

(intel1iaentoedstvo)

program

the

said

the

"intelligentsiaand

the

term

"Makhaevshchina" was spoken several times at the Congress, (pp.105,

296)102

isolation,

The

speakers

the

the sense that the Party was

spoke of "internal war." had

echoed

to work

(pp.229, 265)

in such areas where

all

feeling

surrounded.

of Some

One said, "We have around there

predominates a half-feudal, half-patriarchal

still

(polu-rodovoi)

existence." (p.268) A Workers' Oppositionist, Party

must

not

retreat

Ignatov, countered that the

from

being

a

Party

of

the

101 The Congress resolution on Party structure, authored by Bukharin, concluded that the tremendous inequality in the Party and among the working class and bureaucrats was the result of work methods of the Civil War. See pp.560-561. 102 "Makhaevshchina" refers to the ideas of the Polish socialist Jan Waclaw Makhaiskii (pseud. A. Vol'skii), which depicted a natural antagonism between the working class and the intelligentsia, the latter portrayed as parasitic. Makhaiskii published his ideas in his 1904 pamphlet Umstvennv i raboch ii. 171

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proletariat, but must use the material it has at hand. taunted his

opponents

by

tracing their

reasoning to

He its

.logical conclusion: "If you . . . say that the working class we have is a peasant class, then it follows that our party rests on nothing.

You cannot rely on young Soviet ladies."

(p.317) The Workers' Opposition and the Democratic Centralists were easily defeated on every vote.

Among the conclusions

the Congress drew were that unity and purity were now allimportant.

A secret resolution banning factions was passed

("On

Unity")

Party

as

was

one

"On

Anarchist Deviation in our Party."

the

Syndicalist

and

The Congress agreed to

proceed with a cleansing of its ranks in the coming months.

*

The

most

important

*

+

business

of

the

Congress,

the

discussion of peasant policy, was dealt with quickly with as little discussion as possible on the morning of March 15. By this time many delegates had left for Kronstadt and some had returned home.103

Zinoviev, as chairman of the session,

began by saying, "The Presidium suggests we finish with this question in one morning session."

Eleven orators signed up,

103 peasant uprisings in Saratov and Samara forced delegates from these provinces to return home early. Trotskv Papers, vol. 2, p.410. 172

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the The

six were allowed to speak, (pp.402-3) Now,

six days after he had cautiously introduced the

tax question to the Congress, with

breathtaking

himself

to

bluntness.

inform

the

Lenin presented the issue He

continually

stenographers:

"I

interrupted

ask you

not

to

record that.n104 Lenin declared that Party went too far in nationalizing trade and industry. We must economically satisfy the middle peasantry and allow free exchange, otherwise to hold on to proletarian power in Russia, with the slowing of international revolution, is impossible, economically impossible. We must be conscious of this and not be afraid to talk about it. He offered a sobering forecast of the task ahead: ". . . T o re-work the psychology and habits [of the petit landowner] is a matter that will take generations . . . not centuries, but decades."

The mission of the Party was now to "cure the

peasant psychology."

The socialist revolution in Russia can

succeed, Lenin said, only if there is revolution in the West or if there is agreement with the peasants.

Since there was

little short-run prospect of the of the former, compromise with the peasantry was unavoidable.105 104

Lenin's speech is on pp.403-415.

105 In fact, two days after Lenin delivered his speech, the German Communist Party started an uprising— the so-called "March action." By March 31 it had ended in failure. There is little documentation of how the abortive uprising affected Bolshevik attitudes. See Carr, vol. 3, pp.335-338. Theodore von Laue gives the event the same weight as the 173

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You cannot deceive classes. . . . We must . . . present the question directly: the interests of these two classes [workers and peasants] are different, the small landowner doesn't want what the worker wants. Whereas at the March 8 session Lenin had used the words "free

trade"

only

in

the

sense

of

a

catastrophic

eventuality, now for the first time he used the phrase the describe a feature of the new policies. What is free transaction is capitalism.

transaction free trade,

[obgrot ]? Free that is, back to

Speaking about paragraph 8 of the proposed tax resolution, which read, "Exchange is allowed within the limits of local economic transaction," he said: What does this mean? Which limits? How can we carry this out? If anyone thinks he can receive an answer to such a question at this Congress, he is mistaken. Lenin asked that the Congress accept the new measures with all their internal contradictions and ambiguities and leave it to the "legal process" to work out the details. Turning reverse

the

cooperation,

to

cooperation,

resolution which

came

of

Lenin the

close

asked

Ninth to

the

Party

total

Congress to Congress

state

on

control.

Kronstadt rebellion in influencing Bolshevik behavior in March 1921, which is most certainly an exaggeration. See his Whv Lenin? Whv Stalin? A Reappraisal of the Russian Revolution. 1900-1930 (New York, 1964), pp.175-176. 174

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Lenin's

brief

resolution

simply undid that

of the Ninth

Congress and said little more. You will say that this is undefined. Yes, and it must be to a certain extent undefined. Why must it be? Because in order for it to be fully defined, one would have to know to the end what we will do the rest of the year. Who knows that? No one knows nor could know. This

reversal

on

cooperation

signalled

the

end

of

Narkomprod's free reign in the execution of food policy. This was the first institutional step in its demise.

Lenin

diplomatically tried to soften the blow: Komprod is a wonderful institution, but to necessarily subordinate cooperation to it and tie our hands . . . is to make an obvious mistake. . . , We know the apparat of Narkomprod. We know that it is one of our best apparats. Comparing it to others, we see that it is the best apparat and it should be preserved, but the apparat must be subordinate to politics. The outstanding Narkomprod apparat is worth nothing to us if we do not know how to set straight our relations with the peasants. . . . Politics is the relationship between classes— this decides the fate of the republic. The apparat as subordinate means the firmer, the better and the more suitable it is for maneuvers. But if it is not capable of carrying that out, then it is not worth a thing. Tsiurupa followed Lenin with a co-report that was often an emotional defense of Narkomprod.

He said he agreed with

Lenin on the tax measure and even accepted criticism of his Commissariat.

But he resisted the notion that cooperation,

his old nemesis, would have a key role to play in the new policies.

The

cooperatives,

he

said,

contained

175

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"evil

elements" and were meaningless to the population, (p.421) Tsiurupa charged that Narkomprod was being being made a scapegoat for the failures of the old system.

He objected

to the publication of the Narkomprod. VTsIK and Narkomiust' circulars resulted

at in

the a

end

of

bloodbath

February, of

the

which,

local

he

food

claimed, officials.

Narkomprod was being squeezed out by peasant violence on the one hand and by the local soviets on the other.

He praised

the heroism of the food officials (pp.421-3) and closed with the words, "We used state force and with it took bread. cannot

imagine

and alternative method

I

for collecting the

tax." (p.424) Mikhail Frumkin, a long-time Narkomprod hard-liner and fierce defender of the razverstka in 1920, followed his boss to say he agreed with the tax, but objected to giving up the grain monopoly,

something the proposed decree assumed, but

did not state: " . . .

It will be bad if individual exchange

is conducted not by us, but by traders." (p.433) countered

that

to

retain

the

monopoly

Miliutin

would

mean

effective retention of the razverstka. (p.435)

the

Frumkin's

alternative resolution was soundly defeated. Lenin in his closing statement stressed the unanimity of the Party on the tax resolution and reiterated that there were

many

trade.

question He

marks,

countered

particuiary Tsiurupa's

on

the

matter

criticism

of

of the

cooperatives, claiming that they would be easier to control 176

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than

a political

party.

Finally,

he

stressed

centrally directed sowing campaign would continue,

that

the

(pp.437-

441)106 Many written questions were passed up to Lenin during his speech.107 government

with

countryside?".

One read: "How will you support a workers7 the

development

Lenin responded:

of

capitalism

in

the

"This phenomenon presents

the biggest threat."

The Congress went as well as Lenin could have hoped. The head of Narkomprod was on record as a supporter of the new policy.

The key resolutions were passed as the Congress

neared its end, so there was little time for discussion, and the new measures left much room for maneuver. Lenin closed the Congress with the words: . On the question of the relations of the vanguard of the proletariat to its mass and of the relation of the proletariat to the peasantry we had no disagreement. He was right. until

later,

given.

But so much elaboration had been put off that major disagreement down the road was a

For now all agreed on one thing: that the Party must

somehow find its way back, in the words of the main slogan of the Tenth Congress, "To the masses!". 106 Avrich (p.223) incorrectly states that Osinskii's plan was abandoned as a result of the Tenth Congress. 107

Eighty-one of them, according to Gurov, p.142. 177

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The Evolution of the Tax Decree

An examination of how the legislation on the tax-inkind evolved from the beginning of February to the Sovnarkom decrees of March 28 offers insight into the evolution of Bolshevik thinking on this question as the Party prepared to take an important step.

Understanding the early aims and

assumptions helps to explain subsequent behavior. After a discussion on February 8 of Valerian Osinskii's report,

"On the Sowing Campaign and the Condition of the

Peasantry," the Politburo set up a commission of Kamenev, Tsiurupa and Osinskii to work out a draft Central Committee resolution on "improving the condition of the peasantry" for the forthcoming Tenth Party Congress."108 On February 18, the commission presented its report to the Politburo.

Its draft resolution included the following

points: — the razverstka would be replaced by a tax-inkind — the tax would be figured as a percentage deduction from a sown desiatina of land, its size conditional upon the size of the harvest, the 108 schapiro's statement that the question was referred to a commission because of deep controversy is a misreading of the mechanics of Bolshevik decision-making at this time. See his The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York, 1971), p.211 (hereafter: Schapiro, CPSU). 178

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number of working members per household and the number of livestock — the tax would be progressive, its burden falling less on the poorer peasants, though with incentives for "diligent" (staratel’nve) peasants who expanded their sown acreage — the 1921/22 tax rate would be set at 350 million poods of grain (compared to the target razverstka for 1920/21 of 423 million poods) — all supplies of food, raw materials and fodder left with the peasants after payment of the tax would "remain at their full disposal and be used by them for local economic exchange" (mestnyi khoziaistvennvi oborot) — Narkomprod would set up a special fond of goods to exchange for peasant surplusses at fixed prices — VSNKh would be obligated to give Narkomprod a sufficient supply of goods— fabrics, salt, kerosene, and agricultural tools— enough to attract 30 million poods of grain above the tax payments — a widespread press campaign would begin immediately to propagandize the new policies109 On February 24, a Central Committee plenum reviewed the draft resolution and formed a new commission of Tsiurupa, Muralov and Popov to complete "final editing."

The Tsiurupa

commission draft was completed by March 3 and given to Lenin for his comments.

This document was considerably different

from that of the Kamenev commission.110 In this version there was no assessment of the total tax for the country, nor was there a total for the goods to 109

Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, pp.58-59.

110

Ibid., pp.60-62. 179

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be attracted through tovaroobmen. tax would be paid

(point 9),

In the section on how the

it was stated that the tax

would be calculated by the sel'skoe

obwedinenie. meaning

there would be collective responsibility for payment at the village level. The

The earlier draft had been unclear on this.

wording

regarding what

was

to

happen

with

the

surplusses (point 10) betrayed the influence of the head of Aeei

rPe ^ n v i m a •

. . . The exchange of goods takes place solely through the Narkomprod apparat. Any other exchange beyond these forms will be prosecuted as speculation. Lenin attempted to replace this with the statement that a special

regulation

would

prevention of speculation,

be

worked

out

later

on

the

but this idea was rejected.

However, his suggestion that there be no immediate publicity campaign (point 13) was accepted. The

above

text

with

Lenin's

amendments

was

then

discussed at a plenary session of the Central Committee on March

7,

after

which

a

commission

of

Lenin,

Kamenev,

Tsiurupa and Petrovskii was charged with final editing. March 14, their draft was completed.

By

It was a much "softer"

111 Ibid., pp.59-62. Soviet historians, in their desire to portray Lenin gearing up for the struggle with the NEPman, consciously or not, misrepresent this suggestion, concluding that Lenin was so concerned to check speculation that he called for a special regulation. In fact, Lenin found the wording in the proposed resolution too rigid. 180

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document than the previous one.112

Point 2 stated that the

sum of the tax, to be determined later, would be "enough to cover the needs of the army, workers in the cities, and the non-agricultural population." economy

revived

goods expanded.

It would be lowered as the

and the possibility Here,

then,

for the exchange

was a major shift

of

from the

Kamenev commission draft: the emphasis on nalog had given way to an emphasis on obmen.— Consistent with this, point 8 stated that obmen would be allowed within the limits of local economic exchange— no /

mention

was

made

of

anti-speculation

measures.

Significantly, though there was a statement about the need for the creation of a fund of industrial goods to exchange for grain, no longer was this fund to be the responsibility of Narkomprod. This was the resolution approved by the Tenth Party Congress on March 15 .H 4 VTsIK

approved

it

and

The following day the Presidium of named

a

commission

consisting

of

Miliutin, Tsiurupa, Preobrazhenskii, Lezhava, and Manuilskii to work out legislation for the upcoming session of VTsIK. Its report to the Politburo on March 18 was rejected and a 112

Ibid., pp.62-63.

113 second part of the Sorokin/Rogov article in Pravda on February 26 had proposed a tax ceiling of 300 million poods. 114 curiously, the Narkomprod collegium protocols first mention any hint of a discussion of a tax on March 16. TsGANKh. fond 1943, op. 1, ed* khr. 833, 1. 57. 181

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new

commission of

Kamenev,

Miliutin and

Tsiurupa

was

appointed in its place. Their resolution was approved by VTsIK on March 21 and made a formal decree on March 23. were

included inthis

Some significant changes

document.115

Point

7

read:

"Responsibility for the fulfillment of the tax is placed on each separate household. removed."

Further,

worded

more

in

. . . Collective responsibility is

the section on exchange

popular

language:

(point 8) was

"Exchange

is

allowed

within the limits of local economic exchange through the cooperative organs as well as at the markets and bazaars." Here

was

the first

official

mention of

the

role

the

cooperatives were to perform in the new plan. Sovnarkom Tsiurupa,

thenset

Osinskii,

up

a

Lezhava,

commission

of

Kamenev,

and Miliutin to work

out

a

decree on the size of the tax and one on the exchange of goods.

Both Sovnarkom decrees were made law on March 28.

The decree on the size of the tax set the total 1921/22

campaign

at

240 million poods

(for an

for the "average"

harvest), or 20 million poods per month, as was available in the second half of 1920 when the situation appeared to be improving.116 The Sovnarkom decree "on the free exchange of bread, fodder,

potatoes

and

hay

in

those

provinces

115

Shornik dekretov. Book 7, pp.106-7.

116

Izvestiia VTsIK. March 29, April 2, 1921. 182

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where

the

razverstka has been completed," was the most liberal yet. "Free

exchange"

was

allowed

in 44 provinces

in European

Russia where the razverstka was over— not as yet in Siberia, the Ukraine, the Don and the Northern Caucasus.

There were

no stated restrictions on the transportation of goods and for the first time the removal of the border patrols was officially announced.

The wording on exchange was even more

"popular," referring to the rights of peasants to "freely sell and buy."117 This

was

the

culmination

of

the

move

away

from

collection (whether razverstka or nalog) to exchange as the basis

for

economic

relations

with

the

countryside.

Sviderskii called the two decrees signposts for where the regime was heading.118

117 One account credits Miliutin and Lezhava with the addition of such terms. See V. A. Tsybul'skii, "Tovaroobmen mezhdu gorodom i derevnei v pervve mesiatsy NEPa," Istoriia SSSR. July-August 1968, p.32. 118 Izvestiia VTsIK. March 30, 1921. S b o m i k dekretov. Book 7, pp. 167-8.

For the decrees, see

183

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Was "NEP" Late?

Later it would be asked by several of the actors in this drama as well as by some of their chroniclers whether "NEP"

had

been

introduced

late— whether

its

earlier

introduction could have spared the Bolsheviks the crisis of the winter of 1920-21. It is important to make clear that only a part of what would

later be

called

Party Congress.

"NEP" was

introduced at the Tenth

The Congress voted to implement a tax-in-

kind and limited exchange of goods between town and country. Though this was a decisive change, the "New Economic Policy" would grow out of what these measures implied during the years

1921 and 1922.

encompass

the

To much of what

leading

it later came to

Bolsheviks would

not

have been

reconciled at the time of the Tenth Congress. As

we

have

seen,

those

who

in 1920

proposed

the

replacement of the razverstka by a tax or "norm" never went so far as to call

for the abandonment of the government

monopoly on grain (even if only as a working ideal), as the Tenth Congress was essentially doing.

The proposals of 1920

at most reflected the Politburo's thinking of February 24, 1921, not March 15.

The worsening crisis of February 1921

forced a further revision of policy. replacing beginning

the of

the

razverstka 1920-21

with

Thepossibility of

a tax in

collecting

time

campaign

184

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for

was

the

never

seriously considered, Bolshevik attitudes being too hardened and

the

peace

as

yet uncertain.

And any move

in this

direction would certainly have been abandoned once Wrangel reappeared in the summer of 1920. A more could have 1920-21,

realistic question

is whether the Bolsheviks

instituted a tax during the

once Wrangel

had

been defeated

autumn/winter of and the general

economic situation began to deteriorate so rapidly.

Lazar

Kaganovich later maintained that the tax measure should have been

introduced

Congress.

three

Stalin

to

said

four

as much

months

before

at the

the

Tenth

Thirteenth

Party

Conference in 1924.119 Almost all contemporary Soviet historians claim that an earlier introduction of the tax was out of the question for obiective reasons: the regime desperately needed to continue bringing in grain after January 1 to feed a 5 million man army not firm.

as yet demobilized,

and the peredvshka was not

They argue that the announcement of a tax would have

shut off the flow of grain to the cities.i20 As further evidence, Soviet historians turn to a quote from a letter Lenin wrote to Klara Zetkin and Paul Levi of April

16,

1921:

"We

made

H 9 On Kaganovich, see Sochineniia. vol. 6, p.37. 120

our

Iustuzov,

concessions

p.204.

See Genkina, "1964," pp.15-16; Poliakov, p.233. 185

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in

time

Stalin,

rsvoevremenno 1 .«121

But by this Lenin meant that the Party

had not acted too late; it does not speak to the question of whether

it

historians

could point

have out

acted that

earlier. Lenin

Further,

never

spoke

Soviet of

the

"lateness" (zaoozdaniel of the new measures. However, the arguments about "objective" obstacles to reform simply do not hold up to examination.

In fact, by

January 1, 1921, though only one-half of the razverstka had been collected in European Russia, grain

to

be

gotten

there

and

there was little more

the

Bolsheviks

knew

it.

Demobilization was well underway by then, and many argued at the time that enough grain had already been collected to feed the army and the cities if the transport problem could be solved. argument without

in late December 1920 made this

Petrokonnnuna

in calling an end to its requisition activities central

approval.

There

were

many

other

such

examples of local behavior.122 The "breathing spell" was in fact solid, with the last of the White armies defeated,

as the Bolsheviks were well

aware.

regional

razverstka

And, would

finally, not

a

automatically

scrapping

have

spelled

breakdown of grain collection in other regions,

of

the

a total as events

after the Tenth Congress would prove. Though

the

obi ective

121

PSS. vol. 52, p.150.

122

Iustuzov, pp.124-7.

obstacles

to

change

186

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were

surmountable, the habits

subj ertive

Bukharin

considerable.123

spoke

factors— the

of

at

the

inertia

of

the

Congress— were

In response to Kaganovich's statement on

the lateness of the tax measure, Kalinin replied: . . . If four months ago, Kalinin had put together a commission to study the question of the replacement of the razverstka with a tax, Tsiurupa would have ordered Semashko [Commissar of Health] to have me taken to an insane asylum.124 Such was the rigidity of Bolshevik attitudes at the end of 1920.

It would take a tremendous psychological

change the consensus thinking.

jolt to

This was provided by the

events of February 1921. This then raises the question:

Once these subjective

obstacles were removed, did the Bolsheviks act with enough speed and vigor to alleviate the crisis? another

way,

could

Kronstadt

have

Or,

to put it

been

avoided?

Contemporary Soviet historians have failed to deal with the question.125 Once the top leadership was reconciled to the general idea of a tax, as it appeared to be in early-mid February 123

Ibid., pp.163-7.

124

Ibid., p.204.

125 Genkina (Gosudarstvennaia. p.106) in a huff rejects the very idea of the question. A. Slepkov (Kronshtadtskii miatezh. Moscow, Leningrad, 1928) and Robert Daniels (Conscience of the Revolution. Cambridge, Mass., 1960) maintain that Kronstadt could have been avoided by the announcement of a tax in January (Slepkov, p. 15) or in the autumn of 1920 (Daniels, p.144). 187

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1921, did it act swiftly enough?

In one sense the Party's

hands

remained tied by the trade union discussion.

Tenth

Party

Congress

had

been

scheduled

to

The

convene

on

February 6, but was postponed by one month so there would be more time to prepare the trade-union platforms.126

When the

ominous

in early

signs

February,

of

trouble

Zinoviev,

appeared

in Petrograd

Lashevich and Evdokimov were far away

campaigning for Lenin's trade union platform. for

Zinoviev,

Filling in

an unnerved Viktor Zorin telegraphed Lenin

about the deteriorating situation: "Where is Zinoviev? . . . The train will soon leave the station!"127 Despite the increasing warnings from its own members, the Party was obsessed with the trade-union issue, which now dominated devoted

the

local

considerable

Party

discussions.

attention

to

it

The

local

press

the

Tenth

through

Congress.128 But did the clearer heads among the top leadership do enough to get the word out about the impending changes?

In

light of later testimony to the remarkable effect the news of the tax had on the morale of the troops suppressing the 126 P. Ia. Gurov, and A. D. Goncharov, Leninskaia agrarnaia politika (Moscow, 1973), pp.144-5 (hereafter: Gurov). 127

Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, pp.9-10; Desiatvi s"ezd. p.868.

128 For the warnings, see Izvestiia VTsIK. February 15, 16; Pravda, January 25, February 15; PSS. vol. 42, p.281; Golos X s"ezda (Novocherkassk, n.d [1921]), pp.5-6. On the local press before the Congress, see Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. pp.73-74; Sokolov in Starvi Bol'shevik. p.115. 188

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Kronstadt rebellion, the Bolshevik hesitation on the matter is curious.129

After the Congress,

the press was filled

with reports of the calming influence the announcement of a tax had on workers, peasants, and soldiers.

What would have

happened had the Politburo announced it three weeks earlier?

Unofficially,

the message was

put

out that economic

reform was on the way, but the message was so diluted that it made little difference.

The Pravda articles of February

17 and 26 were awkwardly "sponsored" by the leadership and they drew very little reaction in the press.

Zinoviev's

direct statement of the Party's intentions in the pages of Krasnaia aazeta on February 27 probably had some positive effect on the Petrograd workers, evidence of this.130

though there is no real

While the accounts of the returning

khodoki and the published remonstrations of Narkomprod were signals of the

intended changes,

there was still a great

129 S.E. Rabinovich, "Delegaty 10-ogo s"ezda RKP (b) pod Kronshtadtom," Krasnaia letopis'. 1931, No. 2, p.32; Avrich, p.198. 130 Astonishingly, the front-page column next to this was entitled: "Removal of money and natural taxes." It announced the completion of the process, begun several weeks before, of the removal of all taxes— monetary and in-kind— leaving the razverstka as the sole source of "income." This was to be made official at the upcoming VTsIK session in March. As it turned out, the session's first order of business was to drop this item and replace it with the discussion of the tax decree. That these announcements were placed side-by-side, could only have confused the uninformed reader. The ships of War Communism and NEP were passing in the night. 189

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deal of ambiguity about the fate of the razverstka.

As we

noted above, Lenin vetoed an attempt in early March to begin propagandizing the introduction of a tax. It is possible that Lenin wanted the arena of a broad authoritative body such as a Party Congress to

introduce

what would inevitably become a controversial step.

He might

have feared it would be misunderstood if he himself did not introduce it his way.

He was aware that, even though there

would be little objection in principle to tax idea, there was so much unclear and so many questions would be raised causing considerable uneasiness.

In a note to the Politburo

one week before the Congress began, Lenin advised cutting short a dispute between Narkomorod and the Union of Trade Unions over the former's handling of food policy: . . . Undoubtedly we cannot make decisions before the Party Congress and without the Party Congress. . Obviously we cannot allow the sowing of panic to no end.3-31 The panic that concerned Lenin was the potential for panic within the Bolsheviks' own ranks. the heart nearly

The razverstka had been

of Bolshevik economic policy,

three

years.

For

months,

essentially,

its

defenders

for had

vehemently denounced the proponents of the only alternative

131 Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XXXVI, p.204. As it happened, and as we shall see, the suddenness of the announcement, coming, as Kalinin said, "as if from heaven," caused considerable confusion and no small degree of panic. Kalinin, Voprosv. p.90. 190

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policy as Menshevik sympathizers or worse. and-file Party members this

retreat

to

the

How would rank-

(let alone their leaders)

"Menshevik" position?132

react to Later,

it

would prove to be of some benefit to the leadership that the Congress had announced the change and not the Politburo in the form of an emergency measure. waiting,

however,

was

a

The short-run cost of

worsening

of

the

political

situation, the culmination of which was Kronstadt. The

Kronstadt

sailors

issued

both

economic

and

political demands, as did the Petrograd workers at the end of

February.

economic.

But the political Once

Petrograd

agenda

workers

were

grew

out of the

informed

of

the

impending economic reforms and received their rations at the end

of

February

(the

result

of

emergency

measures

by

Zinoviev), their demands for democracy evaporated.

In this

case,

finding

"democracy"

meant

the

freedom to

something to eat (i.e., "free trade"). the sailors at Kronstadt.133

go

about

The same applied to

The political demands of the

Kronstadt rebels were unnacceptable to the Bolsheviks. at

the

Tenth

Congress,

the Party's

program

But

for economic

reform went further than the Kronstadt demands.

If Lenin

132 Poliakov (p.228) ranks high among the subjective factors behind Bolshevik hesitation this fact that a tax had long been advocated by the Mensheviks. 133 Dan (p. 112) accuses the Bolsheviks of buying off the workers through their extraordinary food measures at the end of February. See also P. A. Sorokin, Leaves From A Russian Diary (New York, 1924), p.266. 191

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and his colleagues had acted more aggressively by officially (and clearly) announcing their new economic policy in midFebruary,

Bolshevism might have been spared the legacy of

Kronstadt. Even

when

the

Tenth

Congress

began,

there

was

no

apparent hurry to pass the tax measure early on, though the armed hour.

engagements

around

Kronstadt

grew bloodier

by

the

Not until March 15 was the tax resolution discussed

and approved with virtually no opposition. Adam Ulam accuses Lenin of "smuggling" the tax measure into the Congress and claims that the delegates went away not realizing how important it was.134

There was indeed

something

the

curious

and

unsettling

about

way

it

was

introduced so cautiously at first and then approved so late in the Congress with so little discussion. seen,

division

fundamental Congress.

parts

within of

the

the

top

But, as we have

leadership

new measure

over

continued

some

into the

Only near its end had Lenin prepared a united

front, and only on vague resolutions at that. As for the course of events at the Congress, Lenin

wanted

to

stifle

unnecessary

discussion

clearly

until

the

central leaders figured out for themselves what approach to take.

So there is something to Ulam's statement.

But that

the significance of the measure was lost on the Congress was

134 Ulam, p.475. Carr (p.282) writes of the tax resolution that "its full significance was scarcely realized" at the Congress. 192

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not: totally the case. on

the

tax

many

As noted above, during Lenin's speech

notes

containing questions

were

for Lenin.

passed

up

to

the

podium

These have nowhere been

published, but Lenin did read several, and he promised to study and respond to them in a pamphlet.

Judging from the

number of notes he received, the nature of his remarks about them and the character of the ones he read aloud, at least some of the delegates were keenly aware of the riskiness of the step being taken.135 Lenin,

who

If not, it was not the fault of

from the opening of the Congress attempted to

impress upon the delegates the nature of the difficulties ahead. ' What Lenin wanted to do was allow the top leaders to catch

their

maneuvered

breath

the

and

discussion

decide

the

next

and

voting

so

steps. that

Lenin

there

was

little time for the delegates to get worked up about the details and the theory, which the core leadership itself was not ready to discuss.

Why what yesterday was unacceptable

was today not so needed its theoretical packaging.

135

Gurov, p.145. 193

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"Free Trade"

After the Tenth Party Congress, Lenin would often say that

the

new

economic

policies

"unanimously" by the Congress. All

the

delegates

to

the

had

been

adopted

In a sense, he was right.

Congress

recognized

that

the

razverstka was at the heart of the regime's political and economic problems at the moment and had to be sacrificed. The vote for a tax was a vote for survival— an emergency measure.

But in accepting the introduction of a tax-in-

kind, the delegates allowed for a large measure of .ambiguity on what the decree implied for other aspects of the economy. The resolutions passed on the tax and on cooperation were very general and vague.

In Lenin's notes for his speech to

the Congress he wrote, "There is a whole series of possible transitions."136 The most contentious point of controversy concerned the question of what would happen with the peasants' surplusses.

136 Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, p.41. The Ukraine was a special case. The head of the Ukrainian Narkomprod. Vladimirov, sent a nervous telegram to Tsiurupa and Lenin on March 2, which stated categorically that a tax would be inappropriate in the Ukraine, and that all responsible Ukrainian food officials were against it. The Fifth AllUkrainian Congress of Soviets voted unanimously against the idea of a tax. The Trotsky Papers, vol. 2, pp.389-391; PSS. vol. 52, p.88. Collective responsibility for the tax payment was retained in the Ukraine and the razverstka there was continued until the harvest. The Ukrainian food officials had a reputation for militancy and peasants' committees modelled after the kombedv continued to exist in the Ukraine into 1923. See Desiatvi s"ezd. pp.121, 871, n.86. 194

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We have noted that this was the central concern of Lenin in his

discussions

February.

with

visitors

from

the

countryside

in

It was central to the Politburo discussions in

February as well.

Tsiurupa, defending Narkomprod turf, was

Lenin's most formidable potential opponent on this question-as the head of Narkomprod. he was the man Lenin needed most as a visible co- sponsor.

Tsiurupa recalls in a memoir how,

at a Politburo meeting, Lenin with great difficulty sought to convince him to give the main report on the new measure at the upcoming Congress. him.

"That

applies."

which

"You are mistaken," Lenin told

before

was

correct,

now

no

longer

Lenin reportedly argued further with Tsiurupa for

two hours at the latter's apartment.

Tsiurupa told Lenin he

would not himself give the main report, but only make a "coreport"

to

sponsorship.

Lenin's,

implying

Lenin responded:

something

less

than

"But all the same,

full

say you

are for free trade."137 137 Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. January 25, 1924; A. D. Tsiurupa, "Khlebnyi front," Leninskie stranitsv (Moscow, 1960), p.103. For further hints of the Politburo discussion, see Lenin's meetings with N. Miliutin (Vospominaniia o V.I. Lenina, vol. 4, pp.185-198) and Lezhava fLeninskii s b o m i k . vol. IV, pp. 381-2) . Also Drabkina, "Zimnii pereval." N. Valentinov (Vol'skii) Novaia Ekonomicheskaia Politika i krizis partii posle smerti Lenina (Stanford, 1971), p.31. Valentinov's second-hand account of Politburo haggling complete with a Lenin resignation threat is of limited value since the author cannot specify when the described discussions took place. V. N. Ipatieff, who lived in Moscow at this time, writes that Lenin "allegedly" had it rough in February. At first having received a minority vote on his tax proposal in the Politburo and the Central Committee, Lenin resigned and "Soviet Russia was without a government, so it is said, for 195

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On March 8, the day the Tenth Congress opened, Lenin wrote to Tsiurupa: "The center of gravity of the question is turnover (oborot), free economic turnover for the peasantry. You haven't fully grasped that . . . the essence is to know how to move turnover, exchange. . . . Otherwise, ruin."138 It is hardly surprising that the "exchange" issue was the

main

stumbling

block,

particularly

for

Narkomprod.

Throughout 1920, whenever the idea of a tax had been raised, it

was

quickly

restoration of trade" were

•

•

dismissed

as

"free trade."

the

first

The words

always pronounced

in the

step

"tax"

in

the

and "free

same breath by the

detractors of the tax idea.

These were seen as Menshevik

notions,

the

designed

capitalism.

to

smooth

way

for

the return

of

No matter that widespread trade was going on

right under their noses, to the Bolsheviks the "sacking" and "speculation" that existed would be squeezed out once the economy was brought back to its feet.

Meanwhile,

nothing

should be allowed to harm the sacred principle of the grain monopoly.139 several days until the Central Committee reversed its vote and accepted the N.E.P. program." The Life of a Chemist (Stanford, 1946), p.304. Teme (p.15) offers a similar account. 138 £SS, vol. 52, pp.91-92. Judging from Lenin's notes, the sticking point at a Central Committee meeting a few days earlier was the same topic. Leninskii sbornik. vol. XX pp.66-67. 139 Bukharin wrote to Lenin at the end of February, "Now we are legalizing that which has existed illegally." Leninskii sbornik. vol. IV, pp.384-385. 196

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The inviolability of the state monopoly on grain was a belief

that

survived

right

unofficially, well past "tax"

to

to

the

Congress

1921,

and

in the autumn of 1920, Lenin's

and,

The few early proponents of a

stimulate the peasant economy— Prigozhin

summer and Bogdanov January

it.

up

visitors

in

Strumilin in

February— did

propose that the statemonopoly on trade be Sorokin/Rogov Pravda articles

in the

abandoned.

net The

in February maintained that

the introduction of a tax would not "affect the principles of the monopoly."140 Right speakers

up

to

the

associated

Menshevism.141 entitled

the

Bolshevik

words

"free

writers trade"

and with

An article in Krasnaia gazeta on February 26

"Free

introduced

Congress,

Trade"

the

warned

that

if

would

fill

with

trains

free

trade

"sackmen"

were and

transport would be ruined: Given our conditions, free trade could bring forth a competition not of sellers, but of buyers, which in turn would lead to an even faster climb in prices. In

the

next

issue,

which

included

the

notice

of

the

impending abandonment of the razverstka. the lead article mocked: "'Long live freedom of speech, press and trade'. . . Who

aside

from

the

offended

speculator,

140

Pravda. February 17, 1921.

141

Izvestiia VTsIK. March 3 and 6, 1921.

who

beside

197

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the

fattened merchant could think up such a petty proclamation? 'No one,' answers every honest worker."142 On March 1, the paper printed a long poem over the signature "Brauning No. 215" called "Iiong Live Free Trade!" It ended with the stanza: So, fellas, that's free trade Introduce it and there's a price to be paid It leads the workers in a harness of hunger Back to the Tsar!!! At the Moscow conference of female workers and peasants where Lenin had been called in to calm the crowd, Bukharin told the audience: In Russia there were places where there were no Bolsheviks, where Denikin, Kolchak and others ruled, where there was free trade. And so what? Was it better there? Do you think we resisted only to bring back the landlord-capitalist and then throw him out again? . . . There is only one way out— to better the system that we fought for and won with difficulty and that has withstood the test of fire and sword.143 Much of the ambiguity surrounding this question at the Congress was the result of the language used to describe 142 Krasnaia gazeta. February 27, 1921. The "honest" worker was one not subject to a peasant psychology. 143 Izvestiia VTsIK. February 27, 1921. In August 1921, Bukharin wrote that of the five million Soviet workers in early 1921 (a figure he admitted was grossly inflated), hardly one million stood together with the 700,000 Communists against "free trade." Pravda, August 6, 1921. In the heat of the Civil War, in 1919, Lenin said: "And we say that [trade] is a state crime and in the struggle against it we will not retreat one iota." PSS. vol. 39, p.357. 198

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what might happen to the peasants' surplusses. three

words

(exchange,

with

somewhat

barter), "oborot"

"torgovlia" (trade).

War

had

(turnover,

meanings:

"obmen"

transaction), and

The 'first, obmen, was an acceptable

and familiar term for the Civil

distinct

There were

Bolsheviks,

who throughout the

attempted unsuccessfully to

organize

collective "tovaroobmen" between city and countryside.

a

They

understood it as an exchange of goods with no middleman, a transition phase to a moneyless economy.

(,,Produktoobmen,11

moneyless exchange, was the ideal arrangement, but in the short

term

was

considered

unrealizable.)

"Oborot"

was

frequently used as a synonym for "obmen" but was a less attractive term, as it could imply the use of money and a less

than

nearly

a

direct dirty

form word

"svobodnaia torgovlia"

of exchange.144 in the

Bolshevik vocabulary

(free trade)

associated with capitalists,

"Torgovlia" was

worse yet.

speculators, markets,

and

This was and the

end of the monopoly, the latter being for many a sine qua non of Bolshevik rule. All the resolutions and decrees on the tax up to the end of May 1921 used the words "obmen" or "oborot." never "torgovlia."

Though Lenin went much further in his March 15

address to the Congress, repeatedly using the phrase "free trade," the measure it voted on was a resolution sanctioning

144 Sokolov fStarvi Bol'shevik. p.114) reported to Lenin: "There is even less danger of tovaroobmen turning into tovarooborot." 199

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barter.

It called for an "exchange of goods" that would

take place within each

locality through the agricultural

cooperatives, who would be supplied with exchangeable goods by the state.

It was assumed that this process could be

controlled and,

in effect,

the monopoly preserved or only

compromised for a time.145

This logic ran in the face of

every prediction the Bolsheviks had made about the outcome of such an arrangement throughout 1920. committed illusion

to of

But they were now

attempting it.

They would hold

"local

exchange"

economic

for

on to the

another

six

months.146 Only

one

Soviet historian

claims that

at the Tenth

Congress Lenin was aware of what the decree spelled for the future of trade, but held back from including this in the resolutions so that the delegates could absorb the already major changes before them.147

In fact, when one adds up all

145 Lenin did say during his speech introducing the tax: "Theoretically, a state monopoly is not necessarily the best system from the viewpoint of socialism. As a transition measure in a peasant country, . . . it is possible to employ the system of a tax and free exchange." PSS. vol. 43, pp.70-71. 146 In a May 29 Pravda article, Sokolov wrote that the tax was not a rejection of the state monopoly, but "an approach to the creation of a real basis for it." 147 Genkina, "K voprosu o leninskom obosnovanii novoi ekonomicheskoi politiki," Voprosv istorii, 1967, No. 1, pp. 62-5. For this she was heavily criticized by her colleagues. See for example, Voprosv Istorii, 1967, No. 3, p.69; No. 5, p.43. Genkina's position is too lightly dismissed. Perhaps Lenin envisioned "free trade" as a worst-case outcome, nonetheless at the Congress he appeared to present it as a probable outcome. To be sure, Lenin was 200

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the evidence, it is hard not to believe that Lenin knew what was about to unfold and used such strong language at the Congress in order to prepare his colleagues for the shock. But

as

we

shall

see,

even

Lenin

overrated

the

Party's

ability to control the course of events. What seems to have been clearer to him than to most of his colleagues was that Bolshevism had been cut loose from its "War Communist" moorings.

The Party was adrift.

only echoing the statements of every leading Bolshevik in 1920 on the consequences of abandoning the razverstka. Anastas Mikoyan, a delegate at the Congress, believes that Lenin "did not want to show all his cards." Mysli i vospominaniia o Lenine (Moscow, 1970), p.160. 201

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CHAPTER THREE BOLSHEVISM ADRIFT (March 1921-March 1922) The market has been and is growing and "according to Marx."

created growing

Lev Kamenev, December 1921

The Awkward First Steps

In the year following the Tenth Party Congress, Soviet economy underwent a striking transformation.

the

At the

Congress, Lenin had warned about the unpredictability of the economic

policy

that

the

Party was

initiating,

but

even

Lenin did not at first anticipate how radical a break with the past

that policy would entail.

Eleventh Party Congress

By the time of the

in March 1922,

the

"new course,"

initially aimed primarily at the countryside, had become the New Economic Policy (NEP), encompassing every aspect of the Soviet

economy.

Though

NEP

would

continue

to

evolve

throughout the 1920s, by spring 1922 its basic features were distinguishable to the Bolshevik leadership,

and the break

with the "old economic policy," now called "war communism," was essentially complete.1 1 In the spring and summer of 1921, the Bolsheviks used the terms "new course" and "new economic policy" interchangeably and mostly without quotation marks. In the autumn and winter, "new economic policy," more often in quotation 202

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The present chapter traces the general development of the Bolshevik economic policy between the Party Congresses, with emphasis on agricultural policy, the growth of trade and

the

fate

of Narkomprod.

It

is not

intended as

an

exhaustive presentation of the Soviet economy in the first year of NEP. treated

The discussion emphasizes the subject areas

thus

far

in

this

work

in

order

to

reveal

the

contrasts between the War Communism and NEP periods.2 During this year of transition, the Bolsheviks did all they could to keep pace with the changes.

For many Party

leaders

realizing

it

was

a

most

painful

year

of

the

tenuousness of their political position and the limits of their power.

In the following pages we discuss Bolshevik

efforts to explain and rationalize the new course only in general terms,

reviewing the discussions at the important

Party and Soviet gatherings, and noting the major issues and marks, was the rule. At the Eleventh Party Congress, speakers were using the acronym "NEP," and from the spring of 1922, in official Party documents the "New Economic Policy" was now frequently capitalized and less often enclosed in quotation marks. Though Lenin's works are usually consulted for the first use of such terms, a reading of the central newspapers shows the first use of the acronym "nep" by Sol'ts in Pravda. January 21, 1922, and its first use in a newspaper headline in Pravda. February 16, 1922. The term "War Communism" gained wide currency within the Party from the summer of 1921. Though it is a label that likely surfaced earlier in Party discussions, the traditional reference to its introduction is Lenin's pamphlet "On the Food Tax" from April 1921. See PSS, vol. 43, pp.219. 2 Discussions of Bolshevik industrial policy during the early NEP period can be found in Carr, pp.297-317; Dobb, pp.132-144. 203

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turning points. Economic

How the Bolsheviks

Policy— politically,

psychologically— is

the

special

adjusted to the New ideologically

area

of

concern

and of

the

ensuing chapters.

*

*

*

The Bolshevik leadership devoted a good part of the spring of 1921 to working out the practical details of tax collection

and

tovaroobmen.

further

defining

the

arrangements

for

The new tax guidelines were established in the

landmark decree, "On the natural tax on grain, potatoes and oil seed," of April 21.

This decree set the size of the tax

on grain for the RSFSR at 240 million poods.3

The size of

the tax was to be determined for each household separately according to its amount of arable land, and not per planted desiatina. as

in

earlier

households with no more freed

from

the

tax.

drafts

of

the

decree.4

Those

than one desiatina of land were The

exact

payment

schedules

for

specific products were left to Narkomprod's discretion, but the decree set a deadline for cereals payment of December 3 The total of 240 million poods was said to be for a "middle" harvest. For a poor harvest the total would be 180 million and for an abundant harvest 400-450 million poods. Izvestiia VTsIK. April 24, 1921. 4 Proposals to tax each planted desiatina were discussed, but rejected as unsuitable for stimulating planting. 204

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15.

Further decrees set the size and guidelines for taxes

on eggs and milk products 10), tobacco

(April 21),

flax and hemp

(Hay

(May 11), hay (May 17), wool (May 17), market

gardening and melon-growing (May 31), beekeeping (June 3), meat (June 14), leather goods (August 8), and furs (October 27) .5 Each of these decrees made a point of demonstrating how the tax totals compared with the razverstka totals for the year 1920/21.

Below is a sampling of that comparison: razvertska

naloq 240

grain

423 million poods

potatoes

112

60

oil seed

24

12

128

80

hay

6

25.4

meat

Thus,

for

the

RSFSR

the

plan was

to

bring

in

240

million poods of grain by means of the tax and attract 160 million poods through tovaroobmen.

"Exchange” was to be

individual and voluntary and only permissible once the full tax

was

procedure

paid.

A

further

decree

in

May

described

the

for establishing an individual's eligibility to

engage in the exchange of surplus goods.

In this

ideal

5 Sbornik dekretov. Book 7, pp.482-483, 572-573, 603, 622663, 685, 517, 658, 613-614, 638-639, 530, 674-675, 677-678. 205

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arrangement, gives to

the village executive committee

the

recently-created

zaaotovitel*naia

kontora.

a

(volispolkom)

local Narkomprodunit, list

of

taxpayers

with

the an

indication of

the amount to be paid by each.

of that list,

the zaakontora accepts the payment and gives

the taxpayer a receipt.

On the basis

The taxpayer brings his receipt to

the village soviet, which marks it "tax paid." the

taxpayer's

credential

allowing

him

This becomes to

sell

his

surplusses.6 On paper it was simple and straightforward.

However,

as we shall see, the central leadership soon discovered that its

basic

directives

on

the

new

course

were met

with

confusion and skepticism by many local Party and government officials

and

by

the

intended beneficiaries

of the

"new

course,” the peasantry.

6 Sbornik dekretov. Book 7, p.110. The guidelines for tovaroobmen are discussed in detail below. The Ukraine retained collective responsibility for tax payment and allowed only collective tovaroobmen. The razvertska remained in effect in the Ukraine (as well as in Siberia and in other places) until the autumn. 206

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The memoir literature and the Soviet press

from the

period tell us of the swift transformation of the city of Moscow

after

the

Goldman

describes

stores

sprang

announcement the

up

of

the

"great miracle"

overnight,

prodnaloq. of how

mysteriously

delicacies Russia had not seen for years."7 of

the

change

of

policy

following the Tenth Party

made

the

Congress

(VTsIK)

stacked

and with

The suddenness

period

immediately

extremely awkward for

local Party and government officials. Central Executive Committee

"shops

Emma

At the All-Russian

meeting of May 31,

a

speaker complained: At the moment when the Party accepted the specific resolution that the razverstka should be replaced by a orodnaloq. already after that, specifically on March 25, the theses of comrade [Petr] Kaganovich on the food question were published, which theses he developed at the Siberian Party Conference, which took place before the [Tenth] Congress. In those theses, it states more or less that the policy of prodnaloq is a kulak policy, an SR policy, which could be executed only by the enemies of Soviet power. It is very possible that such an opinion was shared by many Party workers

7 Goldman, p.201? Sorokin, p.270; Angelica Balabanoff, Impressions of Lenin (Ann Arbor, 1968), p.63. Anastas Mikoian, V nachale dvadtsatvkh (Moscow, 1975), p.143. Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary (London, 1963), p.147. Fedor Dan's description of Moscow after his release from prison, though from early 1922, is no less interesting. See Dva qoda skitanii. pp.252-253. A predominant image of these and other accounts is the enticing pastry shop. 207

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up to the Party Congress.8 A Red Army official in Iurii Libedinskii's novel Komissarv employs

a

symbolic

point

of

reference

to

express

his

puzzlement: The decree on the prodnaloq. Well done, of course. But what comes next? Why, just recently we scattered the Sukharevka.9 ■» On March 15, the day Lenin addressed the Tenth Party Congress on the adoption of a tax, the Don regional soviet executive committee "speculation," all

issued an order on the struggle with

calling for the immediate

"speculative" stores,

cafes,

"liquidation"

of

kiosks and pastry shops,

and the arrest of those trading in them,

as well as the

confiscation of all such properties.10

If

many

Party

and

government

officials,

especially

those in food work, now had a severe adjustment to make, the 8 Sessii vserossiiskoao tsentral/noqo ispolnitel'nogo komiteta. VIII s o z w a (Moscow, 1921), pp.214-215 (hereafter: Sessii1. An agitational film (agitka) called "The Sickle and the Hammer," promoting the razverstka policy and starring Pudovkin in the lead role, was filmed by Eduard Tisse just before the change in economic policy. It is said to have enjoyed only limited distribution in 1921. See Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State. Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization. 1917-1929 (Cambridge, 1985), p.204. 9 Iurii Libedinskii, Komissarv (2nd ed., Leningrad, 1926), p. 16. 10 Vosstanovitel#nvi period na Donu (1921-1925qq.)♦ Sbornik dokument.ov (Rostov, 1962), pp.65-66. 208

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peasants

themselves

could

not

immediately this

strange turn

peasants

to

appear

prodnaloq with

have

considerable

be

expected

of events.

greeted

the

suspicion.

to

comprehend

On the whole, introduction To be

of

sure,

the

Bolsheviks do not appear to have expected the peasantry to embrace

the

enthusiasm.

idea of the prodnaloq with

a great deal

of

A delegate to the Tenth Party Congress summed

up a new sober attitude about the peasantry shared by an increasing number of central Bolsheviks after March 1921: The decree [on prodnaloq! will be as popular as a measure that demands something of the peasant can be popular.11 By most accounts,

the majority of the peasantry were

distrustful of the regime's intentions in announcing the end of the razverstka. and this distrust lingered well into the 1921/22 tax campaign.

Most simply did not believe that the

Bolsheviks would abide by their decision for very long and sensed that the re-irrtroduction of the razverstka was only a matter of time. peasants

feared

By summer, the

there were reports that the

assignment

of

a

"supplemental

tax"

should they pay the tax initially assigned to them.12 11

Desiatvi s"ezd. p.430.

12 Preobrazhenskii, after a trip through the countryside, reported this peasant fear, noting that the peasants remembered the razverstka as a "terrible nightmare." Pravda, August 13, 1921. See also Mikoian, V nachale dvadtsatvkh. pp.188-189. Kuraev in Krasnaia nov', 1921 (September-October), No. 3, p.319. See Tukhachevskii's report from Tambov in The Trotsky Papers (vol. 2, pp.480209

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This suspicion was shared (and probably fed) by local Party leaders.

On the eve of the Tenth Party Conference in

May, a leader of the Eletskaia uezd Party organization asked a Central Committee member "in secret," "Will the razverstka be revived in the autumn?1,13 visiting the countryside

Often, the central Bolsheviks

found that the peasants did not

underscand or had heard nothing of the new legislation.14 One account concluded that "in the majority of cases,

the

peasants not only do not know to what end the prodnaloq is carried out, the difference between it and the razverstka— in general they do not know much about,

for example, the

posevkomvl1,15 The confusion, ignorance and distrust of the peasantry

13 Shekhvatov, pp.66-67; V. P. Dmitrenko, Torqovaia politika sovetskogo qosudarstva posle perekhoda k nepu. 1921-1924 (Moscow, 1971), pp.53-54. 14

Kommunisticheskii trud. May 29, 1921.

15 Ibid., May 29, 1921. Also, May 18. Izvestiia VTsIK. April 10, 1921 f"Na mestakh'H . The best statement on peasant ignorance, the rumors of the return of the razverstka and the prodotriadv. and Bolshevik impotence in the countryside is Antonov-Ovseenko's report, "On the bandit movement in Tambov Province," written in the summer of 1921 and printed in its entirety in The Trotsky Papers. vol. 2, pp.484-565. Also see Iu. N. Klimov, V surovve qodv dvadtsatve (Murmansk, 1968), p.47.

210

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with respect to the surprising

given

extremist

policies

shift

the

in agricultural policy is not

nature in

of the Russian peasant,

the

countryside

only

the

recently

terminated, and the absence now of an adequate mechanism for explaining

to

the

peasants

change in course.16

the

reasons

for

this

sudden

However, it is also possible that the

Bolsheviks made matters worse for themselves with their call "To the peasants of the RSFSR" of March 20, 1921. document,

the

first direct proclamation to

In this

the peasantry

concerning the new policy, the prodnaloq is referred to as a "temporary measure."

This

meant

that

the

tax would

be

reduced over time as industry revived and foreign trade was established.

The

meaning

is

clear

to

anyone

willing to read the document carefully and fully. it is not document reinforced

able

and

However,

improbable that for those peasants hearing the read

aloud,

their

the

wording

predisposition

to

of

the

proclamation

suspect

razverstka would at some point be reintroduced.

that

the

Certainly

the history of the Russian peasant offers examples of more 16 The Bolsheviks were hampered in their efforts by a severe shortage of paper for print. For a general discussion of the use of propaganda and the mobilization of personnel to explain the new policy, see I. V. Milova, "Agitatsionnaia rabota partii sredi rabochikh mass pri perekhode k nepu," Voprosv istorii KPSS. 1972, No. 11, pp.93-102. Also Iakovlev, pp.12-15. Logunov, pp.96-97, 104. On the poor level of penetration of the village by the newspaper and on the force of rumor, see Jeffrey Brooks, "The Breakdown in Production and Distribution of Printed Material, 1917-1927," Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez, Richard Stites, eds., Bolshevik Culture. Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution (Bloomington, 1985), pp.153, 165. 211

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outrageous rumors nurtured on far less.17 In the official press, side-by-side with these reports of

peasant

suspicion,

were

numerous

accounts

of

the

immediate positive effect of the prodnalog decree on the "mood" of the peasants. resolutions

of

These were usually in the form of

non-Partv

workers7

and/or

peasants7

conferences organized by the Bolsheviks.18 The

interpretation

prodnaloa/obmen peasantry rebellion.

and

policies in

a

of Soviet historians had

major

way

a

settling helped

to

is that the

effect

on

the

defuse

peasant

One Western examination of the Tambovshchina

minimizes this influence and attributes the end of peasant violence to hunger, exhaustion and suppression by force.19 Oliver Radkey, taking into account the evidence of peasant distrust toward the change in policy, nonetheless feels that "distrust admits a ray of hope and does not imply total 17 Copies of the proclamation are in Sessii. pp.96-97; and in Chamberlin pp.501-503. Already on April 18, the journal Vestnik acitatsii i propaqandv in its first issue since the Tenth Congress, was emphasizing to its agitators that the tax measure was in fact not temporary. One article complained that some agitators were discrediting the change of course by beginning their speeches with "sweeping condemnation of the razverstka." and not demonstrating any connection between the old and the new policies (p.21). Also Ibid., July 4, No. 14-15, pp.9-13. 18 Poliakov, Perekhod. pp.438-452, has a summary of these resolutions from Pravda. See also A. A. Timofeevskii, et al., V. I. Lenin i stroitel7stvo partii v pervve qody sovetskoi vlasti (Moscow, 1965), p.222; Iakovlev, pp.17-21. 19 Seth Singleton, "The Tambov Revolt (1920-1921)," Slavic Review. September 1966, pp.508-510. 212

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rejection.”

He sees the new course as a major factor in

neutralizing the countryside.20 Radkey's interpretation makes sense. party

resolutions

that

flooded

the

While the non-

press

do

have

an

orchestrated character about them and are somewhat diluted by the accounts of peasant ignorance and disbelief,

given

the broad scope of the bubbling peasant violence in JanuaryFebruary 1921 (fed by an army demobilization that continued through the year), it is difficult not to conclude that the reforms of March 1921 were critical to quelling the antiBolshevik violence in the countryside.21 It is likely that some of the confusion about the new course early on was caused by its delayed introduction in certain

geographic

regions.22

As we

noted

earlier,

the

20 Radkey, p.383. Antonov-Ovseenko noted in July that the peasants greeted the tax decree with "complete satisfaction." The Trotsky Papers, vol. 2, p.523. See also Saratovskaia partiinaia organizatsiia v qodv vosstanovleniia narodnoao khoziaistva. Sbornik dokumenfcov. 1921-192 5qq._, Saratov, 1960, pp.39, 78, 80 (hereafter: Saratovskaia). 21 As we shall see, Narkomprod's retreat from the field of battle was swift. Thus, a central object of peasant hatred was quickly removed. 22 Notably in the Ukraine and Siberia. In the Ukraine as of March 1921, only 40% of the razverstka had been collected, and thus it was continued. Here the prodotriady continued to grow during 1921 and the Ukrainian Narkomprod was said to be more "militarized" than elsewhere. See Vladimirov's telegram to Lenin and Tsiurupa of March 30 proposing tight restrictions on trade in the Ukraine. In Iustuzov, p.227. Also, L. N. Melnikova, "Bor'ba KP(b)U za osushchestvlenie prodovol'stvennoi politiki (konets 1919seredina 1921gg.)" (Candidate's dissertation, Kiev University, 1972), pp,129-130, 183-184. 213

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razverstka harvest.

was

left

intact

in

limited

areas

until

the

The hope was to collect as much grain as possible

in these regions before giving in to a total reliance on the tax

and

tovaroobmen.

survived,

grain

However,

collection

went

where ahead

the only

razverstka with

great

difficulty. Siberian prodkomissar Petr Kaganovich telegraphed Lenin on April

12

from Omsk

in a panic,

complaining that the

prodnaloa decree had destroyed three years of hard work to convince the peasantry of the "iron necessity" of parting with its goods.

He claimed that the informaticn coming from

the center was confusing and that it would take some time before more goods could be collected, and then only through the use of force.23 Another element of the confusion was the question of the relative importance of nalocr and obmen.

The Bolsheviks

promised the peasant a progressively shrinking total tax as industry

grew

tovaroobmen.24

more

capable

of

producing

the

goods

for

Thus, tovaroobmen was presented as the key

element of the new course.

Lenin in a speech of April 9

referred to the tax as a "transitional measure,"

in which

23 Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. p.117. Lenin, in a note to Tsiurupa, rejected Kaganovich's claims, referring to him as a "stupid, whining old woman." PSS. vol. 52, p.147. Genkina gives the total for grain collected through the razverstka after the Tenth Party Congress as 30 million poods. Gosudarstvennaia. p.118. 24

Izvestiia VTsIK. March 20, 1921. 214

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was

visible

future."25

"something

of

the

past,

something

of

the

Kommunisticheskii trud on June 1 referred to the

tax as the "leftover razverstka."

As we shall see, this

unfortunate phrasing would serve to raise havoc with tax collection in the autumn.

For now it left some wondering

why the tax need be collected at all. Yet another "grey area" of the spring of 1921 was the question of the posevkomy. resolved

to

proceed

Though the Tenth Party Congress

with

the

"state

regulation

of

agriculture," it soon became clear that what the Bolsheviks originally

had

intended with

the posevkomy

could not be

realized as part of

the new course.

resisted the tide in

a series of Pravda articles.26

joint

Sovnarkom/VTsIK

decree

of

Osinskii

May

26

initially

declared

But a the

heretofore defined functions of the posevkomy "too narrow," and

Osinskii

thereafter.

referred

to

them

with

less

The posevkomy continued to exist,

frequency but their

"state regulation" features were removed.27 25

PSS, vol. 43, p.149.

26

Pravda. March 25,

April 5, 7, 10, 13, May 13, 15, 17, 26.

27 Osinskii was not unaware of the strong peasant resistance to his scheme. He told the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on March 20 that the peasants viewed the formation of posevkomy as the return of the koxnbedy. Sessii. p.104. For peasant hostility to the posevkomy. see Poliakov, Perekhod. pp.273-275. The posevkomy were officially abolished in early 1922 in the wake of the Ninth Congress of Soviets (December 1921). See Deviatii s"ezd sovetov. Stenoqraficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1921), No. 4, pp.5-6. For official steps to tame the posevkomy. see the document in Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, pp.72-73. Also 215

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Of all the areas of confusion and uncertainty, none was more significant than that of the extent of permissible free trade.

On the whole,

retained

its

harsh

after the Tenth Congress the press anti-trade

tone

accompanied

by

encouragement to Narkomorod and Tsentrosoiuz to get on with the

organization

Kommunisticheskii

of trud

tovaroobmen. of

April

An

article

6 proposed

an

in

elaborate

series of measures to restrict trade until state-controlled tovaroobmen could squeeze it out of the economy.

In part,

it proposed that only those physically incapable of labor (determined

by

specially

organized

medical

boards)

be

there

was

allowed to trade.28 As

trade

widespread

and

quickly growing

expanded

early

unease.

on,

The

title

of

a

xnmTniinisticheskii trud article of April 9 ordered: "Bread to the worker,

not

to

the

speculator."

The

following

day

another article noted the worker's increasing inability to afford to purchase items in shop windows, and how soon his only recourse would be to "swallow his saliva" and walk on. One observer complained that the roofs of train cars were

Novaia ekonomicheskaia oolitika i zadachi partii (Petrograd, 1921), pp.56-57. 28 A Don regional Party decree on trade, issued just after the Tenth Party Congress, described tovaroobmen as "state monopoly goods exchange." Vosstanovitel'nvi period na Donu, pp.66-68. Saratovskaia. p.28. Many people apparently believed that trade freedoms would be short-lived. See T em e, pp.255-256. 216

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falling through under the weight of sackmen (meshochniki).29 Fedor Dan glimpsed Moscow in July 1921 and observed: Where free trade allowed by the "new economic policy" ended and where crime began was hard to say from the side.30 Finally,

unease

among

the

Party

leadership

was

intensified by reports of local Party members abandoning the Party for its "capitulation" to the peasant.31

Though from

the

branded

start

those

leaving

the

Party

were

as

undesirables, who would anyway have been swept aside by the Party purge now being planned, desertion from the Party was a source of concern at this time for Lenin and the Bolshevik leadership.

*

*

*

At the height of this period of fluidity, on April 21, 29 Kommunisticheskii trud. April 13, 1921. On workers7 inability to afford purchases, see Ibid., April 10, 26. T e m e (p.397) tells us that the fuel trains were the fastest and so attracted the most sackmen. From the railway station, he recalls, an approaching fuel train appeared in the distance to be a swarm of bees. 30

Dan, p.199

31 Poliakov, Perekhod. p.410. See the Central Committee circular on desertion from the Party in P. Lavrov, Desiataia vserossiiskaia konferentsila RKPfb) (Moscow, 1957), p. 12. Western sources note that Party membership was dropping sharply even before March 1921. See Avrich, pp.183-184. 217

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Lenin published his pamphlet "On the Food Tax," the first attempt

to

place

the

new

course

in

some

perspective.

Lenin's pamphlet is an important document that deserves to be discussed in detail here,

and it is one we will have

cause to analyze in later chapters.32 "On

the

Food

Tax"

reflects

some

of

the

Bolshevik

illusions about the Soviet economy in the spring of 1921, but for the most part it proved to be a durable document, introducing themes that would become the stock of Lenin's future writings and speeches on the new economic policy. Lenin began with a long excerpt from his 1918 pamphlet, "On Left-Wing Childishness and on the Petty-Bourgeois Spirit."33 Here

for the

first time in detail,

he drew a connection

32 In Iurii Libedinskii's novel Komissarv. published in 1925, a reading of Lenin's pamphlet is, for a group of Red Army commissars in a large provincial town, the first word about the new course. Thus, the narrator: And all so suddenly for the commissars there was a new chapter in the revolution: it began one sultry summer day in '21, when after a general city Party meeting everyone walked holding in his hands the broshure just published on the instruction of the qubkom about the prodnaloq. It is quite possible that Lenin's pamphlet received broad distribution only by June (when it was published in the inaugural issue of Krasnaia nov'). One character in the novel explains that the recent decrees and resolutions from the center had seemed so confusing and contradictory that they had gone undistributed. Iurii Libedinskii, Komissarv. pp.102-104. Libedinskii joined the Party in 1921 and performed political work in the Red Army for several years. See Gleb Struve, Soviet Russian Literature (Norman, OK, 1971), p.130. 33 Hereafter, this pamphlet will be referred to simply as "On Left-Wing Childishness." 218

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between the "moderate” Bolshevik intentions and policies of early 1918 and the "new economic policy" of 1921.

What lay

in the middle were policies forced on the Bolsheviks by the Civil War,

policies to which Lenin now referred as "war

communism."34 To

reinforce

the

connection

between

1918

and

1921,

Lenin emphasized his notion of "state capitalism," a term that had alienated the "Left Communists" and others in 1918, in particular Nikolai

Bukharin.35

"State

capitalism," a

mixture of socialism and capitalism that was a transition phase to a socialist economy, had not been regarded as a step backward in 1918, Lenin insisted, and should not be in 1921. then

If one understood the Civil War policies correctly, "state capitalism" was now an advance for Bolshevik

power until full socialism could be reached.35 Lenin capitalism"

described under

the

the

various

Bolsheviks

forms could

that take:

"state foreign

concessions to help build up heavy industry; the enlistment of

the

cooperatives

to

move

goods

and

stimulate

light

industry; the state's hiring of capitalist middlemen in the exchange of goods; and the leasing of state factories.

He

went on: 34

PSS. vol. 43, p.219.

35 The controversy surrounding Lenin's idea of "state capitalism" will be discussed more fully in Chapter Five. 36

Ibid., pp.222-227. 219

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About these last two types of state capitalism no one speaks at all, thinks at all, notices them at all. But that happens not because we are strong and smart, but because we are weak and stupid.37 With customary bluntness he noted the growing strength of capitalism in the Soviet economy ("There is no doubt about this.

To close

insisted

that

suicide.

In a

one's eyes to this

attempts

to wipe

out

is laughable.") free

trade would

and be

significant passage, he continued:

"Correct" trade, that not slipping out of the grasp of state control, we should support, it serves us to develop. You cannot differentiate between speculation and "correct" trade, if you understand speculation in the politico-economic sense. Free trade is capitalism, capitalism is speculation— to close one's eyes to that is ridiculous.38 Lenin's words were directed at the vast majority of press articles on obmen and trade written since the Tenth Congress.

To the consensus view at the time that 'trade is

speculation' satanic

force

(the latter in Bolshevik eyes amounting to a that

had

to

be

exorcised

from

the Soviet

economy), Lenin now countered that 'speculation is trade.' And,

as distasteful as it may be,

trade was a necessary

element of the new economic policy.39 37

Ibid., p.227.

38

Ibid., pp.221, 236.

39 In mid-1921 a Bolshevik writer asked that "speculation" be defined and set apart from "healthy" trade. Dembo, p.VII. One of Libedinskii's Communists notes: ". 220

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Though

Lenin

seemed

at

odds

with

a

widely

shared

sentiment within the Party about the tolerance of trade, he nonetheless still shared his colleagues' assessment of trade as but a short-term way station on the road to socialism: The prodnaloo is one of the forms of the transition from the peculiar "war communism," made necessary by extreme need, destruction and war, to correct socialist produktobmen♦40 Produktobmen.

the

direct

moneyless

exchange

of

goods,

remained the ideal and was still at this time spoken of by Lenin and most Bolsheviks as an ideal within reach. Finally,

"On the Food Tax"

included a call for less

thought and more action, a theme that was to become one of Lenin's

standards

in the

coming months.

Those who act,

Lenin wrote, will accomplish more than those who "think of the

purity

instructions

of

communism,

write

regulations,

on state capitalism and cooperation,

rules, but in

practice do not move goods exchange (gborot) ."41

Two days after the publication of this pamphlet,

the

Secretary of the Don Party Committee wrote to Lenin: [T]here is the honest trader and there is the speculator, concealing goods; the honest trader we respect, but the speculator we will prosecute." Komissarv. p.109. See Pravda. May 29, 1921, on the need to force out fwtesniat') the speculator. 40

PSS, vol. 43, p.219.

41

Ibid., p.233. 221

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It is terribly difficult to come by detailed information about the new economic measures— you have to guess about many things.42 In

early May, several

excursions

into

the

leading countryside

Bolsheviks with

returned

further

disturbing

reports of widespread abandonment of the Party. officials

from

Many local

were asking that a Party Conference be assembled.

OnMay 10 the

decision was made to call an extraordinary

Party Conference and this was announced the following day in Pravda.43

*

*

*

The

Tenth Party

Conference

reports,

discussions

and

opened

resolutions

on May

reflect

26.

all

of

Its the

ambiguities and tensions of the new economic policy in the spring of 1921.44 The report by Sviderskii on the regulations concerning 42

Lavrov, p.12.

43 Osinskii appears to have been particularly influential in the calling of the Conference. See his report in Pravda of May 13. Also PSS. vol. 43, p.299; and Mikoian, Mvsli i vospominaniia o Lenine. p.174. 44 There is no complete transcript of the proceedings. Several of the Conference speeches are printed in Biulleten7 vserossiiskoi konferentsii RKP(b) (Moscow, 1921), Nos. 1-2 [hereafter: Biulleten/1; and Protokoly desiatoi vserossiiskoi konferentsii RKP(b) (Moscow, 1933) . 222

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the assessment and collection of the prodnaloo appears to have sparked the most controversy.

Sviderskii came well-

prepared,

chart

producing

an

impressive

outlining

the

breakdown of the tax according to harvest (11 possibilities with regional variations), amount of arable land (7 groups), size of household, and so forth.

But some of the delegates

found his language a bit excessive,

in particular his call

for the retention of the centralized food apparat ("Without the food dictatorship we cannot get by") and the continued use of coercion ("The execution of the tax system should be built on the coercion principle").45 Many

of

the

delegates

appear

to

have

heard

in

Sviderskii's words a call for the retention of the authority and methods of Civil War Narkomorod.

In the new Narkomprod

"institution of food inspection"— essentially an overseer of tax collection— some must have seen an attempt to continue the food detachments, from whose ranks the food inspectors were partially to be drawn. Lenin defended Sviderskii, despite what he described as the

latter's

"superfluous"

statements.

He

said that the

food dictatorship was now more necessary than ever and that coercion was critical to tax collection.

("Without coercion

45 Biulleten'. No. 2, pp.1-10. Sviderskii also referred to the tax plan's built-in stimulant to the planting of certain crops as "some coercion." 223

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we cannot get by")46 Another dispute at the Conference revolved around the question of tovaroobmen. which, Lenin noted in his opening speech,

"has

resolution

not

"on

up

to

now

questions

emphasized the prime

of

begun."47 the

new

The

Conference

economic

importance of tovaroobmen.

policy" Point 2

stated: "Tovaroobmen is the main lever of the new economic policy."48

Point 3 included the following passage:

The struggle with anarchic (i.e. slipping away from all control and oversight of the state) tovaroobmen. through the concentration of it primarily in the hands of cooperation, in no way inhibiting free trade. The study of the market.49 V.

P.

Miliutin,

whose

speech

on

obmen

was

full

of

optimism for the prospects of state control, wanted language more protective of tovaroobmen and there ensued a discussion about whether the word "struggle" in Point 3 was not too 46 PSS. vol. 43, pp.320-322; also p.313. Lenin had used the same words at the Tenth Congress. Ibid., p.37. Curiously, though Sviderskii referred to the prodnalog as the "base" and obmen as the "supplement," in direct contradiction to the Party's line, Lenin chose not to correct him on this. 47

Ibid., p.304.

48 Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika (Petrograd, 1921), p.38. There was some hesitation about including this expression, some delegates fearing that the peasant would take it as a signal that the tax need not be paid. PSS. vol. 43, p.339. 49

Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika. p.39.

224

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strong.

But Lenin resisted and won the point.50

For Lenin, the Conference provided another opportunity to

drive

home

the

need

for practical

work

in place

of

theoretical discussion: We have so m a n y resolutions, not only can no one read them, but no one can collect them. We should concern ourselves with work and not with resolutions.51 If the Conference wanted to send back one message with its delegates it was that the new economic policy was in fact not a temporary measure.

Thus, Lenin picked up on a

phrase spoken by Osinskii during the conference:

"vserez i

nadolgo" ("seriously and for a long time"), which became the Party's main slogan for the next seven months. "Vserez i nadoloo"— we really must mark this well and keep it well in mind, because encouraging this gossipping habit are the spreading rumors that we are conducting politics in quotation marks, that is, politikanstvo. that everything is being done for today. That is not true.52 50 PSS. vol. 43, p. 337. Miliutin told the conference (Biulleten'. No. 1, p.11): . . . [B]ecause the railroads have been and remain in the hands of Soviet power, it is clear that the wholesale trader in the sense of transporters will be fully in our hands, since without permission he will not be able to dispatch anything. . . . And since he will not be able to dispatch one railroad car, one more or less solid load, and taking into account that the entire water transport is in our hands, there is no doubt that oversight fortrade relations remains in the hands of Soviet power. 51

Ibid., p.330; also pp.315-316.

52

Ibid., p.329; also on p.340. 225

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The

delegates

Popularization policy,"

of

which

passed the

a

resolution

principles

instructed

of

regional,

the

called new

"The

economic

provincial

and

uezd

Party committees to hold special meetings to discuss the new policies. home,

However, even as these delegates were returning

the

Soviet

economy

continued

its

steady

transformation.

The Failure of tovaroobmen

At the Tenth Party Congress,

the element of the new

course that caused the most anxiety was the question of the "exchange" Congress

of goods. was

that

The general notion approved by the by

enlisting

the

aid

of

consumers

cooperatives, the regime could limit trade to a direct local tovaroobmen.

Unlike the attempt to organize collective and

compulsive tovaroobmen in 1918, the tovaroobmen of 1921 was intended to be voluntary and individual, though nonetheless "controlled" economic

by

the

exchange"

state. ceased

The ambiguous phrase to

be

employed

in

"local

government

resolutions and decrees shortly after the Tenth Congress, though it continued to find its way into press articles and, despite the rapid rise of trade,

for a time remained the

226

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Bolshevik "best case" outcome.53

The lead article in the

newspaper Trud of March 30 stated reassuringly: [F]rom rtovaroobmen1 to "free trade" is as distant as from heaven to earth.

Tsentrosoiuz began the process of recovering some of the independence it had lost during in Civil War through a Sovnarkom decree of April 7,

"On consumers cooperatives,"

which reversed the decree of March 16, cooperation consumers

under

heel.

cooperatives

By were

the

1919 that had put

April

singled

out

7

decree,

with

the

exclusive

rights to distribute all state-owned goods and to buy and sell agricultural goods.54

A Central Committee letter "On

cooperation" of May 9 summed up the leadership's hopes for the cooperatives in the new plan. The task of cooperation is to tear the small producer out of the clutching paws of speculators, to free the consumers and producers from the exploitation of the middlemen, to direct the main flow of the surplusses of the small producer into the hands of Soviet power and not into the hands of the reviving small capitalist.55 53 Meshcheriakov in Pravda. March 31, asked what "local exchange" meant and answered that no one could be sure, but that it probably assumed the confines of the province. 54

D i r e k t i w . pp.230-233.

55 Ibid., pp.234-237. An issue of some controversy in 1921-22 was whether membership in the cooperatives should be voluntary or obligatory. The April 7 decree obliged the entire population to join a consumers cooperative. Despite considerable support for voluntary membership, the 227

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The Sovnarkom decree of May 24 "On obmen." authored by a commission headed by Kamenev, called for tovaroobmen to be directed "primarily through the cooperative organizations," but it left rcom for Narkomorod to trade directly through private individuals.

For the first time the word "trade"

(torgovlia) was used in a published state decree.’®6 The document that spelled out the details of the new relationship operation

between

of

Narkomorod

tovaroobmen

was

and

Tsentrosoiuz

the

"general

in

the

contract"

("dogovor") signed on May 26 on the eve of the Tenth Party Conference. to

hand

The contract called upon Narkomorod immediately

over

to

Tsentrosoiuz

the

entire

fund

(fond)

of

manufactured goods in its possession for use by the latter in tovaroobmen.

The cooperatives were given control of the

entire technical operation of exchange, charged with making the

deals

of

direct

transport of goods. read,

Tsentrosoiuz

middlemen."

exchange

and

with

the

storage

and

"In exceptional cases," the contract even had the right to employ

"private

The cooperatives were to be the monopolist on

compulsory status was retained until

December 1923.

56 Ibid., pp.238-239. Miliutin tells us that there were two opinions on the exchange of goods in the commission: one that it should be limited so as to exclude wholesale traders, middlemen, and resalers; the other was for "full" free trade. The Central Committee supported the latter opinion. Biulleten/. No. 1, p.11. Lezhava claims that with Lenin's "active support" he succeeded in having the word "trade" written into one of the first decrees on goods exchange. See Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. IV, pp.381-382. 228

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the domestic market, acting as the agent of the state, the latter being extent

of

a

the

"shareholder" amount

of

in the cooperatives to the

manufactured

goods

it

supplied

Tsentrosoiuz.57 Exchange was to be conducted according to a scale of "equivalents" established at the center and based roughly on a 1:3 ratio of agricultural to manufactured goods: the value of an agricultural product would be its same price in preWorld

War

I rubles,

whereas manufactured goods would be

valued at three times their pre-war worth.58

Narkomorod was

to retain control of the overall direction of tovaroobmen, though

its

powers

to

intervene

were

limited

by

the

contract.59 The obvious problem with this arrangement, as Bolshevik critics of such a scheme had been saying for over a year, was that the state possessed no substantial fund of goods and had little prospect of acquiring one anywhere in a short period of time.

In an exchange of notes from early 1921,

Lenin wrote to Bukharin that the state possessed a "goods fund" trade." 57

ftovamvi

fond^

of

"factories,

railroads,

foreign

Bukharin wrote back that these represented only a

S b o m i k dekretov. Book 7, pp. 186-189.

58 The equivalents were first established in the April 21 tax decree. Izvestiia VTsIK. April 24, 1921. 59 This document did not leave Narkomorod the option of circumventing cooperation and dealing with the private trader, as did the May 24 "On Exchange" decree. 229

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potential fund and that 80% of the tovarnvi fond would have to come from abroad,

"either from the capitalists through

trade agreements, or from revolution."eo Indeed,

the

official

prognosis

into account this inadequacy.

for tovaroobmen

took

The short-run goal was to

attract agricultural goods totalling 66 million pre-war gold rubles through September 1921, for which the state planned to put forward manufactured goods totalling 12 million pre­ war rubles.

At the 1:3 equivalency this fond— if it itself

existed— would be inadequate to attract the necessary amount of agricultural products to the cities.

The hope was to

attract the difference through foreign trade.61 It

is

institution

curious that

how

theyhad

the so

Bolsheviks hounded,

expected

discredited

an and

weakened for three years to turn around and perform so vital and complex

a task in the

new course.

Local cooperative

organizations during the Civil War were severely drained by 60

Leninskii sbornik. vol. IV, pp.384-385.

61 A. D. Kondrashova, "Deiatel'nost' RKP(b) po razresheniiu prodovol'stvennoi problemy v period perekhoda i nachala nepa (1921-mart 1922gg.)" (Candidate's dissertation, Moscow University, 1973), p.94; Dmitrenko, p.51. Kondrazhova's study, told from the perspective of the cooperatives, draws heavily on Party archives and is an extremely valuable account of the growth of trade in 1921. Iustuzov (p.233) writes that Narkomprod requested from Sovnarkom 404 million rubles for the procuring of manufactured goods for long-term tovaroobmen— 160 million rubles would be used immediately to acquire industrial items, of this total 75 million for the purchase of domestic products and 85 million for imports. However, Narkomprod received an advance of only 50 million rubles (20 million for domestic goods and 30 million for imports). 230

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the intermittent cleansing of Iculak elements and personnel turnover had been high.62 the

cooperatives

Ill-feeling and suspicion toward

ran high,

especially within

Narkomprod.

The doaovor envisioned Narkomprod and Tsentrosoiuz working together, but the old prejudices could not simply vanish. Many at Narkomorod remained suspicious of the cooperatives, which they continued to regard as nests of kulaki and SRs.

Tovaroobmen as the Bolsheviks envisioned it never got started.

From the beginning, "free trade" and "speculation"

blossomed

and

overwhelmed

the

consumers

attempt to organize "exchange." calling

for

the

outnumbered by

struggle

with

troubling

cooperatives'

The early press articles the

speculator

were

soon

reports

from this

new field of

lead article

in Pravda

spoke of the

battle. On May

5,

the

threat that all of Russia was turning into a "Sukharevka." On the same day, Steklov in Izvestiia VTsIK admitted that "free trade" had become "free speculation," and spoke of the Party's

overoptimism

with

respect

to

tovaroobmen.

With

cynicism he observed: "In the present situation the 'free' market

is

far

from

free,

but

is

fully dependent on the

speculators." 62 Reportedly, when the Bolshevik Lezhava visited Lenin in February 1921 to suggest a major role for cooperation, Lenin asked if there was anything left of cooperation. Leninski.i s b o m i k . vol. IV, pp. 381-382. Also, Tsiurupa in Desiatyi s"ezd. p.421. 231

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At the Tenth Party Conference, Lenin noted that obmen had

not

as

appear

yet materialized,

to

have

performance.63

but

addressed

none

of

the

specifically

delegates its

poor

A Conference resolution simply reaffirmed

the faith in cooperation as the "basic apparatus for the realization of tovaroobmen."64 Aside from the poor harvest and drought of 1920, which led to the catastrophic famine of the summer of 1921, there were several basic developments early on that frustrated the establishment of tovaroobmen. First

of all,

the consumers

cooperatives were never

able to establish a genuine monopoly on the domestic market. From

the

outset

there

forms

of cooperation,

state

organizations,

was

as well factories

"organized meshochniki"). right

(within

(poezdki)

fierce competition

certain

as

from other

from central and

and enterprises

local

(so-called

Any workers' collective had the limitations)

to

into the countryside for grain.

organize

trips

The resulting

competition drove up the prices of agricultural goods and

63 PSS. vol. 43, p.304. In December 1921, at the Eleventh Party Conference, Kamenev noted this strange silence. Biulleten' ^Eleventh) . No. 1, p. 11. Mikhail FrnmJ'in later wrote that one month after the Tenth Co .jress, the leadership realized that obmen would not work out as it had hoped. L. Germanov (M. Frumkin), Tovaroobmen. kooperatsiia i torqovlia (Moscow, 1921), p.15. 64

Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika. p.39. 232

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led to calls for restricting these "chaotic poezdki.1,65

But

with the cuts in state food provisioning (discussed below), it was difficult for the state not to allow workers to fend for themselves in the hunt for food.66 On May 30, in a central Executive Committee discussion, Zinoviev asked for permission to pick out an uezd in Siberia to be set aside exclusively for the tovaroobmen activities of Petrograd organizations, saying that there surely had to be

room

for

such

an

arrangement

in

the

new

course.67

Sviderskii responded in exasperation: In Siberia Tsentrosoiuz has already been provided more than 90% of its goods, and along will come the Petrooradtsv with their own goods . . . and will ruin thecollection activities of Tsentrosoiuz. Comrade Badaev came from the Moscow food committee to Orenburg for the same purpose and what happened? We established there the 1:3 equivalent, but comrade Badaev established a 3:1 equivalent. Of course with this method the Petrooradtsv will disrupt our state collection drive in Siberia and deny Narkomprod the possibility to provision Peter.68

65 KoTmmunisticheskii trud. June 7, 1921. Also, June 12, 16, 25. On the proliferation of these poezdki and government measures to control them, see Dmitrenko, pp.5659; Tsybul'skii, pp.35-36. Pravda, July 16, 1921. In June the Moscow Soviet arranged for workers to have Saturdays free in exchange for one added hour of work per weekday in order to provide adequate time on weekends to travel to the countryside to trade for agricultural goods. For this and the anti-semitic sentiments it provoked, see Xrmnnnnisticheskii trud. June 7 and 26, 1921. 66

Izvestiia VTsIK. May 22, 1921.

67

Sessii, pp.172, 177.

68

Ibid., p.173. 233

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Operations such as Badaev's were the rule and by June and

July

the

provincial

cooperative

organizations

(gubsoiuzy) in the best-stocked grain areas, particularly in the Ukraine, were overwhelmed by competing groups.69 "organized came

sackmen"

supplied

and

with

better

Tsentrosoiuz.

By

delivering

fund

its

the

all of

"unorganized" goods

accounts, industrial

in

private

more

trader

variety

Narkomorod items.

These

was

than

late

in

The crubsoiuzv

began receiving manufactured goods at the earliest from the middle

of

June,

interruptions.

many

only

in

July

and

then

Some local food committees simply refused to

hand over the stocks of goods in their possession.70 fund that

the crubsoiuzv did

meager quality.

with

The

receive was usually of very

Things were so desperate that the economic

administrators increasingly relied upon salt, a deficit item in the countryside, as a principal item in the purcha^t cf grain.71 69 Pravda, July 16, 1921; Germanov, pp.35-36; Chetvre qoda. p.76.

p.14;

Tsybul'skii,

70 Kondrashova, pp.130-131, 142; Dmitrenko, p.61. A Narkomprod instruction to its local officials concerning obmen was supposed to be ready within 5 days of the May 26 doaovor. It was published in Prodovol1stvennaia qazeta only on June 17. Sbornik dekretov. Book 7, p. 197. There was a significant number of reports of local food officials refusing to relinquish their distribution functions to the cooperatives. Pravda. June 14, 1921. 71 A salt monopoly was declared flzvestiia VTsIK. May 10) and Mikhail Frunze was named "Glavkom sol111 by Lenin on May 18. PSS. vol. 52, pp. 196-197; also on salt, see vol. 53, pp.101-102, 125-126. Atlas, p.170. 234

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As tovaroobmen stalled, the chief object of criticism from all sides became the fixed "equivalents," which one observer

termed

w a v s e l l ,72

The

an

"office

equivalency

invention"

rates

(kabinetnvi

effectively

tied

the

hands of the cooperatives, while the private trader (and the workers'

and

other

favorable prices. flexibility,

the

organizations)

could

at

more

Because the arrangement entailed little cooperatives

could

enough to changes in market prices.73 was

trade

not

adjust

quickly

As the private trader

favored by more and better goods and more favorable

prices,

local "sukharevki" blossomed.

sometimes

simply

ignored the

Desperate crubsoiuzv

"equivalents,"

and

for some

exchange took on the derogatory label "tovaroobman.1,74 The peasant could get a much better price for his goods from the private trader and increasingly, as trading grew in scope,

the

peasant

was demanding

his

payment

in

money.

Already by early summer it was clear that on the whole the peasantry

preferred

a

monetary

payment.

When

the

Tsentrosoiuz "plenipotentiaries" met in Moscow in mid-July they

called

for

more

flexible

prices,

the

removal

72

Pravda. September 1, 1921.

73

Dmitrenko, pp.60-51; Atlas, "Iz istorii," pp.82-83.

of

74 Vestnik aqitatsii i propagandy. July 4, p.36. Kondrashova (p.141) writes that by August the problem of the inflexibility of Narkomorod's equivalents had largely been corrected by the local authorities. In Saratov province, already in May the cooperative organizations were allowed to remove the equivalents "in the form of an experiment." Saratovskaia. pp.27, 62. 235

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"equivalents" and a going over to "buying and selling," i.e. the use of monetary exchange.75 A critical problem for the cooperatives became a lack of money. hard

Tsentrosoiuz was flooded with local requests for

currency.76

Caught

resorted to the practice

short-handed,

the

qubsoiuzv

of selling their fund of goods

first for money and then in turn using the money to buy grain from the peasants.

The regime had no choice but to

sanction this practice.77 As all of their plans for tovaroobmen unraveled,

the

Bolsheviks were left with a feeling of helplessness before the

force

of trade

having returned

and the

revival

of money.

from a trip to the countryside

Kalinin, in early

September, reported: The Moscow Sukharevka looks like compared to the Tsaritsyn bazaar.78

a

province

75 See Kondrashova, p.131; and Dmitrenko, pp.60-61; Prodovol'stvennaia qazeta. September 8, 1921; S. P. Sheviakov, "Iaroslavskaia derevnia v period perekhoda k novoi ekonomicheskoi politike, 1920-22" (Candidate's dissertation, Iaroslavl' University, 1958), p. 162 (hereafter: Sheviakov, "Iaroslavskaia derevnia"). 76

Kondrashova, p .128.

77 In September, Kalinin was asked by the Saratov mibi gpolkom to intercede with Narkomorod on behalf of the Saratov gubsoiuz, which stood accused of selling its fund of industrial items for money and then buying seed. Kalinin, in a September 17 Bedrota article, praised the Saratov example. Kondrashova, p .13 6. 78 Izvestiia VTsIK. September 8, 1921. Kalinin noted the wholesale trading in grain taking place at the markets. 236

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Lenin telegramed Trotsky in September: We are late. us.79

The wave of trade is stronger than

In the view of several Narkomorod officials, the way out

was

to

untie

cooperatives. there

were

Narkomorod

At

the

calls to

the

hands

Third Food Conference

for

make

government's

revising

local

the

agreements

around the cooperatives.80

from

in mid-June

dogovor with

the

to

allow

organizations

Frumkin summed up the general

Narkomprod assessment in the autumn of 1921: We made a general mistake in concluding the general dogovor from the first days of our new economic policy, not allowing the government organs the possibility to involve its own apparatus in the collection work aside from the tax and to use other organs. The collection in the form of tovaroobmen. as a new phenomenon after the epoch of "war communism" and the razverstka, demanded experienced approaches to accomplish this task. But instead of seeking a way based on experience to choose the best route, we started out on one route, to a sufficient extent schematically, and stubbornly did not turn off that route.8^ In taking

fact, steps

beginning to

in July,

remove

some

established in the spring. 79

of

the the

regime was strict

guidelines

A VSNKh resolution of July 6,

PSS. vol. 53, p.234.

80 3e vserossiiskoe orodovol'stvennoe soveshchanie 1921), pp.45, 47, 51, 56, 60. 81

already

Chetvre goda. p.76. 237

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(Tomsk,

which was a kind of report card on tovaroobmen. proposed that industrial organizations be allowed to operate outside the limits of local exchange and advised that they go over where

feasible

exchange.82

to

monetary

("tovar— denqi— toyar")

A Sovnarkom order of August 9 allowed heavy

industry to sell part of its production on the market and to do so "where it is possible and profitable" using monetary exchange.83

The

Sovnarkom

decree

of

September

6

gave

Tsentrosoiuz broad rights to use money, with no stipulation that such exchange be "profitable." more

flexibility

in

relation

to

It gave state prices

the

market

and

allowed

Narkomprod to trade through other types of cooperation or through private individuals where the consumers cooperatives were

weak.

With

this

last decree,

the May dogovor was

es sent ially abandoned.84

The

data

on

the

results

dismally it had failed.

of

tovaroobmen

reveal

how

Tsentrosoiuz was to have provided

the government with nearly 32 million poods of grain by midAugust, but could collect only 2.3 million poods. autumn

nalog/obmen

campaign,

by

November

82

Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, pp.102-106.

83

D i r e k t i w .- pp. 254-259.

1,

In the

tovaroobmen

84 S b o m i k dekretov. Book 7, pp.200-201. At a Sovnarkom meeting in late August, Tsentrosoiuz stubbornly opposed incursions into its "monopoly" status. See Tsybul'skii, p.38. Saratovskaia. p.62. 238

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brought in only 4.5 million poods of grain compared to 57.4 million brought in by the tax. had

collected

By January 1, Tsentrosoiuz

only 7 million poods

or one-fourth of the

>»

(revised) total it was supposed to have delivered.85 By

now,

cooperation was

no

longer

considered

a

potential monopolist, only another competitor on the growing market.

Still

into

October,

Tsentrosolaz

illusions of tovaroobmen and its monopoly.

clung

to

the

On September 28,

STO set up a commission on tovaroobraen whose report Khinchuk was supposed to deliver.

Twice it was postponed, until on

October 18 it was removed from the agenda.88 a Central Committee commission on obmen against

the

cooperatives' monopoly

On October 10

spoke categorically

and

advised

giving

Tsentrosoiuz only maximum privileges above other agents in making exchange deals withstate attitude

toward cooperationwas

organizations.87

The new

spelled out by Kamenev in

December: The state should trade on the free market in the way it finds profitable and comfortable, not tied by an obligatory monopoly in this area on the part of cooperation.88 85

Dmitrenko, p.53; Tsybul'skii, pp.39-40.

86

Kondrashova, p .141.

87 The commissions recommendations took the form of a Sovnarkom decree of October 26. Tsybul'skii, p.40. Tsentrosoiuz was also at this time given the right to pursue foreign trade agreements through the Commissariat of Foreign Trade. 88

Biulleten' (Eleventh), No. 1, p.11. 239

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On October 29, Lenin,

addressing the Moscow Province

Party Conference, admitted defeat: . . . TT1ovaroobmen broke loose fsorvalsial; broke loose in the sense that it poured out into buying and selling.89 While

the

assessments

of

blame

tovaroobmen would continue to be Lenin's

October

speech,

for

issued,

the

failure

of

by the time of

many had come to recognize what

Frumkin now saw: In a capitalist system, even state capitalism, there is no place for natural exchange [obmen].90

89

vol. 44, p.207-208.

90 Germanov, p.16. For attempts to find institutional culprits in the outbreak of trade, see Pravda. September 1, 14, November 26, 27, 1921. Genkina takes issue with the general Soviet view that tovaroobmen turned out to be a mistaken venture and should be seen as a transition phase to full trade. In her view, the trade question was essentially decided at the Tenth Party Congress and Lenin knew what was coming, though by autumn his thinking on the place of trade in the transition to socialism changed. See "K voprosu o leninskom opredelenii sushchnosti NEPa," Novaia ekonomicheskaia oolitika. Voorosv teorii i istorii (Moscow, 1975), pp.49-52. For a similar view, see N. G. Sokolov, "Ispol'zovanie tovaroobmena pri perekhode k NEPu," Ibid., pp.121-126. Compare to Atlas, "Iz istorii," p.85. 240

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Narkomprod: the apparat self-destructs

The new economic policy presented Narkomprod with a greater

challenge

commissariat.

than

Thrust

it

to

did

the

any

other

economic

forefront by the

desperate

struggle for food in the Civil War and forged in the fire of battle, Narkomprod now had to adapt to the environment of peacetime

reconstruction,

a

ultimately proved incapable.

readjustment

of

which

it

As the new course evolved in

1921 and 1922, Narkomprod shed many of its functions, lost many of its personnel to desertion, and was generally in a state

of

Tsiurupa,

disarray

and

low ,morale.

People 's

Commissar

no doubt demoralized by the turn of events

in

March 1921 and the anti-Narkomorod reaction that accompanied the

introduction

of

the

new

course,

succumbed

to

his

illnesses

(as did so many of his Bolshevik colleagues at

this time)

and was forced to convalesce most of the year,

some of the time living abroad.

When the period of retreat

was over and that of the "regrouping of forces" had begun, Narkomprod

found

itself

to

be

a

secondary

commissariat,

uncertain of its place in the New Economic Policy. The disintegration of Narkomprod began before the Tenth Party Congress, during the peasant violence of the winter of 1920/21.

At the Congress,

Tsiurupa offered a disturbing

description of his apparat•s condition: In

the

localities

everywhere

there

241

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is

demoralization, disorganization and direct destruction of our apparat; and, you know, this is not the military front, but the food front!91 Tsiurupa blamed the admonishing circulars to the local food organs published 1921

for

signalling

workers

in the

Soviet

officials

violence, 1921.

(without his permission) a veritable bloodbath

form

of

arrests

and massacres

however,

was

and

in F ebruary

of

local by

local

by peasant bands.92

The

already well

executions

food

underway by February

Popular hatred of local food officials enforcing the

razverstka was well documented and little encouragement was needed to set off the peasant against the komprodchik. The effects of the Civil War policies and practices lingered well antipathy peasant

for

after the change the

suspicions

food

worker

concerning

pursuing the new course.

in

food policy.

persisted the

and

regime's

Peasant reinforced

sincerity

in

A report of April 17, 1921 by the

Kharkov Party Secretary cited the continuing "mistrust that exists among the peasant masses with respect to the organs

91

Desiatvi s"ezd. p.422.

92 Ibid., pp.422-423. Vladimirov reported the recent deaths of 1700 food workers in the Ukraine at the hands of the peasants. The number of these victims of peasant "banditism" probably increased in the period immediately following the Tenth Party Congress. In May, at the Tenth Party Conference, Sviderskii referred to the murder by "bandits" of hundreds of "responsible" food officials. Biulleten'. No. 2, p.8. Saratovskaia. p.78. Terne, p.222. 242

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of Narkomorod."93

In November 1921, an economic official in

Voronezh province observed: The methods of last years's razverstka terrorized the population. They shake when the name of a food worker is mentioned and are horrified when armed detachments arrive.94 In

the

months

after

the

Tenth

Party

Congress,

few

appeared to doubt that Narkomprod would continue to be a central

authority

in the

new economic policy— if

for no

other reason than the fact that the Bolsheviks possessed no other apparat of its kind— though most realized that the Commissariat's different.

functions and methods would be have to be

Most importantly, as Lenin had demanded at rhe

Tenth Congress, it would have to be made subordinate to the general economic policy. Though the delegates to the Tenth Party Conference objected to Sviderskii's use of the words "coercion"

and

"food

Conference

resolution

dictatorship" called

for

the

in

his

report,

"preservation

a and

93 Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, p. 77. Peasants were particularly upset by the arbitrariness of local food officials. See Vladimirskaia partiinaia organizatsiia v godv vosstanovleniia narodnoao khoziaistva. 1921-1925 qody. S b o m i k dokumentov (Vladimir, 1963), pp.42-43 (hereafter: Vladimirskaia^. The Don regional Party Congress in August 1921 noted the "fall in authority of food workers- the result of dissatisfaction with the petty-bourgeois anarchy of the previous food policy." Vosstanovitel'nvi period na Donu, p.110. 94

TsGANKh. fond 1943, op. 6, ed- khr. 578, 1. 6. 243

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strengthening of the centralized food apparatus."95 Narkomorod's new role was to consist primarily of tax collection and the general direction of tovaroobmen. was

concerned that Narkomprod now become more

into the overall economic administration.

Lenin

integrated

He wrote in his

pamphlet "On the Food Tax": The task of the food worker has become more complicated. On the one hand, it is a fiscal task. Collect the tax as quickly as possible, as rationally as possible. On the other hand, it is a general-economic task. Try to direct the cooperatives, encourage small industry, develop initiative at the local level in such a way as to increase and consolidate exchange between agriculture and industry.96 The notion of Narkomorod as a "general-economic" institution was

important

to

Lenin.

To

accomplish

its

new

tasks,

especially that of controlling trade, Narkomprod would have to

cooperate

with

other

commissariats

and

with

the

cooperatives. To

perform

reorganized. "institution

these For

of

tax

duties,

purposes

Narkomorod of

inspection"

tax was

was

cnce

collection, formed.

again a

new

It

was

Sviderskii's description of this as the replacement for the food detachments that caused uneasiness among the delegates

95 Novaia ekonomicheskaia oolitika. p.40; Izvestiia VTsIK, April 3, 1921. 96

PSS. vol. 43, p.232. 244

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to

the

Tenth

Party

Conference.97

Indeed

in

the

first

recruitments of tax inspectors the stated preference was for former members of orodotriadv.98 These

inspectors had as their duties overseeing the

setting of tax sums, organizing (through the village soviets and

volost/ executive

committees)

the

lists

(spiski) of

taxpayers, ensuring the quick payment of the taxes, calling in armed force when necessary, and storing the products in which the tax was paid. their operations,

Although Narkomorod was to direct

the inspectors were to be recruited and

organized chiefly through the trade unions, a more likely source, it was felt, for high quality personnel.99 The

question

of

the

use

of

operations remained controversial. Tenth

Party

Congress

all

border

and

food

armed

force

in

food

Immediately after the patrols

(zagraditel/nye

otriadv) were

removed

detachments

began

to

be

phased out.100

Though there now was talk of a new spirit in

food work, many, including Lenin felt the need to hold out the threat of coercion as an inducement to the taxpaying peasant.

While the legal rights of Narkomprod to use force

were now limited,

a STO decree

of June

1 gave the food

97

Biulleten/. No. 2, p.6; Izvestiia VTsIK. June 1, 1921.

93

3e prodovol'stvennoe soveshchanie. p.124; Sessii, p.223.

99

Chetvertaia. pp. 13-14 ; Chetvre qoda. pp.41-43; Sessii.p.223.

100 Izvestiia VTsIK. March 26; Biulleten/ Voenprodbiuro. No. 5-6, April 25-May 10, 1921, p.l. 245

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organs the right to use armed forced for the "struggle with massive evasion on the part of the population of payment of the food tax."

By this same decree, food militias fvoenno-

prodovol•stvennve

druzhinv),

organized

through

the

trade

unions, were allowed to be formed in selected regions.101 In instances of late or non-payment of taxes,

travelling

revolutionary tribunals (revtribunv) would have special food sessions ' . a

l

.

i

^

^

a

On

to 1

m

0

the

investigate

individual

cases

and

assess

2

obmen

side

of the Narkomorod operation,

few

central food officials felt good about the proposed revival of

the

cooperatives,

but

most

appear

themselves quickly to its necessity. weaknesses making

an

distasteful,

of

their

own

was

with

unavoidable.

have

resigned

They were aware of the

organization

arrangement

to

and

realized

Tsentrosoiuz. However,

the

that

however internal

documents of the Narkomprod collegium immediately after the Tenth

Party

Congress

demonstrate

that

its

own

idea

of

working with the cooperatives was somewhat different than what others had in mind.

A collegium resolution on obmen of

March 21 assigned to the Commissariat the responsibility for conducting all tovaroobmen. with the cooperatives acting as 101 S b o m i k dekretov, Book 7, pp.235-236. At the VTsIK session of October 5, Sviderskii reported that the total membership of the druzhinv was 12,155, with the eventual goal being 20,000 members. Sessii. p.224. 102

Chetvre qoda. p.42. 246

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one

of

its

agents

circumstances."

in

the

Tsentrosoiuz

strictly technical functions.

countryside was

to

"in

have

necessary

limited

and

As we know, the commissions

that developed the guidelines for tovaroobmen in the weeks thereafter constructed them differently and Tsentrosoiuz was given much broader powers than Narkomprod had envisioned.103

As the Narkomprod leadership scrambled to protect its territory, its foot soldiers began to abandon the field of battle in large numbers. had begun

before

the

Again, this is a phenomenon that

razverstka was

abandoned

in March.

Many were exiting the food organs out of fear for their lives.

A letter to Tsiurupa on the eve of the Tenth Party

Congress

noted

that "Responsible

and

technical [food]

officials have definitively lost their heads, in places they run

from

their

work and

no

threats

of

any

kind up

to

immediate execution can keep them in place."104 The decisions of the Tenth Party Congress encouraged this exodus. appears

to

conditioned

The announcement of the end of the razverstka have as

"demobilization"

been

understood by many

they were

by

in

work,

food

military

food officials, thinking,

concomitant

with

as

a the

103 TsGANKh. fond 1943, &d, khr. 833, 11. 61. Many local food organs resisted handing over distribution and obmen functions to the cooperatives. See Pravda, June 14, 1921. For Narkomprod7s animosity toward the cooperatives, see Dmitrenko, pp.46-48. 104

Desiatvi s"ezd. p.423. 247

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demobilization

of

the Red Army.

There was

no

sense

in

remaining at the food front when the general "struggle for bread" had been halted.

Many local food officials went over

to other government work or simply went off to make

for

themselves a profit (not unlikely the original motivation of some for becoming involved in food work).105 In October 1921, that for many as

the

Sviderskii looked back and observed

"the removal of the razverstka was understood

removal

of

the

state

apparatus.”106

Biulleten/

V o e n o r o d b i u r o noted the scope of the phenomenon early on:

The impending reorganization of the food apparatus in connection with the transition from the system of razverstka to prodnaloa evoked in many food officials the desire to abandon food work. This trend was also strong in the food detachments. The unorganized massive exodus from [food] work can have an extremely destructive effect on all future work and for that reason Narkomprod and the V roen 1P rrod 1B riuro1 have sent to all food organs a telelgram/instruction on the categorical prohibition of the exit of food officials until the publication of the appropriate instructions

105 Narkomprod made numerous changes of provincial food commissars in the major food producing regions and overhauled the collegium staff in 1921. See Davydov, Tsiurupa- p.74. Also, Vladimirskaia. pp.55-56. 106 Sessii. p.222. Also Kuraev in Pravda, September 18, 1921, on the "demobilization mood" at the "food front." Frumkin in Chetvre aoda. p.70. Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika i zadachi partii. p.20. Izvestiia VTsIK, February 17, 18, 1921. The Central Committee's report to the Eleventh Party Congress stated: "The growth of the so-called "demobilization mood" was evident especially in the first period of the past year and has still not been eliminated finally up to the present time. Qdinnadtsatyi s"ezd, p.647. 248

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from the center .107 By summer there were serious efforts to stop and even reverse this outward flow of food officials.

A STO decree

of July 20 gave Narkomprod the right to reclaim, "even from the War Department," all personnel who earlier had worked as food commissars or members of collegiums of provincial and uezd

fcod

committees,

as

well

as

their

deputies.

Commissariats such as Rabkrin and Narkomfin were ordered to provide Narkomprod with selected personnel, including 10-20% of their accounting officials.108

On July 9 the Politburo

directed the Orgbiuro to assign Communists to food work, "not stopping at the closing down for a time of even 9/10 of a

whole

series

of

departments

of

institutions

and

even

entire not absolutely important People's Commissariats."109 In Voronezh province,

the shortage of food personnel

107 Biulleten' Voenorodbiuro. No. 5-6, April 25-May 10, 1921, p.16. Also Frayda, June 23, 1921; Shekhvatov, p.143. Many displayed good instincts in deserting to the local department of finance. See Biulleten'(Eleventh), No. 2, p.S; also 3e prodovol'stvennoe soveshchanie. p.39. 108 S b o m i k dekretov. Book 7, pp. 41-42; Chetyre goda, p.106. The agreement with Tsentrosoiuz required Narkomprod to return all the former's personnel previously mobilized by the food organs. S b o m i k dekretov. Book 7, p.188. In June, Frumkin openly doubted that this would ever take place. See 3e prodovol'stvennoe soveshchanie. p.54. 109 Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, p.271, n.5. The following day, Lenin urged Briukhanov to "plunder" the commissariats for food workers. Ibid.. In July, the Central Committee (at Vladimirov's request) elected Trotsky to the post of People's Commissar for Food Supply of the Ukraine. Trotsky refused the assignment. See Ibid., pp.282, 351. 249

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was acute.

A resolution of the Voronezh provincial food

conference in the summer ordered all food officials who had left or were removed from food work to return to the food organs. staff

For the future it categorically prohibited similar removal.

The

lack

of

personnel

forced

the

consolidation of food and Soviet organs, and these personnel were made to perform tasks "in shock fashion."110 The

abandonment

of

personnel

cast

serious

doubt

on

Narkomprod *s ability to perform its basic functions.

*

The

question

of

*

*

Narkomprod's

central

staffing

grew

uncertain as the implications of the new course in the area of provisioning began to be felt in 1921.

As we have seen,

in the second half of 1920, Narkomprod had greatly expanded its authority in this area. However, with the announcement of

the

naloq/obmen

uncertainties

it

plan

in

presented

March with

1921

respect

and

all

of

the

to

the

state's

ability to draw agricultural products from the countryside, the idea of belt-tightening,

of relieving the state of the

burden

expanding

of

provisioning

and

"self-provisioning"

(i.e. trade) became a top priority. The new approach to provisioning came to be known as 110

TsGANKh. fond 1943, op. 6, ed- khr. 578, 11. 13, 91. 250

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"collective

provisioning."

Provisioning

quotas

were

established for an entire factory or institution, based on the list of their employees from March 1921.

A factory or

institution was eligible to receive its full quota of goods only if it fulfilled 100% of its production requirements. This gave an incentive to each facory to trim its work force to a minimum in order that each worker could get a larger slice of the pie.

Thus, the tying of wages to productivity,

a notion that had gained a measure of support in 1920, was now strictly applied. Though first,

introduced

cautiously

and

experimentally

at

"collective provisioning" was a popular idea among

trade union and economic officials, and by summer it spread rapidly.111

Into

the

summer

the

general

assumption

prevailed that all wages would continue to be in-kind.

Only

in the autumn when the revival of money seemed irreversible

111 See Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika. p.40. Also 3e prodovol*stvennoe soveshchanie. p.105; Leninskii sbornik, vol. XXXIV, pp.410-411. Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd, pp.633-636. In April/May a discussion took place over a proposal by Larin and Goltsman that would tie all work to productivity, leaving absolutely no rations for non-state workers. The Politburo approved a more cautious plan for a minimum ration in addition to collective provisioning. E. B. Genkina, "V. I. Lenin i voprosy khoziaistvennogo rukovodstva pri perekhode k nepu," Istoriia SSSR. 1968, No. 2, pp.15-16 [hereafter: Genkina, ,,1968"]. The number of people subject to collective provisioning in June was 6,165; in August 113,010; in September 135,343; and in October 397,451. See Vyshinski i, p .22. 251

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did the thinking on this change.112 Natural

premiums

were

retained,

but

now

they

were

understood quite differently, viewed as a supplemental part of wages, strictly tied to higher productivity. of

goods

for

this

purpose were

to be

The funds

organized

by

the

factories themselves out of their own products and intended for use

by workers

on the market

(thus the

label

"fond

obmena").113 While at first the general perception was of the need for

only a measured cut-back in provisioning,

was a rush to clear the decks.

soon there

On May 15, Sovnarkom ordered

the removal from state provisioning of the entire civilian non-working population of all cities and factory colonies fposelki)

in

those

provinces

where

free

exchange

was

allowed, except in Moscow, Petrograd, Kronstadt and IvanovoVoznesensk. 114

Essentially,

three

groups

remained

provisioned: the army, state office workers and workers, and those on state social security. In June, Principles

of

a

Narkomprod

Distribution"

resolution declared

called that

"The

"the

Basic

state

is

112 As late as June 13, a resolution of the Narkomprod collegium referred to natural wages as "the only normal method." TsGANKh. fond 1493, on. 1, ed- khr. 833, 11. 116-117. 113 This, of course, created problems for those workers producing unmarketable goods, for whom special arrangements had to be made. See Kramministicheskii trud. May 11, 13, 1921. 114 Izvestiia VTsIK. May 15, 1921. Krasnaia zvezda ration was cut in Gosudarstvennaia. p.273.

On April 5, the half. Genkina,

252

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freed of responsibility for food provisioning of all [non­ state] laborers."115 The

new

spirit

of

provisioning

was

reflected

resolution of VSNKh of July 6 which stated:

.

in

a

it is

imperative to establish as a principle that in the area of the

economy

nothing

the

government

gives

nothing

("nicheqo nikomu ne daet darom11).

to

anyone

for

It reiterated

that all provisioning should become part of wage payment.116 A Sovnarkom decree of July 12 placed all office workers in central

Soviet

institutions

collective

provisioning

lists, and

natural

and

premiums

(Moscow

and

Petrograd)

declared

all

ration

abolished,

the

sole

income now being the wage, in money or in kind.

on

cards, form of

It ordered

the percentage of these office workers to be cut by 50% compared to their June 1 total and done so by August l.117 Narkomprod could barely keep up with the orders to cut provisioning rolls and a tough statement from the Politburo on

September

9

ordered

the

collegium

to

proceed

more

115 TsGANKh. fond. 1943, op. 1, ed- Mill- 833, 1. 116. Point 11 stated that "the main principle now of state provisioning is to encourage those who work for the state to maximum productivity." 116 Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, p. 103. At the end of 1920 wages comprised 5.6% of income. By the first half of 1922 they were 75% of income. Farbman, p.181. 117 Sbornik dekretov. Book 7, pp.273-274. Subsequent decrees of September 6 (Sovnarkom) and September 28 (STO) placed further limits on state provisioning. Ibid., pp.283285, 294-295. Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. p.227.

253

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quickly.118

The Commissariat: was not; able to meet the 50%

cuts in its own central staff. months after the deadline,

By September 26, nearly two

Narkomprod had managed to cut

back only 30% of its June 1 staff.119 According to Narkomprod/s own statistics, staff peaked at 7,667 staff

cuts

began.

its central

in the summer of 1921,

One source

before the

reports that Narkomprod's

total personnel was reduced from 326,000 in November 1921 to 170,000 by March 1922.120

The reversal of the provisioning

trends of the previous year was dramatic.

By the middle of

1922 the total number of those on state distribution rolls was lowered to 7 million from the previous year's total of 35 million.121

118

TsGANKh. fond 1943, op.l, ed. khr. 833, 1. 213.

119

Ibid., 11. 166, 206, 227.

120

Chetvre goda. pp.105-106; Shekhvatov, p.196.

121 Vyshinskii (p.21) offers the following breakdown of these approximate 7 million; 4.1 million workers in industry and transport (including one family member per worker redokl); 700,000 office workers (and family); 530,000 staff members in commissariats; 370,000 academic and educational recipients; 500,000 children; and 525,000 invalids. Noting the relatively low number of office workers in the overall total, Vyshinskii wrote somewhat sheepishly; "Not afraid to be paradoxical, it is possible to say that precisely in these changed conditions there arose the possibility to realize the cherished idea of the class labor ration." (p.20) 254

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*

*

*

As 'the regime took desperate measures to deal with the shortages of personnel, it also exhibited great concern that the remaining food and other local officials break with "the old

methods"

countryside.

in The

executing Kharkov

the

Party

new

policies

in

the

Secretary in a letter to

central authorities in April described the source of one of Lenin's

greatest

fears

for

the

new

course

in

the

countryside: The habits and methods, taught to a whole series of our responsible comrades in the course of three years of the revolution, were so deeply ingrained into the practice of their work that these are involuntarily reflected in their relationship to the new course of policy. . . . If you listen to [food officials], you get the impression that the Moscow comrades simply gave in to panic and embarked on concessions that were not called for by necessity.122

Throughout writings organs

and of

1921,

speeches

the

"old

there between methods"

was

a

tension

in

Lenin's

wanting to purge the and

yet

fearing

food

that

a

consequence of that would be the total collapse of the food

122 Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, p. 78. Also Izvestiia VTsIK. April 3 (on the "re-education of the psychology behind food work”) , April 7, May 13 (Sviderskii) , 1921. Mikoian, V nachale dvadtsatvkh. p.191. Chetvre goda. p.43. This was an attitude shared not only by food workers. On April 6, Manuil'skii in the Ukraine reported to the Central Committee of responsible party officials "sabotaging" the transition to prodnalog. See also Vladimirskaia. pp.55-56. 255

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apparat.

Thus,

impatience habits

at

Lenin

the

and

ineffectiveness

oscillated

continuation

of

between

these

"war

frustration

at

Narkomprod's

and

lack

of

growing

expressing communist" general

discipline.

This

explains Lenin's decision to back up Sviderskii at the Tenth Party Conference and his ambiguous statements on the need for coercion.

In a typical note to Briukhanov of May 25,

Lenin wrote: Obviously Komprod's discipline is weakening and very significantly. This is absolutely intolerable. We must with all our might tighten things up, otherwise we will not escape a famine.123 This tension between the old and the new methods and the ambiguity

about

state

coercion

was

reflected

in

the

press.124

While there was time to train and prepare personnel for first tax campaign, the

food

officials

the execution of tovarocbmen provided with

an

immediate

adaptability to the "new methods."

test

of

their

Here there was the

123 Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, pp.269, 270; PSS, vol. 53, pp.18-19. See Lenin's note to Frumkin in August on expediting the tax collection with the use of prodotriady. "now called something different: the 'militia, assisting in the collection of the prodnaloq.'" Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XXIII, p.123, 124-125. 124 See, for example, the article, "Prinuzhdenie.11 Kommunisticheskii trud. June 1, 1921. Meshcheriakov Pravda. March 31, 1921. 256

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in in

additional

ambiguity

on

the

question

"permissible" and what "illegal" trade. the

Third

Food

Conference

in June

of

what

was

Lenin's address to

offered the

following

prescription for dealing with trade: You fought with sacking rmeshochnichestvo1, with trade that ignored the orders of the government. Now, too, you must continue to conduct the struggle against [this]. But in order to realize tovaroobmen and not be defeated by that free trade, we should know it well, compete with it and defeat it with its own trump card, with its own weapon— and for thatyou must be familiar with [that weapon].125 One trying

can

to

trade.

imagine

the

differentiate

dilemma between

of

the

local

"correct"

and

official "illegal"

Though trade seemed to expand unhindered in 1921,

there were many reports of local authorities erring on the side of caution. increased

Evidence of the local closing of markets

during

the

summer

and

Narkomprod

formed

a

committee to monitor and control these.I2® The

basic

difficulty

for

the

local

authorities— not

125 pss. vol. 43, p. 357. A resolution of the food conference called for the "rational use of the coercion apparatus." 3e prodovol'stvennoe soveshchanie. pp.36, 102. 126 Sessii. pp.228-229. Narkomprod told food officials in Iaroslavl' they they should not set up border patrols and prevent the transportation of goods, but it gave them permission to forbid the free exchange of food at markets and bazaars in cases where taxes were not as yet paid. See Sheviakov, "laroslavskaia derevnia," pp.160-161. AntonovOvseenko reported incidences of the reintroduction in the Tambov region of collective responsibility for tax payment, with entire villages forbidden to trade if substantial numbers of citizens failed to pay. The Trotsky Papers, vol. 2, p.561. 257

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only the food officials— was getting accustomed to the idea that trade was as an acceptable part of economic life.

As

Sviderskii said in the summer of 1^21, the local food worker must

adjust

occupation,

to for

the

idea that

which

one

"trade

should

is

be

not

a

shameful

dragged

to

the

Cheka."127 Thereports of local down on trade were legion.

authorities

improperly cracking

Perhaps more illustrative of the

problem of ambiguity and confusion on the trade question is an

incident that took place at the center.

collegium

of

Narkomprod

voted

to

In June the

recommend

to

Siberian

Party, state, and food officials to "take the most decisive measures

to stop the free exchange of

grain products, not

stopping

short

bazaars

of

a full closing

of

and

others

rsicl, executing on a large scale compulsory exchange."

It

went on to call for the beefing up of military strength in the

region.128

The

Committee

with

its

Politburo

responded

collegium

approached

"recommendation." with a

strong

On

the July

reprimand,

Central 9,

the

ordering

Narkomprod in the future to approach the Politburo first on such matters.

It went on:

127 Prodovol/stvennaia qazeta. June 21, 1921. The full title of the Cheka was the "All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, Sabotage and Misuse of Authority" (our emphasis). Drabkina relates that "Trading in our eyes was almost the equivalent of stealing." "Zimnii pereval," p.55. 128

TsGANKH. fond 1943, op. 1, ed- khr. 833, 1. 138(b). 258

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Narkomprod should remember that the new food policy according to the decision of the last party conference has been introduced seriously and for a long time.129 Reports of the use of "methods analogous to the razverstka" continued into 1923.130

*

Given all previous

of these

year's

drought,

*

*

difficulties and poor

harvest

in view of the

and

the

resulting

famine, it is hardly surprising that the first tax campaign was not a success. The million

total

grain

poods— a

target

substantial

for the burden

RSFSR had on

the

been

240

destitute

peasantry— but this was progressively lowered in the autumn. On October 5, Kamenev noted that the goal was 169 million 129 Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. pp.289-290. Note, however, that the decree of May 25 on the use of "administrative measures" to enforce tax collection did give Narkomprod the right to go as far as closing "markets of local exchange." S b o m i k dekretov. Book 7, pp. 158-159; Chetvre coda. p.42; Sheviakov, p.160. Antonov-Ovseenko in The Trotsky Papers. vol. 2, p.561. Also, at the Third Food Conference in June, Sviderskii noted that the stoppage of trade was a form of coercion which "in no way contradicts the nature of the tax." 3e prodovo7stvennoe soveshchanie. p.36. 130 see the good summary in Shekhvatov, pp. 143-145. Mikoian, V nachale dvadtsatvkh. p.191. Also interesting are Lenin's notations on a telegram from an Afcmoiinskaia province official with its straight-faced description of the widespread enforcement of "compulsory" and "coerced" obmen in his region. Lenin was appalled. Leninskii sbornik, vol. XXIII, pp.128-130. 259

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poods and admitted that the realistic hope was to collect 122 million.131

Going into the tax campaign the Bolsheviks

were fearful that nothing would be collected as a result of the "demobilization mood" affecting both tax collector and payer. Narkomprod

found

itself

having

to

dispell

widespread attitude of "goods exchange is everything, tax is an evil"

(tovaroobmen— vse.

the the

naloq zhe— zlo) , which

many attributed to the primacy placed on obmen in the spring and the frequently heard characterization of the prodnalog as a "leftover razverstka".132 Sviderskii, explaining

the

who

was

tax

charged

guidelines,

with

spent

organizing

much

preaching the importance of tax payment.

of

his

and time

At the the Third

A

Food

Conference

economic

he

incentives

ridiculed alone

those

(samotek)

who

imagined

would, bring

in

that the

needed agricultural goods and stated that the tax was the same

kind

of

duty

(povijmost/)

as

the

razverstka, only

131 Sessii. p.234. Kamenev went on to praise the government for not raising the tax quotas once the famine arrived in the summer --proof, he said, that the "unwritten agreement with the peasants” was being observed. Saratov province was made exempt from all central taxation. Saratovskaia. p.54. 132 Pravda. July 10, 1921. One of the chief sources of this "misunderstanding" was said to be a passage in Lenin's pamphlet "On the Food Tax": "The one who collects 75% of the tax and 75% (of the second hundred) through the exchange of the products of heavy and light industry will serve a more useful state function than the one who collects 100% of the tax and 55% (of the second hundred) through exchange." PSS. vol. 43, pp.231-232. See Sviderskii in Pravda. July 10, 1921. 260

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executed in a different form.133 From

the

mechanism

of

outset, tax

there

were

collection,

difficulties

with

particularly

the

with

the

organization of tax inspectors.

The first mobilizations of

inspectors

1

had

40%

of

through

unsatisfactory

lot,

"unsuitable."134 inspectors..

December at

least

Overall

the

goal

turned whom

was

to

up

an

were

deemed

have

25,000

By October 5 there were only 17,704, and these

were of uncertain quality, the best recruits drawn from the trade unions and Rabkrin.135 The problems seem

to

have

of tax collection

been

typical

for

in Voronezh province

other

provinces,

though

drought conditions there had been especially severe.136

The

drawing up of the lists of taxpayers, the first step in the process, proved to be a difficult task. village

soviets

refused

to

inspectors were themselves

draw

up

In some cases, the the

lists

and

forced to compile them.

the Many

times the lists were found to be inaccurate and needed to be redone

several

times.

One

repeatedly burning the

lists,

report

told

of

"bandits"

forcing a re-drafting

five

133 3e prodovol'stvennoe soveshchanie. p.35. His Pravda article of July 17 was entitled, "The prodnalog is not the razverstka. but it is a povinnost7." 134 Chetvre aoda. p.43. subsequently "demobilized." 135

These

were,

we

are

told,

Sessii. p.222.

136 For a general discussion of the first tax campaign, see Poliakov, Perekhod. pp.300-313. 261

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tines.

In some cases, the inspectors seem to have simply

thrown up their hands: in one uezd one-half of all taxpayers were simply pronounced free from payment.

Repression seems

to have produced no results and local officials appear to have lost their appetite for it.

One official criticized

the revolutionary tribunals for their timidity and said they had turned into "commissions for the prolongation of the tax payment."

There were so many who refused to pay that it was

decided to bring only a few of these before the tribunals as examples.137 In the end, the tax target for the RSFSR was lowered still to 138 million poods of grain, of which 131,504 or 95% was collected.138 While the employment of the methods of the razverstka in the tax campaign does not appear to have been widespread, the reputation of local food officials did not benefit from this.

Not

surprisingly,

particularly well accomplishing peasantry.

its

one

province

that

performed

in the tax campaign was Tula. goals

it

won

no

friends

But in

among

the

When Lenin offered one month's additional pay to

the Tula komorod officials for their good work,

a central

137 TsGANKh. fond 1943, op. 6, ed* khr. 578, 11. 79, 80-82, 86-91(b). By mid-autumn in Voronezh there was already debate about whether to go over to a monetary tax in the present campaign and whether to translate the many individual taxes into one tax. See Ibid., 11,. 93-94 (b) . Chetvre qoda. pp.43-44. 138

Poliakov, Perekhod, p.312. 262

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Komorod official wrote on the bottom of Lenin's note: Essentially I do not object, but in view of the mass complaints of the peasants against the activities of the Gubprodkom. I suggest we avoid the gratitude.139 Narkomorod

continued

throughout 1922. 1920,

the

its

rapid

decline

in

stature

In contrast to the respect it commanded in

Commissariat

now

reputation quickly dissipate.

watched

its

influence

and

An article in Pravda on June

23, 1922 made note of the widely shared perception that the food organs were obsolescent ("otzhivaiushchie").

It called

the tax inspectors "scarecrows" and cited a current popular saying

that

men

were

selected

as

food

commissars

for

exhibiting disrespect toward their parents. In May 1922, a special body to oversee domestic trade, Komvnutora. was

created under STO. thus removing a large

potential area of authority for the Food Commissariat.

In

May 1924, the People's Commissariat for Internal Trade was formed

to

supersede

Komvnutorg.

At

the

same

time,

Narkomprod was abolished, its meager spoils divided between the Trade Commissariat and Narkgmfin.140 139 TsGANKh. fond 1943, on. 1, ed. khr. 833, 1. 252. Lenin then suggested rewarding only those who had not offended the peasants. It is interesting to note that Tula, once credited with initiating the concept of sowing committees, was also credited with originating the idea of food inspectors. See Sessii. p.249. 140 Vestnik Tsentral'noao Isoolnitel'nogo Komiteta, Soveta Narodnykh Komissariatov i STO SSR. May 31, 1924, p.99. 263

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The "Newest Economic Policy"

Lenin's tovaroobmen

public in

recognition

October

1921

of

marked

a

transition to the New Economic Policy.

the new

failure stage

in

of the

By the autumn, the

Party leadership was forced to reconcile itself to a number of troubling economic developments, leading it to question openly its ability to direct and control the forces it had set loose in the spring. In the countryside, the full and devastating effect of the ■famine was now apparent as was the threat it presented to the first tax campaign, which was off to a poor start.141 The

effort

to

control

the

growth

of

capitalism

in

the

countryside was not going nearly as well as had been hoped. Not only was trade out of control, but by autumn there were reports of the widespread practice of the hiring of labor and the leasing of land, with some officials at Narkomzem calling for their broad legalization.142 Perhaps most surprising to the Bolsheviks was the speed with which the use of money returned to the Soviet economy, 141 On September 21, Col. William Haskell arrived in Moscow to head the famine relief effort of the American Relief Administration. 142 Kuraev in Krasnaia nov'. 1921 (September-October) , No. 3, p.308. Poliakov, Perekhod. p.343. Restricted leasing had been tolerated since the summer. One of the written demands of the Kronstadt sailors was for freedom for the peasant to tend to his land as he chose, "but without employing hired labor." Chamberlin, p.496. 264

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for many

a

yardstick

for

the

resurgence

of

capitalism.

Though some Bolsheviks had anticipated and even promoted the revival of money, well into the year 1921 proposals were put forward that assumed as a long-term feature of the Soviet economy

the

natural

exchange

of

goods

and

natural

wage

payment and premiums.

Even the Nakaz ot STO drafted by

Lenin

May

at

the

end

of

did

not

envision

the

total

denaturalization of the economy.143 By autumn few central leaders doubted that money had become a longer-term element of the Soviet economy and that a high priority had to be placed on stabilizing the currency and creating a sound budget.

At meetings and conferences,

the Narkomfin report replaced that of Narkomprod as the most controversial. began

the

A

process

VTsIK

decree of October

of placing state

10 officially

industry on monetary

relations, and Gosbank. established in October, was opened on November 16.144 Whereas besplatnost'

less

than

one year

before,

the decrees

on

seemed to signal the disappearance of money

from the economy, now the winds had shifted.

A Sovnarkom

143 On March 27, 1921, Lenin wrote to Preobrazhenskii: ". . . we must right now, at the moment of the introduction of the natumalog and obmen (na khleb), begin systematically to prepare the reform of the currency. . . ." Leninskii s b c m i k . vol. XXXVI, pp.213-214.' PSS, vol. 43, p.285; Atlas, pp.150, 169. One plan proposed in the summer suggested a dual accounting system: a natural system for the state economy and a monetary system for the capitalist economy. 144

D i r e k t i w . pp.270-274. 265

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decree of September 6 reversed the besplatnost/ decrees, and in November, Kalinin, expressing his frustration with those who hesitated to accept money from people,

criticized the

continuation of free transportation service by saying:

"We

should throw out the word besolatnost'.11145 A central source of discomfort to the Bolsheviks was the slow start for industry, in particular heavy industry, in the new economic policy. new policies agriculture (heavy)

would and

Many at first believed that the

somehow

the

be

exchange

confined of

to

goods,

the

and

areas

that

state

industry would be immune from the forces released

there.

In' Bolshevik

impenetrable occupied return

by

of

present,

thinking,

fortress. the

As

long

proletarian

capitalism

were

heavy as

vanguard,

judged

industry that all

was

the

fortress

was

fears

of

the

For

the

baseless.146

in the effort to establish tovaroobmen. Lenin and

others emphasized the importance of light industry, paying

of

lip-service

to the

role

of heavy industry

while in the

eventual triumph of socialism.147 145

Kalinin, Voprosv. p.107.

146

For example, Bukharin in Pravda, August 6, 1921.

147 Changes in the administration of industry were introduced already in the second half of 1920. Many Bolsheviks had by then come to see the limits of centralization (as denoted by the perjorative term "criavkizm.:: referring to the chaos created by the glayki) , and there were calls for more local initiative. In December 1920, nearly 2000 enterprises were transferred from their respective alavki to the local departments of VSNKh, the sovnarkhozv. See Malle, p.281, Dobb, p.126. After the 266

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However, already in May there was growing uneasiness in some quarters about the slow progress of heavy industry.148 In the spring and summer many factories were closed in the major industrial centers and the fuel supply from the Donets region was shrinking.

What was seen as the first major step

forward for industry was the Sovnarkom nakaz of August 9 "on the

realization

policy."

of

the

principles

of

the

new

economic

Here for the first time, state industry was given

permission to sell part of its production on the market, with no confinement to local exchange and, where profitable, with the use of money. dcccuiiuing" industry,

In addition, principles of "economic

fkhozraschet) thus

removing

were a

shoulders of the state.149

now

tremendous

brought burden

to from

state the

Significantly, the name of the

Tenth Party Congress, central industrial supply was taken out of the hands of the forty or so glavki. and these were replaced by new administrative divisions of federative enterprises, the so-called "trusts." It seems that whenever the Bolsheviks discussed industry, the question arose as to whether these new trusts were not just another form of "glavkizm." 148 Concern for heavy industry was expressed at the Fourth All-Russian Congress of sovnarkhozv and at the Fourth AllRussian Trade Union Congress, both in May 1921. See Kommunisticheskii trud. May 21, 1921; Izvestiia VTsIK, May 20, 1921. A Sovnarkom decree of May 17 reversed the November 1920 decree nationalizing light industry, though, interestingly, it did not annul any of the de facto nationalizations that had resulted from the November 1920 decree. D i r e k t i w . p.237-238. Poliakov, NEP, p.213. 149 Dire k t i w . pp.254-259. Walter Duranty, writing in 1935, referred to the "official inauguration" of NEP with the nakaz of August 9. In Armand Hammer, Quest for the Romanov Treasure (New York, 1936), p.6. The Eleventh Party Conference (December 1921) passed a resolution "fully approving of the new economic policy and, in particular, the 267

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VSNKh commission charged in August with drafting theses on the

new

economic

policy

in

industry

was

called

the

"commission for the liberation of industry."150 In the stammer and autumn the leasing of industry to private individuals, though as yet comprising only a small percentage, Committee.

was

strongly

encouraged

by

the

Central

Workers were reported to be alarmed that their

own factories might be destined for leasing.151 Overall, there was the sense that so many concessions had been made to the peasant and that the worker (and heavy industry) was paying for these concessions.

State rationing

was withdrawn and with unemployment rising workers were left to fend for themselves.

Whereas in February "free trade"

had been a popular slogan at so many workers' conferences, the "free trade" of the new course was quite different from what the non-party worker had envisioned.

"Free trade" had

brought benefits for some, but not especially or exclusively for the working class.

Already in mid-April, Lenin wrote in

nakaz of Sovnarkom of August 9 of this year." p.279. Saratovskaia. p.119.

Dire k t i w ,

150 Genkina, "1968," p.3. "Liberation" (raskreposhchenie) was a term frequently used at this time by those promoting the growth of industry as well as by some who wished to "liberate" Narkomorod or the state from the confines of the Tsentrosoiuz monopoly on domestic trade. 151 Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika i zadachi partii, p.62; Frayda, July 26 (Larin); Biulleten' (Eleventh), No. 3, p.12. Logunov, p.134. The leasing of industry was sanctioned by the Tenth Party Conference. See Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika. p.39. 268

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a note to Kamenev: They say that in 3-4 months workers will demand the removal of free trade. 'So to speak, we don't want bureacrats eating the bread [bulochki].'152

In

August

and

September,

the

Central

committee

expressed renewed concern that many Party members still did not understand

the essentials

of the new course.3-53

In

general, the Bolshevik leadership felt that control of the economy was slipping out of its hands.

Sviderskii described

a sensation shared by many Party members when he wrote:

It is not we who are directing the new economic policy? just the opposite; the new economic policy is directing us.154

152 Leninskii sbornik. vol. XX, p.277 (quotation marks are ours). See also PSS, vol. 43, p.393, where Lenin notes the "extreme nervousness, excitement, dissatisfaction of the workers." Also Steklov in Izvestiia VTsIK, May 5, 1921. 153 see Trotsky's letter to the Plenum of the Central Committee of August 1921 on the insufficient "mastering (usvoenie) by the broad mass of party and soviet workers of the new principles of economic policy." The Trotsky Papers, vol. 2, p.578. Trotsky's letter may have led to the Central Committee statement in this vein in the same month, cited in Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. p.631. Milova (p.97) describes a September Central Committee circular "On the necessity of mastering (usvoenie) the principles of the new economic policy." Also, Pravda. August 18, 1921; Vladimirskaia. 154

Pravda, November 24, 1921.

269

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*

These critical

various

mass

*

*

troubling

signs

in the autumn of

1921,

seemed

to

"panic" to describe the

members

in

a

speech on

October

Congress

of

Political Agitators

17

a

turning widespread

unease in some quarters into genuine panic. used the wcrd

reach

Lenin first

state of some Party to

the

All-Russian

(Politprosvet).155

This

speech marked a major turning point in Lenin's statements on the nature of the new and the old economic policies, and for a time it altered the tone of internal Party discussion. For the first time, Lenin stated flatly that the Civil War economic

policy

had

attempted

a

"direct

transition

to

communist production and distribution.11 X cannot say that we so very definitely and vividly designed for ourselves such a plan, but approximately in that spirit we acted. This, unfortunately, is a fact.*56

155 PSS. vol. 44, pp. 158, 163. Harold Fisher noted that the "tumultuous effects" of the spring 1921 reforms began to be felt only six to eight months later, just as Fisher and his American Relief Administration colleagues arrived in Soviet Russia. Fisher likened the Party's reaction to the new course in 1921 to the game "snap the whip," where "the effect of the changes of direction of the leaders passes down the line slowly, but with increasing violence until it strikes those at the end with such force that some lose their grip entirely, some are thrown from their feet, there is general confusion all around, and the tail end of the line has to be reformed. Harold H. Fisher, The Famine— in Soviet Russia. 1919-1923 (New York, 1927), p.136. 156

PSS. vol.44, pp.157-158. 270

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Characterizing

the

razverstka

as

a

"direct

communist

approach" to economic problems, Lenin cited the requisitions policy as the "main cause of the deep economic and political crisis that we ran up against in the spring of 1921."

Thus,

the new course could only be understood as a "most powerful defeat and retreat."157

Absent from Lenin's speech was the

usual description of "war communism" as an economic program "forced"

on

the Bolsheviks

by the

Civil War

and

of the

razverstka as the policy that fed the Revolution and saved the republic. The immediate reaction to Lenin's speech is unclear, though we know that word of his remarks on the mistakes of the past spread rapidly.

Twelve days later at the Moscow

Province Party Conference when Lenin addressed these same issues, his critics were waiting for him.

Lenin's remembered

Moscow

for

its

Conference key

passage

speech declaring

is

most

the

policy

tovaroobmen a failure: As it happened— now you well know this from practice, but it is evident in all our press— tovaroobmen broke loose fsorvalsial; broke loose in the sense that it poured out [vylilsia] into buying and selling. And we are now forced to recognize this, if we do not want to hide our heads, if we do not want ro act like people who do not see their own defeat, if we are not afraid to look into the face of danger. We should recognize that the retreat was inadequate, that an 157

Ibid., p.159. 271

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often of

additional retreat is necessary, another retreat back [ s i s ] , as we go over from state capitalism to the creation of the state regulation of buying and selling and of money relations. Nothing came out of tovaroobmen: the private market turned out to be stronger than us and instead of tovaroobmen there resulted ordinary buying and selling, trade. Make the effort to adjust to it, otherwise the anarchy of buying and selling, of money relations will bury you!15® In calling for a new adjustment, Lenin again looked to the lessons of past economic policy.

He reiterated that the

new policies continued to be misunderstood partly because the mistakes of the old economic policy were not as yet clearly perceived.

Then he gave a new twist to his own

interpretation of the old policies, appearing to sever the direct

connection

he

had

previously

drawn

economic programs of early 1918 and 1921.

between

the

Lenin claimed

that the Party had been naive in 1917/18 in not raising the question of trade, that at the end of 1917 the Party as a whole had

imagined a

speedy transition

directly into socialism.

(bypassing trade)

He now saw fewer parallels between

the new course and the policies of spring 1918, discovering certain false assumptions that underlay the entire economic policy from November 1917 to the autumn of 1921.159 Lenin's audience of October 29 was certainly already 158 ibid., pp.207-208. Some who earlier had recognized the failure of tovaroobmen. used the phrase Mtovaroobmen provalilsia" (fell through). See Pravda, July 17, 1921; Tsybul'skii, p.36. 159

PSS. vol. 44, pp.194, 197. 272

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aware of the failure of tovaroobmen and the rapid growth of trade around them. development,

his

However, call

for

a

Lenin's articulation of this further

"retreat," and

his

ruminations on the mistakes of the past provoked resistance. With characteristic bluntness, he directly confronted his audience's

fears,

referring

to

the

"complaints,

tears,

despondency and indignation" in the Party and mimicking its general mood: If, so to speak, communists have gone so far as to propose the tasks of trade, the ordinary, simplest, most vulgar, most paltry tasks of trade, then what can be left of communism? Shouldn't we in this case fall totally into despondency and say: "Well, all is losti"?160 A bit further on he anticipated his listeners' reaction: I will touch upon a question that occupies many. If we now in the autumn and winter complete yet another retreat, then when will these retreats end? This question— directly or indirectly--we must hear frequently. But this question reminds me of a similar kind of question in the era of the Brest peace.161 On

the

whole,

Lenin's

speech

was

ambiguous

and

in

places somewhat confusing, perhaps in part the result of his illness.

At one point he seemed to state that all previous

economic policy up to the autumn of 1921 had been a mistake-including that of the winter of 1917/18— and he minimized 160

Ibid., p.209.

161

Ibid., p.210. 273

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the "forced" nature of War Communism.

He also implied that

the retreat had now entered a new phase, from that of "state capitalism" itself

(as

confusing

already was)

and

unpopular

to that of the

trade and money relations."162 that

the

"state

capitalism"

term

as

this

"state regulation of

Yet,

of

a

further on he stated

early

1918

had

not

been

perceived at the time as a retreat and should not be now, reaffirming the element of continuity with 1918.163

There

is

no

full

transcript

of the discussion that

followed Lenin's speech, but judging from the record that does exist and from Lenin's response to his critics, exchange was

lively.

No

one

the

appears to have challenged

Lenin's assessment of the strength of trade in the Soviet economy and of the need to adjust expectations regarding its longer-term presence. the word "mistake" policies. 1921

had

Criticism focussed on Lenin's use of

(oshibkal in reference to past economic

One delegate said Lenin's been

correct,

but

that

analysis

his

from March

present

sweeping

criticism of "war communism," a policy forced on the Party by civil war, was unwarranted.

Larin remarked that Lenin

had been on the mark in his pamphlet "On the Food Tax," but 162 On this, see also his Pravda article of November 6-7, in PSS. vol. 44, p.229. 163 Ibid., pp.199-200. As we shall discuss, this ambiguity in Lenin's thinking on this point has raised havoc in Soviet historiography. 274

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that

the

interpretation

unacceptable.

of

his

present

speech

was

Other delegates asked if yet another retreat

was really necessary.164 In his closing remarks, Lenin advised the delegates to get used to the idea of trade and spoke of the "transition to

commercial

principles"

and of the need to

state regulation of commercial relations."165

"learn the

Once again he

invoked the unanimity of the Tenth Party Congress: The experience of our economic policy in the recent period, beginning in the spring, showed that in the spring of 1921 no one argued about the new economic policy, and the whole party at congresses, at conferences and in print accepted it absolutely unanimously. The old arguments did not one droplet reflect on this new unanimous decision. This decision was based on the idea that by means of tovaroobmen we were in a position to effect a more direct transition to socialist construction. Now we clearly see, that what is needed here is another, circuitous route— through trade.166

Responding tc written questions concerning the limits of retreat, Lenin said: We will retreat as long as we have not learned to prepare ourselves to go over to a solid offensive fnastuoleniel.167

164

Pravda. November 4, 1921.

165

PSS. vol. 44, p.218.

166

Ibid., pp.214-215.

167

Ibid., p.220. 275

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It

is

likely that

Lenin's new choice of vocabulary

confused and put off a good number of his listeners.

One

week after delivering this speech, he published an article in Pravda in which he employed terms that Bolsheviks seldom used to describe their own activities: What is new at the present moment is the need for our revolution to run to the "reformist," gradual, careful, roundabout method in the root question of economic reconstruction.168 Lenin was not satisfied that the Party merely adjust its short-term tactics to accommodate trade.

He was calling for

a full-scale "retreat" in the Party's way of thinking about the very process of building socialism.

In spite of the

ambiguity

in his remarks about the

policies of 1917/18, it is clear that Lenin's notion of the place

of

trade

relations

in

an

socialism had changed significantly.

economy

constructing

In the spring Lenin

had continued to use the term "oroduktoobmen" (the direct, moneyless exchange of goods) in addressing the goals of the regime's trade policies. referred

to

From autumn 1921, Lenin no longer

"or oduktobmen11 in

any

of

his

speeches

or

168 Ibid., pp.221-222. In this article he used the word "reformist" several times, notingthat the Brest peace had been "reformist" (p.224). In the Moscow speech (p.209) and in an October 18 Pravda article, Lenin wrote that the proletarian state should become a "wholesale trader" (his emphasis). PSS. vol. 44, p.152. 276

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writings.169 To be sure, there is no evidence that Lenin abandoned the general notion that a fully socialist society would be run on moneyless exchange.

But clearly he now regarded the

approach to that economy very differently.

No longer should

trade be thought of as something to be tolerated temporarily until

the proletarian state could squeeze

economy. of

it out of the

Trade, Lenin now saw, was to be an integral part

even the

"socialist"

side of that

course did not lead around trade,

economy.

but through

The it.

new

There

could be no short cuts.170 In his

notes

for his speech to the Moscow Province

Party Conference, Lenin wrote: . . . TT1ovaroobmen assumed (even if it silently assumed, it still assumed) a certain direct transition without trade, a step toward socialist 169 Ibid,, vol. 43, p. 276; vol 44, pp. 8, 109. Also the resolution of the Tenth Party Conference, in Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika. p.38. Earlier in the year, Lenin occasionally implied that had the Party not miscalculated its actual resources in 1920, had there been a better supply of goods, had the harvest been better, then the "old economic policy," if conducted more efficiently, might have succeeded. PSS. vol. 43 ("On the Food Tax"), p.243; (Tenth Party Conference), p.303. Though these statements can be seen merely as morale boosters, from the autumn on, this largely "human error" interpretation gave way fully to one of the "laws of history." 170 A resolution of the Eleventh Party Congress in MarchApril 1922 included the following statement: "The party organizations are to explain to the working masses the meaning of the new economic policy, in particular the importance and meaning of trade operations, which in the present conditions in Soviet Russia become a method of socialist construction." Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd, p.553. 277

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produktobmen. As it turned out: life disrupted rsorvalal tovaroobmen and put in its place buying and selling rkuoliia-prodazhal.171

*

*

*

It was in an extremely unsettled mood that the Party convened its Eleventh Conference (December 19-22), its first without

the

autumn.

ailing Lenin,

who had been

In typical fashion,

ill much of

the

Iurii Larin set the tone for

the Conference with a newspaper article referring to the Party's latest "retreat" as the inauguration of the "newest economic

policy."

This

seemed to hit

a chord with

the

delegates and many employed the phrase in their speeches.172 The

Conference

convened

in

advance

of

the

Ninth

Congress of Soviets and its purpose seems to have been no different

from

that

of

the

Tenth

Party

Conference— to

further clarify and define the new economic policy.

On the

eve of the Conference a lead article in Pravda voiced the concern of many of the convening delegates that perhaps the 171

Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XXIII, p.267.

172 Pravda. December 16, 1921. Biulleten', No. 1, pp.3, 18; No. 2, pp.10, 36. Also Bukharin in Pravda. December 21, 1921. Krasnaia nov/ . 1922, No. 6, p.273. Larin once said that in Soviet Russia, a newspaper article could have the force of a decree. Farbman, p.247. 278

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new course had been taken "too seriously and for too long a time.1,173 Kamenev economic

delivered

policy

in

the

place

Central of

Committee

Lenin.

At

the

report

on

start,

he

outlined the two major questions before the Conference as: 1) Was the economic policy up to March 1921 a mistake? and 2) "Does there exist only a new economic policy or is there a 'newest economic policy'?"

It is difficult to understand

why Kamenev was allowed to deliver such a speech, assuming that Lenin almost certainly had read and approved of it. Bringing to the fore all of the issues current in the press concerning the nature of the old and new economic policies, the connection between Bolshevik

error

in

1918

and

pursuing

1921,

Civil

and the extent of

War

policies,

Kamenev

attempted to perform a role that even Lenin, with all of his tremendous difficulty.

authority,

could have managed only with great

Kamenev's speech seemed purposely designed to

drag the delegates into arguments about the mistakes of the past, something in which not a few were eager to engage.174 When

the

discussion

of

the

past

was

over,

the

Conference passed a resolution establishing that the "basic principles" 173

of the new economic policy had been

"exactly

Pravda. December 18, 1921 (Bukharin?).

174 in a typically cloudy passage, Kamenev told the delegates: ". . . [I]f one talks about a mistake, there were undoubtedly elements of a mistake. However, one cannot speak about the mistake of a class— a class on the whole does not make mistakes." Biulleten'. No. 1, p.5. 279

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defined at the time of the first 'neredvshka.' in the spring 1918."

Thus, the connection between 1918 and 1521, thrown

into doubt by Lenin in October, was officially restored.175 When

the

discussion

focussed

on

the

present,

the

central point of contention was the proper relationship of heavy

industry

to

the

market,

with

several

delegates

concerned about the prospect of state industry slipping into private hands.175

Larin, speaking from what he termed the

position of "communist reaction," expressed concern with the exposure of heavy industry to the influence of the market: The question is this: do we preserve heavy industry as state industry or do we return to a private-enterprise system? He proposed a "rigorous

(zhestkii) plan" of allowing only

12% of state production to be placed on the market.177 Larin's

opposite

match

was

Valerian

Osinskii,

who

proposed what his critics called the "liberal plan" (or what Larin labelled the "bourgeois reaction") of placing 100% of state production on the market.

In striking contrast to his

anti-trade

year

statements

of

one

before

Osinskii

now

175

Ibid., No. 4, p.33.

176

See, for example, Miliutin in Ibid., No. 2, pp.10-11.

177 Ibid., p.4. Also Pravda, December 3, 4, 16, 1921. Also an increasing source of controversy at this time was the question of the foreign trade monopoly and whether it should be preserved. Despite substantial support for its abandonment, with the aid of Lenin's vigorous intercession, the monopoly was upheld. 280

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declared: There is nothing to fear here. go over to the market.178

We should openly

The Conference in the name of "maneuverability" adopted neither position, its general resolution simply instructing the Party to "master the market."179

And Bukharin toughened

the delegates' spirits with a new slogan: "seriously and for a

long

time,

but not

forever"

fvserez

i nadoloo.

no ne

navseadal.180

Lenin repeated Bukharin's words a few days later in a speech to the Ninth Congress of Soviets (December 23-28), a gathering that was far less controversial than that of one year before.

Absent were the opposition speakers of other

political parties whose economic proposals the had

essentially

previous

absorbed.

Congress

was

In

the

stunning

general

Bolsheviks

contrast

attitude

to

the

toward

the

peasant exhibited in speeches and resolutions.181 The Ninth Congress passed or set in motion important 178

Biulleten'. No. 2, pp.26, 33.

179

Ibid., pp.51-52.

180

Ibid., pp.51-52.

181 PSS. vol. 44, pp.310-311. Lenin delivered the report on the year's activities of VTsIK and Sovnarkom. but there was no discussion of this report and aside from meeting with a group of non-party peasants as he had the year before, the ailing Lenin did not participate in the Congress. 281

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legislation giving the peasants free choice of land tenure (and removing official support of the obshchina. with its stifling effect on individual initiative), broadening their rights

to

the leasing of land

and the hiring

of

labor,

expanding credits to the peasants,

removing the posevkomy

and simplifying the tax structure.

Most of the discussion

was concerned with details, and resolutions and decrees were drawn up and approved as if

neatly falling into place.182

Point l of the Congress nakaz on the economy left no doubt as to the regime’s chief priority: 1. The Congress orders that the principal and urgent task of the activity of all economic organs be: the achievement in the shortest period of time, no matter what happens, of lasting practical results in the area of providing the peasantry with a larger collection of goods indispensable for the rise of agriculture and the improvement of the lives of the working masses of peasants.183

A

remark

attitudes

of

by some

Kamenev

revealed

Bolsheviks

had

how

dramatically

changed

from

the

the year

before: Without any exaggeration we can say that we are 182 D i r e k t i w . pp. 285-294. One note on the sowing committees passed up to Osinskii taunted him with the request, "Tell us something about those lifeless institutions.” In his remarks, Osinskii stated: ”. [U]ndoubtedly . . . the sowing committees have lived out their era." Deviatvi s"ezd sovetov. No. 4, pp.5-6. 183 PSS. vol. 44, p. 335. Osinskii stated flatly that the government's main attention must be on agriculture, not industry. Deviatvi s"ezd sovetov. No. 3, p. 19. 282

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the cheapest government [for the peasants] exists anywhere in the world. . . .*84

that

v

In 1922 there would be further specific "retreats" in agrarian policy, but the Ninth Congress of Soviets signalled the key reforms.185 A

Pravda

article

of

signature of one "Non-party"

January

27,

1922,

over

the

[peasant], quoted a satisfied

peasant delegate to the Congress:

184 Ibid., No. 1, pp.45-46. At the Eleventh Party Conference, Kamenev had delivered the same message: "[The peasant] will value and support that government which is cheaper. We, the proletarian government, are the cheapest for the peasant." Biulleten'. No. 1, p.14. 188 A joint Sovnarkom and VTsIK decree of April 21, 1922 replaced the many taxes on individual agricultural products with a single natural tax of 340 million poods (RSFSR) for all agricultural production. A. I. Fedotov, and D. N. Batulin, "K voprosu o prodnaloge i prodnalogovoi politike palXll

f

VO p r O S y

ISIuiai

/t

-»-**

autumn of 1923, the tax became semi-monetary and in the spring of 1924 all natural forms of payment were dropped. On May 22 the "Law on the Exploitation of the Land by Laborers" affirmed the free choice of land tenure anc further removed restrictions on the leasing of land and the hiring of labor. It extended the principles of accounting (khozraschet) to the sovkhozv. D i r e k t i w , pp.334-341. In the autumn, VTsIK approved the Agrarian Code, made effective December 1. It introduced no significant innovations in agrarian policy. See Poliakov, Perekhod. pp.354-365; Farbman, After Lenin. pp.212-222. At the same time, civil, criminal, and labor codes were introduced. Carr, p.342. At the Ninth Congress of Soviets, Lenin called for the reform of the Cheka. PSS. vol. 44, pp.328-329, 396-400: D i r e k t i w . p.305. On February 6, 1922, the Cheka was liquidated. V. M. Kuritsyn, Perekhod k nepu i revoliutsionnoi zakonnosti (Moscow, 1972), p.106. The autumn of 1922 brought Soviet Russia its best harvest since before the revolution and, despite lingering pockets of famine, NEP was stabilized in the countryside. Poliakov, Perekhod, pp.335-336. 283

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Now that's a congress. . . . When I returned from the Eighth Congress and to the question of some village residents as to what I brought back replied: "posevkomv.w I was nearly chased out of the village; but now I am going home happily: nothing to say is something to boast about.

In Mikhail Kalinin's more detached assessment: The historian will be surprised at so strong a change of economic policy by the IX congress [of Soviets] compared to the VIII congress.18®

'The Retreat is Over'

We have discussed the diversity of opinion in Soviet historiography over the starting point of the "transition to NEP."

There

has

also

been

disagreement

among

Soviet

historians— though of far less significance— as to when the transition was completed and as to the appropriate internal periodization

of

that

transition

(when

the

period

of

"retreat" came to an end and a new phase— called either a "re-grouping

of

forces"

rperearuppirovka

rnastuoleniel— began).

"advance"

sill

Pre-1956

or

an

Soviet

historiography generally confined the period of transition to

the

usually 186

year carry

1921. it

Since into

the

that

time,

spring

of

Soviet

historians

1922

(Poliakov,

Kalinin, Voprosv. p.110. 284

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Genkina) , while

others go as

far as the

autumn of

1922

(Berkhin) and into 1923 (Klimov).187 For our purposes, the general configurations of the New Economic Policy in virtually every aspect of the economy were clear by the beginning of 1922.

The remainder of the

year 1922 and part of 1923 was a time for codifying and fine-tuning the general policy.

It was Lenin's recognition

of this that partly explains his pronouncement in early 1922 of an end to the retreat.

In the first half of January 1922, in a document called a

"Draft

Directive of the Politburo

on the New Economic

Policy,” Lenin wrote that "the new economic policy appears sufficiently firm and clearly established."188 Lenin's first public statement calling an end to the retreat came on March 6, 1922, ironically, at a conference of metal workers in Moscow.

Enough.

[W]e can now halt our economic retreat. Further back we will not go. . . ,189

187 see, for example, lu. N. Klimov, "K voprosu o periodizatsii novoi ekonomicheskoi politiki," Voprosy istorii KPSS. 1966, No. 11; A. A. Matiugin, "0 khronologicheskikh ramkakh perekhoda ot 'voennogo kommunizma' k novoi ekonomicheskoi pol it ike, " Ibid., 1967, No. 3. 188 PSS. vol. 44, pp. 356-357. In early November in a Pravda article he had written; "There are signs that the end of this retreat is in sight." However, this was probably included simply to reassure his readers. Ibid., p.229. 189

Ibid., vol. 45, p.11; also pp.8, 10. 285

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Lenin's

statement appears to have been motivated by

additional factors.

It must have seemed to him that the

Party was tiring of all the discussion about the limits of retreat.

He must have been aware of the destructive course

of the debate at the Eleventh Conference and, anticipating the Eleventh Party Congress scheduled to convene late in March, felt it was time to reassure the Party and spare the Congress needless

discussion.

Many delegates would come

seeking reassurance and Lenin probably wished to begin early to establish a new tone for the Congress. No

less

important

Genoa Conference on

a

consideration was

international

trade.

the

The

upcoming

Bolsheviks

were taking their own participation in the conference very seriously,

both

for what

it might

accomplish

for Soviet

foreign trade and for the international political acceptance and legitimacy it seemed to confer on the rulers of Soviet Russia.

Lenin,

who appears to have wanted very much to

attend, could not make the journey because of illness.

But

he was determined to send the appropriate signals to the capitalist

world

ahead

of his

delegation.

Signals

that

there were indeed limits to how far the proletarian state would retreat.190

The Eleventh Party Congress was to be the last Lenin 190 A document in The Trotskv Papers (vol. 2, pp.657-659) suggests that fear for Lenin's personal safety would have kept him from Genoa anyway. 286

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attended.

As it was the first Congress since the retreat

began, many delegates would come looking for or looking to give some perspective on the previous year's developments. It would be an appropriate time for stock-taking. Lenin's goal was to keep the Congress

from drowning

itself in endless chatter about the theoretical questions of NEP.

In the draft Politburo directive cited above,

Lenin

ordered: Every kind of argumentation, theorizing and debate on the subject of the new economic policy should be referred to discussion clubs and partly to the press.191 Now on the eve of the Congress, Lenin rejected a set of general

theses

questions.

He

precisely

the

philosophizing

proposed

by

Preobrazhenskii

on

felt that Preobrazhenskii was kind

of

that would

superfluous lead

the

agrarian

engaging in

theorizing

Congress

astray.

and He

wished the delegates to deal with oraktika and not allow Preobrazhenskii's capitalism

in

the

general

ruminations

countryside

to

set

on

the

the

tone

fate

of

for

the

Congress.192 191

PSS. vol. 44, p.356.

192 Preobrazhenskii's theses are in Lenin's Sochineniia. vol. 27, pp.440-446. Lenin's comments are in PSS. vol. 45, pp.43-47. The theses stated that just as methods using the poor peasants committees in the countryside would be harmful, so, too, would the "tactic of Tolstoyan non­ intervention" with respect to the kulak. On the whole, the language is cautious, and it is difficult to see why Lenin was so opposed to the theses. A few years later, 287

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As the Congress began, Preobrazhenskii asked that his theses

become

part

of

the Congress

agenda,

and

Osinskii

backed him up: . . . [W]e have gone through a full transformation of agrarian policy and the Party in my opinion has still not responded to it.193 In

fact,

successful exhibited

though

at a

Lenin

limiting

good measure

once

again

proved

to

be

the

discussion,

the

Congress

of

the Party's

soul-searching

regarding NEP, much of it reminiscent of the discussion at the Tenth Party Congress.194 Lenin's illness had kept him out of circulation in the weeks and months before the Congress and this fact and the effects of his illness were evident in his Central Committee report.

It was a long, rambling and repetitive speech, at

times confused and uninformed.195 basic

points

over

and

over— the

Lenin repeated several need

to

learn

from

the

Preobrazhenskii demonstrated that his theses were actually a collective work, discussed and approved by a special commission on agriculture appointed by the Central Committee and headed by Molotov. It had been Preobrazhenskii's job to draft the document. See Leninskii sboraik. vol. IV, p.389. 193

Odinnadtsatvi sHezd. pp.7-8.

194 Our summary of the Eleventh Party Congress in the present chapter is limited to its discussion of economic issues. Chapter Four examines the other aspects of NEP— e.g., its effect on youth and education— examined at the Congress. 195 Carr (p.294) also points this out. From January 17 to March 1, Lenin lived at a collective farm near Kostino in the Moscow region. PSS. vol. 44, p.701. 288

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capitalist,

the

emphasis

on

practical

work,

and

the

importance of the proletarian government's relationship with the peasants, which he now called the "link"

(smvchka).196

And he did not fail to underscore Party unanimity: The povorot to the new economic policy was decided at the last congress with extreme unanimity, even with more unanimity than are decided other questions in our party (which, it must be admitted, in general stand out for their great unanimity) . This unanimity demonstrated that the necessity for a new approach to the socialist economy had absolutely ripened.197 Looking

back

over

the

previous

year

of

transition,

Lenin conceded that events did not always unfold the way the Party had wanted.

He likened this to an automobile not

riding in the intended direction of its driver.

Then he

again called an end to the retreat: We have retreated for a year. We should now say in the name of the Party— enough! That goal which the retreat pursued has been reached. This period is ending, or has ended. Now a new goal comes forward— the re-grouping of forces.198

Lenin stressed,

however,

that in stating that the retreat

196 por Lenin's use of the word "smvchka" at the Congress, see Ibid., vol. 45, pp.75, 76, 77. He first used the term in a public address at the Ninth Congress of Soviets. Ibid., vol. 44, p.322. 197

Ibid., p.73.

198 Ibid., p.87. The resolution passed on Lenin's report with its reference to the termination of the retreat is in Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. pp.525-526. In November 1922, Lenin spoke of NEP as an on-going retreat. See PSS. vol. 45, p.302. 289

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was over, he did not mean that there was not as yet much for Bolsheviks to learn, in particular about trade.199 Though the retreat was said to have ended, Lenin had threatening

words

for

those

who

exhibited

panic

in

a

retreat: When such a retreat takes place with a contemporary army they put the cannons in place and when the correct retreat turns into a disorderly one, they command: "Fire!'* And rightly SO.200

Above all, Lenin drove home the importance of the slow, gradual

process

of

members

and

the

of

raising need

the

to

declasse* Soviet working class.

cultural

improve

level

the

of

quality

Party of

the

The Party purge of 1921,

reported on at the Congress by Molotov,

was said to have

begun the process of re-proletarianizing the Party.201 199

Ibid., vol. 45, p.90.

200 Ibid., pp.88-89. Though Lenin denied it, Shliapnikov interpreted the statement as directed at the likes of the Workers/ Opposition. See Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. p.102; PSS, vol. 45, pp. 119-120, 128. Members of the Workers' Opposition and others, including the now notorious former Bolshevik Miasnikov, dissatisfied with the lack of Party democracy and troubled by the strong presence of the non­ proletarian contingent within the Party, in the summer of 1921 turned to the "higher authority" of the Third Comintern Congress, where they were rebuffed. The incident came to be known as the "22 dogoyor" for the 22 signatures on the appeal. A copy of the appeal is in Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. pp.749-750. 201 See the section on the "deklassirovanie" of the proletariat in the Congress resolution on strengthening the Party. Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. p.545. The official results of the purge revealed the following: Of the total 658,839 Party members on the eve of the purge, 141,559 or about 20% 290

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In general, the reaction to Lenin's speech was relief that

that

further

retreats

would

not

be

required,

but

dissatisfaction with Lenin's reticence as to where exactly this left the Party.

Predictably, Riazanov was critical of

Lenin on this point: Comrade Lenin said today that we are placing the period rtochkal on this retreat. I heard about this period, but I do not know where the period was placed. . . . We have stopped retreating. Where did we stop? On what did we stop? This should have been stated, but it was not.202 In

a

passage

reminiscent

of

the

Tenth

Congress,

Riazanov criticized Lenin for what Riazanov considered his overly negative assessment of the quality of Soviet Russia's working class. With everyone of late dwelling on the subject of

"declasse*1

workers,

Riazanov

wondered

about

the

implications for Bolshevik power. The comrades should know that we can maneuver as were excluded. Subtracting the total 17,796 members who were said to have voluntarily left the Party, the post-purge Party membership totalled 499,484. Of those excluded from the Party, 44% were said to be peasants, 20% workers, and 24% office workers and members of the "free professions." Sixty percent of those excluded had joined the Party after 1919, about 30% in 1918-1919, and one-half of one percent had been members before 1917. The official conclusion drawn from this information was that the purge had succeeded in weeding out a sizeable portion of the "petty-bourgeois social layers" within the Party. Stiff new restrictions were placed on admissions to the Party. See Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. pp.648-649. 202

Ibid., pp.79-80. 291

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much as we like in our relations with the peasant, maneuver as much as we like in our relations with the outside world, but one can only maneuver by relying on something. This "something," maintained Riazanov, had to be the Russian proletariat, no matter what its condition.203 Preobrazhenskii, state

their

basic

Osinskii,

and

agreement

Miliutin

followed

Lenin's

report,

with

to but

expressed their disappointment at Lenin's failure to offer some

perspective

delegate

Stuchkov

on

the

cast

New

doubt

Economic on

the

Policy.204

Party's

ability

The to

consolidate its forces and begin its re-grouping: . . . [U]p to now the Party has not mastered the elemental process of nep, that nep— that elemental process— guides the party. . . . [T]he party, in essence, to a significant degree lags behind that process, which is called nep. . . . The party cannot comprehend what is happening now and it follows the path of least resistance.205

Shliapnikov, who had in 1921 barely avoided banishment from the Party and who was a leader of the opposition appeal to

the

Third

biting speech. democracy. 203

Comintern

Congress,

delivered

a

witty

and

Predictably, his principle subject was Party

Picking up on Lenin's military retreat analogy,

Ibid., p.80.

204 Ibid., pp.82, 83, 87, 90. Miliucin made a point of saying that even Riazanov, who usually protests the Central Committee report, was, at this Congress, in general agreement. ✓

205

*

'

*

>

Ibid., p.101. 292

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he charged that panic in such a situation occurs when the detachments lose contact and do not know what is happening around them, when there are not proper directions from the center.206 Pursuing Lenin's car and driver metaphor,

Shliapnikov

concluded that the car proceeds in its own direction because "we sit too

far from the chauffer of our revolution— the

proletariat."207 non-proletarian

In Shliapnikov's view, social

base,

this

NEP relied on a

revealed

in

Kamenev's

description of Bolshevik power as the "cheapest government for

the

peasantry."

He accused

Lenin of

saying that

a

proletarian class as envisioned by Marx did not exist in Soviet

Russia,

and

turning

to

the

delegates,

he

said

mockingly: Allow me to congratulate you on being the avantgarde of a non-existent class.208 The oppositionist Medvedev's themes.

remarks

echoed the same

In a passage left out of the published stenographic

206

Ibid., p.102.

207

Ibid., pp.104-105.

208 Ibid., pp.102-103. Lenin, in his Politorosvet speech in October (PSS. vol. 44, p.161), said of the Russian proletariat that it was "deklassirovan. i.e., knocked off its class tracks and has ceased to exist as a proletariat.11 Perhaps it is significant that in the entire discussion about the economy, aside from Lenin (and presumably Trotsky) only Shliapnikov (Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. p.109) is said to have been applauded after his remarks. This is also the case in the 1936 edition of the stenographic report. 293

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report, he said: With every major event— at a party congress, at a congress of Soviets, at conferences— we everywhere hear, as strange as it may seem to us, but for some . reason Vladimir Il'ich gives priority rfrontom stoit 1 to the tasks and needs of the peasant masses.^09 If there was much support for these oppositionists, it did

not

manifest

resolutions. the

areas

Congress,

itself

in

the

voting

on

Congress

Once agsin, Lenin had succeeded in emphasizing

of consensus. he

was

able

In his to

say

closing remarks with

some

to the

degree

of

justification: If there are voices to be found in our party which will be against this extremely slow, extremely cautious movement, these voices will be singular fodinoki1.210 Indeed, the Party leadership on the whole had adjusted remarkably

well

to

the

sweeping

changes

in

the

Soviet

economy and in Bolshevik economic policy since March 1921. However, though a paucity of opposition voices may tell us something about the general acceptance of the New Economic Policy by March 1922, it does not imply a consensus within the Party as to what NEP actually was, why it came about and how

it

should be

developed

209

Ibid., p.118 (see note).

into

socialism.

There

were

210 PSS. vol. 45, p. 137; also p. 118. For further statements from Lenin in 1922 on NEP and Party unanimity, see Ibid., pp.282, 301-302. 294

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various and conflicting Bolshevik ideas and attitudes about NEP.

And

although

these

evolved

under

changing

circumstances in the 1920s, the principle dilemmas the new course posed for the Party of proletarian dictatorship were already in evidence in the year of transition.

295

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BOLSHEVISM IN RETREAT: THE TRANSITION TO THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY, 1920-1922

VOLUME II

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

By Bertrand Mark Fatenaude June 1987

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©

Copyright 1987 by

Bertrand Mark Patenaude

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I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree^-pf Doctor

Alexander Daliin I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosopy.

Terence Emmons I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

/ I Gr/gc Gregory Freidin (Slavic Slavic l^ng. Lai & Literature)

Approved for the University-fiommittee on Graduatej Studies*

Dean of Graduate Studies

iii

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PREFACE

Research

for this dissertation was

International

Research

and

Exchanges

supported by the

Board

(IREX)

and

a

Fulbright-Hays grant. I wish to express my gratitude to several individuals who

in one way or another are responsible

for this work

having been undertaken and completed. I

am

deeply

indebted

University of Vienna

to

Walter

Leitsch

of

the

for providing me with two years of

intense academic training and guidance, during which time he mercilessly held me to his own rigorous scholarly standards. Roberta Manning of Boston College offered me timely career advice

and

direction,

and

properly

introduced me

study of Soviet Russia in the 1920s.

to

At Stanford,

the

I was

fortunate to have the opportunity to study under Michael Confino,

from

whom

historian's craft. knowledge

of

I

learned

a

great

deal

about

the

Gregory Freidin shared with me his deep

Soviet

literature,

and

inspired

me

to

use

literature as an historical source. My advisers, me,

greatest

debt

of

gratitude

is

to

Alexander Dallin and Terence Emmons,

above all,

to think critically,

my

academic

who taught

and who tolerated my

many transitions in good humor and with great patience, much more than I had a right to expect. This dissertation was written in New York City, where iv

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Eugene Beshenkovsky answered my many queries on language and sources.

Loraine Sinclair acted as my lifeline to Stanford

in several ways and always with supreme efficiency. special

thanks

to Joan

and Phil

I owe

Naber for the boundless

generosity and familial support they have shown me since the day I arrived at Stanford. Finally, to Mary Ann, for her affectionate support and encouragement, I am, as ever, deeply grateful.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PREFACE . .

1

INTRODUCTION PART ONE: OLD AND NEW ECONOMIC POLICIES I.

FEEDING THE REVOLUTION, 1917-1920 ..............

7

- Narkomprod and the Evolution of Food Policy - Razverstka or naloa? - Valerian Osinskii and the State Regulation of Agriculture - "On the Bloodless Front" II.

THE END OF WAR COMMUNISM (January-March 1921) . .

118

- The Economic Crisis of January 1921 - The Moscow Non-Party Metal Workers' Conference - The Bolshevik Response - Lenin and the khodoki - Petrograd and Kronstadt - The Tenth Party Congress, March 8-16 - The Evolution of the Tax Decree - Was "NEP" Late? - "Free Trade" III.

BOLSHEVISM ADRIFT (March 1921-March 1922) . . . . -

202

The Awkward First Steps The Failure of tovaroobmen Narkomprod: the apparat Self-Destructs The "Newest Economic Policy" 'The Retreat is Over'

PART TWO: OLD AND NEW MENTALITIES IV.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSITION PERIOD -

Enthusiasm Demilitarization Contradictions Praktika and the Poet The "Peasant Brest" vi

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296

V.

RATIONALIZING THE R E T R E A T ........................ 384 -

Lenin on Lenin The "Notorious Mistake" NEP and Thermidor The "Strategic Retreat" Lenin's "State Capitalism" Lenin's Ambiguous Legacy

CONCLUSION..........................................

452

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................

458

vii

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PART TWO: OLD AND NEW MENTALITIES

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CHAPTER FOUR THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSTTTON PERIOD The transition to the new economic policies represented the collapse of our illusions. Nikolai Bukharin, 1924

Toward Farbman,

the

end

of

1922,

British

journalist Michael

a perceptive first-hand observer of the Bolshevik

Party during the transition period, looked back in wonder at the developments he had witnessed: The psychology of modern Russia has changed during the last two years as much as life itself has changed. . . . The most remarkable of all is the singular fact that it is one and the same party that led the Revolution to the most extreme heights and is now leading it back to the point where it almost touches the earth. . . . During the transition period it was fascinating to follow the interplay between the development of the new policy and the development of the psychology of the party. The party would make a new concession to Capitalism and appeal to its members to adapt themselves to the situation thus created. Then the new Capitalist environment would influence the psychology, tastes and habits of the members of the party and the new mentality of the party would soon permit yet another step towards the reintroduction of Capitalism.1 As a general description of the Bolshevik Party's stepby-step

adjustment

to

its

Farbman's words ring true. 1

rapidly

changing

surroundings,

We have stated repeatedly above

Farbman, pp.296-297. 296

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that the

Party leadership displayed remarkable unity and

flexibility

during

the

transition

to

NEP.

The

Party

membership as a whole can be said to have pulled through it remarkably well, despite the extreme change of course and a major purge of its ranks. However,

it

is also clear that this was

a time

of

terrible confusion and despondency within the Party, which exhibited symptoms of a kind of collective identity crisis. To be sure,

the confusion was unevenly distributed.

more

experienced

make

the best

revolutionaries

of

the

new

were

situation.

involved had to overcome some

better

The

prepared

But all

to

of those

degree of the "psychological

inertia" of War Communism,2 and this did not always happen at the pace with which the economy and economic policy were altered.

As

one Party member

said at the end of

1921,

"Naturally for a half-million members to rework their views demands time."3

In the

following pages we examine selected areas of

continuity and change during the years

in Bolshevik beliefs

1920-1922

and practices

in the hope of learning more

about what was actually involved in this "transition to NEP" and how it was understood by those who made it. 2

By no means

Kuritsyn, p.104.

3 Sokol'nikov at the Biulleten/. No. 2, p.47.

Eleventh

Party

Conference.

297

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is

what

follows

an

exhaustive

list

confronting the Party at this time.

of

the

problems

It is hoped that by

briefly examining a number of the key issues that were then "in the air," we can convey a better sense of the "texture" of the transition period than our discussion of primarily economic topics has hitherto allowed.

The reader is warned

that because we restrict our evidence to the period of the birth of NEP, our treatment of individual subjects is often open-ended, since few of these issues were resolved by 1922. Finally,

though we

will

tend

to

dwell

difficult aspects of the transition period,

here

on the

it is not our

purpose simply to put the magnifying glass to the Bolsheviks and watch

them

squirm

at

a

time

of

extraordinary

(though, yes, there will be a bit of that).

trial

Nor is it our

intention to make a case for NEP7s eventual "legitimacy" or "illegitimacy" or anticipate its demise at the end of the decade.

We have chosen the topics in the present chapter

not with an eye to 1929, but in terms of the importance they had

in

1921,

and

for

what

they

reveal

about

Bolshevik

motivations and assumptions in introducing the new course. Both this and the following chapter explore the interaction of

ideology,

program

and

circumstances

that

Bolshevism in the transition period.

298

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propelled

Enthusiasm

It is with the title of a book by Lev Kritsman that we most often associate the characterization of the years 19171920

as

the

"heroic

period"

of

the

Russian

Revolution.

Writing in 1924, Kritsman aggressively defended the spirit of those years: One would have to be a Communist philistine ncQnimeshchanin. komfilisterl in order not to feel in the heroic work of the foundation of the prolet[arian]-natur[al] economy the feverish pulse of history, the burning enthusiasm of creativity.4 In fact, in 1921 most Bolshevik Party members shared a profound

sense

of the

end of

history of their Party, They

recognized

accomplishments essentially,

right and

an

if not away

raw

"heroic"

period

in the

in their personal

that

the

enthusiasm,

days

of

which

lives.

herculean

had

with the Revolution of 1917, was over.

begun, The

pulse of history had slowed. Already in 1921 there was a certain nostalgic quality to

Bolshevik discussions of the pre-Tenth

period.

Party Congress

So far did they come in so short a time that toward

the end of the year, Lunacharskii was writing of the "heroic period" as if it were the distant past:

4

Kritsman, p.127. 299

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Everything was carried away by a mighty current overflowing with revolutionary enthusiasm, belief in oneself and a bit of, let us say, youthful light-mindedness of officials. . . . It was difficult to speak of half-measures, of stages, of the approach step by step to such an ideal.* It was not that the Tenth Party Congress had somehow decreed

the

enthusiasm. before the

reversal

of

the

engines

of

heroism

and

These were running out of steam some months Congress

convened.

The waning of energy was

already evident late in 1920 among the general population and

the

Party

rank

and

file.

This

fact

in

itself

contributed greatly to the crisis atmosphere that forced the Bolsheviks to introduce the new course.

The close of the

Civil War at the end of more than six years of turmoil in Russia

understandably

revolutionary fervor.

had

brought

with

it

a

loss

of

George Kennan saw this as part of a

natural cycle in human behavior: The fact is that with the end of the civil war and foreign intervention, significant change had entered into the feelings of the people: the sort of change which invariably occurs after the dramatic and heroic moments of history. The spirit of sacrifice was giving way to lassitude, weariness with causes and ideals, a yearning for return to the reassuring preoccupations of private life. Just as the human individual cannot maintain the heroic tone beyond a certain point in personal life, so a collective body of mankind has 5 Quoted in Billik, p. 152. At the end of the decade, one Civil War Party veteran recalled living "in conditions of revolutionary romanticism, tired, exhausted, but happy, festive, unkempt, unwashed, uncut, unshaven, but clear and pure in mind and heart." V. Polianskii in Krasnaia nov/, 1929, No. 3, pp.202-203. Gimpel'son, p.196. 300

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limits in its ability to live heroically. There comes a time when people want to eat and sleep and mend their clothes and think about their children.6 A

collective

Party.

state

of exhaustion set

in within the

The rank-and-file Party members no doubt looked to

an easing of discipline and some time to enjoy the rewards of victory.7

Lenin sensed this attitude and at the Eighth

Congress of Soviets openly doubted that the foot soldiers on the economic front would as readily enter into battle. Worker and peasant unrest during the winter, by the Kronstadt rebellion and the Party

Congress

encouraged this

followed

reforms of the Tenth

"demobilization mood"

and

overwhelmed the Party with a tremendous sense of what was generally called "let-down" (upadok).

A Western journalist

on the scene likened the atmosphere to the "aftermath of a big

religious

revival,"

noting

the

"tepid

apathy"

all

throughout

the

around.8

Earlier we transition

discussed the

period

of

"old

persistence

methods"

of

work

among

food

6 George F. Kennan, Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin (New York, 1961), p.173. 7 In February 1921, a Bolshevik writer stated that there was a "basis for assuming that the second period of our revolution had begun, namely the epoch of the realization of the fruits of victory." Vestnik aaitatsii i propaqandy, February 4, 1521, p.2. 8

Mackenzie, p.29. 301

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officials (the use of coercion, the requisitioning of grain, the outlawing of trade, etc.) and the efforts to weed them out.

The difficulties of adjusting to new work habits were

not restricted to the food organs, as is made evident by a reading of the official newspapers of the time. the

tasks

of

promoting

tovaroobmen.

Although

reviving

the

cooperatives, and so on were difficult to portray in heroic terms, their

nonetheless, wartime

Bolshevik newspaper articles

character,

exhorting

Party

retained

officials

to

fulfill the new tasks with heroic sacrifices, whipping up support for this or that project, while continually sounding the alarm against the

economic

"Denikins"

and

"Kolchaks"

threatening the country. In this continuity in conceptualizing and executing the solutions

to

problems

bemoaned the loss

some

saw

a

danger.

While

many

of the "previous enthusiasm," Lenin and

others feared thatin certain ways

it was not evaporating

quickly enough.

The Sturm und Drang methods of motivating

and

the

mobilizing

inappropriate

to

reconstruction. Petrograd engineer

Party

the

to

present

perform tasks

its of

duties slow,

In a letter to Lenin of May 21,

patient 1921 a

came tothe heart of the matter:

We must, once and forall, stop building things on enthusiasm and heroism: people cannot for years remain in a state of ecstatic uplifting, and only economic necessity can get them to work. Only on this prosaic base is it possible to build.

302

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were

Lenin found the juxtaposition of "enthusiasm and heroism" and "economic necessity" right on the mark.

Here he jotted

in the margin: "True11,9 The recognition of the failure of tovaroobmen in the autumn brought

of

1921

the

relief.

and

contrast

There

prescription

Lenin’s

that

was the

of

old

little Party

call

for

a

and

new

into

of

the

"learn

to

further

heroic

retreat

even

sharper

in

Lenin's

trade."

Kamenev

described the reaction it provoked: . . . Vie must learn how to trade. When that word was first pronounced, it evoked within the Party considerable bewilderment. Communists knew that the road to communism lay through barricades, through victory over the Constituent Assembly ruchredilkal, through armed struggle with counter­ revolution, through the construction of a socialist economic plan, but that the road to communism lay through the ability to trade— this seemed to be a revelation without foundation.10 Lenin,

now

preaching

"reformism,"

went

over

to

an

aggressive assault on the Party's reliance on appeals to heroism and enthusiasm, which, he said, inhibited the clear­ headedness and sober-mindedness required for the long-term economic and cultural tasks at hand.

What was once an asset

had become a liability. Lifted by a wave of enthusiasm, having aroused popular enthusiasm, at first general-political, then military, we figured that we could accomplish 9 10

Leninskii sbornik. vol. XXIII, p.255. Eleventh Party Conference, Biulleten1. No. 1, p.14. 303

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directly on that enthusiasm equally great (as the general political and as the military) economic tasks. . . . Not on enthusiasm directly, but with the help of enthusiasm, born of the great revolution, on personal interest, on personal incentive, on economic accounting fkhozraschet1, [we must] work to build the lasting gangways rmostkil, leading in a petty-peasant country through state capitalism to socialism.11 Decidedly unheroic words and phrases such as "learning from

the

capitalists,"

registration

fuchet]."

"prosaic and

"the

tasks," most

worked into the Bolshevik vocabulary.

"cold

exact

blooded

uchet" were

Whereas in the second

half of 1920 Bolshevik speakers and writers were just coming around to supplementing the call for coercion rprinuzhdenie1 in

the

economic

rubezhdeniel and

sphere then,

with

to

a

support

degree,

for

economic

persuasion incentives

rpremirovaniel, now in 1921 even the importance of agitation and propaganda was minimized as stress was placed on the "profitability" example,

and

"personal

a prompt payment

interest"

of taxes.

involved The

leap

in,

for

from the

revolutionary heroism of coercion to the cold-bloodedness of accounting presented a considerable challenge.12 11

PSS, vol. 44, p.151.

See also pp.216-217.

12 On the limited value of propaganda, see 3e prodovol*stvennoe soveshchanie (Moscow, 1921), p.9; Golos X s"ezda RKP, p.7. Good examples of the new terminology can be found in Kalinin, Voprosv. p.107; and M. I. Kalinin, Izbrannve proizvedeniia (4 vols., Moscow, 1960-62), pp.293294 (hereafter; Kalinin: Izbrannve); also Deviatyi s"ezd sovetov. No. 3, p.12 (Kamenev) ; Desiatyi s"ezd, p.417 (Tsiurupa). In the words of the Communist Shidskii in Gladkov's novel Tsement: "The romance of the tumultuous fronts has died. Romance is not needed now: what is needed 304

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Late in December 1921, Lenin continued to impress upon his audience the absolute necessity of making this adjustment: Enthusiasm, onslaught fnatiskl, heroism, which remained and will remain forever a memorial of that which a revolution does and what it can do, helped to solve those tasks. That is how we achieved our political and military success and that achievement becomes now the most dangerous of our shortcomings. We look back and think that thus we can complete our economic tasks. But that is a mistake. . . . That in 1917-18-19-20 we completed our political and military tasks with that heroism, with that success, which we thought was the beginning of a new epoch of world history, no one will repudiate. That belongs to us and no one within the Party or in the trade unions is trying to take this away from us— but before Soviet officials and before trade union officials there now lies a different task.13 These words were echoed by others. Pravda on August 6, food, far,

1921:

Bukharin wrote in

"Without raw materials, without

etc., appeals to labor enthusiasm will not get you as

our

previous

concurred:

"We

must

sacrifice:

economic

experience has count work

less demands

on

shown." heroism

more

Vyshinskii and

thriftiness

selfand

nimbleness.1,14 are quiet, cold and resourceful hard-headed laborers with strong bull and healthy nerves." sochinenii (Moscow and Leningrad,

businessmen fdel'tsyl and teeth, the muscles of a Fedor Gladkov, Sobranie 1927), vol. 2, p.242.

13 PSS. vol. 44, p.324; also p.327. One year before, Lenin had told a gathering of Party activists in Moscow that in economic work, ". . . victory will not come through exaggeration, onslaught, self-sacrifice, but through daily, boring, petty, everyday work." Ibid., vol. 42, p.73. 14

Vyshinskii, p.26. 305

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*

*

it

When the Bolsheviks looked back upon the War Communist period from the vantage point of 1921, they saw that their greatest illusion (and here, for once, one might justifiably apply

the

adjective

"utopian")

had

to

do

with

their

perception of the pace of social and economic change and the timetable (srokl for achieving their goals.

They realized

that the adjustment in work methods and habits would have to be accompanied by a radical change in assumptions about the tempo of the Revolution. The

failure

of

international

revolution

and

the

destruction of Russia's economic base during the Civil War do not appear to have tempered Bolshevik optimism on this score to any significant extent up to 1921. instance,

In the first

the Bolsheviks seldom seemed to condition their

domestic successes on revolutionary developments abroad; and in the second, by 1920 the Party had come to believe in its ability to transform its economy of ruin into an economy of abundance in a short period of time.15

And in 1920 Bukharin

15 One might well ask what is meant by a "short period of time," and here a word is in order about the relative meanings of time words. We pointed out in Chapter One that during the Civil War the Bolsheviks quarreled amongst themselves about the various timetables for achieving certain goals. However, the sense of srok changed dramatically in 1921, so as to make the distinctions of the 306

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put

a

positive

theoretical

spin

on

Russia's

desperate

condition by proclaiming the "physical destruction of the means of production" a necessary stage of all proletarian revolutions.16 All of this changed in early 1921 after the stunning setbacks in the countryside, in the factories and finally at Kronstadt. A swift victory "on the bloodless front" was not to be.17

"A much longer preparation," Lenin told the Tenth

Party Congress,

"a much slower tempo— this

is the

lesson

that we have learned in the past year, a lesson that the Party as a whole will especially have to learn."18 During the year it was of course Lenin who took the lead in delivering this message,

frequently describing the

pace of change as "gradual" and "slow" and warning that the road ahead was no longer "clear, straight and more or less earlier period appear relatively insignificant. Billik (p. 152) makes this point when he notes that "in that tempestuous revolutionary epoch, the notion of 'a long time' rdolaol was, in essence, equivalent in meaning to the notion of 'not right away' rne srazul." 16 Ekonomika. p.95 In his 1921 critique of this work, the Bolshevik Ol'minskii criticized the attitude in the Party that a given task could be accomplished "in a moment." Krasnaia nov'. 1921, No. 1, pp.249-251. 17 One of Libedinskii's middle-level Party officials is heard to tell his colleagues in the summer of 1921: "There is nothing worse than when you conjure up for yourself a utopia. This, comrades, is a terrible loss, and it was our utopia that, having finished the war, we turned the army to the work front, and then [we thought] in a single stroke, at once we will build socialism. This mistake of ours was shown to us by Kronstadt." Komissarv. p.114. 18

PSS. vol. 43, p.13. 307

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easy."19

And once again it was in the autumn,

when the

extent to which "capitalism" was reasserting itself in the Soviet economy spread panic in the Party's ranks, that the need to adjust the sense of timetable really hit home. Only when the cultural level of workers and peasants is improved, Lenin said in his Politorosvet speech, progress come about.

can true economic

And this would take "generations."

Cultural tasks cannot be solved as quickly as political and military tasks. It is necessary to understand that the conditions of forward movement now are not [the same]. Politically one can be victorious in an epoch of a deepening crisis within a few weeks. In war one can be victorious within a few months. But culturally one cannot be victorious within such a period of time. By virtue of the very nature of the thing, here a longer period of time is needed.20 Just how long it would take and with what results no one

ventured

everyone

to

say

looked to

with

Lenin

any

specificity.

for authoritative

Naturally

statements on

these matters and, understandably, he offered no clear-cut answers. himself

Always sensitive to the mood of his audience (and subject

to

different

moods),

statements on timetable accordingly.

he

geared

his

In 1921 this question

was usually asked as how long the new economic policy would last, and for this there was the slogan "seriously and for a

19

Ibid., vol. 44, pp.174-175.

20

Ibid., pp.174-175. 308

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long time."2^Though it is impossible to measure the shift in Lenin's actual conception of the distance of the road ahead, it is possible addressed

to

generalize

such

Before

1921,

speak

of

questions

he,

the

about in

the

his

way

writings

like his colleagues, attainment

of

in

some

which and

Lenin

speeches.

was more prone to vaguely

described

"socialist" or "communist" society (the two terms were used interchangeably and with no clear meaning attached to them). For instance, in October 1920 he told the Third Congress of the Komsomol that his own generation would not live to see such a society, would

but that those who were 15 years of age

"in 10-20 years."22

In 1921-22,

Lenin's

estimates

were much more conservative and he was careful to point to specific targets when speaking of timetables for success, 21- When Osinskii at the Tenth Party Conference was explaining that the new course was intended "seriously and for a long time" fvserez i nadolqo) and predicted it would last 25 years, Lenin felt he should soften this. "I am not such a pessimist," ne countered, adding that he hoped the Party could figure on 5-10 years. PSS. vol. 43, p.330. The latter passage was left out of volume 26 of the 2nd edition of Lenin's collected works published in 1930. 22 Sochineniia. vol. 25, p.397. A Communist in Libedinskii's Civil War novel, Nedelia explains: "Just like the heavenly kingdom for tJie Christian, far off, but promised absolutely, if not to me, then to future people, my sons or grandsons. . . . That will be communism." Iurii Libedinskii, Sobranie sochinenii (Moscow and Leningrad, 1927), vol. 1, p.66. in April 1918, Lenin spoke of the long-term measures necessary to build communism and said: "Even the next future [sic] generation . . . will scarcely make the full transition to socialism." Quoted in Gimpel'son, p.17. See Drabkina, "Zimnii pereval," p.51. 309

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for instance getting heavy industry to its feet (often said to

be

"ten

years"),

or

spreading

literacy

and

electrification ("decades" or "generations").23 With 1921-1922

Lenin setting the tone, the Party leadership in expressed

a much

ability to effect change.

more realistic sense

of

its

In October 1922, Lenin was able

to say confidently and with satisfaction that the Party had outgrown its belief in the "fantastic pace" of before: We have lived through five years and we have seen at what pace social relations change. We have learned to understand the meaning of srok.24 The

heady

days

of

lightning political

and military

victories won in the streets and on the battlefield,

won

with revolutionary heroism and enthusiasm, were behind; the days - of

cultural

requiring

a

ahead.

and

patient

economic progress, unheroic

persistence and

determination,

and lay

The Bolshevik participants were fully conscious of

this great change.

As one of them put it:

The period of the revolutionary romanticism of SmoI''nyi is ending. The very difficult days of the trial of the construction of communism are setting in.25

23 Some examples are PSS, vol. 43, pp.27, 60, vol. 44, pp.311, 316, 325, 327; vol. 45, p.169. 24

100,

341;

Ibid., vol. 45, p.247.

25 Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. p.438. Also Reisner in Krasnaia novl, 1922, No. 2, p.284; Stuchkov in Pravda. December 22, 1921. 310

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The

Party

was

digging

in

for

a

long

period

of

"small

the

Party

deeds."26

Demilitarization

In

order

to

appreciate

the

depth

of

leadership's concern about the proper transition to new work methods, it is necessary to consider briefly the notion of the "militarization" of Bolshevism during the Civil War, a topic that in recent times has attracted the attention of Western historians in search of the roots of Stalinism.27 Here we will concern ourselves with the subject only as it occupied the Party in the years 1920-1922. We traditionally associate the term "militarization" in the Bolshevik context with Trctcky and his efforts in 1920 to "militarize" labor, which included the creation of "labor armies."

Having early in that year attracted a good deal of

support for his ideas, Trotsky ran into trouble later on. In his application of military methods to the revival of the country's

transport

system,

Trotsky

engendered

stiff

resistance from the trade unions and, increasingly as time 26

The expression was Lenin's.

PSS. vol. 44, p.169.

27 See, for example, Roger Pethybridge, The Social Prelude to Stalinism (New York, 1974), pp.73-131. 311

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went by, within the Party.

The conflicts that arose from

this affair helped to sharpen the general discussion about the status of Soviet trade unions and led to the Party-wide debate on the subject in the winter of 1920-1921. These issues have been presented elsewhere in detail and need not occupy us further here.28 that

the

end of the Civil War

Suffice it to say

found everyone much

less

inclined to support Trotsky's "militarization” schemes than during the first "breathing spell" in the spring of 1920. The

"labor

armies"

were

generally

considered

a

failed

experiment, and the element of "militarization" was somewhat softened in Trotsky's final "platform" in the trade union controversy.29 It is the criticism of an early opponent of Trotsky's plans

for the

"militarization"

of the economy which will

help us get to the aspect of this topic that most interests us.

Valerian Osinskii was Trotsky's most vocal critic on

this

score

in

discussions

(March-April 1920).

at

the

Ninth

Party

Congress

At first glance this might seem rather

curious, given Osinskii's subsequent role in promoting the "state regulation of agriculture," which he openly called

28 For the trade union issue and the cross-currents of political and personal in-fighting it involved, see Schapiro, Origins. pp.253-295. 29 Stephen Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Bioaraohv. 1888-1938 (New York, 1975), p.105. 312

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its "militarization."30 period,

Pokrovskii

When he later looked back on this

found

it

ironic that this

last great

militarizing act of War Communism had been championed by the biggest opponent of "militarization"— evidence, he wrote, of "how powerful was the infection."31 However, renders

a closer look at Osinskii's anti-militarism

his

behavior

less

ironic.

One

must

recall

Osinskii's association with the Democratic Centralists and his ardent support of collegial over individual administration

in

the

forms of

"edinolichie"— "kolleqial'nost'"

debate raging in early 1920.

Osinskii's principal concern

at this time was the evils of bureaucracy, and with respect to

Trotsky

he

was

especially

wary

of

the

bureaucratic

consequences of the War Commissariat assuming control over economic administration. "militarization"

He did not declare himself against

(militarizatsiia)

in

itself,

but

rather

against the notion of giving military authorities control over civilian organs (here he used the verb "voenizirovat',11 attributing it to Riazanov), with all of the authoritarian and bureaucratic consequences that implied. At the Congress, Osinskii criticized a "blind imitation of military models," and said to Trotsky: Under

the

flag

of

30 See his Gosudarstvennoe khoziaistva. p.10. 31

militarization recrulirovanie

you

are

krest1ianskogo

Pokrovskii, Oktiabr1skaia revoliutsiia. p.375. 313

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implanting that.32

bureaucratism

and

we

do

not

want

Osinskii assumed— and we come now to the point— that the civilian

bureaucracy

was

already

"militarized,"

that

it

displayed am "organic gravitation toward military methods." Trotsky's designs were therefore superfluous, he argued, and would only lead to a bureaucratic muddle.33 The

distinction

is

an

important

because it solves the Osinskii puzzle.

one,

and

not

only

For while the Party

could in the end choose to reject Trotsky's "bureaucratic militarization," "organic"

it

variety,

could

not

evident

so

in

easily

the

language of Party and Soviet officials. Bukharin saw

a danger,

when,

already

be

methods,

rid

of

the

habits

and

It was in this that at the Tenth Party

Congress, he worried aloud about the "military centralism" and

"fighting

orders"

that

characterized

the

Party's

approach to tasks.34

32

Deviatvi s"ezd. p.118.

33 Ibid.. Over Osinskii's objections the Congress approved Trotsky's proposals for the compulsory mobilization of labor and the organization of production along military lines and agreed to further experimentation with labor armies. The resolutions are in Ibid., pp.556-557. Trotsky's detractors called him the Soviet "Arakcheev," recalling the military regimentation introduced by Alexander I's Minister of War. There is a reference to the accusation of "Arakcheevshchina11 on p.556. 34 Desiatvi s"ezd. pp.226-227. Malle (pp.128-135) discusses the attractiveness of the Red Army example. 314

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While this is not the place for a full-scale analysis of the impact of the Civil War on Bolshevik administrative practices, nonetheless, it will be useful to trace through the

transition

period

a

couple

of

threads

to

test

for

continuity and change in this area. As we saw in our discussion of rationing, the

Bolshevik

military experience led, on the civilian side, to the broad introduction Civil War.

of

"shock"

work

(udarnichestvo)

during

the

"Shock" workers were employed in those areas of

industry deemed critical to the war effort and were rewarded with various premiums and incentives.

Carr notes that the

practice became so widespread that by 1920 there were more "shock" than non-"shock" enterprises.35 One

form

of

"shock"

work was

the

"campaign,"

where

human and material resources were concentrated on a specific task that was said to need immediate and critical attention. Campaigns

took

the

form

of

"weeks"

(mesiatsy) or days (dni), denoting the

(nedeli), "months" ostensible length of

time set aside for the the achievement of specific goals. (For

example,

nedelia

profdvizheniia.

bannaia

mesiats remonta. den7 krasnoi kazarmy. etc.)

nedelia.

Each campaign

was promoted in the press with the sense of urgency and in heroic terms on the order of a military campaign.36 35 Carr, p.217 (n.2). See also Farbman, pp.184-185; Dobb, pp.114-118; Malle, pp.482-483. 36 The subbotniki had begun earlier (1918) , but by they too were conducted in the campaign manner. 315

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1920

The symbol

of udarnichestvo under War Communism was

"prikaz No 1042," Trotsky's plan for the rehabilitation of Soviet Russia's transport system. inaugurated

on Hay

20,

1920

This five-year plan was

and proceeded

so well

that

Trotsky could tell the Eighth Congress of Soviets that it would be completed in three and one-half years.

"Prikaz No

1042" set the standard for "shock" work and planning.37 Wartime

needs

led

to

the

frequent

transfers

(perebroskil and mobilizations of large numbers of personnel and

the

cadres.

often

indiscriminant

These

were

assignment

never

very

(naznachenie) of

popular

with

the

troubleshooting personnel or with the local officials often victimized by them.38 1920),

The Ninth Party Conference (September

devoted almost solely to organizational issues and

characterized

by

unusual

frankness

in

its

discussion,

marked the beginning of a transition away from mobilizing cadres "using the factory method" (as one delegate put it), to,

in

Schapiro's

words,

a

"more

careful

selection

of

individuals on the basis of improved records and techniques and

the

devolution

of

responsibility

for

more

junior

37 For the discussion of transport at the Eighth Congress of Soviets, see Vos'moi s"ezd sovetov. pp.154-184. One writer described the razverstka as "a kind of prikaz No 1042." See Vestnik aaitatsii i propacrandv. September 21, 1920, p.6. 38

See Deviatyi s"ezd. pp.43, 49, 62. 316

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appointments upon lower level Party committees."39 A resolution of the Tenth Party Congress called for more

sensitivity

in

the

trams fer

Iperemeshchenie)

of

personnel and for giving local officials a say in the use of Communists transferred to them from the center.

However,

whatever the intentions, the continued shortage of talented local

personnel

made

transfers

of

this

type

imperative

throughout the transition period.40 39 Schapiro, Origins. pp.253-254. Deviataia konferentsiia. p.141 (Zinoviev); on perebroski. pp.94, 104, 111? mobilizations, p.151; naznachenstvo. p.164. Central Committee representatives to the provinces were said to deal with local officials "as a cook with potatoes." Ibid., p. 164. One cf the major lessons the Bolsheviks learned in the Civil War was a sense of limits in what centralized authority could accomplish. The perjorative term for "centralization" in industry was "alavkizm." from the hated alavki. the departments of VSNKh. As has been noted, already at the end of 1920, measures were taken to transfer some of their authority to the local organs of VSNKh. the sovnarkhozv. See Rykov in Izvestiia VTsIK. December 4, 1921; and Kaktyn' in Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. December 29, 1920. A resolution of the Tenth Party Conference called for the support— "no matter what"— of enterprise and self­ activity among local authorities. Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika. p.38. Bukharin described the "basic meaning" of the new course as striking the "correct proportion" between what the central aooarat could and could not properly control. Eleventh Party Conference, Biulleten'. No. 2, p.49. See also PSS. vol. 43, pp.231, 236. 3e p r o d o v o l 'stvennoe soveshchanie. p.15. IV s"ezd RKSM (Moscow and Leningrad, 1925), pp.123-151. Oainnadtsatvi s"ezd. pp.127, 155-156, 464, 503-504. There were still in 1921 several major mobilizations undertaken. One estimate is thirteen large ones involving 5,000-6,000 Communists. They apparently ran smack into the "demobilization mood" of the times and provoked the resignation of many of those involved. Schapiro, Origins. p.254, based on Izvestiia TsK. The Vladimir Province Party organization observed in its ranks in 1921 strong sentiments against "trudmobilizatsiia." Vladimirskaia. p.41. See also Saratovskaia. pp.17; Tri qoda. p.17. 40

317

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Toward the

end of

1920,

object of heavy criticism.

the campaigns were also an In September,

Preobrazhenskii

noted that "in the course of one and the same week there are sometimes 2-3 nedeli."41

An article in the Moscow province

Party newspaper in January 1921 complained: "We have become used to all kinds of "days," "weeks," etc..

Of late they

have been overused and from shock have become commonplace." Two weeks later an article in the same publication lamented the

fact that the

enthusiasm

as

the

subbotniki no number

of

longer seemed to arouse Communist

participants

decreased.42 As with mobilizations, phased out as quickly as year

of the new course.

virtually unabated.

the use of campaigns was not

many had hoped during

the first

In fact, the practice

continued

In early 1922, Molotov reported that in

the final six months of 1921, Party organizations had had to carry out on the average 17-18 campaigns, 35.43

and some up to

The Central Committee report to the Eleventh Party

Congress noted that everyone now regarded this method as 43- Deviataia konferentsiia. p. 126; also p. 109. Terne notes with sarcasm: ". . . [Y]ou completely lose track of all the official weeks and you can hardly answer the question as to what is now underway— the "Week of the pregnant woman" or some sort of "Week of catching May beetles." See pp. 143144. 42 Kommunisticheskii trud. January 16 and 30, 1921. A speaker at the Fourth Komsomol Congress in September 1921, referred to the new course itself as a "campaign." IV s"ezd RKSM, p.122. Terne, pp.305-309. 43

Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. p.52. 318

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flawed and stressed the need to go over to "organic" Party work,

not

through

nedeli

and

mesiatsv.

"systematic communist education."

but

through

It recognized only two

campaigns as genuine for the time being: the sowing campaign and the "struggle against famine."44

As

to

Party's 1921.

the

expendibility

"militarisation"

of

there

another

was

no

aspect

such

of

consensus

the in

As we have made plain throughout this work, during

the Civil military

War the

Bolshevik lexicon had been

terminology.

No

invaded by

Party member had been

spared.

There is no mystery to this when one considers the way that military

objectives

so

thoroughly

attention for over two years. about

and

labelled

commanded

the

Party's

The way Bolsheviks thought

(consciously

and unconsciously)

their

challenges and problems, friends and enemies, successes and defeats, there

etc., was guided by the military example. were

open

dictatorship."4^ the

Red

Army.46

calls

for

Thus,

"military-proletarian

The food organs were said to be modeled on The

posevkomv

were

described

as

para­

military bodies much like the revkomv. and thus labelled 44 Ibid., p.652. For local examples of the call to reduce the number of campaigns, see Vladimirskaia. p.95 (from March 1922); Saratovskaia. pp.29, 34, 35. 45

Bukharin, Ekonomika. p.119.

46

Aktov in Chetvertaia. p.9.

319

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"posevrevkomv."47

And

the

peasant

was

told

that

the

planting of crops was said to be as much a duty as joining the Red Army.48 When

the

Examples of this kind are legion.49 Civil War

ended there was

a good deal

of

sentiment for maintaining the "militarized" character of the Party's vocabulary

into the period of reconstruction.50

The

onset of the new course saw a continuation of the practice, though

naturally

with a

"demobilization," the

different emphasis

"tax front,"

zone," etc.) to fit the times.51 unconscious. openly

called

("retreat,"

"ceding the occupation

Much of this was certainly

However, there were those within the Party who for

the. .pronotion of the

use

of military

terminology in new slogans, such as "labor front" and "hero of

labor."

They

saw it as

a way to

maintain

the

old

energies, enthusiasm and discipline in a language that the

47

Izvestiia VTsIK. February 15, 1921.

48

Kommunisticheskii trud. February 1, 1921.

49 See A. Selishchev, Iazvk revoliutsionnoi epokhi. Iz nabliudenii nad russkim iazvkom poslednvkh let. 1917-1926 (MOSCOW, 1928), pp.85-96. 50 One striking example December 16, 1920.

is

in

Kommunisticheskii

trud,

51 Two good examples are Sorin in Pravda, August 28, 1521; and Kamenev in Deviatvi s"ezd sovetov. No. 1, p. 12. An article by Kantor in Vestnik agitatsii i propacrandy. No. 1415, July 4, 1921 (p.36) asserted: "We are dealing with a new 'peaceful' form of civil war."

320

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rank-and-file could understand.52 At

least one Bolshevik,

Frumkin, was troubled by the

persistence of m i l i t a r y expressions, which, he claimed, only reinforced wartime methods of work. The period of "war communism” and war psychology still weigh upon us. Even when we uncover our mistakes in the construction of economic life, going over to the peaceful epoch of the development of our industry, we operate with examples from the area of mistakes of great and small strategists. We still imagine the "besieged fortress," the "rear-guard and vanguard battles," flank strikes, fast turns "to the right"— "to the left" whenwhat is needed is stability, systematization fplanomemost11, not placed within the framework of military action.53 Whatever the relationship of language to methods, while the campaigns and mobilizations could be erased by decree, the campaign mentality was more elusive and more persistent. It was this that caused Lenin to keep telling Party and Soviet officials that they must, in a figurative sense, lay down their weapons.54

We will have reason to return to

this feature of the impact of the Civil War on Bolshevism— 52 For example, see Bubnov at the Eleventh Party Conference in Biulleten1. No. 2, p.32; Savelev in Vestnik agitatsii i propaaandv. November 25, 1921, p.3; Sosnovskii in Deviatyi s"ezd sovetov. No. 1, p.13. 53

Chetvre aoda. p.64.

54 In January 1924, Stalin told a Party Conference: "In the heads of one part of our officials there still live the left-overs rperezhitkil of the old war period, when our Party was militarized. . . . [T]he struggle with the left­ overs of the war period at the center as well as in the localities is a principle task of the Party." Sochineniia. vol. 6, p.9. 321

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the

military

mentality

as

revealed

in

language— when we

discuss in Chapter Five how the Party rationalized the new course.

Contradictions

One of Bolshevism's main attractions had always been its uncompromising revolutionary posture.

It had always

been able to make itself distinct from all other political parties and groups.

This was extremely important during

1917 and throughout the Civil War.

However, the change in

course initiated at the Tenth Party Congress served to break down dividing lines separating Bolshevism from its enemies. The

post-war

fuzziness

can be

said

to have

first

appeared when the Party discussed the prospects of arranging foreign concessions at the end of 1920. that

time wondered

aloud why,

if they

Many Communists at had

driving out their

own exploiters, it was

invite in foreign

capitalists.55 But foreign

succeeded

in

now proposed to concessions

55 Lenin delivered a most interesting speech on this subject on December 6, 1920 to a meeting of Moscow Party activists. PSS. vol. 42, pp.55-83. He was responding to the uproar— principally "from below," he said— that greeted the recent publication of documents and newspaper articles on the topic of foreign concessions. He told the gathering not to take at face value the published record on this matter. Its purpose, he said, was merely to bait the foreign capitalist into signing ambiguous agreements for 322

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were slow to materialize (and in fact never lived up to the hopes Lenin and others held out for them at the time) and the

questions

they

raised

never

left

the

realm

of

a

discussion of general principles. It was the appearance of the tangible "new nep street" with its shops, markets, cafes and prostitutes which threw the ranks of the Bolsheviks and their sympathizers into a state of considerable confusion. those

evils

against

which

the

Quite suddenly, Party

leaders

all of

had

been

preaching and in the name of whose destruction many young men went off to fight and die, returned with a vengeance and with the Party's endorsement. to resurface.

The class enemy was allowed

The confusion among the rank-and-file was

said to be '‘staggering."

How, they asked, could the Party

adopt this "conciliatory" fsoqlashatel'skii^ policy?56

"Why

did we fight?," asked Civil War veterans.57 concessions ir. Pussia, agreements that masked the actual conditions for these concessions which the leadership had in mind. The speech was published in part in the 1st and 2nd (and thus 3rd) editions of Lenin's works, though it was misidentified, thought to be his speech of late November before a group of secretaries of Moscow Party cells (a fact, incidentally, not pointed out in the annotations to the 5th edition of Lenin's works). This latter speech was also devoted to the concessions question, with Lenin assuring his audience that a policy of concessions "is not peace, but war in another form, more profitable for us." Ibid., pp.43-46. 56

Dembo, p.l.

57 Serge, p.147. Goldman (p.201) tells of hearing a Red Army soldier say: "Is this what we made the Revolution for? For this our comrades had to die?" Mikoian (V nachale dvadtsatvkh. pp.191, 252) speaks of the "moral decay" among Communists caused by the new course. 323

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The comforting Red and White dichotomy of the Civil War gave way to painful ambiguity.

The lines of distinction

with yesterday's mortal enemy were now blurred.

In a 1922

article entitled "The Old and the New," a Bolshevik writer underscored

the

element of confusion

for a revolutionary

trying to make sense of the new environment: Contradictions are growing. Socialism running the stock exchange, the proletariat reigning over the stock exchange. A proprietor under the protection of the worker-peasant militia. Where here is one's own and where someone else's, where is the enemy and where the friend? The war of whites and reds, with its clarity of chess pieces and cutting lines of the front has entered into a field of separate skirmishes, where detachments, crowds and individuals do battle. And the weapons have changed. In place of sabers, bullets and bayonets— [there is] competition, all over and everywhere, manifold and persistent— in production, in exchange, in culture, in ethics, in science.58 How was the wall poster (which reached the peak of its popularity Lissitskii's

in

1920)

clashes

to of

interpret red

and

these

white

new

lines

images?

could

not

withstand this onslaught of ambiguity.

The ROSTA windows

and posters with their

of good and evil

(many

executed

by

simple messages

Maiakovskii)

fell

upon

a

dearth

of

58 Krasnaia nov'. 1922, No. 2, p.284. A resolution of the Eleventh Party Congress on trade unions had as a sub­ heading: "Contradictions in the very situation of trade unions under the dictatorship of the proletariat." Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. p.729. For more on "contradictions,11 see PSS, vol. 44, p.212; and Kamenev at the Eleventh Party Conference, Biulleten1. No. 1, p.20; Bukharin in Desiatvi s"ezd. pp.227-228; and in Piatvi vserossiiskii s"ezd R K S M [1922] (Moscow and Leningrad, 1927), p.113; Tsement, p.160. 324

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material and disappeared.59

Bukharin worried that the Party

appeared to be "lost, as if the clear and distinct lines had blurred

into

something

hazy

and

to

a

great

extent

undefined. "60 The heroic and romantic images and watchwords of the Civil War period now gave way to some curious and awkward replacements. Lenin's revival of the term "state capitalism" as

a

description

of

the

Soviet

economy

was

cause

for

considerable head-scratching among a Party membership that had understood "socialism" and "capitalism" to be totally incompatible within

one

economy.61

vanguard of the oppressed proletariat,

And

how

should this

for whom liberation

was long associated with the symbolism of breaking chains, greet

the

introduction

of

the

term

"smvchka,"

connotations of forging links in a chain?62 59 Robert C. 1977), p.78.

Williams,

Artists

in

with

its

And what should

Revolution

(Indiana,

60 Pravda. August 6, 1921. In his speech to the Fifth Komsomol Congress, Bukharin juxtaposed the "organizing influence" of War Communism and the "disorganizing influence" of NEP. See Piatvi vserossiiskii s"ezd RKSM. p.117. 61 Lenin's "state capitalism" is discussed in the following chapter. 62 The term "smvchka" is often misused in Soviet and Western historiography. The word came into the Bolshevik lexicon only at the end of 1921 when Lenin used it in his speech to the Ninth Congress of Soviets. (See the remarks of the delegate in Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. p.460.) Soon afterward, however, Soviet writers began to project this "smvchka" back onto the Civil War period to describe the wartime alliance of workers and peasants. The unsettled period of the winter of 192C-1921, then, became one of "razmvchka.11 Soviet and Western historians have borrowed 325

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one make of the simultaneous presentation of the new course as

a

"retreat"

and

as

a

"return"

to

past

economic

policies?63 Not

surprisingly,

the

mind

of

Iurii

Larin

especially troubled by this plunge into ambiguity.

was What

particularly upset Larin was that some Bolsheviks (Osinskii among them) seemed to interpret the new course as something good in itself, when, he thought, they should regard it only as

a

necessary

retreat,

he

dancing."64

evil.

wrote,

and

What was not

a

happening was "cause

for

a

forced

prancing

and

As we noted above, Larin set out to create his

own camps of "communist reaction" and "commercial progress," and he compared the bourgeois industrialists now surfacing in

Russia's

cities

to

the

pre-revolutionary

provocateur

pretending to offer "assistance." It may have especially irked Larin as an ex-Menshevik that the Party was seen by many, including some of its own, as having gone over to the Menshevik program, for which he this unfortunate habit. In fact, "smvchka" is a term that has its own meaning separate from the wartime use of the word "soiuz," which was the word most often used to describe worker and peasant cooperation. "Smvchka" was introduced at a time of maximum retreat in agricultural policy and has overtones or connotations of "appeasement" inappropriate for descriptions of the Civil War period. For an early example of this anachronism, see Aikhenvald, p.22. Examples from more recent Soviet and Western historiography are ubiquitous. Cf. Lih, pp.490-491, n.59. 63 This last question is discussed at some length in the following chapter. 64

Krasnaia nov1. 1921, No. 4, p.150-152. 326

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blamed some of his colleagues.

Reading -through newspaper

articles, he noted indignantly, "in no way can you determine who wrote them: a Bolshevik or a Menshevik."65

That the new

course recalled the proposals of Social Democrats and SRs at the Eighth Congress of Soviets was something the Bolshevik leadership had to swallow hard on.

The potential Menshevik

threat in 1921 was not its opposition to the new economic policy,

but

its

endorsement

of

distinctions in political program.66

it,

which

obscured

The arrest and exile

of Mensheviks in 1921-1922 and the trial of the SRs in the summer of 1922 served to crush potential political rivals and helped to maintain the "us" vs. "them" mentality.67 65 Ibid., p.150. The reaction of one Lifcedinskii1s Communists to the introduction of the prodnaloq is a baffled, "What, Menshevism?" Komissarv. p.113. Terne (p.256) offers the example of a city soviet in the Rostov region in March 1921 ridiculing a Menshevik proposal for "free trade" as "free speculation." "One can imagine," he writes, "the confusion of this sov[iet of] dep[uties] when after a short time it was called upon itself to carry out that free trade, in spite of its own point of view, and to establish the rules for its realization." 66

Schapiro (Origins, p.309) is on the mark here.

67 On the Bolsheviks' efforts to distinguish themselves from anarchists, see Roger Pethybridge, "Concern for Bolshevik Ideological Predominance at the Start of NEP," Russian Review. October 1982, pp.447 (n.7), 453. Radek delivered a very tough speech against the Mensheviks and SRs at the Tenth Party Conference. See Protokolv desiatoi konferentsii. pp.70-75. In January 1922, the Central Committee discussed a set of theses called "SRs, Mensheviks and the New Economic Policy." Milova, p.97. On the criticism of exiled Mensheviks, see Zinoviev's speech in Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. pp.380-384, 395. The endorsement of the new course by emigre publications such as Smena vekh could only be greeted with a certain ambivalence by the Bolshevik Party. On the one hand, isolated within the 327

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4

He

it

it

Within the Party in 1921 there arose some troubling questions about Communist ethics and values. Lenin correctly, Communist

should

he was look

observe his technique,

not over

simply the

If one heard

saying that the good

businessman’s

shoulder,

and make it the subject of a book.

When Lenin instructed Communists to ”learn to trade,” he had in mind the actual involvement of Party members in trade activities. point

he

The stiff resistance he encountered on this attributed

to

"komchvanstvo.”

or

"Communist

impetuosity." The problem is that the responsible Communist— and the best, and the certainly honest, and devoted, who survived incarceration and did not fear death-does not know how to trade, because he is not a businessman, he did not learn that and does not want to learn it, and does not understand that he should learn it from scratch. He, the Communist, the revolutionary, having made the greatest international community it craved any such recognition. Yet, on the other hand, acceptance by these longtime foes, motivated us it was for some by an assumption of inevitable political liberalization, must have been cause for some second thoughts. On Smena vekh. see the resolution in Ibid., p.642. Lenin naturally had a good share of tough words for his Menshevik and other critics and advocated harsh measures for those still in Soviet Russia. But he did indicate a weariness with the exercise when he said in 1922: "One can, of course, for the 999th time scold the Mensheviks, and one must do this, but all the same, that is a practice that has occupied many of us already thirty years. And most of us are bored with it." PSS. vol. 45, p. 148. 328

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revolution in the world, he to whom looks, if not forty pyramids, then forty European countries, with the hope of deliverance from capitalism— he must learn from the ordinary salesman, who has run a shop for ten years, who knows this business, while he, the responsible Communist and devoted revolutionary, not only does not know it, but does not even know that he does not know it.6® Such talk At

aroused bitterness in the Party’s veterans.

the lively Moscow ProvinceParty Conference in October

1921,

the

Old

Bolshevik

Semkov

(all

of

36

years

old)

expressed outrage at Lenin's message:

"What are you saying

about

taught

state

trade?

We

were

not

to

trade

in

engage

in

prison."69 That

some

were

abandoning

the

Party

to

business activities was a cause of concern.

But in some

ways even more troubling was the growing number of cases of Communists who remained in the Party while setting out to make a profit of engage

for themselves. This gave

questions about in

trade,

a

the

ways in

subject

on

which which

rise to all kinds Communists Lenin

gave

should little

68 Ibid., p.82. Despite the nature of these new tasks, Lenin insisted, "all the same we have not ceased to be revolutionaries." 69 Quoted by Lenin in his closing speech. Ibid., vol. 44, p.216. Lenin anticipated this reaction: "Comrade Semkov, it is true that they didn't teach us to trade in prison! And did they teach us how to run a government in prison? And to reconcile various commissariats and to coordinate their activities— did they ever anywhere teach us this unpleasant thing? Nowhere did they teach us that. At best in the prisons they did not teach us, but we taught ourselves Marxism, the history of the revolutionary movement, etc.." He said Semkov's mistake was in continuing to apply the methods of "shturm" in a period of "siege." Ibid.. 329

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guidance. Some

Bolsheviks

worried

that

Party

members

had

misunderstood their role in the new course, that they should be devoting their energies to heavy industry and making a profit for the government, case— opening

up

cafes

and not— as was

chantants.

One

sometimes the

Bolshevik

wrote

sarcastically: It is asked, for whom are comrades (Party members) opening cafes with music and why up to now have there been opened so few inexpensive cafeterias and tea rooms for workers? The state (the proletarian state) needs in the new economic policy not a feeding station for the speculator to the sound of a symphony (even if it is for profit), but the strengthening of heavy industry and the servicing of the proletariat that works there. Whoever does not understand that has not understood one note of the new economic policy.70 Preobrazhenskii

appears

to

have

been

especially

concerned about a growing economic inequality among Party members.

In

the

autumn

of

1921,

he

called

for

the

establishment of a Communist "cooperative" to pool resources and ensure more equality within the Party. reasoned

that

differentiation

they

must

among

now

be

Communists

70 Pravda. September 22, 1921. Reisner in Krasnaia nov1. 1922, "phantom violins" in Tsement, Libedinskii's Bolsheviks says of involved in trade: "We don't Komissary. p.112. Dembo, p.2.

Others, however,

reconciled just

as

to they

economic had

to

On cafe's chantants. see No. 2, p.282; and the pp.214-215. One of his comrades who get need such Communists.11

330

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economic inequality among the working class.71 By issues

the were

Zinoviev

time still

pointed

conflicting

of a out

messages.

the

Eleventh

cause

of

that On

Communist to learn to trade. him

to

"demonstrate

Congress,

confusion

the the

Party

Party one

and was

hand,

these

discomfort. sending

it

tells

out the

On the other hand, it tells

personally,

that

you

are

a

representative of the class which recently was oppressed and which economically still is the most suppressed class.

Be

on the one had a model communist, be on the other hand a model business-like trader."72 During the Congress discussion on the Central Control Commission,

set up to monitor Communist ethical behavior,

Sol'ts issued a call for self-discipline: Communists should recognize that we cannot allow ourselves those concessions that are made for the petty-bourgeois peasant mass. If we have allowed trade, this does not mean that Communists also can trade. . . . This does not mean that Communists can also get rich.72

71 See the exchange in Pravda. September 18, 1921. Also the article, "Can Communists be tenants?," Ibid., August 9, 1921. A resolution of the Tenth Party Congress read: "The Congress fully confirms the course toward equality in the area of the material situation of Party members." Desiatvi s"ezd. p.564. The Vladimir Province Party organization established mutual aid funds for Party members in 1921. See Vladimirskaia. pp.75, 96. 72 Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. p.395. A Congress combined these very tasks. See pp.546-547. 72

Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. p.167, et passim. 331

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resolution

Bribery,

which

proportions,

among

was

also

Party

members had

discussed.

In the

reached

epidemic

autumn of

1921,

Lenin had identified it as one of the Party's three main enemies,

alongside komchvanstvo. and illiteracy.74

Given

the new tasks before Party members, it was asked, should not bribery members?

be

considered

a

legitimite

activity

for

Party

One delegate threw up his hands:

A whole series of questions connected with nep has placed a whole series of workers-Communists in situations in which they do not know what to do, whether or not something is ethical from the point of view of communism, and the [Central Committee] has not given an answer.75 Sol'ts reponded that the center could not

issue specific

instructions to local Control Commissions on problems such as bribery, the consumption of vodka, etc.

What was needed,

he maintained, was "living proletarian feeling."76 The whole atmosphere smelled to some Bolsheviks of a 74 PSS, vol. 44, pp.173-175. Given the extreme scarcity of food and clothing, low wages and the persistence of in-kind wages, bribery was a fact of life which often had nothing of a sinister quality to it. See the. amusing exchange between Voronskii and Iaroslavskii in Robert Maguire, Red Virgin Soil (Princeton, 1968), p.14. Vladimirskaia. pp.122-123. 75 Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. p.202. Similarly, in March 1922 several Bolsheviks, Lunacharskii among them, came under attack from Voronskii and others for their participation in the private "liberal" journal Zhizn1. giving rise to another discussion of Communist ethics. Krasnaia nov1. 1922, No. 2, p.350; Pravda, March 29, 1922. S. A. Fediukin, Bor'ba s burzhuaznoi ideolocriei v usloviiakh perekhoda k neou (Moscow, 1977), pp.191-193. 76

Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. p.206. 332

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degeneration

(oererozhdenie)

of

the

Party.

It

was

inevitable that someone among them would draw upon the most fundamental philosophical principle behind their ideology to cast doubt on the path they were following. been

correct,

said

the

delegate

If Hegel had

Shchumiatskii,

perhaps

somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that existence determines essence, then was it not automatic that those Communists engaged in trade would

become

capitalists?77

No

doubt

others were

pondering this question.

*

The

*

*

supreme awkwardness that resulted from issues of

the new economics and by fears of its effect on the purity of the Party is well illustrated by an incident that took place

at

the

end

of

the

Eleventh

Party

Congress.

It

involved the question of paid private advertisements in the Party press. The

conversion

to

economic

accounting

(khozraschetf

spelled the end of the free distribution of newspapers and led

to

a

search

for

new

sources

of

funding

for

these

publications, a situation exacerbated by a crisis in paper

77

Ibid., pp.427-428. 333

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and

cardboard production.78

Private

advertisements

were

seen as a vital source of funds. The first such advertisements appeared in Xzvestiia on November

27,

1921,

and

in

confined to the back page.

Pravda

on

January

29,

1922,

For the present-day historian

who reads the organ of the Communist Party Central Committee as a source for this period, provides quite a jolt. contemporary

Bolshevik

the appearance of these ads

One can imagine the effect on the reader,

who

would

have

been

hard

78 The crisis, which peaked in 1920-1921 was due to material and equipment shortages and the destruction of the old distribution systems, which was underway since 1918. Jeffrey Brooks, "The Breakdown in Production and Distribution of Printed Material, 1917-1927," in Bolshevik Culture, pp.151-174. Kenez, pp.44-45. Maguire, pp.5-7. Terne, pp.145-152. The figures for the falling rate of newspaper distribution in 1921 are spotty. Brooks cites the example of Bednota, the cheapest and most widely distributed of the daily newspapers, whose circulation fell from 500,000 copies on January 10, 1922 to 200,000 on January 17, 1922, when new accounting principles were applied. Brooks, p.153. The total number of newspapers published across the country fell from 803 in January 1922 to 313 in July. Fediukin, p.185. Aside from the shrinking numbers of publications, there was a general concern that the local Party committees were caught up in economic questions and ignoring political propaganda. On the whole, the quality of what went to press in the provinces was felt to be at a low level of sophistication and to exhibit a poor adherence to direction from the center. Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. pp.569-574. For example, Severnaia zvezda. the organ of the Vologda gubkom. published the following statement early in 1922: "The XI Congress of the RKP categorically noted that our party is practically not in a position to revive the economy and manage it." See Fediukin, p. 183. For the rise in the number of Bolshevik cultural journals in 1922, see Pethybridge, "Concern for Bolshevik Ideological Predominance." 334

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pressed to find a better symbol of "soalashatel *stvo.1,79 In the final hours of the Eleventh Party Congress, with Lenin

absent,

Riazanov

took

up

an

advertisements in the Party press. seen,

he

said,

operation money."

reminded

in which

him

engage

of

attack

on

these

Some of the ads he had *'that

Italians

who

type

of

lending

loan

each

other

And "once in a while you get an announcement that

the kitty Mimi or the puppy Zhuzhu has run away."

Riazanov

proposed that this "unnecessary smut" be restricted to the Soviet press and he recalled a Bolshevik decree on the state monopoly on advertisements of November 8, 1917.80

The Party

press, Riazanov proclaimed, must be run on "enthusiasm and devotion to comradely affairs." The delegate Iakovlev countered that at the local level there was oftentimes not a clear distinction between Soviet and

Party

newspapers

and

that

a

measure

to

restrict

advertising from Party newspapers would in fact undercut the latter by removing desperately needed resources. succeeded

(with

chairman

Kamenev's

assent)

in

Riazanov getting

79 Beginning in October 1921 through February 1922, a group of private entrepreneurs published a periodical "Moscow Advertisement Sheet" fMoskovskii Listok Ob"iavlenii^. Shortly after its first appearance, Lenin remarked: "After three years of our previous economic policy, this Listok Ob"iavlenii had an impression of something totally unusual, totally new, strange." PSS. vol. 44, p.200. 80 Lenin recalled in October 1921 that this decree, while calling for a monopoly, had not outlawed the private press and private advertisements, but only called for their control and guidance. Ibid.. 335

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passage

of

Central

Mikoyan's

Committee

compromise to

motion

reexamine

calling upon the

the

question

of

advertisements in Pravda.81 Lenin was informed in his Kremlin apartment of these goings on and when he reached the Congress, he passed the following note to Kamenev: They say that the Congress approved the removal of announcements in Pravda? Can't we correct this, because it's an obvious mistake? Kamenev jotted in reply: We cannotI They voted twice. It makes them sick. We have to find other means of support: book advertisements, payment for advertisements about meetings, notices of the Central Committee, etc.82 After the new Central Commission

had

already

Committee

been

and

approved,

Central Control in

a

breach

of

protocol, Lenin was allowed to address the delegates on this issue. Reprimanding Riazanov, he appealed to the delegates to reverse their decision. There was, he insisted, simply no other way to support Pravda.

Another vote was taken, this

time in Lenin's favor.83 81 Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. pp.516-517, 623, 807 (n.185). Leninskii sbornik. vol. XIII, p.30. The Pravda staffers present, Meshcheriakov and Lenin's sister, Maria Ulianova, offered no resistance. 82

Leninskii sbornik. vol. XIII, p.29.

83 In this final scene, Riazanov conducted himself like a frightened schoolboy. PSS. vol. 45, p.135; also p.530 (n.30). Mikoyan defended his behavior in this episode in 336

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*

*

*

It is easy to imagine that the Old Bolsheviks were in a somewhat better position to handle the sudden turn of events than those who had joined the Party since 1917 and who knew only "heroic" Bolshevism. familiar

with

the

For one, the Party veterans were

vicissitudes

of

the

revolutionary

underground and had lived through times of severe set-back. Furthermore,

their

superior

ideological

training

and

its

interpretive application to events and developments over the years enabled them to deal more effectively with the new incongruities

in Party policy

and

in Party life.

Those

equipped with the analytical tools of the dialectic could rationalize, and so defuse, the contradictions that sprouted up all

around.

Lenin,ofcourse,

"The wholesale trader," he

was a master at this.

wrote in autumn

1921,

"is an

economic type, as far from communism as is the sky from the earth. living

But

it

is one of

those contradictions which

in

life leads fromthe petty peasant economy through

state capitalism to socialism."84 However,

those

young

Communists

who

were

taught

a

primitive Marxism on the run during the Civil War acquired Mysli i vospominaniia of Lenine. pp.213-217. 84

PSS, vol. 44, p.152. 337

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no such powers of analysis. red and white.

They continued to see things in

It was these people, the Communist youth as

well as urban youth in general, who were a source of special concern as the new course began.

In the Civil War young

Communists

to

through

could

be

"instinct,"

longer enough.

relied

upon

gut

feeling.

a

identify But

the

instinct

enemy was

no

Mesmerized by the street life around them,

and with many unemployed hours to

spend on the

streets,

youth were highly susceptible to its vices. In

the

enthusiast

words

during

of this

one

who

period,

had the

been

a

Communist

young youth

Party were

unfamiliar with the "monotony of the underground with its patient everyday work of the 'moles of the revolution."'85 It was important now to teach youth, the "reserve" of the Party, this patience. Evidence of the deep disillusionment of young workers manifested itself in a sharp drop in Komsomol membership, protests and demonstrations among working class youth, and a rise

in youth

crime.86

despair was the suicide. 85

A

compelling

image

of

youthful

As far as we know, there are no

Drabkina, "Zimnii pereval," p.54.

86 IV s"ezd RKSM. pp.107-110. As a result of the spring 1921 re-registration, Komsomol membership dropped 50%, though some of this was said to have been from voluntary withdrawals inspired by the Kronstadt rebellion. In fact, one speaker at the Congress (p. 122) implied that he understood the new course to have been introduced mainly because of rising desertion from the Party. See also Lebed', pp.48-49. Izvestiia VTsIK. May 7, 1921. 338

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figures on the actual rate of suicide from this period, but there appears to have been a good deal of talk and rumor of young suicide at the time.

No matter the actual number of

instances, the currency of the image— a symbol of the death of

youthful

romance

in

perception is telling.

the

Party— for

Communist

self­

Reisner was attracted to the image

of the young revolutionary romantic who cannot go on: And there are already sad rumors going around. There, coming home, one of the heroes of the war shot himself. He could not withstand the petty and base quarelling An excess drop overfilled the cup. Like blood lies the proletarian decoration on his lifeless chest. And there they speak of the untimely death of a young worker, a member of the youth league. And also because of nothing. . . . There are not a few of such cases.87 The

narrator

of

Komissarv

describes

the

troubled

thoughts of one of the romantics of the Revolution obsessed with death in 1921: . . . [H]e is ready to give his life, like a to throw it into the fire of revolution, if so it could burn further. But no one will his life and because of that it seemed to him the revolution was dying out.88

log, only take that

Preobrazhenskii

that

was

particularly

concerned

the

Party immediately get involved in guiding its young members. In July 1921 he called for the Party to "awaken in the young 87 Krasnaia nov1. 1922, No. 1, p.284. On suicide, see Em. Iaroslavskii, "Lenin i NEP," in Bol1shevik. 1931, No. 5, p.19; and Stukov in Pravda. December 22, 1921. 88

Komissarv. p.23. 339

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Party members three times as much internal hatred towards free trade as when that trade was

forbidden.1,89

And he

complained at the Eleventh Party Congress that the lack of discussion of the theoretical questions raised by NEP was detrimental most of all to youth. . . . [C]omrades, we are forgetting that a young generation is growing up, which did not pass through that Marxist theoretical training, through which we passed. And with respect to that youth we are making a very big crime in that we brush aside those [theoretical] questions.90 Most

of all,

the

Party worried

about the effect of

"bourgeois values" on its young and future members. the

evil

influences

prostitution

on

(usually

youth

of

mentioned

speculation, in

the

Talk of

crime

same

and

breath)

dominated the Fourth Komsomol Congress in September 1921, a most depressed and depressing gathering.

The minures to the

Congress reveal the Komsomol in near total disarray.

It met

when the full effects of economic accounting in industry on the employment of young workers, inevitably the first to be let go

from their

jobs,

were

apparent.

Speakers voiced

strong concern about the susceptibility of unemployed youth (Komsomol which,

members

said

one,

and

non-members)

was

a

to

"landscape

89

Pravda, July 19, 1921.

90

Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. p.83.

the

marketplace,

[peizazh]

Also pp.477-478.

340

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in

the

wilderness.1,91

One

delegate

said

that

the

young

were

experiencing "the most colossal confusion: on the one hand [seeing] blossoming egoism, on the other hand [hearing] the call to collective work."92 One delegate to the Eleventh Party Congress spoke of the

"psychological

impact"

on

youth,

susceptible to "petty-bourgeois anarchy."

who

are

most

He expressed a

concern generally shared by Party leaders in 1922 for those who

"drift into speculation,

prostitution;

this

youth

is

come under the influence of scattered,

comes

under

the

influence of dime novels, comes under the influence of the new nep street, and thus, the future cadres of our army, the army of the working class and of communism, is snatched away 91 IV s"ezd RKSM. p.282. See the resolution speculation, crime and prostitution on pp.208-211.

on

92 Ibid., p. 167. One year later, Bukharin told the Fifth Komsomol Congress that because youth was emotional and inexperienced, the Party would have to provide the necessary guidance to bring about what he called an "education of feelings" (vospitanie chuvstva). Piatvi vserossiiskii s"ezd RKSM. p.7. In his remarks, Bukharin made reference to the fact that young Communists had taken to calling the new course "damned NEP" ("prokliatvi NEP" or "chortov NEP"). The Party felt weakened in its capacity to offer such guidance as educational institutions were subject to the new economics. For example, Party schools (Sovpartshkoly) declined in number: in October 1921 there were 255 schools in the country educating 50,000 students; one year later there were 20,000 students in 205 schools. See Kenez, p.130; Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. pp.422-425, 643. A Pravda article of October 13, 1921 warned that the Party should not trade in education, while speakers at the Eleventh Party Congress noted that political propaganda among the workers was slipping, with one delegate voicing the fear that the new policies were resulting in what he called the "selling off of our Marxist ideology." Odinnadtsatyi s"ezdt p.453. 341

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into strange hands."93

*

*

*

The issue of youth reaction to the new course was tied in to the contradictory rumors and speculation in 1921-1922 about the extent and nature of voluntary withdrawals from the Party.

Already at the Tenth Party Congress there was

talk of a large-scale abandonment of the Party in the winter of 1920-1921.94 cause

the

The

Central

level

Committee

of concern was to

call

for

sufficient to study

of

the

93 Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. pp. 411-412. For the lure of the "nep street," of the enticements so long absent, and for the mesmerizing effect of the shop windows, (including more on hot pastries) see Tsement. pp.214-215, 251-252. For dramatic contrast the latter scene includes the appearance of first famine victims in the town. Tsement also portrays the Party purge of 1921 victimizing young revolutionary romantics (pp.280-281). The young Polia Mekhova, having been thrown into despair by the introduction of the new course, comes before the purge commission. She is diagnosed by one comrade as suffering from "left-wing childishness,11 pronounced "born too early" ("because we are not yet at the stage of full communism") , and removed from the Party. There is no satisfactory study of the 1921 Party purge, and thus, no adequate answer to the question of, for instance, to what degree "oppositionists" were purge victims. Those who have looked into the matter maintain that the chief target of the purge was the "careerist,11 and that there is little evidence it was used to get rid of the the likes of the Workers' Opposition. T. H. Rigby, Communist Party Membership in the USSR. 1917-1967 (Princeton, 1968), pp.98100; Schapiro, Origins, p.330; CPSU, pp.236-237. Schapiro notes that among the intended targets of the purge were "revolutionary romantics." 94 Desiatvi s"ezd. pp.236-237, 326. See Sol'ts in Pravda. January 21 and February 6, 1921. Terne, pp.60-61. 342

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question.95 As we have force

after

seen,

the

Tenth

rumors

of withdrawals took on new

Party

Congress,

provoking

another

Central Committee circular and contributing to the calling of an extraordinary Party Conference in May.96 purge

figures

tell

us

that

there

were

The official

17,796

voluntary

withdrawals during the period of the purge, and the official interpretation

was

that

those

who

left

were

primarily

peasants returning to their previous profit-making ways.97 One Soviet source identifies most of these as young peasants who joined the Party in 1919-1920.98 But speculation on this subject within the Party often wandered to very different conclusions.

Speakers

at the

Eleventh Party Congress spoke of a mass exodus out of the Party Others

of workers, argued

that

indeed

some of Russia's

those

who

abandoned

best

the

workers.

Party

in

a

difficult time could not be its "best" members and should be

95 Schapiro, CPSU, p.237; Rigby, p.105. The statistics on Party membership for this period are of questionable accuracy and offer little to go on. See Ibid., pp.94 (n.9); Avrich, pp.183-184. Antonov-Ovseenko reported in mid-1921 that one-half of the Tambov Party membership resigned in the winter of 1920-1921. The Trotskv Papers, vol. 2, p.507. 96

Lavrov, p.12.

97

Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. pp.48, 546.

98

Poliakov, p.410-411.

343

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treated like "Judases."99 No doubt some committed Party members left because of what was called "disagreement return

of

their

"romantic" act.

Party

rnesoalasiel with NEP," the

cards

constituting

No doubt, too, however,

their

last

some mounted the

high horse of principle while taking the low road out in pursuit of personal gain.

But here again it was the rumor

and speculation that created an atmosphere of uncertainty and insecurity. This

total

disillusionment

picture, and

however

self-doubt,

accurate,

of

of

withdrawals

growing from

the

Party, of waning belief in the ideals of the Revolution, the charges

of

remind some past:

the

"soalashatel1stvo." Old days

Bolsheviks of

of

Tsarist

and a

so

on,

was

enough to

similar period

reaction

in

1907,

in their when

the

victories of the Revolution of 1905 were reversed and the forces of revolution were thrown into disarray. At that time, intelligentsia that Democrats. period.

of course,

it was the desertion of the

occupied the

Nonetheless,

attention

of

the Social

some saw parallels with the 1907

Shliapnikov told the Eleventh Party Congress:

99 Ibid., pp.119, 128, 438, 501. Rigby's figures (p.105, n.38) on the social composition of those leaving the Party in 1922 show that workers were the largest contingent at 37%, Not that concern was not expressed about the effect of an attrition of peasant members on the quality of village Party organizations. See Ibid., pp.106-107; Vladimirskaia. pp.73-74. 344

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[W]e are now living through a let-down rupadokl. I myself lived through and observed such a let-down in 1907. When I come to our responsible meetings— oh, how it smells of 1907! We remember the mood of the intelligentsia and those non-proletarian elements of those times close to it, and how much reminds us now of that time!100 Similarly, Manuil'skii called the often-heard sentiment that "the working class won nothing from the revolution" the same kind of nonsense spread by the "liquidators" in 1905-1907. These,

he said,

must be dealt with as we dealt with the

Mensheviks of old.-01 that

the

"best"

Zinoviev, too, compared the reports

people

were

deserting

the

Party

to

"liquidationism," though of the period 1909-1910.102 Stukov, attracted

a

in

a

lot

Pravda of

article

mail,

in

compared

December the

1921

that

contemporary

atmosphere to that of the post-1905 period, noting in both an attraction among the youth to academics, a retreat from social and political life,

and evidence of what he called

"boqdanovshchina" (recalling the theoretical writing of the Bolshevik A. A Bogdanov from the post-1905 period, and here

100 Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. pp.102-103. Later in the Congress he referred to the "apathy toward the party, toward the interests of the revolution" that resembled that of the 19 07 period. See pp.188-189. 101

Ibid., pp.437-438.

102

Ibid., p.501.

345

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best: translated as "escapism").103 In fact, when the transition to NEP was completed and the Party had collected its collective self, when the limits of retreat had been established and a new period of peaceful advance

(nastuplenie)

had

begun,

when

the

new

economic

policy was no longer new, the Party looked back on the years 1921-1922

as

a

distinct

period

in

its history,

"another

1907."104

Praktika and the Poet

Before we turn to the peasant question, the reader is asked to tolerate something of a brief digression in order that

we

might

clarify

the

role

of

Iurii

Larin

in

the

Bolshevik Party during the transition to NEP. As we have had occasion to demonstrate, Larin was one 103 "Alarming developments," Pravda. December 22, 1921. A response by Z. Losinskii (Pravda. December 24) viewed the turn to academics as a positive development. On the "struggle for youth," see the article, "The new front,1' Pravda. January 25, 1922. Also Bukharin at the Eleventh Party Conference, Biulleten'. No. 2, pp.51-52. Reisner in Krasnaia nov1. 1922, No. 1, p.284. An Old Bolshevik in Komissarv (p.108) compares the debates about the direction of economic policy in 1921 to the arguments about Bolshevik participation in the Third Duma in 1907, and argues that once again the Party must follow Lenin. 104 L. Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (New York, 1925), p. 76. 346

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of the Bolsheviks least likely to succeed in meeting the new requirement for "cold-bloodedness."

A writer and economist

working at various positions in VSNKh during the Civil War, he thrived on controversy and was often given to extremist positions. and

Never short on plans and projects, resolutions

theses,

Larin

"visionaries"

was

one

of

the

purest

in the War Communism period.

Bolshevik

Though not a

healthy man and bookish in appearance, frequently the object of his colleagues' ridicule, he commanded attention at Party gatherings During

through

the

his

transition

wit,

humor

period

and

Lenin

biting

often

sarcasm.

found

himself

putting out fires that Larin had started, and perhaps there is something to be learned in considering his case,

more

than our frivolous sub-title would suggest. To

understand

personalities former's called

such

Lenin's as

longstanding

Larin,

with

many problems.

one

intolerance

"fantazerstvo": the

Bolsheviks

supremeimpatience must

for

"dreaming"

impractical

solutions

with

appreciate

what he or to

the

sometimes

"fantasizing" Soviet

of

Russia's

In this Larin excelled and for that reason

he was Lenin's bete noire in 1921 when a premium was put on practicality. Perhaps the episode that peaked Lenin's impatience was the controversy over

planning that arose in the winter of

1920-1921.

Civil

As

the

War

wound down, a

good

many

Bolsheviks saw in the creation of the "single economic plan" 347

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a panacea for Soviet Russia's economic ills. economic

organs

became

simply

ravenous

Some in the

for planning

and

naturally Larin was among them. Lenin's polemics with Larin, Kritsman, Gusev and V.P. Miliutin— each armed with a blueprint for the management of the economy— became a sideshow to the trade union debate and were a considerable distraction to Lenin, serving to drain his dwindling energy in the critical weeks up to the Tenth Party

Congress.

unrealistic,

Lenin

considered

the

various

''plans"

out of touch with Russia's desperate economic

condition.

He viewed the entire exercise as the "emptiest

'production

of

theses,5"

labelling

one

of

the

proposals

"fantazerstvo. The turn to the new course, as we have noted, saw Lenin step up the calls for less discussion, more

"praktika."

This meant that

fewer theses,

it was

open season on

Larin, who continued to present a substantial target. oft quoted passage

and

In an

from his speech to the Eleventh Party

Congress, Lenin said of him: [Larin] is a very talented person and possesses a big imagination. This ability is extremely valuable. It is groundless to think that it is useful only to poets. That is a stupid prejudice! Even in mathematics it is useful, even a discovery in differential and integral calculus is impossible without fantasy. Fantasy is a 105 PSS, vol. 42, p.155 (December 1920), and pp.339-347 (February 1921). See the full account in Carr, pp.373-376; and Malle, pp.308-314. We will have something to say below about Lenin's own plan, electrification. 348

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quality of greatest value, but comrade Larin has a small surplus. For example, I would say that if you took comrade Larin's full supply of fantasy and divided it equally among all members of the [Russian Communist Party], things would turn out fine.106 Lenin's "fantasizers" thrived on discussion to reveal their schemes and visions, and it was Larin's weakness for speaking his mind,

for spelling out his ideas,

often with

bombast and hyperbole, that often got him into trouble. There is some evidence that at the end of 1920 the Central

Committee

discussion

and

began

to

criticism

as

see

more

open

the partial

inner-Party

solution to the

problems of, for instance, the low level of local initiative and

the

growing

unions.107

discontent

The trauma

with

of the

the

events

spring did much to dampen this spirit. being

encouraged,

was

Bolshevik fondness gatherings

was

a

now

viewed

as

treatment of

of

trade

the winter and

Discussion, far from a

"luxury."

The

for a good verbal have-at-it at Party product

of

the

long

tradition

of

106 PSS, vol. 45, pp.125-126. Also on Larin, see vol. 43, p.323; vol. 54, p.101; and Leninskii sbornik. vol. XXXVI, p.425. In "What is to be Done," Lenin wrote that "it would be stupid to deny the role of fantasy even in the strictest science," citing Pisarev as an authority. See E. H. Carr, The October Revolution. Before and After (New York, 1969), pp.60-61. 107 Origins. p.266. At the Ninth Party Conference Zinoviev called for more open criticism within the Party. Desiataia konferentsiia. p.148. A Diskussionvi listok was begun to this end, but lasted for only two issues in the winter of 1920-1921. The Tenth Party Congress passed a resolution calling for the regular discussion of issues at the center and in the localities. Desiatvi s"ezd. pp.565-6. 349

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underground polemics when revolutionaries had many ideas to explore and too much time on their hands to do so.

As a

Party in power, the Bolsheviks lost little of their appetite for endless meetings, which practice took on the pejorative label "mitingovanie.11

In 1921 Lenin's patience with this

behavior ran short.108 The question of the proper limits of discussion within the Party became something of a controversial issue when the experiment prematurely. the

Party

with

"discussion

clubs"

in

1921

ended

The clubs were formed, it seems, as a way for to

let

conferences

were

unhampered

by

off

steam, while

conducted

discussions

in more

its

congresses

businesslike

of general

and

fashion,

principles.

The

experiment came to a scandalous end when participants in the Moscow Party chapter were accused of delivering "demagogic" speeches

giving

impetus

to

"various

sorts

of rumors

and

moods. 108 See PSS. vol. 42, pp.156-157; vol. 44, p.166. Early in 1922, Lenin cited favorably a Mayakovskii poem ridiculing the Bolshevik penchant for holding meetings and engaging in ceaseless chatter. Ibid., vol. 45, p.13. (Lenin said he was not among those who appreciated Maiakovskii's talent as a poet, but admitted his "incompetence" in this field.) In April 1918, Lenin was much more tolerant of mitingovanie. which he associated with the "democratism of the laborers." Ibid., vol. 36, pp.201-202. 109 See Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. pp.173, 180-183, 548. Pravda. August 28, 1921. Schapiro, Origins. p.329. Lenin, Sochineniia. vol. 27, pp.536-537 (n.119). Larin's Krasnaia nov* article from the November-December 1921 issue (No. 4) , "On the limits of the adaptability of our economic policy," is taken from his speech of October 20 at the Moscow Party discussion club. A further installment of the speech was to 350

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Not surprisingly, Larin found himself at the center of this

controversy.

He

seemed

at

this

time

especially

frustrated by the attempt to control and channel discussion. It was against his nature to remain focussed on "praktika.11 This

is

illustrated

in

a

passage

from

the

stenographic

report of the Eleventh Party Congress, which offers a taste of typical Larin naughtiness: Comrades, comrade Trotsky warned me just now that in his opinion or according to his observation, one can speak about nep only in verse. (Laughter.) (Trotskii from his seat: You, you, comrade Larin.) (Laughter.) You said: "At the present time one can speak only in verse. . . . " Of course, one can easily check this by our newspapers. Because critical opinions about nep are actually printed only in the verse of Demian Bednyi. And with respect to this comrade Trotsky is correct when he repeats this to me, that is, criticism of the new economic policy. But recalling the words of comrade Lenin about the low level of culture of responsible communist officials, I will speak in prose. (Laughter.)110

Soviet historians have made Larin their whipping boy, and

university

relish

Lenin's

lecturers

and

description

follow, but did not.

historians of

the

will

powers

quote of

with

Larin's

See Szamuely's discussion, pp.84-89.

110 Odinnadtsatyi s"ezd. p.109. Later in the Congress, Lenin told the delegates: "Stop philosophizing, arguing about NEP, let the poets write verse, that is why they are poets." PSS. vol. 45, p.92; also pp.125-126. Lenin (who, it should be stated, seems to have been genuinely fond of Larin) in a note of February 1922, wrote that Larin was a "good guy— as a poet, as a journalist, as a lecturer." Leninskii sbornik. vol. XXXVI, p.425. Also PSS. vol. 45, pp.118-119. 351

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fantastic

imagination.111

Western

historians

place

him

(along with Kritsman and others) in the camp of the Party's "Utopians," or "Mad Hatters."112 There is no denying that Larin was indeed a special case.

But it would be a mistake to dismiss him or the

attention

Lenin

paid

him

during

the

transition

period.

While Larin was in few ways a "typical" Bolshevik, it would be

incorrect

to assume that

in Larin Lenin did not

see

(albeit in caricatured form) tendencies and excesses at work in the Party as a whole. there were

The case of Larin reminds us that

certain Bolshevik habits

and traditions which

were not the product of the Party's brief tenure in power and which also did not sit well with the demands the new course placed on Bolshevism. Furthermore, during the volatile period of transition, with

the

Party

in

uncertainty,

Larin

witness

success

his

a

general

could in

stir

state up

near panic within the Party,

confusion

considerable

establishing

policy" in the autumn of 1921.

of

a

and

trouble:

"newest

economic

In short, during a period of Larin was capable of setting

off a stampede. In

his

confrontations

with

chastizing more than an individual.

Iurii

Larin,

Lenin

was

When he spoke of

111 For example, see V. Z. Drobyzhev, Glavnvi shtab sotsialisticheskoi promvshlennosti (Moscow, 1966), pp.69-70. 112

For the latter, see Cohen, pp.131, 415 (n.24). 352

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"dreamers” in the Party Lenin cast the net wide.

Here, too,

his message was that the old assets had become liabilities: If someone among the Communists dreamed that in three years it was possible to transform the economic base, the economic roots of petty landownership, then he, of course, was a fantasizer. And there is no reason to conceal this sin— there were not a few such fantasizers among us. And there is nothing especially bad here. How could we have begun a socialist revolution in such a country without fantasizers?113

The "Peasant Brest"

Bolshevik isolation The Bolshevik leadership in 1921 was unified above all by

its

Abandoned

sense by

of the

isolation international

before

the

proletariat

peasant

mass.

and with

the

Russian working class withering away, the Party saw itself, in Lenin's words,

as but a "drop in a sea of people."114

The remarkable turn (or return) to realism and caution— even pessimism

and

fear— in

Bolshevik

pronouncements

on

the

inhabitants of the countryside marked the abandonement of 113

PSS. vol. 43, p.60.

114 PSS. vol. 45, p.98. "suspended in the void." 1968), p.8.

Moshe Lewin uses the expression Lenin's Last Strugq1e (New York,

353

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earlier inflated expectations of peasant behavior.

Gone was

the optimism that only months before had led some to speak of the conversion of Russian peasants into Soviet citizens, of the re-direction of peasant loyalties and allegiances. The

crisis

of

January-February

1921

swept

away

the

welling Bolshevik confidence in the power of the state— their state— to transform peasant Russia.

Its very survival

at stake, the Party initiated a policy of appeasement toward the countryside.

The Bolsheviks were made to listen to the

voice of peasant logic, which in 1921 took among its forms the expression,

"Better Nicholas with pork (' so svininoi')

than Lenin with horsemeat (' s_koninoi') .1,115 When the worst period of crisis had ended in the spring of 1921, Lenin described his Party's dilemma in its barest simplicity in a letter to Klara Tsetkin and Paul Levi: Our situation in February and March was difficult. It's a peasant country. The peasant household is the overwhelming majority of the population. It vacillates. It is devastated, dissatisfied.116 It is not that Lenin and his colleagues had earlier been unaware

of these

facts.

The Bolsheviks were

quite

handy with statistics and could recite the figures on sizes of

individual

115 Vestnik 1921, p.20.

households, aaitatsii

the

meagre

number

i propaaandv. No.

116 PSS, vol. 52, pp. 149-150. trud, March 17, 1921.

of

11-12,

communal May

25,

See also Kommunisticheskii

354

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farms, the decline in sown land, the falling relative per year rate of requisitioned grain, and so on.

The difference

is that in 1920 it seemed that history was moving forward in giant

strides

and

that

the

Russian

condition

could

dramatically improve in a very short time, whereas in 1921 history seemed to stand still,

even reverse itself.

The

inertia of tradition quite suddenly appeared overwhelming. Circumstances and events now seemed to favor that which had remained unchanged since 1917, indeed since well before the Russian Revolution. In

their

own

early

writings,

the

Bolsheviks

had

recognized the inevitability of a parting of the ways of the "bourgeois"

and "proletarian" revolutions.

However, other

dividing lines— among them distinctions of rich, middle and poor peasants— had come to command their attention. swept

up

as

they were by

the military

successes

And

of the

Revolution, won by a largely peasant army, the Party leaders came

to

see

the

peasantry

as

the

junior

ally,

the

subordinate partner in the "union" of workers and peasants. They

assumed

that

this

alliance

would

continue

during

peacetime reconstruction. The events of the winter of 1920-1921 demonstrated that this

assumption

was

incorrect.

Bolshevik illusion behind War learned

it

realization

had

no

The

Communism

allies in

most

fundamental

collapsed: theParty

the countryside.

elicited in some Bolshevik

This

quarters rather un-

355

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Marxist expressions of betrayal,

as, for instance,

in the

following excerpt from Preobrazhenskii's article on the new course from June 1921: [T]he civil war ended, the enemies were defeated, the main danger frightening the countryside, the danger of losing the confiscated land and of the return of the power of the landlord was removed. The country enters a new period of its existence. And then before beginning the passage through a new historical stage, one of the participants in the bloc makes its companion understand that it does not wish to proceed in the same way as before.117 In his pamphlet "On the Food Tax," Lenin described for his Bolshevik colleagues the economic and cultural setting in which they now had to proceed to build their new society: Take a look at a map of the R.S.F.3.R.. To the north from Vologda, to the southeast from Rostovna-donu and fromSaratov,to the south from Orenburg and fromOmsk, to the north from Tomsk there are enormous distances,along which there could be place for dozens of tremendous cultured states. And along all these stretches there rules a patriarchal order roatriakhal'shchina1 , halfsavagery fpoludikost'1, andthe most real savagery. And in the peasant backwaters rzakholust'i ? 1 in the rest of Russia? Everywhere where there are dozens of versts of by-roads— better: dozens of versts of no roads— the village is separated from the railroads, that is, from the material ties with culture, with capitalism, with heavy industry, with big cities.Do you not think that in those places also are dominant a patriarchal order, oblomovshchina. halfsavagery?118

117

Krasnaia nov;. 1921, No. 1, p.190.

118

PSS, vol. 43, p.228. 356

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Some readers of this passage might well have wondered whether

there

was

any

point

of

continuing

with

the

construction of socialism if such was the actual state of affairs.

One who was given to pessimism as he

Lenin's map of Russia was Maxim Gorkii. 1921,

he

spoke

apocalyptic

to

terms

a

visiting

about

the

In the summer of

French

future

studied

journalist

of

the

in

Russian

Revolution: Up to now the workers have been the masters, but they are only a tiny minority in our country: they represent at most a few millions. The peasants are legion. In the struggle between the two classes that has been going on since the beginning of the revolution, the peasants have every chance of coming out victorious. . . . The urban proletariat has been declining incessantly for four years. . . . The immense peasant tide will end by engulfing everything. . . . The peasant will become master of Russia, since he represents numbers. and it will be terrible for our future.119 Before country.

the

year

was

out,

Gorkii

had

abandoned

the

In the following year his infamous pamphlet "On

the Russian Peasant" was published in Berlin.

Had

the

Bolsheviks

been

in

the

habit

of

ideological principles dictate their behavior, well have thrown in the towel at this point.

letting

they might

There was now

good reason to wonder if their enemies had not been right all

along

in claiming that

Bolshevik

rule

in Russia was

119

Morizet, pp.240-242. Quoted in Carr, p.291. 357

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premature and that perhaps others should be presiding over the management of this new economic policy.

The issue of

historical determinism was raised more than once within the Bolshevik camp itself. his

colleagues

of

a

In 1922, Antonov-Ovseenko reminded troubling passage

from Engels'

"The

Peasant War in Germany": Comrade Lenin touched upon a question of extreme importance about the fact that the peasantry are presenting us with certain demands. Will we be able to satisfy them? I am reminded in this connection of an extremely significant place in the works of Engels. There in relation to the peasant war in Germany approximately the following is stated: "Extreme misfortune befalls the leader who comes to power at a time when the class and material conditions of the movement are not sufficiently prepared to support that power in sufficient measure. Then this leader must carry out not the ideas of his own class, not that toward which he had been directed by his past and by his direct connection with the party, but that which material conditions have prepared, that is, carry out the desires and line of the class with which he diverges in many and, maybe, in the basic questions."12 0 Several months earlier, Lenin had come across the same citation in a letter from an NKVD official. inhibited

by

the

laws

of

history,

Never one to be

Lenin

reacted

with

characteristic impatience: Engels is cited for nothing. Did some "intelligent" feed you that citation? It's a useless citation, if not worse than useless. It 120 Odinnadstatvi s"ezd. pp.77-78. The actual quote from Engels is provided on p.776 (n.45). Absent from the latter, however, is the key line: "Whoever is put in this awkward position is irrevocably doomed." 358

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smells of doctrinaire-ism. And for us to despair shameful.121 Few

things

seemed

to

It resembles despair. is either funny or

irritate

Lenin

more

application of old rules to a new situation. leaders saw in their Marxist ideology, 1921,

not

peoples,"

"a gospel, but

"a

than

the

The Bolshevik

as Trotsky said in

a holy scripture for all times and

certain

method

of

orientation

in

the

surrounding circumstances, a spiritual weapon, with the help of which we solve the problems of a given time for a given government."122

Engels might make

a

few pause,

but the

Party leadership was not about to roll over.

Electrification To the end of his life,

Lenin preached that a major

part of the solution to the peasant problem was to dot the map of the RSFSR with electric power stations.

We cannot

address the issue of the peasantry without saying something about

Lenin's

Farbman,

that

notion

of

electrification,

"for a time

robbed

Lenin

an of

idea, all

wrote

sense

of

realities."123 121 p s s . vol. 26, pp.362-363. Lewin opens his Lenin's Last Struggle with a juxtaposition of the Engels statement and a suitably voluntaristic counter by Lenin. 122 iv s"ezd RKSM. p.35. Louis Fischer wrote that for Lenin "politics came first, ideology when convenient." The Life of Lenin, pp.480-481. 123

Farbman, p.253. 359

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The adoption of the new course naturally brought about changes

in the way the Bolsheviks thought about bringing

,!enlightenment" to the countryside. shifting

the

educational

Party

away

from

Lenin took the lead in the

concept

and literacy programs, which,

budgets would not allow.3-24

of

anyway,

crash

the new

As part of the new realism

regarding the peasantry, new long-term plans for eradicating peasant

illiteracy

were

established.

The

timetable

for

achieving economic abundance was now firmly tied to the goal of raising the cultural level of the peasantry,

and Lenin

was preparing everyone for a long haul.125 124 NEP accounting took an immediate toll on the literacy campaign. The village reading rooms (izba-chital1nve) were cut back from 24,413 in 1921 to 5,018 by 1922/23. Kenez, p.137. See also Odinnadtsatvi sMezd. pp.448, 573; Vladimirskaia. p.89. Saratovskaia. p.46. The literacy centers (likounktvt also suffered. In October of 1921, they numbered 37,163 instructing 854,746 people. By April 1, 1922, the numbers had dropped to 8,802 centers and 202,446 people and by April 1923, the respective numbers were 3,649 and 104,361. Then, too, not all agreed that an enlightened peasantry would be the best outcome. An article published by the Iaroslavl Party committee in 1922 stated that peasants should not be educated because they would learn their own economic and political interests. Quotes from Marx and Engels were used to make the case. Odinnadtsatvi stlezd. p.424. 125 For example, PSS, vol. 44, pp.168-175. The problem was exacerbated, Lenin warned, by the low cultural level of the very Party members who were to bring culture to the countryside. See, for example, Ibid., vol. 45, pp.95-96. Not everyone saw things in this light. For people like Osinskii, the chief concern was not komchvanstvo or the nekul1turnost' of cadres, but the way the Soviet government was organized. The solution lay in the correct institutional arrangement. See Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd, p.87. Lenin was terribly impatient with those who sought answers in a "oereorqanizatsiia"— a reorganization of this or that institution (though he himself would resort to this on his 360

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Lenin firmly believed that the way to penetrate the peasant darkness was not only through literacy, but, quite literally, through the light bulb. would

promote

the

spread

of

The spread of the latter

the

former.

As

it

was,

nightfall left the peasant clutching his bottle of vodka, resting on a warm stove in the darkness.

Electrification,

in Lenin's conception, would encourage the peasant to put aside the bottle

for the book.

For Lenin,

electrification were thus intertwined.

literacy and

He said in December

1920: . . . [W]e have to strive right now to turn every electrical station, built by us, into a pillar of enlightenment, so that it performs the electric education of the masses.126 In

the

something of

second

half

of

an obsession

1920,

electrification became

for Lenin,

and in November he

first uttered the equation: "Communism is Soviet power plus

death bed) . He stressed that the key was not institutions, but the quality of the people who served in them. See, for example, Leninskii sbornik. vol. IV, p.13. Among some Bolsheviks in 1920 there was a feeling that their own bureacratic struggles during the Civil War (labelled variously "administrative partisan warfare" and "departmental patriotism") had lost them their organizational advantage over the peasantry. With the right bureaucratic arrangement, it was felt, the peasant could be kept at bay. See Ekonomicheskaia zhizn'. June 15 and December 29, 1920; Vestnik aqitatsii i propaqandy. No, 1, September 19, 1920, pp.5-6, 10. Nove, p.71. 126

pss. vol. 42, p.160. 361

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electrification

of

the

whole

country.1,127

The

Eighth

Congress of Soviets was made the showcase for Lenin's vision of the

future.

Commission

Krzhizhanovskii, the head

for

the

Electrification

of

of

the

Russia

State

fGOELROI ,

delivered a two-hour speech on the plan to cover the country with a network of electric power stations.

Behind him as he

spoke was a huge map of uhe country dotted with electric light bulbs denoting the future locations of these stations. It is said that in order to conduct this exercise without overloading the system,

almost all of Moscow's power was

temporarily shut off.128 According

to

Pethybridge,

after

the

Tenth

Party

Congress, Lenin continued to think of electrification as a "major

catalyst

centuries Taylorism)

of

which

social

Lenin's

Although

automatically

backwardness."

only weakness

after the Civil War.129 continuity here,

would

for

was

"social

away

(along

with

utopianism"

There is in fact a good deal of

but perhaps

Pethybridge

It

sweep

claims

less than that

with

Pethybridge sees. respect

to

the

timetable of electrification Lenin had never been a utopian, one notes that the sense of urgency and immediacy behind Lenin's concept of electrification in 1920 was absent in 127 Ibid., p.30. He repeated it at the Eighth Congress of Soviets. Ibid., p.159. 128

See Vos'moi s"ezd, pp.61-87; Dan, pp.95-96; Nove, p.71.

129 Pethybridge, p.36. See his good discussion of this issue on pp.35-38, 164-165. 362

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1921.

At the Eighth Congress of Soviets Lenin declared that it would take ten years to complete the electrification of Russia.

At that time, he also called for an approach to the

campaign similar to that of "prikaz No 1042," where fiveyear goals were to be met in three and one-half years.130 In contrast,

in "On the Food Tax" Lenin wrote of Russia's

electrification

taking

"decades"

and

process could be speeded up only by proletarian

revolution

Germany, America."131

in

such

concluded

that

the

"the victory of the

countries

as

England,

Though electrification remained for

Lenin, as for his successors, a symbol of modernization, the initiation of the new course had the same effect here as elsewhere,

tempering its "utopian" aspects and fitting it

into a more realistic timetable.132

130

PSS. vol. 42, pp.159-160.

131

Ibid., vol. 43, pp.228-229.

132 j^s unclear how widely shared was Lenin's enthusiasm. Dan (pp. 95-96) says that in the popular lexicon electrification became known as "electrofiction" and only in the form of this nickname did it spread across the country. This is also in Terne, pp.192-193. At the Fourth Komsomol Congress in September 1921, a speaker wagged a finger at those "giggling" over electrification. IV s"ezd RKSM. p. 157. In the novel Komissarv. near the end of a stormy meeting where the tax-in-kind is first discussed, the lights in the conference hall fail. As primitive symbolism this would not have been out of Libedinskii's range.

363

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Peasants and political power At a non-party peasant conference in Tambov province in the middle of March 1921 a delegate proposed that the group send a greetings telegram to Lenin, a not uncommon practice on such occasions. idea,

Everyone seemed to think this was a good

except that a considerable fuss was raised over the

inclusion of the concluding slogan, "Long Live Workers' and Peasants' Power!".

Some of those present wanted the slogan

left out entirely unless the words "workers" and "peasants" were transposed.

"The peasantry should come first," they

insisted.133 Here was

the metonymical

expression of

the critical

challenge facing Bolshevik power in 1921 as it considered the dimming prospects of revolution in the West and looked to the countryside. or peasants?

Who would get the upper hand, workers

Who would prevail?

Kto-koao?

The Bolsheviks considered a sine qua non of their own political survival to be the prevention of real political power from falling into peasant hands.

Compromise was to be

restricted to the economic sphere, the advantage there given up

only until

itself.

industry was

revived

and able to reassert

In this the Bolsheviks were quite open about their

motivations.

"The fact of the matter is," said Bukharin in

1921, "we are making economic concessions in order to avoid

133

The Trotsky Papers. vol. 2, pp.518-521. 364

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political concessions."134 The Party seemed little concerned about any potential political threat posed by the new centers,

since the state remained

"nepmen"

in the urban

in control

of the so-

called "commanding heights" of the economy.135

It was the

specter of peasant politics, atmosphere

of

non-party

symbolized by the roughhouse

conferences,

Bolshevik leadership uneasy.

which

made

the

Non-Bolshevik voices tcld of

the inevitability of political compromise with the peasantry if NEP were to survive.

Trotsky formulated the question in

the Faustian metaphor: If you give the devil a finger, then do you not also have to give him a hand, and a shoulder, and in the end the entire body?136 There was at least one central Bolshevik in 1921 who was ready to concede that some measure of political reform was unavoidable.

We

discussed

in

Chapter Two the brief

consideration that Lenin gave in February 1921 to the idea of

forming

some

kind

of

representative

peasant

body—

evidently a political concession intended to complement the impending

economic

reforms.

Just

how

much

stock

Lenin

actually placed in this notion is unclear. 134

The New Policies of Soviet Russia, p.58.

135 In an interview with Arthur Ransome, Lenin brushed aside the notion of the "nepmen" ever acquiring political power. See PSS. vol. 45, pp.259-260. 136

Trotsky, Sochineniia. vol. XII, p.319. 365

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We do know that: Osinskii pursued the idea well beyond the period of crisis.

On May 11, he sent a "top secret"

document to the Central Committee proposing the creation of a "Soviet Peasant Union."

Osinskii did not propose this out

of any newfound respect for the virtues of representative democracy.

Rather he saw it as a necessary response to a

brewing political dilemna in the countryside. We must find a way of taking the build-up in the countryside into our own hands in spite of the great shortage of conscious proletarian forces, and at the same time we must safeguard the proletarian-communist nucleus as far as possible against being digested by the petty-bourgeois mass.137 For Osinskii

it was

axiomatic that

"the peasantry's

yearning for socio-political organization . . . will become inevitable

[sic]

organization

as

the

increases."

degree He

of

called

peasant upon

Committee to undertake a "bold political

the

economic Central

initiative"— the

formation of a peasant "union," some form of representative peasant body to be closely controlled by the Party.

He was

careful to state that it would not constitute a trade union and would be established purely "for purposes of political control,"

the

end

result

being

a

firmer

hand

in

the

countryside for Bolshevik power.138 Whatever were Lenin's genuine feelings about the idea 137

The Trotsky Papers, vol. 2, p.453.

138

Ibid., p.459. 366

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by this time, he knew that with the crisis period behind it, the Central Committee would have little appetite for a plan that had clear SR associations.

And coming from Osinskii,

the new champion of peasant compromise, it would be doubly burdened. document:

Lenin wrote at the bottom of his copy of the "To my mind it is too early yet for this.

We

ought to think of some more cautious measures that would prepare the way for this." the

proposal

comment.

among

the

He asked Molotov to circulate Central

Committee

members

for

From indirect evidence we know that they roundly

criticized the proposal, many stating or implying that the Party would not be able to control a "peasant union" and that it would

inevitably become a political rival.

Here

there was no ambiguity about the "limits of retreat."139 In place of "bold"

initiatives,

the Party sought to

exercise its tutorial role over the peasantry through the recruitment

"honest"

non-party

peasants

into

the

local

139 See Poliakov, Perekhod. p.437 (n.179). Osinskii tried again in December 1921 to have his proposal accepted and was again rebuffed. See Iaroslavskii in Vestnik acritatsii i propagandy (No. 11-12, May 25, 1921, pp.9-15) for the generally-shared sentiment that a "peasant union" was an SR device to gain political power. On the SR-oriented "Tambov Union of Working Peasants" in 1920-1921, see The Trotsky Papers. vol. 2, pp.484-485, 496-501. According to reports at the Tenth Party Congress, the idea of a "peasant union" was particularly strong in Siberia, where it was said to have SR and "bandit" connections. See Desiatvi s"azd. pp.284, 430, 881 (n.130). One of the demands of the Moscow metal workers in February 1921 was for the organization of a "special type of trade union of the semi-proletarian elements of the countryside." See Kommunisticheskii trud. February 16, 1921. 367

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soviets and cooperatives, through the cautious recruitment of

peasants

into

the

Party,

and

in

the

continuing

organization of non-party peasant conferences.140 case

of

against

the SR

latter, and

a

premium

Menshevik

was

placed

infiltrators.

on

In the vigilance

Throughout

the

transition period, Lenin hammered away at a favorite theme: that there could be no such thing as petty-bourgeois (i.e., peasant)

political

power.

There was,

he maintained,

no

tenable position between the dictatorship of the proletariat and bourgeois power of the Miliukov variety. "third

road,"

concession

no

by

"third

Soviet

force." power

The

to

polarized.

first

Martov

automatically would lead back to Miliukov.

There was no political

and

Chernov

The choices were

The peasant needed a tutor, and better it be the

working class than Miliukov.141

This combination of economic concessions and political firmness brand

directed

Bolshevik

at

the

peasant

countryside policy

a

inspired

new

to

"Zubatovshchina."

recalling the Tsarist government's creation of trade unions before the 1905 Revolution.142 140

Martov

"official"

To understand

For example, Vladimirskaia. pp.46-47.

141 PSS. vol. 43, pp. 139-140, 234-242, 319-320. For more of the same, see Preobrazhenskii in Krasnaia nov'. 1921, No. 1, pp.192-193; Kuraev in Ibid., 1921, No. 3, p.312. 142 Sotsialisticheskii vestnik. No. 4, p.5; No. 6, p.2, (April 20, 1921). See also Martov's letter from the Hoover Archives cited in Leopold Haimson, The Mensheviks (New York, 368

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the effect this kind of accusation could have on the Party leadership,

one must be aware of how especially sensitive

the Bolsheviks were at this time to the charges of their Menshevik critics, many of whom were by now in exile.

This

haunting reminder of an episode from Russian revolutionary tradition was as if pronounced by a Greek chorus. That

the

criticism

gnawed

away

at

least

a

few

Bolsheviks came to light at the Tenth Party Conference (May 1921).

Although there is no transcript of the discussion of

Lenin's main report, we know from his closing statement that the delegate Iosif Vareikis recalled Martov in challenging the

Party's

peasant

policy.

peasantry a class or not?". said,

then

concessions

the to

Bolsheviks it.

Vareikis

asked,

"Is

the

If it is indeed a class, he would

have

Otherwise the

to

make

political

Party would

indeed be

guilty of engaging in "Zubatovite" activities. One can imagine Lenin's reaction to a Bolshevik citing Martov to challenge Party policy, heresy.

an action tantamount to

He reprimanded Vareikis severely,

accusing him of

making an incorrect historical analogy: with the oppressed class, the proletariat, now in power, methods that in other circumstances might be condemned as "Zubatovite" were fully acceptable.

Once again Lenin insisted that political power

1974), p.247. Another time he wrote of a Bolshevik "Zubatovshchina" with respect to the intelligentsia, involving the exchange of a ration and an engineer's compass in return for the acceptance of absolute Bolshevik political power. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik. No. 6, p.6. 369

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for

the

peasants

would

lead

to

political

power

for

Miliukov.143 The

question

of

whether

the

peasants

should

be

considered a genuine social class occupied other speakers at this

and

other

gatherings,

testimony

to

how

far

the

Bolshevik mind had gone in the other direction: to images of a

fragmented

countryside

with

rich,

middle

and

poor

peasants.

The "equalizing tendencies" of the Revolution and

the

Civil

War

uniformity

in

peasants. cannot

were the

now

said to

countryside,

have

yielded

leaving

mostly

a

certain "middle"

At the Tenth Party Congress Lenin had said, "You

deceive

classes,"

a

thought

now

echoed

by

other

Bolsheviks in the transition period.144

143 PSS. vol. 43, pp.317-320. Mikoian, Mysli i vosoominaniia o Lenine. p.179. Reading of this episode, one cannot help but ponder its place in the fate of Vareikis, who is said to have died in 1938. D. D. Lappo, Iosif Vareikis (Moscow 1966). 144 PSS. vol. 43, p.58. Kuraev in Pravda, March 26, 1921. In Cohen's account (p.159), Bukharin comes around to viewing Soviet Russia as a "two-class society" only in 1924. However, Cohen is discussing Bukharin as Party theorist, and while in his theoretical writings, Bukharin may in fact have come to this conclusion only by 1924, reality had sunk in much earlier. See, for example, Lenin in March 1921, PSS., vol. 43, p.99. One Bolshevik pamphlet in 1921 stated that although the Party had earlier not thought of the peasants as a class, but as a "stratum" (sloi) , it now recognized them as a class, "true maybe not a class in the full sense of that word," but nonetheless a class. See Dembo, p.30. 370

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NEP and Brest-Litovsk Here it is useful to recall Bukharin's label for the new course, spoken at the Tenth Party Congress in reference to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 1918: the "peasant Brest."145

At the time it may have sounded to some like

another of Bukharin's clever phrases. the

subsequent

twelve

months

But the evidence of

indicates

that

the

Brest

example played a significant role in internal Party politics during

the

transition

period— perhaps

in ways

the

Party

leaders themselves were not fully aware of at the time. With

several

years

of

perspective

on

both

events,

Pokrovskii saw a key parallel between them: ["Peasant Brest"] was a very accurate label in the sense that as Brest in 1918 ended the ideological and, in essence, idealistic approach to international relations, so the new economic policy ended the idealistic approach to the countryside. We began to proceed not from some imaginary plan of the future countryside, but from 145 Historians sometimes attribute the term to Riazanov, who, however, followed Bukharin's suit at the Congress. Desiatvi s"ezd. pp.224, 468. In the search for precedents for the present policy, some chose to recall the 1917 land decree borrowed from the SR Party. V. P. Miliutin at the Tenth Party Congress called the introduction of the food tax the "strongest turnaround roovorotl .K but said that "in the history of our revolution there has already been such a povorot: that was the 1917 law on land." Desiatvi s"ezd, p.436. Once again, it was said by some with a certain amount of cynical glee, the Party had grabbed the "trump card" from the SRs. Iaroslavskii in Vestnik agitatsii i propaaandv. No. 9-10, April 18, pp.1-4. M. Kantor in Ibid., p.21. Kamenev at the Eleventh Party Conference referred to three Bolshevik agreements with the peasantry, the first being the 1917 land decree, the second the "unwritten" agreement of civil war against the White armies, and the third the new course. Biulleten'. No. 1, pp.9-10. 371

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the real possibilities of the actual countryside, the countryside as it is.146 Ironically, it was Bukharin, one of the most vehement opponents of a peace treaty with Germany in spring 1918, who drew the most elaborate comparison of the Brest peace and the new course. Pravda

article

It first appeared in a very interesting on August

6,

1921,

which became

required

reading for Party members and was printed in pamphlet form with a circulation of 20,000.147 Calling the new course a "strategic operation of the proletariat

on

the

economic

front,"

Bukharin

listed

six

similarities between the 1918 treaty and the 1921 truce:

— The "basic danger" threatening the very existence of the Bolshevik regime in 1918 was German imperialism, while in 1921 it was "ruin."

— The "basic task" in 1918 was to build the Red Army, while in 1921 it was to build up heavy industry.

— The "basic slogan" the

risk

of

(sic)

strengthening

in 1918 was to achieve peace at the

international

bourgeoisie,

146 Oktiabr/skaia revoliutsiia. p.375. He went on to say: "This in no way means that with relation to the countryside we renounced communism: we renounced only the military methods of realizing communism in the countryside, that is all." 147 Pravda. August 6, 1921, published ekonomicheskoi politiki (Petrograd, 1921).

as

Nowi

372

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kurs

while in 1S21 it was to increase the supply of goods at the risk of strengthening the petty-bourgeoisie.

— The "basic work" in 1918 was to use the "breathing spell" to build the Red Army,

while

in 1921

it was to use the

increase in goods to bring heavy industry to the point of "full fighting preparedness."

— The "derivative danger" in 1918 was the internal influence of German imperialism, while in 1921 it was the influence of "growing bourgeois economic forms."

— The "strategic operation" of 1918 was completed when the Red

Army

was

strong

(povorachivat/ rulM of

1921

would

be

enough

to

"turn

the

wheel"

in the international realm, while that completed

only

when

"heavy

socialist

industry" could turn things around in the area of domestic economic policy.

Bukharin went on to say that "turning the wheel" in the domestic context would not mean a return to the past, to the prodrazverstka. but would be realized in a "gradual economic liquidation of heavy private economy and in the economic subordination of the small producer to the guidance of heavy industry: socialized

the

small

economy

producer not

by

will

measures

be

drawn on

into

the

extra-economic

373

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coercion, but, mainly, by those economic benefits that will be

provided

to

him

by

agricultural machinery, his own benefit)

the

tractor,

the

light

bulb,

etc.: he will become entangled (to

in electrical wires, carrying fertilizing,

life-giving energy to the economy." Bukharin

declared

that

the

"objections"

to

the

new

course resembled, "like two drops of water," the objections of several Bolsheviks ("ot nikh zhe p e r w i esm* az") to the Brest peace.

These he boiled down to two: the question of

the "limits of retreat" that such "limits"

(which he cast aside in asserting

could not be defined,

but depended on

day-to-day circumstances), and the fear of a pererozhdenie. a transformation of Soviet power into an instrument of the bourgeoisie. This analysis is interesting, can,

however,

learn

still

more

as far as it goes. by

pointing

out

We the

differences between the Brest peace and the "peasant Brest," for these

are no

less

striking.

In 1918,

the

issue of

signing a separate peace with Germany brought deep disunity to the Party and threatened to split it open. "Left Communists,"

The so-called

led by some able young men in Moscow,

were a formidable challenge to Lenin's position of immediate peace.

In the end, only through Trotsky's compromise did

Lenin win the day. Conversely,

in 1921, the Party moved from disunity in

the haggling over the trade union platforms (not nearly as 374

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serious an issue or as genuinely divisive as Brest-Litovsk) to unity on the fundamental issue of an immediate truce with peasant Russia.

Impressed by the exhaustion and ruin around

them and jolted by worker and peasant rebellion and then the Kronstadt

revolt,

the

Party

leadership

acted

in unison.

Despite his misgivings, Alexander Tsiurupa, the man who had the most to lose in 1921, stood by Lenin at the Tenth Party Congress.

That the razverstka had to be abandoned,

that

there was no choice in this, was clear to everyone.148 At

no

time

in

the

year

following

the

Tenth

Party

Congress was there an "opposition" to the new course in any way comparable to the Left Communist opposition to the peace with Germany in 1918. certainly "hostile"

Though the Workers'

Opposition was

(Schapiro's word) to NEP, it never cast

itself as an "opposition" directed at the new course per se. Shliapnikov and his colleagues opposed what they perceived as the erosion of Party democracy, the growing powerlessness of the trade unions increasingly

and the

defenseless

deplorable conditions

working

class.

These

of an

were

subjects of their appeal to the Comintern in 1921.

the

However,

these were conditions already present under War Communism, something that the Workers'

Opposition recognized.

Their

148 We should not forget, however, that the new economic policy was introduced in stages. There remained at first the illusion of tovaroobmen and the hope for a quick return to a trade monopoly. The total of the reforms was swallowed in pieces over the course of several months and thus made much easier to digest. 375

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opposition had begun well before the the spring of 1921. That the new course brought with it a new focus on peasant needs and thus even less attention to the condition of the proletariat only sharpened their concern.

But in this they

were an opposition within NEP, not £ 2 NEP. The danger to the Party in 1921 was not, as in 1918, a vertical division within the top leadership,

not outright

opposition (which, anyway, the ban on Party factions served to

inhibit).

criticism,

Rather,

the

chief

Party members, top

the

passive

the cynicism and the despondency which the new

economic policies elicited,

The

threat was

in varying degrees,

from most

and especially those of the rank-and-file.

leadership,

more

experienced

as

it

was

in

the

vicissitudes of revolutionary politics, was better equipped to adjust to the new policies than the relative newcomers, who knew only "heroic" Bolshevism.

In this sense, there was

in 1921 a kind of horizontal separation within the Party, a distancing of the leadership and the rank-and-file.

Those

at the top had to wonder now if the membership they had recruited

in

wartime,

trained

for

military

tasks,

and

encouraged with appeals to revolutionary heroism would be willing and able to follow their lead. The

Brest

precedent

appears

to

important in Bolshevik politics in 1921.

have

been

quite

The fact that the

Party had compromised so radically in the past and survived, the fact that Lenin had been right in 1918, seems to have 376

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made it easier for many Bolsheviks to keep their wits about them and line up behind the new economic policy. likely bolstered period. well

Lenin's

authority during

the

It most transition

Though there is no evidence that it was so, it may

have been

critical

to the Politburo discussions

of

February and March 1921 when Lenin pushed for a united front at the upcoming Tenth Party Congress.

Lenin began his "On

the Food Tax" with a long excerpt from his 1918 diatribe against Left Communism,

"On Left-Wing Communism" which, he

pointed out, appeared at the time of the Brest crisis.149 And in the autumn, with panic growing in the ranks, Lenin leaned more heavily on the Brest example as he attempted to sort out

for his

troubled colleagues

the meaning of the

various "retreats" and the need for "reformist" measures.150 149 PSS. vol. 43, p.205. In the first of his four outlines of this pamphlet, Lenin began with the question "Is this Brest?" r'Brest'-li?1, but mentioned Brest-Litovsk only in introducing the extended excerpt from "On Left-Wing Childishness." Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. IV, pp.371. In one of his outlines for his speech to the Tenth Party Congress, Lenin wrote: "'Breathing spell' such as Brest." PSS. vol. 43, pp.372. 150 See Sokolov in Pravda (May 29, 1921) on the widespread association of NEP and Brest-Litovsk. The relevant references to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by Lenin in 1921 are in Ibid., vol. 43, pp.157-158 (April 9), pp.185, 191-192 (April 11); vol. 44, pp.104-104 (August 28); p.149 (October 14); pp.198-200, 210-211, 220 (October 29); pp.223-224, 228 (November 5). See the letter to Lenin in Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XX, p.71. Trotsky, Literature and Revolution, p.102. Later, when Stalin spoke of the "late" introduction of the new course he compared it to the costly delay in the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Stalin, Sochineniia. vol. 6, p.37. Valentinov (p.31) quotes Sviderskii's description of a meeting of the Party leadership where Lenin tells his colleagues: "You gave me a vote of no-confidence at the time 377

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In sum, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as an example of a successful

compromise

appears

to

have

helped

the

Party

leadership to keep its footing in 1921, and may have helped some Bolsheviks justify making what must have been an act of faith.

Bukharin's transition That Bukharin the opponent of the Brest peace used the Brest example in 1921 to defend the new course should not surprise us.

Among the strongest supporters of moderation

in 1921 were the staunchest former Left Communists, Osinskii and Vladimir Smirnov.

What raises some eyebrows is that

Bukharin, the author in 1920 of the Ekonomika perekhodnoao oerioda— considered

the

theoretical

justification

of

War

Communism— could become, with such seeming effortlessness, a leading spokesman for the new course from the time of its inception.

Bukharin

is

considered

by

Pethybridge,

outstanding example of utopian turned realist." tells us

that

spot."

Bukharin

ideologist of

Bukharin changed his is

Nove's

"extreme left"

caution and compromise."151

views

striking becoming

"the

Schapiro

"almost on the example

"the

of

the

ideologist of

We would do well to consider

for a moment the case of Bukharin in the transition period.

151_ Schapiro, CPSU. p.211; Pethybridge, p.63; Nove, p.79. Also see Valentinov, p.31. 378

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The Ekonomika was a product of the breathing spell of spring

1920

when

mentality came "statization"

certain

into

features

focus:

of

among these

the

War

Communist

the call

for the

of the trade unions and mass organizations,

the end of money relations,

the value of

"extra-economic

coercion" (as applied not only to the former ruling classes, but to

laborers as well), and

in general the primacy of

political

over economic factors.152

Our familiarity with

this

of

with

one

his

books

leaves

us

the

impression

(reinforced perhaps by his association with Trotsky on the trade union question)

of Bukharin as a "War Communist" oar

excellence in 1920 and with the assumption that a radical change in his thinking occurred all at once in March 1921. Or it may lead us to question the conviction with which he expressed his views in 1920, if, in a crisis, he could so easily discard them. In fact, while he was promoting the new course in 1921, Bukharin and his Ekonomika came under attack. of

the

book

was

begun

by

the

"Old

A discussion

Bolshevik"

Mikhail

Ol'minskii in the inaugural issue of Krasnaia nov1.153

In

152 por these ideas, see, for example, Ekonomika. pp.71-72, 95-97, 135, 141-146. There are good summaries of the book in Szamuely, pp.28-34, 38-42; Cohen, pp.87-98. 152 Krasnaia nov'. 1921, No. 1, pp.247-251. It seems Ol'minskii at first considered writing a letter to the Central Committee, but then decided on a published article. As Cohen writes (p.96), with the new course fully underway, Ol'minskii "scored some easy points." See Szamuely, pp.8083. 379

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his

critique,

Ol'minskii

accused

Bukharin

of

abandoning

Marx, calling him a "revisionist of the left" (as Martov is "of the right").

He assailed Bukharin1s overestimation of

political over economic factors and his reliance on "extraeconomic

coercion,"

referring

at

one

point

to

the

"Bukharinist method of exile and execution"

(as opposed to

Lenin's "tractors and electrification").154

While writing

all of these nasty things about him, Ol'minskii noted that Bukharin's ideas were in fact representative of a section (chast*) of the Party.155 154 In a draft of the article, Ol'minskii wrote of the Civil War growth within the Party of a "hypertrophied conception of the possible role of extra-economic coercion and the extreme belittling of the role of the economic factor." Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. p.140. 155 Bukharin and Piatakov (who authored a part of the Ekonomika^ responded jointly in the same issue of Krasnaia nov' (pp.260-274) with a rather flippant article that some found disrespectful to the revered Ol'minskii. (Bukharin seems to have been genuinely stung by the charge of revisionism.) They claimed that the Ekonomika discussed abstract principles— the theory of a transitional economy— and was not an attempt to provide a concrete analysis "of the economy of the RSFSR in the summer of 1921 AD." Bukharin continued to defend the book, contributing an afterword to the German edition written in December 1921. See N. Bukharin, The Economics of the Transformation Period, with Lenin's Remarks (New York, 1971), pp.202-203. An anonymous article in the same issue of Krasnaia nov' signed "Ne-revizionist" offered a mild defense of Bukharin (pp.252255) . Lenin's sister, A. I. Elizareva, rallied behind Ol'minskii in an article called "On the economics and mentality (psikhika) of the transition period," published in Narodnoe khoziaistvo. 1921, No. 8-9, pp.219-228. Elizareva expressed concern about the effect of Bukharin's ideas on the young generation. The editors noted their disagreement with Elizareva's article "on a whole series of points," though they expressed agreement with her criticism of "the tone and character" of Bukharin's and Piatakov's reply to Ol'minskii. Although Soviet authors give Elizareva Lenin's 380

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Several points can be seds in Bukharin's defense.

As

Party theorist, Bukharin would have been expected to develop the theoretical underpinnings of the Bolshevik Civil War economy and economic program (and despite his claims to the contrary,

he

was

doing

just

that).

This

involved

elaborating on and putting in writing ideas that others in the

Party

did

not

venture

purpose of the Ekonomika. its

own

we

come

1920.156

contrary.

it

Bukharin

spell

out,

which

was

the

Thus, if we take this one work on

away with

However,

disassociate

to

a

is

from

caricature not

his

our

of

Bukharin

purpose

Ekonomika.

here Quite

in to the

The point is not that Bukharin was like the rest

of the Party,

rather that the rest of the Party was like

Bukharin, Ekonomika and all. For the evidence of this we need go no further that the eleventh volume of Leninskii sbornik. which contains Lenin's notations on the book. Lenin

jotted

superlatives, Bukharin's

use

his

praise

tempering of

Throughout his copy of the text, in

this

abstract

the

margins

with

minor

language

in

numerous

criticism

of

and with some hair-

blessing in asserting that Lenin probably read and approved of his sister's article, there is no evidence that Lenin was involved in this episode. See Voprosv istorii. 1964, No. 5, pp.23-24; and Voorosv istorii KPSS. 1971, No. 2, pp.118-122. 156 As Cohen (p.87) aptly states it, Bukharin created a "literary monument to the collective folly." Bukharin is certainly one of the most complex of the characters in this story. One senses that the publication of something on the order of a "Bukharinskii sbornik" would make him a competitor to the title of "samvi chelovechnvi chelovek." 381

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I

splitting over several ideological points.

At the end of

the chapter on extra-economic coercion, Lenin's favorite, he wrote: "Now this is a superb chapter!"

In a letter to the

Communist Academy, the book's institutional sponsor, Lenin congratulated it "on the splendid -work of its member."157 The

fact

is

that

the

basic

ideas

expressed

in

Bukharin's Ekonomika enjoyed the support of a significant number,

probably

the

thinking Bolsheviks.

vast

majority,

of

the

critically

Even Ol'minskii noted in his critique

a tendency in the Party to give Bukharin's book the same catechismic status of The ABCs of Communism.

Thus, it is

understandable that Lenin would not have cared to involve himself in the Ol'minskii-Bukharin exchange. to

the

Civil

War

Lenin

than

just

There was more "tractors

and

electrification." Bukharin's odyssey.

That

odyssey

in

Bukharin

1920-1921

made

the

seeming ease should not surprise us.

was

the

transition

Party's

with

such

He was, after all, the

Party theoretician.

As such he sat close to its dialectical

steering

and

crooked

mechanism roads more

notwithstanding).

was

easily

able

to

than most

maneuver (Lenin's

along later

the jibe

Too, his position in 1918 on the Brest

Treaty would have made him more sensitive to the zig-zags of

157 Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XI, pp.396, 402. Cohen, pp.9697. The Soviet distortion of Lenin's reaction to the Ekonomika is among the most shameful historiographical episodes of this period. 382

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history and eager to be out in front this time.

Nor should

the fact that Bukharin adjusted his views so swiftly lead us to question the conviction he brought to the Ekonomika in 1920.

He, like most of his colleagues to varying degrees,

had engaged not in deception, but self-deception.

The transition to NEP was the great maturation period of the Bolshevik Party.

When it was over Michael Farbman

pronounced the Party healed of its feverish revolutionary impulses: The party of Revolution has become the government of the country; the party of revolt, the party of order; the visionaries have become realists.15®

158

Farbman, p.302. 383

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CHAPTER FIVE RATIONALIZING THE RETREAT NEP is not only a retreat. is a step forward. Iurii Libedinskii, 1922-23

Cur various which

task

in

this

tactical,

the

final

strategic

leading

chapter and

Bolsheviks,

is

to

theoretical

Lenin

chiefly

It

Zavtra.

discuss

the

definitions among them,

applied to the new course during the transition period.

How

the Party interpreted its previous economic policies is a major element of this discussion. The key interpretive questions on the Party's mind in 1921-1922

can

be

summarized

as

follows:

What

was

the

relationship of the new course to the "moderate” Bolshevik economic program of the spring of 1918?

Was NEP a "return"

to those policies, their "continuation"?

If so, in what way

was it a "retreat" from the policies of War Communism? War

Communism

been

forced

upon

the

Party

by

exogenous

factors or had it been the Party's policy of choice? if any,

Had

What,

mistakes had the Party committed in pursuing its

Civil War economic policy?1 1 The question of whether the "forced" policies of War Communism should be regarded as no more than a sum of emergency measures used to win the Civil War or whether they amounted to a "socialist program," since they grew out of 384

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These questions would continue to be debated within the Bolshevik Party well beyond the transition period.

But in

the uncertain atmosphere of 1921-1922 they were discussed with a

sense of

immediacy and urgency.

They were also

surrounded by controversy and a great deal of confusion. Our objective in the present chapter is to disentangle the various threads of the controversy.

The challenge— which

the reader will discover is a formidable one— is to keep ourselves from becoming caught up in the confusion. Our treatment will focus on Lenin's role in the Party discussions of the old and new economic policies. unavoidable.

This is

It was to Lenin that the Party looked for

guidance in interpreting its change of course, and the views of other Bolsheviks were often put forth as reactions to his statements.

(It is not for nothing that

in the Western

literature one frequently comes upon the idea,

if not the

expression, of "Lenin's NEP.") The

reader might well

balk

at

the prospect

of

yet

another rehashing of Lenin's characterization of early NEP. Has there not been,

after all,

a good deal

of attention

already given to Lenin's "rethinking" of Bolshevism in these

the "class struggle" (Kritsman's "anticipation of the future") was not a point of controvery within the Party leadership during the transition period. Most Bolshevik observers seem to have settled on the "emergency measures" interpretation, though their statements and choice of vocabulary sometimes revealed a different way of thinking. The opinion of the rank-and-file membership, seems to have been more divided, as we shall see below. Kritsman, p.75. 385

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years?

The answer,

examination

of course,

in these

pages

is "yes."

However, a re­

of Lenin's views on

economic

policy in 1921-1923 is warranted for two major reasons. First

of

all,

the

subject

is

very

important.

It

remains especially relevant to the ongoing discussions among Western

historians

about

continuity

and

Leninism (or Bolshevism) and Stalinism. his

mantle,

Lenin's

successors

change

between

In the struggle for

claimed

allegiance

to

Leninist orthodoxy, and, in questions of economic policy, in the

later

1920s

Bolshevik

leaders

were

able

to

enlist

support for their divergent positions not only as between the Civil War Lenin and the NEP Lenin, but also from within the Lenin of 1921-1923. that

is,

which

Lenin

The question of "which Lenin?"— was

the

more

authentic

guide

to

economic policy in post-Lenin Soviet Russia— was critical to later Soviet development even beyond the Stalin period.

We

would be remiss if, in a study of the Party's transition to NEP, we did not address this question. Secondly, because the present study has immersed itself in the details of the transition period, it is well-suited to explaining the practical considerations that went into Lenin's pronouncements on War Communism and the New Economic Policy.

As we shall see,

the practical element was very

important in the mix of factors operating on Lenin as he sought to guide his Party out of the dead end that was War Communism. 386

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Individually, consistency entire

in

Soviet: historians seldom fail to see a

Lenin's

transition

words

to NEP.

and

They

actions

throughout

the

tend to deny Lenin the

moments of doubt, hesitation and contradiction, which are a mark of all great leaders.

In this, Soviet historiography

does Lenin a disservice. Meanwhile, stressed

the

Western

inconsistencies

writings and speeches. exasperating

studies

Soviet

of

and

the

same

period

ambiguities

in

have

Lenin's

It is tempting, when faced with the

practice

of

serving

up

a

clear-cut

Lenin, to embrace the "ambiguous" Lenin of Western sources. However, the "ambiguous legacy" interpretation as it relates to the 1921-1923 period stands in need of some clarification and refinement.

It is our purpose in the following pages to

sharpen the image of Lenin's "reformism" and to explore the reasons for all of the inconsistency and self-contradiction which marked Lenin's final years. Finally, there is one practical benefit to building the final

chapter around Lenin.

As

with the subject matter

discussed in the previous chapter, the Party's exercise in interpreting

the

old

and

new

economic

policies

simply come to an end at some point in 1922. was different.

did

not

For Lenin it

His deteriorating health brought an end to

his active role in Party policy-making and discussions in the

second

half

of

1922.

The

focus

on

Lenin provides

387

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natural ending to our story.

Lenin on Lenin

Before we begin, a word is in order about the exercise of reading Lenin.

It may be worthwhile to consider for a

moment what Lenin himself thought about one element of what are now his collected works, the speeches. In April 1919,

Lenin wrote what he intended to be a

fore- or afterword to a forthcoming publication of two of his

speeches.

Lenin's

text,

addressed to the

Party organization as publisher, regarding speeches.

the

transcripts

Lenin

of

amounted to a disclaimer

these

and

asked that transcripts

thereafter not be published,

Petrograd

of

all

of his

of

his

speeches

only summaries of them.

"I

have not once seen an in any way satisfactory record of one of my speeches," he wrote.

As possible reasons for this, he

cited the extreme speed of his delivery and the incorrect construction of his thoughts. As it turned out, Zinoviev and his colleagues decided to ignore Lenin's text.

Lenin later mocked the Petrograd

organization's love of its "independence," and claimed that the 2

incident

left him

"looking

like a

fool."2

PSS, vol. 44, pp.246-247. 388

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But

the

matter was left at that. In

November

1921,

Lenin

again

raised

this

concern,

complaining that the published record of his Politprosvet and Moscow Party Conference speeches (October 17 and 29) was poor.

He was moved to write a foreword to the forthcoming

re-publication of two of his articles, and in it he included the 1919 statement to the Petrograd organization. reason

this

foreword

also

went

unpublished,

For some

this

time,

apparently, with Lenin's consent.3 In a letter to Varga on March 8, 1922, Lenin ordered that he ". . . never quote my speeches (their text is bad, always incorrectly rendered); quote only my works."4 In April 1922, in a foreword to a re-publication of one 3 Ibid.. On November 19, 1921, three days after writing the unpublished foreword, Lenin received a letter from Krasin in London, in which the latter stated that the London newspapers were quoting his speech before a "group of Communists" (either the Politprosvet or Moscow Party Conference speech) in which "you are said to have declared a rejection of state capitalism and a transition to full freedom for private capitalistic relations. . . . " Here Lenin wrote in the margin: "What nonsense!!" Leninskii sbornik. vol. XXXV, pp.294-5. Incidentally, it is interesting to consider how frustrating it must have been for Soviet officials serving abroad at this time to interpret the changes taking place at home. Krasin may have truly wondered what on earth was happening in Moscow. Chicherin would have been particularly vulnerable to this. In a letter to Lenin sent from London on October 22, 1921, he wrote: "I personally do not know the motives behind our policy which brought on at the end of August something of a turn (povorot) in our course. . . . " Lenin placed three question marks in the margin beside this passage and in his reply wrote that there had not been a "shadow" of a change in policy. PSS. vol. 53, p.298. 4

Ibid., vol. 54, p.204. 389

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of

his

1918

disclaimer. the

broshures,

Lenin

finally

did

publish

his

Blaming his own style of speaking as well as

"hurried"

and

"unsatisfactory"

Soviet

method

of

recording public speeches, he wrote: I do not answer for the texts of my speeches as they are usually rendered in the newspapers, and I most urgently ask that these speeches not be republished— at least without extreme and special need, and in any case without my present exact declaration.5 Apparently no one at the time paid serious attention to Lenin's request.

In any case, by April 1922 it had become

much too late for this sort of thing.

The record of Lenin's

public statements had already taken on a significance larger than the value of the individual statements themselves. now,

Lenin

had

little

more

chance

of

halting

By

their

publication than he would preventing the mummification of his own corpse two years later. That

many

of

the

very

newspaper

transcripts

Lenin

rejected are now part of his collected works may help to explain works

some

of

the

apparent

from this period.

caution the historian.

inconsistencies

in

Lenin's

In any case it should serve to Analyses of Lenin's ideas from this

or any other period— and we have in mind here especially those

of

Soviet

historians— should

not

be

made

to

hang

entirely on an individual phrase or word from one or another

5

Ibid., vol. 45, pp.169-170. 390

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of Lenin's

speeches

(or for that matter from his notes,

letters and writings). The guest to discover "what Lenin meant" should not be reduced

to

an

exercise

in

accumulating

and

italicizing

fragments from isolated passages quoted out of context from the spoken and written Lenin.

The historian must remain

sensitive to the entire body of available evidence and be true to the spirit of Lenin's larger

opus

, letting stand all

of the inconsistencies and contradictions it may contain, while leaving an adequate margin of error for the omissions of

Soviet

editors,

and,

yes,

in

some

cases,

for

the

inaccuracies of the Soviet stenographer.

The "Notorious Mistake"

At times during the year of transition,the subject that stirred the Economic

most heated controversy was not the New

Policy,

discussions

of

but War

past

and

closely related and it

Communism. present

In

fact, the

economic policies

is somewhat artificial to treat them,

as we do, under separate headings.

However,

in 1921 the

arguments about the "mistakes" ofWar Communism were conducted quite apart for

adopting

the

were

often

from those concerning the rationale

new course.

This

and

the desire for

391

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maximum clarity in presentation justify the separation. That the Party spent so much energy debating its past was chiefly due to Lenin, for whom the interpretation of the old economic policy had a very practical role in promoting the new

course within the

positions

on

Communism

the

Party's

which

observed

the

the

This

culpability

alienated

Bolshevik colleagues.

During

Party.

led him to take

in

introducing War

many— perhaps

most— of

his

It is with Lenin that we begin.

crisis

economic

of

January-February

chaos

growing

1921,

around

him,

as

he

Lenin

directed severe criticism at the Party for the way it had conducted its Civil War economic policy.

(As was his way,

he did not single out individuals, but referred to the Party collectively,

thereby

including himself.)

He

judged the

Party's "mistakes" to be "stupidities" (gluposti), excesses, miscalculations, emphasized

as

clumsiness, the

and the like.

principal

error

the

Initially,

he

squandering

of

precious resources— grain and fuel chiefly among them— by an overzealous government that, "having a chance to advance one step, tried to jump ahead two steps."6 At

the Tenth Party Congress,

miscalculations

of

Soviet

food

in reflecting upon the

and

fuel

policies,

Lenin

compared his Party's mistakes to its misjudgments in the war with Poland, when the Red Army pressed its attack on Warsaw 6

Ibid., vol. 42, p.362. 392

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in the summer of 1920, only to find itself overextended and be turned back.7 "Our

previous

At one point, Lenin told the delegates:

program

was

theoretically

correct,

but

practically unsound."8 In July, Lenin told the Third Comintern Congress that the Bolshevik Party's Civil War food policy had "fulfilled its

historic

mistake

came

Occasionally,

role,"

and

implied

in not

letting go

that

the

Party's

of this policy

only

in time.

he seemed to say that the old policy could

have continued had the country not been so run down by war.9 The shift in Lenin's thinking occurred in the autumn of 1921 with the defeat of the policy of tovaroobmen. ideas

came

writings.

through

in

Lenin's

public

Two new

statements

and

First, Lenin implied (though he never stated it

unambiguously) that the Civil War economic policy had been the

Party's

"forced"

policy of choice,

upon

it.

and had not

Secondly— and

this

he

in

fact been

stated

quite

plainly— this policy represented the Farty's attempt at a direct transition to a communist system of production and distribution. Communism

as

No longer did he describe the mistakes of War particular

miscalculations.

7

Ibid., vol. 43, pp.10-11.

8

Ibid., p.69.

The

economic

9 For example, Ibid., pp.243, 303; vol. 44, p.457. Other examples of this view are Sviderskii in Chetyre goda, p. 17; Preobrazhenskii in Desiatvi swezd. p.425; and Kamenev in Biulleten' (Eleventh), No. 2, p.55. 393

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program itself was seen to be in error.

Now Lenin could be

heard to speak of the "mistake" (singular) cf War Communism.

Earlier

we

described

some

of

the hostility

Lenin's

autumn statements on the past provoked within the Party.

In

calling War Communism a "mistake," Lenin offended the many who considered it to have been, or at least rationalized it as, an emergency policy forced upon the regime by exogenous factors.

Most

Bolsheviks

at

this

time

considered

War

Communism, with all of its negative aspects and excesses, to have been a time of great achievement and heroism.

It had,

after all, enabled Soviet Russia to defeat the White armies and hold back the Allied interventionists! call

it

a

"mistake"?

An

How could anyone

incredulous Sorin

said at the

Moscow Party Conference in October 1921 that no one doubted that mistakes had been made, but this did not mean that "we should call our entire past work a big mistake."10 To explain what he meant in calling War Communism a "mistake," historical

Lenin introduced at the Moscow conference an analogy:

Arthur in 1904.11 Nogi's

successful

the

Japanese

navy's

attack

on

Port

He described how the Japanese General attack

on

the

port

had

involved

two

10 Prayda. November 4, 1921. Sorin said at the same gathering that Lenin's statements in the Politprosvet speecn had also left the "impression among a majority of party comrades that the entire old policy should be condemned in total, because it was a mistake." Ibid.. 11

PSS. vol. 44, pp.194-197. 394

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stages: first the "assault” (shturm). and then the "siege." In

order

to

test which method

would

ultimately

succeed

against the enemy, said Lenin, the method of storming had been the "only possible" one at the start, order to gauge the enemy's strength.

"necessary" in

This method did not

succeed, but it showed Nogi the necessity of going over to a longer period of "siege." In the

Russian

context,

Lenin argued that

from the

viewpoint of revolutionary strategy, the period of "assault" that was War Communism had been necessary.

Once it failed,

the way was clear for the period of "siege" in the form of the

new

course.But

contradicted

himself

here,

as

in drawing

the

he

continued,

conclusion

Lenin

that

original method of "assault" had been a "mistake."

the

On the

one hand, Lenin was saying that for the Bolsheviks in 1918, just as for Nogi in 1904, a period of "assault" had been necessary and unavoidable.

And yet, on the other hand, he

depicted the actors involved freely choosing their initial methods of advance and so committing a "mistake." the period of

How could

"assault" have been both "necessary" and a

"mistake"?12 12 Malle (p.11) calls Lenin's interpretation of War Communism as a "mistake" and as "unavoidable" a "politically brilliant reconciliation of opposites," but offers no evidence for the reconciliation, let alone the brilliance. The position that War Communism was a "necessary stage" in the revolutionary process would be taken up by Varga in 1928 at the Sixth Comintern Congress. See Gimpel'son, pp.255256. Ten days earlier in his Politprosvet speech, Lenin had said: "If we tried to accomplish this task head on, so to 395

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Internally (Who

among the

contradictory

and

generally

unattractive

Bolshevik rank-and-file would care to be

identified with Japanese sailors attacking a Russian port?), the Port Arthur analogy served only to confuse and even antagonize. historical

Radek delivered a biting critique of Lenin's analogy

in

the

subsequent

issue

of

Krasnaia

nov'.13

Nogi, argued Radek, could have avoided committing a

mistake

by

correctly

judging

misjudged and suffered defeat. such choice.

the

enemy's

Lenin

strength.

("our Nogi")

He

had no

Civil war and "bourgeois sabotage" forced the

Party to enter upon the extreme policies of War Communism. Nor could NEP-style policies have been introduced before the onset of the Civil War in the winter of 1917-18, maintained Radek.

The Left Communists would never have stood for it.

Lenin's notion of the Party's culpability was largely rejected.

It

provoked

the

storm

of

discussion

that

speak, with a frontal attack, then we suffered a failure. Such mistakes occur in every war, and they are not considered mistakes. The frontal attack did not succeed; we will go over to an evasion, we will act with a siege and with sapping." PSS. vol. 44, p.165. One delegate present at the Port Arthur speech passed up a note to Lenin which read: "You refer to Port Arthur, but can you not imagine that maybe we are Port Arthur, surrounded by the international bourgeoisie?" Ibid., p.219. It seems that Larin dismissed the analogy in noting that Port Arthur had been but a theater of war secondary in importance to Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War. Leninskii sbornik. vol. XXIII, p.268. Krasnaia nov'. resist an opening every comparison, legs" (khromaet na

1921, No. 4, pp.185-187. Radek could not play on words, asserting that "as with this comparison of Lenin limps on both obe noail. 396

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culminated at Lenin

was

speculate

the Eleventh

absent as

from

Party Conference

this

gathering

to how he would

have

and

in December. one

can

elaborated

only

upon what

Conference delegates called the "notorious mistake."14

From the Tenth Party Congress into 1922, there appears to

have

been

central

a general

Bolsheviks

and

steady

consensus

as to the

nature

and

"mistakes" of War Communism. Lenin's thinking.

among

extent

of

the the

Early on, this stood close to

All agreed that the Party had been driven

to extreme measures by some combination of the destruction caused

by World War

sabotage" owners control

(here

and in

I,

by

meaning

the

industrialists the

the Civil War,

non-cooperation

during

spring of 1918), local

by

the and by

authorities,

days

"bourgeois of

of

the

factory workers'

spontaneous

activities

of

Bolshevik

and

non-

Bolshevik.

All assumed that in the end it had been the

"correct" policy, proof of this offered by the outcome of the Civil War. If there had been a significant mistake, the thinking went, it was not the policy itself, but in not letting go of it once culprit

14

the Civil War had ended at the end of

1920.

The

was the "greatforce of inertia," which resulted in

Biulleten'. No. 2, pp.22, 33. 397

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a protraction of War Communism.15 By the autumn of 1921, Lenin's view was at odds with this dominant interpretation.

Overall, what distinguished

Lenin from some of his Bolshevik critics on the question of "mistakes" was that, though they all considered themselves good

Marxists,

themselves

of

Lenin's

critics

guilt by pointing

were to

quicker

to

the workings

absolve of

the

forces of history, while he was more inclined to fix the blame on the individual actors in the historical drama.16 15 For example, see Larin in Pravda. May 28, 1921; and Kamenev at the Eleventh Party Conference, Biulleten'. No. 2, pp.56-57. Two Soviet studies from the late 1920s which advance the "protraction" (zatiazhka) interpretation are Slepkov, p.15; and Aikhenvald, p.31. The latter provides the following neat formula for filtering out the bad from the good of War Communism: "The entire matter can be formulated thus: all that which flowed cut of military and revolutionary necessity, which supported the war and prepared the collection of the entire economy in the hands of the proletariat and the break-up of the old economy for the forthcoming construction— all of that was correct; that which flowed out only from the desire to construct the communist order immediately, from an assessment of war communism as the direct path to socialism, which was not dictated by the demands of war— all that was mistaken. It is understandable that the central part of the mistake falls on that period (from the end of 1920 to March 1921) when without civil war, communist [sic] policy continued. And then came the 'defeat' revealed by the crisis of the spring of 1921." Some early Western studies maintain that had there been no Civil War, NEP-like policies would have been introduced in 1918. See Farbman, After Lenin, pp.38, 46; Chamberlin, vol. 1, p.416; and especially Dobb, pp.120-124, 147. 16 Back in November 1920, Kantor had written: "If these tasks, distribution and sowing, amount to the introduction of socialist principles of the regulation of the economy, then no one is as guilty in that as is the socialist logic of history." Vestnik aaitatsii i propaaandy. November 25, 1920, No. 3, p.20. In 1921, Sviderskii wrote that the war with Poland and with Wrangel in 1920 made the razverstka 398

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At the Moscow Party Conference, with Lenin turned

for inculpating the Party

out.

"An historical

necessity,” delegate

he

Gonikam

historical occurrence

Stukov was indignant

materialism, could

necessity

objected, "and lectured

not

not

Lenin saying

have

for the way events

a

is

historical

mistake."17

on

the

that

developed

an

principles

an

The of

"historical

otherwise

than

it

developed."18 Passed

on

to

the

Bolsheviks

from

revolutionary

tradition was a vague notion that in order for a revolution "objectively unavoidable," while leading "full catastrophe." Chetvertaia. p.7. 17

the

economy

to

Pravda. November 4, 1921.

18 PSS. vol. 44, p.215. A Bolshevik official wrote in a letter to Lenin in the spring of 1921: " . . . [I]n the final analysis all of this is not terrible, because, it is not we who decide, but the general course of events in the world scope." Lenin wrote in the margin: "Not true!" Leninskii sbornik. vol. XX, p.71. As this quote implies, one of those "forces of history" which the Bolsheviks felt had worked heavily against them was the failure of revolution in the West. After all, this had been one of the conditions for the Bolshevik seizure of power in the first place. The problem was not Communist "stupidities," Larin countered Lenin, but the absence of revolution outside of Soviet Russia. Krasnaia nov/. .1921, No. 4, p. 148. Trotsky told the Fourth Komsomol Congress in September 1921 that if in the previous year there had been a revolution in Germany, there would have been no need for the Party to have made its "step backward." IV s"ezd RKSM. p.37. Also Bukharin in Pesiatvi s"ezd. p.324. Of course, this argument assumes that under certain circumstances War Communism could have ended up being more that a sum of emergency measures and proving a more direct path to socialism. At first, Lenin, too, pointed to the failure of outside revolution as a major factor in the course of events, but soon let go of the notion that foreign revolution could have saved War Communist economic policies in Russia. 399

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to accomplish its original goals, it must initially proceed well beyond those goals.

When Kamenev filled in for Lenin

as the main reporter at the Eleventh Party Conference he referred

to

a

passage

to

this

Historical Materialism."19 asked

his

librarian

to

effect

In September find

this

from

Engels'

1921,

passage

for

"On

Lenin had him

excerpted from one of his own pamphlets of 1908) .20

(as

There

is no evidence that Lenin ever chose to quote or cite Engels on

this

score.

Rather

in

a November

article

he

cited

another passage from Engels, in which the latter stated that in times of revolution "stupidities" are committed.21 As a rule, the "protraction" interpretation placed the Party's "mistake" in the winter of 1920-1921.

However, the

mentality that was at the source of this error was assumed to have begun somewhat earlier. compare

with

any

precision

Here it is difficult to how

individual

observers

19 Biulleten' . No. 1, p.6. In Bolshevik terminology, if Soviet power had not advanced so far in the field of battle, there would have been no room for the subsequent retreat. See, for example, PSS. vol. 45, p. 10. Radek in Krasnaia nov'. 1921, No. 4, p. 190. At the Thirteenth Party Conference in 1924, Stalin professed to see an historical "regularity" (zakonomemost') in the Party's tardiness in signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and in introducing the new course. Sochineniia. vol. 6, p.37. 20

PSS. vol. 53, pp.206, 419.

21 Ibid., vol. 44, p.223. At the Ninth Congress of Soviets, Lenin referred to the Party's behavior under War Communism in citing a French saying that the faults of a person are the continuation of his merits. Ibid., p.323. In his reminders to Party members of their "stupidities" and "mistakes" Lenin was relentless. 400

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perceived the extent of the error: When did the "illusions" of

War

Communism

extensively had

begin

to

they taken

grow

and

root within

how the

deeply Party?

and The

Bolshevik Evdokimov explained it in vague and general terms: The old economic policy was not a conquest, progress or a movement forward. It was a necessity. What then was our mistake? It was that we pledged ourselves to this necessity and that which was imposed upon us by the circumstances of civil war we began to consider an ideal. This mistake in mood was such that when it came time to change our economic policy, when the conditions for this had alread ripened, we nonetheless hesitated. . . . All local comrades know what confusion is in the heads of everyone on this.22 Somewhat later, Lunacharskii expressed it this way: After a certain period of time communism [sic] became a mistake. But we got used to it, almost fell in love with it. And when we should have understood that it was time to abandon it, to start out cn a new path, we deliberated and marked time.23 22 Biulleten‘ (Eleventh), No. 2, p.20. Another delegate (p.45) noted that all the confusion caused by the question of the Party's "mistake" was having a bad effect in the provinces. A writer in Pravda (L'vov) on March 26, 1922 wrote that it wasn't the Civil War measures themselves that were mistaken, but "what we took them to mean." 23 Lunacharskii, K kharakteristike Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii (Moscow, 1924), p.15. Osinskii remarked at the Ninth Congress of Soviets (No. 4, p. 2) that of the written questions passed up to him during his speech, the most asked was: "Why didn't you put into practice a normal agricultural policy earlier?" Osinskii responded that the previous economic policy had not been a mistake, but "corresponded to the spirit and needs of those times." (our emphasis) Some preferred to place the blame upon a certain section of the Party membership. For example, Stukov said in October 1921: "A part of the party membership on the grounds of the 401

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Vladimir Smirnov, the former Left Communist, was one of the only Bolsheviks beside Lenin to go beyond the notion of "protraction" in an incisive article in the January-February 1922 issue of Krasnaia nov*.

Smirnov seems to have been

moved

by

to

write

the

article

the

engendered by Lenin's October speeches.

negative

reaction

He stated plainly

and correctly what others were only thinking: Lenin's declaration about our mistake has not in general been met with approval in the Party.24 Smirnov accused his colleagues of leaning too heavily on the

idea that War Communism had been

Party,

and

in

reviewing

that

economic

forced upon the policy

extremely critical of the Party's performance.

he

was

Looking back

on the razverstka. he remembered: practice of war communism came to a certain conviction that it was possible to proceed with military methods, and on this ground there were created corresponding illusions." Pravda. November 4, 1921. See also Ol'minskii's critique of Bukharin's Ekonomika. discussed in the previous chapter. A resolution of the Executive Committee of the Com intern from March 1922 went quite far on the subject of "illusions": ". [T]he course of the struggle for victory over the landowners and bourgeoisie, having taken the character of a violent civil war, unavoidably gave birth to a series of illusions and even created an ideology, which found itself in sharp contradiction with the fundamental theory and program of the party, [the latter] having gone over under new conditions to the new policy. . . . " (our emphasis) . The language is vague as to when the ideology "found itself" in contradiction to the Party program. Genkina. Gosudarstvennaia. p.139. 24

Krasnaia nov'. 1922, No. 1, p.200. 402

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. . . [V]ery soon we created the theory, by which this cable rkanatl became a purely socialist "type of connection" between the city and the countryside, that it was not a temporary means, but a new achievement, which would be preserved for the ages, of course with a few improvements.25 Coercion, of course, had been necessary: But out of that necessity we made a virtue, and the idea of a direct transformation of the peasant into a member of the socialist society, working on government assignment and handing over his goods according to assignments roo nariadaml, was made the central point of our economic program, unfolding to the end at the VIII Congress of Soviets in the plan for the state regulation of agriculture.2 6 Where Smirnov parted company with the "protractionists" is in his conclusion that the "illusions" of War Communism prevented its abandonment much earlier than the winter of 1920-1921. 1920

and

NEP could have come, he argued, in the spring of the

whole

unhappy

affair

of

deepening

25 Ibid., p.201. The phrase "type of connection" allusion to Bukharin's Ekonomika.

is an

26 Ibid., pp.201-202. He went on to say that food policy came to define the rest of the economic program: "And not by accident, the firmest, the most consistent line all that time was that of Narkomorod. and not of VSNKh, [the latter] guiding industry, in which, it would seem, socialist principles should have been applied in the first instance." See the analysis of this article in Szamuely, pp.89-94. Bukharin wrote in his August 6 Pravda article: "Our economic policy amounted almost exclusively to the policy of Narkomorod. that is, to the requisions system of the prodrazverstka. In November 1922, Preobrazhenskii stated: "In the period of War Communism it seemed to us that a worldwide Narkomorod was unavoidable, but now we already believe that that is in no way necessary." Vestnik Sotsialisticheskoi Akademii. 1923, No. 2, p.189. 403

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militarization would have been avoided. One might have argued with Smirnov as to whether the war with Poland and the resurgence of Wrangel's forces would not

have

meant

the

necessity

or

return to more extreme measures.

perceived

necessity

to

Nonetheless, here was an

interpretation that, while bowing to the forced nature of the original policies, pointed to a "mistake" ("our crudest mistake")

that had

far more

serious consequences than

a

"protraction" of War Communism at the end of 1920. What

is

interesting

is

that

Smirnov

thought that his was a Leninist view. Lenin was not advancing such an

seems

to

have

At the time, however,

interpretation.

He had

stopped saying that War Communism became a mistake; rather he was saying it had been a mistake

from the beginning.

Lenin could have more easily defended an argument such as Smirnov's.

Or

he

could

have

specified

that

certain

Bolshevik a ssumptions behind the entire economic policy from November 1917 onward— assumptions about the role of private trade

during

timetable,

the

transition

period,

the

revolutionary

etc.— had been mistaken, but that circumstances

in 1918 had forced the Party to engage in certain extreme policies, these then giving rise to a number of illusions within the Party as to the proper methods of transition to socialism.

He could have, but he did not.

had been a mistake, he insisted. It

is

difficult

to

read

War Communism

Period. Lenin's

statements

404

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on

War

Communism from the autumn and winter of 1921-22 and not come away thinking that he was behaving unusually narrowly and obstinantly, even when one adjusts for his obvious confusion and fatigue.

Certainly,

he saw the illogic in his Port

Arthur analogy,

just as everyone else did.

logic

Lenin's

was

not

Communism a "mistake."

first

priority

in

But perhaps calling

War

In fact, some of the evidence points

to this. In speech,

several Lenin

passages

stated

in

quite

his

Moscow

Party

openly that his

Conference

intention

in

labelling War Communism a "mistake" was to make it clear to the

Party

as a whole that

its old methods

should be thoroughly discredited. the

Party

attachments

of

operation

He wanted to ensure that

got on to the new course unencumbered by to

the

old

ways.

For

Lenin,

this

any

meant

criticizing those ways in the harshest terms. That which was earlier, must decisively, exactly and clearly be admitted as a mistake so that there will be no hindrance in the development of new strategies and tactics. in the development cf operations, which should now proceed completely differently and which, as we know, will end in full success, although in a period incomparably longer than had been assumed.27 Further on he stated: "We cannot learn to solve our problems through new methods today, did

27

not

open

our

eyes

if our experience of yesterday

to

the

incorrectness

p s s . vol. 44, p. 197 (our emphasis).

of

Also p . 194.

405

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the

old

methods."28

In his closing statement to the Conference, he

said: With my examples [e.g., Port Arthur] I vaulted in particular to show, that the essential thing is this: does the admission of a mistake now have a practical meaning. is it necessary now to change something after that which occurred and occurred unavoidably? In the beginning there was the assault rshturml, auid only after it did we go over to siege. Everyone knows this, and now the realization of our economic policy is hindered by a mistaken application of methods, which in other conditions would be, maybe, magnificent, but now are harmful.29 Radek picked up on this point in his critique of the Port Arthur analogy: . . . [N]ow, after four years of revolution, after the greatest sacrifice, Lenin thinks it is necessary for the energetic and better execution of the policy of compromise to shake the party by the collar and knock into its head the conviction that economic policy up to now has been a mistake. [But] it is extremely incredible that the present policy could have been carried out in 1917.30 Lunacharskii perhaps had these same passages in mind when he noted somewhat later: 28

Ibid., p.205.

29 Ibid., p.215 (our emphasis); also p.217. The language is awkward, but faithful to the original Russian. In his notes from this period, Lenin wrote: "'Frontal attack'--a mistake or a testing of the ground and cleansing of it? Both, looking at it historically. But looking at it now, during the transition from it to another method, it is important to underscore the role of mistake." Leninskii sbornik, vol. XXIII, p.271. 30

Krasnaia nov'. 1921, No. 4, p.189 (our emphasis). 406

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V[ladimir] I[lich] one time said that war communism was a mistake, but he said that in order sooner to push us to more decisive action, and then he himself said that he purposely said "mistake” only because he wanted agitationally sooner to lift up fpodniat' 1 those people who had become stink in ruviazlil communism fsicl when it had become a mistake.3JCould Lenin have been motivated by such a pragmatic concern?

Did

he

perceive

the

persistence

of

the

War

Communist "mentality"— the "old methods" he spoke of— to be so strong as to warrant dismissing this "necessary" stage as a "mistake"?

The evidence presented in the previous two

chapters makes it clear that the transition period from the old

to

the new methods

of operation was

difficulties for the Party.

indeed

full

of

It seems that these practical

considerations had a deep influence upon Lenin, though to what extent it is impossible to be certain.

What is certain

is that Lenin's attempt to discredit War Communism served to confuse a great many Party members and promoted the kinds of discussions among Bolsheviks which Lenin sought to keep at a minimum. with

a

It also involved Lenin in time-consuming clashes number

of

critically-thinking

Bolsheviks,

which drained him of precious energy.

31

Lunacharskii, p .15. 407

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clashes

NEP and Thermidor

At this point,- it is not inappropriate to say a few words about the concept of Thermidor and what it meant to the Bolsheviks in 1921. The comparison of the Russian and French revolutions has long held a certain fascination for Western historians. Robert Daniels was one inclined to dwell on the parallels: From the vantage point of two or three decades, one can discern remarkable analogies between the Russian revolution and the French, with a "Thermidorian" reaction in 1921 and a "Bonapartist" dictatorship after 192S.32 Western treatments of the NEP period have often made reference referring

to to

the the

concept date

of

a

"Thermidorian"

9

Thermidor

Revolutionary

calendar

(July

27,

Robespierre's

arrest),

when

that

in

1794,

reaction,

the the

revolution

French date took

of a

conservative turn and the heads of radicals began to fall, Robespierre's among them. "Remarkable analogies" between the French and Russian revolutionary examples may or may not be discemable from our vantage point today.

But the question that interests us

is how much influence the notion of Thermidor actually had on the Bolsheviks'

behavior in 1921.

Certainly,

the Old

32 Daniels, pp.154, 404. See Crane Brinton, Anatomy of a Revolution (New York, 1965) p.207. 408

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Bolsheviks

were

very

much

aware

of

their

French

revolutionary heritage, and there can be little doubt that the possibility of some kind of Russian Thermidor occurred to many of them at one time or another after November 1917. The Kronstadt uprising may at the time have appeared to more than a few Bolsheviks as well as non-Bolsheviks as the first sign of such a reaction.

When it had been repressed

at least one Bolshevik commentator professed to see March 2, 1921 as the false start of a Russian 9 Thermidor.33 What

is

interesting

in

the

scattered

references

to

Thermidor from this period is that individual Bolsheviks, in their trademark bull-by-the-horns approach to history,

are

heard to say that they themselves have decided to initiate Thermidor.

The heads of Thermidoreans-to-be will roll (here

in a purely figurative sense) , while the radicals in power anticipate

the

course

moderates'

program.

of This

history is

a

and picture

introduce of

the

Bolshevik

voluntarism at its most audacious. Early on, Michael Farbman, Party leaders

perhaps influenced by the

(or the Party's enemies) with whom he was in

contact, came close to offering such an interpretation.

"To

33 II. Vardin in Krasnaia nov'. 1921, No. 1, p.199. When the Kronstadt uprising broke out, the major Bolshevik newspapers were marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Paris Commune with banner headlines. The irony was not missed by Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. See Avrich, p.213; Goldman, p.303. One also comes across the notion of Kronstadt as the Russian Vendee. See Dobb, p.120; also on Thermidor, p .14 4. 409

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speak of the French Revolution," he wrote, "it is as if the leaders of the Terror were undoing their own work and were inaugurating Thermidor."34 short

of

ascribing

to

Robert Daniels also stopped just

Bolshevik motivations

attempt to dodge the bullet of history.

a

conscious

"The Communist

Party parried the threat of counterrevolution," he wrote, "and escaped the fate of its French revolutionary prototype by executing its own Ninth Thermidor."35 Alec Nove goes a step further. is

an

apparition

haunting

In his study, Thermidor

the

Bolsheviks

transition to their New Economic Policy. "all

Russian

vividly

revolutionaries

before

them,"

Nove

hadthe claims

during

the

Maintaining that

example that

of

in

France

1921

Lenin

"intended to carry out the economic retreat to avoid a headon clash with the forces that broke Robespierre."36 The

hard evidence

that Lenin

and

other Bolsheviks

actually thought in this way in 1921 is skimpy. few references

in Lenin's notes

from

1921 about NEP and

Thermidor, but these are terse and cryptic.37 quotes

Lenin

rebellion: ourselves

second-hand

"This be

is

saying

Thermidor.

guillotined.

during But

We

There are a

we

shall

34

After Lenin, pp.3, 26.

35

Daniels, p.154.

36

Nove, pp.81-82, 123.

37

PSS. vol. 43, pp.141, 385, 386, 403, 417.

Victor Serge the

shall make

410

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Kronstadt not

let

Thermidor

ourselves."38 of

1922

that

"Thermidorian

Trotsky is on record as declaring at the end the

Party

moods

had

and

made

concessions

tendencies

of

the

to

the

petty-

bourgeois ie. "33 Altogether, however, the record fails to support Nove's depiction of a Bolshevik leadership in 1921 haunted by the prospect of a Thermidorean reaction and acting to pre-empt others from initiating it.

Later in the mid-1920s, when the

issues surrounding the future of NEP became sharpened,

and

especially when Trotsky suffered political defeat and was expelled from the Party, the notion of a Russian Thermidor, in one or another form, gained greater currency within the Party.

In exile, Trotsky found it easier to attribute his

defeat to the mysterious forces of Thermidor, rather than to his political rivals.40 38

Serge, p.131; also pp.221, 225, 229, 310.

39 Trotskii, Sochineniia. vol. XII, p.262. Lunacharskii used different imagery to express the same thought when he told the Fourth Komsomol Congress: "We ourselves turned out to be the magician who called up a rather evil spirit for help." IV s"ezd RKSM. p.22. At the Twelfth Party Congress in 1923, Trotsky said that the Party had "summoned into the world the market devil." Quoted in Valentinov, p.32. 40 Stephen Cohen describes individual Bolsheviks (Bukharin not among them) listening for the "footsteps of history" in the 1920s. Cohen, pp.131-132, 144. Cohen's statement (borrowed from Schapiro, who accepts it at face value from Trotsky's autobiography) that Trotskii stepped down as War Commissar in 1925 to avoid appearing « a Napoleon is simply not defensible. On Trotsky and Thermidor, see Schapiro, CPSU, p.303; Deutscher, The Prophet Unarmed. pp.311-316, 343-347, 377-378, 427-431; The Prophet Outcast (Oxford, 1963), pp.313-318. 411

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One can imagine that some Old Bolsheviks might well have taken comfort in thinking of this very unheroic turn in their

revolution

as

an

inevitable

act

in

a

great

revolutionary drama on the stage of world history in which they were to be allowed to continue as the principal actors. This would have given a somewhat romantic cast to a very unromantic phase of the revolution.

Perhaps this was so.

But there is no reason to think that, had there not been the precedent

of

Thermidor,

the

Bolsheviks

would

have

acted

other than they did in 1921.

The "Strategic Retreat"

It affinity

is

understandable,

for

military

given

imagery,

the

that

Bolshevik from

the

Party's start

it

settled on the strategic definition of the new course as a "retreat"

(otstupleniel .

For Lenin the appropriateness of

the label "retreat" was reinforced as he looked back to his writings of April 1918. "retreat" 1917-18.

There he had openly called for a

after the period (He

did

November 1917-March

say,

of

"attack"

however,

1918 had

that

in the winter of the

policies

of

in no way been mistaken.41)

Several times in April 1918 Lenin called for a "retreat from 41

PSS, vol. 36, p.177. 412

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the

principles

of

the

Paris

Commune,"

"compromise," and a "step backward."42

a

period

of

Frequently using the

analogy of a retreating army in 1918, he at one point made reference

to

the

military

theories

of

Clausewitz

to

rationalize his call for "retrenchment."43 In 1921, Lenin often employed the image of the Party as an army engaged in a "strategic retreat," which the BrestLitovsk analogy reinforced.44

Even when he qualified the

parallel to the Red Army, the military imagery was clear. . . . One cannot say that [our] retreat is similar to a retreat of the Red Army, in an orderly fashion, to positions prepared in advance. True, the positions were prepared beforehand. This one can verify, comparing the decisions of our party in the spring of 1921 with the April decisions of 1918 I have mentioned. The positions were prepared beforehand, but the retreat to those positions occurred (and in many provincial places are occurring even now) in a very considerable and even excessive disorder.45 As we saw earlier, the recognition of the failure of 42

Ibid., pp.176-179, 206, 251, 279.

43

Ibid., p.292.

44 For the term "strategic retreat," see Ibid., pp.158, 487. Malle (pp.513-514) claims that Lenin the term "retreat," because he did not want to ideological revision, but this is contradicted simultaneous rejection of War Communism and his "reformism" in the autumn of 1921.

vol. 44, employed start an by his call for

45 Ibid., p.159. Lewin here misquotes Lenin, overlooking his use of the negative in referring to retreating "in an orderly fashion." Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates. From Bukharin to the M o d e m Reformers (Princeton, 1974), p.85 (hereafter: Political Undercurrents). 413

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tovaroobmen in the autumn moved Lenin to call for a further "retreat" and insist that the Party be prepared to continue to retreat as far back as it was necessary.

We also related

how Lenin announced in March 1922 the end of the Party's "retreat," called for a period of "regrouping of forces," and

made

vague

statements

of

a

coming

"advance"

(nastuoleniel, though continuing after that to describe the New Economic Policy generally as a "retreat." Not everyone was entirely comfortable with the label "retreat," however,

for it seemed to contradicr the

idea

that War Communism had been a series of emergency measures and that the new course was a return to the Party's original program of spring 1913.

Could the new course be both a

"return" to 1918 and a "retreat"?4®

Some Bolsheviks sought

to remove this apparent contradiction,

contributing their

own tactical and strategic descriptions of the new course. This gave rise to a welter of images of NEP in the Party and government press. In a Pravda article of May 28, 1921 entitled "Retreat or Rectification" argued

that

economic

if

policy

("Otstuolenie ili wpriamlenie?"), Larin the to

new the

course correct

was

a

line

of

rectification 1918

after

of the

46 When Lenin at this time went over to calling War Communism a policy of choice and not a series of emergency measures, this removed the contradiction in his argument that NEP was a "retreat" from the "forced" policies of War Communism. However, if War Communism in its entirety had been a "mistake," then in what way was NEP a "retreat"? Lenin never reconciled the two ideas. 414

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interlude of emergency measures, then calling it a "retreat" made no sense.

Yet it was difficult to remain consistent.

Later in the year,

Larin himself called the new course a

"retreating maneuver, useful because it saves and protects the basic position cf the army."47 Gusev

expressed

"retreat,"

calling

impatience the

new

with

all

course

the

talk

instead

continuation" of the October Revolution.

a

of

a

"direct

He was troubled by

the fact that many in the Party did not understand this.48 A

Bolshevik

plainly:

pamphlet

published in

1921 stated

it

very

"There is no retreat here from the program.

Communism was

forced

on us.

..

.We

must

begin

used

the

War from

1918."49 Petrooradskaia logi .

The

pravda

on

razverstka. it

March wrote,

29

could

not

reverse

have

been

employed only because of the Civil War, otherwise why is the introduction of the tax called a "concession" (ustupka)? More

acceptable

in

some quarters than

the

word

"retreat" was the softer "concession," with its connotations of a less substantial and shorter-term "tactical" reverse. Vestnik

aaitatsii

i propaaandv. the

Central

Committee's

47 Krasnaia nov'. 1921, No. 4, p.151. Dembo's pamphlet (pp. 103-104) also combines the "retreat" and "return" notions. 48

Krasnaia nov'. 1921, No. 3, pp.329-330.

49 Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika. pp.26-29. Also Firsov in Vestnik Sotsialisticheskoi Akademii. 1923, No. 2, pp.227228. 415

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agitational journal,

expressed a preference for this term.

In April 1921 it told its readers: The concession made to the peasants resembles the concession that a pedestrian makes, having decided to cross a difficult path in two days instead of one.5° A subsequent issue_not£d impatiently: A few zigzags appear to a group of comrades as a retreat. They do not notice that with these zigzags . . . we ease the road to communism.51 Radek explained that the Party had made two kinds of "compromises":

long-term and short-term.

The "concession"

to the peasants belonged in the first category; that to the "trading bourgeoisie" in the second.52 Trotsky Congress

in

told

the

delegates

July

1921

that

the

to

the

new

Fourth

course

Comintern

was

not

a

"retreat" because during the Civil War there had been no "communism."

Later in the same speech he called the new

policy a "concession"

to the peasantry.55

At the Fourth

50 Vestnik aaitatsii i prooagandv. No 9-10, April 18, 1921, p.20. 51

Ibid., No. 14-15, July 4, 1921.

52

Krasnaia nov*. 1921, No. 4, p.190.

53 Sochineniia. vol. XII, p.311. At this gathering, Lenin told the foreign communists that "retreat" should be an option for all parties, and Trotsky described NEF as an "unavoidable stage" in the march to socialism. Ibid., p.317; £SS, vol. 45, pp.281-282. In November 1922, Trotsky drew up a set of theses on NEP, warmly praised by Lenin, which apparently were the basis of his speech to the Fourth 416

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Komsomol Congress in September he said that the new course was "in a certain sense a step backward" and referred to the Party's various "concessions."54 Steklov in Tzvestiia VTsIK on April 9, 1921 wrote that if the new economic policy was a "step backward," it had been made so that the Party could jump ahead. Preobrazhenskii wrote in Prayda on August 28 that the new course was not a "step backward," but a "regrouping of forces"

(perecrruppirovka sil^ .

In the same

issue,

Sorin

wrote that the proletariat had indeed made "concessions," giving up much of the "occupation zone."

Now, he wrote, it

was time for a "regrouping of forces." The adjective "strategic" was front

of various nouns

conveyed

the

idea

of

frequently employed in

to describe the new a

Party

in total

course.

control

economic policy and was a favorite of Bukharin. on August

6,

1921,

he

of

It its

In Pravda

called the new course a "plan of

strategic operation" and a "grandiose, on a number of years calculated, economic

strategic operation of the proletariat on the

front."

At

the

Eleventh

Party

Conference,

he

called NEP a "grand strategic maneuver," and at the Fifth Comintern Congress. These were expanded and published as a pamphlet, NEP sovetskoi vlasti (Moscow, 1922). See PSS vol. 54, pp. 314. In the pamphlet, Trotsky argued that NEP was not simply a peasant policy, but was a necessary stage for the development of state industry as well. See the analysis in Szamuely, pp.94-99. 54

TV s " e z d RKSM. p.37-

See Dukes, pp.275-276. 417

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Komsomol

Congress

in

1922,

he

labelled

it

a

"grandiose

strategic detour around the enemy" and a "strategic step."55 When Ustrialov published an article on NEP under the title

"Evolution or Tactic" in the journal Saena vekh in

January 1922, Lenin bristled.

He and his colleagues were

especially sensitive to the notion that the Party was not directing

the

unconsciously government Eleventh

economy

and

degenerating

(a

Party

society,

into ''some form of

"nererozhdenie" i. Congress,

but

Lenin

in

his

purposely

was

itself

"bourgeois11

speech

to

the

juxtaposed

the

terms "evolution" and "tactic," to make the point that the Party was in control of its destiny.56 On a related note,

a writer in Pravda on March 26,

1922, questioned whether the term "commanding heights" made sense if the Party was engaged in a retreat:

55 Biulleten'. No. 2, pp.51-52; Piatvi vserossiiskii s"ezd RKSM. pp.110-111. In an unsigned Pravda lead article of July 8, Bukharin anticipated his "snail's pace" statement of several years hence when wrote that the Party was following "thousands of zigzags; we do not walk, we crawl." 56 PSS. vol. 45, p.416; also p.60. This is not the sense in which Robert Daniels (p. 155) uses these terms when he asks if the Bolsheviks had intended NEP to be a "tactic" (by which he means a brief respite from War Communist methods) or an "evolution” (by which he means a long-term conscious Bolshevik strategy for evolving into socialism). To critics such as Otto Bauer, who forecast such a pererozhdenie, Trotsky countered that the Bolsheviks possessed the main weapon in the economic struggle ahead: state power. Trotsky, Sochineniia. vol. XII, pp.319-320. Otto Bauer, Per "Neue Kurs" in Sowietrussland (Vienna, 1921), p.20, argued that a true "base determines superstructure" analysis of the Russian situation led to a different conclusion. 418

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One need not be a great strategist in order to understand that in retreating you cannot retain the heights; and holding on to the heights, you cannot retreat, inasmuch as is being discussed the retention of the heights not for an hour and not for a day, with the goal of preventing further retreat. He

argued

transportation, heights,

but

that

nationalized

etc.,

lands,

were not "positions,

weapons,"

which

are

factories,

not commanding

carried

along

by

a

retreating army.57 Despite the addition of these various descriptions of NEP,

which were related to the confusion surrounding the

interpretations of War Communism, the general definition on which the Party can be said to have settled on at this time was NEP as a "strategic retreat." the

"retreat"

should

at

some

But did this imply that

point

be

followed

"offensive" similar to that of War Communism? in

1921

had

this

in

mind.

Certainly

by

an

No doubt some

not

Lenin,

who

attempted to discredit totally Civil War methods and habits. But one could read Lenin differently on this.

As Moshe

Lewin puts it, Lenin "did not explain in what sense NEP was a 'retreat,' if 'war communism' was not an advance."58 57

The

term

In

"commanding heights" was attributed to See Biulleten' (Eleventh), No. 1, p.20. At the Ninth Congress of Soviets Kamenev referred to nationalized land, industry, transport and foreign trade as "fortresses." Deviatvi s"ezd sovetov. No. 3, p.15. From Lenin's notes of February 1922, we know that he was working on a Party-as-mountain-climber metaphor that looks to have been most unpromising. PSS. vol. 44, 415-417. S ojcoj .'nikov.

58

Political Undercurrents, p.87. 419

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his use of the word "retreat" and the military imagery he used to describe the Party's maneuverings, and in his vague statements regarding a coming "offensive," Lenin seemed to encourage the prospect of a return to War Communism.59 We shall see in more detail how the Lenin of 1921-1923 has been interpreted in Western historiography.

But first,

we must discuss Lenin's theoretical definition of NEP, his concept of state capitalism.

Lenin's State Capitalism

In February and March 1921, as Lenin sought to lead his Party out of its crisis,

it does not appear to have been

immediately obvious to him that he should look back to the economic policy of April-May 1918 for direction, certainly not for a blueprint for reform in 1921.60

It is striking

59 Robert Tucker writes of Lenin's "possible cues" for a "second storming." See Robert Tucker (ed.), Stalinism. Essays in Historical Interpretation (New York, 1977), p.92. 60 It should be pointed out that Lenin referred to precedents from the 1918 "breathing spell” at various times during the period of War Communism. For example, in March 1920, he sought ammunition in the Party's discussions of the spring of 1918 for his support of individual over collegial management. PSS, vol. 40, pp.271-272, 300-301. In December 1920 at the Eighth Congress of Soviets he looked back to the same period for guidance, without, however, calling for the major reforms he would introduce only weeks later. Ibid., 420

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and revealing 'that at the Tenth Party Congress Lenin did not once refer to the "breathing spell" of spring 1918.

Rather,

he half-heartedly drew an unconvincing connection between the new prodnaloq and the food tax introduced in October 1918,

claiming that the Civil War alone had prevented the

latter 's implementation.61 It is important to make clear that even early in 1921 as Lenin introduced the connection to the economic policies of

spring

1918,

he

never described the new course as

simple continuation of or return to those policies.

a

For

example, in an outline to his first full-scale discussion of the

1918

precedent,

the

pamphlet

"On the

Food

Tax,"

he

wrote: In April 1ja 3 and in April 192Q we imagined the transition from war to peace as a simple vol. 42, pp.137-138. 61 Ibid., vol 43, pp.28-30. See our discussion of this tax in Chapter One. Also see Germanov (Frumkin) , p.432; and Dembo, p.2. Iurkov (pp. 109-120) connects the 1918 tax to that of 1921. It is interesting that while Soviet historians generally adhere to the position that the economic policies of spring 1921 were a natural continuation of the policies of spring 1918, with War Communism a necessary interlude, these historians also describe the Party's "search for NEP" fpoiski NEPa) at the end of 1920. If the 1918 antecedent was indeed so obvious, then why did the Party need to conduct a "search" for it? Iustuzov (p.176) justly admonishes his colleagues for this contradiction. See also V. E. Iustuzov, "K voprosu o preemstvennosti NEPa i ekonomicheskoi politiki vesny 1918g.," Problemv istorioqrafii i istochnikovedeniia istorii KPSS (Leningrad, 1974). In general, Soviet historiography stresses continuity over change in its treatment of the 1918/1921 issue. Historians V.I. Billik and I.B. Berkhin are exceptions. See Dmitrenko, "Nekotorye voprosy," p.28. 421

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transition on the same rails of policy. The transition is complex: different relations to the peasantry, different tempo, different circumstances.62 At

the

heart

of

Lenin's

discussion

of the

economic

policies of the spring of 1918 and 1921 was his concept of state capitalism. devoted

Soviet historians have over the years

a

good

deal

of

capitalism.

To

this

day

questions

surrounding

it,

attention they

to

Lenin's

continue

including

if

to

and

state

debate how

the

Lenin's

thinking on state capitalism changed over time, whether he offered

it

as

a

description of Soviet Russia's

economic

system or just one part of that system, how he applied the term to the Russia of 1918 and 1921-22, and how he might have applied it later in the 1920s.63 Our task here is simpler for two reasons. all,

we

can

allow

room

for all

of the

First of

ambiguities

and

inconsistencies in Lenin's thinking on this subject and do not feel compelled to offer a coherent Leninist program of 62 p s s . vol. 43, p.384. At the Tenth Party Conference in May Lenin offered the following periodization of the history of the Russian revolutionary movement: 1870s-1903, 19031917, 1917-1921. Lenin told the gathering that the Party was in transition from the third to a fourth "course." Ibid., pp.331-332. 63 por an overview of these discussions, see Dmitrenko, "Nekotorye voprosy,” pp.31-34; and his "Sovetskaia i zarubezhnaia istoriografiia NEPa," in Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika: Voorosv teorii i istorii. pp.288-297. Also of interest are the articles of I. B. Berkhin and A. I. Kossoi in Ibid.; and the articles by L. F. Morozov in Voprosy istorii (1962, No. 10) and Voorosv istorii KPSS (1966, No. 12). 422

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state

capitalism.

Secondly,

we

are

more

interested

in

Lenin's practical considerations in applying the term "state capitalism" period.

to As

the

Soviet

will

be

economy

during

demonstrated,

the

transition

practical

concerns

competed with Lenin's desire for theoretical consistency in rationalizing the New Economic Policy.

Ignoring them leaves

any

of

discussion

of

Lenin's

"program"

state

capitalism

ultimately incomplete.

Lenin distinct

came

to

stage

the

(uklad)

idea in

advanced stage of capitalism,

of

state

capitalism

historical

as

a

development— an

but not yet socialism— from

his observation of Germany during the First World War.

He

was attracted by its "highly concentrated and monopolistic economy

operated

ownership

but

by

under

capitalists close

nominally

state

under

private

supervision.1,64

For

backward Russia, Lenin thought, a similar period of "state monopoly

capitalism"

would

make

good

sense

intermediate stage on the path to true socialism, Russia's

large-scale

capitalism

to

develop

as

an

enabling over

her

64 Carr, p.91. Carr's general discussion of state capitalism up through 1918 (pp.88-95) is very good. The best discussion of Lenin's "state capitalism" is in Szamuely, pp.46-62. With respect to the German war economy, Lenin appears to have been influenced by several articles written by Larin in Stockholm in 1915. 423

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predominant smaller forms.65 The

phrase

"state

capitalism"

first

entered

the

Bolshevik Party leadership's discussions during the polemics between Lenin and the Left Communists in April 1918. "destructive

phase"

ended.

bourgeoisie

The

spell" achieved.

of

the

revolution

was

had been defeated,

said a

The

to

have

"breathing

But there was sharp disagreement within

the leadership as to how to proceed.

The Left Communists,

still stung by their defeat on the peace of Brest-Litovsk, proposed

to

press

on with radical

construct "socialism."

economic measures

and

Lenin wanted to halt the "advance"

underway since the October Revolution.

He now called for a

new phase of stock-taking and caution, emphasizing the need for organization and "accounting and control," pronouncing the latter phrase with obsessive repetition in April 1918. There are several basic facts to be stated in order to understand Lenin's all,

it was

not

"state capitalism" Lenin who

Party's discussions.

of 1918.

introduced the

term

His Left Communist critics,

First of into

the

in their

effort to discredit the "right-wing" Bolsheviks, unearthed Lenin's ruminations on the German war economy from 1917, and raised the threat

(Lenin called it the "scarecrow")

of an

65 Lenin first developed the idea in his September 1917 article, "The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Combat It." PSS, vol. 34, pp.151-199. 424

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"evolution in the direction of state capitalism."66 A second point to keep in mind is that when we talk of Lenin's concept of state capitalism as he discussed it in 1918, we are speaking of the partial content of two speeches and one article delivered over a period of several weeks in April-May 1918.67

As events pushed the Party leadership to

drastic measures, the phrase "state capitalism," introduced as a polemical device by Lenin's opponents and then waved back in their faces by him, was soon forgotten. had

no

1918.

well-considered

program

of

"state

Thus, Lenin

capitalism"

in

It was, as he later put it, only a "vague" notion.68 A third point to stress is that the discussion of state

capitalism in 1918 had more than anything else to do with the question of employing "bourgeois specialists" in state industry, often at wages higher than those received by the best-paid

workers.

revolution

meant learning from these specialists

he

like

sounds

Bolsheviks 66

to

For

Lenin,

the Lenin

learn to

of

the

new

phase

1921, imploring

trade) , not driving

of

the

(and here

his

them

fellow out

by

Ibid., vol. 36, pp.254, 294, 295.

67 These are: Lenin's speech to the All-Union Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) on April 29 (Ibid., vol. 36, pp.241-276); his article of May 9-11, "On 'Left-Wing' Childishness and on the Petty-Bourgeois Spirit" (pp.285314)? and his speech to the Moscow regional Party Conference on May 15, of which we have only a s u mmary report (p.346). 68 Thus, one hesitates to accept Stephen Cohen's description of "state capitalism" in 1918 as the "initial program of the Bolshevik government, in the sense of officially defined policy." Stalinism, p.20. 425

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proceeding with full-scale workers' control,

or, as Lenin

presented the Left Communist position, trying to teach them about socialism.69 To wrong.

Lenin,

his

leftist

critics

had

their priorities

The main enemy of Soviet power was not, he insisted,

large capital, but the petty capitalism of the small trader, especially of the peasant.

Lenin maintained that it would

be a "step forward" for the dictatorship of the proletariat to enlist the help of engineers and industrialists, to allow them to remain in management and ownership positions, while closely

supervising

and

"controlling"

their

operations.

This form of "state capitalism," said Lenin, would be more progressive

than

the

German

proletariat was at the helm.

kind,

because

in Russia

the

To the Left Communists, all of

this spelled a retreat from the building of "socialism." A final point to make about Lenin's "state capitalism" in 1918 is that, while Lenin listed it as a genuine stage between capitalism and socialism,

he very

clearly stated

that Soviet Russia had not yet achieved state capitalism. Russia's economy included elements of both capitalism and socialism, capitalism.

he

said,

but

only

very

little

true

state

At one point he declared that if Soviet power

were to reach the stage of state capitalism, this would mean

69 At one point,- Lenin also made a reference to enlisting the help of the "bourgeois cooperatives." PSS, vol. 36, p.279. 426

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that it had achieved "three-fourths of socialism."70

In March 1921 the idea that the new course should be described as a form of "state capitalism," does not appear to have been self-evident to Lenin. to think it through.

At least he needed time

In the outlines to his Tenth Party

Congress speech he did write the words "state capitalism" (as synonymous with "foreign concessions"), but he did not mention it in the speech itself— possibly because he feared a hostile reception.71 Lenin's first genuine discussion of the new course as a form

of

state

capitalism

came

in a

speech

on April

9.

However, in the outlines for his pamphlet "On the Food Tax" (written between the end of March and April 21), the concept was introduced in a major way only in the third version, and the

long

excerpt

from

his

1918

pamphlet

"On

Left-Wing

Childishness" which he included in the final product was not mentioned

in

any

of

the

outlines.72

In

these

early

70 Ibid., pp.257, 295-256. Revealing of how even the cautious Bolsheviks thought of the revolutionary timetable in 1918 is the following passage from Lenin's "On 'LeftWing' Childishness": "If, for example, in half a year, we establish state capitalism, this would be a huge success and the surest guarantee that in one year invincible socialism would be consolidated." Ibid., p.295. 71

Ibid., VOl. 43, pp.368, 369, 370, 372.

72 Ibid., pp.379-387. Subsequently, at the Tenth Party Conference Lenin did not mention state capitalism, though a reference to it appears in the second outline for his speech. Ibid., p.403. 427

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references,

Lenin listed the

forms that

state capitalism

could take in Russia (foreign concessions, cooperation, the hiring of capitalist traders as middlemen, and the leasing of factories), once again asserting that state capitalism would be a "step forward" for the country.73 Lenin would have had good reason to hesitate before applying

the label he had employed in 1918 to the Soviet

economy in 1921.

For although he once claimed that the

basic features of the two economies were the same— except, he said, for the great amount of destruction caused by the Civil War74— there was an important difference. industry was largely in private hands.

In 1918

It seems that Lenin

envisioned at that time the state supervision of private companies.75

By

1921,

large

private

capital— for

matter, most large capital— had disappeared.

that

There was a

supervising agent (Soviet power), but little to supervise. The private industrialists and technicians— those "bourgeois specialists"

who

had

been

the

principal

source

of

the

controversy in 1918— were either no longer in business or in the country.

And so, regardless of whether or not it was

73

See our discussion above in Chapter Three.

74

Ibid., p.237.

75 Here Szamuely (pp.58-61) offers an unconventional interpretation. In his view, the "capitalists" that Lenin sought to co-opt in 1918 were not the owners of industry, but merely "specialists1' who should be hired "within the State sector." Szamuely's point is that Lenin's "state capitalism" of 1918 was "not a modus vivendi with capitalist economy." 428

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appropriate to call the new course or some of its features "state capitalism,” to say it was the same state capitalism Lenin had in mind in 1918 was misleading.76

The

failure

to

stem

the

tide

of

trade

and

the

recognition of the failure of tovaroobmen in the autumn of 1921

threatened

to

tear

the

policy of 1918 totally apart. chapter

how

this

development

connection

to

the

economic

We examined in an earlier provoked

Lenin

to

question

publically the elements of continuity between 1918 and 1921: . . . [In 1918 W]e proceeded for the most part— I do not remember any exceptions . . . from the presumption of a direct transition to socialist construction. I purposely re-read that which was written, for example, in March and April of 1918 about the tasks of our revolution in the area of socialist construction, and I am convinced that we really held this presumption.77 The admission that free private trade was to be a long 76 On the comparison of the applicability of "state capitalism" in 1918 and 1921, see Farbman, p.294; Berkhin in Novaia ekoncmicheskaia oolitika: Vonrosv teorii i istorii. pp.56-58; Cohen, pp.134-138; Lewin, Lenin's Last Struggle, pp.25-27. Malle (p.454) is correct to emphasize that the principle of economic centralization, paramount in every Bolshevik's thinking in 1918, had become seriously questioned by 1921. At times Lenin spoke as if the new course itself was already a form of state capitalism and at other times (as when he repeatedly said it "would be a step forward for us") as if it were a stage not yet reached. In speaking of state capitalism as the most advanced stage of capitalism, while insinuating that the Russian Revolution was really at the early stages of socialism, Lenin was fudging the question. 77

PSS. vol. 44, pp.197-198; also pp.156-157, 222. 429

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term and integral part of the Soviet economy,

not quickly

replaced

doubt

by

tovaroobmen.

threw

into

the

appropriateness of the label "state capitalism" for the new course. In Smirnov

his

Krasnaia

stated

that

nov1 Lenin

article had

from

December

implied— though

1921,

did

not

declare outright— that the retreat had to go further back than state capitalism.78 November 1921, "state

In fact, as we recall, in Cctober-

Lenin at times did call for a retreat from

capitalism"

to

the

"state

regulation

of

trade,"

presumably another way station a bit further back on the road to socialism. "reformism." regulation

of

capitalism."

On two occasions he called this recipe

But in the end he retreated from the "state trade"

and

once

again

settled

into

"state

But it was now very difficult to maintain the

tie to the "state capitalism" of 1918, since at that time, as Lenin now said more than once, the question of allowing private trade had never even been raised.79 78

Krasnaia nov1. 1922, No. 1, pp.203-204.

79 In October, Lenin embraced the term "reformism," whereas he took this label as an insult in April 1918. See PSS. vol. 36, pp.207. The related question of the "bourgeoisdemocratic" vs. "proletarian" character of the Russian Revolution did not become a direct point of contention in inner-Party discussions at this time, though it lurked in the background. It was also a part of Lenin's polemics with the Party's critics abroad, in particular Otto Bauer. See, for example, Ibid., vol. 45, pp.89, 93. Otto Bauer, Per "Neue Kurs" in Sowietrussland. p.36. In his infrequent statements on which tasks— "bourgeois" and "proletarian"— the Russian Revolution had accomplished, Lenin was not consistent. See Lewin, Lenin's Last Struggle, pp.24-25. 430

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Though Lenin stuck to the label "state capitalism" to the end,

it was extremely unpopular within the Party at

large during the transition period.

As a descriptive term

for the new course it satisfied virtually no one.

After all

that the Party had accomplished in the previous three years, it was hardly inclined to agree to call its economic system "capitalist," regardless of the adjective placed before it. That

there was

denied.

capitalism

in the

Soviet

economy

no

one

But that the dictatorship of the proletariat should

outright be called a "capitalist"

form of government was

unacceptable to most Bolsheviks. Later, in one of his last articles, Lenin chided some "young

comrades"

for being

"abstract-political" capitalism."80

caught up

side

of

his

in criticizing the concept

of

"state

Among others, he definitely had in mind here

Bukharin, who was Lenin's chief critic on this score from his days as a Left Communist Ekonomika. Bukharin capitalism"

was

proletariat.81 Congress,

in

reiterated

impossible Early

an

in

his

under

1921

exchange

in 1318.

of

In 1920,

position a

in his

that

dictatorship

"state of

the

and after the Tenth Party notes

with

Lenin,

Bukharin

rejected the notion that the Soviet economy was capitalist as well as socialist.

"In my opinion," wrote Bukharin, "you

80

Ibid., vol. 45, p.373.

81

Ekonomika. p.107. 431

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misuse

'the word

'capitalism.'"

He described the Soviet

system as a "socialist dictatorship resting upon socialist production relations in heavy industry and regulating the broad petty-bourgeois economic organization of the economy (naturally,

with

a

tendency

of

the

in

the

direction

of

capitalism)."82 However,

much

resistance

to

Lenin's

"state

capitalism" offered by Bukharin and others did not in fact spring

from "abstract-political"

considerations,

but

from

concern over the confusion in Party circles as to what the term

signified.

generally went

Though

in

along with

the

public

arena

Bukharin

Lenin on the use of the term

"state capitalism," he privately and often publicly asked (for instance in his August 6, 1921 Pravda article)

that

extreme care be taken to differentiate between "our" state capitalism and the "capitalist" kind. (unsigned)

In a July 8, 1921

Pravda article he attempted in simple language

arked by short sentences and liberal use of bold print for emphasis) to clear up some of the confusion, explaining that Soviet state capitalism was as removed from "normal" state capitalism "as heaven is from earth." Preobrazhenskii

was

another

of

Lenin's

principal

critics on this issue.

He asked that Lenin clear up the

question

the

of

how,

given

latter's

stages of historical development, 82

description

of

the

"their" state capitalism

Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. IV, pp.384-385. 432

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is

"capitalist,"

"State

while

capitalism

Eleventh

Party

is

"ours"

is

somehow

capitalism," he

Congress

he

"communist."

insisted.

called

the

At

the

term

"very

to

these

unsuccessful."83 Michael

Farbman,

developments,

who

was

wrote that what

a

witness

"state capitalism"

in 1921

meant was not clear, that it was "seldom used in Communist circles

and most Communists

inaccurate

description

of

frankly admit that the

New

Economic

it is an Policy."84

Further evidence of this is provided in the published record of discussions held at the Socialist Academy in 1923, where a

session

exchange

on

state

capitalism turned

into a

on what Lenin had actually meant by

frustrating it.

Most

speakers made a point of saying that the private capitalism then

running

loose

in the

Soviet

economy

should

not

be

called "state capitalism," and they expressed concern that this misnomer would encourage complacency toward it within the Party.85 83 Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. pp.82-83; Pravda. July 16, 1921. In 1923 he described NEP as a mixed socialist economy. Vestnik Sotsialisticheskoi Akademii. October-December 1923, No. 6, pp.304-305. 84

Farbman, p.294.

85 Vestnik Sotsialisticheskoi Akademii. January 1923, No. 2, pp.166-209. In the way they quote Lenin at length and at random to present his views, and in the wide divergence of opinion over what they thought Lenin had in mind (only two years earlier!) in introducing his "state capitalism," the discussants sound similar to Soviet historians of the 1960s and 1970s. 433

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One of the chief drawbacks of using the label capitalism"

to define

the new

course

was

that

"state it

was

juxtaposed to the label "war comnunism" for the old course. This

reinforced what seems to have been a widely

shared

notion within the Party's lower ranks— how widely shared it is

hard

to

"communism"

say— that (and

(therefore "bad").86 this.

the

change

therefore

in

"good")

course to

was

from

"capitalism"

Trotsky was especially sensitive to

In a note to Lenin of January 1922, he wrote that the

choice of the term "state capitalism" was a bad one at the time for the appearance it gave of a "return to capitalism." He complained that the Mensheviks were making ample use of this in their agitation.

Trotsky asked that Lenin make his

meaning clear.87 Lenin,

however,

stood firm.

At

the Eleventh

Party

Congress he lamented the fact that Bukharin was not present

86 Lenin himself in "On the Food Tax" noted the tendency within the Party to assume that the country was in a transition from "communism" to "bourgeoisness," and he criticized the Bolshevik attitude that all capitalism is evil and all socialism good. PSS. vol. 43, p.219. Kalinin, Izbrannve. p.292-4. See also 3e prodovol'stvennoe soveshchanie (Moscow edition), p.8, for the idea that in food circles it was generally assumed that the razverstka is "the direct conclusion from the theory and practice of communism," and that the nalog is a retreat from communism. Also Valentinov, pp.29, 35; Dukes, p.275. Lenin's own characterizations of the Civil War food policy as 'communistic' could only encourage this way of thinking. 87

The Trotskv Papers, vol. 2, pp.661-663. 434

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to joust verbally with him on the subject.88

He continued

to defend his "state capitalism," brushing off criticism and asserting

rather

testily

that

no

Karl

Marx

could

conceived of this new type of economic system.

have

Sparring

with Preobrazhenskii and others, he called upon the Farty to understand state

capitalism

in

its own way ui.d not

"how

German professors understood" it.89 Lenin again raised the subject at the Fourth Comintern Congress in November 1922.90

At this gathering, Trotsky was

now openly critical: I consider this term [state capitalism] inaccurate and in general unfortunate. Comrade Lenin has already underscored in his report the necessity to use this term in inverted commas, that is, to employ it with the greatest caution.91 It is unclear why Lenin so stubbornly clung to this term if it was so obviously unsuccessful.

Was it because he

felt he needed to seal the connection of the new policies to those of spring 1918?

Hardly likely, since most Bolsheviks

so willingly embraced the rationale of beginning again from 88 PSS. vol. 45, pp.84-86. Cohen's assertion (p.135) that Lenin and Bukharin "both dismissed the terminological disagreement as abstract and unimportant" is not supported by his own evidence and is contradicted by this and other evidence. See also, for example, Preobrazhenskii's reference to Bukharin's opposition in Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. pp.82-83. 89

PSS. vol. 45, pp.85, 117-120.

90

Ibid., pp.278-283.

91

Sochineniia. vol. XII, p.326.

Also see pp.296-297.

435

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1918.

Did he

-theoretically

-truly believe correct

Economic Policy?

tha-t he had

"Marxist"

found the

definition

for

the

one New

Most likely the answer to this is "yes."

However, among the evidence are two hints that in proposing and defending his "state capitalism," Lenin may have been as much guided by pragmatism as by his desire to rationalize the new course in appropriate Marxist terms. The first is in his response to Trotsky's January 1922 note, in which Lenin wrote: The term "state capitalism" in my opinion (about which I more than once argued with Bukharin) is the only correct one theoretically and necessary in order to make the stagnant Communists understand that the new policy is long-term [idet vserez1.92 As with his dismissal of War Communism as a "mistake," here, too, Lenin seems to have been motivated in part by a determination to smash the old

"illusions."

Calling the

economic system "state capitalism" would remind Communists (and not only the stagnant ones) that they were as yet very far from achieving anything like "communism." perhaps

have

worked more

This would

effectively had the words

"War

Communism" not stood in juxtaposition, reinforcing the idea that in fact only recently the Party had achieved a kind of "communism." The second hint of a hidden agenda is in one of Lenin's

92

PSS. vol. 54, pp.130-131. 436

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last

writings,

where

he

brushed

off

criticism

of

"abstract-political" side of his "state capitalism."

the "For

me," he wrote, "the practical goal was always important. . . . , And

the

practical

goal

of

consisted of attracting [foreign]

our

new

economic

policy

concessions; concessions

already undoubtedly would be in our conditions a pure type of state capitalism."93 It calling

is unclear whether Lenin meant itself

could more

"state

capitalist,"

easily attract potential

the

by

this

Soviet

investors

that

in

government abroad,

or

that the term would better prepare the Party psychologically for the expected

(in 1921)

onslaught of foreign capital.

Most likely he meant both. In Lenin's scheme of things beginning already at the end

of

1920,

the wager on

foreign capital

had taken on

enormous importance, filling the void left by the abandoned hope of short-term foreign revolution.

In the absence of

large indigenous capital, Lenin saw foreign investment and trade as the only way to come up with the large capital and technical expertise which would save industrial Russia from peasant Russia.

As we noted above,

in the outline to his

speech to the Tenth Party Congress,

it is evident that in

March

1921

he

thought

of

"state

capitalism"

and

"concessions" as identical. Largely 93

because

foreign

concessions

and

trade

Ibid., vol. 45, pp.373-375. 437

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never

materialized during the transition period, the present study has

had

little

to

say

about

the

subject.

But

it was

critical to Lenin's thinking in 1920-1922, and despite the lack of results, occupied much of his time.94

There can be

no doubt that foreign capital was the lynchpin of Lenin's concept of "state capitalism" early in 1921.

As time went

by, he was forced to revise his concept, and more and more it came to describe smaller forms of capitalism, especially the peasant economy.

In this way

it gradually lost its

meaning. That foreign concessions never materialized was perhaps even more a blow to Lenin than the "breaking loose" of small private trade.

Others certainly felt differently.

Judging

from the tone of Party discussions, it is probable that had significant foreign concessions materialized,

Lenin

(as he

was acutely aware) would have had his hands full trying to justify

"inviting

back"

the

foreign

capitalists,

while

convincing the Party that it should "control" them, but at the same time give them sufficient room to make a profit.

94 See Leninskii s b o m i k . vol. XXIII. On the failure to realize foreign concessions in 1920-1922, see Carr, vol. 3, pp.280-285, 352-355, 378-379. During the crisis of JanuaryMarch 1921, many workers' and peasants' meetings called upon the Soviet government to establish ties of trade with Western European governments. For example, Vladimirskaia. p.42; and the Moscow metal workers' conference, Kommunisticheskii trud. February 16, 1921. On March 16, the last day of the Tenth Party Congress, an Anglo-Soviet trade agreement was signed in London, giving encouragement to those who looked to foreign trade to ease the industrial goods crisis. 438

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As it turned out, Lenin was never awarded such a luxury .95

To repeat, what exactly Lenin had in mind— the foreign or domestic audience— when he spoke of the "practical goal" behind his use of the term "state capitalism" is unclear. What is clear is that behind the Party's resistance to the phrase was more than a disagreement over terminology (though for someone like Bukharin,

by mid-1921 terminology was at

the heart of the matter). What

Lenin's

"state

capitalism"

ran up

against— and

what may have encouraged him to stand by it so stubbornly— was

a

certain mentality

in the Party which assumed that

95 On the Party's anti-concessions sentiment see Chapter Four, n.55. Also, Ibid., pp.283-284. In his article "On Cooperation" (January 1923), Lenin adjusted to this failure of concessions and foreign trade and the blossoming of the peasant cooperatives by describing the latter as a form of "socialism." Cohen and Lewin call this a "volte-face" in Lenin's thinking. Cohen (p.138) says that with this article Lenin "turned the island of socialism into a sea and little, if anything, remained of state capitalism." While recognizing the evidence of a degree of change in Lenin's thinking in this article, one might, nonetheless, quibble with Lewin (Lenin's Last Struggle, pp.26-28, pp.114-116; Political Undercurrents, p.86, n.14) when he writes that Lenin "abandoned" his "state capitalism." Although the term had lost much of its meaning and although Lenin indeed appeared to welcome cooperation into the "socialist" fold, it is not entirely clear that he really gave up on the concept. See PSS. vol. 45, pp.373-374. Lewin is quite justified in speculating as to whether Lenin's "volte-face" was not simply a practical device "to mobilize the citizenry to undertake urgent tasks," much like his promotion of electrification ("communism equals Soviet power plus electrication") at the end of 1920 or occasional statements such as "socialism is uchet" (Ibid., vol. 35, pp.62-64). Lewin could well have included Lenin's adoption of "state capitalism" when he asks, "Were these reversals tactics, strategy, or principles?" Political Undercurrents, p.95. 439

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"capitalism" context

(identified most

with

the

"anarchy"

immediately of

the

in the

market

and

Russian monetary

relations) and "socialism" (identified with state "control" and

"administration"

economy)

were

and

centralized

incompatible

within

planning

one

of

the

economy.

If

"capitalism" were allowed to exist, it was assumed, it would soon come to overwhelm the "socialist" stronghold.96 To be sure, the notion of the eventual disappearance of market

relations

under

established

fundamental tenet of Marxist doctrine.

"socialism"

was

a

And one detects an

intolerance toward market mechanisms during the transition phase

within

Bolshevism-in-power

November 1917.

to

some

extent

since

But this intolerance became deeply ingrained

in the Party's mentality by the Civil War experience, when "capitalism" was rolled back on the battlefield and in the marketplace and "socialism," identified with the spread of Soviet state power,

appeared to be within reach.

This is

why the rapid spread of private trade during the course of the

transition

Bolsheviks.

The

period idea

came that

as the

such

a

transition

shock to

to

the

socialism

should involve an extended period of market relations was anathema to Bolshevism in 1921.

This mentality was one of

the chief legacies of War Communism.97 96

See Valentinov, p.29.

97 For a good discussion of this idea, see Political Undercurrents. pp.81-83, 89. Kamenev had no problem with this concept. In 1921, he said that the "proletarian 440

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It was bad enough that "capital ism" had resurfaced in the economy and that Lenin was telling Communists to "learn to trade" from the capitalist.

But to suggest, as Lenin's

label "state capitalism" had the appearance of suggesting, that the proletarian dictatorship and "capitalism"

(whose

predominant form in 1921-1922 was private trade) should co­ exist

to

the

extent

of

sharing

equal

billing

was

unacceptable to most Bolsheviks. Lenin was aware of this "incompatibility" mentality and the dangers it posed for the Party's successful transition to the New Economic Policy.

Much of his energy was spent

combatting it and this influenced— right up to the end— his choice of terminology and tactics in interpreting for the Party the old and new economic policies.

Lenin's Ambiguous Legacy

Writing

about

accompanied the

the muddle

of

introduction of

ideas

and

images which

the New Economic Policy,

Moshe Lewin notes that "Lenin did not escape the confusion; he recognized it while being its victim."

As the recognized

authority on matters of Party strategy and theory, Lenin can

government is the strongest capitalist on the market." Biulleten' (Eleventh), No. 1, p.15. 441

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capitalist

also be seen as a major cause of the confusion, which, as Lewin notes elsewhere, "deeply embarassed" him.98 Certainly, the task before Lenin was enormous.

In the

atmosphere of fear and uncertainty of 1921, with the Soviet economy rapidly changing, he had to convince the Party that its "retreat" was a step forward.

And by autumn he was

already a very sick man, suffering from acute insomnia and severe headaches." Lenin

could

hardly

take

encouragement

reception his ideas received within the Party.

from

the

It seemed

that few if any leading Bolsheviks were willing to second his assertion that War Communism had been a "mistake."

Some

of his colleagues balked at his strategic definition of NEP as a "retreat," since,

they argued, the previous economic

policy had not been freely embarked upon in the first place. No doubt there were others

for whom the

"retreat"

label

confirmed the idea that the methods of War Communism had been correct and would have to be employed again at the appropriate moment— exactly the conclusion that Lenin would have

rejected.

Lenin's

more

nuanced

discussion

of

the

98 Lenin's Last Struggle, p.25; Political Undercurrents, p.86. It is not possible to agree with Dmytryshyn that Lenin retreated "gracefully" from War Communism. Basil Dmytryshyn, USSR. A Concise History (New York, 1971), p.111. 99 See, for example, PSS. vol. 54, pp.62-66. The extent of Lenin's infirmity already in 1921 should not be ignored. In March 1922, preparing for the Eleventh Party Congress, he wrote: "There is good with the bad. I sat out 1/2 year (21 and 22), and watched 'from the side.'" Leninskii sbornik. vol XIII, p.14. 442

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elements

of

continuity

and

change

between

the

economic

policies of the spring of 1918 and 1921 was ignored, as, in his absence, the Eleventh Party Conference adopted the line that the new course had been "exactly defined" in the spring of 1918.100

The

contradictions

and

inconsistencies

which

marked

Lenin's efforts during the years 1921-1923 to interpret for the Party its old and new economic policies are a part of what

most

legacy.101

Western

historians

agree

is

Lenin's

ambiguous

It is said that when Lenin's successors looked

back to his speeches and writings from this period,

they

could find support for the idea of NEP as both a "temporary

100 Biulleten'. No. 4, p.33. The plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern in March 1922 passed a resolution stating that NEP is "not new, but is the old policy of the pre-[civil] war period." See Genkina, Gosudarstvennaia. p.139. 101 See, for example, Carr, pp.275-278; The Interregnum (New York, 1954), p.5; Cohen, p.134; Tucker, Stalinism, p.92; Malle, p.514; Lewin, Lenin's Last Struggle, pp.25-26; Jerry Hough and Merle Fainsod, How the Soviet Union is Governed (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), pp.105-107. Of course, the main breakdown of Lenin's divided legacy is between "Civil War Leninism" and "NEP Leninism." As for the Party generally, Robert Tucker describes two "cultures"— Civil War and NEP— competing within Bolshevism in the 1920s. Stalinism, pp.89-93. Stephen Cohen writes of Bolshevism's two "ideological (and emotional) traditions"— the "revolutionary-heroic" and the "gradualist" (the latter, he notes, having been "only faintly articulated before 1921"). Cohen, pp.129-132. Lewin describes Bolshevism's two "models"— War Communism and NEP— and analyzes their strengths and weaknesses in the eyes of Lenin's successors and of the Party generally. See Political Undercurrents, pp.73-96; Stalinism, pp.114-117. 443

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evil" and a "long interval."102 There

is

no

denying

that

both

Stalinists

and

Bukharinists later in the 1920s could pick and choose from a variety of statements by Lenin to support the execution of a faster or slower economic development achieved with harsher or milder methods.

We have offered numerous examples in

this and in the two preceding chapters. The objective historian, however, "IIEP Lenin" program

without

seeking

or position,

is

support

looking back to the for

one

or

another

able to distinguish between the

genuine ambiguity in the language and imagery of Lenin's descriptions of NEP

(which,

as we have seen,

were often

geared to the psychology and mood of his audience) and the overall

clarity

of his

position— avowedly

"reformist"

by

autumn 1921— that the transition to socialism was to be an evolutionary

process,

much

different

than

anything

the

Bolshevik leadership had considered from 1917-1921. With this in mind, there are two related points to be made concerning- the portrait of the "NEP Lenin" in Western historiography.

The first concerns "ambiguity"; the second

is a point of clarification. We

know

that

in

the

end

NEP

turned

out

to

be

an

•«interval" between two periods of "storming": War Communism and the tendency 102

"Stalin Revolution." among

Western

This outcome has led to a

historians,

dominant

Carr, p.276. 444

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in

earlier

studies,

to

project

back

introducing NEP merely until the "attack"

as

on

Lenin

the

motivation

of

a kind of "holding operation"

could be resumed.

The hindsight that

informs this interpretation says that what Lenin was unable to continue, Stalin, with some modifications and in his own peculiar style, carried out in 1929.103

Invariably,

such

treatments point to Lenin's use of the words "retreat" and "offensive" military

(nastupleniel,

imagery

as

proof

and

in

general

his

that

he

considered

use

a

of

"second

storming" both desirable and inevitable. E.H.

Carr's

inconsistency

study

recognizes

in Lenin's statements

the

ambiguity

on NEP,

and

but suggests

that this was a reflection of his inconsistent thinking on the

new

course.

He,

too,

dwells

on

Lenin's

"retreat"

imagery and portrays Lenin's 'the retreat is over' statement from March 1922 as an apparent call for a "resumption of the march toward socialism," the implication being that by this 103 Stephen Cohen has covered this historiographical territory. See Sta.linism. pp. 19-20. It is interesting to recall that the "Stalin Revolution" was at the time presented as the continuation of NEP, not its transcendence. Ibid., pp.23-24. At the July 1928 Central Committee plenum meeting, Stalin accused the absent Trotsky of wanting "to retreat step by step, as we retreated in the beginning of NEP, 'broadening' NEP and giving up positions." " . . . One cannot," said Stalin, "view NEP only as a retreat. . . . NEP presupposes a victorious and systematic advance rnastuoleniel of socialism against the capitalist elements of our economy." Stalin, Sochineniia. vol. 11, p.166. At a later gathering, Stalin chose to echo the words (originally Bukharin's) of the 1921 Lenin that NEP had been adopted "seriously and for a long time, but not forever." Ibid., vol. 12, p.171. Since 1956, most Soviet historians date the end of NEP at the completion of the first Five Year Plan. 445

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1

Lenin may have had in mind a resumption of War Communism.104

A common practice among the "determinists" and those who see ambiguity in Lenin's thinking is to associate him with the view of NEP as a "temporary retreat."

In fact, the

word "temporary" was simply not in Lenin's vocabulary when he spoke of NEP.

As has been demonstrated, he was always

concerned to get across the point that the new course had *

been adopted "seriously and for a long time." of

the

adjective

unambiguously the

"temporary"

is

The addition

meant

to

idea that in using the word

convey

"retreat,"

Lenin entertained the notion of a return to the "assault" methods

of

War

Communism.

This

misuse

of

the

word

"temporary" persists in the literature.105 104 The Interregnum r p„5. Carr chooses to translate Lenin's "nastuolenie" as "attack," when "advance" or "offensive" would better convey Lenin's meaning. Elsewhere, Carr does make reference to Lenin's attempts to "strengthen wavering morale" and other considerations in his calling an end to the "retreat." See Carr, p.275-277. One of the problems with Carr's and many other studies is that they assume that Lenin's thinking on economic policy was essentially unchanged after March 1921. For Ulam (p.477) to infer solely from Lenin's 'the retreat is over' announcement that "Had [Lenin] not been stricken in 1922, it is not improbable that the NEP would have ended sooner than it did," is baseless. When in the beginning of 1922, Lenin announced the end of the "retreat," People's Commissar of Justice Kurskii, citing the "removal of the retreat," refused to continue with the preparations of a civil code. An exasperated Lenin called his behavior a "mockery." PSS, vol. 54, p.222. 105 For example, Daniels, p.155; Donald W. Treadgold, Twentieth Century Russia (3rd ed., Chicago, 1972), p.197; Nove, p.120; Lewin, Political Undercurrents, p.87; Hough, p.106. Nicholas V. Riazanovsky, A History of Russia (4th 446

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Moshe Lewin crosses the t's for E.H. Carr when, drawing upon the latter's summary of Bolshevik interpretations of NEP,

he

states

that

Lenin's

calling

the

new

course

a

"retreat" implied that the Party "was abandoning neither the aims nor the methods of 'wa;r communism.'"106 While on~~

v.ght say t.hat Lenin had not abandoned the

aims of War C^.-inism (no Bolshevik would have denied that certain of its features— the nationalization of industry, the

prohibition

exchange,

of

trade,

etc.— although

the

they

eradication

were

present

of

monetary

in

1920

in

perverted form, were to be part of the eventual "communist" ed., Oxford, 1984), p.489. Carr's "temporary evil" is noted above. Merle Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled (rev. ed., Cambridge, Mass., 1963), p.98, describes the tax-in-kind as a "determined, if temporary, effort to win back the favor of the peasantry." Here in using the word "temporary" Fainsod is correct, though not in the way he means it. As we discussed in Chapter Three, the Party intended for the tax to give way eventually to a total reliance on goods exchange. In discussions of a resolution on the new course at the Tenth Party Conference in May 1921, Lenin rejected a proposed clause that the Party should accept the new course "inasmuch as the conditions of world revolution do not change." Lenin objected that the wording would shake the peasants' confidence in the new course, leading them to think that a return to the razverstka was in the offing. He went on to say that if the revolution in the West did come, far from spelling a return to War Communist methods, it might enable the government to drop the tax totally and leave only the exchange of goods between town and countryside. It must be said that not everyone thought in this way at that time. PSS. vol. 43, pp.333, 336, 458. 106 Lewin, Lenin's Last Struggle, pp.25-26 (our emphasis); Political Undercurrents, p.87. Fitzpatrick has this notion of "retreat" in mind when she writes: "In my judgment, NEP [after Lenin] remained a retreat and the Bolsheviks' mood remained belligerent and revolutionary." Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution (London, 1982), p.2. 447

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society),

it

is

inaccurate

to

associate

him

with

the

position that the methods of War Communism were still under consideration

in

1921.

His

insistence

that

the

Party

recognize War Communism as a "mistake11 is one confirmation of this. Nor can it be said, with Carr, that at most Lenin held a view of NEP as a "long interval," for this, too, implies that NEP was a "waiting period" until the methods of War Communism could be reintroduced as the true transition to socialism.

For Lenin,

socialism,"

the

Stalinist

NEP

proper

successors

itself was the

form

could

of

claim

"march toward

transition. to

find

That

his

in "NEP Lenin"

support for a return to the methods of "shturm" (whether as a new phase of NEP or as its demise)

is undeniable.

But

behind the ambiguity, inconsistency and contradiction, the evidence shows that "NEP Lenin" had made a definite break with Civil War,

or what Robert Tucker calls

"Stalinist,"

Leninism.

These thinking

questions on

NEP

concerning

have

been

the

ambiguity

complicated

discussion of his "last five articles."

in

somewhat

Lenin's by

the

These were dictated

by Lenin, now extremely ill, between January 2 and February 9,

1923.107

It

was

Bukharin who

in

1925

called

these

107 rjijjg articles are "Pages From a Diary," "On Cooperation," "Our Revolution," "How We Should Reorganize Rabkrin," and "Better Fewer, But Better." See PSS. vol. 45, 448

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writings

Lenin's

"political

testament," and

studies attach great importance to them .

some Western

It is beyond the

scope of this work to discuss the articles in any detail. However,

it is possible and necessary to clarify a point

about their general

significance with respect

to Lenin's

thinking on economic policy in his final years. For Stephen Cohen, Moshe Lewin and others, one of these last articles, "On Cooperation," represented a "volte-face" in Lenin's thinking on the subject of the peasantry.108 we discussed above,

As

it was here that Lenin called peasant

cooperatives a form of "socialism." However,

the

attention

focused

on this

one

article

should not serve to obscure the fact that Lenin's gradualist approach to agricultural development was already in place and quite apparent well before January 1923.

Already in

1921 Lenin attached great importance to peasant cooperatives as a form of transition to socialism, though at that time he included them under the rubrik of "state capitalism." importantly,

the Lenin of 1921

Most

(certainly of autumn 1921)

had already become convinced that the peasant question could only

be

resolved

"cultural"

(in the

through very

an

broad

evolutionary sense)

process

advancement

of

in the

countryside. The point

is not that this

is refuted by those who

pp.363-406. 108

See Cohen, pp. 134-138. Lenin's Last Struggle, pp. 114-116. 449

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consider Lenin's "last five articles'* important.

It is just

that the emphasis placed on them, especially (as in Lewin's case)

when standing alongside the presentation of Lenin's

earlier "ambiguous" views on NEP, leaves the impression that it is these last writings in themselves that constitute the case for Lenin the gradualist. Thus, in his discussion of the "last five articles" and the

Lewin

writes:

and

Cohen

"In this

interpretation of

them , Jerry Hough

[Lewin/Cohen] view, Lenin had at the end

concluded that NEP was not merely a temporary retreat, but could be a long-term evolutionary path to full socialist and Communist development."

In fact,

Lenin had come to this

conclusion well before the end.109 In order to argue that Lenin near the end of his life embraced a new form of Owenesque "cooperative socialism," the article "On Cooperation" is critical evidence because it is the only evidence.

But nothing in the last articles is

essential to the argument that by 1921 Lenin was a confirmed gradualist

when

it

came

to

the

question

of

bringing

socialism to the countryside. 109 Hough, pp.105-107 (our emphasis). In Hough's treatment, the discussion of whether these articles indicate that Lenin turned to political moderation (which is a central point of Lewin's Lenin's Last Struggle) is mixed in with the discussion about economic policy. Cohen (p.134) invites Hough's interpretation in seeming to state that the last articles are at the heart of Lenin's "ambiguous legacy." This is also the sense of a passage from Valentinov cited in Robert Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929 (New York, 1973), pp.415-416. Compare to Tucker, Stalinism, pp.81-82. 450

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Of course, 'to say that Lenin was a "gradualist" in 1921 says nothing about where the rest of the Party stood.

Nor

does it say anything about what Lenin might have become when presented

with

the

leadership in 1928-29.

circumstances

that

faced

the

Party

But that lies in the realm of

speculation.110

110 At the Eleventh Party Congress, Lenin explained that the "retreat" might have to be reversed— here definitely meaning the reapplication of War Communist methods— in the case of foreign intervention, of a severe financial crisis, or in the event cf "political mistakes" on the part of the Party (what he meant by the latter is not clear). PSS. vol. 45, pp.112-113. Larin underscored the first contingency: "If there is an intervention, that is, a war, then clearly we will be forced to return to a significant degree to the old economic policy. You cannot lead the proletariat into war in the name of the conversion of the house of Lenin into the restaurant 'Iar.,n Odinnadtsatvi s"ezd. p.110. In his comments on Preobrazhenski.i.'s ill-fated theses on the peasantry, Lenin took issue with the author's dismissal of the possible future use of "committees of poor peasants" (kombedy) , noting that "war might force us into such f"Vombednvslci p " 1 methods." Leninski i s b o m i k . vol. IV, p.391. 451

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CONCLUSION

One need not assume that the Bolsheviks believed every word of their rhetoric about a great leap forward in the peasant's consciousness in order to conclude that by 1920 they thought that they were on the verge of destroying the peasant as a commodity producer.

In this they misread the

circumstances of a wartime alliance of the Party and the peasantry,

and deluded themselves

into thinking that the

"dictatorship of the proletariat" could have its way with the peasantry during post-war reconstruction.

This was the

basis for the Bolsheviks' uncompromising position on market relations, which led them, after the Civil War, to narrow the range of acceptable alternatives to their own policies. It

also

contributed

at

the

end

of

1920

to

a

kind

of

rhetorical momentum, as every new sign of increasing state control over the economy was portrayed as further evidence of the increasing proximity of "socialism." So rigid had the leading Bolsheviks become position on agricultural policy and the market,

in their that only

when the very existence of Bolshevik power was threatened in the first weeks of 1921, did they realize their error and narrowly

avoid

economic

reform.

catastrophe The

by

Party

introducing leadership

significant

was

violently

awakened to the fact that it would have to start dealing with the peasants as peasants, and not as state workers in 452

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some great rural enterprise.

This meant, in part, allowing

private trade to exist legally.

The transition to NEP, then, was really two transitions in one.

In

itself,

the transition from a wartime to a

peacetime society, after six years of war and civil war, was bound to be a very difficult: adjustment for the Party and the country, no matter which policies the Bolsheviks chose to pursue. post-war

As it was,

reconstruction

continue with obstruction,

in many

wartime methods.

ways

was

Because

an

attempt

of this

to

initial

when the transition in economic policy began

(some four months transition

the initial Bolshevik program for

from

later) , it became intertwined with the

war

to

peace

in

a

way

that

tended

to

associate the New Economic Policy, at least in the minds of many Party members, with the most negative aspects of the adjustment to peacetime reconstruction. The demilitarization of society,

the decentralization

of the economy, the withdrawal of what had originally been intended to ~e "extraordinary” organs (as, for example, the Cheka and Narkomprod's food dictatorship), taken

place

under

normal

political

circumstances

post-war period as a matter of course European countries).

all should have

(and did

in the in other

However, the Bolsheviks at first stood

in the way of these changes, and so were unable subsequently to

take

the

full

credit when

they

proceeded

with

453

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their

implementation. 1921

was

The post-war relaxation of state control in

generally

perceived

as

part

of

the

Bolshevik

Party's retreat from its true program. The feeling of let-down, loss

of

enthusiasm and

the end of heroism,

energy within

the

Party

and the and

the

society as a whole, were to some degree inevitable in pcstCivil War Soviet Russia and would have occurrec- regardless of the activities of the Bolsheviks.

As it happened, to a

great

associated

extent

these

phenomena

were

with

the

Party's new course, a course which defiant Bolshevism had at the end of 1920 condemned in the strongest terms, only to grab onto in desperation in the beginning of 1921. association

of

NEP

with

lost

enthusiasm

and

This

idealism

reinforced the feeling in and out of the Party that the end of War Communism was a severe Bolshevik defeat.

There are two contrasting sets of "snapshots" of the Bolshevik Party before and after the transition to NEP which hold special attitudes

interest for us.

toward

the

With respect to Bolshevik

peasant,

generally

there

was

a

noticeable shift by 1922 to realism and sober-mindedness. Most of the Party leaders continued,

of course,

to assume

that the peasantry was the main obstacle to the achievement of

socialism.

appreciation front.

of

But

most

seemed

how

slowly

to

change

have could

come happen

to on

a new this

Although on occasion someone such as Osinskii might 454

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express concern about an attitude of "disdain"

(naplevizm)

among Party members toward the peasantry, and although the image of the peasant as kulak still held great influence within the Party, peasant

nonetheless,

legislation

whole by

a tone

of

one can say that the pro­

1921-1922

of caution,

was

accompanied

on

the

tolerance and patience with

regard to transforming the countryside. How remarkable in contrast is the continued aggressive hostility trader

openly

and

expressed

the

moralistic

market.

by

Party

During

anti-trade

members

the

attitudes

had

entrenched in the Bolshevik mentality. into

1922,

despite

expressions

of

the

these

new

same

Civil

toward War

become

the

period, strongly

It is striking how

legal

tolerance

attitudes

could

of be

trade, read

in

official publications and heard at official gatherings, and how they were often expressed through devil-imagery.

Here

Bolshevik sentiment and rhetoric were uncompromising, and on this

score,

Moshe

Lewin’s

description

of

the

Bolshevik

conception of NEP as a "pact with the devil" is particularly apt.

In this

would

be

to

context,

how

discover

the

interesting and revealing it kinds

of

images

the

word

"Sukharevka" conjured up before the Bolshevik mind's eye in 1922. This

contrast

in attitudes

toward peasant

and trade

policies is reflected in the Bolshevik tendency— not always directly

stated,

but

often

detectable

just

below

455

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the

surface— to think of the compromise with the peasantry as a long-term

prospect,

and

the

concessions

ephemeral,

to be tolerated only until

to

trade

as

socialist industry

could get the upper hand.

During the transition period,

individual

not

connection course. subsequent

Bolsheviks between It

would

did

these be

two

always

related

interesting

developments

influenced

to

acknowledge parts know

or were

of in

the

the

new

what

way

influenced

by

these attitudes.

Finally,

there

is another

which is worth pondering. Bolshevik

Party

during

set of contrasting images

The importance of Lenin to the

the

transition

tc

NEP

is

not

a

finding new to this study, but it bears mention here from one particular perspective.

Using his tremendous authority,

Lenin virtually held the Party leadership, if not the Party itself, together in 1921.

During this time it often seemed

that he alone among the Bolsheviks was capable of making moderation sound respectable.

The dominant image of Lenin

in his final years of activity is the preacher of patience with the peasantry, of the slow and cautious methods needed to raise peasant culture. Compare this to the image of Lenin the reckless gambler in 1917, exhorting his colleagues to take power on a wave of peasant revolution and let the chips fall where they may. It is difficult to imagine the Bolshevik Party successfully 456

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finding its way out of the dead end of War Communism and onto the road of moderation in 1921 without the guidance of Lenin's steady hand.

But without his impatient exhortations

in 1917, it is difficult to conceive of the Party having set out on the road to radicalism in the first place.

457

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Libedinskii, Iu. Komissary. 2nd ed., Leningrad, 1926. Libedinskii, Iu. Sobranie sochinenii. vol. 1, Moscow, 1927. Lih, Lars. "Bread and Authority in Russia: Focd Supply and Revolutionary Politics, 1914-1921," Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1984. Logunov, V. I. KPSS— organizator vosstanovleniia narodnocxo khoziaistva tsentral1noqo Chernozem1ia. I92l-27cra.. Voronezh, 1970. Lunacharskii, A. V., and Pokrovskii, M. proletarskoi diktaturv. Moscow, 1925.

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Mackenzie, F. A. Russia Before Dawn. London, 1923. Maguire, Robert. Red Virgin Soil. Soviet Literature in the 1920s. Princeton, 1968. Malkina, I. Kres'tiane o Lenine. Moscow, 1922. Malle, Silvana. The Economic Organization of War Communism. 1918-1921. Cambridge, 1985. Mamedov, M. R. NEP 1 politicheskoe klassa. Baku, 1966.

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Matiugin, A. A. Rabochii klass SSSR v aodv vosstanovleniia narodnoqo khosiaistva. Moscow, 1962. Melnikova, L. N. "Bor'ba KP(b)U za osushchestvlenie prodovol'stvennoi politiki (konets 1919-seredina 1921gg.)." Candidate's dissertation, Kiev University, 1972. Mikoian, A. Doroaoi bor'bv. Moscow, 1971. Mikoian, A. Mvsli i vosoominaniia o Lenine. Moscow, 1970. Mikoian, A. V nachale dvadtsatvkh. Moscow, 1975. Morizet, Andre. Chez Lenine et Trotski. Moscou 1921. Paris, 1922. Morozov, V. F. Vasilii Kuraev. Penza, 1973. Na n o w k h putiakh. Itoqi NEPa. 1921-22qq. . 5 vols., Moscow, 1923. 466

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Orlov, N. A. Sistema prodovol♦stvennikh zaqotovok. Tambov, 1920. Osinskii, N. Gosudarstvennoe recmlirovanie khoziaistva. Moscow, 1920.

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Pethybridge, Roger. York, 1974.

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Sbornik

Pokrovskii, M. N. Sem1 let proletarskoi diktaturv. Moscow, 1924. 467

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Poliakov, Iu. A. Perekhod k NEPu i sovetskoe krest1ianstvo. Moscow, 1967. Poliakov, Iu. A.; Dmitrenko, V. P.; and Shcherban', N. B., eds. Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika. Razrabotka i osushchestvlenie. Moscow 1982. Prodovol1stvennaia politika. Moscow, 1920. Prodovol *stvennaia politika v khoziaistvennoqo stroitel1stva Sbornik materialov. Moscow, 1920.

svete obshcheqo sovetskoi vlasti.

Prodovol1stvennvi apparat RSFSR. Moscow, 1921. Rabinovich, S. E. "Delegaty 10-ogo s"ezda RKP(b) pod Kronshtadtom v 1921 godu." Krasnaia letoois1. 1931, No. 2. Radkey, 0. The Unknown Civil War in Russia. Stanford, 1976. Rafail, M. A. Kronshtadtskii miatezh (iz politrabotnika^. n.p. [Kharkov], 1921.

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468

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Selishchev, A. M. Iazvk revoliutsionnoi eookhi. Iz nabliudenii nad russkim iazvkom poslednikh let (19171926). 2nd ed., Moscow, 1928. Semanov, S. N. "Leninskii analiz vnutrennei politiki sovetskogo gosudarstva v sviazi s Kronshtadtskim miatezhom." V. I. Lenin v Oktiabr'e i v p e r w e godv sovetskoi vlasti. Leningrad, 1970. Serge, Victor. Memoirs London, 1963. S wezdv sovetov v 1959. Shekhvatov, 1960.

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Slavic

Sistematicheskii sbornik dekretov i rasporiazhenii pravitel1stva no prodovol1stvennomu delu. 7 Books, Nizhnii Novgorod and Moscow, 1919-1923. Slepkov, A. 1928.

Kronshtadtskii miatezh. Moscow and

Sokolov, V. No. 1.

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vserossiiskoe 1921.

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Ulam, Adam. The Bolsheviks. New York, 1973. V. I. Lenin i VChK. Moscow, 1975. Valentinov (Vol'skii), N. Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika i krizis partii posle smerti Lenina. Stanford, 1971. Vladimir Il'ich Lenin. Biocrraficheskaia khronika. 12 vols., Moscow, 1970-1982. Vladimirov, M. Meshochnichestvo i eao politicheskoe otrazhenie. Khar'kov, 1920.

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Vladimirskaia partiinaia orqanizatsiia v godv vosstanovleniia narodnoqo khoziaistva. 1921-1925 qodv. Sbornik dokumentov. Vladimir, 1963. Vnutreniaia torqovlia Soiuza SSSR za X let. Moscow, 1928. Von

Laue, Theodore H. Whv Lenin? Whv Stalin? A Reappraisal of the Russian Revolution. 19 00-1930. Philadelphia and New York, 1964.

Vospominaniia o V. I. Lenine. 5 vols., Moscow, 1969-1970. Vosstanovitel*nvi period na Donu dokumentov. Rostov, 1962.

(1921-1925qq.);

sbornik

Vtoroe vserossiiskoe prodovol1stvennoe Rezoliutsii. n.p., n.d. [1920].

soveshchanie.

Vtoroe vseukrainskoe Kharkov, 1920.

soveshchanie.

prodovol1stvennoe

Vtoroi god bor'bv s qolodom. Moscow, 1919. Vunderlikh, S. Doklad v ekonomicheskii otdel VTsSPS “Rabota Komproda 1917-1920”. Moscow, 1920.

471

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Vyshinskii, A. Xa. Moscow, 1922.

Voprosv

raspredeleniia

i revoliutsii.

Wells, H. G. Russia in the Shadows. New York, 1921. Wesson, Robert G. Soviet Communes. Rutgers, 1963. Williams, Robert C. Artists in Revolution. Portraits of the Russian Avant-Garde. 1905-1925. Bloomington, 1977. Za piat1 let. 1917-1922. Moscow, 1922. Zapiski Instituta Lenina. 3 vols., Moscow, 1927-28.

Periodicals (with years researched) Biulleten1 Narodnocro Komissariata no Prodovol1stviiu (1920) Biulleten' Voenprodbiuro (1921) Ekonomicheskaia zhizn1 (1920-21) Izvestiia Narodnoqo Kommissariata

po

Prodovol'stviiu (1920)

Izvestiia VTsIK (1920-21) Koxnmunisticheskii trud (1920-21) Krasnaia qazeta (1921) Krasnaia nov' (1921-22) Narodnoe khoziaistvo (1921) Petrooradskaia pravda (1921) Pravda (1920-22) Prodovol'stvennaia qazeta (1921) Prodovol'stvie i revoliutsiia (1923) Sotsialisticheskii vestnik (1921) Vestnik aqitatsii i propaqandy (1920-1922) 472

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Vestnik Sotsialisticheskoi Akademii (1922-23) The Soviet journals Voprosv istorii and Voprosv istorii KPSS published numerous articles on War Communism and the early NEP period in the 1960s and early 1970s, many of which are valuable and interesting. Some of these, along with several articles published in Xstoriia SSSR and Voprosv ekonomiki. are cited in the text.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.