war comunism

• aim: bring industry +agriculture under central control
• Reaction: peasent ressistance + damaged industrial food production
• • mplemented by Lenin in June 1918 as Civil War intensified.
  • Response to severe problems: lack of essential resources (coal, iron, oil), food shortages, international blockade.
  • Officially known as The Surplus Appropriation System.
• War Communism Measures

  1. Large-scale nationalization of industry under Vesenkha control

  2. By 1920, 37,000 enterprises involving 1.5 million workers under state ownership

  3. Local factory committees replaced by single managers, ending worker control

  4. Strict discipline enforced in factories by Cheka to prevent desertion and brutality

  5. Market economy abolished, leading to a thriving black market

  6. Rampant inflation due to mass printing of paper money

  7. Narkomprod set up to organize grain requisitioning and food distribution

  8. Committees of Poor Peasants established 11 june 1918 to uncover grain surpluses (dissolved in Dec. 1918)

  9. Worker's Detachments sent to coerce peasants into handing over grain, leading to peasant resistance and conflict
• Results of War Communism

  • Massive migration from towns to countryside due to food shortages
  • Famine in Volga region resulted in an estimated 5 million deaths (1920-1921)
  • 'Bagmen' benefited from acquiring consumer goods for grain exchange
  • Black market flourished, with 60% of city bread passing through illegal channels
  • Strikes in towns against longer working hours, food shortages, and harsh discipline
  • Resistance to Communists led to election of Mensheviks and SRs in Soviets
  • Government committee to fight famine included non-Communist members; dissolved after emergency
  • Popular uprisings and peasant rebellions erupted, such as Tambov (1920) revolt broken 1921 by red army
• Moscow loss 44.5% pop + Petrograd 57.5%
• Decree of April 1918
• 77% industries effect first half 1920 response was 'communist saturdays'
• Kronstadt rising


  to be filled in
• • 1920: Trotsky converted army conscripts into labor battalions to aid in economic reconstruction post-Denikin and Kolchak's defeat.
  • Consequence: This caused discontent among Trade Unions seeking autonomy from the State.
  • Formation of Worker's Opposition: Emerged within the Party, protesting against increased economic and political controls, advocating for a return to the factory committee system of worker control.
  • Resolution: Issue addressed at the 10th Party Congress in 1921.
• • Peasant Disorders (1921): Widespread peasant unrest with demobilized soldiers resorting to banditry for survival, opposing Worker's detachments.
• • some Communists hailed War Communism as an economic success:
  • Nationalization of Industry: Seen as a step towards socialism, despite production decline.roughly 20% what it was
  • Devaluation of the Ruble: Viewed as a blow against bourgeois capitalism.
  • Elimination of Market Economy: Replaced by government orders, with grain requisitioned to feed the people.
  • Criticism: Considered unrealistic and untenable in the 1921 crisis.
• Pravda admited 1/2 the pop was starving (bol newspaper)
• Kronstadt rising: war comunism March 1921 led to NEP


  signifcance =heroes of the July days, their demands didint threaten Lenin but loosing support 'hereos of war' where support meant to be greatest
• Kronstadt rising: war comunism March 1921


  soviets manifesto: New elections to the soviets held by secret ballots , freedom of speech/press/assembly/inididuals bring food from country into towns ( freedom oppose Bols), rights trade unions + release imprisoned trade unionists (workers intrests), plurality of socialist political parties ( better rep/diff perspective), ending special food rationing for comunist members, withdraw political commissars from factories ( undoing Bols control on workers) - lenin would argue was promises but civil war
• Kronstadt rising: war comunism March 1921

  effects: labelled 'white agents' taking away legitimacy + Trostsky ordered general tukhachevsky 60,000 Red troops stormed the Kronstadt base