With the failure of War Communism, Lenin opted for a new approach to Russian economics and introduced what was known as the New Economic Policy (NEP). Under the NEP, private ownership of small industries was allowed and confiscation of surplus goods in the countryside was banned. Also, although the government still had control over heavy industry and foreign trade, the NEP legalized free trade, and restored the stability of the soviet currency. Unlike War Communism, the NEP proved itself successful to some extent, considering the quantitative improvements recorded in the Russian economy. For example, as coal production had dropped to 8.9 million tons in 1921, by 1926, 27.6 millions tons of coal were being produced. Essentially, War communism primarily aided the agricultural aspect of society, minimally contributing to industrial reform, “However, whilst agriculture recovered rapidly, industry did not. Therefore, whilst agricultural prices fell, industrial prices continued to rise.” (Tarr, 36.) This striking division between agricultural growth and industrial stagnation, known as the Scissor Crisis, proved the early failures of the NEP. It cannot be denied though, that by the year of his death in 1924, Lenin’s NEP had indeed displayed significant progress, and had risen Russia above the depths of desperation and poverty,
The early results of the NEP were disappointing, as economic recovery was held up by famine (1921-22) and a financial crisis (1923à. But by 1924, the year of Lenin’s death, considerable progress had been made, and by 1926 the economy had regained the 1913 production level. (Lee, 38.).
However, the economical benefits of the NEP were to be only short-term. Lenin was not committed to his policies and his period was about compromise, or “trial and error” (Lee, 37.) If anything, the NEP appeared as a means for the Bolsheviks and Lenin to ‘survive’. Once power seemed secure, parts of the policy were renounced to,
In some areas of economic policy, such as worker’s control, the initial idea was son abandoned, whilst in others the detailed content of the policies eventually took on forms that had little to do with the egalitarian motivation of the popular revolution against the Tsar.(Barnett, 21.)
The NEP may have restored Russia’s economy to pre-war levels, yet important flaws in Russian society still remained. The slow development of industry had made manufactured goods too expensive to afford for most people, and hence social class divisions became more evident. In fact, the NEP was sometimes considered as a means of abusing workers, (the proletariat) who were unhappy with the slow economic relief that it provided,
Rumors circulated that NEP really stood for ‘New Exploitation of the Proletariat, many members of which remained frustrated with the slow progress towards socialism and detested the new breed of Kulaks, retailers and traders known as Nepmen. (Tarr, 36.)
The New Economic Policy gave birth to a new class of traders, which was resented by an ideology of economic equality (Communism). The period of the NEP was also characterized by an increase of organized crime, prostitution and bribery. Clearly, considering the state of Russia after the disaster that War Communism had procured, the NEP provided decent relief that saved Russia from ultimate industrial collapse. Yet, as Stephen Lee states, “In the NEP Lenin left an intermediate strategy which contained a long-term problem.” That is, the question as to whether the NEP was to be maintained was never answered, until Stalin abolished it after 1924. Hence, because it increased economic division in Russian society, and did not fulfill the needs of the entire population, the NEP, in its essence to maintain Bolshevik control, truly failed to bring Russia to significant advancement. It has been argued, that the NEP would not have managed to sustain consistent economic growth after 1924 and perhaps caused a state of economic stagnation, “On the other hand, we do not believe that NEP was capable of sustaining much higher rates of industrialization than those achieved on the eve of the first world war.” ( Davies)
Perhaps the most backwards feature of Lenin’s regime was his failure to execute the concepts of socialism. Lenin established a dictatorship in Russia that therefore did not release it from the ‘absolute power’ that it had manifested during the revolutions. While the Soviet regime initially claimed to be based on the principles of Karl Marx, dictatorial regime was clearly not approved by Marxist ideology. In fact the NEP diverged totally from the essence of socialism, and did not even come close to providing the Russian people with their hopes of a utopian communist state. As Karl Marx called for the elimination of the state and the rise of the proletariat, Russia’s government set up in it’s Bolshevik years seemed to have only secured the control of the state and enhanced the oppression upon the working class, “Far from ‘withering away’ as Marx had envisaged, the state had become all-powerful. Lenin had replaced one dictatorship with another.” (Tarr, 36)
It seemed that Russia was living a ‘modern-past’ in which the ruler had changed, but concepts had not. The establishment of the socialist state, at least under Lenin, possibly served as a veil to cover the true motivations of lust for power. The aims of Communism appeared to fail under Lenin, for the aim to eliminate class struggle, only furthered its existence.
Politics and economics set aside, Lenin’s regime was essentially socially detrimental to the Russian people. Lenin’s struggle to fight opposition was to mark the beginning of a violent and bloody era in Russian history that would then be continued under Stalin. Lenin’s regime called to the terrorization of people and the killing of too many innocent civilians. Lenin introduced a secret police known as the Cheka, who eliminated political enemies through brutal and violent measures if necessary. Clearly, this was utterly unethical, for a significant amount of unnecessary deaths were committed in the years of Lenin’s control. Lenin’s regime induced with it a period known as the Red Terror, in which the Bolsheviks (Red-shirts) adopted a barbaric manner of dealing with counter-revolutionary action, without considering the morality of their proceedings.
“ ‘We want’ said Lenin, ‘to organize violence in the name of the interests of the workers.’ The question of the legality of such methods did not arise, for ‘Dictatorship is power-based directly upon force, and unrestricted by any laws.’ Nor was morality an issue, for ‘we say that our morality is wholly subordinated to the interests of the class war waged by the proletariat.’”
Though Lenin claimed that the terror was motivated by the welfare of the proletariat, people clearly suffered from it. Lenin’s terror (and Stalin’s eventually) in fact rises the important point that there was no balance between the measures taken by the dictatorship, and the accomplishments that it made. Lenin’s regime can only be regarded as one that held an enormous cost on the well-being of the entire Russian population,
“The cost of Russia’s transformation was greater than she had ever experienced. Over 20 million lives were lost during a period of unprecedented conflict and destruction which affected the entire country…” (Lee, 39.) When Lenin died of a stroke in 1924, Russia was to enter another phase of Bolshevism under Joseph Stalin, who approached Russia’s problems in a much more drastic way than Lenin.
There is no doubt, that economically speaking, Stalin’s contributions to the state of the USSR were significantly more evident than those of Lenin. Stalin came to power with a determined, socialist way of approaching the economical problems that had devastated the Soviet Union,
Economic change was Stalin’s immediate priority once his authority had been confirmed. He intended to transform the Soviet Union into a superpower by equipping it with a huge industrial base. The process began in 1929 and contued, with the interruption of war, until his death in 1953…abandon Lenin’s New Economic Policy which had allowed limited private enterprise in the agricultural and industrial sectors….decided to introduce full state planning to promote heavy industry and enforce the collectivization of agriculture. (Lee, 48).
Rapid industrialization would characterize the Stalinist economy and ensure the status of the USSR as a communist country. Clearly, this meant the termination of Lenin’s ‘capitalist’ NEP through the organization of the Five Year Plans. The Five Year plans set out targets which industries
had to meet in a given time span. The emphasis of the Five Year plans was mainly on heavy industries, such as coal, oil, iron and electricity. Stalin erected several industrial complexes, dams, and hydroelectric stations were constructed to make use of Russia’s rivers. Yet, the targets hat Stalin established for each industry, were clearly unrealistic and impossible to meet, although significant improvements were made. By the time of the Second World War, there was no doubt that Stalin’s reforms had transformed Russia from a hopeless country to a world industrial power. Yet, though this can be considered as a positive improvement to Russia, the reality is, that industrialization further crippled the state of the Russian people. As Stalin focused solely on industry, agriculture and the production of consumer goods were heavily refrained,, “Stalin had made the USSR an industrial power, but this had been accomplished by crippling agriculture.” (Lee, 51.) In effect, a large population of Russians remained in constant sufferance throughout Stalin’s regime, facing extreme poverty and famine. Stalin’s approach to agriculture, known as Collectivization, was largely resented by the peasants, who saw no point in a concept that not only disadvantaged them, but plunged them into serious hardship, “Worst of all was the severe deprivation which accompanied industrial growth. Russia was unique in European economic history in experiencing an industrial revolution without corresponding improvements in the quality of life of the inhabitants.” (Lee, 50.) The mythical objectives of the Five Year Plans called for the exploitation of workers, who dealt with minimal wages and extensive working hours, as well as tremendous pressure from Stalin himself, who was determined to meet his goals. Hence, as an overall analysis of Stalin’s economic policy, it can be claimed that the accomplishments made were only visible at the very surface of Russian society: the underside still corresponded to a country in which people struggled for survival. As Hutchings argues, “I have no doubt that if more humane and more rational policies had been employed, the Soviet economy might have been spared some of its recurrent disasters.” (Lee, 51.)
In his quest to make Russia an example for the rest of Europe and nations around the world, Stalin introduced domestic policies that appeared, on the most part, relatively successful. Stalin mainly did away with any liberalist ideologies and introduced conservative values to Russian society. Education was highly encouraged by Stalin’s regime, and schools were made to “reintroduce learning by rote, formal examinations, a core curriculum, and school uniforms.” (Wood, 35) Things such as divorce, relationships before marriage, and abortion were abolished, and replaced by values of “family, fecundity, and parenthood…” (35, Wood.) Although these reforms brought evident positive change to Russia, the fact remained that for the majority of the people, the reforms made on education and values, meant little, compared to the impoverished lives that they had to lead.
The worst of Stalin’s regime was in his purges. Beyond wanting to establish a socialist economy, Stalin was extremely concerned with securing his power and establishing his dictatorship, like Lenin, through whatever means possible, “The most spectacular and notorious of all Stalin’s policies was his deliberate creation of a state of total terror.” (Lee, 53.) Stalin’s purges affected all people of the society. In the countryside, the farmers that had prospered under Lenin’s NEP known as the Khulaks, were to be totally and violently eliminated. Millions of Khulak families found themselves in a state of utter desperation, where collectivization meant destruction, rather than an attempt for economic unity. As Stalin developed a growing obsession to secure the Soviet regime, he gradually eliminated several political figures that he saw as potential rivals to his doctrine, such as Kirov. Furthermore, anybody who seemed at the least suspicious of even questioning Stalin’s policies was quickly executed, or sent to the Gulag, the concentration camps in which people were killed and tortured. By the end of Stalin’s regime, millions of people had died without any justification, “Ninety-nine per cent of Stalin’s victim’s, however, were innocent of any opposition to the Soviet system and were actually loyal Soviet citizens.” (Lee, 54.) Stalin also carried show trials, in which is publicly accused innocent people, to settle terrorizing atmosphere that would further ensure the absence of mere opposition,
The show trials dealt with these potential threats by magnifying the charge against them. They had to die as traitors, as perpetrators of crimes beyond the reach of reason…Only then could Stalin be sure that their execution would provoke no dangerous revulsion. (Lee, 55.)
Stalin’s purges represented a severe morale assault that would haunt Russian people for even after the end of his rule. In effect, the final result of Stalin’s regime was a deteriorated and terrorized nation that had suffered from the failure and obsession to create a socialist dictatorship. .
In conclusion, it is clear that the accomplishments brought out by Lenin and Stalin were only superficial, and did not benefit Russia in the long-run. True, both of them contributed to saving the country from its shaming backwardness, and put it at the same level as the developing countries of Western Europe, but the destructive cost at which this was achieved, was highly more significant. Stalin’s era is often regarded as a homicide of innocent civilians who found themselves faced to a tyrannical government that completely neglected the life of the conditions of their lives. At the end, Russia was a world power, but that had been through tremendous, and unforgettable sufferance. Whilst the tsarist revolution had awoken hope in the minds of the Russians, the Bolsheviks came with an objective strictly reserved to power, bringing Russia not very far from the state it was before the revolutions hit.