The N.E.P.

Paper Summary:

This research examines the reasons behind Lenin's adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921 in the wake of the Soviet revolution in 1917. The research sets forth the principal elements of the NEP and the context in which it emerged as an issue for the Bolshevik/Communist government. It then explores the literature of the Soviet state with a view toward identifying factors that positioned Lenin to promulgate the policy. The paper includes an annotated bibliography.

From the Paper:

"War Communism formally placed industrial and agricultural production as well as trade and prices under state control. As a practical matter that meant that agrarian peasants' cash crops (and sometimes foodstuffs, Lenin admits) were appropriated by the state (for cash, says Lenin) to "meet the requirements of the army and sustain workers" (quoted in Fischer and Marek, 1972, p. 146). Fischer and Marek (1972, p. 146) quote Lenin's description of War Communism as a "makeshift" response to "the war and the ruin," a necessary exercise in proletariat leadership of all society from bourgeoisie to peasantry, to guarantee the ultimate socialist victory."

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