d capital), which had been the economic foundation of the old ruling group. These decrees effectively abolished the two basic classes of tsarist Russia – the landed nobility and the moneyed bourgeoisie. At this time the Russian economy which was in very bad shape, was further strained by the worsening civil war. This drastic situation necessitated drastic action from Lenin and the economic program he instituted became known as War Communism. War Communism was characterized by increased central control of the economy, the nationalization of banks, factories and the abolition of private trade. In the country, where it was more difficult for the Bolsheviks to gain control, Lenin sanctioned the unrestrained use of violence. The forced requisitioning of grain for below market prices became state policy and this in turn led to terrible conflict with the peasantry. It was at this time that term “kulak” (literally “fist”) was coined for those peasants who refused to co-operate. It was the crime of being a “kulak” that was to cost over 5 million people their lives, most of them as we shall see, during the rule of Stalin. By 1920 the civil war had seen a Red victory at the price of an economy in complete collapse. It took a rebellion at the Kronstadt naval base (that was of course viciously suppressed) to convince Lenin that the continuation of War Communism would lead to disaster. “The flash which lit it up reality better than anything else,” he called it. The response was something that would show, that even someone as obsessed with ideology as Lenin, would make popular concessions and even go against ideology, if it was expedient to do so. In March 1921, with the approval of the 10th Congress of the Communist Party, Lenin announced the introduction of what became known as the New Economic Policy (NEP). The NEP was a retreat from the brutalities of War Communism and meant a partial return ...
