War Communism

War Communism, term for the economic and social policies in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from the spring of 1918 to March 1921. Instituted during the Russian Civil War (1918-1921) under Bolshevik (Communist) leader Vladimir Lenin, some of these policies were ideologically inspired and designed to develop a state-managed socialist economy, which the regime viewed as the first step toward Communism. Others were pragmatic responses to pressing economic problems, especially overcoming general economic breakdown and equipping the Red Army to fight the civil war. Many policies included elements of both ideology and response to economic needs, and historians have long debated the relative importance of each in the Communists’ economic policies of the era. The term itself was first used by Lenin in March 1921 to refer to the earlier economic policies of the civil war period.

In late spring and early summer 1918, the Communist government introduced a wide range of economic policies: requisitioning of agricultural products, nationalization of industry, state control of all trade, central control of production and distribution, and increased reliance on state allocation of goods and barter in place of money. Many Communists believed that World War I (1914-1918) had prepared the way for international socialism by dramatically expanding state control of economies in the warring countries, and that it was therefore possible to introduce socialism in the RSFSR immediately.

The government’s economic policies continued to develop partly out of economic pressures and partly out of ideology. The country’s economic collapse during the civil war pushed the government toward complete nationalization, while the regime’s Marxist-based ideology made this a desirable policy because state ownership of the means of production was seen as the basis of political power. Similarly, Lenin and other leaders spoke of the abolition of money as ideologically desirable as well as possible because uncontrolled inflation had made the paper currency worthless. Peasants resisted selling their agricultural products for the devalued money, however, making it difficult for the government to obtain the food supplies needed for army troops and for workers in the cities. The Communists, who classified the peasants as “class enemies,” then instituted harsh requisitioning policies that included “grain armies” to seize foodstuffs from the villages.

Toward the end of the Russian Civil War the government continued, even intensified, the central control and requisitioning policies of War Communism. This was carried to its extreme in 1920 with proposals for militarization of labor, championed especially by Leon Trotsky, under which workers in some areas were forced to work where the government dictated and were subjected to military discipline. The obligation of universal labor service was also introduced in 1920, and labor armies were formed in which Red Army units were assigned to industrial and agricultural labor. Nevertheless, industrial and agricultural output declined precipitously. In the winter of 1920-1921 a drought-induced famine, general material hardship, growing peasant resistance to grain requisitioning, and general opposition to unpopular government policies led to widespread strikes and uprisings, to which the regime responded with more repression. In March 1921 the sailors at the Kronshtadt naval base, who previously had been ardent allies of the Bolsheviks, staged a revolt against the regime’s austere economic policies and repression of workers’ strikes. The Kronshtadt Rebellion shook the confidence of the regime and contributed to the abandonment of War Communism in favor of the New Economic Policy (NEP), argued for by Lenin and approved at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921. The NEP relaxed government control over the economy, especially in agriculture, and allowed limited private enterprise in an attempt to facilitate economic recovery. The Communists declared, however, that it was only a temporary retreat before resuming the march to socialism. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin later revived many features of War Communism in his industrialization drive of the 1930s and the Soviet economic system that followed.