War Communism

Going Deeper

The following links will help you widen your knowledge. Unfortunately, all the sources which do not present a massively oversimplified (and incorrect) account are academic, long and difficult:

Orlando Figes' website

An encyclopedia entry (pdf)

Historiographical article

Different interpretations of war communism

The first thing to realise about ‘War Communism’ is that it never existed. 

The term was invented by Lenin in 1921, after he was forced bring in the NEP, as an attempt to to justify his ‘retreat’ by saying “It was the war and the ruin that forced us into War Communism… It was a makeshift”. 

On this basis, some historians have represented ‘war communism’ as “a necessary military measure” and “a series of ad hoc measures to combat an emergency situation”. 

This is just not true.  Nobody called it ‘War Communism’ at the time, and it was not instituted as a temporary expedient, whatever Lenin was hoping his listeners would accept. 

The historians Lars Lih (1986) argued that:

“We have seen that the war communism concept originated in Lenin's evasive language of 1921, that it suggests a coincidence between emergency measures and militant principles that did not exist, and that it overdramatizes the contrast between civil war policy and the NEP.  In my view … the term war communism should be dropped.”

A second thing to realise about the suite of policies we call ‘war communism’ is that they were not just about the economy, and most certainly not just about supplying the army. 

The Soviet Policies of 1917-21

So what was the so-called ‘war communism’ about? 

In 1918, Lenin wrote a pamphlet in which he outlined the Marxist vision:

“Socialism is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science.  It is inconceivable without planned state organisation which keeps tens of millions of people to the strictest observance of a unified standard in production and distribution.  [It is] inconceivable unless the proletariat is the ruler of the state.”

Note that it was NOT just about the economy.  If I analyse this source for you, can you see the phrases where Lenin indicated that:

• it was about introducing pure Marxist socialism,

• in a country of bourgeois and peasants, it would need state control

• and it would need the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ to enforce it?

Therefore, from early 1917 – before the Civil War started, never mind became critical – the Bolsheviks began to introduce the policies we now wrongly call ‘war communism’. 

These policies were a suite of economic, political and social changes which aimed to “abolish private trade, control labour, nationalize all large-scale industry and, at its height in 1920, to replace the money system with a universal system of state rationing” (Orlando Figes). 

The historian Richard Pipes (1990) called it: “an ambitious and as it turned out premature attempt to introduce full-blown communism”. 

Economic Policies [PLANS]

Bolshevik Economic Policies 1917-21 involved a radical and authoritarian attempt to introduce a communist economy, characterized by grain requisitioning, strict labour policies, the nationalization of industry, the suppression of private trade … and ultimately the introduction of a money-free economy. 

In October 1919, Lenin boasted in an article in Pravda:

“First, private ownership of the means of production has been abolished, and, secondly, the proletarian state power is organizing large-scale production on state-owned land and in state-owned enterprises on a national scale, is distributing labour-power among the various branches of production and the various enterprises, and is distributing among the working people large quantities of articles of consumption belonging to the state.”

1. Prodrazverstka

This is often described as ‘grain requisitioning’, and represented as the confiscation of all surplus grain.  This is wrong.  The word means: ‘allocation of surplus’.  The underlying concept was that of the money-free socialist economy, where the villagers would not sell their surplus, but would exchange it for machinery from the industrial towns.  Since all industrial production was going to the war effort, however, the Bolsheviks claimed that the Prodrazverstka was therefore a ‘loan’ from the peasants. 

At first the villages’ surpluses were calculated by ‘Poor Peasants’ committees, who used their 'alert eyes' to report which of their neighbours were making a surplus; as you can guess, this caused a great deal of trouble and was quickly abandoned.  From autumn 1918, the People's Commissariat of Food Supply determined a total amount from each village controlled by the Bolsheviks. 

It has to be said that the officials administering the Prodrazverstka were more bothered about the amounts than the theory: “Do you think, the People's Commissariat does this for its own satisfaction?  No, we do it because there's not enough food”. 

 

2. Labour laws

The Labour Code of December 1918 introduced the concept of compulsory labour service, and from April 1919 workers were directed to work in specific sectors, and forbidden to leave.  From January 1920 compulsory labour and conscription were introduced. 

From 1919, ‘Subbotniki’ (unpaid 'voluntary' weekend work events) were common. 

Military discipline was introduced in factories, with the result that strikers were threatened with execution. 

 

3. Abolition of money

The ultimate aim of Marxist socialism was the end of the money economy.  All people would give what they could (their produce, their labour) free of charge, and take what they needed without paying. 

This was to be achieved by what is called ‘rationing’ in your textbooks, but was different from the controlled supply of scarce goods that characterised rationing in Britain during the war and is what WE think of as ‘rationing’.  Under Bolshevik rule, 'rationing' was the supply of food and many goods, free, from central distribution centres. 

Money did not disappear in Bolshevik Russia but – helped by runaway inflation, which made money worthless – it was to a great degree replaced by barter. 

 

4. Nationalisation

   During the Revolution, many firms had been taken over by work-collectives; these were abolished, and the state took over the running even of small artisan workshops.  Banks and shipping were also nationalised.  A Supreme Council of National Economy (Vesenkha) was established to oversee these efforts and coordinate industrial output. 

    

5. Suppression of private enterprise

IIn 1920, the Bolsheviks tried to stop private markets and traders, who were labelled as ‘speculators’ and subject to harsh penalties.  (This policy failed; pop-up bazaars continued until the NEP.)

Political Aspects [COMIC]

Bolshevik Political Policies 1917-21 involved the class warfare, the suppression of opposition, martial law, the use of propaganda, and the centralization of power.  These measures were aimed at securing the Bolsheviks in control and laying the groundwork for a socialist state. 

1. Class Warfare

Class warfare rhetoric was a central element of War Communism.  The Bolsheviks framed their struggle as a fight between the proletariat and the bourgeois, emphasizing the need to eliminate 'class enemies'.  This justified the harsh measures taken against the wealthier classes and private enterprise, as well as the Prodrazverstka policies directed at the peasantry. 

 

2. Opposition crushed

The Cheka conducted brutal campaigns against ‘enemies of the state’ such as former Tsarists, bourgeois elements, rival socialist factions (like the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries), and anarchists.  This repression involved arrests, executions, and forced labour camps, within an intentional climate of terror and obedience. 

 

3. Martial law

The Bolsheviks imposed martial law in various regions and in the factories.  The Red Army was used to crush uprisings and resistance movements. 

 

4. Ideological propaganda

The regime employed extensive propaganda – in state-controlled media such as newspapers, pamphlets, and posters – to promote its ideology and justify its policies.  Propaganda glorified the Bolshevik cause, vilified enemies, and called for unity and sacrifice.  Nowadays we think of propaganda as a bad thing; Lenin openly called for it as a good and necessary strategy to educate the population to be ready for the move to full socialism. 

 

5. Centralisation of political control

The Bolsheviks formed workers’, soldiers’, and peasants’ Soviets.  However, in practice, these Soviets were controlled by the Bolshevik Party.  The Soviets were consulted, and Congress had its say, but it was Lenin, the Politburo and the Central Committee who made the decisions.

Social Aspects [ACCEPT]

Bolshevik policies 1917-21 had several social objectives designed to transform society in line with socialist principles and to lay the groundwork for a future socialist state. 

Some of the Political and Economic policies of the time had social elements. 

1. Abolition of private ownership

This was intended to eliminate the bourgeois as a class, and to end the economic inequalities found in capitalism, and thus help the transition to a socialist society. 

 

2. Class warfare

The preaching of class warfare justified the harsh measures taken against the wealthier classes and private enterprise, as well as the Prodrazverstka policies directed at the peasantry.  But, longer term, Lenin believed that the development of class consciousness among workers and peasants was an essential element in the creation of a socialist society. 

 

3. Control of Labour

In 1920, Lenin wrote that “Communist labour is … labour performed without reward as a condition, labour performed because it has become a habit to work for the common good, and because of a conscious realisation of the necessity of working for the common good – labour as the requirement of a healthy organism”. 

Because Russia was a long way from that kind of labour, he added, they had to start with ‘little things’ – “Subbotniki, labour armies, labour conscription – these are the practical realisation of socialist and communist labour”

 

And in addition, the Bolsheviks insisted on:

4. Egalitariansim

“Our salaries were linked to the ‘Communist Maximum’, equal to the average wage of a skilled worker” recalled Victor Serge in 1951.  Similarly, Lenin’s wife would go to the local food centre for his dinner, walking home with a big chunk of black bread and a pot of soup. 

 

5. Public Health

In October 1917, the Bolshevik government set up a Medical-Sanitation Department to provide medical help for workers and soldiers.  From 1919 public health activist Zinoviy Soloviev ran short courses for red nurses and orderlies.  From 1921 it was a punishable offence for anyone with medical training not to work in the state medical system. 

In 1922 a Commissariat of Health was set up to develop a state-run health system for the whole country, and it took over hospitals and the training schools.  Spending was cut back during the Civil War, but by the Second World War the USSR had the best medical system in the world.

 

6. (Temporarily) the Emancipation of Women

In 1919 the Zhenotdel, or ‘Women's Bureau’, was established to mobilize women and achieve their emancipation.  It worked to improve women's education, employment opportunities, and healthcare.  It also focused on issues such as childcare and communal living arrangements to relieve women from domestic burdens ... until Stalin closed it down in 1930.

Lenin at work – carying a log – on the Kremlin subbotnik of 1 May 1920

The Impact of Bolshevik policies, 1917-21

Most historians are agreed – and Lenin accepted – that the Bolshevik policies of 1917-21 were more or less disastrous. 

• Economically, they created significant disruptions in both agricultural and industrial production, food shortages in the cities, famine among the peasantry, and unrest, strikes & uprisings across the country. 

• Political consequences included: yes the consolidation of centralised power, but at the cost of the hatred of the peasantry, the rise of a privileged bureaucracy, and the creation of a political culture of repression and terror. 

• Socially, attempts to improve society only deepened the divide between countryside and industry, reduced living standards, extended social control and broke up families and communities.  And whilst education and public health services would eventually improve, the pressures of the Civil War led to a deterioration in both those areas. 

Lars Lih is unforgiving:

In 1917 an inexperienced, radical, extremist, intolerant, exclusive, and demagogic group prone to overly simple solutions based on force took power in Russia. 

They had ambitious plans for structural transformation: they looked forward to centralized coordination of industrial production, to a rapid transition to agricultural communes, to the effective regulation of town-country exchange, and a flowering of proletarian art. 

They were hostile and intolerant about class conflict: bourgeois specialists were ‘saboteurs’, tsarist officers were ‘counterrevolutionaries’, grain-producing peasants were ‘kulak’s, established artists were ‘bourgeois elitists’. 

By 1920 the Bolsheviks had been forced to sober up .

But Lenin, says Lih, did not abandon the dream in 1921, he merely 'deferred' it.