Brief prerequisites for the transition to a new economic policy. NEP - New Economic Policy. Pros and cons of NEP

NEP is an abbreviation made up of the first letters of the phrase “New Economic Policy”. The NEP was introduced in Soviet Russia on March 14, 1921 by the decision of the Tenth Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) to replace the policy.

“- Be silent. And listen! - Izya said that he had just gone into the printing house of the Odessa Provincial Committee and saw there... (Izya choked with excitement)...a typesetting of the speech Lenin recently delivered in Moscow on the new economic policy. A vague rumor about this speech had been wandering around Odessa for the third day. But no one really knew anything. “We must print this speech,” said Izya... The operation of stealing the set was done quickly and silently. Together and quietly we carried out the heavy lead type of speech, put it on a cab and went to our printing house. The set was placed in the car. The machine rattled and rustled quietly as it printed the historical speech. We read it greedily by the light of a kitchen kerosene lamp, worrying and realizing that history was standing next to us in this dark printing house and we, too, were to some extent participating in it... And the next morning, April 16, 1921, the old Odessa newspaper sellers were skeptics, misanthropes and sclerotics - they began to hastily shuffle along the streets with pieces of wood and shout in hoarse voices: - The newspaper "Morak"! Speech by Comrade Lenin! Read everything! Only in Morak, you won’t read it anywhere else! Newspaper "Morak"! The issue of “Sailor” with a speech sold out in a few minutes.” (K. Paustovsky “Time of great expectations”)

Reasons for the NEP

From 1914 to 1921, the volume of gross output of Russian industry decreased by 7 times
Reserves of raw materials and supplies were exhausted by 1920
Agricultural marketability fell 2.5 times
In 1920, the volume of railway transportation was one-fifth of that in 1914.
Cultivated areas, grain yields, and production of livestock products have decreased.
Commodity-money relations were destroyed
A “black market” formed and speculation flourished
The standard of living of workers has fallen sharply
As a result of the closure of many enterprises, the process of declassification of the proletariat began
In the political sphere, the undivided dictatorship of the RCP (b) was established.
Worker strikes and uprisings of peasants and sailors began

The essence of the NEP

Revival of commodity-money relations
Providing freedom of operation to small producers
Replacement of the surplus appropriation system with a tax in kind, the tax amount decreased by almost half compared to the food appropriation system
The creation of trusts in industry - associations of enterprises that themselves decided what to produce and where to sell the products.
Creation of syndicates - associations of trusts for wholesale sales of products, lending and regulation of trade operations on the market.
Reduction of bureaucracy
Introduction of self-financing
Creation of the State Bank, savings banks
Restoration of the system of direct and indirect taxes.
Carrying out monetary reform

Results of the NEP

The success of the NEP was the restoration of the destroyed Russian economy and overcoming famine

Legally, the new economic policy was curtailed on October 11, 1931 by a party resolution on a complete ban on private trade in the USSR. But in fact it ended in 1928 with the adoption of the first five-year plan and the announcement of a course for accelerated industrialization and collectivization of the USSR

Under the conditions of the Civil War and military-communist policies, the population was deprived of any material incentives to produce. However, it seemed to the Bolshevik leaders that their policy was not extraordinary and forced, but completely natural. They built a classless society of the future, free from commodity-money relations, communism. In response, powerful peasant uprisings break out one after another in different parts of the country (in the Tambov province, the Middle Volga region, on the Don, Kuban, and Western Siberia). By the spring of 1921, there were already over 200 thousand people in the ranks of those who rebelled against the Bolshevik dictatorship. The surplus appropriation system was not carried out in 1920; enormous efforts were spent on suppressing riots and peasant uprisings.

In March 1921, sailors and Red Army soldiers of Kronstadt, the largest naval base of the Baltic Fleet, took up arms against the Bolsheviks. The labor movement is rising against the power of the Bolsheviks, who spoke of the dictatorship of the proletariat. A wave of workers' strikes and demonstrations is growing in cities. V.I. Lenin was forced to characterize the situation in the winter of 1920 and spring of 1921 as an economic and political crisis of Soviet power.

The power of the Bolsheviks was under threat. L.D. To overcome the crisis, Trotsky demanded to tighten the measures of “war communism”: to separate the peasants from the land, create gigantic labor armies and use them on the construction sites of communism. Trotsky also proposed strengthening the punitive and repressive bodies for organized violence against those who would not voluntarily join the labor armies. His opponents from the so-called “workers’ opposition” (A.G. Shlyapnikov, A.M. Kollontai, etc.) proposed, on the contrary, to abandon the leadership role of the Bolsheviks and transfer control to the trade unions.

Lenin assessed the situation most soberly and dangerously for the Bolsheviks. He refuses to attempt an immediate transition to communism through violence. Domestic policy is structured in two directions:

1. In the economic sphere, the Bolsheviks abandoned their previous course. In order to save their power, they are ready to make concessions to the peasants, they are willing to liberate economic life from total state control.

2. In the political sphere, the previous course was toughened. Centralization and the struggle against opposition forces intensified, and the dictatorial nature of Bolshevik rule was preserved.

The first “anti-crisis” measure of the Bolsheviks was the replacement of surplus appropriation with a tax in kind. It was approved by the X Congress of the RCP (b), held on March 8-16, 1921. The replacement of the surplus appropriation system with a tax in kind and the permission of free trade laid the foundation for the New Economic Policy (NEP).

With the introduction of the tax in kind (it was less than the surplus appropriation system and was announced in advance, on the eve of sowing), the peasant had a surplus that he could freely dispose of, i.e. trade. Freedom of trade led to the destruction of the state monopoly not only in the distribution of agricultural products, but also in the management of industry in the city. Enterprises are being transferred to self-financing, which made it possible to gradually transition to self-sufficiency, self-financing and self-government. Material incentives for workers were introduced. Many businesses were leased to cooperatives, partnerships, or individuals. This canceled the decree on the nationalization of all small and handicraft industries.

According to the new regulation of July 7, 1921, it was possible to open a handicraft or industrial production, but no more than one per owner. It was allowed to hire up to 10 workers in mechanized production (“with a motor”) and up to 20 without mechanization (“without a motor”). More specialists began to be attracted to state factories. The repeal of the law on universal labor service in 1921 provided an opportunity to engage in entrepreneurship. The process of forming the “Soviet bourgeoisie” (NEPmen) began.

The beginning of the NEP coincided with famine - a consequence of the previous policy of “war communism”, which deprived agriculture of any reserves and made it defenseless against any crop failure. In 1921, the grain-bearing regions of Ukraine, the Caucasus, Crimea, the Urals and the Volga region were gripped by drought. In 1921-1922 About 40 provinces with a population of 90 million were starving, of which 40 million were on the verge of death.

The government was intensively looking for a way out. A number of famine relief commissions were created. A campaign began for the Russian church to voluntarily donate its valuables to a fund to save the hungry; valuables began to arrive from Russian emigrants. However, soon persecution began against the church. To purchase food, church property was confiscated, often brutally. Works of art were sold abroad. The Soviet government appeals to the world for help. It is offered and provided by the American Relief Administration (ARA), the international proletariat, and European states.

One of the most important elements of the NEP was the monetary reform of 1922-1924. (People's Commissar of Finance G.Ya. Sokolnikov). The reform began at the end of 1922 with the issuance of the Soviet chervonets. From that time until March 1924, a stable chervonets and a falling sovznak were in circulation at the same time. In 1924, the State Bank bought the remaining Soviet money from the population. The gold chervonets was valued higher than the English pound sterling and was equal to 5 dollars 14.5 US cents. The ruble became an international currency.

Among the most important laws adopted by the Soviet government in the early 1920s is the law on concessions (permission, assignment). The Soviet country, under an agreement, transferred natural resources, enterprises or other economic objects to foreign entrepreneurs for a certain period of time for exploitation. Through concessions V.I. Lenin saw the opportunity to purchase the necessary machines and locomotives, machine tools and equipment, without which it would be impossible to restore the economy.

Concessions were concluded between the government of the RSFSR and the Great Northern Telegraph Society (1921) for the operation of submarine telegraph lines between Russia, Denmark, Japan, China, Sweden and Finland. In 1922, the first international airline Moscow - Koenigsberg opened. Special joint-stock enterprises are being created - Russian, foreign, mixed. But later, concessions and mixed enterprises did not develop due to government intervention, which limited the freedom of entrepreneurs.

Cooperation, which during the years of “war communism” was an appendage of the People’s Commissariat for Food, gained relative independence. The efficiency of cooperative production was at least twice that of state-owned industry. It was ensured by a freer organization of labor. In industry by the mid-1920s. 18% of enterprises were cooperative. 2/3 of the cooperative commodity product came from the cities. By 1927, 1/3 of all peasant households were covered by agricultural cooperation. It consisted of about 50 different types of associations: credit, beet, potato, dairy, etc.

The agricultural policy of the Soviet government supported economically weak poor and middle peasant farms. At the same time, the growth of large peasant (kulak) farms is restrained with the help of tax policy and regular redistribution of land. The share of large farms did not rise above 5% of the country's total. However, they were the producers of commercial products. Farms are limited to production for their own consumption, not sale. Population growth leads to the fragmentation of peasant households. There is stagnation and decline in production. At the same time, prices for agricultural products are artificially lowered by the state, which makes their production unprofitable.

The needs of the urban population and industry for agricultural products are increasing, but cannot be satisfied. The state that retained control over the “commanding” heights, i.e. over large industry and banks, constantly sought to dictate its terms in other sectors of the economy. Funds to support large-scale industry were constantly withdrawn from other sectors of the economy, hindering their development. Inflated prices for industrial goods made them inaccessible to the village. These are the most important reasons for the NEP crises of 1923, 1925, 1928, which ultimately led to the establishment of a rigid command-administrative system, military-communist in content.

Literature

1. NEP. A look from the outside: Collection / comp. V.V. Kudryavtsev. - M. -1991. - P. 42-56.

2. Russia and the world. Educational book on history. In 2 hours / under general ed. A.A. Danilova. - M.: VLADOS, 1994. - Part 2. - P. 101-131.

3. Talapin, A.N. Domestic history. Course of lectures: textbook. manual for students of non-humanitarian faculties of higher professional education / A.N. Talapin, A.A. Tsindic. - Omsk: Omsk State Pedagogical University Publishing House, 2012. - P. 98-99.

By 1921, the Soviet leadership was faced with an unprecedented crisis that affected all areas of the economy. Lenin decided to overcome it by introducing the NEP (New Economic Policy). This sharp turn was the only possible way out of this situation.

Civil war

The Civil War complicated the situation for the Bolsheviks. The grain monopoly and fixed grain prices did not suit the peasantry. The exchange of goods also did not justify itself. The supply of bread to large cities was significantly reduced. Petrograd and Moscow were on the verge of famine.

Rice. 1. Petrograd children receive free lunches.

On May 13, 1918, a food dictatorship was introduced in the country.
It boiled down to the following provisions:

the grain monopoly and fixed prices were confirmed, peasants were obliged to hand over surplus grain;
creation of food detachments;
organization of committees of the poor.

These measures led to the Civil War breaking out in the village.

Rice. 2. Leon Trotsky predicts a world revolution. 1918

The policy of “war communism”

In the conditions of an irreconcilable struggle with the white movement, the Bolsheviks accept a series of emergency measures , called the policy of “war communism”:

grain surplus appropriation according to class principles;
nationalization of all large and medium-sized enterprises, strict control over small ones;
universal labor conscription;
ban on private trade;
introduction of a card system based on class principles.

Peasant protests

The tightening of policies led to disappointment among the peasantry. The introduction of food detachments and committees of the poor caused particular anger. Increasing cases of armed clashes have led to

Introduction

When studying the history of the Soviet state, it is impossible not to pay attention to the period from 1920 to 1929.

To find a way out of the current economic crisis, not only the experience of other countries, but also the historical Russian experience can be useful. It should also be noted that the knowledge acquired empirically as a result of the NEP has not lost its significance today.

I made an attempt to analyze the reasons for the introduction of the NEP and solve the following problems: first, to characterize the purpose of this policy; secondly, to monitor the implementation of the principles of the NEP in agriculture, industry, the financial sector and planning. Thirdly, by examining the material at the final stage of the NEP, I will try to find an answer to the question of why the policy, which had not exhausted itself, was replaced.

NEP- This is an anti-crisis program, the essence of which was to recreate a multi-structured economy while maintaining the “commanding heights” in politics, economics, and ideology in the hands of the Bolshevik government.

Reasons and prerequisites for the transition to the NEP

- A deep economic and financial crisis that has engulfed industry and agriculture.
- Mass uprisings in the countryside, performances in the cities, and armies at the front.
- The collapse of the idea of “introducing socialism through the elimination of market relations”
- The Bolsheviks' desire to retain power.
- Decline of the revolutionary wave in the West.

Goals:

Political: relieve social tension, strengthen social the base of Soviet power in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants;

Economic: get out of the crisis, restore agriculture, develop industry based on electrification;

Social: without waiting for the world revolution, to ensure favorable conditions for building a socialist society;

Foreign policy: overcome international isolation and restore political and economic relations with other states.

The leading ideologists of the NEP, besides Lenin, were N.I. Bukharin, G.Ya. Sokolnikov, Yu. Larin.

By the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of March 21, 1921, adopted on the basis of the decisions of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b), the surplus appropriation system was abolished and replaced by a tax in kind, which was approximately half as much. Such a significant relaxation gave a certain incentive to the development of production for the war-weary peasantry.

The introduction of a tax in kind was not an isolated measure. The 10th Congress proclaimed the New Economic Policy. Its essence is the assumption of market relations. The NEP was seen as a temporary policy aimed at creating the conditions for socialism.

There was no organized tax or financial system in the country. There was a sharp drop in labor productivity and real wages of workers (even taking into account not only the monetary part, but also supplies at fixed prices and free distributions).

The peasants were forced to hand over all their surpluses, and most often even part of the essentials, to the state without any equivalent, because there were almost no industrial goods. Products were forcibly confiscated. Because of this, mass protests by peasants began in the country.

From August 1920, the “kulak” rebellion, led by the Socialist-Revolutionary A. S. Antonov, continued in the Tambov and Voronezh provinces; a large number of peasant formations operated in Ukraine (Petliurists, Makhnovists, etc.); rebel centers arose in the Middle Volga region, on the Don and Kuban. West Siberian “rebels”, led by Socialist Revolutionaries and former officers, created armed formations of several thousand people in February-March 1921 and captured almost the entire territory

Tyumen province, the cities of Petropavlovsk, Kokchetav, etc., interrupting railway communication between Siberia and the center of the country for three weeks.

The decree on the tax in kind was the beginning of the elimination of the economic methods of “war communism” and a turning point towards the New Economic Policy. The development of the ideas underlying this decree was the basis of the NEP. However, the transition to the NEP was not seen as a restoration of capitalism. It was believed that, having strengthened its main positions, the Soviet state would subsequently be able to expand the socialist sector, displacing capitalist elements.

An important point in the transition from direct product exchange to a money economy was the decree of August 5, 1921 on the restoration of mandatory payment for goods sold by state bodies to individuals and organizations, incl. cooperative. For the first time, wholesale prices began to form, which were previously absent due to the planned supply of enterprises. The Price Committee was responsible for establishing wholesale, retail, and procurement prices and charges for the prices of monopoly goods.

Thus, until 1921, the economic and political life of the country took place in accordance with the policy of “war communism”, a policy of complete rejection of private property, market relations, absolute control and management by the state. Management was centralized, local enterprises and institutions had no independence. But all these fundamental changes in the country’s economy were introduced spontaneously, were not planned and were not viable. Such a harsh policy only worsened the devastation in the country. It was a time of fuel, transport and other crises, the decline of industry and agriculture, shortages of bread and food rationing. There was chaos in the country, strikes and demonstrations were constantly occurring. In 1918, martial law was introduced in the country. To get out of the disastrous situation created in the country after wars and revolutions, it was necessary to make fundamental socio-economic changes.

In 1921-1941. The economy of the RSFSR and the USSR went through two stages of development:

1921-1929 gg. - NEP period, during which the state temporarily moved away from total administrative-command methods and moved towards partial denationalization of the economy and the admission of small and medium-sized private capitalist activities;
1929-1941 gg. - the period of return to full nationalization of the economy, collectivization and industrialization, transition to a planned economy.

A significant change in the country's economic policy in 1921 was caused by:

b The policy of “war communism”, which justified itself in the midst of the civil war (1918 - 1920) , became ineffective during the country's transition to peaceful life;

b The “militarized” economy did not provide the state with everything necessary, forced unpaid labor was ineffective;

ь Agriculture was in an extremely neglected state; there was an economic and spiritual break between the city and the countryside, between the peasants and the Bolsheviks;

ь Anti-Bolshevik protests by workers and peasants began across the country (the largest: “Antonovschina” - a peasant war against the Bolsheviks in the Tambuv province led by Antonov: the Kronstadt rebellion);

ь The slogans “For councils without communists!”, “All power to the councils, not parties!”, “Down with the dictatorship of the proletariat!” became popular in society.

With the continued preservation of “war communism”, labor conscription, non-monetary exchange and distribution of benefits by the state the Bolsheviks risked completely losing the trust of the majority of the masses - workers, peasants and soldiers who supported them during the civil war.

At the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921. There is a significant change in the economic policy of the Bolsheviks:

ь At the end December 1920 at the VIII Congress of Councils the GOELRO plan is adopted;

b B March 1921 at the Tenth Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a decision was made to end the policy of “war communism” and begin a new economic policy (NEP);

b Both decisions, especially on the NEP, were made by the Bolsheviks after heated discussions, with the active influence of V.I. Lenin.

GOELRO plan- The state plan for the electrification of Russia envisaged carrying out work to electrify the country within 10 years. This plan provided for the construction of power plants and power lines throughout the country; distribution of electrical engineering, both in production and in everyday life.

According to V.I. Lenin, electrification was supposed to be the first step to overcome the economic backwardness of Russia. The importance of this task was emphasized by V.I. Lenin's phrase: " Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of the entire country.". After the adoption of the GOELRO party, electrification became one of the main directions of the economic policy of the Soviet government. Back to top 1930s in the USSR as a whole, a system of electrical networks was created, the use of electricity was widespread in industry and in everyday life, in 1932s was launched on the Dnieper the first large power plant - Dneproges. Subsequently, the construction of hydroelectric power stations began throughout the country.

The first steps of NEP

1. Replacing the surplus appropriation system in the countryside with a tax in kind;

Prodrazverstka is a system of procurement of agricultural products. It consisted in the obligatory delivery by peasants to the state at fixed prices of all surpluses (above the established norms for personal and economic needs) of bread and other products. It was carried out by food detachments, brigade committees, and local Soviets. Planned targets were developed for counties, volosts, villages, and peasant households. This caused discontent among the peasants.

2. Abolition of labor conscription - labor ceased to be obligatory (like military service) and became free;

Labor service - voluntary opportunity or legal obligation to perform socially useful work (usually low paid or not paid at all)

3. Gradual abandonment of the distribution and implementation of monetary circulation;
4. Partial denationalization of the economy.

During the implementation of NEP by the Bolsheviks exclusively command-administrative methods began to be replaced:

b State-capitalist methods in large industry

b Partially capitalist methods in small and medium-sized production and service sectors.

At the beginning 1920s are being created throughout the country trusts, which united many enterprises, sometimes industries, and managed them. The trusts tried to operate as capitalist enterprises (they independently organized production and sales of products based on economic interests; they were self-financing), but at the same time they were owned by the Soviet state, and not by individual capitalists. Because of this, this stage NEP got the name state capitalism(as opposed to “war communism”, its management-distribution and private capitalism of the USA and other countries)

Trusts - This is one of the forms of monopolistic associations, in which participants lose production, commercial, and sometimes even legal independence.

The largest trusts Soviet state capitalism were:

ь "Donugol"

ь "Chem Coal"

ь "Yugostal"

b "State Trust of Machine-Building Plants"

ь "Severles"

b "Sakharotrest"

In small and medium-sized production and the service sector, the state agreed to allow private capitalist methods.

The most common areas of application of private capital:

- Agriculture
- Petty trade
- Handicraft
- Service sector

Private shops, shops, restaurants, workshops, and private farms in rural areas are being created throughout the country.

“... By the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, the appropriation is canceled, and a tax on agricultural products is introduced instead. This tax should be less than grain appropriation. It should be appointed even before the spring sowing, so that each peasant can take into account in advance what share of the harvest he must give to the state and how much will remain at his full disposal. The tax should be levied without mutual responsibility, that is, it should fall on an individual householder, so that a diligent and hardworking owner does not have to pay for a sloppy fellow villager. Upon completion of the tax, the surplus remaining with the peasant comes to his full disposal. He has the right to exchange them for products and equipment that the state will deliver to the village from abroad and from its factories and factories; he can use them to exchange for the products he needs through cooperatives and at local markets and bazaars ... "

The tax in kind was initially set at approximately 20% of the net product of peasant labor (that is, to pay it it was necessary to hand over almost half as much grain as during the surplus appropriation system), and subsequently it was planned to be reduced to 10% of the harvest and converted into cash.

By 1925, it became clear that the national economy had reached a contradiction: further progress towards the market was hampered by political and ideological factors, the fear of the “degeneration” of power; a return to the military-communist type of economy was hampered by memories of the peasant war of 1920 and mass famine, and fear of anti-Soviet protests.

The most common form of small private farming was cooperation - association of several persons for the purpose of carrying out economic or other activities. Production, consumer, trade, and other types of cooperatives are being created throughout Russia.

NEP- a new economic policy carried out in Soviet Russia and the USSR in the 1920s. It was adopted on March 14, 1921 by the X Congress of the RCP (b), replacing the policy of “war communism” pursued during the Civil War. The New Economic Policy aimed at restoring the national economy and the subsequent transition to socialism. The main content of the NEP is the replacement of surplus appropriation with a tax in kind in the countryside (up to 70% of grain was confiscated during surplus appropriation, and about 30% with the tax in kind), the use of the market and various forms of ownership, attracting foreign capital in the form of concessions, carrying out a monetary reform (1922-1924), in as a result of which the ruble became a convertible currency.

Reasons for the new economic policy.

The extremely difficult situation in the country pushed the Bolsheviks towards a more flexible economic policy. In different parts of the country (in the Tambov province, in the Middle Volga region, on the Don, Kuban, in Western Siberia) anti-government peasant uprisings break out. By the spring of 1921, there were already about 200 thousand people in the ranks of their participants. Discontent also spread to the Armed Forces. In March, sailors and Red Army soldiers of Kronstadt, the largest naval base of the Baltic Fleet, took up arms against the communists. A wave of mass strikes and demonstrations by workers was growing in the cities.

At their core, these were spontaneous outbursts of popular indignation against the policies of the Soviet government. But in each of them there was also an element of organization to a greater or lesser extent. It was contributed by a wide range of political forces: from monarchists to socialists. These diverse forces were united by the desire to take control of the emerging popular movement and, relying on it, to eliminate the power of the Bolsheviks.

It was necessary to admit that it was not only the war that led to the economic and political crisis, but also the policy of “war communism.” “Ruin, need, impoverishment” - this is how V. I. Lenin characterized the situation that developed after the end of the civil war. By 1921, the population of Russia, compared with the fall of 1917, had decreased by more than 10 million people; industrial production decreased by 7 times; transport was in complete disrepair; coal and oil production was at the level of the end of the 19th century; the area under cultivation has sharply decreased; gross agricultural output was 67% of the pre-war level. The people were exhausted. For a number of years people lived from hand to mouth. There were not enough clothes, shoes, and medicines.

In the spring and summer of 1921, a terrible famine broke out in the Volga region. It was provoked not so much by a severe drought, but by the fact that after the confiscation of surplus produce in the fall, the peasants had neither grain left for sowing, nor the desire to sow and cultivate the land. More than 5 million people died from hunger. The consequences of the civil war also affected the city. Due to a lack of raw materials and fuel, many enterprises closed. In February 1921, 64 of the largest factories in Petrograd stopped working, including Putilovsky. The workers found themselves on the street. Many of them went to the village in search of food. In 1921, Moscow lost half of its workers, Petrograd two-thirds. Labor productivity fell sharply. In some industries it reached only 20% of the pre-war level.

One of the most tragic consequences of the war years was child homelessness. It increased sharply during the famine of 1921. According to official data, in 1922 there were 7 million street children in the Soviet Republic. This phenomenon acquired such alarming proportions that the Chairman of the Cheka, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, was appointed head of the Commission for Improving the Lives of Children, designed to combat homelessness.

As a result, Soviet Russia entered a period of peaceful construction with two diverging lines of internal policy. On the one hand, a rethinking of the fundamentals of economic policy began, accompanied by the emancipation of the country's economic life from total state regulation. On the other hand, the ossification of the Soviet system and the Bolshevik dictatorship remained, and any attempts to democratize society and expand the civil rights of the population were resolutely suppressed.

The essence of the new economic policy:

1) The main political task is to relieve social tension in society, strengthen the social base of Soviet power, in the form of an alliance of workers and peasants.

2) The economic task is to prevent further devastation in the national economy, get out of the crisis and restore the country’s economy.

3) The social task is to provide favorable conditions for building socialism in the USSR, ultimately. A minimum program could include such goals as eliminating hunger, unemployment, raising material standards, and saturating the market with necessary goods and services.

4) And finally, the NEP pursued another, no less important task - the restoration of normal foreign economic and foreign policy relations, to overcome international isolation.

Let's consider the main changes that occurred in the life of Russia with the country's transition to the NEP.

Agriculture

Starting from the 1923-1924 business year, a single agricultural tax was introduced, replacing various in-kind taxes. This tax was levied partly on products and partly on money. Later, after the currency reform, the single tax took exclusively monetary form. On average, the size of the tax in kind was half the size of the surplus appropriation system, and the bulk of it was assigned to the wealthy peasantry. Great assistance in restoring agricultural production was provided by government measures to improve agriculture, the massive dissemination of agricultural knowledge and improved farming techniques among peasants. Among the measures aimed at restoring and developing agriculture in 1921-1925, financial assistance to the countryside occupied an important place. A network of district and provincial agricultural credit societies was created in the country. Loans were provided to low-power horseless, one-horse peasant farms and middle peasants for the purchase of draft animals, machinery, tools, fertilizers, to increase the breed of livestock, improve soil cultivation, etc.

In the provinces that fulfilled the procurement plan, the state grain monopoly was abolished and free trade in bread and all other agricultural products was allowed. Products remaining in excess of the tax could be sold to the state or on the market at free prices, and this, in turn, significantly stimulated the expansion of production on peasant farms. It was allowed to lease land and hire workers, but there were, however, great restrictions.

The state encouraged the development of various forms of simple cooperation: consumer, supply, credit, and fishing. Thus, in agriculture, by the end of the 1920s, these forms of cooperation covered more than half of peasant households.

Industry

With the transition to the NEP, impetus was given to the development of private capitalist entrepreneurship. The main position of the state on this issue was that freedom of trade and the development of capitalism were allowed only to a certain extent and only under the condition of state regulation. In industry, the sphere of activity of a private owner was mainly limited to the production of consumer goods, the extraction and processing of certain types of raw materials, and the manufacture of simple tools.

Developing the idea of state capitalism, the government allowed private enterprise to lease small and medium-sized industrial and commercial enterprises. In fact, these enterprises belonged to the state, their work program was approved by local government institutions, but production activities were carried out by private entrepreneurs.

A small number of state-owned enterprises were denationalized. It was allowed to open their own enterprises with no more than 20 employees. By the mid-1920s, the private sector accounted for 20-25% of industrial production.

One of the features of the NEP was the development of concessions, a special form of lease, i.e. granting foreign entrepreneurs the right to operate and build enterprises on the territory of the Soviet state, as well as to develop the earth’s subsoil, extract minerals, etc. The concession policy pursued the goal of attracting foreign capital to the country's economy.

Of all the industries during the recovery period, mechanical engineering achieved the greatest success. The country began to implement Lenin's electrification plan. Electricity production in 1925 was 6 times higher than in 1921 and significantly higher than the level of 1913. The metallurgical industry was far behind pre-war levels and much work remained to be done in this area. Railway transport, which was badly damaged during the civil war, was gradually restored. The light and food industries were quickly restored.

Thus, in 1921-1925. The Soviet people successfully solved the problems of restoring industry, and production output increased.

Production management

Major changes took place in the economic management system. This concerned primarily the weakening of centralization characteristic of the period of “war communism”. The central boards in the Supreme Economic Council were abolished, and their local functions were transferred to large district departments and provincial economic councils.

Trusts, that is, associations of homogeneous or interconnected enterprises, have become the main form of production management in the public sector.

Trusts were given broad powers; they independently decided what to produce, where to sell products, and bore financial responsibility for the organization of production, the quality of products, and the safety of state property. Enterprises included in the trust were withdrawn from government supplies and began purchasing resources on the market. All this was called “economic accounting” (khozraschet), according to which enterprises received complete financial independence, up to the issue of long-term bond issues.

Simultaneously with the formation of the trust system, syndicates began to emerge, that is, voluntary associations of several trusts for the wholesale sale of their products, purchases of raw materials, lending, and regulation of trade operations on the domestic and foreign markets.

Trade

The development of trade was one of the elements of state capitalism. With the help of trade, it was necessary to ensure economic exchange between industry and agriculture, between city and countryside, without which normal economic life of society is impossible.

It was supposed to carry out a wide exchange of goods within the local economic turnover. To achieve this, it was envisaged to oblige state enterprises to hand over their products to a special commodity exchange fund of the republic. But unexpectedly for the country's leaders, local trade exchange turned out to be difficult for economic development, and already in October 1921 it turned into free trade.

Private capital was allowed into the trade sphere in accordance with the permission received from government agencies to carry out trade operations. The presence of private capital in retail trade was especially noticeable, but it was completely excluded from foreign trade, which was carried out exclusively on the basis of a state monopoly. International trade relations were concluded only with the bodies of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade.

D currency reform

Of no small importance for the implementation of the NEP was the creation of a stable system and stabilization of the ruble.

As a result of heated discussions, by the end of 1922 it was decided to carry out monetary reform based on the gold standard. To stabilize the ruble, denomination of banknotes was carried out, that is, a change in their nominal value according to a certain ratio of old and new notes. First, in 1922, Sovznaki were issued.

Simultaneously with the release of Sovznak, at the end of November 1922, a new Soviet currency was released into circulation - the “chervonets”, equal to 7.74 grams of pure gold, or to the pre-revolutionary ten-ruble coin. Chervonets were primarily intended for lending to industry and commercial operations in wholesale trade; it was strictly forbidden to use them to cover the budget deficit.

In the fall of 1922, stock exchanges were created, where the purchase and sale of currency, gold, and government loans were allowed at a free exchange rate. Already in 1925, the chervonets became a convertible currency; it was officially listed on various currency exchanges around the world. The final stage of the reform was the procedure for repurchasing Sovznak.

Tax reform

Simultaneously with the monetary reform, tax reform was carried out. Already at the end of 1923, the main source of state budget revenues became deductions from the profits of enterprises, rather than taxes from the population. The logical consequence of the return to a market economy was the transition from natural to monetary taxation of peasant farms. During this period, new sources of cash tax are actively being developed. In 1921-1922 taxes were established on tobacco, alcoholic beverages, beer, matches, honey, mineral waters and other goods.

Banking system

The credit system was gradually revived. In 1921, the State Bank, which was abolished in 1918, restored its work. Lending to industry and trade on a commercial basis began. Specialized banks arose in the country: the Commercial and Industrial Bank (Prombank) for financing industry, the Electric Bank for lending to electrification, the Russian Commercial Bank (from 1924 - Vneshtorgbank) for financing foreign trade, etc. These banks provided short-term and long-term lending, distributed loans, assigned loan, discount and deposit interest.

Confirmation of the market nature of the economy can be seen in the competition that arose between banks in the struggle for clients by providing them with especially favorable lending conditions. Commercial credit, that is, lending to each other by various enterprises and organizations, has become widespread. All this suggests that a single money market with all its attributes was already functioning in the country.

Foreign trade

The monopoly of foreign trade did not make it possible to more fully use the country's export potential, since peasants and artisans received only devalued Soviet banknotes, and not foreign currency, for their products. V.I. Lenin opposed the weakening of the monopoly of foreign trade, fearing the alleged growth of smuggling. In fact, the government feared that producers, having received the right to enter the world market, would feel independent from the state and again begin to fight against the authorities. Based on this, the country’s leadership tried to prevent the demonopolization of foreign trade

These are the most important measures of the new economic policy carried out by the Soviet state. Despite all the diversity of assessments, the NEP can be called a successful and successful policy that was of great and invaluable importance. And, of course, like any economic policy, the NEP has vast experience and important lessons.