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Soviet Union [USSR] THE ERA OF THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY
Lenin's Leadership
While the Kronshtadt base rebelled against the severe policies
of war communism, the Tenth Party Congress of the Russian Communist
Party (Bolshevik) met in March 1921 to hear Lenin argue for a new
course in Soviet policy. Lenin realized that the radical approach
to communism was unsuited to existing conditions and jeopardized
the survival of his regime. Now the Soviet leader proposed a
tactical retreat, convincing the congress to adopt a temporary
compromise with capitalism under the program that came to be known
as the New Economic Policy (NEP). Under NEP, market forces and the
monetary system regained their importance. The state scrapped its
policy of grain requisitioning in favor of taxation, permitting
peasants to dispose of their produce as they pleased. NEP also
denationalized service enterprises and much small-scale industry,
leaving the "commanding heights" of the economy--large-scale
industry, transportation, and foreign trade--under state control.
Under the mixed economy of NEP, agriculture and industry staged
recoveries, with most branches of the economy attaining prewar
levels of production by the late 1920s. In general, standards of
living improved during this time, and the "NEP man"--the
independent private trader--became a symbol of the era.
About the time that the party sanctioned partial
decentralization of the economy, it also approved a quasi-federal
structure for the state. During the Civil War years, the
non-Russian Soviet republics on the periphery of Russia were
theoretically independent, but in fact they were controlled by
Moscow through the party and the Red Army. Some Communists favored
a centralized Soviet state, while nationalists wanted autonomy for
the borderlands. A compromise between the two positions was reached
in December 1922 by the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. The constituent republics of this Soviet Union (the
Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, and Transcaucasian republics)
exercised a degree of cultural and linguistic autonomy, while the
Communist, predominantly Russian, leadership in Moscow retained
political authority over the entire country.
The party consolidated its authority throughout the country,
becoming a monolithic presence in state and society. Potential
rivals outside the party, including prominent members of the
abolished Menshevik faction and the Socialist Revolutionary Party,
were exiled. Within the party, Lenin denounced the formation of
factions, particularly by radical-left party members. Central party
organs subordinated local soviets under their authority. Purges of
party members periodically removed the less committed from the
rosters. The Politburo created the new post of general secretary
for supervising personnel matters and assigned Stalin to this
office in April 1922. Stalin, a minor member of the Central
Committee at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, was thought to
be a rather lackluster personality and therefore well suited to the
routine work required of the general secretary.
From the time of the Bolshevik Revolution and into the early
NEP years, the actual leader of the Soviet state was Lenin.
Although a collective of prominent Communists nominally guided the
party and the Soviet Union, Lenin commanded such prestige and
authority that even such brilliant theoreticians as Trotsky and
Nikolai I. Bukharin generally yielded to his will. But when Lenin
became temporarily incapacitated after a stroke in May 1922, the
unity of the Politburo fractured, and a troika (triumvirate) formed
by Stalin, Lev B. Kamenev, and Grigorii V. Zinov'ev assumed
leadership in opposition to Trotsky. Lenin recovered late in 1922
and found fault with the troika, and particularly with Stalin.
Stalin, in Lenin's view, had used coercion to force non-Russian
republics to join the Soviet Union; he was "rude"; and he was
accumulating too much power through his office of general
secretary. Although Lenin recommended that Stalin be removed from
that position, the Politburo decided not to take action, and Stalin
remained general secretary when Lenin died in January 1924.
As important as Lenin's activities were to the foundation of
the Soviet Union, his legacy to the Soviet future was perhaps even
more significant. By willingly changing his policies to suit new
situations, Lenin had developed a pragmatic interpretation of
Marxism (later called
Marxism-Leninism--see Glossary) that implied
that the party should follow any course that would ultimately lead
to communism. His party, while still permitting intraorganizational
debate, insisted that its members adhere to its decisions once they
were adopted, in accordance with the principle of
democratic centralism (see Glossary). Finally, because
his party embodied the
dictatorship of the proletariat, organized opposition could not be
tolerated, and adversaries would be prosecuted
(see Soviet Union USSR - Lenin's Conception of the Party
, ch. 7). Thus, although the Soviet regime
was not totalitarian when he died, Lenin had nonetheless laid the
foundations upon which such a tyranny might later arise.
Data as of May 1989
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