Economy (1917-29)

Successes:

- because Grain Requisitioning was replaced with 'tax in kind', peasants could sell grain on the open market via nep-men

- ban on Private Trade removed + the money economy returned (250,000 private traders migrated to Moscow)                                                                                                       1. a huge contrast to the famine of 1921, in which 7 million people died

- By 1923, factory output rose by almost 200% (planned revival of larger-scale industry was underway by 1924)

Failures:

- In the first 2 years of the NEP, unemployment rose (wages remained low + workers had little protection in the market place)

- the 'scissors crisis' in 1523 caused food prices to drop while prices of industrial good rose (peasants were reluctant to sell grain if they were unable to buy consumer goods)

Lenin believed the Electrification of Russia was key to modernising + would lead the Soviet Union towards a Communist ideology...

Industry:

- food production benefitted as grain harvests, cattle & pigs increased (however, industrialisation slowed as coal/iron production decreased or increased too slowly)

Support:

- the regime depended on peasant concessions + economic liberalism to survive (Bolsheviks had lost support of peasants due to policy of Grain Requisitioning)

- it caused splits within the party (Trotsky wanted to continue with War Communism by drafting the Red army into a militaried labour force to build socialism by coercion)

- Mensheviks & SR's gained popularity during strikes + revolts (excuse to arrest 5000 Mensheviks in 1921 for counter-revolutionary activities)

Causes:

- workers were angry over food shortages + militarised factories (described as 'worse than a Tsarist prison camp' - imprisoned or shot is targets were not reached)

- revolts engulfed the countryside due to opposition to Grain Requisitioning (Antanov & Red Army failed to quell the Tambov region for almost a year)

Society:

- workers objected to the introduction of single managers + bourgeois 'specialists' with more priviledges (known as the 'New Exploitation of the Proleteriat')

- though the NEP restored some prosperity, many found it distasteful as the class system returned along with Capitalism (support for Lenin was not unanimous)              1. Restarants cost $25 per person for dinner & wine

- arbitrary imprisonment + death penalty continued to be applied after 1922 as an instrument of social policy (GPU e.g. Cheka, gained new significance during the NEP)