presented with a number of different products to choose from. The customer selects the
most different," the city, I had to tell this thing, I would never won'd more powerful
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apart from winning the support of the majority of the population,
the communist victory in the civil war also depended on the new
regime抯 ability to keep the economy going when some of the vital
food- and fuel-producing territories were temporarily outside its
control and when tsarist russia抯 former western allies, intervening
on the side of the anti-bolshevik forces, sought to enforce an
economic blockade of soviet russia. in this situation, the bolshevik
government adopted emergency economic measures, which became known
collectively as war communism. |
war
communism pursued two principal objectives: first, to prevent total
collapse of the economy and, second, to mobilize all available
resources for the struggle against the domestic and foreign enemies
of the new regime.
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war communism involved the nationalization of the country抯 entire
industrial resources. in addition to large-scale industry nationalized
in the course of the 揜ed guard attack on capital?in the first six
months following the october revolution, the soviet government put under
its control all small middle-size companies. in the countryside, a state
monopoly of the grain trade was introduced, which prohibited the private
sale of grain. a surplus-appropriation system was enforced. this meant
that all food surpluses in the hands of the peasants were to be recorded
and bought by the state at fixed prices. this helped to accumulate a
store of grain for the provisioning of the army and the workers.
finally, a universal labor conscription was imposed on all classes
of the population. |
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the
prohibition of free trade had placed the burden of rationing food to
the urban population and supplying the peasants with industrial
goods on government agencies. goods and foodstuffs were distributed
centrally, usually without payment in exchange for coupons; the
railways were obligated to transport goods free of charge; and
essential communal services in the cities and medical care were also
free. in theory, this system made money unnecessary. during war
communism, the bolsheviks toyed with the idea of abolishing money
altogether, but all their experiments in this direction merely
contributed to the chaos and rampant inflation that made the rouble
practically worthless. |
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the
majority of the population was unwilling to submit to the discipline
of the state-run, moneyless economy, and many could survive the
hardships of that period only by disobeying the strictures imposed
on them by the bolshevik regime. those who stayed in hunger-stricken
cities managed to survive thanks, to a great extent, to the
activities of the so-called sack pushers (meshochniki),
that is, people bringing sacks with food for sale or personal
consumption. the authorities tried to curb the burgeoning black
market by posting armed detachments at city gates to catch 搒ack
pushers?and confiscate 搒urplus?foodstuff. despite all the
attempts to eradicate the black market and its inflated prices,
about half of all food supplies in the cities were delivered by the
搒ack pushing?profiteers who, effectively, saved the urban areas
from total extinction.
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