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For Soviet Russia, the civil war meant not only the need to put under arms the just demobilized army after the Brest-Litovsk Peace again. According to the Brest Peace, Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states broke away from the country.
Analysis of Soviet Russia's economic policies during the Civil War, focusing on Yuri Larin's role in resource rationing and 'war communism'.
Key Takeaways
- War communism was a response to extreme resource scarcity and economic collapse during the Civil War.
- Centralized planning and rationing prioritized key industries and social groups essential for the war effort.
- Yuri Larin played a pivotal role in managing resource distribution and advocating for economic reforms.
- The naturalization of wages and elimination of private trade reflected Bolshevik attempts to restructure the economy.
- Internal party disagreements influenced the implementation and evolution of economic policies.
Summary
- The video explores the severe economic challenges faced by Soviet Russia during the Civil War after losing key territories and resources.
- It highlights the introduction of strict rationing and centralized resource allocation to prioritize war-related industries and essential social groups.
- Yuri Larin's leadership in the Usage Commission of VSNKh was crucial for distributing evacuated property and managing scarce resources.
- The policy of 'war communism' involved centralization, standardization, saving, use of substitutes, intensification, and resource maneuvering.
- Food rationing and the naturalization of wages were introduced to cope with hyperinflation and economic collapse.
- The norms for rationing were differentiated by social class, reflecting the Bolshevik ideology of prioritizing workers.
- Private trade was banned, and supply was controlled by a unified plan under the Usage Commission.
- Larin advocated for replacing money with distribution systems and eliminating the influence of money on the economy.
- The video also discusses the political and organizational challenges within Soviet economic councils and the gradual centralization of control.
- It concludes with the tensions between Larin and party leadership over economic policy directions and the differing motivations of workers and peasants.
Chapters
- 00:00Civil War and Loss of Territory
- 01:35Prioritization and Resource Scarcity
- 02:54Distribution of Evacuated Property
- 04:14Resource Substitution and Intensification
- 05:25Naturalization of Wages and Food Rationing
- 06:56Centralized Economic Planning
- 08:21Economic Planning for 1919
- 09:49Political Challenges and Party Dynamics
- 12:40Labor and Production Factors
- 15:38Internal Party Conflicts and Economic Debates
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
With the beginning of the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps, Siberia and the Far East were lost too. In 1918-1920, the territory controlled by the Bolsheviks periodically shrank to several provinces of the European part of Russia. And in the regions, the economic exploitation of which turned out to be
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completely or partially impossible, previously were mined about 80% of iron ore, more than 90% of coal, oil, cotton, about 70% of steel, cast iron, sugar, and a significant amount of grain. The country faced a seemingly insoluble task: having lost four-fifths of all resources, direct the rest for victory insurance
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in the war. There was no other choice but to introduce strict rationing and centrally determine to whom to send these miserable remnants of fuel, raw materials, and food in the first place. During all three years of the Civil War, the authorities had to solve the same task
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of priorities every day: which industry is the most important and which is less important; which plant is the most important and which is the least important; which social group of the population is the most important and which is the least important.
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The less important ones had to survive on their own. This division into necessary and unnecessary was used in everything. So with the beginning of the blockade, telephone equipment was no longer imported to Russia.
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On July 11, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree on the usage of Moscow city telephones.
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It said that as 50% of the equipment at the city telephone exchange is out of order and it is nowhere to take the new one, then until better times, it is necessary to provide telephone communications to 15,000 of the most important users. First of all - government agencies.
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Telephones in private homes became public telephones - anyone can come in and make a call. An absolutely exceptional role in such conditions was acquired by the so-called Usage Commission of VSNKh, which distributed material values to those who needed them more.
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Yuri Larin became chairman of the Usage Commission and Committee of Economic Policy of VSNKh.
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It all started with the distribution of property evacuated from combat zones. On July 13 of 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued the decree on the formation of a special commission that would distribute it. On July 20 of 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued the decree on the handover to
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VSNKh of all the property of the supply organizations that had existed since the First World War: Zemsoyuz, Zemgor, Sogor. The same commission for the distribution of the evacuated property was instructed to distribute it too.
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Resource rationing was based on several basic principles. Centralization. Resources from less technically equipped plants and factories were transferred to the largest and most progressive ones.
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Standardization. Each enterprise specialized in the production of a small number of similar products. Saving. Less priority production had to stop.
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Due to a lack of paper, newspapers' distribution to private subscribers stopped. To save rubber, the production of galoshes stopped. Rubber was used to make tires, medical supplies, belts, and other industrial parts. Use of recyclable materials and substitutes.
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Coffee was replaced with chicory, coal with peat, all notarial archives, bank archives, and other documents that had lost their meaning under the new system were sent to waste paper. After all, ownership of land and other real estate was canceled. Intensification.
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The most technologically advanced factories were started up at 100% capacity, while under private owners, not a single enterprise had a 100% load.
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Maneuvering. When the situation changed, resources were removed from one direction and transferred to another. So, when it was necessary to build a railway to export oil from the Emba area, the rails were removed from several less important railway lines. In parallel,
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the process of rationing food and consumer goods developed. Hyperinflation and the collapse of the economy put on the agenda the issue of the naturalization of wages. If money loses its purchasing power, wages have to be paid in material values. Food ration
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cards began to be introduced in cities in July, but it was necessary to solve the problem more systematically.
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The initiator, here again, was Yuri Larin. On October 19 of 1918, at the conference of construction and transport factories, he made a presentation on the naturalization of wages. The main food products and household items were to be issued in kind. Their value was deducted from the money
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part of the salary. Since output rates in kind depended on physiological needs rather than output, as money further depreciated, wages increasingly lost touch with output.
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The norms were differentiated by the class principle. That is, how much food and personal consumption items - soap, matches, and the like - you will get was more and more determined not by how you work, but by which supply society you are assigned to and what supply rate you are
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entitled to. It remained to be hoped that the class-conscious workers wouldn't reduce output. On November 21 of 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued the decree on organizing the supply of the population with all products of personal consumption and households, which prohibited any private trade of these products.
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The population's supply was to be carried out by a single plan for the use of all produced in the country and imported products. The Usage Commission of VSNKh was created to draw up this total plan. It was headed by Larin as one of the authors of the decree
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on the organization of supply. Formally, at that time, the central production commission was the main one in VSNKh, which worked out production programs for the nationalized factories.
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But in fact, the production program was limited by two things: how much raw materials and fuel will be supplied to the plant and how much food will be supplied to workers of this plant. Fuel was distributed by the main fuel committee of VSNKh, and all other resources were distributed by the Usage
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Commission headed by Larin. They were in charge of the process. The exclusive position of the Usage Commission was due to the fact that it drew up distribution plans for the population too. So Larin, in Pravda dated February 1, 1919, published the article with
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the laconic title "Supply of Russia in 1919." In the article, Larin described how much meat, bread, soap, and other goods a Soviet citizen will be given a year. The norms were differentiated. For example, a worker a year was entitled to one pair of galoshes,
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and a peasant - 1.14 pairs or 1 pair of galoshes per 14 peasants. On January 1 of 1919, Larin in Pravda congratulated Soviet citizens on New Year. He stated that the accounting of the resources still remaining in the country
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has already been basically completed, which makes it possible to develop an economic plan for 1919, to determine in advance how much cotton wool, shoes, felt boots, and other items will be produced, how much of the produced will go to industrial consumption, and how much - to that or any other category of residents. On this basis,
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Larin wrote, in 1919 it would be possible to replace trade with distribution and destroy money.
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Larin was not alone in his quest to destroy money. The resolution of the Second All-Russian Congress of Economic Councils on financial policy, held in December of 1918, required the elimination of any influence of money on the balance of economic elements in the end. The People's Bank was
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assigned the role of a settlement and cash register under VSNKh. From January 1, 1919, state enterprises were exempted from any taxes and fees. Funds were issued to enterprises, mainly f
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which was reported to the Council of People's Commissars by Larin and Vlas Yakovlevich Chubar, who was a member of the Presidium of VSNKh too. On March 4, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the decree on the financing of industry,
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by which enterprises were completely deprived of their own funds. All cash receipts they had to hand over to the treasury. Budget appropriations became the only source of financing for enterprises.
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The estimates of the enterprises were approved by "glavks" of VSNKh, that is, the production departments of VSNKh. Glavk means the main committee. Thus, local authorities had no leverage to influence economic policy. In January of 1919, was published the decree on the transition from
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a policy of surplus withdrawal to food apportionment. Now not the surplus grain was taken from peasants but the fixed amount necessary to supply workers and the army. The government no longer worried whether peasants themselves would have anything left. Larin was not completely satisfied with this decision, so he was one
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of the initiators of the creation of state farms - Soviet farms where workers could grow food for themselves. Discussions about the organization of state farms sharpened the question of centralism. As we remember, according to the initial idea, VSNKh was the meeting of representatives chosen by the local economic councils and
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did not rule over them, but only coordinated their economic plans with each other. The need for the most severe economy of everything pushed the country towards the dictatorship of center in relation to province. In December of 1918, the very
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same Second All-Russian Congress of Economic Councils adopted the decision to abolish the regional economic councils as an intermediate link between the center and local economic councils. The remaining provincial economic councils were more and more becoming the local branches of VSNKh, and the local economic councils
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became simple executors of the received commands. In the article on state farms, Larin literally attacked provincial land departments and local economic councils, who wanted the products grown on state farms to remain at their disposal. Larin demanded all food be supplied to
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the central authorities and distributed by them. In other words, a worker on the state farm would grow food not for himself and his colleagues in the plant but for all workers of the country. Larin here referred to Lenin,
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who at the very same Second Congress of Economic Councils demanded the transition to sole responsibility and the exclusion of parochialism and dissenting opinions. «There should be a single dictatorship of the workers' government in Russia, without which our revolution will perish, but not hundreds of local dictatorships, each with
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its own policy. And all of them in the aggregate are capable to upset and weaken the single policy of the center completely. In the first year of our power, while the central government was still not sufficiently strong and
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organized, and as long as there were more resources in the country, chaos and lack of unity in leadership had to and could be endured. Now arbitrarily going contrary to the nationwide ideology means committing a crime that cannot be tolerated. All officials, whoever they
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are elected, will have to learn this or be removed from their posts. An objective and indisputable counterrevolutionary is the one who is now making his own policy or the policy of his congress instead of the policy of the workers' government, no matter how excellent he may be in other respects.»
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So, all food is given to the center and distributed from the center, all industrial products are given to the center and distributed from the center, all money is given to the center and distributed from the center. With this approach, money is needed only to pay wages,
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and wages are needed to buy goods on the free market, illegal, but ineliminable. Since the People's Commissariat of Supply, the former People's Commissariat of Food, could provide at most a third of the needs of the townspeople for food, in Moscow in January of 1919
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the consumption of an adult who was working physically was only 78% from the medical norm, and in Petrograd it was only 53%. Such sad results were largely due to the fact that the state had little to offer the peasants in exchange for bread. All factories worked
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for defense. By 1920 there was still another unaffected by centralization production factor - labor.
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Without a centralized redistribution of labor, the economic system of War Communism remained incomplete. Universal labor service was introduced back in 1918, and in January of 1920, the Council of People's Commissars issued the decree on the procedure for universal labor service, by which
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the entire working population could be involved in performing certain labor tasks. To guide the distribution of labor the Glavkomtrud, the main labor committee, was created.
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Now you were not only obliged to work but you were obliged to work where you were told. Labor armies were created based on army formations. Remaining mobilized, the Red Army men were involved in various unskilled jobs. Larin did not stand aside from this process.
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In February, in «Pravda», he shares with readers his experience in organizing labor service in the Yaroslavl province. There, laborers fled from the railway workshops, and qualified turners were forced to spend their time on bringing parts on, unloading, packing and other similar operations. Larin passed through the Yaroslavl Provincial Executive Committee a decision by which
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each of about 200 volosts of the Yaroslavl province was obliged to appoint 10 laborers by March 1.
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Volost was obliged to provide each conscript employee with food for a couple of months in advance and to continue renewing his stock, as well as give him a tool for work.
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Larin insisted on canceling the urgency. The peasants were mobilized by laborers, not for a certain time, but forever. In the article, Larin also proposed the solution to low labor productivity.
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Each detachment of Labor Army members must be assigned a political commissar who would make sure that the Labor Army members worked for 8 hours completely. And the political commissar would be obliged to provide the receipt on the full number of hours worked from the institution for which the work is done. In general,
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we, of course, have the state of workers and peasants, but the village must provide workers for the most low-profile positions, feed them and supply them with tools, and political commissars will make sure they work well. Something in this scheme nevertheless confused the editors of «Pravda»,
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and the article was published with a postscript - "published as a discussion." In the future, such postscripts to Larin's articles began to appear more and more often. The Third All-Russian Congress of Sovanarhozes took place in January of 1920. Larin later claimed that at this congress he proposed to switch from distribution
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to trade and tax methods of procurement of agricultural products. The congress of economic councils seemed to even support this proposal, but at that time the party categorically opposed the transition to the tax in kind. There is one subtlety with this statement. The transcript of the congress was not published,
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and what exactly Larin proposed, we don't know. But we know the reaction to his performance. People's Commissar of Finance Nikolai Nikolaevich Krestinsky sent Larin's theses to Lenin with a note that he considers them unrealizable and politically harmful. From Krestinsky's note, we know that Larin
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may have proposed replacing distribution with tax from peasants, but at the same time, Larin proposed complete abolition of money. Larin promises to cancel money as far back as the 1919 New Year's address.
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But now, in January 1920, the time has certainly come. Lenin reacted as follows: «Prohibit Larin from creating projects, give Rykov a warning - tame Larin, otherwise, you will be in trouble.» Larin was even expelled from the Presidium of VSNKh for his speeches. When he asked
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the Politburo about the reasons for this, in response Kamenev, Krestinsky and Tomsky reported: «You, Larin, did not try to inquire in advance what the opinion of the leading party center was about the proposals that seemed correct to you, but consciously or unconsciously put it
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before a fait accompli, before the thrown into masses tempting for them slogan and, according to you, easily achievable, although objectively impracticable.» In the third year of proletarian power, Larin's tactics to confront everyone with a fact began to fail.
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At the end of February of 1920, Larin as the chairman of the Usage Commission was replaced by Lev Natanovich Kritsman, in view of the departure of comrade Larin. Comparing the dates of departure and the dates of Larin's article with ideas about labor service, we understand that Larin was temporarily exiled to
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Yaroslavl, and his military-communist ideas about calling peasants to work in railway workshops were probably caused by the desire to justify himself in front of his comrades and show that he is not that liberal. At the same time, however, in his practical work, Larin continued to show
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that it was necessary to negotiate with the peasants. From the beginning of 1920, the Usage Commission focused not only on per capita supply but also on the course of grain procurements, when distributing products to peasants. The provinces, which delivered grain better, received more industrial goods.
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For some reason, Larin was sure that workers and peasants have completely different motivations for work.
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He considered the demand of workers to pay better for better work as underdevelopment. Larin himself definitely worked primarily for the idea, not disdaining to regularly exceed his powers.
Topics:Soviet RussiaCivil Warwar communismYuri Larinresource rationingVSNKheconomic policyBolsheviksrationingnaturalization of wages
