by Sophia Andrews

Created on: May 10, 2009

The New Economic Policy, or NEP, is the collective name given to a series of measures introduced and followed from 1921 1928 in response to the disruption of the economy during the wars and attempts to feed Russia's urban population and to promote economic growth and stability. These measures will be outlined below but in order to fully understand their impact it is first important to outline the situation before their introduction.

The upheavals of World War 1 and Russia's civil war led to the collapse of Russia's economy; in 1921 industrial output had fallen to 20% of its pre-war level and during the war years was heavily focussed on heavy industry and supplying the demands of the military. With this lack of manufactured goods, along with the cessation of rent and redemption payments, peasants lost their incentive to produce more crops than they needed for their own families' subsistence; this led to severe food shortages for towns and the army, which attempted to requisition grain in order to ensure their own survival. Unsurprisingly this met with hostility in the countryside and did little to promote increased production, especially since droughts in 1920 and 1921 led to famine and starvation even amongst the rural population. This food crisis led to militancy and unrest in both town and country, for instance Siberian peasants blocked the Trans-Siberian railway in order to prevent the removal of supplies and the sailors of Kronstadt famously rose in rebellion, sparking disorder in St Petersburg. The latter incident was particularly effective in jarring political leaders into action as Kronstadt had been seen as an important base for Red support and the violence there coincided with the Tenth Party Congress.

Faced with this deteriorating situation the government had little choice but to abandon 'war communism,' which had become impossible to justify and so the New Economic Policy, known as the NEP, came into force; it was not a single measure but rather developed over time as new laws and decrees were introduced to deal with specific economic or political issues, beginning with an end to forced grain requisitions and going on to encompass trade and industry at all levels.

Despite widespread feeling within the Bolshevik movement that the NEP was a regression towards capitalism and a betrayal of communist ideals, Lenin was able to convince the party that it was a necessary means to an end. The NEP was always conceived as a temporary measure

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