Lenin's New Economic Policy

This research examines the reasons behind Lenin's adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921 in the wake of the Soviet revolution in 1917. The research will set forth the principal elements of the NEP and the context in which it emerged as an issue for the Bolshevik/Communist government, and then explore the literature of the Soviet state with a view toward identifying factors that positioned Lenin to promulgate the policy.

In order to understand Lenin's adoption of the NEP, it is necessary to appreciate Lenin's ideological commitment to international socialist revolution, the establishment of the War Communism policy (precursor of the NEP), as well as the dynamic situation of revolutionary governance in Russia from the time of the 1917 success of the Bolsheviks until 1921, when the NEP was officially adopted by the Soviet government. The strength of Lenin's ideological commitment was undoubtedly reinforced by the ineffectuality and disintegration of both the Romanoff dynasty and the provisional revolutionary government of Krenesky, which allowed Lenin's radical Bolshevik wing to appropriate revolutionary leadership and control of Russia's state apparatus. Strongly influenced by Marxist ideology, Lenin advocated "the necessity of creating a strong and active revolutionary Marxist group that would lead the proletariat in their struggle for an immediate social revolution" (Vernadsky, 1961, pp. 275-6). Invoking the slogan "peace, land, bread" and in concert with fellow B

Related Essays

Modes of Production in China (PRC) INTRODUCTION This research .... or had some individual of a character different from that of Stalin suc ceeded Lenin, the world .... .... York: Pergamon Press. Feuchtwang, S., & Hussain, A. (1983 .... (3672 15 )

CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND POLAND .... Johnson & Johnson and Lech & Lenin. Fortune, 115. Beschloss, S. (1990, March). .... Dubcek, A. (1966, 17 April). New economic model required. .... (7651 31 )

Agricultural Policy in Former Soviet Union .... Lenin held that one must cope with realities, without betraying one's idealism (Lenin, 1921). .... S. Talbott (Ed. .... Princeton, .... Jersey: D. Van Nostrand Company. .... (6218 25 )

Political Change in the Soviet Union .... Binder, L., Coleman, JS, LaPalombara, J., Pye, LW, Verba, S., and Weiner, M. Crises and .... Princeton, .... Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974 .... Clark, RW Lenin. .... (4754 19 )

Gorbachev's Leadership & Economic Reform .... Since that era, after the brief establishing rule of Lenin was succeeded by the 27-year dictatorship of Stalin .... 1-8. Richards, S. (1991). .... .... York: Viking. .... (3737 15 )

Development of Civic & Ethnic Nationalism .... .... York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988. Dunn, S., and Dalzell, RF Jr. .... Lenin, VI "The New Economic Policy." A speech delivered in March 1921. .... (5029 20 )

an geopolitical influence (p. 272). But one need not agree with Volkogonov's logic or with the view that Lenin overreached in a bid for international revolutionary power to see that the credibility of the revolution and its War Communism economy suffered under Bolshevik stewardship. The effect was to virtually guarantee War Communism's temporary nature. In this regard, Orlovsky (1997, p. 259) cites Lenin's land reform as a combination of well-meaning attempts to improve the lot of the landless peasantry and a rather ham-handed attempt to foment a peasant version of class warfare between landed peasants (kulaks) and two lower peasant tiers. Volkogonov (1994), who is generally hostile to Lenin, credits him for a commonsense approach to establishing farming cooperatives but criticizes his social engineering of a class for which he had an intellectual's contempt--all of which resulted in nothing so much as protracted intervillage, almost clannish, conflict that degenerated in 1920 to near famine and that had to be put down by the Red Army. And all of this took place in the context of party-cadre requisitioning of peasant grain stores. Public tolerance of such policies, says Husband (1997, p. 264), as well as "other emergency measure

Category: History - L