A. War Communism

A1. Causes
a) as a result of the revolutionary changes, peasants and urban workers controlled over their own labour through a system of land and factory committees > ineffective production > acute shortages (at the same time, pay rises were voted by workers themselves)
> inflation > money bacame almost worthless
b) the pressure of civil war

A2. A command economy in practise
- all factories and businesses were nationalised for the demands of war production
- workers lost their freedom and were forced to work excessive hours without wages but a meagre ration of food, some clothing and lodgings as reward
- workers were bound to the cities they lived by internal passports
- private trade was banned and rationing system was introduced on food and consumer
> rationing system favoured the labour force and the Red Army soldiers who were only given adequate food
- ration tokens replaced money as a form of payment
- peasants had to deliver all grain to the state > soldiers supported by the Cheka agents confisticated crops and livestock > peasants reduced their sowings > an acute food shortage > a terrible famine (In 1921)
- the kulaks were seen as 'the enemies of the people' and the seizure of their stocks was encouraged by the local soviet authorities > the more efficient farmers suffered and grain production collapsed
- as a consequence of hyperinflation money lost all value and in many areas a system of barter replaced the use of money; wages and salaries were paid in kind (< this was welcomed by some War Communism supporters as 'the dying out of money and the breakdown of society and its replacement by a communist system'.)

B. The New Economic Policy (NEP)

* teacher's power point

1) How succesful was the NEP?
2) Study and describe the content of the Scissors Crisis.