Economic policies of Lenin and Stalin

A detailed Summary of Economic policies of Lenin and Stalin

"Both Lenin and Stalin adopted well-structured economic policies in order to build their country into a well-established and powerful state"

Both Lenin and Stalin had enormous power to change Russia as the leaders of the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat'; the question is how did they succeed in giving economic power to Russian people.

The first solid economic policy instituted in Russia after the abdication of the Tsar and the overthrow of Kerensky's Provisional Government was Lenin's policy of War Communism. War Communism was not a policy designed to promote economic stability in Russia. Russia was in civil war and war communism was a policy designed to get food to the soldiers fighting the Whites (anti-Bolshevik soldiers) and then next in line for food were the workers who supplied the soldiers. One must keep in mind that Russia's economy was in a bad state even before the institution of War Communism. In economic terms War Communism was an abysmal failure. The state was forced to pay wages in kind to workers because money was simply worthless. With the ban on private trade there was a break down of the currency system and rural communities reverted back to a barter economy. The Bolshevik party forcibly

One thing that we must remember though is that it was Stalin and the Stalinists who wrote the history of the USSR and the information I have presented may not be wholly accurate.

seized all surplus grain from the peasants causing resistance from peasants by hiding grain and not producing more than was needed for themselves - Russia had gone back to subsistence farming. This lead to a drop in production with some historians claiming that by 1921 there was more than a 60% percent drop in agricultural productivity since pre-war Russia. The peasant reaction is justified considering that some historians estimate well over 5 million peasants were killed during the grain requisitions. In the cities factories were taken over by the state and the state commissioned managers to run the factories - the Bolsheviks felt that loyalty to the Bolshevik party and Communism was more important than competency. As a result there were staggering drops in industrial production especially in fossil fuels. Oil production dropped from 9.2 million tons in 1913 to 3.8 million in 1921 under war communism. Coal production dropped a massive 67% from 29.1 million tons produced in 1913 to 9.5 million in 1921 (Statistics from Economic Systems in Action - Oxenfeldt and Holubnychy). A clear sign of economic catastrophe in Russia was the estimated depopulation of 60% of the population of the large centres of Moscow and Petrograd. The situation in Russia got so bad that 8 million children were left homeless and millions died in famine caused by inefficient peasant farming. Russia was under immense financial strain from the Civil War and the dissidence of the peasants, something had to collapse and it was the Rouble.

By 1940 the USSR had more doctors per head of population than Britain

Stalin contributed much to Russia's economy and he has to be admired for taking an apparently backward (Some historians suggest Russia was not that backward) country and giving it economic power. Stalin's decided that the New Economic Policy had run long enough and it was time to put Russia back on its path to Communism. Stalin ordered the State Planning Commission (Gosplan) to devise a series of five year plans which would set out exactly what the country's goals were for the next five years. The goals were broken down into smaller and smaller goals until eventually every worker knew what he or she had to do for his or her specific shift at the factory. The five-year plans were the ultimate example of goal s

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Approximate Word count = 1680
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History