As 1921 dawned, the Bolsheviks could proclaim themselves victors in the civil warand celebrate an accomplishment that would stand as one of the great triumphs inofficial lore for the rest of the Soviet era. At the same time they presided overa nation whose borders were uncertain and whose peasantry protested ever moreaggressively against grain requisitioning and other measures of the civil war thatcontinued beyond the conflict itself. In fact, growing opposition to theseexactions was the principal development that convinced Lenin to change course inthe direction of what soon became known as the New Economic Policy. By February,in Tambov province alone, tens of thousands of peasant fighters faced Bolshevikcommanders who could not be certain of the loyalty of their own troops. Similarpeasant violence gripped many other regions, and some areas, notably the lowerVolga provinces and Siberia, were not pacified until the summer of 1922. InMoscow, Petrograd and other principal cities, diminishing food rations in thewinter of 1920–1 sparked strikes among workers who had backed theBolsheviks during the civil war. Mutiny at the Kronstadt naval base in March 1921may have delivered the severest shock, given that the sailors’ support forthe Bolsheviks reached back to 1917. But the inflamed countryside had alreadyconvinced Lenin that a new approach was required, and he made this clear in Marchto delegates at the Tenth Party Congress who approved what turned out to be thefirst major plank of the New Economic Policy.