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Lenin and the Question of Private Trade in Soviet Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Alan Ball
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Extract

Few official changes of course in the Soviet Union have been as dramatic as the adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921. Supplanting what had come to be called War Communism (1918-1920)—a boiling mixture of revolutionary euphoria, bitter civil war, foreign intervention, economic collapse, and growing peasant unrest—NEP represented a new departure in many areas of Soviet life. First and foremost, eyewitnesses were struck by the legalization of a considerable amount of private economic activity, in contrast to the harsh measures adopted by the Bolsheviks against the private sector during War Communism.

While this change seemed an improvement to most foreigners on the scene (and undoubtedly to most Russians), revolutionaries of diverse hues regarded the legalization of private trade in 1921 as a clear signal that the Bolsheviks had jettisoned the ideals of the Revolution.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , Fall 1984 , pp. 399 - 412
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1984

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References

I would like to thank Professor Samuel H. Baron of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for his prompt, perceptive, and encouraging suggestions as I pursued this project.

1. See, for example, Hammer, Armand, The Quest of the Romanoff Treasure (New York, 1932),pp. 55–56 Google Scholar; Duranty, Walter, Duranty Reports Russia (New York, 1934), p. 88 Google Scholar; Hullinger, Edwin W.,The Reforging of Russia (New York, 1925), pp. 70–71 Google Scholar; Farbman, Michael S., Bolshevism in Retreat(London, 1923), pp. 295–96Google Scholar; Sorokin, Pitirim A., Leaves from a Russian Diary—and Thirty YearsAfter (Boston, 1950), p. 270 Google Scholar; Scheffer, Paul, Seven Years in Soviet Russia (New York, 1932), p. 3 Google Scholar; Mackenzie, F. A., Russia Before Dawn (London, 1923), pp. 24, 54, 57, 207Google Scholar; Goldman, Emma, MyFurther Disillusionment in Russia (Garden City, N.Y, 1924), pp. 78–79 Google Scholar; Serge, Victor, Memoirs of a Revolutionary 1901–1941 (London, 1963), p. 147 Google Scholar; and Ehrenburg, Ilya, Memoirs: 1921–1941 (Cleveland,Ohio, 1963, 1964), p. 66.Google Scholar

2. Dan, F. I., Dva goda skitanii (Berlin, 1922), p. 253 Google Scholar. See also: Berkman, Alexander, The Bolshevik Myth (Diary 1920–1922) (New York, 1925), pp. 304–305 Google Scholar.

3. Barmine, Alexandre, One Who Survived. The Life Story of a Russian under the Soviets (NewYork, 1945), p. 125 Google Scholar; Arkhipov, V A. and Morozov, L. F., Bor'ba protiv kapitatisticheskikh elementovvpromyshlennosti i torgovle. 20-e—nachalo 30-kh godov (Moscow, 1978), p. 61 Google Scholar; Kondurushkin, Iu. S., Chastnyi kapitalpered sovetskim sudom (Moscow-Leningrad, 1927), p. 26 Google Scholar; Karlgren, Anton, BolshevistRussia (London, 1927), p. 126 Google Scholar; and Serge, Memoirs, pp. 147, 196.

4. Lenin, V I., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., 55 vols. (Moscow, 1958–1965)Google Scholar [hereafterLenin, PSS], 44:220.

5. Desiatyi s “ezd RKP(b): stenograftcheskii otchet (Moscow, 1963), p. 406; Lenin, PSS, 43:63–64.

6. Lenin, PSS, 43:220–21, 354.

7. Ibid., 45:98. See also ibid., 43:232, 244; 45:82. In October 1921 Lenin urged the delegates at the Second All-Russian Congress of Political Education Departments: “Get down to business, all of you. The capitalists will be beside you… . They will make a profit from you of several hundred percent. They will profiteer all around you. Let them make a fortune, but learn from them how to run a business. Only then will you be able to build a communist republic.” Ibid., 44:167.

8. Ibid., 43:159.

9. Ibid., 43:277. See also 43:160, 31–14; 45:266.

10. Ibid., 43:25; 44:163.

11. Ibid., 45:387–88. See also 44:160, 164; 45:81.

12. Ibid., 44:160; 45:86.

13. Lenin's emphasis.

14. Ibid., 45:8, 83–84. For more on NEP as a retreat, see ibid., 44:206–208, 229; 45:87, 92,302.

15. Ibid., 44:311.

16. Stalin, I. V., Sochineniia , 13 vols. (Moscow, 1946–1952), 12:171.Google Scholar

17. KPSS v rezoliutsiiakh i resheniiakh s “ezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK, 8th ed. (Moscow,1970) [hereafter KPSS], 2:257; Resheniia partii ipravitel'stva po khoziaistvennym voprosam (Moscow,1967), 1:212–14. A decree from the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) on March 28 set the 1921/22 grain tax at somewhat over half the previously established requisition target,in part to assure the peasants a surplus to trade. Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii 1917–1949(Moscow, 1920–1950) [hereafter SU], 1921, no. 26, art. 148. For similar decrees concerning other agricultural products, see SU, 1921, no. 38, art. 204; and SU, 1921, no. 48, art 235 and art. 239. Sovnarkom issued another decree on March 28 (SU, 1921, no. 26, art. 149) calling for the rapid implementation of VTsIK's decree of March 21 and providing some details on how and in what regions this was to be done.

18. Lenin, PSS, 44:207–208. See also pp. 214–15.

19. Resheniia partii i pravitel'stva po khoziaistvennym voprosam, 1:233–34; SU, 1921, no. 57, art. 356. During 1922 decrees were issued throughout the land by local officials specifying the hours that trade could be conducted, when the lunch break was to be, what types of trade could beconducted on holidays, what places would be designated for markets and bazaars, what sanitation measures were to be observed, and so forth. Na novykh putiakh. Itogi novoi ekonomicheskoipolitiki 1921–1922 g.g. (Moscow, 1923), vypusk I, p. 416

20. SU, 1921, no. 60, art. 410; B. S. Mal'tsman and B. E. Ratner, comps., Zakony o chastnom kapitale. Sbornik zakonov, instruktsii, prikazov i raz “iasnenii (Moscow, 1928), pp. 247–48. Another decree indicates that private individuals were publishing books in the late summer of 1921, without interference from the authorities. SU, 1921, no. 61, art. 430.

21. Ekonomicheskaia zhizn’ SSSR. Khronika sobytii ifaktov 1917–1965, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1967),1:103; SU, 1922, no. 6, art. 58; SU, 1922, no. 12, art. 110; SU, 1922, no. 28, art. 318; SU, 1922,no. 34, art. 399; SU, 1922, no. 41, art. 488; SU, 1922, no. 71, art. 905; and Torgovo-promyshlennaia gazeta [hereafter TPG], 1922, no. 69 (June 2), p. 2. See also Resheniia partii ipravitel'stva po khoziaistvennym voprosam, 1:313–15; Na novykh putiakh, vypusk I, p. 402.

22. KPSS, 2:305; SU, 1921, no. 63, art. 458; SU, 1921, no. 68, art. 527; and SU, 1921, no. 72, art. 576 and art. 577

23. Zakony o chastnom kapitale, pp. 6–7, 19–20. The entire Civil Code may be found in SU, 1922, no. 71, art. 904. Similar codes were adopted by the other republics. For more on the number of workers permitted in private factories, see Ekonomicheskoe obozrenie, 1926, August, p. 119;Zakony o chastnom kapitale, pp. 183, 253; Finansy i narodnoe khoziaistvo, 1927, no. 19, pp. 29–30; TPG, 1923, no. 140 (June 26), p. 1; and Torgovo-promyshlennyi vestnik, 1923, no. 7–8, p. 3.

24. Istoriia sovetskoi konstitutsii (v dokumentakh) 1917–1956 (Moscow, 1957), pp. 296–97, 331,355–56, 526, 543–44, 585, 602, 651–52Google Scholar. These constitutions disfranchised private entrepreneurs in language identical to that in the constitution of 1918. Ibid., p. 155.

25. Ekonomicheskoe obozrenie, 1927, May, p. 172; Sotsialisticheskii vestnik (Berlin), 1930, no. 1, p. 14; Sobranie zakonov i rasporiazhenii raboche-krest'ianskogo pravitel'stva SSSR. 1924–1949(Moscow, 1925–1950), 1929, no. 3, art. 23; I. la. Trifonov, , Klassy i klassovaia bor'ba v SSSR vnachale nepa, vol. 2: Podgotovka ekonomicheskogo nastupleniia na novuiu burzhuaziiu (Leningrad,1969), pp. 75–76 Google Scholar; and Lyons, Eugene, Assignment in Utopia (New York, 1937), pp. 175–76.Google Scholar

26. Lenin, PSS, 44.159–60; Desiatyi s “ezd, p. 407.

27. Lenin. PSS, 45:117–18.

28. Ibid., 44:161; 45:85. See also ibid., 43:221–23.

29. Ibid., 44:337.

30. See, for example, TPG, 1922, no. 69 (June 2), p. 1; 1922, no. 119 (August 2), p. 1; Ekonotnicheskoe stroitel'stvo, 1923, no. 6–, p. 83

31. TPG, 1923, no. 113 (May 24), p. 2. For more complaints from Nepmen concerning the state's unclear and unstable policy toward the private sector, see Torgovye izvestiia, 1925, no. 87 (November 10), p. 2; 1926, no. 98 (September 9), p. 2; TPG, 1923, no. 86 (April 20), p. 2; 1923, no. 113 (May 24), p. 2; and Paduchev, G. P., Chastnyi torgovets pri novoi ekonomicheskoi politike (po dannym biudzhetnogo obsledovaniia) (Voronezh, 1926), p. 63 Google Scholar.

32. Lenin, PSS, 43:237; SU, 1921, no. 55, art. 346.

33. Ehrenburg, Memoirs, p. 68.

34. Lenin, PSS, 52:217–18; Dmitrenko, V. P., Torgovaia politika sovetskogo gosudarstva posle perekhoda k nepu. 1921–1924 gg. (Moscow, 1971), pp. 58–59 Google Scholar; and Izvestiia, May 17, 1921.

35. SU, 1921, no. 49, art. 256; Dmitrenko, Torgovaia politika, pp. 151–53. An article in Ekonomicheskaia zhizn’ warned local officials not to be too eager to ban private trade during campaigns to collect the tax in kind. Ekonomicheskaia zhizn', 1922, no. 196 (September 2), p. 1. Another article in the same paper pointed out that bans on private trade had been ordered in various regions in 1921 but had not proven effective. Ekonomicheskaia zhizn', 1922, no. 186 (August 19), p. 1.

36. Trifonov, Klassy, 2:150.

37. Ekonomicheskoe stroitel'stvo, 1923, no. 6–7, p. 90. Additional expressions of official distaste for private middlemen may be found in Iugo-Vostok (Rostov-on-Don), 1922, no. 1 (November), p. 56; TPG, 1922, no. 191 (October 27), p. 3; and I. la. Trifonov, , Likvidatsiia ekspluatatorskikh klassov v SSSR (Moscow, 1975), p. 190.Google Scholar

38. TPG, 1922, no. 133 (August 18), p. 4; 1922, no. 190 (October 26), p. 3.

39. Ibid., 1922, no. 228 (December 10), p. 4.

40. Izvestiia, March 8, 1923, p. 6.

41. Dmitrenko, Torgovaia politika, p. 155.

42. TPG, 1923, no. 70 (March 29), p. 4; Dmitrenko, Torgovaia politika, pp. 153–54.

43. Torgovaia gazeta, 1922, no. 31 (March 30), p. 4; 1922, no. 42 (April 27), p. 2.

44. Ekonomicheskaia zhizn', 1922, no. 205 (September 13), p. 2; Torgovaiagazeta, 1922, no. 42 (April 27), p. 2; and Na novykh putiakh, vypusk I, p. 417.

45. Torgovaia gazeta, 1922, no. 42 (April 27), p. 2; Paduchev, Chastnyi torgovets, p. 53.

46. Ekonomicheskoe obozrenie, 1926, March, pp. 150, 153.

47. Torgovaia gazeta, 1922, no. 35 (April 6), p. 3; Na novykh putiakh, vypusk I, pp. 414–15.

48. F. A Golder and L. Hutchinson, On the Trail of the Russian Famine (Stanford, 1927), pp. 227–28.

49. Dmitrenko, Torgovaia politika, pp. 151, 153; Ginzburg, A. M., ed., Chastnyi kapital v narodnom khoziaistve SSSR. Materialy kommissii VSNKh SSR (Moscow-Leningrad, 1927), p. 294 Google Scholar; Vorms, A. E. and Mints, S. V., comps., Zakony o chastnoi promyshlennosti (Moscow, 1924), pp. 26–27 Google Scholar; SU, 1921, no. 79, art. 684; D. I. Mishanin, “Arenda gosudarstvennykh predpriiatii chastnymi predprinimateliami, kak odna iz form gosudarstvennogo kapitalizma v ekonomike perekhodnogoperioda ot kapitalizma k sotsializmu v SSSR,” in Messerle, E. A. and Mishanin, D. I., Metodicheskoe posobiepopolitekonomii (Alma-Ata, 1961), p. 64 Google Scholar; and Carr, E. H., The Bolshevik Revolution, 3 vols.(Harmondsworth, England, 1966), 2:300 Google Scholar.