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Russia, 1894–1945: Tsardom and Communism

War Communism, the Kronstadt Rising and the New Economic Policy

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1 section A

Overview

War Communism and the peasants' answer, the famine of 1921, the Kronstadt sailors and their crushing, the tax in kind and private trade, the Nepmen, whether the new policy worked, and Lenin's and Trotsky's records.

What you need to know

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Numbers

Did the New Economic Policy work?

Numbers

What was War Communism?

Key term

Who rebelled at Kronstadt in March 1921, and why was that so alarming for Lenin?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was War Communism?

    Model answer

    The emergency system used from 1918: the state ran the large factories, private trade was banned, labour was placed under military discipline, and squads seized grain from the peasants to feed the towns and the army.

  2. 2

    How did peasants answer the seizure of their grain?

    Model answer

    They hid what they had and sowed only enough for their own families, so the harvest shrank year by year.

  3. 3

    Who rebelled at Kronstadt in March 1921, and why was that so alarming for Lenin?

    Model answer

    The sailors of the naval base, who had been among the fiercest supporters of the revolution in 1917, now demanded free elections to the soviets and an end to grain seizures.

  4. 4

    How was the Kronstadt rising put down?

    Model answer

    Trotsky sent Red Army troops across the frozen sea to storm the base; the rebels who were not killed were shot afterwards or escaped over the ice to Finland.

  5. 5

    What replaced grain seizures under the New Economic Policy?

    Model answer

    A fixed tax paid in produce, after which a peasant could sell any surplus at market for private profit.

  6. 6

    What did the New Economic Policy allow in trade and industry?

    Model answer

    Private shops, traders and small workshops became legal again, while the state kept the banks, foreign trade, transport and large-scale industry.

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