HeavyWeaponsGuy
Banned
Perhaps nothing was so uniquely upsetting to Russia's traditional place in the European balance-of-power as aftermath of the Russian Civil War (to say the Russian Revolution is somewhat of a misnomer, as the first Russian Revolution did not install the Bolsheviks, but the short-lived provisional government of Alexander Kerensky), which even after the famed "Red October" Revolution of 1917 the survival of the Bolshevik government that had come to power as a result of it was still very much in doubt. It was only after the Russian Civil War in which the Bolsheviks had claimed victory against both the anti-Bolshevik White Movement that the existence of the new government, a radical experiment in Marxist ideals and their implementation for the governance of an agrarian country of over 100 million people.
What the rest of Europe saw was first and foremost a threat: a revolutionary government that had openly devoted itself to the overthrow of world capitalism and those governments that did not align themselves with the Soviet means of thinking. And worst of all, this government had proved capable of defending itself and fighting off not only the White Movement but also substantial contributions of forces from other nations as well. One by one the Bolsheviks had picked off their foes, both foreign and domestic, fighting with that eternal patience and determination that had defined Russia and other peoples of the area since the Kievan Rus, until they at last emerged triumphant, having bested all their foes and having defied the will of those who would have seen their revolution destroyed. Amidst all of this, the Bolshevik government and that of the Second Polish Republic, the first independent Polish state in centuries, had gone to war with each other, a conflict that very nearly resulted in the Bolshevik capture of Warsaw. For the world, this was a sign of a seemingly unbeatable foe, but also one that was committed to spreading its revolution at the end of a bayonet.
What had never been known however, was the extent of damage that had been done to the Soviet regime. Huge swathes of the country had been reduced to rubble by years of conflict from the Great War all the way to the Russian Civil War, millions had been killed, and millions more displaced or violently uprooted. The vital infrastructure that stitched together the largest nation on the face of the Earth was in ruins, and much of what had defined the Russian Empire had been lost in the turmoil and chaos of the revolution and the civil war that had followed it. Such was not an unprecedented event in world history, often it had been the case that once the period of revolutionary turmoil and internal strife had passed, that the foreboding and arduous reality began to set in: the Bolsheviks had won their conflict, but now they were responsible for rebuilding, a minority party that had never commanded the support of a majority of the population of Russia or any other area of the former Russian Empire and had survived through the abilities of talented, if ruthless and often fiercely quarrelsome individuals such as Josef Dzhugashvilli and Lev Davinovich Bronstein, better known as Stalin and Trotsky respectively, was now the government that would be responsible for repairing a broken country.
This is not to say that the Bolsheviks did not contribute their fair share to the mess that the Soviet Union had found for itself, to say that the policy of war communism, implemented by the Lenin government in 1918, was a disaster would be an understatement. Production levels in both manufacturing and agriculture had fallen to pre-1914 levels, peasants in the field grew only enough to sustain themselves, knowing that any extra would be seized by the government, factory workers, in turn, who were malnourished or even facing starvation were too weak from hunger to accomplish anything of use, the Russian people and even the Red Army to which all the resources of the state was devoted, were facing shortages of uniforms because of major deficiencies in the production of cotton and other commodity goods. The fact that many resource-rich areas of Russia and elsewhere were under the control of the Whites, and that the international isolation of the Bolshevik regime prevented them from obtaining any foreign trade was an unpleasant addition to an already dire situation.
The end of the civil war brought an explosion of dissident activity against war communism. The draconian measures imposed by the Lenin government were something that could have been justified by the government during the height of the civil war, but after the war had ended and these same measures remained in place, the Soviet government was soon to the point where it was facing a series of uprisings against its authority by the very same people who had risen up alongside them during the Civil War. In essence, a government of the workers was increasingly beginning to face issues from the very people it claimed to represent.
With the Soviet Union still in poor shape, and an increasingly volatile situation with domestic unrest, the Lenin government, in desperation, turned to the New Economic Policy to change the way things were going in the Soviet Union...
The New Economic Policy was, in effect, a total retreat from the reviled and ultimately unsuccessful policy of War Communism, and according to many within the Communist Party, the New Economic policy was a departure from the socialist ideals upon which the Bolshevik government itself had been founded.
In essence, the NEP boiled down to the idea that introducing elements of a market-driven economy, as opposed to one driven entirely by the dictates of the state and by central planning, was something that could be more effective for the Bolsheviks than War Communism had been. Many would later be perplexed as to how the revolutionary government had ever made such a decision, but in reality the reason for which the NEP was created is quite simple: Revolutions, by their very nature, are organic things, constantly evolving and going through different phases as they progress and eventually the generation of leaders that lead the revolution settles down and sets about to transition from revolutionaries seeking to overthrow the government to revolutionaries seeking to become the government.
The Soviet government was an experiment entirely without precedent, and it too was facing the quandary posed to all revolutionary governments: the issue of reconciling ideology with the necessities of the state. War Communism, which had been derived from Marxism-Leninism, had failed, and failed miserably. The scale to which the policy of War Communism had failed did not simply justify updating the rulebook a little, it demanded throwing the book out entirely and starting from scratch.
The New Economic Policy had immediate, and promising effects for the Soviet economy. It is ultimately unknown what Lenin intended for the New Economic Policy, as is the question with many other unresolved questions about Lenin's plans for the Soviet Union that were interrupted by his untimely death. Whether the NEP was a temporary measure adopted during a particularly desperate phase of Soviet history, or a lasting policy change that would redefine the entire Soviet system. Opinions on it, however, were a divided matter among the Soviet leadership after Lenin's death. The left, particularly Trotsky, denounced it as betrayal of Soviet ideals, others, however, were more supportive of the concept, and for reasons of a political nature, as well as ideological ones.
The NEP was a divisive thing in the already-contentious Soviet political scene of the 1920's, some in the Communist leadership hated it, others wholeheartedly supported it. What no member of the Politburo could do, was ignore it.
(Just a hint for now. Questions? Comments? Concerns?)
What the rest of Europe saw was first and foremost a threat: a revolutionary government that had openly devoted itself to the overthrow of world capitalism and those governments that did not align themselves with the Soviet means of thinking. And worst of all, this government had proved capable of defending itself and fighting off not only the White Movement but also substantial contributions of forces from other nations as well. One by one the Bolsheviks had picked off their foes, both foreign and domestic, fighting with that eternal patience and determination that had defined Russia and other peoples of the area since the Kievan Rus, until they at last emerged triumphant, having bested all their foes and having defied the will of those who would have seen their revolution destroyed. Amidst all of this, the Bolshevik government and that of the Second Polish Republic, the first independent Polish state in centuries, had gone to war with each other, a conflict that very nearly resulted in the Bolshevik capture of Warsaw. For the world, this was a sign of a seemingly unbeatable foe, but also one that was committed to spreading its revolution at the end of a bayonet.
What had never been known however, was the extent of damage that had been done to the Soviet regime. Huge swathes of the country had been reduced to rubble by years of conflict from the Great War all the way to the Russian Civil War, millions had been killed, and millions more displaced or violently uprooted. The vital infrastructure that stitched together the largest nation on the face of the Earth was in ruins, and much of what had defined the Russian Empire had been lost in the turmoil and chaos of the revolution and the civil war that had followed it. Such was not an unprecedented event in world history, often it had been the case that once the period of revolutionary turmoil and internal strife had passed, that the foreboding and arduous reality began to set in: the Bolsheviks had won their conflict, but now they were responsible for rebuilding, a minority party that had never commanded the support of a majority of the population of Russia or any other area of the former Russian Empire and had survived through the abilities of talented, if ruthless and often fiercely quarrelsome individuals such as Josef Dzhugashvilli and Lev Davinovich Bronstein, better known as Stalin and Trotsky respectively, was now the government that would be responsible for repairing a broken country.
This is not to say that the Bolsheviks did not contribute their fair share to the mess that the Soviet Union had found for itself, to say that the policy of war communism, implemented by the Lenin government in 1918, was a disaster would be an understatement. Production levels in both manufacturing and agriculture had fallen to pre-1914 levels, peasants in the field grew only enough to sustain themselves, knowing that any extra would be seized by the government, factory workers, in turn, who were malnourished or even facing starvation were too weak from hunger to accomplish anything of use, the Russian people and even the Red Army to which all the resources of the state was devoted, were facing shortages of uniforms because of major deficiencies in the production of cotton and other commodity goods. The fact that many resource-rich areas of Russia and elsewhere were under the control of the Whites, and that the international isolation of the Bolshevik regime prevented them from obtaining any foreign trade was an unpleasant addition to an already dire situation.
The end of the civil war brought an explosion of dissident activity against war communism. The draconian measures imposed by the Lenin government were something that could have been justified by the government during the height of the civil war, but after the war had ended and these same measures remained in place, the Soviet government was soon to the point where it was facing a series of uprisings against its authority by the very same people who had risen up alongside them during the Civil War. In essence, a government of the workers was increasingly beginning to face issues from the very people it claimed to represent.
With the Soviet Union still in poor shape, and an increasingly volatile situation with domestic unrest, the Lenin government, in desperation, turned to the New Economic Policy to change the way things were going in the Soviet Union...
The New Economic Policy was, in effect, a total retreat from the reviled and ultimately unsuccessful policy of War Communism, and according to many within the Communist Party, the New Economic policy was a departure from the socialist ideals upon which the Bolshevik government itself had been founded.
In essence, the NEP boiled down to the idea that introducing elements of a market-driven economy, as opposed to one driven entirely by the dictates of the state and by central planning, was something that could be more effective for the Bolsheviks than War Communism had been. Many would later be perplexed as to how the revolutionary government had ever made such a decision, but in reality the reason for which the NEP was created is quite simple: Revolutions, by their very nature, are organic things, constantly evolving and going through different phases as they progress and eventually the generation of leaders that lead the revolution settles down and sets about to transition from revolutionaries seeking to overthrow the government to revolutionaries seeking to become the government.
The Soviet government was an experiment entirely without precedent, and it too was facing the quandary posed to all revolutionary governments: the issue of reconciling ideology with the necessities of the state. War Communism, which had been derived from Marxism-Leninism, had failed, and failed miserably. The scale to which the policy of War Communism had failed did not simply justify updating the rulebook a little, it demanded throwing the book out entirely and starting from scratch.
The New Economic Policy had immediate, and promising effects for the Soviet economy. It is ultimately unknown what Lenin intended for the New Economic Policy, as is the question with many other unresolved questions about Lenin's plans for the Soviet Union that were interrupted by his untimely death. Whether the NEP was a temporary measure adopted during a particularly desperate phase of Soviet history, or a lasting policy change that would redefine the entire Soviet system. Opinions on it, however, were a divided matter among the Soviet leadership after Lenin's death. The left, particularly Trotsky, denounced it as betrayal of Soviet ideals, others, however, were more supportive of the concept, and for reasons of a political nature, as well as ideological ones.
The NEP was a divisive thing in the already-contentious Soviet political scene of the 1920's, some in the Communist leadership hated it, others wholeheartedly supported it. What no member of the Politburo could do, was ignore it.
(Just a hint for now. Questions? Comments? Concerns?)
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