To some of its chief advocates, NEP held out the prospect of greater Soviet exposure to the international economy, which had been severely curtailed between 1914 and 1920 (although in March 1920 Lenin signed a huge order for foreign railway equipment). In fact, foreign intervention during the civil war suggested that European powers had extensive economic ambitions for the Russian borderlands, such as the Caucasus. Could those interests be harnessed to the task of socialist economic construction? To be sure, trade agreements were signed and some foreign capitalists established concessions in sectors such as timber and minerals (manganese, lead and precious metals). Technical assistance was imported - the memoirs of foreign specialists provide valuable insights into the birth pangs of the Soviet economy -but the results were far less impressive than Grinevetskii had envisaged. The diminished grain marketings mentioned below hindered the recovery of foreign trade, and the trade deficit continued to increase. By 1926 the Soviet rouble had ceased to be a convertible currency. This hardly betokened a commitment to internationalisation.
Meanwhile, the early years of NEP coincided with the formation of the Soviet Union. During the period of War Communism large and resource- rich parts of the country such as Siberia, the Caucasus and Ukraine had been controlled by the Bolsheviks' opponents. The challenge now was to reconfigure the internal economic relations of the new country. The creation of national republics and autonomous regions meant, according to one dyspeptic observer, that the national question was looked at 'through "economic eyes" - Turkestan means cotton, lemons, etc.; Kirgizia wool, cattle; Bashkiria timber, hides, cattle'.[4] That description appeared to confirm rather than to overturn existing regional specialisation. Indeed the Soviet policy of 'nativisa- tion' (korenizatsiia) did not extend to the economic sphere, at least so far as the division of labour was concerned. Programmes for 'national' development might reduce the economic role of non-indigenous groups, who sometimes portrayed themselves as victims of 'bullying' by the indigenes. Yet there were limits to the latter's leverage: in regions of labour shortage, such as Karelia, the nationalist leadership complained about Russian in-migration, but no constituent republic was allowed to place restrictions on population resettlement (the new word for colonisation). Capital investment and migration were to be determined by the broad strategic goals of all-Union modernisation and security. Any resulting economic 'equalisation' would be a by-product rather than a guiding principle of economic policy.
Why did NEP come to an end? Opinions have been divided between structuralists, for whom the system was inherently unstable, and intentionalists, who point to the consequences of policy mistakes at the end of the decade. It is clear that important issues remained unresolved under NEP. Unemployment persisted to an unacceptably high extent (in industry it reached around 14 per cent in 1927); transport, education, health and defence were deprived of resources; the technological level of Soviet industry left muchto be desired; and the pattern of industrial location remained largely pre-Soviet. Yet the system was evidently capable of delivering economic growth and marked improvements in the quality of life. The difficulty was that these advantages seemed to count for little when set alongside the manifestations of social division and defence concerns. The system was dealt a fatal blow in 1927-8. In spring 1927 the party committed itself to more rapid industrialisation, increasing investment and credits to state enterprises, and simultaneously reducing the retail price of industrial products. The Russian countryside suffered a goods shortage, exacerbating existing problems (grain marketings had declined as a proportion of agricultural output, and by the mid-i920s were little more than half the pre-war level). In 1928 the authorities resolved to criminalise 'speculation', in a measure designed to put pressure on those, particularly rich 'kulaks' and Nepmen, who were believed to be hoarding grain. In essence Stalin's adoption in January 1928 of the 'Urals-Siberian method', so called because of the regions where the measures were first applied, abrogated the social contract that had been instituted with the peasantry in March i92i. Stalin did not refrain from speaking of 'tribute' in justifying the need to apply force in order to procure grain at low prices.[5]
The New Economic Policy has had a good press from many Western observers (as well as from the advocates of perestroika during the 1980s), who associate it with an era of relative political freedom and cultural experimentation before the onset of Stalinism. However, the underlying rationale of NEP was at odds with the cultural intelligentsia's contempt for the profane world of commerce and the profit motive - 'romantic anti-capitalism', in Katerina Clark's words.[6] In less exalted society, too, NEP failed to register except as a framework that promoted the visibility and the prosperity of the 'money- grabbing' merchant (Nepman), the 'kulak', and the 'bourgeois specialist' - all of whom actually provided important services - without apparently doing much to improve job prospects and social welfare. The Stalinist political leadership took advantage of this disaffection, as well as with the misgivings mentioned earlier about housing, health and so forth, to launch a radically different system after 1928.
Great leaps forward (11): the Five-Year Plans and collectivisation
The adoption of the First Five-Year Plan in i928 marks the next attempt to engineer rapid economic growth by means of concerted state intervention. With its ambitious targets for capital investment, increased labour productivity and the expansion of output, the Five-Year Plan (FYP) reflected a clear redirection in Soviet life. Cultural revolution affected economics no less than other forms of intellectual activity. Enthusiasts such as Strumilin, who espoused a 'teleological' commitment to economic planning, triumphed over economists such as Groman, Varzar and Kafengauz, who preferred an 'organic' approach to growth. In this atmosphere, one hallmark of which was a pronounced militarisation of economic rhetoric, it took considerable courage to proclaim the need for caution. As Strumilin put it in 1929, 'specialists prefer to stand for high rates of growth rather than to sit in jail (sidet') for low ones'.
Why then did the Communist Party commit itself to a new course? Apart from the distasteful encouragement that NEP appeared to give to 'hostile' elements, the existing economic system had not 'solved' the questions of unemployment and the foreign trade deficit. A commitment to rapid industrial growth implied the absorption of unemployed labour, import substitution and the creation of a modern defence industry, something that a war scare in 1927 made yet more imperative. The decision to embark on industrialisation meant a decision, in the words of Maurice Dobb, to forsake 'the slow rhythm of the plough for the more complex rhythm of the machine', with Gosplan conducting from Stalin's score and Stalin tolerating no dissent from the orchestral forces.
4
Quoted in E. H. Carr,
6
Katerina Clark,