The . (New Economic Policy) | What Was It And Why Did It Happen?

In today’s video, I want to talk a little bit about something called the . which stands for the New Economic Policy. This was put into place in Russia very shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution and immediately after the Civil War that followed it. The reason why I want to talk about it today is because there were very significant reasons as to why the . was implemented and the main reason why I want to talk about it, is also because I always hear people, typically Anarchists, using the term ‘State-Capitalist’ to criticise the Soviet Union and other actual existing Socialist countries. At first, it really didn’t make sense to me as to why they were saying this, but when I finally decided, you know, I’ve really got to look into this, it becomes quite easy to see that the Anarchists are essentially just regurgitating right-wing propaganda when it comes to existing Socialist countries because they use the terms ‘Red Fascist’ or ‘Red Bureaucracy’ a lot. So, in order to talk about the . and why it was put into place, we need to go over a lot of other factors because the material conditions that Russia was faced with before and during the time of the . were the biggest influencer to it being established in the 1920s. The New Economic Policy was a transition from Capitalism to Socialism. Some people, typically Anarchists, again, will try to say that Lenin was a State-Capitalist because of the implementation of the ., but this is so far from the truth. Lenin was a Communist and he wanted to build Socialism. When the . was established, the proletariat of Russia had actually conquered state power. Large industries were being nationalised and put into the hands of the state. But, Russia, at the time, was not officially a Socialist country yet because their agriculture was largely in the private sector still. Even though Lenin wasn’t a State-Capitalist himself, he did refer to the . as State-Capitalist. So, in other words, the New Economic Policy was basically the preparation for Socialism or should I say, the preparation for Socialist construction. The big reason for why it was implemented was because of how very backward the Russian Empire was; it was a semi-feudal backwater and most people were peasants. This means that they didn’t have the necessary productive forces or the economic characteristics necessary for the construction of Socialism right away, and the Bolsheviks simply inherited these backward material conditions when they came to power, and so this is why the Soviet Union literally had to build itself up from scratch. Another reason why the . was later established after the civil war was because the emergency policy of “War Communism“ was highly unpopular with the peasantry because all surplus grain that was produced was taken by the Bolsheviks at a fixed price. There was a good reason for this though, as the civil war was currently going on, and so urban workers and Red Army soldiers needed to be fed. But, “War Communism“ was not Socialism, it was a war-time policy, and that’s what has to be understood. Therefore, when the civil war ended in 1921, so did “War Communism“. Where the . differed from “War Communism“ was that it actually enabled a small and limited grain market with price controls. ---SOME GOOD RESOURCES--- “On Contradiction” - Mao Tse Tung: “The Peasant Question In France And Germany” - Friedrich Engels: #:~:text=Engels’ The Peasant Question in,of German Social-Democrats). “RE: The USSR Was Never Socialist!” - TheFinnishBolshevik: Lenin’s Speech On The Middle Peasants: Lenin’s Speech On The Consumers’ And Producers’ Cooperative Societies: Lenin’s Speech Explaining Soviet Power: “The New Economic Policy And The Tasks Of The Political Education Departments“ - Lenin: My Instagram: