War communism
War communism, also called military communism, was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1921. War communism began in June 1918, enforced by the Supreme Economic Council. It ended on 21 March 1921, with the beginning of the New Economic Policy, which lasted until 1928. The system has often been described as simple authoritarian control by the ruling and military castes to maintain power and control in the Soviet regions, rather than any coherent political ideology. The Soviet propaganda justified it by claiming that the Bolsheviks adopted this policy with the goal of keeping towns and the Red Army stocked with food and weapons since circumstances dictated new economic measures.
The deadly Russian famine of 1921–22 was in part triggered by Vladimir Lenin's war communism policies, especially food requisitioning. However, the famine was preceded by bad harvests, harsh winter, drought especially in the Volga Valley which was exacerbated by a range of factors including the war, the presence of the White Army and the methods of war communism. The outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and typhus were also contributing factors to the famine casualties.
Policies
War communism included the following policies:- Nationalization of all industries and the introduction of strict centralized management
- State control of foreign trade
- Strict discipline for workers, with strikes forbidden
- Obligatory labor duty by non-working classes
- Prodrazvyorstka – requisition of agricultural surplus from peasants for centralized distribution among the remaining population
- Rationing of food and most commodities, with centralized distribution in urban centers
- Private enterprise banned
- Military-style control of the railways
Nationalization
Initially, the state introduced "workers' control" via factory committees. This failed because workers prioritized immediate material needs, leading to the "eating up" of capital and the cannibalization of factory equipment for private sale. Following the June 28, 1918 Decree, the state nationalized all large-scale and some medium-scale industries, including sugar, oil, and the merchant fleet. By the end of the Civil War, roughly 37,000 enterprises were nationalized. In November 1920, the state nationalized even small-scale industries with as few as 5 to 10 workers, including village smithies, windmills, and small tailoring workshops. The state also established a monopoly on foreign trade and grain supplies.The push for the nationalization of apartments and rooms began with a draft proposal on November 25, 1917, and was officially finalized by the decree of August 20, 1918. This decree effectively abolished all private transactions involving real estate, including sales, purchases, and mortgages in cities. In rural areas, the requisition of houses was often handled by village assemblies. The primary targets were "rich" apartments, defined as those where the number of rooms exceeded the number of family members. When these apartments were seized, owners were often forced to leave all furniture behind for the new occupants. In 1919, the state established a formal housing norm of 8–9 square meters per person. This led to a process known as "squeezing", where multiple families were forced into large formerly bourgeois apartments to meet the new density requirements. This process was the origin of the communal apartment.
To manage the nationalized economy, the state created the Supreme Council of National Economy. Management was centralized through dozens of "Glavks", such as the Main Forest Committee or the Emergency Committee for the procurement of felt boots.
Food requisitioning
By February 1918, the "Law on the Socialization of Land" formally established a state monopoly on bread reserves, effectively stripping the rural population of the right to manage their own agricultural output. The practical implementation of food requisitioning evolved into a "food dictatorship" led by the People's Commissariat of Food under the direction of Alexander Tsyurupa. Initially, the state attempted a "product exchange" to barter industrial goods for grain, but this effort failed due to ideological mismanagement and the state's inability to provide sufficient manufactured products. This failure led to the decree of May 13, 1918, which granted Narkomprod extraordinary powers to seize grain by force. By January 1919, the state shifted to Prodrazvyorstka, where the central authorities determined the state's needs and mandated the seizure of that amount, regardless of the peasants' actual surplus or survival needs. To enforce these seizures, the state mobilized a militarized apparatus known as the Food Army. These units, along with worker-led food detachments, were deployed to the countryside to identify and confiscate hidden reserves, often operating as "military-raider gangs" that committed widespread abuses. Complementing these forces were the Committees of the Poor, established in June 1918 to act as "Communist Red Guards" within villages.In "debtor" villages that failed to meet quotas, authorities took hostages and held them until the required grain was produced. Reports sent to Lenin described horrific abuses: peasants who failed to comply were stripped naked and driven into the streets, doused with cold water in the winter, or frozen in unheated sheds. The consequence of this aggressive policy was the eruption of a widespread peasant war against the Soviet state. July 1918 alone witnessed over 200 uprisings, and by 1920–1921, insurgent movements like the Tambov rebellion involved as many as 120,000 participants. To crush these revolts, the Red Army utilized heavy artillery and, in 1921, even used poison gas against rebels hiding in forests. Economically, the requisitioning policy proved catastrophic; peasants responded by drastically cutting their sowing areas to avoid seizures, causing grain yields in major regions to plummet to one-quarter of pre-war levels by 1920.
Militarization of labor
Lenin was heavily influenced by the German model of 'War Socialism', characterizing it as a 'military prison for workers' yet also as the necessary material preparation for socialism. He advocated the use of 'barbaric means' to accelerate the implementation of such centralized control in Russia. This policy intensified in early 1920 following major victories in the Civil War; by that time, roughly 4,000 enterprises had already been nationalized. Trotsky, the primary architect and vocal proponent of this system, explicitly stated: 'We do not know free labor... we represent a state that considers itself unfree toward its citizens and, in turn, grants no freedom to those citizens'."The state implemented extensive forms of coercion and mobilization to sustain the economy and the revolution amidst the severe crisis of the civil war. The foundation of this system was the universal labor principle, which transformed labor from a personal choice into a compulsory social obligation for all citizens under the constitutional slogan "who does not work shall not eat". Another distinct organizational form of mobilization was the creation of labor armies '', which repurposed existing Red Army units for economic tasks during periods of temporary truce. These units maintained their military command structures while performing mass labor projects like logging, transport repair, and agricultural harvesting.
Abolition of private trade and markets
The Bolsheviks believed that socialism was synonymous with the destruction of the commodity economy. Lenin argued that if exchange remained, it was "ridiculous to even speak of socialism," as free trade inevitably led to the growth of capitalism.On November 21, 1918, a decree was passed to organize supply, which abolished the remaining private trade apparatus and transferred the responsibility for providing all household and personal goods to the People's Commissariat for Food.
Open-air markets, such as Moscow's famous Sukharevka, were viewed as remnants of the bourgeois order. By late 1920, the government took decisive steps to permanently close Sukharevka and disperse small traders in major squares to end private enterprise.
The state engaged in unrestricted currency emission, deliberately devaluing the ruble until it could be dispensed with. By May 1918, one ruble was worth only one kopek compared to 1914 prices. The term "bank" was officially abolished, and all remaining banking functions were merged into the State Treasury. Securities, stocks, bonds, and citizens' savings were annulled or frozen.
In late 1920 and early 1921, a series of decrees abolished payments for state services to transition toward "communist" free distribution. This included making housing, railway transport, food rations, fuel, medicine, post, and telephone services free for urban residents.
Food and goods distribution
The Bolshevik government implemented a centralized system of consumption control known as the class ration. In July 1918, the state formalised the division of the urban population into four categories:- Category 1: Those engaged in especially heavy physical labor.
- Category 2: Workers engaged in ordinary physical labor, the sick, and children.
- Category 3: White-collar workers, intelligentsia, and family members of workers.
- Category 4: The 'bourgeoisie' and non-laboring elements, including former owners and traders.
While the masses struggled with the class ration, the Bolsheviks established a parallel system of "Special Distribution" for the elite and essential personnel. In May 1919, the Orgburo created a special fund of consumer goods outside the general plan to satisfy the needs of central government employees and those on special missions. In December 1919, a highly classified ration was established for "irreplaceable specialists." Managed by S. E. Chutskayev, this "arch-secret" list initially included 200 people, expanding to 370 by mid-1920. Unlike the meager "class rations" given to the public, a special ration typically included meat, butter, sugar, coffee, tea, and tobacco. Records from the VTsIK food department show that high-ranking officials like Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky received individual deliveries. For example, in November 1920, Lenin's family received priority supplies eight times, including luxury items such as caviar, cheese, and sweets.
Background and aims
Historians have noted that both Tsarist Russia government councils and other opposition parties had advocated for food requisitioning prior to the ascent of the Bolsheviks. However, the goals of the Bolsheviks in implementing war communism are a matter of controversy. Some commentators, including a number of Bolsheviks, have argued that its sole purpose was to win the war. Vladimir Lenin, for instance, said that "the confiscation of surpluses from the peasants was a measure with which we were saddled by the imperative conditions of war-time." Other Bolsheviks, such as Yurii Larin, Lev Kritzman, Leonid Krasin, and Nikolai Bukharin, argued that it was a transitional step towards socialism. Commentators, such as the historian Richard Pipes, the philosopher Michael Polanyi, and economists, such as Paul Craig Roberts or Sheldon L. Richman, have argued that war communism was actually an attempt to immediately eliminate private property, commodity production and market exchange, and in that way to implement communist economics, and that the Bolshevik leaders expected an immediate and large-scale increase in economic output. This view was also held by Bukharin, who said that "We conceived War Communism as the universal, so to say 'normal' form of the economic policy of the victorious proletariat and not as being related to the war, that is, conforming to a definite state of the civil war".Results
Military
War communism was largely successful at its primary purpose of aiding the Red Army in halting the advance of the White Army, and in helping the Bolsheviks to re-conquer most of the territory of the former Russian Empire.Social
In the cities and surrounding countryside, the population experienced hardships as a result of the war. Peasants, because of the extreme scarcity, were beginning to refuse to co-operate in giving food for the war effort. Workers began migrating from the cities to the countryside, where the chances to feed themselves were higher, thus further decreasing the possibility of barter of industrial goods for food and worsening the plight of the remaining urban population and further weakening the economy and industrial production.Between 1918 and 1920, Petrograd lost 70% of its population, while Moscow lost over 50%. Barrier troops were also used to enforce Bolshevik control over food supplies in areas controlled by the Red Army to protect against raids from anti-communist forces.A series of workers' strikes and peasants' rebellions against war communism policies broke out all over the country, such as the Tambov Rebellion, which was neutralized by the Red Army. A turning point came with the Kronstadt rebellion at the Kronstadt naval base in early March 1921, which also ended with a Bolshevik victory. The rebellion startled Lenin because Bolsheviks considered Kronstadt sailors the "reddest of the reds". The nature of these uprisings and their leadership were also of significant concern because they were generally left-wing uprisings led by opposition leftists, thus creating competition with the Bolsheviks. According to David Christian, the Cheka, the state Communist Party secret police, reported 118 peasant uprisings in February 1921.
The food dictatorship also dealt a heavy blow to local Soviets. When Soviets in Saratov, Samara, Simbirsk, and elsewhere—where the majority of delegates protected peasant interests—abolished fixed prices and restored free trade, Moscow responded with the decree of May 27, 1918, abolishing the autonomy of local Soviets and concentrating power in the hands of the central Food Commissariat. The Menshevik historian Abramovich bitterly remarked that "those seeking freedom had returned to the old bureaucracy".
Prior to October 1917, the Provisional Government maintained relatively high ration levels. However, following the Bolshevik takeover, these rations were drastically slashed to extreme levels. By the autumn of 1920, a magazine satirically remarked that an entire monthly food ration for one person could fit inside a 'tiny pocket box'. By mid-1918, although nominal wages were 15 times higher than in 1913, workers could only buy five times fewer products than before the war. In the spring of 1919, bread provision through the state system in the Volga region did not exceed 75%, while potato provision was as low as 8%. The bread issued was often of poor quality, heavily mixed with surrogates and impurities.
David Christian, in his book Imperial and Soviet Russia, summarises the state of Russia in 1921 after years of war communism:
A government claiming to represent the people now found itself on the verge of being overthrown by that same working class. The crisis had undermined the loyalty of the villages, the towns and finally sections of the army. It was fully as serious as the crises faced by the tsarist government in 1905 and February 1917.
The deadly Russian famine of 1921–22, which killed about five million people, battered an already war-torn Russia. The measures were harsh, but it did help the Bolsheviks to win the Civil War and stabilize the crisis of the nation. Trotsky had proposed the principles underlying the N.E.P. in 1921 to the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to mitigate urgent economic matters arising from war communism and reproached Lenin privately about the delayed government response in 1922–1923.