Politics of War Communism

Military communism is a policy that was implemented by the Soviet government during the Civil War. Then the policy of military communism presupposed the nationalization of large and medium-sized industry, the surplus-appropriation, the nationalization of banks, labor service, the refusal to use money, and the state monopoly on foreign trade. In addition, the policy of war communism is characterized by free transport, cancellation of payment for medical services, free education, and lack of payment for utilities. One of the main features that we can characterize this policy is the most severe centralization of the economy.

When they talk about the reasons for Bolshevik conduct of such a policy, it often speaks of the fact that the policy of military communism was consistent with the Marxist ideology of the Bolsheviks, their ideas about the onset of communism, universal equality, and so on. However, this point of view is incorrect. The point is that the Bolsheviks themselves stressed in their speeches that the policy of war communism is a temporary phenomenon, and it was caused by the most severe conditions of the civil war. Bolshevik Bogdanov, even before the establishment of communist power, wrote that such a system derives from the conditions of war. He was the first to suggest that such a system be called military communism. A number of historians also say that military communism is a system caused by objective factors, and similar systems have been found in other countries and with other governments in similar extreme conditions. For example, a surplus-system is a system by which a peasant gave food at prices that the state established. Quite popular is the myth that the Bolsheviks invented the surplus-appropriation. In fact, the surplus-appropriation was introduced by the tsarist government in the conditions of the First World War. It turns out that many measures of military communism are not specific inventions of socialist thought, but universal methods of survival of the state economy under extreme conditions.
However, the policy of military communism implied also phenomena that can be attributed to socialist innovations. This, for example, free transportation, cancellation of payment for medical services, free education, lack of payment for utilities. It will be difficult to find examples when the state is in the most severe conditions and at the same time conducts similar transformations. Although, perhaps, these events not only corresponded to the Marxist ideology, but also contributed to the growth of the popularity of the Bolsheviks.
For a long time such a policy could not be maintained, and it was not needed in peacetime conditions. Over time, the crisis of the policy of war communism was on, as evidenced by constant peasant uprisings. During the Civil War, the peasants believed that all deprivation was a temporary phenomenon, that after the victory of the Communists, it would be easier to live. When the war was over, the peasants no longer saw any sense in over-centralization. If the beginning of the policy of military communism is associated with 1918, the end of military communism is considered to be 1921, when the surplus-appropriation was abolished, and in its place was introduced a tax in kind.
Military communism - a phenomenon that was caused by objective reasons, was a forced measure and was canceled when the need for it disappeared. Many repeated peasant uprisings, as well as events in Kronstadt (the insurrection of sailors in 1921) contributed to the curtailment of this policy. We can assume that military communism fulfilled the main task: the state managed to withstand, save the economy and win in the Civil War.