Lenin and the Question of Private Trade in Soviet Russia

Abstract

Few official changes of course in the Soviet Union have been as dramatic as the adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921. Supplanting what had come to be called War Communism (1918-1920)—a boiling mixture of revolutionary euphoria, bitter civil war, foreign intervention, economic collapse, and growing peasant unrest—NEP represented a new departure in many areas of Soviet life. First and foremost, eyewitnesses were struck by the legalization of a considerable amount of private economic activity, in contrast to the harsh measures adopted by the Bolsheviks against the private sector during War Communism.While this change seemed an improvement to most foreigners on the scene (and undoubtedly to most Russians), revolutionaries of diverse hues regarded the legalization of private trade in 1921 as a clear signal that the Bolsheviks had jettisoned the ideals of the Revolution.