Wage Policy in the Transition to NEP

Abstract

The New Economic Policy is commonly dated from the Tenth Party Congress in March of 1921, but that meeting only ratified two departures from previous practice. The replacement of grain requisitioning with a tax in kind and the legalization of private trade were major changes with far-reaching implications, but it took months to work out these implications and even longer to implement them. Neither the piecemeal character nor the time that elapsed between formulation and implementation made NEP an unusual episode in the history of Soviet policy-making. However, the unusually volatile economic conditions of the early years of the Soviet regime combined with the delay to produce an extraordinary effect on policy. NEP, as it was originally conceived, never came to fruition. Conditions changed so rapidly that the policy that was eventually put in place often bore little resemblance to the policy-makers' intentions. The transition between War Communism and NEP actually occurred in two phases, during the first of which Bolshevik policymakers were active, during the second reactive. The first phase saw the articulation of plans and policy that deliberately moved away from War Communism, the second saw those plans abandoned as policy had to adapt to changing conditions. The ultimate package of policies we call NEP reflected the events of both phases. A clear understanding of the politics of the transition requires a careful separation of its two phases. However, scholarly literature has tended to portray a single undifferentiated change from War Communism to NEP and has judged original Bolshevik intentions by the New Economic Policy in its final form. This tendency may account for certain ambiguities in the interpretation of Bolshevik sentiments towards War Communism and NEP. NEP is usually treated as a betrayal of the Party's ideals that provoked widespread despair and opposition among Party members,1 but some authors also stress the high level of support the policy enjoyed. According to Fitzpatrick, NEP was undertaken