The close of the Russian Civil War may be taken as any time from 1921-23. The USSR was established in 1922. After this the wrecked land began to stabilise. Pestilence stalked the blighted land. Hospitals had more or less ceased to be. They had been bombarded, burnt, looted and neglected. Many medical staff had left the country. Little medical equipment was functional and medicines were seldom to be had for love or money. The USSR did not have much of the wherewithal to produce drusg for herself and had precious little foreign exchange with which to buy such needfuls. A decade of destruction and slaughter had set the USSR back 20 years. Now it was time to try to climb out of the hole.
There was near starvation going on in the cities. This had been the case for some time. Peasants had little incentive to sell excess produce to urbanites as the official price was so low and black marketeering was severely penalised. Excess grain was normally turned into vodka. There were very few products or services in a city that the average agricultural would want or afford. Red Army requisition platoons patrolled the villages and demanded that peasants hand over food. Very little was forthcoming. Therefore the Red Army had to threaten and punish them. It was little different from armed robbery. That was certainly how most peasants perceived it. A law was promulgated that stated that anyone who informed on a grain hoarder would be rewarded with some of that grain for himself. This yielded some positive results but nowhere near enough. Peasants handed over what they had an implored a disbelieving Red commissar this was all the food they had. Often the peasants claim was true. Eventually most of the top leaders of the USSR had to recognise reality. Coercing the peasantry into producing and handing over food was just not working. How could the state make it worth a peasants while to produce more and to sell it? Make the price higher. How much higher? Let the market decide. This was called the New Economic Policy or NEP. It would have been more accurate to dub it the Old economic Policy.
The NEP caused a most almighty row within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This was a return to capitalism, was it not? It was a betrayal of the cause of the workers. It would entrench exploitation. The peasants who did not willingly hand over their food to requisition platoons were petit bourgeoisie and must be punished as enemies of the people. Lenin argued for the NEP. The CPSU sometimes had to do things that were deeply distasteful. The CPSU had agreed to the loathsome Brest-Litovsk Treaty. It had been absolutely vital to saving the revolution. So too the NEP was necessary to arresting the ongoing starvation of the Soviet people. It was not just food supply that would be altered but all forms of production and service. With difficulty Lenin cajoled the CPSU into voting to allow the NEP.
Within months the NEP began to bear fruit. NEP men as they were known went out into villages, bought food and brought it back into cities to sell it at a handsome profit. NEP men were able to make good appear in the shops and to get services functioning again.
The USSR decided to make the most of its artistic heritage. Wealthy foreign capitalists were invited to the USSR to view and purchase treasures that had belonged to the Tsar and the nobility. This provided much needed hard currency as the rouble was almost worthless abroad. Many of this foreign art collectors were fellow travelers. If they were not grossly hypocritical rich people who espoused Communism they were often close to it. Of course a few were mere profiteers. Rather than let art rot in unappreciative philistine hands it was better to let it be valued by others.
The USSR’s effort to abolish illiteracy were quite successful. Books were sold more cheaply than bread.
The UK re-established diplomatic and trade relations with the USSR. The Communists were here to stay. Pique in refusing to recognise this fact would not undue the reality. Besides, there were some lucrative business opportunities to be had for the asking in the USSR. The USSR needed equipment to rebuild its industrial base.
Lenin had a stroke and had to recuperate in the countryside. For most Soviets healthcare was virtually non-existent. There was a severe shortage of medical staff, drugs and equipment. The apparatchiki was the new aristocracy. They did not let their egalitarian platitudes get in the way of obtaining the very best for themselves. Soviet medical care was seldom good enough for them. The Politburo often voted its members some weeks of rest cure in the most esteemed health spas and sanatoria in Germany and Switzerland. The top Communist officials had modest salaries but everything was provided to them by the state – clothes, food, housing and so on. The Politburo voted its members extra cash payments from time to time.
The press, stage and books were severely censored. They all had to glorify the CPSU and denigrate its opponents. For writers who extolled the manifold virtues of the Red liberation the plaudits and material rewards were handsome.
Lenin, in view of his condition, was contemplating posterity. He drew up his last will and testament. Who would come after him? He did not nominate an heir? Did he not see a decent one? Did he not wish to weaken his own position in the interim? Perhaps he wished there to be a collective leadership. He wrote scathingly of Stalin. His words on Trotsky were also acerbic. Of Stalin he said that he was too rude to have the paramount post.
Lenin recovered from semi-paralysis but never fully.
In January 1924 he suffered another attack of cerebral arteriosclerosis. He died.
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