LECTURE No. 18. Economic thought in Russia (second half of the XNUMXth - early XNUMXth centuries)

1. The place of N. G. Chernyshevsky in the history of Russian and world economic thought

The economic legacy of Chernyshevsky is multifaceted and impressive. He is the author of numerous works, polemical and critical publications.

It is possible to single out the following areas of Chernyshevsky's work in the field of socio-political and economic topics.

1. Active criticism of the serfdom. An irreconcilable democrat, an excellent connoisseur of the peasant question, Chernyshevsky put forward and defended a program for the abolition of the serf system, the elimination of landlordism, and the transfer of land to the peasants without redemption.

After the reform of 1861, Chernyshevsky reveals its real meaning. The cycle of works of the scientist and publicist is completed by "Letters without an address". The main conclusion is that the desires of the peasants will not be carried out by a reform "from above", only a revolution can do this.

2. Analysis and detailed analysis of the works of famous economists, including the works of D. Ricardo, A. Smith, J. S. Mill. Chernyshevsky recognizes the validity of the classics' starting points, but finds contradictions in their works and believes that there should be no monopolists in economics as a science. Mill and other writers often treat particulars without noticing or ignoring general issues.

3. Development of your own concept (“Capital and Labor” - 1860; “Essays on Political Economy (according to Mill)” - 1861, etc.).

Based on the labor theory of value, on the provisions of the classical school, the scientist put forward his own interpretation of labor, its structure and significance. Productive labor is directed towards the satisfaction of material needs. Political economy is not the science of wealth, but is "the science of human well-being, insofar as it depends on things and conditions produced by labor."

The beginning of economic science, which is contained in the works of Ricardo and Mill, must be developed further and conclusions drawn that allow overcoming the limitations of bourgeois theory, rejecting the distortions introduced by vulgar economics, and presenting and substantiating the general features of the society of the future.

The scientist offers his interpretation of the main categories: value, capital, money, wages, profits. Exchange will play a minor role. Money will lose its true value.

In the future, the system will be based on "intrinsic value", which can be represented as the need of people, the usefulness of the goods produced. It will not be about price, but about a more efficient distribution of forces between industries.

The theory of the political economy of the working people, opposed by Chernyshevsky to the system of capitalist production, had a considerable influence on the formation of public consciousness. Chernyshevsky became one of the forerunners of populism.

2. Economic views of V. I. Lenin

Numerous works are devoted to the analysis of populist views: "On the so-called question of markets"; "What are 'friends of the people' and how do they fight against the Social Democrats"; "The economic content of populism and criticism of it in the book of Mr. Struve"; "The development of capitalism in Russia" and others. In fact, V. I. Lenin summarized all arguments directed against the concept of populism and the model of agrarian socialism.

First of all, Lenin considers unjustified the initial statement about the admissibility of the formation of a non-standard nationally oriented form of social structure. According to Lenin, finding original features in agriculture is nothing but a justification for backwardness.

Relying on Marx's schemes of reproduction, Lenin (like the "legal Marxists") rejects Vorontsov's postulate that society's limited demand hinders the formation of an internal market. The market is growing due to productive consumption. Capitalism is ruining the peasantry, dividing the direct producers into workers and capitalists. And this forms the internal market for capitalist production.

In the work "The Development of Capitalism in Russia" the process of formation of the Russian market and the involvement of peasants in the system of market relations is considered. Arguing with his opponents, V. I. Lenin substantiates the conclusion that capitalism actually already exists in Russia.

Lenin considers the agrarian question to be the main one in assessing the future socio-economic development of Russian society. Since Lenin did not share the views of populist economists regarding the specificity of the peasant reform and the possibility of the Russian way of eliminating landlordism, he proceeds from two possible variants of transformations. In accordance with this, the thesis about two ways of improving capitalism in agriculture (American and Prussian) is explained.

Arguing with R. Hilferding and K. Kautsky in his work "Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism", the author describes the main features of capitalism at the imperialist stage.

3. The first socialist transformations. War communism as a stage in the formation of the command-administrative system (1917-1921)

The Bolsheviks sought the complete destruction of private property.

In December 1917, foreign trade was placed under the control of the People's Commissariat of Trade and Industry, and in April 1918 it was declared a state monopoly. The refusal to pay the royal debts and the debts of the Provisional Government was announced.

The system of commodity exchange was introduced everywhere. On November 14, 1917, a decree was adopted on the establishment of workers' control in production. However, due to the sabotage of the industrialists and the inability of the workers to organize the management of enterprises, in May 1918 a policy of nationalization and state control over the nationalized enterprises was proclaimed. Large banks, enterprises, transport, large trading enterprises were nationalized. This became the basis of the socialist way of life.

120 Control functions were transferred to the Supreme Council of the National Economy. An 8-hour working day was introduced, the use of child labor was prohibited, and the payment of unemployment and sickness benefits became mandatory.

In the spring of 1918, a decree on land was put into effect, while the Bolsheviks supported the rural poor, thereby causing discontent among the wealthy peasants - the main producers of marketable bread. By refusing to hand over their grain, they put the Soviet government in a difficult position. In May 1918, the state declared a food dictatorship and began the forcible seizure of grain stocks from wealthy peasants.

The estate system was destroyed, pre-revolutionary ranks, titles and awards were abolished. Electiveness of judges was established, secularization of civil states was carried out. Established free medical care and education. Women have equal rights with men. The decree on marriage introduced the institution of civil marriage. The church is separated from the education system and the state. Much of the church property was confiscated.

On July 4, 1918, at the V Congress of Soviets, the Soviet Constitution was adopted, which proclaimed the creation of a new state - the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR). The bourgeoisie and landlords were deprived of their rights.

"War communism" - the socio-economic policy of the Soviet government during the civil war - provided for a very rapid transition to communism with the help of emergency measures. In the economic field, these were: surplus appropriation in the countryside, the complete nationalization of industry, the ban on private trade, the rejection of market forms of economic regulation, forced labor mobilization. In the political sphere - a dictatorship based on emergency bodies that replaced the Soviets. In the ideological field - the concept of socialism as a social system with the dominance of the state form of ownership and non-commodity production, the idea of ​​a quick victory of the world revolution, the course towards building socialism in the USSR.

For the period of "war communism" were familiar:

1) unsettled life, famine, epidemics, increased mortality;

2) "a man with a gun", his behavior influenced the behavior and thinking of people during the years of the civil war - mobilization, confiscation, "emergency", "fast" sentence, "red" and "white" terror;

3) moods of fear and hatred, rupture of family and friendship ties, readiness to fight, kill and be killed.

4. Growing crisis phenomena in the economy and the beginning of the NEP

By 1921, Russian industrial production was at the level of the times of Catherine II. The Bolshevik Party won, but emerged from the war divided by the struggle of factions, platforms and programs.

No sooner had one civil war ended than a new one, even more terrible, was ripe in the country. Peasant unrest broke out across the country, fueled by the ongoing surplus-appropriation policy. As soon as foreign intervention and white resistance began to weaken, the peasantry immediately declared its rejection of the surplus appropriation. If in the civil war that ended, the Bolsheviks defeated the white minority with the support of the peasant majority, then in the brewing civil war, almost the entire peasantry (except the poor) could resist them. Under these conditions, the retention of power by the Bolshevik party became questionable. The last fact that showed the intolerance of the situation with the surplus was the Kronstadt rebellion, because one of the forces supporting it, the army, came out against the authorities.

In March 1921 the question of the tax in kind arose. Thus began the New Economic Policy. The following measures were taken: the food tax replaced the food appropriation (2 times less), business and private trade were legalized, as well as the use of hired labor of farm laborers in the countryside.

The NEP declared civil peace instead of civil war, but at the same time in 1921-1922. The first political trials of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries began, as a result of which these parties were banned by law, and persecution began against their members. At the same time, the intelligentsia was deported from the country. The initiative of the party members was constrained; they could not conduct a discussion and even the usual exchange of opinions, so necessary for the only ruling party, when there was no serious scientific and political examination of the decisions it adopted.

But despite all the difficulties and difficulties, crises and conflicts, the NEP surprisingly quickly produced beneficial results. For 5 - 7 years, NEP Russia restored the pre-war (1913) level of production, that is, during this time it did as much as it took tsarist Russia a century and a quarter. The New Economic Policy made it possible to optimally combine the interests of the state, society and the worker. Tens of millions of people got the opportunity to profitably work for themselves, the state and society. And this concerted effort has made a salutary breakthrough; in addition, NEP found the optimal combination of capitalism in the basis, i.e., in the economy, and socialist ideas in the socio-political sphere - what will later be called a mixed economy and a welfare state. It is also necessary to take into account the enthusiasm of the Soviet people, who themselves created their own destiny, wrote the history of the country and even world history. But such an effective policy, albeit not devoid of internal contradictions that were worth solving, was abandoned by the Soviet government.

In October 1929, the NEP was finally curtailed. Some members of the party understood that the continuation of the NEP for them could result in a loss of power. There were also social rank and file, which existed during the civil war at the expense of state distributions, and now have lost this convenient source of subsistence. In addition, the workers of the defense complex during the years of the NEP détente began to live worse than the proletariat of civilian industries. They also turned out to be dissatisfied with the NEP and became the social support of the supporters of its curtailment. The administrative-command system, which was formed mainly during the years of the civil war, received "room for development" after the collapse of the NEP.

5. Changes in the monetary and credit-financial sphere

To carry out the NEP, a stable monetary system and the stabilization of the ruble were necessary. People's Commissar for Finance G. Sokolnikov was against the issue of money, but was not understood. The issue continued, and only by a miracle did not materialize the plan of the complete annulment of money and the closure of the People's Commissariat of Finance as unnecessary.

To stabilize the ruble, banknotes were denominated, and in 1922 Soviet signs were issued. The new ruble was equal to 10 former rubles. In 000, other Soviet signs were issued, 1923 ruble of which was equal to 1 rubles issued in 100. Along with this, a new Soviet currency was issued - a chervonets, equal to 1922 g of pure gold or a pre-revolutionary gold 7,74-ruble coin. The value of chervonets was high: the monthly salary of skilled workers was about 10-6 chervonets, but no more. They were intended for lending to industry and commercial organizations in the wholesale trade. The State Bank was forbidden to use chervonets to compensate for the budget deficit, which ensured their anti-inflationary stability for 7-3 years.

In 1922 stock exchanges opened. There was a purchase and sale of government bonds, currency, gold at a free rate. The State Bank bought up gold and foreign currency, if the gold exchange rate exceeded the official parity, issued an additional amount of money, and vice versa. Therefore, during 1923, the exchange rate of the chervonets exceeded the exchange rate of foreign currencies. The final stage of the reform was the procedure for the redemption of Soviet signs. In February 1924, the USSR began issuing change coins in denominations from the ruble to the kopeck.

At the same time, tax reform was carried out. The main source of state budget revenues was not taxes from the population, but deductions from the profits of enterprises. The transition from natural to monetary taxation of peasant farms was the result of a return to a market economy. Taxes are imposed on matches, tobacco, beer, honey, spirits, mineral waters and other goods.

The credit system was gradually restored. In 1921, the State Bank began its work again. Lending to trade and industry enterprises on a commercial basis has started.

In the summer of 1922, a subscription was opened for the first state grain loan. It was another step towards stabilizing the financial system.

A network of joint-stock banks is being created. The shareholders were the State Bank, cooperatives, syndicates, foreign entrepreneurs, individuals. Basically, these banks lend to certain industries. Commercial credit was often used - mutual lending by various enterprises and organizations.

The money supply continued to increase. From July to December 1925, compared with 1924, it increased one and a half times. There was a threat of inflation. In September 1925, there was an increase in commodity prices and a shortage of essential products. The measures taken by the government only led to the depletion of foreign exchange reserves. Since July 1926, it was prohibited to export chervonets abroad. This was done to exclude the sale of foreign currency, which was only allowed to be carried by those traveling abroad.

Authors: Eliseeva E.L., Ronshina N.I.

<< Back: Economic development of Russia in the 19th century. (The Crimean War and its impact on the economic situation in the country. General characteristics of the economic development of Russia in the first half of the 1860th century. Economic prerequisites for the elimination of serfdom. Abolition of serfdom. Stratification of the Russian village. Main types of agricultural farms and their characteristics. Bourgeois reforms of Alexander II and their consequences. Zemstvo reform Urban reform Judicial reform Military reform Educational reforms Financial reform Basic provisions of the legislation on peasants The situation of agriculture in the 1870-XNUMXs Agrarian reform of P. A. Stolypin)

>> Forward: Economic development of the USSR (The economy of the USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet economy during the war. Post-war development of the national economy. The country on the eve of reforms. Reform of the Soviet economic system. Transformations in the social sphere. The economy of developed socialism. The search for new forms and methods of management. Reforms of the 1960-1970s years: essence, goals, methods and results)

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