Prodrazvyorstka
Encyclopedia
Prodrazvyorstka , translated as food apportionment or surplus appropriation system, was a government
al program in Russia
which obliged peasantry to surrender the surpluses of almost any kind of agricultural produce for a fixed price. The absolute limit of a given product for personal or household needs was pre-determined by the state.
The term is commonly associated with war communism
during the Russian Civil War
when it was introduced by the Bolshevik
government. However Bolsheviks borrowed the idea from the grain razvyorstka introduced in the Russian Empire
during the World War I
, in 1916.
, its transportation by railroads collapsed. In addition, the food market was in disarray. Fixed prices for government purchases were unattractive. Razvyorstka was introduced by the decree of November 29, 1916 (signed by Aleksandr Rittich (Александр Риттих), of the Ministry of Agriculture) as collection of grain for defense purposes. The Russian Provisional Government
established after the February Revolution
of 1917 could not propose any incentives for peasants, and their state monopoly on grain sales failed to achieve its goal.
was cut off from the most important agricultural regions of the country. The reserves of bread were running short, causing hunger among the urban population, where support for the Bolshevik government was strongest. In order to satisfy the minimal food needs, the Soviet government introduced a strict control over the food surpluses of the prosperous rural households. Since many peasants were extremely unhappy with this policy and tried to resist it, they were branded as "saboteur
s" of the bread monopoly
of the state and advocates of the free "predatory", "speculative" trade. Lenin believed that prodrazvyorstka was the only possible way to procure sufficient amounts of bread and other agricultural products for the population of the cities during the war.
Prodrazvyorstka began in the second half of 1918 in the regions of Tula
, Vyatka
, Kaluga
, Vitebsk
and others. It was introduced all over the Soviet Russia on January 11, 1919 by the Decree
of the Sovnarkom. Prodrazvyorstka was also introduced in Ukraine
and Belarus
(1919), Turkestan
and Siberia
(1920). In accordance with the decree of the People's Commissariat for Provisions on the procedures of prodrazvyorstka (January 13, 1919), the amount of different kinds of products designated for collection by the state (some historians call it an outright confiscation
) was calculated on the basis of the data on each guberniya
's areas under crops, crop capacity and reserves of the past years. In guberniyas, the collection plan was broken down between uyezd
s, volost
s, villages, and then separate peasant households. The collection procedures were performed by the agencies of the People's Commissariat for Provisions and prodotryads (продовольственный отряд, food brigades) with the help of kombeds (комитет бедноты, committees of the poor) and local Soviet
s.
Initially, prodrazvyorstka covered the collection of bread and fodder
. During the procurement campaign of 1919-1920, prodrazvyorstka also included potato
and meat
. By the end of 1920, it included almost every kind of agricultural products. According to the Soviet statistics
, the authorities collected 107.9 million pood
s (1.77 million metric tons) of bread and fodder in 1918–1919, 212.5 million poods (3.48 million metric tons) in 1919–1920, and 367 million poods (6.01 million metric tons) in 1920–1921.
Prodrazvyorstka allowed the Soviet government to solve an important problem of supplying the Red Army
and urban population and providing raw material
for different industries. Prodrazvyorstka left its mark on the commodity-money relations, since the authorities had prohibited selling of bread and grain
. It also influenced many, if not all, aspects of relations between the city and the village and became one of the most important elements of the system of the war communism
.
With the end of the Russian Civil War, prodrazvyorstka lost its actuality. Moreover, it did much damage to the agricultural sector and caused peasants' growing discontent. As the government switched to NEP
, prodrazvyorstka was exchanged for prodnalog
(food tax) by the decree of the 10th Congress
of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in March 1921.
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
al program in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
which obliged peasantry to surrender the surpluses of almost any kind of agricultural produce for a fixed price. The absolute limit of a given product for personal or household needs was pre-determined by the state.
The term is commonly associated with war communism
War communism
War communism or military communism was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War, from 1918 to 1921...
during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
when it was introduced by the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
government. However Bolsheviks borrowed the idea from the grain razvyorstka introduced in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
during the World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, in 1916.
World War I grain razvyorstka
1916 was the year of food crisis in the country. While the harvest was good in Lower Volga Region and Western SiberiaSiberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, its transportation by railroads collapsed. In addition, the food market was in disarray. Fixed prices for government purchases were unattractive. Razvyorstka was introduced by the decree of November 29, 1916 (signed by Aleksandr Rittich (Александр Риттих), of the Ministry of Agriculture) as collection of grain for defense purposes. The Russian Provisional Government
Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...
established after the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
of 1917 could not propose any incentives for peasants, and their state monopoly on grain sales failed to achieve its goal.
Soviet prodrazvyorstka
In 1918, the center of the Soviet RussiaRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
was cut off from the most important agricultural regions of the country. The reserves of bread were running short, causing hunger among the urban population, where support for the Bolshevik government was strongest. In order to satisfy the minimal food needs, the Soviet government introduced a strict control over the food surpluses of the prosperous rural households. Since many peasants were extremely unhappy with this policy and tried to resist it, they were branded as "saboteur
Saboteur
A saboteur is someone who commits sabotage.It may also refer to:*Morituri , a 1965 film also known as The Saboteur*Saboteur , a card game by Frederic Moyersoen, published in 2004...
s" of the bread monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
of the state and advocates of the free "predatory", "speculative" trade. Lenin believed that prodrazvyorstka was the only possible way to procure sufficient amounts of bread and other agricultural products for the population of the cities during the war.
Prodrazvyorstka began in the second half of 1918 in the regions of Tula
Tula Oblast
Tula Oblast is a federal subject of Russia with its present borders formed on September 26, 1937. Its administrative center is the city of Tula. The oblast has an area of and a population of 1,553,874...
, Vyatka
Kirov Oblast
Kirov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Kirov. Population: -History:In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Vyatka remained a place of exile for opponents of the tsarist regime, including many prominent revolutionary figures.In 1920, a number of...
, Kaluga
Kaluga
Kaluga is a city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River southwest of Moscow. Population: It is served by Grabtsevo Airport.-History:...
, Vitebsk
Vitebsk
Vitebsk, also known as Viciebsk or Vitsyebsk , is a city in Belarus, near the border with Russia. The capital of the Vitebsk Oblast, in 2004 it had 342,381 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth largest city...
and others. It was introduced all over the Soviet Russia on January 11, 1919 by the Decree
Soviet Decrees
Decrees were legislative acts of the highest Soviet institutions, primarily of the Council of People's Commissars and of the Supreme Soviet or VTsIK , issued between 1917 and 1924...
of the Sovnarkom. Prodrazvyorstka was also introduced in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
(1919), Turkestan
Turkestan
Turkestan, spelled also as Turkistan, literally means "Land of the Turks".The term Turkestan is of Persian origin and has never been in use to denote a single nation. It was first used by Persian geographers to describe the place of Turkish peoples...
and Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
(1920). In accordance with the decree of the People's Commissariat for Provisions on the procedures of prodrazvyorstka (January 13, 1919), the amount of different kinds of products designated for collection by the state (some historians call it an outright confiscation
Confiscation
Confiscation, from the Latin confiscatio 'joining to the fiscus, i.e. transfer to the treasury' is a legal seizure without compensation by a government or other public authority...
) was calculated on the basis of the data on each guberniya
Guberniya
A guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire usually translated as government, governorate, or province. Such administrative division was preserved for sometime upon the collapse of the empire in 1917. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin ,...
's areas under crops, crop capacity and reserves of the past years. In guberniyas, the collection plan was broken down between uyezd
Guberniya
A guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire usually translated as government, governorate, or province. Such administrative division was preserved for sometime upon the collapse of the empire in 1917. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin ,...
s, volost
Guberniya
A guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire usually translated as government, governorate, or province. Such administrative division was preserved for sometime upon the collapse of the empire in 1917. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin ,...
s, villages, and then separate peasant households. The collection procedures were performed by the agencies of the People's Commissariat for Provisions and prodotryads (продовольственный отряд, food brigades) with the help of kombeds (комитет бедноты, committees of the poor) and local Soviet
Soviet (council)
Soviet was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar's Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union....
s.
Initially, prodrazvyorstka covered the collection of bread and fodder
Fodder
Fodder or animal feed is any agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. Most animal feed is from plants but some is of animal origin...
. During the procurement campaign of 1919-1920, prodrazvyorstka also included potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
and meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
. By the end of 1920, it included almost every kind of agricultural products. According to the Soviet statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
, the authorities collected 107.9 million pood
Pood
Pood , is a unit of mass equal to 40 funt . It is approximately 16.38 kilograms . It was used in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Pood was first mentioned in a number of documents of the 12th century....
s (1.77 million metric tons) of bread and fodder in 1918–1919, 212.5 million poods (3.48 million metric tons) in 1919–1920, and 367 million poods (6.01 million metric tons) in 1920–1921.
Prodrazvyorstka allowed the Soviet government to solve an important problem of supplying the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
and urban population and providing raw material
Raw material
A raw material or feedstock is the basic material from which a product is manufactured or made, frequently used with an extended meaning. For example, the term is used to denote material that came from nature and is in an unprocessed or minimally processed state. Latex, iron ore, logs, and crude...
for different industries. Prodrazvyorstka left its mark on the commodity-money relations, since the authorities had prohibited selling of bread and grain
Cereal
Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...
. It also influenced many, if not all, aspects of relations between the city and the village and became one of the most important elements of the system of the war communism
War communism
War communism or military communism was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War, from 1918 to 1921...
.
With the end of the Russian Civil War, prodrazvyorstka lost its actuality. Moreover, it did much damage to the agricultural sector and caused peasants' growing discontent. As the government switched to NEP
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
, prodrazvyorstka was exchanged for prodnalog
Prodnalog
Prodnalog or Продналог is the Russian word for a tax on food production, paid in kind in Soviet Russia, and sometimes known as "the Tax in Kind"...
(food tax) by the decree of the 10th Congress
10th Congress of the RCP(b)
The 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party was held during March 8-16, 1921 in Moscow. Halfway through the Congress, the Kronstadt uprising started.Major points discussed included:...
of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in March 1921.