Open AccessThe Bolshevik Sowing Committees of 1920: Apotheosis of War Communism?
Author(s) -
Lars T. Lih
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
the carl beck papers in russian and east european studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2163-839X
pISSN - 0889-275X
DOI - 10.5195/cbp.1990.42
Subject(s) - legislation , political science , apotheosis , communism , spanish civil war , economic history , principal (computer security) , law , public administration , political economy , history , sociology , politics , archaeology , computer science , operating system
In December 1920, on the eve of the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), the Bolsheviks embarked on a crash campaign to avert an agricultural crisis. The Eighth Congress of Soviets passed legislation known by the name of one of its principal innovations, the sowing committees (posevkomy). The usual view of this legislation is that it was a last binge of revolutionary inebriation before the sobering morning after of NEP -a desperate attempt to use civil-war methods to undo the damage done by civil-war methods. The full record of the legislation and the debate surrounding it tell a different story.