War communism

War communism or wartime communism was the harsh economic policy adopted by Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. There were two main aims: To put Communist theories into practice by redistributing (giving out) wealth to the Russian people and to win the Civil War by keeping towns and the Red Army supplied with weapons and food. They inlude the following policies:

1. All large factories to be controlled by the government.
2. Production planned and organised by the government.
3. Discipline for workers were strict and striker could be shot.
4. Obligatory labor duty was imposed onto "non-working classes".
5. prodrazvyorstka -- requisition of agricultural surpluses from peasants in excess of absolute minimum for centralized distribution among the remaining population.
6. Food and most commodities were rationed and distributed in a centralized way.
7. Private enterprise became illegal.
8. Military-like control of railroads was introduced.

Although this achieved the aim of winning the war, it caused terrible hardship. Peasants refused to co-operate in producing food as despite all their efforts, the government merely took it away. This led to food shortages and along with the bad weather, to famine. Several millions people died and there were even reports of cannibalism. This sparked the Kronstadt rebellion at the naval base on February, 1921. This had startling effect on Lenin even though Trotsky crushed the rebellion, since the Kronstadt sailors were among the strongest supporters of Lenin and Bolshevism. He put a stop to War Communism right away and replaced it by the New Economic Policy.

The term wartime communim was also reportedly in use during the Yugoslavian civil wars of nineteen nineties.