science

Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928

Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 rather than just read about it. In short: The Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928, sometimes referred to as "the crisis of NEP," was a pivotal economic event which took place in the Soviet Union beginning in January 1928 during which the quantities of wheat, rye, and other cereal crops made available for purchase by the state fell to levels regarded by planners as inadequate to support the needs of the country's urban population. Failure of the state to…

Key takeaways

Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
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Connect Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
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Reference excerpt

The Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928, sometimes referred to as "the crisis of NEP," was a pivotal economic event which took place in the Soviet Union beginning in January 1928 during which the quantities of wheat, rye, and other cereal crops made available for purchase by the state fell to levels regarded by planners as inadequate to support the needs of the country's urban population. Failure of the state to make successful use of the price system to generate sufficient grain sales was met with a regimen of increasingly harsh administrative sanctions against the Soviet peasantry. The state of national emergency which followed led to the termination of the New Economic Policy and spurred a move towards the collectivization of agriculture in 1929.

History

Background The Russian Revolution of November 1917 ushered in a period of civil war and economic dislocation, in which the ruling All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) (VKP) made use of forced grain requisitions (Russian: prodrazvyorstka), trading to the peasantry currency with little purchasing power for an underdeveloped consumer goods market. Viewed by most Soviet contemporaries as a temporary wartime expedient, this system of "War Communism" was extremely unpopular with Russia's grain-producing peasantry and the cause of a massive wave of unrest and revolts that threatened to fatally destabilize the government. This force-based system of War Communism was abandoned in the spring of 1921 with the adoption of the so-called "New Economic Policy" (NEP), under which a stable, gold-based currency was restored and a return made to the market system. Instead of forced requisitions of all marketable surpluses, a food tax (Russian: prodnalog) was implemented which necessitated peasant households providing a limited portion of their production to the state, after which households would be free to sell its remaining surplus not needed for household survival on the open market. By 1924 this system of prodnalog had been replaced by a money tax, with Soviet state grain requisitions accomplished via buying and selling. Although the return to the market system in agriculture was ideologically problematic for many Bolsheviks, the years from 1922 to 1926 were successful in practical terms, with total agricultural production by the peasant-based economy fully returning to pre-revolutionary levels. Production of cereal grains approximated pre-war figures, potato production greatly exceeded such figures, and livestock populations, gravely affected during the war, returned to normalcy for pigs and sheep while the count of horses was slowly and steadily restored. The period of War Communism saw Soviet cities largely depopulated when former peasants returned en masse to their native villages amidst the ongoing economic collapse. This trend was reversed under NEP and industrial facilities were restored and restarted, approaching the pre-war levels of output during the second half of the 1920s. Further growth of the economy and improvement of living conditions, it was felt by Soviet planners, would require new investment in factory facilities and capital goods. With access to world capital markets severely restricted to the revolutionary Soviet regime, these funds that would need to be generated by the state either through a loosening of the backing of the gold-based currency, a raising in the level of taxation of the largely rural population, or some combination of these factors. Communist Party penetration of the countryside remained weak, amounting to an average of 1 rural Communist for every 6 village soviets — a mere 0.52% of the rural population vs. 1.78% of the total population in 1927. Moreover, these rural Communists, who took leading roles in village soviets and cooperatives, included a disproportionate number of comparatively well-to-do peasants — a social group, party and non-party, which dominated local administration. This persistent strength of so-called "kulaks" in the Soviet countryside further contributed to the dissatisfaction with the economic status quo on the part of many members of the largely urban Communist Party. From the end of 1926 demand among planners and party activists for a new program of mass industrialization that would modernize the largely peasant country. Although NEP was seen at the time as a permanent structure throughout 1927, the 15th Congress of the VKP(b), held in Moscow in December 1927, acceded to this sentiment, approving a new program for the industrialization of the USSR — an acceleration which would ultimately prove incompatible with a small peasantry freely exchanging a comparatively small fraction of its production in the marketplace. Collectivization of agriculture was held by the Communists to be the essential corollary of any successful industrial campaign, it being faithfully maintained that collective organization would eliminate the inefficiencies inherent in capitalist agriculture, thereby expanding production and making a greater quantity of grain available to the state for conversion to capital goods.

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Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928

In research: Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1920s in economic history, 1928 disasters in the Soviet Union, 1928 in the Soviet Union, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 means in your own words.
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Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 in simple terms?

Why does Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928 matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Soviet grain procurement crisis of 1928.