The Civil War had ended with a Red victory, with this the foreign interventionists including America and Britain were thrown out of Russia. Lenin and the Communists now focused on destroying any internal rebellions. Leninist terror, that has often been over-looked by nostalgia and by Stalinist purges, now began. The Gulag prisons located in the Siberian areas of Russia were used for the imprisonment of anti-Communists and political enemies.
However economically, Russia despite the revolution was still backwards. Lenin needed to install foundations for the future of the Communist revolution. A Leninist policy called "State Capitalism" was introduced; it allowed some elements of capitalism without full economic rights for the people. This policy allowed some initial improvements to the country's economy. The Civil War ended State Capitalism in favour of War Communism: an economic policy that sought to supplement the Red Army's victory. This policy that ended the capitalistic elements in the economy was well supported by radical Marxists like Trotsky who had been critical of State Capitalism.
Russian History [Continue]
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The policy although allowed the Reds to win the war was suppressive of the people and it brought great economical hardships. As a result Lenin saw the prospect of another revolution should the economic situation not improve and therefore the New Economic Plan or "N.E.P." was devised. This policy sought again to grant more economic freedoms to the people including a free market and some private ownership. Such a policy was characterised by Lenin who was a pragmatic leader who sought to abandon his Marxist beliefs in order to maintain power inside the party and country. The N.E.P. was severely criticised by leading Marxists including again Trotsky who saw it as an abandonment of the party's ideology. Lenin retorted, "Give the people a little bit of Capitalism, if it means I stay in power". The N.E.P., the third economic policy of Lenin was still in place when he died in 1924
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