Kronstadt Rebellion - Economic Background

Economic Background

By 1921 the Bolsheviks were winning the Russian Civil War and although foreign troops were beginning to withdraw, Bolshevik leaders continued to keep tight control of the economy through the policy of War Communism. As a result, the bolshevik economy started to collapse, although it had never truly recovered from the economic crises caused by World War I and the Russian Civil War. Industrial output fell dramatically; it is estimated that the total output of mines and factories fell in 1921 to 20% of the pre-World War I level, with many crucial items experiencing an even more drastic decline. Production of cotton, for example, fell to 5%, and iron to 2%, of the prewar level. This coincided with the terrible droughts of 1920 and 1921 and the frightful famine in 1921. This brought about large-scale discontent among the Russian populace, particularly amongst the peasantry, who felt disadvantaged by Communist grain requisitioning (prodrazvyorstka, forced seizure of large portions of the peasants grain crop used to feed urban dwellers) and as a result often refused to till their land. In February 1921 alone, there were over one hundred peasant uprisings. The workers in Petrograd were also involved in a series of strikes sparked by the reduction of bread rations by one third over a 10 day period.