In the Russian era, Russia was one of the major grain exporters in Europe. However, the policy of collectivization of agriculture and elimination of "rich peasants" in 1930s caused devastating damage to agricultural production, so the Soviet Union could no longer be self-sufficient in grain. The Soviet Union completed the collectivization of agriculture at the end of the second five-year plan. Collective farms are the basic units of agricultural production, and mechanized sowing and cultivation are carried out through tractors, cars and combine harvesters belonging to collective agricultural machinery stations.
The disintegration of the Soviet Union is not only an economic issue, but also has profound political roots.
Members of the political bureau of the party belong to the privileged class of the country. They enjoy special medical care, can go to special shops to buy duty-free and low-priced luxury goods imported from the west, live in apartments and villas provided by the state, have special motorcades, have special fast lanes in the middle of the road, and have special hunting forest areas and convalescent beaches. Their children can easily join the party, enter famous universities such as the Institute of International Relations, and find the best jobs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and embassies abroad. This class also includes the army, leaders and principal officials participating in the Republic. The lower classes are factory directors, bank managers, local leaders and party branch secretaries. They control the distribution of goods and local privileges. The living standard of ordinary people was the lowest in Stalin's time. This is also related to the domestic and international situation of the Soviet Union at that time. In the Khrushchev era, the Soviet Union and the United States launched a peaceful competition to improve people's living standards, and people's lives began to improve. Brezhnev put forward the concepts of "all-people party" and "all-people country". The domestic political struggle no longer involves ordinary people and improves their living standards. The government provides free medical care and free education. The rent is very cheap, only a few rubles a month, including heating, telephone and water. Many people can go to the Black Sea for a holiday, or take government subsidies to a nursing home for recuperation. This is the concept of welfare state in the Soviet model. Although there are not many consumer goods sold, the prices are relatively low. However, unlike the Nordic welfare countries, the welfare policy of the Soviet Union did not have a solid economic foundation as its financial guarantee, which caused the economic dilemma in the post-Brezhnev era. The Constitution of the Soviet Union guaranteed employment, so people felt that they didn't have to go to work. Corruption, theft and embezzlement of state property are very common, bribery is common and production efficiency is low. The second half of Brezhnev era is called the "stagnation period" and "fossilization period" of the Soviet Union. All these have seriously corrupted the social atmosphere and laid a curse for the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Lenin's policy is called the new economic policy. 19 18 years, the Bolsheviks of Russia were fighting fiercely with Belarus for political power. Due to the extreme shortage of wartime resources and the blockade of the new red regime by western capitalist countries, Lenin promulgated and implemented the wartime communist policy, and imposed compulsory expropriation on grain exceeding the farmers' quota. In view of the successful experience of wartime communist policy during the revolutionary civil war, Soviet Russia decided to adopt this system after the war, which seriously dampened the enthusiasm of farmers and even caused riots in some places. Therefore, Soviet Russia introduced a more flexible new economic policy to replace wartime communism. Including:
Cancel the policy of collecting surplus grain and implement real tax.
Stop the rationing system and allow the sale of goods.
Relax trade restrictions, encourage foreign-funded enterprises to invest, and capital and technology are introduced into Russia.
Stop the capitalist transformation by confiscation, and let the individual and private economy exist in a certain range by leasing and concession.
Lenin explained: "We have not yet entered the socialist stage". This means that Russia is still a primary agricultural country, with a very weak industrialization foundation and still does not meet the conditions of comprehensive socialism.
After the cancellation of the surplus grain collection policy, farmers no longer worry about the surplus grain being collected free of charge. Coupled with the abolition of the semi-feudal land system, their enthusiasm for work has never been higher, and the grain output has greatly increased, exceeding the level before the revolution. With the rapid development of agriculture, the state-owned heavy industry is still making slow progress due to the lack of policies. In order to increase the income of the industry, the factory began to raise the sales price of industrial products, and the resulting increase in the cost of manufacturing products forced farmers to produce more agricultural products to buy consumer goods. Furthermore, agricultural products fell sharply and the prices of industrial products rose sharply, which was called the scissors difference between industrial and agricultural products, but it promoted the industrialization of Soviet Russia to some extent.
The new economic policy successfully restored the social and economic damage caused by the First World War and the Russian Civil Revolutionary War. By 1928, the output of industrial and agricultural products in Russia successfully recovered to the pre-war level.