NEPman

NEPmen (Russian: нэпманы, romanized: nepmani) were businesspeople in the early Soviet Union, who took advantage of the opportunities for private trade and small-scale manufacturing provided under the New Economic Policy (NEP, 1921–1928).[1][2] The famine of 1921–1922 epitomized the adverse effects of war communism, and to mitigate those effects, Vladimir Lenin instituted the NEP, which encouraged private buying and selling.[3] However, many Bolsheviks saw the policy as "a step backwards". That included Lenin himself, who defended the measure as "taking one step backward to take two steps forward later on".[4]

The biggest group of the 3 million or so NEPmen were engaged in handicrafts in the countryside, but those who traded or ran small businesses in the cities faced the most negative attitudes, especially because some amassed considerable fortunes.[5] One of the main objectives of the Communist Party was to promote socialism, and the capitalist behavior of the NEPmen challenged that goal. However, given the economic benefits that NEPmen provided, the government allowed their existence. As they gained a better standard of living compared to their poor, working class counterparts, NEPmen became reviled, and stereotyped as greedy.[6] Among ordinary folk, traditional hatred of profiteers found focus in the NEPmen, some of it acquiring an antisemitic tinge.[7] That was reinforced by the official media representation of NEPmen as vulgar nouveaux riches.[8] As Joseph Stalin consolidated his power, he moved aggressively to end the NEP and to put NEPmen out of business, eventually abolishing private commerce in 1931.[9]

  1. ^ Kenez, Peter (2006). "New Economic Policies, 1921–1929". A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 59–61. ISBN 978-0-511-16930-4.
  2. ^ Allen, Robert C. (2003). "The Development Problem in the 1920s". Farm to factory: A reinterpretation of the Soviet industrial revolution. Princeton University Press. pp. 48–51. ISBN 0-691-00696-2.
  3. ^ Hunt, Lynn Avery (2009). The making of the West : peoples and cultures. Bedford/St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9780312452940. OCLC 718076151.
  4. ^ "Market Corrections". Lapham's Quarterly. Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  5. ^ Smith, S. A. (2002). The Russian Revolution: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. pp. 131.
  6. ^ "Nepmen". Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. 2015-06-17. Retrieved 2019-02-18.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Duranty, Walter (1924). "Russia is Hard Hit by War on 'NEPmen'". The New York Times.