ABSTRACT
The first measure of the New Economic Policy involved a major policy switch from government requisitioning to a tax in kind on foodstuffs (Article 1). Although the State retained control of heavy industry, banking and foreign trade, under the NEP peasants and private traders were allowed to keep surplus produce, which could be sold on the open market after payment of a tax representing a certain proportion of the surplus (Article 3). The NEP therefore represented a mixed economy of state control and private enterprise and as such constituted an ideological shift from Marxist and Bolshevik principles.
