ABSTRACT

In the dissensions which held the centre of attention in Russia in 1925 and 1926 detailed questions of economic policy were hardly the essential issues. Questions of price policy and of accumulation were little more than incidental, guided by the bias of more general views. For those who had lingering regrets for “war communism,” considering it as holding qualities essential to their ideal, certain doubts about the progress of events were only natural. In the autumn of 1924 under the slogan of “The Face to the Village” particular attention began to be turned to the situation in the countryside, The “scissors” crisis and the dying plunge of the paper rouble had left their after-effects in a certain hostility towards the towns among some sections of the peasant population. Trade and trading policy constituted for Russia a problem of special delicacy, because it constituted the link between village and town.