Failed Economic Policies 903-913

After the October Revolution, one would've expected Russia, I mean the Soviet Union, to be more calm and for people to be happy; however, no matter who is in control of a country- someone is always unhappy. In this case, after the Soviet Union withdrew from WWI, the country was divided between the "Whites" (Bolsheviks' opponents, who were varied among lots of different groups) and the "Reds." The "Whites" got their military support for the civil war from supporters of the old regime, "liberal supporters of the provisional government, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, and anarchist bands known as "Greens" who opposed all central state power" (904). In the end, the Bolsheviks won the civil war because they had the majority of the support. What i found so strange was that after this civil war- there was a ridiculous amount of FAILED economic policy. First in 1917 Lenin tried to push the government toward the radical economic stance known as "war communism," which meant that grain was requisitioned from the peasantry, private trade in consumer goods was outlawed, production facilities were militarized, and money was abolished. However, this FAILED at helping the economy and agriculture was practically doomed, i.e. FAMINE!! So after this failure, the Bolsheviks tried to help the peasantry by creating this New Economic Policy which allowed "individuals to own private property, trade freely within limits, and -most important- farm their land for their own benefit" (906). The problem was that the peasants didn't participate in markets to benefit urban areas and the Bolsheviks got increasingly frustrated, which lead to the peasants holding all their grain and therefore there was a grain shortage. FAILURE! In fact, the Bolsheviks went back to war communism. After this, Stalin came into power with plans to speed up the industrialization process via the Five-Year Plan. I believe that this did succeed and it wasn't a failure on economic terms because new industries were built in new cities, populations of cities doubled, and the Soviet Union became a world industrial power in the span of a few short years; however, this plan was a failure in loss of human lives and happiness. The peasants were unhappy when Stalin forced them to give up their private farmlands  (collectivization) in order to work on state farms or join collective farms. In fact, many peasants rebelled violently and lost their lives The laborers that did the brunt work of all this industrialization were unhappy because the working conditions were really hard and many died (of course a lot of these workers were from prisons- although not all were guilty). Stalin also eliminated any enemies he had during the "Great Terror" (1937-38) when he killed any individuals (intellectuals, nonparty elites, industrial managers) or groups that he didn't like. Basically, in the beginning all of the economic plans were failing, and when one plan finally worked- it was only because the leader forced everyone to do as his plan intended- even if it was against their will.