User:Marvgarc/sandbox

Article Evaluation

• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
• Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
• What else could be improved?

• Is the article neutral? Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
• Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?
• Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

Article: Five-year plans for the national economy of the Soviet Union

I chose the article talking about the Five Year Plans that were implemented to improve Russia.

Everything in the article seems to be relevant to the topic, but some of the main disctractions is that right off the bat, there is a headline that states that the page needs work or directly saying that the article has multiple issues. It seems that this article has not been updated for a couple of years as stated in the top, it has needed additional sources since 2006. This article goes into a lot of depth in regards to the amount of five year plans that were implemented over the years. However, as you scroll down the page the descriptions or depth is shorter and shorter. I believe we can fix this by slowly choosing one bit at a time.

It does not seem as though there are any opinions in this article but the claims made by the site itself allows me to believe that we need to double check the information on the site. From looking through the article, I suppose that there must be cross referencing done as well as fact checks to verify that the information is correct. The links i checked work and they lead to articles released by genuine information based articles and it does not seem like opinion based articles.

NEP: Editing Article

Javier:

Lenin considered the NEP as a strategic retreat from socialism. He believed it was capitalism, but justified it by insisting that it was a different type of capitalism, "state capitalism", the last stage of capitalism before socialism evolved.

Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin disagreed over how to develop the Soviet economy after World War I and the Russian Civil War. Trotsky, supported by radical members of the Communist Party, believed that socialism in Russia would only survive if the state controlled the allocation of all output. Trotsky believed that the state should repossess all output to invest in capital formation. On the other hand, Stalin supported the more moderate members of the Communist Party and advocated for a state-run capitalist economy. Stalin managed to wrest control of the Communist Party from Trotsky. After defeating the Trotsky faction, Stalin reversed his opinions about economic policy and implemented the first five-year plan.
The Yalta conference was something that showed you just how much something can change during to close to the end of the war. For example, When all three leaders met there was an agreement to make Germany surrender to the three super powers at the time which were the United States, Russia, and Great Britain. In return of agreeing to certain standards Stalin was promised the land that the Soviet Union had lost during the Russo-Japanese war. After agreeing to allow public elections that is what he was promised in secrecy he would get. After Roosevelt passed away things turned for the worst and the things that Stalin were promised were taken away form him and in return he took away the public elections and that was kind of the starting point for the hatred between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was almost as if the united states had just been taken advantage of and when the president died there was not going to be any type of things just given away to other country leaders. (Editors, History.com. “Yalta Conference.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 29 Oct. 2009, www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/yalta-conference.)

Marvin:

The New Economic Policy (NEP, Russian новая экономическая политика, НЭП) was an economic policy of Soviet Russia proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921, as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterized the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism (both subject to state control)." Meanwhile socialized state enterprises would operate on "a profit basis".

The NEP represented a more market-oriented economic policy (deemed necessary after the Russian Civil War of 1918 to 1922) to foster the economy of the country, which had suffered severely since 1914. This meant that, Farmers were given the opportunity to sell their goods on the open market and allowed to hire people for their farms. Those farmers who expanded the size of their farms became known as kulaks. The Soviet authorities partially revoked the complete nationalization of industry (established during the period of War Communism of 1918 to 1921) and introduced a system of mixed economy which allowed private individuals to own small enterprises, while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade, and large industries. In addition, the NEP abolished prodrazvyorstka (forced grain-requisition) and introduced prodnalog: a tax on farmers, payable in the form of raw agricultural product. The Bolshevik government adopted the NEP in the course of the 10th Congress of the All-Russian Communist Party (March 1921) and promulgated it by a decree on 21 March 1921: "On the Replacement of Prodrazvyorstka by Prodnalog". Further decrees refined the policy.

Powers:

I have started editing both the Results Paragraph as well as the End of NEP section. Both of these had dubious and awkwardly worded information, also I did find some information that was incorrect. In the End of NEP section I found two different places that had no citation but claimed that Stalin supported the NEP in its early stages. However in both of the articles listed below, I found conflicting information. Both of them state that Stalin held conflicting ideologies early in his political career, while also stating that he was indifferent when the NEP was first enacted.

Results

Stalin was initially noncommittal to the NEP, as early as 1918 Stalin was quoted "...the beginning of the planned reconstruction of the outmoded social-economic system in a new socialist manner.". Stalin then enacted a system of collectivization during the Grain Procurement Crisis of 1928

End of NEP

After the NEP was instituted, agricultural production increased greatly. In order to stimulate economic growth, farmers were given the opportunity to sell portions of their crops to the government in exchange for monetary compensation.

Also I felt the photo of starved people in Kharkiv circa 1933 that I added in the End of NEP section fit well in the theme of grain shortages during this period of Stalin's rule.

"The Transition from War Communism to the New Economic Policy." The Russian Review 53, no. 4 (1994): 515.

"The New Economic Policy (NEP)", Resources for Teaching History : 14–16, Bloomsbury Education, ISBN 9781472926647, retrieved 2019-02-25

Jessica:

I have begun editing the "Policies" paragraph. Added a sentence about how the actions of Lenin during NEP regarding Policies could be viewed under Marxism-Leninism, and added the citation from my source. (citation 18) ( Zickel, Raymond E (1991). Soviet Union a Country Study. 2nd ed. Washington D.C.: Library of Congress. Federal Research Division. p. 64. ISBN 978-0844407272. )

The Policies articles is as following: The laws sanctioned the co-existence of private and public sectors, which were incorporated in the NEP, which on the other hand was a state oriented "mixed economy".[12] The NEP represented a move away from full nationalization of certain parts of industries. Some kinds of foreign investments were expected by the Soviet Union under the NEP, in order to fund industrial and developmental projects with foreign exchange or technology requirements.[13] The NEP was primarily a new agricultural policy.[14] The Bolsheviks viewed traditional village life as conservative and backward. With the NEP, the state only allowed private landholdings because the idea of collectivized farming had met strong opposition.[15] Lenin understood that economic conditions were dire, so he opened up markets to a greater degree of free trade, hoping to motivate the population to increase production. Under the NEP, not only were "private property, private enterprise, and private profit largely restored in Lenin's Russia," but Lenin's regime turned to international capitalism for assistance, willing to provide "generous concessions to foreign capitalism." [16] Lenin took the position that in order to achieve socialism, he had to create "the missing material prerequisites" of modernization and industrial development that made it imperative for Soviet Russia to "fall back on a centrally supervised market-influenced program of state capitalism".[16] Lenin was following Karl Marx's precepts that a nation must first reach "full maturation of capitalism as the precondition for socialist realization."[17] Future years would use the term Marxism-Lenonism to describe Lenon's approach to economic policies which were seen to favor policies that moved the country toward communism.[18]The main policy Lenin used was an end to grain requisitions and instead instituted a tax on the peasants, thereby allowing them to keep and trade part of their produce. At first, this tax was paid in kind, but as the currency became more stable in 1924, it was changed to a cash payment.[2] This increased the peasants' incentive to produce, and in response production jumped by 40% after the drought and famine of 1921–22.[19] NEP economic reforms aimed to take a step back from central planning and allow the economy to become more independent. NEP labor reforms tied labor to productivity, incentivizing the reduction of costs and the redoubled efforts of labor. Labor unions became independent civic organizations.[2] NEP reforms also opened up government positions to the most qualified workers. The NEP gave opportunities for the government to use engineers, specialists, and intelligentsia for cost accounting, equipment purchasing, efficiency procedures, railway construction, and industrial administration. A new class of "NEPmen" thrived. These private traders opened up urban firms hiring up to 20 workers. NEPmen also included rural artisan craftsmen selling their wares on the private market.[20]

Will add to sandbox for Disagreements in Leadership section next as it needs expansion