Scissors crisis
The price scissors ( Russ. : Ножницы цен , Nozhnitsy tsen ) was an economic problem in the early history of the Soviet Union , which is a glaring price gap between agricultural and industrial goods were.
term
Named after the gaping blades of a pair of scissors ( Trotsky Declaration ), the prices of industrial products continued to rise while those of agricultural goods continued to fall. This development reached its peak in October 1923, when the prices of industrial products had increased by 176% compared to 1913, while those of agricultural products had decreased by 11%.
Cause and fight
The reasons for this development were the rapid recovery in agricultural production after the famine of 1921–1922 and the civil war , while industrial goods production only slowly got going again, as the destroyed infrastructure first had to be rebuilt. The events since 1914 (world war, civil war, occupation, terror, epidemics, famines ...) had reduced industrial production to one eighth by 1920. Furthermore, the centralization, militarization and monopoly of the economy caused by the war had to be relaxed or counteracted, since the focus now shifted more to the needs of society as a whole instead of the purely military. The problem was exacerbated by the policies of the Soviet government, as they kept bread prices at an artificial low to prevent future famine .
Even Lenin's New Economic Policy ( NEP ) was initially the crisis is not overcome, because due to the slow industrialization , the farmers did not sell their crops to the market, but self- consumed , because they could have bought with the sales proceeds in any case no industrial products. Many farmers hesitated before bringing their grain into the cities. This threatened not only the food supply of the cities, but also the strategic alliance at the heart of the political system - the workers and peasants alliance ( Smytschka ).
In late 1923, drastic measures were taken to reverse the rise in industrial prices. Price controls were put in place and workers laid off to reduce production costs. Obtaining credit was made harder to force companies to sell their inventory. At the same time, a state trade organization was founded, which for the first time allowed industry to sell its products directly to the villages. These and other measures by the government, such as consistent rationalization and reducing the influence of traders through the establishment of consumer cooperatives , brought the problem under control.
In April 1924 the agricultural price index reached 92 and that of industry 131 (base year 1913).