NEP in the Countryside

All-Russian Central Executive Committee, The Tax in Kind. March 21, 1921

Original Source: Sistematicheskoe sobranie zakonov RSFSR (Moscow: Iurid. izd-vo NKIU RSFSR, 1921), Text 147. Dekrety Sovetskoi vlasti (Moscow, 1989), Vol. 13, pp. 250-2.

  1. In order to assure an efficient and stable economic life on the basis of a freer disposition by the farmer of the products of his labor and of his economic resources, in order to strengthen the peasant economy and raise its productivity and also in order to calculate precisely the obligation to the state which falls on the peasants, requisitioning, as a means of state collection of food supplies, raw material and fodder, is to be replaced by a tax in kind.

  2. This tax must be less than what the peasant has given up to this time through requisitions. The sum of the tax must be calculated so as to cover the most essential needs of the Army, the city workers, the non- agricultural population. The general sum of the tax must be decreased inasmuch as the reestablishment of transportation and industry will permit the Soviet Government to receive agricultural products in exchange for factory and handicraft products.

  3. The tax is to be taken in the form of the percentage or partial deduction from the products raised in the peasant holding, taking into account the harvest, the number of consumers in the holding and the number of cattle on hand.

  4. The tax must be progressive; the percentage deducted must be lower for the holdings of the middleclass and poorer peasants and of town workers. The holdings of the poorest peasants may be exempted from some and, in exceptional cases, from all forms of the tax in kind.

The industrious peasants who increase the sown-area and the number of cattle in their holdings and those who increase the general productivity of their holdings on the whole, receive privileges in paying the tax in kind.

  1. The taxation law must be so framed, and published within such a time limit, that the peasants will be informed as exactly as possible about the amount of their obligations before the beginning of the spring field work.

  2. The delivery to the state of the products listed in the tax ends within definite time limits, which are precisely established by law.

  3. The responsibility for paying the tax rests with each individual household and the organs of the Soviet Government are requested to prosecute everyone who does riot fulfill his obligations. All-around responsibility is abolished. In order to control the assessment and the payment of the tax, organizations of local peasants are formed, consisting of groups of payers of various tax rates.

  4. All the reserves of food, raw material and fodder which remain with the peasants after the tax has been paid, are at their full disposition and may be used by them for, improving and strengthening their holdings, for increasing personal consumption and for exchange for products of factory and handicraft industry and of agriculture.

Exchange is permitted within the limits of local economic turnover, both through cooperative organizations and through markets.

  1. Those farmers who wish to deliver to the state the surplus in their possession after the tax has been paid must receive, in exchange for the voluntary delivery of this surplus, objects of general consumption and agricultural machinery. With this end in view, a steady state reserve fund of agricultural machinery and objects of general consumption is being created. It includes both domestic products and goods purchased abroad. Part of the state gold reserve and part of the ready raw materials are set aside for the purpose of making purchases abroad.

  2. The supply to the poorest classes of the agricultural population is arranged according to special legislation.

  3. As a development of the present decree, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee requests the Council of People's Commissars to issue corresponding detailed instructions within one month.

President of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee
M. Kalinin

Secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee
Zalutskii

Source: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1934), Vol. XXXII, pp. 214-228.

1921

The Antonov Rebellion Comintern Confiscating Church Gold Death of a Poet Electrification Campaign Famine of 1921-22 Homeless Children Kronstadt Uprising Militarization of Labor The Muslim East The New Economic Policy ROSTA Windows Close Tenth Party Congress Trade Pacts with the West Transcaucasia Workers’ Opposition