From tsarism to the new economic policy. The tax mechanism of regulating the Soviet Russia peasant economy in the discourse of power

The article is devoted to the creation of a tax mechanism for regulation of peasant economy in Soviet Russia. The tax policy is considered to be an efficient government tool regulating the agricultural sphere of economy. The research problem is studied in the discourse of power within a certain historical period - from tsarism to the new economic policy. The methodology of discourse (political discourse, in particular) is considered as the analysis of both explicit and implicit political meanings of the establishment of the new power. The suggested research approach allows to briefly observe (1) the state policy measures which led to the rise of some business patterns and the fall of the others, and (2) their influence on both the state of agriculture in the studied period and the perspectives of the country's social development. The author attempts to identify the peculiarities of tax mechanisms which regulate the agricultural sphere of economy focusing on the features of forming the paradigm, the model of the relationship between the state and the country's population that was not the political basis of power. The experience of tax campaigns, which seriously aggravated the contradictions between the state's goals and the peasants' abilities, showed that the most acceptable relationship was the power pressure method. The study proves that the tax policy of the Soviet state was, primarily, a class policy. The priority of political objectives in the absence of professional experience, an established accounting and control of tax collection became a defining feature of this policy. These processes manifested themselves from the second half of the 1920s, when the state's desire to shift its regulatory influence on grain procurements uniting grain collecting and tax campaigns became increasingly evident. In the course of these campaigns, the peasantry, instead of economic measures to equalize the economic situation, was subjected to administrative and repressive measures. Confiscating part of the peasants' necessary products, the state undermined the already fragile economic basis of the peasant economy. During the new economic policy in the conditions of the declared market economy, the state did not look at the peasants as an equal partner in the market, but used them rather as a source of bread. By the end of the studied period, the situation of the complete misbalance in the economic relations of the state and the peasantry shaped itself. The solution was found in the command economy. The economic partnership between the state and the peasantry did not work.

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