September 27, 2018 Thursday
Bedtime Story
Lenin's "State Capitalism"
Last night we saw that Keynes had
introduced Lenin in his landmark book and I am trying to show you why he did
that.
Lenin had ushered in major economic reforms
in the form of New Economic Policy or NEP which was a form of restricted
capitalism.
One of the many components of NEP was the introduction
of monetary reforms through the introduction of a new single currency called
chervonets that would replace all the old imperial currencies of that time and
would be backed by the gold standard (fiat currencies such as the modern
American dollar are not backed by the gold standard and thus they can be
printed ad lib).
He even allowed investment of foreign
capital by allowing foreigners to invest in the Soviet commerce, industries,
and mining something a kind of blasphemy to the religion of
socialism/communism.
Not many would associate such kind of
strong Western capitalism with Lenin and yet this is exactly what he did for he
saw no better or other way calling it “state capitalism” which in essence most
capitalistic economies are.
Not that Lenin was fond of it; the economic
condition of the nation was in dire straits and so he opened up the market to a
greater degree of free trade hoping to incentivize people to turn on their
greed mode and jump start their own production.
It was an open acknowledgement to the
limitations of the production and job creation by the state that was already
under immense financial stress.
It was done against the will of many
Bolshevniks who considered this act as a betrayal of principles of socialism
and which Lenin himself fully endorsed.
Keep in mind that the Russian Empire had
collapsed with significant loss of territories by then.
By signing the Treaty of Bret-Litovsk on
March 3, 1918 with the Central Powers (German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire,
Tsardom of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) Lenin had sacrificed Russia’s claim
over modern-days Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine
thereby exiting for any further participation in World War 1.
Lenin had little choice as the nation’s
economy had collapsed under the strain of the war.
Through this treaty Lenin’s Russia also
agreed to pay Germany six billion marks as war compensation.
This in the eyes of the Allied Powers was
perceived as direct aid to German Empire which included liberation of million
German soldiers and relinquishing its food supply, industrial base and fuel
supplies.
Many historians consider this treaty as the
ultimate betrayal of the Allied Cause which sowed the seed for the Cold War.
It also left Lenin’s Russia diplomatically
isolated one for their act seen as betrayal and secondly their conversion to a
Communist society was simply not coherent with the Western ideas.
The Russia that Lenin had inherited was
limping out bruised and wounded from the triple assaults of World War I
(1914-18), Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917-22), each one
as horrible, as bloody and as crippling as the next and as seen from the dates
overlapping with each other.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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