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The main features of war communsim were as follows: Grain requesitioning: In order to feed the towns and cities in Russia Lenin set up a Food Supplies Dictatorship to requesition grain produced by the peasants. However, this angered the peasants and many reverted to subsitance farming. This way they would only produced the bare minimum to live on themselves, without having to give away any supplies. All industry was nationalised and worker's committees were inflitrated by personal commissars. These managers, who reported to central authorities were often previous beougoise managers, called "specialists". The Bolsheviks also introduced the banning of private trade. However, this law was not enforced efficiently and, fotunately for many a huge black market developed. There was increaed labour discipline and fines were intriduced for lateness in addiiton to ration books. This system of rationing was class-based so the labourers received the largest rations, whereas porfessionals and middle classes were given the bare minimum for survival. Another important aspect of war communism was the red terror, carried out by the Cheka. This was used to enforce war communism and crush any opposition. The terror later intensified following the assassination attempt on Lenin in 1918, rather like the reaction to Alexander II's assassination.
These Bolshevik actions were characterized by extreme brutality towards almost all members of society. The party openly endorsed "class warfare" against the middle classes and they were treated very harshly in what seemed to be acts of revenge. Ironically, the party which claimed itself the liberators of the workers began to exploit them and working conditions and management seemed to revert to pre-revolutionary practices. Arguing for a form of slavery to be imposed, Trotsky claimed that "There is no other way of attaining socialism except through the command allocation of the entire labour force by the economic centre, the allocation of that force in accord with the needs of a nationwide economic plan.
