Product Code Database
', also transliterated ' ( , short for продовольственная развёрстка, ), alternatively referred to in English as grain requisitioning, was a policy and campaign of confiscation of grain and other agricultural products from peasants at nominal according to specified quotas (the noun , , and the verb , refer to the partition of the requested total amount as obligations from the suppliers).
The term is commonly associated with war communism during the Russian Civil War when it was introduced by the Bolshevik government. However, the Bolsheviks borrowed the idea from the grain razverstka introduced in the Russian Empire in 1916 during World War I.
Before prodrazverstka, Lenin's May 9, 1918 decree ("О продовольственной диктатуре") introduced the concept of "produce dictatorship". This and other subsequent decrees ordered the forced collection of foodstuffs, without any limitations, and used the Red Army to accomplish this.
A Soviet Decrees of the Sovnarkom introduced prodrazvyorstka throughout Soviet Russia on January 11, 1919. The authorities extended the system to Ukraine and Belarus in 1919, and to Turkestan and Siberia in 1920. In accordance with the decree of the People's Commissariat for Provisions on the procedures of prodrazvyorstka (January 13, 1919), the number of different kinds of products designated for collection by the state was calculated on the basis of the data on each Governorate's areas under crops, crop capacity and the reserves of past years. Within each guberniia, the collection plan was broken down between Uezd, Guberniya, villages, and then separate peasant households. The collection procedures were performed by the agencies of the People's Commissariat for Provisions and prodotryad (singular: продовольственный отряд, food brigades) with the help of (комитет бедноты, committees of the poor) and of local Soviets.
Initially, prodrazverstka covered the collection of grain and fodder. During the procurement campaign of 1919–20, prodrazverstka also included and meat. By the end of 1920, it included almost every kind of agricultural product. According to Soviet statistics, the authorities collected 107.9 million (1.77 million ) of grain and fodder in 1918–19, 212.5 million poods (3.48 million metric tons) in 1919–20, and 367 million poods (6.01 million metric tons) in 1920–21.
Prodrazverstka allowed the Soviet government to solve the important problem of supplying the Red Army and the urban population, and of providing raw material for various industries. Prodrazverstka left its mark on commodity-money relations, since the authorities had prohibited selling of bread and cereal. It also influenced relations between the city and the village and became one of the most important elements of the system of war communism.
As the Russian Civil War approached its end in the 1920s, prodrazverstka lost its actuality, but it had done much damage to the agricultural sector and had caused growing discontent among peasants. As the government switched to the NEP (New Economic Policy), a decree of the 10th Congress of the CPSU in March 1921 replaced prodrazverstka with prodnalog (food tax).
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