<Dl> <Dd> Main article: New Economic Policy </Dd> </Dl> <Dd> Main article: New Economic Policy </Dd> <P> During the Civil War (1917--21), the Bolsheviks adopted War communism, which entailed the breakup of the landed estates and the forcible seizure of agricultural surpluses . In the cities there were intense food shortages and a breakdown in the money system (at the time many Bolsheviks argued that ending money's role as a transmitter of "value" was a sign of the rapidly approaching communist epoch). Many city dwellers fled to the countryside - often to tend the land that the Bolshevik breakup of the landed estates had transferred to the peasants . Even small scale "capitalist" production was suppressed . </P> <P> The Kronstadt rebellion signaled the growing unpopularity of War Communism in the countryside: in March 1921, at the end of the civil war, disillusioned sailors, primarily peasants who initially had been stalwart supporters of the Bolsheviks under the provisional government, revolted against the new regime . Although the Red Army, commanded by Trotsky, crossed the ice over the frozen Baltic Sea to quickly crush the rebellion, this sign of growing discontent forced the party to foster a broad alliance of the working class and peasantry (80% of the population), despite left factions of the party which favored a regime solely representative of the interests of the revolutionary proletariat . At the Tenth Party Congress, it was decided to end War Communism and institute the New Economic Policy (NEP), in which the state allowed a limited market to exist . Small private businesses were allowed and restrictions on political activity were somewhat eased . </P>

Following the russian revolution the soviet union adopted a system that