Finance & Fury Podcast

Last episode we ended with Lenin’s death. The roll out of Communism was well underway and it was time for new leadership. One his last policies before he died in 1924 was the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1922… A mixed economy put in to place in order to reintroduce a level of private ownership into the economy. Individuals could own small enterprises and some private property. Tax in the form of ‘Quotas’ were introduced with people getting to keep and trade what they produced over and above their quota. Lenin had a stroke not long after this, leaving him partially paralysed. This is when Stalin really stepped up being a regular visitor, and Lenin didn’t like Stalin – or his “Asiatic manner”. Stalin was Georgian and a bit of a racist. Lenin wrote to his sister that Stalin was ‘not intelligent’. Regardless, Stalin had support of a large chunk of the Bolsheviks. So…he was needed.   Joseph Stalin ruled from Lenin’s death in early 1924 to 1953 when he too died. What life was like under Stalin was brutal The