Prodrazvyorstka

Prodrazvyorstka (also Prodrazverstka; Russian: Продразвёрстка, продовольственная развёрстка) was a Bolshevik policy and campaign of confiscation of grain and other agricultural produce from the peasants for a nominal fixed price according to specified quotas (the noun razvyorstka, and the verb razverstat' 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 Bolsheviks borrowed the idea from the grain razvyorstka introduced in the Russian Empire during World War I, in 1916.

1916 saw a food crisis in the Russian Empire. While the harvest was good in Lower Volga Region and Western Siberia, its transportation by railroads collapsed. In addition, the food market was in disarray. Fixed prices for government purchases were unattractive. A decree of November 29, 1916 (signed by Aleksandr Rittich (), of the Ministry of Agriculture) introduced razvyorstka as the collection of grain for defense purposes. The Russian Provisional Government established after the February Revolution of 1917 could not propose any incentives for peasants, and their state monopoly on grain sales failed to achieve its goal.

In 1918 the center of Soviet Russia found itself cut off from the most important agricultural regions of the country. The reserves of grain ran low, causing hunger among the urban population, where support for the Bolshevik government was strongest. In order to satisfy minimal food needs, the Soviet government introduced strict control over the food surpluses of the prosperous rural households. Since many peasants were extremely unhappy with this policy and tried to resist it, they were branded as "saboteurs" of the bread monopoly of the state and advocates of free "predatory", "speculative" trade.Vladimir Lenin believed that prodrazvyorstka was the only possible way to procure sufficient amounts of grain and other agricultural products for the population of the cities during the civil war.

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