Shrank After The Russian Revolution

For the first three years following the Revolution, the institutions of Russian capitalism were smashed to pieces. Besides, in Russia agricultural production shrank, industrial production was paralyzed, and transportation was disorganized. The shortage in the Soviet economy first appeared in the form of hunger and absolute paucity. Everyday life was transformed into the struggle for existence, and people had to make tremendous effort to obtain foods, fuels and other necessaries of life through long queues and expeditions to production areas.
While a number of estimations have been made about the true scale of Soviet economy, there is no difference of opinion over the point that the production seriously declined during 1918-1920. According to an estimate by Kafengauz made in the NEP period, the overall industrial production of 1920 shrank into merely about 15% of 1917. In a book overviewing the posit revolutionary economic process, Bukharin wrote that “a priori, it must be clear that the proletarian revolution is inevitably accompanied by an extremely profound decline in the productive forces”.
Preceding the Revolution, the World War lasting for three years had caused shortage of foods, fuels and transportation capacities. Especially, the foods shortage in the capital
This huge wave of land redistribution, carried out by peasants themselves through their land communities, swallowed not only lands of great landowners but also lands of independent peasants who had until then produced mainly for sales in markets. Although additional distribution of land portions slightly increased the average area of peasant holdings, agriculture lost its connection with markets and industrial production. As a whole, peasant holdings were leveled out into small-scale self-sufficient