Prodrazvyorstka was a policy and campaign of confiscation of grain and other agricultural products from peasants at nominal fixed prices according to specified quotas. This strategy often led to the deaths of many country-dwelling people, such as its involvement with the Holodomor famine. 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 in 1916 during World War I.
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 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. Before prodrazvyorstka, Lenin's May 9, 1918 decree 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 decree of the Sovnarkom introduced prodrazvyorstka throughout Soviet Russia on January 11, 1919. Prodrazvyorstka was also extended to Ukraine and Belarus in 1919, and Turkestan and Siberia in 1920. In accordance with the decree of the People's Commissariat for Provisions on the procedures of prodrazvyorstka, the amount of different kinds of products designated for collection by the state was calculated on the basis of the data on each guberniya's areas under crops, crop capacity and the reserves of past years. Within each guberniya, the collection plan was broken down between uyezds, volosts, villages, and then separate peasant households. The collection procedures were performed by the agencies of the People's Commissariat for Provisions and prodotryads with the help of kombeds and of local Soviets. Initially, prodrazvyorstka covered the collection of grain and fodder. During the procurement campaign of 1919–20, prodrazvyorstka also included potatoes 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 poods of grain and fodder in 1918-19, 212.5 million poods in 1919-20, and 367 million pounds in 1920-21. Prodrazvyorstka allowed the Soviet government to solve the important problem of supplying the Red Army and the urban population, and of providing raw materials for different industries. Prodrazvyorstka left its mark on commodity-money relations, since the authorities had prohibited selling of bread and grain. 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, prodrazvyorstka lost its actuality, but it had done much damage to the agricultural sector and caused growing discontent among peasants. As the government switched to the NEP, a decree of the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party in March 1921 replaced prodrazvyorstka with prodnalog.
