Daria Leonidovna Sheremeteva,
Candidate of Historical Science, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Novonikolaevsk Goods Market during the Civil War (Late May 1918 – Mid-December 1919)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2021-5-16
The article analyzes the dynamics of commodity-money relations in the key trade and transport hub of Western Siberia – the city of Novonikolayevsk, which from the end of May 1918 to the middle of December 1919 was one of the largest strongholds of the counterrevolution in the east of Russia. On the basis of a wide range of sources, changes in political and economic conditions, the spectrum of trade subjects, the range of goods, demand and prices were studied. As a result, it was found that the dynamics of the Novonikolayevsk commodity market during the Civil War followed a complicated trajectory. The market reacted to the overthrow of the Soviet government at the end of May 1918 with a rapid restoration of the trade sphere. Then, as the territory controlled by the anti-Bolshevik governments, supporting free trade, expanded, the number of sellers increased on the Novonikolayevsk commodity market, the range of goods and the demand for them grew. The extensive development of the Novonikolayevsk market was mainly due to the small private food trade, the reorientation of large commodity and monetary operations to the Ural, Far East and foreign markets, as well as the almost twofold growth of the population of the city. In the spring of 1919, the conditions for conducting trade began to deteriorate. The state power, providing for the increased military needs and trying to mitigate the economic losses of the population, began to interfere in market relations. Since March, the market in Novonikolayevsk functioned in a mode of adaptation to the increased pressure of the military department and the impact of monetary reform. The number of subjects of trade became excessive, in the assortment of goods the disproportions between the wide supply of food and the shortage of industrial products increased. The relatively smooth growth of prices was replaced by their abrupt dynamics. The retreat of the Russian government’s armed forces from the Urals caused a short-term effect on the Novonikolayevsk market in the form of saturation with goods and a decrease in the cost of food in August, but then commodity-money relations began to lose the remnants of the proportion between supply and demand. Front-line conditions of the second half of November – the first half of December 1919 hampered trade further, which began to be reduced to small-scale forms.
Publishing: 28/10/2021
The article has been received by the editor on 17/06/2021
How to cite: Sheremeteva D.L. Novonikolaevsk Goods Market during the Civil War (Late May 1918 – Mid-December 1919) // Historical Courier, 2021, No. 5 (19), pp. 191–202. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2021/ISTKURIER-2021-5-16.pdf]
Links: Issue 5 2021
Keywords: economy; trade; prices; Novonikolaevsk; Civil war
The research was funded by RFBR and the Novosibirsk region, project number 20-49-540006.