Which policy change followed the famine that introduced some market mechanisms into the economy?

• A. Continued War Communism with even stricter requisitioning.
• B. Policy was relaxed with NEP allowing some private trade.
• C. The regime fully privatized all sectors.
• D. Return to tsarist land ownership.

Answer: (B)

The shift from War Communism to the New Economic Policy introduced market elements into the Soviet economy. After the famine, the leadership moved away from forced requisitions and total state control toward a more mixed system. The NEP allowed peasants to sell surplus grain on the open market, paid through a tax in kind converted into money, which created incentives to produce more. It also permitted private trade and small-scale private production, while the state still owned and controlled heavy industry, banks, and transportation. This combination brought back some price signals and incentives that the wartime policy had tried to suppress, helping recovery and smoothing shortages. The other paths would have meant continuing strict requisitioning, full privatization, or a full return to pre-revolutionary land arrangements, none of which fit the actual policy shift that followed the famine.