Editing Vladimir Lenin (section)

===Civil War===
In 1917, as an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism anti-imperialist], Lenin said that oppressed peoples had the unconditional right to secede from the Russian Empire; however, at end of the Civil War, the USSR annexed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia Armenia], Georgia, and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan Azerbaijan], because the White Movement used them as attack bases. Lenin defended the annexations as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geopolitics geopolitical] protection against capitalist imperial depredations.

To maintain the war-isolated cities, keep the armies fed, and to avoid [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_collapse economic collapse], the Bolshevik government established [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_communism war communism], via ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodrazvyorstka prodrazvyorstka]'', food requisitioning from the peasantry, for little payment, which peasants resisted with reduced harvests. The Bolsheviks blamed the ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak kulak]''s' withholding grain to increase profits; but statistics indicate most such business occurred in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_market black market] economy. Nonetheless, the ''prodrazvyorstka'' resulted in armed confrontations, which the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheka Cheka] and Red Army suppressed with shooting hostages, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_gas poison gas], and labour-camp deportation; yet Lenin increased the requisitioning.

The six-year long White–Red civil war, the war communism, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1921 famine of 1921], which killed an estimated five million, and foreign military intervention reduced much of Russia to ruin, and provoked rebellion against the Bolsheviks, the greatest being the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_rebellion Tambov rebellion] (1919–21). After the March 1921 left-wing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_Rebellion Kronstadt Rebellion] mutiny, Lenin replaced war communism with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy New Economic Policy] (NEP), and successfully rebuilt industry and agriculture. The NEP was his pragmatic recognition of the political and economic realities, despite being a tactical, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology ideological] retreat from the socialist ideal; later, the doctrinaire [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin Joseph Stalin] reversed the NEP in consolidating his control of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]].