But there was also an ideological context. In the long term, the Bolsheviks aimed to abolish private property and the free market and distribute products according to need, and in the short term, they might be expected to choose policies that would bring these ideals closer to fulfilment. The balance between pragmatism and ideology in War Communism has long been a subject of debate,13 the problem being that policies like nationalization and state distribution can plausibly be explained either as a pragmatic response to the exigencies of war or as an ideological imperative of communism. It is a debate in which scholars on both sides can quote the pronouncements of Lenin and other leading Bolsheviks, since the Bolsheviks themselves were not sure of the answer. From a Bolshevik perspective of 1921, when War Communism was jettisoned in favour of the New Economic Policy, the pragmatic interpretation was clearly preferable: once War Communism had failed, the less said about its ideological underpinnings the better.
