with the eruption of civil war on a large scale in the summer of 1918, the already grim economic situation in soviet russia deteriorated further. full effort was placed upon military production and factories across the country fell silent for lack of raw materials. according to one estimate, that of p. popov of the central statistical bureau of soviet russia, by 1920 the total production of russian industry had fallen from a pre-war level of 6.059 billion gold rubles to the equivalent of just 836 million — a decline of more than 85%.