as the war communism period progressed manufactured consumer goods came to be in such short supply that they were virtually unobtainable. peasants refused to sell their surplus products for money which could effectively buy nothing. facing starvation in the cities and the death of industry as peasant-workers returned to their villages, the soviet state resorted to the use of force to obtain necessary grain to maintain its urban economy. this resort to forced requisitioning had the effect of further decimating agricultural production, already seriously weakened by the loss of millions of able-bodied peasant men to the front. wherever requisitioning was applied, the area of land dedicated to cultivation contracted.