lt; § 1. "War Communism" and the breaking of the monetary system. - § 2. The collapse of the monetary system and the gap in prices. - § 3. Naturalization of the economy and the course towards the elimination of money. - § 4. Theory and practice of the withering away of money. - The problem of economic accounting under socialism. - Projects of non-monetary economic accounting. - § 5. The development of commodity exchange and the emergence of local equivalents. - Expanded form of value. - General reform of value. - § 6. Soviet signs as substitutes for local goods-money. - § 7. Reasons for the "survivability" of the Soviet sign.
In October 1917, the proletariat inherited from the bourgeoisie a fundamentally disordered monetary system. All the cream of the emission tax had already been withdrawn by the tsarist and provisional governments, which in total were pumped out of the population by means of inflation of commodity values ​​for more than 7 billion gold rubles. Having broken the resistance of the officials of the State Bank with armed force, the Soviet government took possession of the emission apparatus and used it to finance the "expenses of the revolution."
§ 1. The printing press served the proletariat as a means of fighting the bourgeoisie, along with firearms.
The period from mid-1918 to April 1921 is commonly referred to as the period of "war communism". During the period of war communism, everything was mobilized to fight against the internal and external bourgeoisie.
“Our entire economy, both as a whole and in separate parts, was thoroughly imbued with wartime conditions. Considering us, we had to make it our task to collect a certain amount of food, completely disregarding what place this would take in the general economic turnover ”(Lenin). Such a policy was a necessity in the face of a bitter civil war. “In the conditions of the war in which we were placed, this policy was correct. We had no other possibility than the maximum use of an immediate monopoly, up to the withdrawal of all surpluses, even without any compensation ... This was a merci, caused by conditions not economic, but prescribed to us to a large extent by military conditions ”(Lenin). Insofar as "war communism" "was forced by war and ruin", "it was not and is not mine to be a policy that meets the economic tasks of the proletariat. It was a temporary measure" (Lenin).

The introduction of surplus appropriation and numerous and universal labor duties, the nationalization of all production down to the smallest enterprises, centralized (through the so-called "headquarters", that is, the main departments of individual branches of industry) management of all industry, the abolition of the free market and the centralized supply of the population and the Red army products - these are the characteristic features of this period. All these measures led to the fact that the sphere of market exchange was extremely narrowed: meanwhile, paper-money emission continued to grow; but its real value was falling due to the continuous increase in the rate of depreciation of the soviet marks.
§ 2. The following table shows the growth of the money supply and the fall of its real value.
Real price
An extraordinary reduction in the sphere of market exchange, a catastrophic increase in the velocity of money circulation with a continuous increase in emission, these are the reasons for such a sharp depreciation of the national funds. The rate of depreciation constantly (except for the 2nd half of 1920) overtook the rate of issue, as can be seen from diagram No. 5 on page 172.
But the paper money flow during this period was not exhausted by one centralized issue of Soviet signs by the Soviet government. Since the spring of 1919, local issues of banknotes have become extremely widespread in connection with the fragmentation of the entire present territory of the USSR into many politically or economically isolated regions and districts, and even individual cities, up to districts.
§ 2. The period of "war communism" is a period of unprecedented in the history of paper-money chaos. The disintegration of the unity of the monetary system reflected the deepest disintegration of the economic ties of the previously integral economic organism and, in turn, exacerbated the general economic degradation (decline). Prices not only grew from day to day, even from hour to hour, but most importantly, the single price disappeared. Over the same period, for the same product - rye flour - the prices in the soviet signs in Leningrad were 23.8 times higher than in Saratov, and 15 times higher than in Ulyanovsk. Each area set its own prices, and the more one area was separated from another, the greater the price gap. No less sharp was the gap in the prices of goods in the same market. For example, in the Moscow market in October 1920 the prices of butter, sugar, millet and herring increased by more than 10,000 times in comparison with 1913;

Diagram No. b
The ratio of the rate of increase in the money supply and price growth in percent from 1918 to 1921 in the USSR

		1 1 masses - Rising prices
					(NOAH
			(In pro	cents)
gt; one
						I »
					»--V	to
			# # #			G\\
			і # # #
1 ^			/ # G
1 # 1 #	h
1 \" / / 1 i
1/ 1#					-

1918 1918
II
n ¦ o
1919
I
1919
II
1920
1
’920
II
1921
I
and
1921
II
I
400
80
60
40
20
300
80
60
40
20
200
80
60
40
20
100
80
60
40
20
0
It is significant that the rise in prices in the second half of each year, in connection with the sale of the harvest, slows down significantly, even with an increase in the rate of emission, as, for example, in the second half of 1919 and 1920. This slowdown in the depreciation of money in the second half of 1920 was so significant that the percentage increase in the issue was even somewhat larger than the depreciation of the Soviet mark.
prices for meat, milk and eggs from 5 thousand to 10 thousand times, and for cabbage and fresh fish - less than 5 thousand times. Food prices as a whole have risen many times over; more than the price of luxury goods. The market in general was driven underground, and although it actually existed everywhere during the period of "war communism", the sphere of market commodity circulation and, consequently, the sphere of money circulation turned out to be very narrowed. This, along with the greatly increased velocity of money circulation, explains why by July 1, 1921, the commodity circulation of the entire Union was satisfied with the money supply, the real value of which was only 29 million rubles.
§ 3. Monetary-market trade turnover was more and more supplanted, on the one hand, by the state, free supply of products in kind, and, on the other hand, by illegal private economic exchange of goods.
The longer it went on, the more rations (a firm norm of planned supply established by the state) became the main source of supply for workers * and employees, and not the purchase of goods on the market for state signs. So according to L. Kritzman in the Central Russian budget

state supply of workers in kind was: in 1918 - 41%; in 1919 - 63%; in 1920 - 75%. Also, in the total real state budget, cash income-expenditure by 1920 played an insignificant role. According to S. Golovanov's assumptions, the entire state income for 1920 (including the gross income from the nationalized sectors of the national economy) was equal to 1,726 million gold rubles. Of this amount, according to his calculations, only 126 million rubles, or 7.3 */0, accounted for the share of cash expenses. Of course, these figures are approximate, because there is no data for an exact calculation, but the ratio of the monetary and in-kind parts of the budget should have been approximately the same. Thus, the astronomical figures of the paper-money issue in 1920 actually brought the state a very modest real income. The main pillar of the budget was not emission, but the receipt of products in kind from the peasantry in the order of surplus appropriation and from industry by direct withdrawal of all the products needed by the state and their planned distribution.
§ 4. During this period, practical steps were taken towards replacing money circulation with non-monetary accounting calculations. The Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of January 23, 1919 established a certain procedure for settlements between nationalized and municipalized enterprises and institutions under state control. Calculations were to be made, as stated in the decree, "accounting method without the participation of banknotes." By the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of January 6, 1920, these resolutions were extended to cooperation. Finally, by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of July 25, 1920, on requisitions and confiscations, it was prescribed for private individuals to deposit all cash in excess of twenty times the minimum tariff rate of a given area per person into current accounts in state treasuries. Thus, the Soviet authorities at that time took measures (which were not limited to the above decrees) to narrow the scope of monetary circulation. Thus, the 2nd session of the VDIK on June 18, 1920, based on the report of the NKF, adopted a resolution in which the activities of the NKF were recognized, expressed "in the desire to establish / non-monetary settlements for the destruction of the monetary system - in general, corresponding to the main tasks of the economic and administrative development of the RSFSR." VDIK instructed to take effective measures to put into practice the new system of economic management.
In connection with the general course towards narrowing the sphere of money circulation, the question arose of replacing the old monetary accounting with a new unified method for assessing and accounting for economic activity. How to calculate the effect of production work? How can you determine which products are more profitable to produce if there is no common unit of accounting for labor productivity? And does not the establishment of this or that unit of account again mean a return to money, at least as a measure of value? These questions of the organization of economic accounting in socialist society during this period acquired tremendous practical significance, and it is not surprising that they were discussed in a lively manner in scientific and business circles.
Our economists proposed a number of host projects - “A, XX XVX
A ¦ ¦*
estvennogo accounting and evaluation under socialism. Some proposed introducing direct cost accounting for each type of product separately, while others put forward a single principle for estimating costs for all types of products. On the other hand, among these recent projects, some put forward the principle of tied (ration) distribution of products, others free distribution. In the latter case, each worker would be given a labor voucher, for which he could receive any products of equal "labor value". A significant part of the projects was reduced to the establishment of a single "labor unit" of accounting and distribution, which was called the "trade". According to Kreve's proposal, the basic unit of "labor" value is considered to be "an hour of simple unskilled socially necessary labor."
The most developed project of economic accounting under socialism was proposed by S. G. Strumilin. The problem, in his opinion, "reduces to solving the mathematical problem of what kind of distribution of the country's productive resources can provide maximum satisfaction of needs with a minimum of labor costs." Labor that is expended in accordance with the above principle will be considered socially necessary; as a unit of accounting, Strumilin proposed "accepting the value of the product of labor of one normal worker of the first tariff category if he fulfills the production rate by 100%."
Also, the “working group of the Currency Subcommittee of the NKF” wrote in its draft: “The unit of labor accounting is the average production of one normal day of simple labor with its normal intensity for this type of work. The designated labor unit of accounting is assigned the name "thread". The Council of Labor and Defense is charged with the development and establishment of: 1) rules for reducing complex labor to simple; 2) the norm of the third price list expressed in threads for all economic goods and services subject to accounting, and 3) the procedure for periodic, as necessary, revision of these rules and price lists. But what was "assigned" to the Council of Labor and Defense, and the most important and difficult. Of course, one can more or less accurately take into account how much concrete labor is expended on a particular product (if the costs of raw materials are also expressed in labor units), but how to determine how much socially necessary and simple labor has been spent, how to reduce complex labor to simple? For the central bodies of economic management this would be very difficult, but not. unfeasible business. With planned accounting for social consumption, on the one hand, and given technical conditions, on the other hand, it would be possible to establish what kind of labor in each industry is socially necessary. It is also quite POSSIBLE to reduce COMPLEX labor to simple labor if the necessary labor input to obtain a particular qualification is precisely established. However, this moment will not play a role in communist society, because, assuming a high development of technology, in this society the principle will be applied: "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." But in the absence of this possibility, i.e., when the conditions of technical development do not yet make it possible to fully satisfy all social needs, it will certainly be necessary to distribute the product taking into account the labor expended by each producer, and consequently it will be necessary here to reduce complex labor to simple.
The most appropriate to the socialist system were the projects for the introduction of universal economic accounting in labor units - threads. These threads seem to be very similar to Owen's "labor bonds" or other similar attempts to directly determine the value of products in terms of labor units (see chapter XVIII). But the essential difference between them is that the projects of our threads had more or less solid ground in the form of nationalization and centralized organization of the entire industry (hence the theoretical possibility of establishing the amount of socially necessary labor spent on products), while Owen wanted to introduce an organized and "fair exchange" by. "labor value" in the presence of private ownership of the means of production and complete anarchy of all production.
But weren't these threads essentially the same money, just named differently? Bourgeois economists usually give a positive answer to this question, but this is completely wrong. “In social production, money capital disappears. Society distributes labor power and means of production among the various branches of labor. Producers may, perhaps, obtain paper certificates by which they withdraw from the public consumer stocks the quantity of products that corresponds to their working hours. These credentials are not money. They do not make conversions” (K. Marx).
§ 5. But the projects for the introduction of universal and unified economic accounting in threads and the distribution of products in "paper certificates", expressed in threads, were not implemented in practice.
The fact is that the obligatory condition under which “money can be liquidated, according to the decision of the VIII Congress of the RCP - “complete organization of communist production and distribution”, could not be realized either in 1918, or in 1919, or in 1920 If large-scale production had already been socialized and organized (and it still is), then many millions of peasant farms still remained a disorganized mass, and the state actually did not have the opportunity, on the one hand, to extract all the grain surpluses, and on the other hand, to supply the peasantry in the required amount of urban products. The implementation of the surplus constantly lagged behind the plans; it was established that the peasantry had significant stocks of grain. All this bread went to the "underground market", the market turnover, despite all the repressions, continued to exist.
And if there is a market, then, as we already know, there must be both prices and money. We know further that only one particular commodity, for example, gold, is real money. What kind of commodity was money on the "underground market" in the era of "war communism", what was the measure of value here? To answer this question, we must recall what was said in Chapter I, namely, the four forms of value. In the "underground market" during the period of "war communism" relations developed that can be summed up both under a simple and detailed form, and under a general form. When the urban population was experiencing a real famine, and the rural population was in dire need of a whole range of products, such as bread, textiles, etc., then there could be no question of gold being the universal commodity equivalent. Gold itself turned into an ordinary commodity and also much less valuable than before the war, in contrast to, for example, such goods as bread or salt.Already in 1918, gold could buy goods according to the index 10 times less than before the war, i.e. gold the ruble in goods was worth only a dime.
The market, driven underground, besides deprived of money, was therefore a defective market. But since the market existed, and market relations, even if in an ugly form and to a limited extent, developed, new money had to be created as well. And this process of development of new types of goods-money is exactly what we are observing during this period.
Sellers and buyers traded "from under the floor", i.e. illegally, in each individual case, establishing random exchange equivalents, since there was no universal equivalent.
Here is an example of the establishment in the city of Kaluga in January 1919, according to F. Termitin, of exchange proportions corresponding, according to Marx's theory, to the expanded form of value (since one commodity did not figure here as a universal equivalent):
1 lb. soap = 2 lb. millet,
22 lb. kerosene = 15 lb. peas,
1 overcoat = 101/2 FU3- groats, 3 lb. salt = 30 lb. oats,
1 pair of boots = 30 ft. buckwheat, U2 FUN * shag = 1 lb. pork fat.
Insofar as simple exchange relations were simultaneously established in the market over a long row of commodities, these relations may be called the expanded form of value, as, for example: poly (proportion taken from Weisberg's book "Money and Prices"). Such proportions were established in all markets, and this was inevitable, as soon as market relations existed.
The most salable and most valuable commodities become universal equivalents. Usually, not only in different areas, but even in the same area, there were several equivalents. These commodity equivalents constantly waged a struggle with each other for the position of a monetary, i.e., universal and single equivalent. So in Moscow in 1920 the strongest contenders for the "monetary throne" vacated after the "deposition" of gold were salt and baked bread. “We have all the data to consider,” Weisberg says, “salt for Moscow in 1920 as a price scale, an instrument of circulation and a means of accumulation.” There were other contenders elsewhere. Going to the village for groceries, he always found out beforehand “what they change for in this village”, for example, salt or bread or kerosene, and in accordance with this he took with him a certain amount of this equivalent.
In this way the expanded form of value is transformed for each individual region into a general form.

flour.
Here is an example of this universal form of value (also taken from life), in which rye flour is the universal equivalent:
30 lb. kerosene 10 lb. soap 3 lb. shag 10 ars. chintz
“If,” said Marx, “all commodities expressed their value in terms of silver, wheat or copper, then silver, wheat or copper would be measures of value, hence universal equivalents.”
However, inasmuch as in this period the "equivalent form" nowhere firmly merged with the natural form" of any particular commodity, we essentially did not yet have real, fully developed money. The universal form of value has not yet been transformed into the money form of value. Since there was no single equivalent for the entire economic system of the USSR on the "underground market", it means that in the USSR there were no valid, fully developed money during this period.
§ 6. But along with these equivalents - underdeveloped money - there was something that we all called "money", namely, Soviet signs. Paper money is not money, but only substitutes or representatives of money. As soon as gold ceased to be real money, paper money had to find some other point of support, but there was no such single point. Hence the complete instability of the Soviet signs and the greatest confusion in prices. In one area, they said: “A shirt costs 10 pounds. flour, but in Soviet signs. Today it costs 20 billion rubles.” and the shirt seller received 20 billion rubles, with which he could buy 10 pounds. flour. In that. the same day in another district they said: “A shirt costs 5 pounds. salt, and today it costs 10 billion rubles in the Soviet Union.” And it turned out that the same shirt here costs 20 billion rubles, and there 10 billion rubles. Since different equivalents appeared in different regions, the Soviet signs had to replace salt, flour, chintz, etc. .
If real and fully developed money - gold, i.e., a universal and single equivalent, functioned as a measure of value and a means of accumulation, then such a situation could not exist: state signs would depreciate more evenly.
But just because of the severance of economic ties, profound shifts in production and consumption, the illegal state of the market, disruption of transport, etc., each region established its own equivalents, and each region established in its own way the value of a given commodity. equivalent - "half money" replace the state signs in circulation. In this absence of a single commodity-money basis, the Soviet signs have all the originality of the situation in the "underground market". Soviet signs were deprived of a solid, unified, established monetary basis for the entire society - a measure of value. lt;
§ 7. If equivalents developed in some areas, \"at least temporarily performing the functions of money (a measure of value, a means of circulation\" and payment and instruments of accumulation), then one wonders why, nevertheless, the market did not completely annul locally, co-workers. and did not replace them entirely with flour or salt as a medium of exchange?
¦ This is due to the fact that the indicated equivalents were \" і_sklfchielyo local equivalents that were valid only within the narrow limits of these areas. However, there is a completely economic connection between:
12 3. Atlas. Money and credit
separate markets never broke, and this relationship could only be expressed in monetary form. If in a given region the equivalent was corn, and in another region it was salt, then it is obvious that a person who had at his disposal a known amount of the equivalent in this region could not use it as a means of purchasing in another region where he was another equivalent.It was also necessary to establish a certain value proportion between local equivalents.And these proportions could only be established in such a way that all local equivalents were expressed in a certain (albeit changing from day to day) number of universal and mandatory for admission throughout the territory of Soviet power paper money - substitutes for all local equivalents.
Thus, thanks to the existence of Soviet signs, a certain unity was introduced into inter-district market relations. All goods in local markets were expressed in a certain number of units of local equivalents, and these latter - in a certain amount of banknotes, and thus the equivalents of all regions received a single form of expression in co-packs.
In addition, it should also be taken into account that the "commodity form" of local equivalents, such as flour and salt, is not fully adapted to perform all monetary functions. How could you, for example, pay with flour for one box of matches, etc.? Flattering equivalents did not possess the necessary qualities of a monetary commodity - portability, high value in a small volume *, different quality, etc., which gold possesses under normal conditions.
Consequently, despite the continuously falling value of Soviet signs, which presented enormous inconvenience to commodity circulation, operating Soviet signs on the "underground market" was an economic necessity.
So, while discussions were going on in our institutions on the nonodu of threads as methods of socialist accounting and distribution, in the economic system of the USSR there was a process of formation of "underground", illegal and therefore unregulated "monetary systems
Literature.

1. Weisberg, Money and prices. 3VL 1925.
2. Prof. J.I. Yurovsky, Monetary policy of the Soviet government. M. 1928,
3. Prof. 3. S. Zhatsenelenbaum, Money circulation in Russia 1914-1924.

X 1924.

1. Prof. SA Falkner, Problems of the theory and practice of emission economy. M. 3924.
2. Collection "Our monetary circulation", ed. L. Yurovskaya. M "1926.
3. E. A. Preobrazhensky. Paper money. Gis. 1920.

1. L. Zhritsman, The Heroic Period of the Russian Revolution, ed. 2. M. .1. 1926.

Questions to review.

1. Describe the state of monetary circulation and the process of naturalization! farming during the period of war communism.
2. What projects of economic accounting were put forward during this, t period under the social-kmach?
3. What kind of money was real money, i.e., was the measure of value under war communism and at the beginning of the NEP?
4. Were Soviet signs substitutes for any particular type of real money?
5. What are the reasons for the "survivability" of the Soviet sign?

More on the topic CHAPTER XV. MONEY CIRCULATION IN THE PERIOD OF WAR COMMUNISM:

1. 5. Soviet \r\nmodel of economy and Soviet \r\neconomic science
2. CHAPTER XII. MAIN POINTS FROM THE HISTORY OF MONETARY CIRCULATION AND MONETARY THEORIES.
3. CHAPTER XV. MONETARY CIRCULATION IN THE PERIOD OF WAR COMMUNISM
4. CHAPTER XVI. MONETARY CIRCULATION UNDER THE NEP BEFORE THE MONEY REFORM OF 1924

The complete destruction of the economic and financial system of imperial Russia after the First World War and the subsequent October Revolution led to a drop in production, acute food shortages and epidemics among the population. Due to the catastrophic reduction in production among the population of large cities in the winter of 1916-1917. mass famine began. These circumstances forced the government to introduce the strictest distributive system of war communism against the backdrop of spontaneous, uncontrolled and hidden barter. The policy of war communism was carried out in the conditions of the suppression of civil rights and religion, the expropriation of private property, housing, land, bread and other products, while an uncompromising civil war was going on between, on the one hand, the "red" Bolsheviks and, on the other, the "white" who were supported by external military intervention after the proclamation by the Bolsheviks of non-recognition of the external debts of the tsarist government.

The so-called surplus appropriation was introduced administratively, or expropriation on behalf of the state in the private sector of food for redistribution among that part of the population that belonged to the working class, the poor and other needy sections of society. However, this measure achieved a very short-lived expected result, as it led to the curtailment of voluntary production and to huge hyperinflation in its scale. The emergence of rigid barter (without cash payments) and the use of distribution coupons actually returned the country back to the pre-capitalist barter economy, and at the same time, in 1918, a rigid state monopoly on foreign trade was introduced. This, in essence, was the initial stage in the construction of "real" socialism in a country with an intensified class irreconcilable communist philosophy of its leaders.

A one-sided emphasis was placed on the revitalization and modernization of the economy through two key components - the production and provision of electricity and rail transport. In 1920, the first plan for the restoration and development of the national economy based on electrification (GOELRO) was adopted for a period of 10-15 years. The plan began to be effectively implemented thanks to the availability of highly qualified engineering and scientific personnel, who, unlike philosophers or social scientists who left the country, were in demand by the Bolsheviks. Also, back in 1920, the largest deal was concluded with the Swedish company "NOHAB" for the manufacture and supply of 1000 locomotives to Russia in barter exchange for an officially unknown and never announced amount of gold in bullion. In Sweden, the largest consortium of locomotive manufacturers was created to fulfill the contract.

When examining the monetary aspects of the economic transformations in Russia after the First World War, which led to a rigidly centrally planned economy, questions involuntarily arise, what were the theoretical aspects and roots of these reforms. The end of capitalism throughout the world, in accordance with the general Marxist doctrine, which found artificial application in the conditions of war communism, would mean the curtailment of commodity production, and with it the exchange of commodities through the instrument of money in its capitalist incarnation. And this concept was hardwired into the chaotic and scarce post-war economy of a single, very large, but fragmented country, under the pressure of an internal armed conflict and in a war with foreign intervention, provoked by the refusal of the debts of the tsarist government of the Bolsheviks.

The foregoing, however, cannot in any way detract from the thorough and broad analysis of wild capitalism in Russia, which was carried out by V.I. Lenin in his early work The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899) and in other publications that exposed the capitalism of that time and the backwardness of the life of workers and peasants that accompanied it. This was done under the strong influence of the founder of the Marxist movement in Russia, G.V. Plekhanov (1856-1918), whose circle included V.I. Lenin.

G. V. Plekhanov was a supporter of evolutionary progress and subsequently opposed the October Revolution of 1917.

Unable to evolve into a more just society, the country, led by the Bolshevik leaders and their understanding of the ways out of the impending deep crisis, was forced to plunge into post-war and post-revolutionary economic and monetary confusion and chaos, where money as an important tool of economic policy, which had such high status after the reform of S.Yu. Witte, almost completely officially (but still continuing to work on the "black market") have lost their stable value and value. At the same time, the nationalization of all banks in order to obtain direct access to money and gold, starting with the State Bank of Russia, was carried out by force with unprecedented speed and immediately, one might say overnight, after the October Revolution. The former qualified bank employees were categorically ordered to submit to the new management personnel from the workers' and peasants' councils and train them, or in case of disobedience to such orders, to immediately dismiss them with threats of harsh reprisals. Thus, the banking system has lost many skilled workers and has essentially turned into settlement cash desks.

At that time, there were some other theoretical justifications for such a development of events. The Austro-German Social Democrats, led by Otto Bauer, saw War Communism as a necessary and clearly defined form of command and control system in which money would play no significant role in an economy with a rigidly balanced distribution system based on voluntary incentives to work and very militant communist ideology.

The ideologists of building a moneyless non-market economy, which was eventually subjected to sharp criticism along with the abolition of war communism, were convinced that before the onset of the world revolution, all economic exchanges with Western countries should be carried out directly by the socialist state through authorized bodies, which would apply in its calculations of gold and currency values ​​acceptable in foreign markets. In accordance with these provisions, during the first post-revolutionary years, government decrees were adopted and implemented aimed at achieving three main goals, namely, the establishment of an absolute state monopoly in foreign economic relations, placing the monopoly of foreign trade at the forefront, the revision and confiscation of the private sector of gold and other valuables, the concentration of all foreign exchange transactions in the public sector. The emergency situation of civil war, foreign intervention, internal economic disruption and foreign blockade served as strong justifications in favor of this model of foreign trade regulation, especially since during the “war communism” the sphere of monetary relations with foreign countries was significantly reduced. Annual exports reached only less than 30 million rubles. in pre-war prices, despite the fact that imports amounted to 350 million rubles, which was covered with great difficulty by selling gold. There was only one way to sell gold through Reval to a mint in Stockholm, where gold bars were made with the stamps of the Stockholm Mint, after which such bars entered the open market. The state monopoly of foreign trade, introduced by the Decree of April 22, 1918, remained for a long time until the 1990s the backbone of the state's foreign economic activity with physical, mainly, planning of both production and consumption.

In the early 1920s, in the conditions of the most difficult economic situation and chaos, lack of raw materials and fuel, income from nationalized state enterprises covered hardly about 15% of budget expenditures. The remaining share of government spending was covered by the issuance of paper banknotes or so-called sovznaks. “The issue of paper money of sovznaks increased in 1918-1921. from 27.3 to 1168.6 billion rubles.” Prices on the open market "flyed" a thousandfold, indicating hyperinflation.

As noted in the memoirs of the Minister of Finance from 1938 to 1960, A.G. Zverev, while still a young man, he rode a train in one of the central regions in Russia in 1921 and bought himself something to eat. The whole meal, which consisted of a glass of tea, a piece of black bread and six raisins, cost 6 million Soviet signs (!). The speed with which prices were rising created, paradoxically, given the round-the-clock operation of money printing presses, an acute shortage of cash. About 14,000 to 15,000 workers were constantly employed at state money-printing enterprises in Moscow, Leningrad, Penza, Perm, and Rostov-on-Don, issuing tons of paper money. The printing of paper money was simplified to such a level that making counterfeit money was not a problem. Increasingly larger digital denominations were affixed to banknotes, but despite all this, attempts to keep up with the issue of rapidly rising prices were unsuccessful.

In the economy on the territory of the former Russian Empire, in principle, there could no longer be a single monetary system. At an early stage in the existence of Soviet Russia, at least 10 different types of banknotes and a rather small number of securities were officially issued into circulation. Turkestan, Bukhara and Khorezm had their own issues of Soviet signs. Tsarist money was in circulation, including chervonets, Duma money or "Kerenki" (the name was given by the name of the Chairman of the Provisional Government A.F. Kerensky). In total, more than 2,000 types of banknotes were simultaneously circulating on the territory of the country by that time, and on the outskirts of the country, US dollars, pounds sterling, Japanese yen and royal "chervonets" were in circulation. Many of the banknotes were put into circulation by various institutions outside the Soviet government. In circulation were the means of exchange, released into circulation on the orders of the "white" generals and commanders, such as A.V. Kolchak, A.I. Denikin, M.V. Rodzianko, N.N. Yudenich, N.P. Wrangel, and even foreign military leaders: Vandamme, Avaloff-Bermondt (in Belarus), etc. In the border and coastal provinces, in particular, such as the North European part of Russia, Siberia, the Far East, Ukraine, the Caucasian republics, as well as Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Finland and elsewhere issued their own means of exchange and payment. Of particular interest from the point of view of understanding the colonial intentions of the British interventionists is the issuance of the so-called "northern" rubles for use in the northern Russian territories occupied by British troops in the period from December 1, 1918 to November 15, 1919. For these purposes, a plan was developed and implemented with the participation of J. Keynes to create a Currency Board (“Currency Board”) based on the formation of reserves in British pounds sterling. "Northern" rubles were pegged to the British pound sterling at a ratio of 40:1. For the Emission Office in London, a special reserve fund was deposited with the Bank of England, consisting of gold and foreign currency for a total amount of 750 thousand pounds sterling, or about 30 million "northern" rubles, while the allowable fiduciary issue was fixed at the level of Uz this reserve

The new financial system was built on the principle of incompatibility between Soviet power and commodity-money relations, so money must be eliminated. The socialist economy must have a natural and non-monetary character with a centralized distribution of resources and finished products.

The exclusive right of the state to carry out banking operations, to reorganize, liquidate old and create new credit institutions (state monopoly) was approved by a decree on the nationalization of banking in the country. First, the State Bank was nationalized, and then the Russian-Asian, Commercial and Industrial, Siberian and other joint-stock and private banks. In January 1918, bank shares owned by large private entrepreneurs were annulled.

The State Bank was renamed National Bank, and during 1919 all banks were liquidated and valuables confiscated.

N. Bukharin, E. Preobrazhensky, Yu. Larin and others in 1918-1920. they constantly emphasized that “communist society will not know money”, that money is doomed to disappear. They wanted to immediately devalue the money, and put in its place a mandatory system of distribution of benefits by cards. But, as these politicians noted, the presence of small producers (peasants) did not allow this to be done quickly, because the peasants were still outside the sphere of state control and they still had to pay for food.

Based on the idea of ​​the need for a quick abolition of money, the government was increasingly inclined towards the complete depreciation of money through their unlimited emission. So many of them were printed that they depreciated tens of thousands of times and almost completely lost their purchasing power, which meant hyperinflation, which was deliberately carried out.

The money issue of the first post-revolutionary years turned out to be the most important source of replenishment of the state budget. In February 1919 were issued the first Soviet money, which was called "settlement signs of the RSFSR". They were in circulation together with "Nikolayevka" and "Kerenka", but their rate was much lower than that of the old money.

In May 1919, the People's Bank was ordered to issue as much money as needed for the country's economy. As a result of rampant emission, the price level has reached unprecedented proportions. If the price level of 1913 is taken as 1, then in 1918 it was 102, in 1920 - 9,620, in 1922 - 7,343,000, and in 1923 - 648,230,000. As a result, Soviet money was completely depreciated. Only the gold tsarist ruble retained high value, but it was almost never in circulation.

Devastation, lack of roads, civil war turned the country into closed, isolated economic islands with internal cash equivalents. Many varieties of money circulated in the former Russian Empire. They printed their own money in Turkestan, Transcaucasia, in many Russian cities: Armavir, Izhevsk, Irkutsk, Ekaterinodar, Kazan, Kaluga, Kashira, Orenburg and many others. In Arkhangelsk, for example, local banknotes with the image of a walrus were called "walrus". Credit notes, checks, change marks, bonds were issued: "Turkbons", "Zakbons", "Gruzbons", etc. By the way, it was in Central Asia and Transcaucasia that the largest issue was, since the printing press was in the hands of local governments, which were actually independent of the center.

After October, the tax system practically collapsed, which completely undermined the state budget, to replenish which even the coupons of the “Free Loan” of the Provisional Government were put into circulation. During the first six months after the revolution, the government's expenditures amounted to 20 to 25 billion rubles, while revenues did not exceed 5 billion rubles.

To replenish the budget, local Soviets resorted to discriminatory taxation of "class enemies" in the form of "indemnities." So, in October 1918, a special contribution of 10 billion rubles was imposed on wealthy peasants.

As a result, the Russian financial system was destroyed, the economy switched to barter. In industry, a system of non-monetary relations and settlements was introduced. Head offices and local authorities issued warrants, according to which enterprises were to sell their products to other enterprises and organizations free of charge. Taxes were abolished, debts cancelled. The supply of raw materials, fuel, equipment was carried out free of charge, in a centralized way through Glavki. To carry out production accounting at enterprises, the Council of People's Commissars recommended switching to physical meters - "threads" (labor units), which meant a certain amount of labor expended.

In fact, the credit and banking system ceased to exist. The People's Bank was merged with the Treasury and subordinated to the Supreme Economic Council, and in fact turned into a central settlement cash desk. On the bank accounts of enterprises, the movement of not only cash, but also material assets within the public sector of the economy was recorded. Instead of bank lending, centralized state financing and logistics were introduced.

In accordance with the surplus appraisal, private trade in bread and other products was prohibited in the country. All food was distributed by state institutions strictly according to the cards. Industrial goods of daily demand were also distributed centrally according to the cards. Everywhere, 70-90% of the wages of workers and employees were issued in the form of food and manufactured goods rations or manufactured products. Monetary taxes from the population were abolished, as well as payments for housing, transport, utilities, etc.

Of all its links in the financial system during the period of war communism, there was only the State budget, but it also consisted of a monetary and material part. The main revenue items of the budget were money emission and contribution. The formed financial system fully met the tasks of centralizing economic development.

These were the years of the Civil War, intervention, rebellions and uprisings. Millions of people died from military operations, from the repressions of the Soviet and anti-Soviet authorities, from hunger and epidemics. The national economy was thrown back in terms of basic indicators for decades. It is all the more surprising that in 1922-1924, in several stages, it was possible to carry out a successful monetary reform, which for some time restored stable monetary circulation.

The era of war communism

It is customary to call war communism the socio-economic and political system that operated in the RSFSR from about the middle of 1918 until the spring of 1921, which marked the beginning of the transition to the new economic policy (NEP). In fact, the entire period from November 1917 to the end of 1921 was the time of war communism.

The First World War undermined the economy and finances of Russia more than other warring countries. By the time of the October Revolution, the amount of money in circulation was about 10 times higher than in 1914, and the retail price index had risen 13 times. Economic devastation worsened the supply of food to cities. The interim government, which ruled the country from March to November 1917 (according to the new style), for the first time in the history of Russia introduced the rationing (card distribution) of bread and some other products for the urban population. It issued its own paper money, which merged with the royal money into one depreciating mass.

As part of the policy of revolutionary violence, the seizure of the State Bank and the nationalization of commercial banks were among the first measures of the Soviet government. Taking possession of the State Bank meant directly, firstly, the transfer into the hands of the Bolsheviks of that part of the gold reserves of Russia, which was stored in Petrograd, and secondly, control over the issue of paper money. As you know, the lack of money was a serious problem for the consolidation of power in the first weeks after the coup.

The State Bank and the commercial banks were soon merged into the People's Bank, which initially had important functions in controlling the remaining private sector in industry. All valuables, both material and paper, stored in banks were confiscated. In particular, everything that was stored in private safes in bank premises was subject to confiscation.

This was part of a comprehensive program to confiscate virtually every form of money and savings. All state loans of the tsarist and Provisional governments were canceled, with the exception of some bonds of small denomination, which were used as a bargaining chip. The cancellation of foreign loans had large and complex political consequences, which have not yet been fully resolved. All private securities were also cancelled: stocks, bonds, mortgage bonds, insurance policies. Although deposits in banks were not formally confiscated or canceled, in fact it became impossible to use this money.

Paper money turned out to be the only form of "savings" available to the population. The realities of high inflation did not immediately become apparent to the people, especially to the peasantry. The hiding of money, most often tsarist issues, continued on a significant scale, although this was now regarded as a counter-revolution and often severely punished. From the first months after the revolution, local authorities began to tax the bourgeoisie with monetary contributions. In 1918, the central government announced a one-time emergency tax (also, in essence, an indemnity), which was considered, according to the letter of Marx, the expropriation of the expropriators. The economic significance of these cruel and painful measures was negligible, and they were soon abandoned. In the future, all paper money savings were actually liquidated by inflation.

Before the First World War, almost 500 million rubles worth of gold coins and more than 100 million high-grade silver coins were in circulation. This coin disappeared from circulation already in the first months of the war and settled mainly in private caches. In the hands of the population was also a certain amount of foreign currency in banknotes. By decrees of July 25 and October 3, 1918, the possession of precious metals and foreign currency was prohibited under the threat of the most severe punishments; these valuables were to be handed over to the institutions of the People's Bank.

It is hardly possible to establish how much precious metals were actually confiscated, how much of it actually ended up with the state, and how much was plundered by local confiscators. When these draconian measures were temporarily relaxed in 1922, the people's commissar for finance estimated the amount of gold left for the population at 200 million rubles.

The thorn in the eye for the Bolsheviks was the village, which did not fit into the state economy and the thoroughly bureaucratic distribution system. True, communes and collective farms appeared here and there, but they remained islands in a sea of ​​individual farms. The Soviet government seized from the peasants all products in excess of the physically necessary part (and often this part as well) by the surplus appropriation. She tried to give the muzhik industrial goods in the form of product exchange, but these goods were sorely lacking.

Card supplies, differentiated by class, were produced at artificially low fixed prices that had nothing to do with free market prices. It further transpired that these prices and payments for rations had simply become redundant, and in many cases food was given out without payment. Wages became more and more penniless, natural. In 1920, payment for transport, housing, utilities, postal and telegraph services was abolished. Outwardly, it all looked like communism according to the recipes of the classics: distribution according to needs. In fact, these needs were determined by the authorities and met to the smallest extent and in the most miserable way. It was a system of mass poverty and naked coercion.

War communism has reached a dead end. The more officials tried to plan and distribute everything, the less that could be distributed. State enterprises worked extremely poorly, a significant part of skilled workers dispersed to the villages. The surplus appraisal cut off all incentives for work and production: they will take it away anyway. A moneyless economy proved impossible.

The military-political situation also required a change in course. A full-scale civil war ended by the end of 1920. On the other hand, the peasant uprisings, the Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921, and the discontent of the workers made it clear to the Kremlin that postponing reforms was dangerous. The Bolsheviks' response was the New Economic Policy, almost immediately called NEP; the revival of money has become its most important component. However, money was seriously ill with inflation. Little attention was paid to her during the years of war communism, now she became unbearable.

Sovznak

After the October Revolution, it took the Soviet authorities in the center almost two years to move on to issuing their own paper money. This delay was due to two main reasons: ideological and technical. The first was that in the upper tiers of the party leadership there were discussions about a penniless economy with an unclear outcome. The second is the lack of technical means and specialists for fabricating new money.

However, in real life, neither the state nor the economy could do without money, so the Soviet government continued to put into circulation the old banknotes of the tsarist and Provisional governments. On the territory of the RSFSR, “Nikolaevka” (or “Romanovka”) circulated banknotes from 1 to 500 rubles and the money of the Provisional Government of two types - “Kerenki” in relatively small banknotes of 20 and 40 rubles and “Duma money” in banknotes of 250 and 1000 rubles. Non-cash payments have been reduced to a very small size. Until January 1, 1919, the tsarist, Provisional and Soviet governments issued more than 55 billion rubles (according to other sources, about 61 billion), with 36 billion or more issued by the Soviet government. Not all of them were actually in circulation: some remained in the territories occupied by the whites and interventionists, some were taken out of the country, destroyed or hidden.

Nevertheless, all this money depreciated en masse, and money hunger, despite the growth in emission, remained a constant feature of the economy, or what was left of the economy. The prestige and evaluation of royal and "temporary" money differed to a certain extent. The people were more inclined to believe in the restoration of the thousand-year-old monarchy than in the return of Kerensky. A significant part of the “Nikolaevka” was hidden by the population even before October 1917 or taken out by emigrants. The military failures of the Bolsheviks in 1918-1919 seemed to increase the likelihood of a restoration of power that could recognize tsarist money. For all these reasons, "Nikolaevka" was estimated at 10-15% more expensive than "Kerenok" and "Duma money", and in some places the difference reached 40%. Outside of Soviet Russia, tsarist money was also quoted more highly.

The Soviet government did not try too hard to limit emissions. There was even an idea that the more money depreciated, the sooner it would be possible to get rid of this "remnant of capitalism." It is amusing to read how indifferent the Bolsheviks were to emission and inflation. The Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of May 15, 1919 formally authorized the issue "within the limits of the actual need of the economy in banknotes." As much as you need, so much we will print!

Nevertheless, it was at this time that the issue of issuing Soviet Russia's own money was resolved: in 1919, money was issued in denominations from 1 to 1000 rubles, on which, as in tsarist times, a "credit note" was printed. The issue of new series of Soviet signs continued in 1920 and 1921, and their denominations grew and grew. In September 1921, the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) authorized the issue of a banknote of 10 million rubles. All these issues did not replace the old money, but joined them. However, by this time the highest denomination of old money (1000 rubles) had become an insignificant amount.

Counting money with many zeros became more and more difficult. After all, it must be borne in mind that more than half of the population of Russia was illiterate. In 1922, the denomination of the Soviet sign was carried out with a decrease in all monetary values ​​​​by 10 thousand times, according to Yurovsky - not the best idea: people were even more confused in zeros. In 1923, the second denomination took place with a decrease in money by another 100 times, as a result, one million old (before the first denomination) money began to cost one new ruble, which was convenient for counting.

These measures did not change anything, in essence, in the fate of the Soviet sign: it continued to fall. By 1921 free prices had lost all connection with fixed ration prices, if the latter were still in force. However, free supplies were given only to part of the urban population, and its norms were extremely low. The “bourgeois” strata found themselves in a particularly difficult situation, which included not only entrepreneurs, but almost all those who were not engaged in physical labor. For a significant mass of the urban population, the free market remained the main source of supply, and its prices determined the real life support.

According to the Market Research Institute of Narkomfin, at that time the leading scientific center in the field of economics, the free price index in Moscow in January 1921 showed an increase of 27 thousand times compared to 1913. Prices for foodstuffs increased by 34 thousand times, non-food - by 22 thousand. In 1920 alone, prices increased more than 10 times. The variation in the rise in prices of individual commodities was very large. The price of salt increased the most - by 143,000 times, followed by vegetable oil (71,000), sugar (65,000), and bakery products (42,000). Particularly large increases in prices for such goods as sugar and salt were explained by the decline in production, the difficulties of transport, and the state monopoly, which left no resources for the free market. Of the non-food products, soap (50,000-fold increase in prices) and threads (34,000) have risen in price most of all. Prices for goods that could have been postponed under these extreme conditions rose less: for example, dishes became more expensive “only” 12,000 times.

It is impossible to compare these figures with the monetary incomes of Muscovites due to the lack of any plausible data. With regard to many categories of the population, it is simply mysterious what means they lived on and where they could get money. Behind all these figures and facts is the gloom of people's lives in those years. The population of Moscow decreased by about half compared to the pre-war: people died, emigrated, dispersed to villages and small towns, where they could at least somehow feed from the land.

The rise in prices greatly outpaced the issue of money. For three and a half years (from the beginning of 1918 to the middle of 1921), the money supply increased 100 times, and prices according to the all-Russian index - 8000 times. Such a huge gap was due to the extreme narrowness of the market, the small size of the supply of goods. The issue was the main source of state revenue, but the financial efficiency of the issue, that is, the amount of these revenues, was steadily declining due to the depreciation of money. In the first half of 1921, the state received from the issue in real terms (at pre-war prices) only 5.6 million rubles a month - an absolutely insignificant amount.

Meanwhile, the costs of making and distributing money were high. About 14 thousand people worked at the factories of the then Goznak in Moscow, Petrograd, Penza, Perm and Rostov-on-Don. To this we must add officials of all levels who were in charge of the issue, money carriers, security guards, cashiers, etc. The impossibility of the "issue economy", as the experts called this system, became more and more obvious. Inflation may not have been the decisive factor in the transition to NEP, but it certainly played its role.

Hyperinflation in Russia in 1921-1922

The practical implementation of the NEP (the transition from food appropriation to food tax, the admission of the market, the introduction of cost accounting, the return to cash wages and its products) coincided in the second half of 1921 with a catastrophic crop failure in the Volga region and some other regions of Russia; famine swept over vast areas. One of the consequences of this economic situation was a sharp increase in the issue of Soviet signs: the rate of issue of money jumped more than three times compared to the previous period. The weak national economy, which had barely begun to revive after the spasm of war communism, responded to this with a new wave of depreciation of money. From the autumn of 1921, money circulation entered a hyperinflationary spiral.

In the fourth quarter of 1921, the average monthly rate of issue of money was 58%, the rate of price growth was 112%. In the first quarter of 1922, these figures were even higher: emission - 67% per month, price growth - 265% per month. There was a complete collapse of the monetary economy.

The situation is comparable to the German hyperinflation of 1922-1923, but with much greater public deprivation and suffering. There was no absolute lack of food in Germany; in bloodless Russia, an Asian-type famine with the death of millions of people struck dozens of provinces and the population of large cities. Hyperinflation greatly worsened the situation, hindered the movement of food to the starving regions, increased the need, exacerbating social stratification.

By the autumn of 1922, the situation began to improve, but hyperinflation continued. In the fourth quarter of 1922, the monthly rate of issue was 33%, price growth - 54%. By the end of 1922, the money supply had reached 2 quadrillion (two times ten to the fifteenth power) non-denominated rubles.

During this period, the NEP came to the aid of the Soviet sign. With the expansion of monetary relations, the economy's need for money grew, slightly delaying the depreciation of the Soviet mark. At the end of 1922, the real value of money in circulation was even greater than at the end of 1921. The agony of the Soviet sign continued throughout 1923 and the first months of 1924. At this time, next to the decrepit, breathless sovsign, a peppy baby - a gold piece - already appeared.

In the first half of 1923, the government was still not quite sure of the imminent end of the Soviet sign and considered the possibility of keeping it in circulation, so the issue was limited to some extent and did not go beyond 20-30% growth per month. Since the autumn of 1923, the issue and depreciation of the soviet mark have been peddling. But this hyperinflation is already combined with a moderate and cautious issue of chervonets, the real money of the NEP.

Chervonets and double circulation

By the autumn of 1922, the need for financial stabilization had become clear to the Soviet leadership. There were also objective possibilities for this: this year's harvest was not bad, the New Economic Policy was gaining strength, and the international positions of the RSFSR were strengthened. It was impossible, however, to rush and attack the finances with Red Army enthusiasm. G.Ya. understood this more than others. Sokolnikov (1888-1939), who from the beginning of 1922 served as the People's Commissar of Finance, and in November of the same year was appointed People's Commissar.

There was no state budget in the true sense of the word, taxes were collected very badly, the state needed emission to finance the army, the administrative apparatus, the social sphere, and unprofitable industry. Under these conditions, the idea of ​​creating a special hard currency without simultaneously refusing to issue Soviet signs became stronger and stronger in the minds. According to some information, such an idea was submitted at the end of 1921 by the banker V.V. Tarnovsky, brought in as a "bourgeois specialist". In the summer and autumn of the following year, this skeleton "overgrown with meat" and gave rise to the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of October 11, 1922, which granted the newly recreated State Bank the right and instructed to start issuing new banknotes in circulation in a currency called chervonets. The idea was that the budget deficit would continue to be covered by the issuance of soviet notes, while the chervonets would be able to maintain their virgin purity as hard bank (rather than treasury) money.

The new currency was issued by the State Bank in denominations from 1 to 50 chervonets. The gold content of chervonets was established - 7.74234 grams of pure gold (in the old measures - 1 spool 78.24 shares), which was equal to the parity of 10 royal rubles. Thus, the chervonets simply meant 10 gold rubles. As you can see, the denomination of the red currency was quite large: the wages of a skilled worker rarely exceeded 6-7 chervonets per month. The role of a bargaining chip in the case of chervonets was still assigned to the Soviet signs. Chervonets put into circulation were subject to no less than one-quarter backing with gold reserves and hard foreign currency in the assets of the State Bank. In the rest, short-term commercial bills (unconditional obligations of enterprises) and some other assets could be considered collateral. This norm basically corresponded to the world practice of that time.

Chervonets, unlike credit notes of the tsarist time, were not exchanged for gold, and the decree only recorded the government's intention to introduce a change in the future without specifying terms and conditions. It can be assumed that the creators of the chervonets seriously had no such intention. However, at that time, not a single European currency was officially exchangeable for gold, this property was preserved only for the American dollar.

The emission of chervonets was carried out in accordance with the normal operations of the State Bank through lending to the real sector under due collateral. The State Bank combined the functions of a central and commercial bank. Since there were practically no commercial banks in the country, there was no basis for the common practice in other countries of their refinancing at the central bank. True, one narrow inflationary loophole was left: the State Bank could, as an exception, lend to the state (i.e., cover the budget deficit), but at the same time it was required that it contribute gold to the State Bank as security for 50% of the amount of such loans.

Basically, these principles ensured the anti-inflationary stability of the chervonets, which was justified in the next 3-4 years. The fact that in the future it became an ordinary paper currency without guarantees against inflation, in any case, was not the fault of its creators.

Chervonets was born on November 22, 1922, when the first banknotes left the State Bank. At the beginning of 1923, there were 356,000 chervonets in circulation. A year later, the issue amounted to 23.6 million chervonets (236 million chervonets rubles). This was the year when hard money groped its way through the swamp of inflationary Soviet signs. This process was successful: by the beginning of 1924, in terms of real value, chervonets already accounted for 76% of the money supply, while Soviet signs accounted for only 24%.

The total money supply was still 8-10 times less than before the war. This fact reflected not only the economical issue of chervonets, but also the decline of the economy and trade, the naturalization of a significant part of this turnover and payments, and the spread of barter. At the same time, the foundations of healthy monetary circulation were taking shape - when money becomes a rare commodity and is highly valued.

For about a year and a half, there was a double (parallel) circulation of chervonets and sovznaks. The emission of the latter continued throughout 1923 and the first months of 1924. The Moscow Exchange daily fixed the exchange rate of chervonets in Soviet signs. This course was considered official and was reported by telegraph throughout the country. The quotation of the chervonets has become the most obvious and simple indicator of the depreciation of the state mark. On January 1, 1923, a chervonets cost 175 rubles in Soviet signs of 1923 (after double denomination), on January 1, 1924 - 30 thousand, on April 1, 1924 - 500 thousand. The status of the chervonets-patrician was strengthened along with the fall of the role of the plebeian sovznak.

With the improvement of monetary circulation, the NEP gained momentum. For the Russian peasantry, the years from 1923 to about 1928 were perhaps the best years in its entire recent history. Although the land was nationalized and owned by the state, the peasant felt his plot almost as private property; various forms of voluntary cooperation developed in the countryside, private entrepreneurship in small industry and trade revived. Economic accounting began to be introduced in the public sector; this meant that the budget was freed from the financing of enterprises. Budget expenditures for the maintenance of the army and the state apparatus were reduced. Excises (indirect taxes on consumption) and direct taxes generated more and more revenue. The state issued several loans, which were placed at that time on a voluntary basis.

Transactions with gold and currency, for which people recently faced prison, and even the death penalty, were now becoming legal. Royal gold coins could be freely sold and bought at the exchange rate. A foreign exchange market took shape, in which the exchange rate of the rupee ruble against the dollar gradually rose and soon more or less stabilized at the parity level, i.e., in accordance with its gold content. It was, it seems, the only period in the entire Soviet history when our currency legally entered the world market and was valued close to parity abroad. At the party-Soviet forums and in the press, they willingly quoted the high marks that the foreign "bourgeois" gave to the monetary reform and the chervonets.

An interesting innovation was the acceptance by savings banks of deposits in Soviet signs with conversion into chervonets at the current rate. This gave the depositor a guarantee against the depreciation of the state mark.

It remained to complete the reform and get rid of the Sovnak, which was carried out in February - March 1924: first of all, a full-fledged ruble was restored to its rights - now as a tenth of a chervonets, treasury notes were issued in strictly limited sizes in denominations of 1, 3 and 5 rubles . This structure of monetary circulation was formally preserved until 1947. In February 1924, it was decided to issue a bargaining chip from the ruble to the penny. Rubles and fifty kopecks were minted from high-grade silver, coins in denominations of 10, 15 and 20 kopecks were minted from low-grade silver, smaller coins were minted from copper alloy. However, soon the minting of silver was stopped, and the coin began to be minted from base metal alloys. By the end of the 1920s, the silver coin was hoarded by the population, that is, it went into hiding places.

Finally, in March 1924, the death hour of the Soviet sign came. Within two months, Soviet signs could be exchanged at the rate of 50,000 for one new treasury ("red") ruble, or 500,000 for a gold piece. If you do not take into account two denominations, the common ruble has depreciated 50 billion times. It fell slightly short of the depreciation of the German mark: the new mark was exchanged almost at the same time for one trillion old ones. The real value of the joint-valued mass turned out to be negligible: only 17.3 million red rubles were spent in the exchange. Open inflation is over, next in line, after several years of stability, was hidden, implicit, suppressed inflation.

In recent years, it has become customary for us to praise the introduction of gold coins as a kind of magic wand that allowed us to bring the country out of the financial crisis. As with the German mark, it would be a naive mistake to see the secret of success in issuing a new currency as such. If the matter were limited to this, the reform would be reduced to a denomination, which, as the experience of many countries, including Russia in 1998, shows, cannot give anything by itself. The success of the stabilization reforms in Germany and Russia, with all the differences in the specific situation, was explained by similar factors: they relied on the forces of recovery in the economy, on the improvement of public finances, on strict credit discipline and emission restrictions. The most important role was played by the trust of the population and business in the government of the country and in the new money, of which it acted as a guarantor. Finally, the improvement in the international environment for countries undergoing financial stabilization contributed to the success.

Based on the article "Money Chaos in Soviet Russia", Portfolio Investor Magazine, No. 12, 2008

war communism

Under these conditions, the government was forced to follow the path of naturalization of economic relations. The means of production and consumer goods produced at the nationalized enterprises were not sold for money, but were distributed centrally with the help of warrants and cards. By early 1921, 93% of all wages were paid in kind. The measures taken somehow normalized the work of the nationalized enterprises and protected the material interests of the working people. The displacement of commodity-money relations and their replacement by direct product exchange, the introduction of a natural accounting system changed the attitude towards money as an economic category. In 1920-1921. in economic theory, several projects for measuring social costs on a non-monetary basis have been discussed. (The concept of "energy intensity", "purely material accounting", "labor hours", "threads as a form of working money".)

The consequence of the depreciation of money was that the urban and rural bourgeoisie lost their money savings. However, the Soviet state could not completely abandon the use of money. Z.V. Atlas in his book "The Socialist Monetary System" [21] writes that the production of money during the years of war communism was the only flourishing branch of industry. At the same time, the paradox of the monetary system of the period of war communism was that the more narrowed the scope of the use of money, the more acutely their deficit was felt. Therefore, both central and local Soviet authorities were forced to constantly deal with monetary problems. The issue of rapidly depreciating paper money remained almost the only source of cash income for the state budget. The issued money circulated on the private market, the basis of which was small-scale peasant farming. Along with money, high-demand goods, such as salt and flour, also played the role of a general equivalent in the private market. This hampered economic ties between individual regions of the country, gave rise to bagging, speculation, and undermined the financial base of the state, which could not control and regulate the development of small-scale farming. Thus, under the conditions of war communism, money retained its role, but performed it in a peculiar form.

Monetary reform 1922-1924

After the end of the Civil War, all the efforts of the state were aimed at restoring commodity-money relations in the country, strengthening monetary circulation. By regulating commodity-money relations, the government hoped to use money as an instrument of national accounting, control and planning. In March 1921, at the 10th Congress of the RCP, the new economic policy (NEP). Proving the need to develop commodity-money relations in the interests of restoring the national economy and strengthening the elements of the socialist economy, V.I. Lenin emphasized: "... the turnover of money, this is such a thing that perfectly checks the satisfactoryness of the country's turnover, and when this turnover is wrong, then unnecessary pieces of paper are obtained from the money." In the process of implementing the NEP, an important role in the formation and development of the first monetary system of the USSR was played by the monetary reform of 1922-1924. In the course of it, all the elements that form the concept of the monetary system were determined by law.

The monetary unit of the USSR was declared chervonets, or 10 rubles. Its gold content was established - 1 spool or 78.24 shares of pure gold, which corresponded to the gold content of the pre-revolutionary ten-ruble gold coin.

At the first stage of the monetary reform, chervonets were issued into circulation. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the gold piece was issued not to cover the budget deficit, but to serve the economic turnover. The monopoly right to issue chervonets was granted to the State Bank of the USSR. As bank notes, they were issued by the bank into circulation in the process of short-term lending to the national economy. Moreover, loans were provided only for easily realizable inventory items. Bank loans in chervonets replaced, as a rule, commodity bills. In order to remove chervonets from circulation, it was decided to repay the loans of the State Bank, provided in chervonets, with them. Therefore, the amount of chervonets in circulation was limited by the need for economic turnover in means of payment. They were credit money not only in form but also in essence. Their issue was limited both by the needs of economic turnover and by the values ​​on the balance sheet of the State Bank. So, according to the law, the chervonets put into circulation were backed by at least 25% with precious metals, stable foreign currency at the exchange rate for gold, and 75% with marketable goods, short-term bills and other short-term obligations. To maintain the stability of the chervonets in relation to gold, the state allowed, within certain limits, its exchange for gold (in coins and ingots) and a stable foreign currency. In addition, the state accepted chervonets at face value in payment of state debts and payments levied according to the law in gold. Thus, all the necessary conditions were created to maintain the stability of the gold coin. It has established itself in circulation as a hard currency.

Solving the problem of maintaining the stability of the national currency was not easy. Firstly, there was a large budget deficit in the country, which was covered by the issuance of a constantly depreciating new currency - Soviet signs. In this regard, there was a parallel circulation of two currencies - chervonets and sovznaka. Secondly, with the transition to the NEP, gold and foreign currency took a strong position in circulation as a stable currency. That is why, until March 1923, from 30 to 50% of the chervonets allowed for issue remained in the cash desk of the State Bank Board, i.e. were not put into circulation. As the positions of the chervonets strengthened in 1923, there was a gradual transition from the gold calculation of all monetary transactions to the chervonets. In chervonets, state budget revenues and expenditures, the volume of business transactions, tax payments, wages, etc. began to be calculated. There was no need to use royal gold coins and foreign currency as means of circulation and payment. The right to issue chervonets granted to the State Bank expanded its possibilities for lending to the national economy. The depreciation of money caused by enterprises to consume their own working capital has ceased, and normal conditions have been created for the development of commercial and bank credits. All this made it possible to strengthen the principles of cost accounting in the national economy, to increase the revenue base of the budget, and to reduce the budget deficit.

However, the issue of Soviet signs to cover the budget deficit continued until the middle of 1924. To reduce the nominal volume of the money supply and facilitate settlements, two denominations of Soviet signs were carried out in the country1: the first at the end of 1921, and the second at the end of 1922. At the first denomination of 10,000 rubles . all previous issues were equal to 1 rub. banknotes of the sample of 1922. During the second denomination, 100 rubles. sample 1922 were exchanged for 1 rub. sample 1923. As of March 1, 1924, the number of Soviet signs in circulation, excluding two denominations, was fantastic - 809.6 quadrillion rubles. Even with a small turnover, I had to operate with millions of rubles.

With the depreciation of the Soviet signs, the sphere of circulation of chervonets continued to expand. If initially they served the commercial turnover between enterprises, enterprises and the financial and credit system, then later they began to apply in the retail trade. Thus, for some time in the country there was a system of parallel circulation of two currencies.

The system of parallel circulation of currencies was a step towards the restoration of commodity-money relations in the country and the strengthening of monetary circulation. However, it contained serious contradictions. Chervonets as a large denomination banknote was the currency of the city. Prices for agricultural products were low, so the peasant market was served mainly by state signs. From the depreciation of the latter, the peasants suffered great material losses. There was a threat of a reduction in agricultural production, the naturalization of the peasant economy. The urban population also suffered from the depreciation of the Soviet sign. Losses in the family budgets of workers and employees ranged from 20 to 30%. All this required the completion of the initiated monetary reform. The necessary economic prerequisites for this, as well as the formation of a new monetary system, were created by the beginning of 1924.

The second stage of the monetary reform was marked by the issuance treasury notes and withdrawal from circulation of devalued sovznaks. In February-March 1924, the Soviet government issued decrees on the issuance of state treasury bills with a denomination of 1; 3; 5 rubles, the cessation of the issuance of soviet signs into circulation, the minting and circulation of silver and copper coins, the withdrawal of soviet signs from circulation. The latter was carried out by buying them out at the following rate: 1 rub. treasury notes were exchanged for 50 thousand rubles. banknotes of the 1923 sample. Except for the two denominations carried out in 1921 and 1922, the exchange rate was 50 billion rubles. all old banknotes after the October Revolution for 1 rub. new.

Treasury bills differed from chervonets not only in the denomination of banknotes, but also in their economic nature. Until the middle of 1924, the issue of treasury bills was used by the People's Commissariat for Finance of the USSR to cover the budget deficit. Their release into circulation did not require bank collateral in gold, goods or credit obligations. As legal tender, treasury notes were provided with all the property of the state. To maintain the stability of money circulation in the country, the issue of treasury notes was limited. In 1924, the limit of the emissive right of the People's Commissariat for Finance of the USSR to issue treasury notes was no more than 50% of bank notes put into circulation, in 1928 - no more than 75%, and in 1930 - no more than 100%. In 1925, in connection with the elimination of the budget deficit, the issue of treasury notes was completely transferred to the State Bank. Along with the issue of bank notes, the issue of treasury notes has become one of the bank's credit resources. The treasury nature of the issue was retained for the metal coin, the income from which went to the budget.

Thus, as a result of the reform of 1922-1924. A new monetary system was formed in the USSR. The types of banknotes, the name of the monetary unit, its gold content, the procedure for issuing banknotes, their security, and economic instruments for regulating the money supply in circulation were determined. The development of non-cash payments provided for by law was essential for the organization of the latter. Formed as a result of the reform of 1922-1924. the new monetary system lasted with minor changes of a non-principled nature until the beginning of 1990.

This reform was carried out in a difficult economic and political environment: a ruined economy, a financial blockade, a sharp reduction in the gold reserves. On the eve of its implementation, the country's gold reserves amounted to 8.7% of the gold reserves of Tsarist Russia before the First World War and 13% of the gold reserves on the eve of the monetary reform of S.Yu. Witte. The Soviet government managed in a short time to create a new monetary system, strengthen the purchasing power of the ruble and increase the role of money in the management of social production. To maintain the established parity (1 chervonets was equal to 10 rubles in treasury bills), the Soviet government made extensive use of the methods available to it - state regulation of commodity prices and commodity intervention. In 1922-1924. The Soviet state already owned the vast majority of industrial output, the resources of the credit system, the entire railway transport, foreign trade, and a significant part of the country's wholesale trade. By regulating wholesale and retail prices, maneuvering commodity stocks and monetary resources, the state actively influenced the purchasing power of money, their circulation in the national economy.