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
War communism is usually called 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.
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 government 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 royal 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 them actually ended up with the state, and how much was stolen 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 was left 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 with an unclear outcome about a penniless economy. The second one is lacking. technical means and specialists to fabricate 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 Soviet sign was denominated with a decrease in all monetary values by 10 thousand times, according to Yurovsky - not best idea: people are even more confused about 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 - 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 introduction 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 with 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 real value, chervonets already accounted for 76% of the money supply, and only 24% accounted for Soviet signs.
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 a healthy monetary circulation– when money becomes a rare commodity and 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 of their history. 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 - from low-grade silver, smaller coins - 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.
AT last years it is customary for us to praise the introduction of gold coins as a kind of magic wand that helped 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
Lecture 6. THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM OF RUSSIA before 1941
1. Finance during the period of war communism (1917-1921) 1
2. The economic development of Russia in 1921-1927 as a necessary condition for the restoration of finances. four
3. The financial system during the NEP. 5
4. The process of curtailing the NEP and the formation of a command and administrative system 7
5. The development of finance during the formation of the economy of power. eight
The principle of incompatibility between Soviet power and commodity-money relations was put at the basis of building the financial system, which in practice meant their elimination. Nationalization of banks began with the seizure of the State Bank by armed detachments back in the days of the October Revolution. But only at the end of November 1917 did it begin to function normally, since at first its employees did not agree to cooperate with the new government.
The next step was the nationalization of joint-stock and private commercial credit banks: Russian-Asian, Commercial and Industrial, Siberian, etc. On December 27, 1917, they were occupied by armed Red Guards in Petrograd, and the next day in Moscow. At the same time The All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved a decree on the nationalization of banking in the country, which established the exclusive right of the state to carry out banking operations, to reorganize, liquidate old and create new credit institutions (state monopoly).
In January 1918, bank shares belonging to large private entrepreneurs were annulled. The State Bank was renamed National Bank and placed at the head of all others. During 1919, all banks, except Narodny, were liquidated. By order of order, all the safes were opened and securities, gold, and cash were confiscated. In Moscow alone, about 300 thousand royal rubles were confiscated from bank safes. gold and 150 thousand rubles. silver, and even gold bullion and sand.
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.
Based on the idea of the need to abolish money soon, the government was increasingly inclined towards complete depreciation of money through their unlimited issue. So many of them were printed that they depreciated tens of thousands of times and almost completely lost their purchasing power.
Money emission of the first post-revolutionary years turned out to be the most the main source of replenishment of the state budget. In May 1919, the People's Bank was ordered to issue as much money as needed for the country's economy. During 1919, the amount of paper money increased by about 4 times - up to 225 billion rubles, in 1920 - another 5 times - up to 1.2 trillion rubles, and in 1921 to 2.3 trillion rubles. As a result of the uncontrolled emission price level reached unprecedented proportions. If the price level of 1913 is taken as 1, then in 1923 it is 648,230,000.
Only the golden tsarist ruble retained high value, but it was almost never in circulation, as the population hid it. However, it was impossible to do without full-fledged money, therefore, in the country the most bread and salt became common units for measuring values .
Devastation, lack of roads, civil war turned the country into closed, isolated economic islands with domestic cash equivalents. According to the former Russian Empire There were many kinds of money in circulation. 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, almost collapsed tax system, which finally undermined the state budget, to replenish which even the coupons of the “Free Loan” of the Provisional Government were put into circulation. 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, while Moscow and Petrograd, in turn, had to pay 3 and 2 billion rubles, respectively.
As a result Russia's 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. People's Bank was merged with the Treasury. 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..
Finance is monetary relations, in this regard, it is difficult to talk about the financial system during the period of war communism. Of all the links of the financial system in this period, there was only the State budget, but it also consisted of monetary and material parts. All taxes from the population and enterprises were abolished. The main revenue items of the budget were money emission and indemnity.
The financial system of Russia in 1917-1921 ("war communism")
The formed financial system fully met the tasks of centralizing economic development.
The years of the Civil War are a continuation of a protracted black streak for Russia that began in the summer of 1914. Millions of people died on the battlefields, in the class struggle of the poor against the rich, from white and red terror, from famine and epidemics. The Russian economy was set back decades in terms of key macroeconomic indicators. Instead of feudalism and capitalism, socialism began to be created, moreover, not as good and rich as it was described by Thomas More in his Utopia (1516), as well as in the 19th century. in the works of K. Marx and F. Engels. It was, in fact, from the very beginning, tough state socialism, with the most centralized management of socio-economic processes.
L. D. Trotsky spoke about this most frankly: “All our hopes for the development of a socialist economy are based on four elements: the dictatorship of the party, the Red Army, the nationalization of the means of production and the monopoly of foreign trade.” Note that he is not talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat, not about people's power and democracy, but about the dictatorship of the party.
It seemed to some writers and orators of those revolutionary years that world revolution and communism were just around the corner, that it was time to abolish money and the market. They started thinking about how to do it. One of the theorists of the “war communism” system, N. I. Bukharin, wrote in his book “Economics in Transition”: “During the transition period, in the process of destroying the commodity system as such, the process of “self-negation” of money takes place. It is expressed in the so-called depreciation of money.
Professor V. Ya. Zheleznov: “The value of money has fallen to extraordinary proportions and continues to fall, threatening complete depreciation - it doesn’t matter, you can do without them and even should, because money is a fetish that blinds the ignorant and inert masses and retains its charm among people infected with old social prejudices. You can transfer the entire economy to natural payments, distribute everything that anyone needs from public stores, and everyone's needs will be satisfied no worse than before.
The authors of such a “theory” were divorced from practice; they had little idea of what would happen after the abolition of money. Nevertheless, it was precisely from here that a whole trend of Soviet political economists began - "non-commodity workers", "anti-market people". This was especially notable for the Department of Political Economy of the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University (Professor N. V. Hessin and his students). They discussed these issues furiously in the 1960s and 1970s. and later until the beginning of the XXI century. It never occurred to them to question many of the provisions of K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin concerning the “bright future” (non-commodity and penniless, but abundant, fair, humane) - communism. Some of them still see "real sprouts of non-market, non-capitalist relations in the modern global world economy." So, Professor of Moscow State University A. Buzgalin writes: “A market economy is nothing more than a historically limited economic system that has not only a beginning, but also an end.” Indeed, dogmatism has lived, dogmatism is alive, dogmatism will live.
Many monetary circulation experts wrote in the 1920s that monetary policy changed dramatically in the second half of 1918. G. Ya. direct distribution of produced values”. However, G. Ya. Sokolnikov himself, in his own words, never shared the point of view associated with the annulment of money through their depreciation.
The main generator of ideas then was V. I. Lenin, at least until the stroke in 1922. In this regard, in vain, many modern authors do not remember him at all, forgetting the main thing - in these years he turned from a theoretician into a practice. It was he who, having enormous power, determined the economic policy of the country. During the years of “war communism”, V. I. Lenin wrote and spoke a lot about non-monetary commodity exchange. Even during the First World War, money was greatly depreciated, the peasants began to refuse to sell their products for unstable means of circulation. This problem worsened after the revolution.
That is why, on December 25, 1918, V. I. Lenin said: “The peasants demand an exchange of goods, they demand fairly, refusing to give bread for depreciated papers.” He repeated this again on January 17, 1919: “Without barter, the peasants say: No, we won’t give you anything for Kerenki.”
Anarchic commodity exchange took place in the bazaars: the peasants exchanged their products for clothes and other things they needed. V. I. Lenin, on the other hand, wanted to establish this process on state level. On November 26, 1918, a decree of the Supreme Council of National Economy and the People's Commissariat for Food was published on the state's trade monopoly on all products of the textile industry, including threads, as well as on factory-made shoes, sugar, salt, matches, kerosene, petroleum lubricating oils, candles, soap, all agricultural implements factory production, nails, horseshoes, tea, confectionery and tobacco products. All these industrial products came to the disposal of the People's Commissariat for Food, and he organized their exchange for agricultural products. As V. I. Lenin and his supporters believed, this was the way to the socialization of agriculture, to solving the problems of its connection with industry.
The first decree on commodity exchange was issued on April 2, 1918. At first, it was based on a voluntary basis. Textiles were exchanged for bread. The textile industry was still in private hands. The state nationalized all wholesale warehouses along with their contents. However, the first experience was unsuccessful, because the fixed prices for bread established even before the October Revolution were too low.
At the beginning of August 1918, fixed prices for bread were tripled (20 times compared to pre-war levels). Barter became obligatory for the peasants.
The difficult food situation of the country, the need to supply half-starved cities gave rise to a decree on food dictatorship (May 13, 1918). Its main point was formulated by V.I. Lenin: “Declare all owners of grain who have surpluses and do not export them to bulk points, as well as all those who squander their grain reserves for moonshine, enemies of the people.” In fact, it was about surplus appropriation, a phenomenon not new. She appeared in Russia at the end of 1916, and before that - in Germany. It was the state grain monopoly.
A more detailed decree on the surplus appeared in the newspapers on January 11, 1919. This decree clarified the concept of “surplus” as grain in excess of the personal consumption of a peasant family, as well as fodder in excess of what is necessary to feed the owner’s livestock.
After the transition to surplus appropriation, manufactured goods began to be exchanged at fixed prices upon presentation of a receipt for the full surrender of “surplus” grain to state collection points. The surplus appraisal was abolished in the middle of 1921, more precisely, it was replaced by a tax in kind during the transition to the NEP. But the state, being a monopoly on manufactured goods, continued to exchange them for bread, i.e., the product exchange continued.
S. A. Dalin gives interesting data on state grain procurements in the order of apportionment and commodity exchange (in poods). The agricultural year then began in October:
- 1916/17-323 089 877;
- 1917/18-47 539 128;
- 1918/19-107 922 507;
- 1919/20-212 507 408;
- 1920/21-283 375 145.
Bread was distributed according to cards - to the Red Army, workers and employees, owners of private enterprises ("bourgeoisie"). The latter were supposed to be the least. An extensive network of state canteens was organized. So, at the end of 1920, out of 35 million citizens who received food cards, 21,261 thousand people. ate in canteens, at first - at fixed prices, and then - for free. S. A. Dalin wrote about this: “In April 1920, payment for labor food rations was abolished throughout the country, and on December 4 of the same year, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars, free delivery of all food products was established. On December 17, free supplies were extended to all industrial goods sold to the population. Thus, a penniless, communist system of industrial production and distribution, as well as public catering, took shape. It spread to the cities and only barely affected the village. This communist system was based not on an abundance of food, but on their acute shortage, on a half-starved existence, but this society was not divided into well-fed and hungry.
Surprisingly, money and the market still existed in parallel to this “communist” system. Half of the bread was given to the cities by the grain procurements, and the other half by the "bags", "speculators" (in the terminology of V. I. Lenin), but in fact - the market.
When the depreciated state marks did not help, the market returned to the ancient form of universal commodity equivalents, in particular to salt. This was taken into account during grain procurement, during the exchange of goods. So, on May 18, 1921, V. I. Lenin gave an order to M. I. Frunze: “Now main question of all Soviet power, it is a matter of life and death for us to collect 200-300 million poods of grain from the Ukraine. For this, the main thing is salt. To take everything away, to surround all the places of production with a triple cordon of troops, not to miss a pound, not to let it be stolen. Put in a military way. Assign exactly responsible persons for each operation. Me their list (All through Glavsol). You are the commander-in-chief of salt. You are responsible for everything.”
V. I. Lenin in February 1919, while working on the draft Program of the RCP (b), wrote: “The bourgeois elements of the population continue to use banknotes remaining in private ownership, these certificates for the right of the exploiters to receive public wealth for the purpose of speculation, profit and robbery working people". V. I. Lenin does not call for the abolition of money in general and immediately. He writes here about something else: “The nationalization of the banks alone is not enough to combat this vestige of bourgeois robbery. The Russian Communist Party will strive to destroy money as quickly as possible...”. And here the quotation is often cut off to show V. I. Lenin as a “non-commodity worker”. However, after a decimal point, he writes: “...first of all, replacing them with savings books, checks, short-term tickets for the right to receive social products, etc., establishing the obligatory keeping of money in banks, etc. In the field of finance, the RCP will carry out progressive income and property tax whenever possible.”
This is not about the destruction of money, but about their binding, state control over the movement of cash, its all-round limitation due to growing inflation, speculation, disorganization, food crisis, etc.
In May 1919, V. I. Lenin clarified this issue: “Even before the socialist revolution, the socialists wrote that money could not be abolished immediately, and we can confirm this with our experience ... We say: as long as money remains and will remain for quite a long time during transitional period from the old capitalist society to the new socialist one. This was the position of the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and the leader of the Bolshevik Party at that time. But in strategic terms, V. I. Lenin was at one with the “non-commodity workers”. Along with the tasks of replacing private trade with the planned distribution of products throughout the country, the leader of the proletariat and the idol of those years calls for “the destruction of the bank and its transformation into the central accounting department of communist society.” The Party's program formulated the fundamental principle: "Relying on the nationalization of the banks, the RCP is striving to carry out a series of measures that will expand the field of cashless settlements and prepare for the destruction of money."
The policy of drastically restricting commodity-money relations was put into practice; it was no longer a theoretical discussion, but the implementation of the Program of the RCP(b). But even at this time, it was not possible to do without money. Moreover, the issuance of Soviet signs increased because the shortage of goods was supplemented by a shortage of money. Professor S. A. Falkner even developed the theory of the “emission economy”. He believed that there was no limit to the depreciation of money, it was only important to achieve a uniform growth in the mass of money, prices, and incomes. In other words, he did not understand the danger of inflation; on the contrary, it seemed to him that an antidote had been found. The only important thing, he noted, was that there were no other competing money - neither metal nor paper. It was a pure utopia, complete oblivion of the theory of money in general and quantitative theory in particular.
They printed a lot of money, without measure, but they were still not enough to create the Red Army, the state apparatus, to pay wages to workers and employees.
In August 1919, V. I. Lenin demanded that the head of the Narkomfin, N. N. Krestinsky, achieve a productivity of 600 million rubles. per day, offering to transfer the printing houses of Goznak (in the old way - “expeditions”) to three-shift work. As of January 1, 1921, about 14 thousand people were employed in the production of Soviet signs in Moscow, Petrograd, Penza, Perm, Rostov-on-Don.
Sovznaks were still depreciating rapidly: if at the end of 1919 the largest denomination of the banknote was 1,000 rubles, then in 1921 - 100,000 rubles. The obligations of the RSFSR were also issued in denominations of 10 million rubles.
But you can't feed people with paper money.
The "architects" of socialism at that time spoke sharply. The chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Ya. M. Sverdlov, argued that the Bolsheviks should “split the village into two irreconcilable hostile camps, ... kindle a civil war there” in order to get bread from the peasants. The chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council and People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs L. D. Trotsky, speaking of the introduction of universal labor service, believed that "the worker should become a serf of the socialist state." He believed that all economic problems of the country should be solved on the basis of military discipline. Paramilitary labor armies (1918-1921) were organized by the method of compulsory mobilization.
By decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 11, 1918, committees of the rural poor (combeds) were created. In a short time (at the beginning of 1919 they were merged with the local Soviets), the Kombeds confiscated almost 50 million hectares of land, cars, livestock, and oil mills from the kulaks. The commanders also helped the food detachments.
In connection with the growth of naturalization in the economy in 1919, free distribution of food rations and consumer goods, fuel and fodder, medicines, tickets for travel in transport was introduced, fees for utilities, mail, telephone, and radio were abolished several times. On this topic, from November 1918 to May 1921, 17 decrees of the Council of People's Commissars were adopted. On January 19, 1920, even a decree “On the abolition of the People's Bank” appeared. Its functions, together with assets and liabilities, were transferred to the budget and settlement department of Narkomfin. The motivation for this unprecedented for the XX century. The event was as follows: “The nationalization of industry subordinated the entire state industry and trade to the general budget order, in connection with which there was no need for the People’s Bank.”
In 1920, cash settlements between state enterprises were abolished. Instead of checks was installed new form transfer of material assets within the public sector of the economy through the so-called non-monetary circulating transfers, which formalized the movement of raw materials, materials, finished products in kind. A new decree of 15 July 1920 forbade payments in cash, checks and direct appropriations. On August 16 of the same year, payment for the transportation of goods by rail was abolished, and on December 23, 1920, the decree of the Council of People's Commissars abolished payment for any kind of fuel provided to state enterprises and institutions. There were other similar measures to abolish money.
And yet, despite the harsh laws of wartime, trade was carried out throughout the country, there was an exchange of food for manufactured goods. At the largest Moscow market, Sukharevka, one could buy or barter almost any necessary product - from a pin to a cow. It was also possible to exchange Soviet money for foreign currency here, although officially this was strictly prohibited. Prices kept rising.
According to the Market Research Institute at the Narkomfin (headed by Professor N. D. Kondratiev), the free price index in Moscow showed in January 1921, compared with 1913, an increase of 27 thousand times. Prices for foodstuffs increased by 34 thousand times, non-food - by 22 thousand times. 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 thousand times, vegetable oil - by 71 thousand times, sugar - by 65 thousand times, bread products - by 42 thousand times. Of the non-food items, the price of soap increased the most - 50,000 times, threads - 34,000 times.
There are no data on the monetary incomes of the population, but it is clear that they were in poverty, fighting for survival. The population of Moscow has decreased by about half compared to the pre-war. This process was also characteristic of other cities; many sought salvation in the villages with relatives, on earth. But even in the countryside, life was hard. Market prices rose faster than the money supply, because the supply of goods under the conditions of devastation was small.
Thus, from October 1917 to June 1921, the money supply increased 120 times, and retail prices almost 8 thousand times (Table 9.1). In comparison with the pre-war 1913 prices increased by almost 81 thousand times. Subsequently, in connection with the famine in 1921-1922. The “times” of inflating the emission and depreciation of state marks were already in the millions and billions.
In a word, there was such a policy of the era of “war communism”, but the market and money, albeit in a dilapidated state, have been preserved. The civil war was largely over by the end of 1920. The situation began to change. As Soviet power began to be established in most of the territory of the former Russian Empire, money circulation began to improve. The following organizational principles were used for this.
- 1. Emissions from local Soviet authorities were exchanged for money from the central government, setting exchange ratios according to the real situation.
- 2. Money from the outskirts Soviet republics” remained in circulation parallel to the central money until favorable conditions occurred.
- 3. The money of hostile governments and organizations was annulled.
Table 9.1
War communism: money circulation and prices
However, the improvement of the monetary system and the economy as a whole was still far away.
One should not think that only combat commissars with “Mausers” on their sides solved the issues of monetary circulation. Scientists were also involved. An interesting page in the history of money in this regard is the attempt to replace rubles with labor units.
Even then, Russian scientists began to develop a material intersectoral balance (“revolving budget”). They again faced the problem of expressing numerous natural indicators in some generalized accounting units instead of sovznaki unsuitable for this purpose. A new consolidated accounting indicator was needed. Now it was set not only in the aspect of product exchange between the city and the countryside, the naturalization of wages, but also in the macroeconomic aspect.
A commission was set up under the chairmanship of S. G. Strumilin. In October 1920, he wrote in the article “Problems of labor accounting”: “Money accounting for economic goods must give way to non-monetary accounting. This is out of the question... It means that the ruble can no longer serve as a measure of value. But it only follows from this that we must find another measure of value, and not at all that we can abolish this concept altogether and dispense with any evaluations.
Similar ideas were developed by R. Owen, J. Gray, I. Rodbertus, P. Proudhon. The first attempts to put into practice “labor receipts”, “labor money”, certifying the amount of labor time spent on the production of certain products, date back to the first half of the 19th century. I. Rodbertus came up with his project of "working money" in 1842, P. Proudhon - in 1846-1949. R. Owen in 1832-1834 tried to organize in London a "national bazaar of fair exchange."
K. Marx and F. Engels criticized these utopias. The Bolsheviks again and again discussed this problem and did not find a solution. So, N. Kerve wrote: “The legacy of the bourgeois system, completely destroyed - the paper ruble - is living its last days. This is clear to everyone. But what should be next? Is it the absence of any value accounting or something else? Socialism is a subsistence economy that does not require gold and paper money based on gold as a means of accumulation and a means of valuing goods for its development. This is undeniable. But whether the need to abandon value accounting and value comparison of one product of production with another or not follows from this - this is a question that has not yet been solved by everyone in the same way. S. G. Strumilin in 1920 wrote more specifically about this: “As a unit of labor value, I propose to accept the value of the product of labor of one normal day of a worker of the first wage category if he fulfills the production rate of 100%. This normal labor unit, corresponding to work of 100,000 kilogram-meters, will be abbreviated as “tr. unit”, or the word “thread””. The discussion revolved around two questions: 1) about simple or complex labor; 2) on the scope of the “thread”.
K. F. Shmelev, E. S. Varga and other prominent economists and financiers of that time took part in the discussion.
G. Ya. Sokolnikov in his work of 1927 reports that immediately on the eve of the transition to the NEP, the principles of the policy of non-monetary circulation were still being developed and discussed. So, the obligatory surrender of foreign currency was already prescribed by a decree of December 3, 1918. But on January 3, 1921, the law confirmed the obligation for citizens to hand over to the state their precious metals in coins and ingots free of charge. The same law limited the right to own jewelry. It was forbidden to keep at home cash paper money in excess of a small amount - the maximum was ten times the lowest tariff rate. The development of the labor unit of account (“thread”) at the government level also continued. S. G. Strumilin wrote a draft decree on the labor accounting unit in the national economy; it was discussed in May 1921 at the Institute for Economic Research of Narkomfin. This despite the fact that at the 10th Congress of the CPSU(b) in March 1921, in principle, it was already decided to switch to the NEP, and therefore to the revival of commodity-money relations. In the said draft decree, it was established that “the unit of labor accounting is taken to be the average output of one normal day of simple labor with its normal intensity for this type of work. The designated labor unit is given the name “thread”. The widespread introduction of the aforementioned accounting unit in its entirety was planned from January 1, 1922. G. Ya. Sokolnikov wrote: “The development of these projects could not be completed. Economic practice turned the other way, and “threads” (practically, a “thread” was supposed to be equal to two pre-war rubles, i.e. 1 dollar) were thoroughly forgotten” .
But even if “trad” were introduced, it would inevitably turn into ordinary paper money. By the way, A. Potyaev wrote on this topic back in 1918: “The work of the expedition for the preparation of government papers will be aimed at making such labor banknotes, which will indicate how much the citizen has worked.” It was possible to change the name of the monetary unit: instead of the ruble, write “thread” or set the number of hours, days, but it would still be banknotes with conditional denominations. Abolishing money nationwide is not so easy. This is not a soldier's barracks, not a prison, not a labor commune of 100-150 people, this is the economy of a huge country.
Thus, the attempt to abolish money and market relations turned out to be unsuccessful, but it also turned out to be difficult to quickly carry out cardinal reforms in the transition from the policy of war communism to the NEP. The post-war devastation was aggravated by the unprecedented famine of 1921-1922, associated with the drought in the Volga region, and also with the fact that the predatory food requisition in 1920 - early 1921. has not yet been replaced by a soft tax in kind. Even the seed fund was often confiscated from the peasants to supply the cities and the army. The army, fed by the peasants, suppressed the peasant uprisings, the Kronstadt rebellion. The punitive operations were led by major military leaders - S. Kamenev, M. Tukhachevsky, S. Budyonny, M. Frunze, P. Yakir, I. Uborevich and others. A lot of blood was shed.
As a result of the famine of 1921-1922. about 5 million people died. The unrestrained printing of Soviet signs did not help. Food aid came from the United States, in particular from the American Relief Organization (ARA). Various food committees sent ships with food, organized free canteens. So, in May 1922, the ARA fed about 6 million people, the American Quaker Society - 265 thousand people, the International Union for Helping Children - 260 thousand people, English trade unions - 92 thousand people, the Swedish Red Cross - 87 thousand people. This help was a drop in the ocean, but it was still a lifesaver for many people. Such was the military-political and social background during the transition from the policy of war communism to the new economic policy.
§ 121. Money and the withering away of the monetary system
Communist society will not know money. In it, each worker will prepare products for the common cauldron and will not receive any evidence that he has handed over the product to society, that is, he will not receive money. In the same way, he will not pay any money to the society when he needs to get something from the common boiler. Another thing is under the socialist system, which should be a transitional system from capitalism to communism. Money inevitably arises and plays its role in the commodity economy. When I, a shoemaker, want a jacket, I first convert my commodity, i.e. boots, into money, i.e. into a commodity through which, in exchange for which, I can get any other commodity, in this case the jacket that interests me . This is what every manufacturer does. And in a socialist society commodity economy will still partly exist.
Suppose we have successfully crushed the resistance of the bourgeoisie and turned the former ruling classes into working people. We still have a peasantry that does not work for the common cauldron. Each peasant will try to resell his surplus to the state, to exchange it for the industrial product he needs. The peasant will remain a commodity producer. And for settling accounts with its neighbor and for settling accounts with the state, money will still be needed for him, just as the state will need them for settling accounts with all members of society who have not yet entered the common productive commune. It was all the more impossible to abolish money all at once, since private trade is still practiced on an enormous scale, which the Soviet government is not yet able to completely replace with socialist distribution. Finally, it is not profitable to destroy money all at once, since the issuance of paper money replaces taxes and makes it possible for the proletarian state to hold out in incredibly difficult conditions.
But socialism is communism in construction, communism unfinished. As construction progresses, money must fall into disuse, and the state may one day have to stifle the moribund circulation of money. This is especially important for the actual destruction of the remnants of the bourgeois classes, who continue to use hidden money to consume the values created by the working classes in the same society where the commandment is proclaimed: "Let not the unworking one eat."
Gradually, money loses its importance from the very beginning of the socialist revolution. All nationalized enterprises, like the enterprise of one big owner (in this case, the proletarian state), have a common cash desk, and they do not have to sell or buy from each other for money. Gradually introduced non-monetary settlement. As a result, money is being squeezed out of a vast area of the national economy. In relation to the peasantry, money also loses its significance more and more, and commodity exchange comes to the fore. Even in private trade with the peasants, more and more, money recedes into the background, and the buyer can only get bread for some kind of natural products, such as clothes, cloth, dishes, furniture, etc. The gradual destruction of money is also facilitated by the huge issue of paper money by the state, with a huge reduction in the exchange of goods caused by the breakdown of industry. The ever-increasing depreciation of money is, in essence, their spontaneous annulment.
But the most severe blow will be dealt to the existence of money by the introduction of budget books and the payment of workers for their labor in food. The workbook will record how much it worked, i.e. how much he has for the state / And according to the same book he will receive food in a consumer shop. Under this system, the unemployed cannot receive anything for money. But this can only exist when the state is able to concentrate in its hands such a quantity of consumer products as is sufficient to supply all the working members of socialist society. Without the restoration of the destroyed industry and without its expansion, this is not feasible.
In general, the process of the destruction of monetary circulation is currently looming in this form. First, money is expelled from the area of product exchange within nationalized enterprises (factories, railways, Soviet economy, etc.). Then money disappears from the sphere of settlements between the state and the workers of the socialist state (that is, between the Soviet government and the employees and workers of Soviet enterprises). Further, money disappears, being replaced by commodity exchange, in turnover between the state and small-scale production (peasants, handicraftsmen). Then money disappears in the exchange of commodities within small farming, perhaps it will finally disappear only together with small farming itself.
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