From August 1918, Krestinsky held the post of People's Commissar for Finance of the RSFSR (until the end of 1922). His appointment marked the beginning of the VC policy. The leadership of Krestinsky fell on the Civil War. The VC period was characterized by almost complete disregard for eq. the laws of the development of society and the role of money devalued millions of times as a result of inflation (monetary terms appear - a piece (a thousand rubles), a lemon, a lemonard. The general collapse of the economy, the need for strict centralization of supply, the struggle of the state against private trade were accompanied by the naturalization of relations. A feature of financial policy VC were "extraordinary taxes" on the exploiting classes.
A one-time emergency tax of ten billion dollars was established for the bourgeois classes. the total collection in May 1919 did not reach even a billion rubles.
Other taxes (income and trade) also did not produce results. The excise form of taxation (nationalization, centralization) lost its significance and was abolished. In 1920, the People's Bank was liquidated, so there was no credit and banks in Russia for 2 years.
The most important material source in that period was the surplus appraisal. Significant masses of commodities circulated on semi-legal markets, and the state sought to extract these resources for its own purposes. Through emission. The entire amount of withdrawals through the issue amounted to 1163 million pre-war rubles, and withdrawals through the surplus appraisal amounted to 931 million pre-war rubles. The Soviet government wanted to destroy money and replace it with a labor unit.
Thus, the emission, surplus appropriation and cash taxes provided the material resources of the state. transformation during the Civil War.
Despite the extreme unpopularity among the population, the policy of the VC allowed the communists to stay in power. However, by the beginning of 1921, the VK had exhausted itself, and in February 1921 all monetary taxes were abolished, emission was stopped, and the surplus appraisal was replaced by a tax in kind. radical transformations and the restoration of financial mechanisms began.
27. Financial transformations during the NEP period
By the beginning of the 1920s. Russia found itself in a state of political, economic, financial crisis, to overcome which the NEP was adopted, the resuscitation of the market began, and commodity-money relations began to develop. The task was to recreate credit institutions. In the autumn of 1921, the State Bank was established, and a monetary reform was soon carried out, which stabilized the country's financial system. 1922 was headed by Sokolnikov. The main merit of the People's Commissar Kerensky is ( 1922–1924) monetary reform, the result of which was the withdrawal from circulation of 886.5 quadrillion old rubles and the creation of a solid national currency - the gold chervonets. Transformations followed: the introduction of an extensive system of taxes, loans and credit operations. As a result, in 1924, after the famine of 1921, thanks to the NEP, the country not only fed its population, but also sold 180 million poods of grain abroad. Established the State bank. Thus was laid the foundation of the den-th economy of Soviet Russia. The nationalized industry began to reorganize itself on new self-supporting principles. Lending to industrial and trade enterprises on a commercial basis has begun. Until the stabilization of the ruble, State. the bank issued loans at high interest rates: from 8 to 12% per month, but the interest rate gradually decreased. At the end of 1922, a number of banks appeared: Prombank for financing industry, Electrobank for electrification, Vneshtorgbank for foreign trade, and savings banks were established to mobilize the population's savings. A decree was issued on the establishment of a state labor savings banks. In the summer of 1922, a subscription was opened for the first state. a grain loan for a total amount of 10 million poods of rye grain. In 1922, stock exchanges were organized to carry out transactions with the Central Bank. There was a "black exchange", or "American". She was unofficially recognized by the authorities. They sold any currency, gold, valuable furs. In the same place, the purchase of canceled securities took place. As a result, stocks and bonds, which in 1919-1920. met like a wrapper, disappeared and ended up abroad. Simultaneously with the monetary reform, tax reform was also carried out. The transition from taxation in kind to cash. taxes were imposed on tobacco, liquor, beer, matches, and honey. Already at the end of 1923 the main source of income for the state. budget began deductions from the profits of enterprises, not taxes from the population. The main result of the tax reform was to overcome the budget deficit in 1924.
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 other writers and orators of those revolutionary years that world revolution and communism is just around the corner, it's 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 department was especially distinguished political economy Faculty of Economics, 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 is he who has huge 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 wanted to establish this process at the 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 turned out to be unsuccessful, because the October revolution fixed prices for bread 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 take them out to bulk points, as well as all those who squander grain stocks 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 by 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 "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 ancient form general 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 the main question of all Soviet power, a matter of life and death for us, is to collect 200-300 million poods of grain from 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, a new form of transfer of material assets within the state sector of the economy was established through the so-called non-monetary transfers that registered the movement of raw materials, materials, and 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 carriage of goods by railways, and on December 23, 1920, a 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. Issues of local Soviet authorities were exchanged for money of the central government, establishing the ratio of exchange according to the real situation.
- 2. The money of the "outlying Soviet republics" remained in circulation parallel to the central money until favorable conditions set in.
- 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 physical 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 this implies the need to abandon value accounting and value comparison of one product of production with another or not - 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.
Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below
Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.
1. Measures of the state, referred to as the policy of "war communism"
2. Money turnover in the years civil war
3. Activities of the People's Bank
List of used literature
1. Measures of the state, referred to as the policy of "war communism"
The internal policy of the Soviet state during the Civil War was called the "policy of war communism."
The policy of "war communism" included a set of measures that affected the economic and socio-political sphere. The basis of "war communism" was emergency measures in supplying cities and the army with food, the curtailment of commodity-money relations, the nationalization of all industry, including small-scale, food requisitioning, the supply of food and industrial goods to the population on cards, universal labor service and the maximum centralization of the management of the national economy and the country. generally.
Chronologically, "war communism" falls on the period of the civil war, however, individual elements of the policy began to emerge as early as late 1917 - early 1918.
This applies primarily to the nationalization of industry, banks and transport. The "Red Guards attack on capital", which began after the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the introduction of workers' control (November 14, 1917), was temporarily suspended in the spring of 1918. In June 1918, its pace accelerated and all large and medium-sized enterprises passed into state ownership. In November 1920, small businesses were confiscated. Thus, the destruction of private property took place. characteristic feature"War Communism" is the extreme centralization of the management of the national economy. At first, the management system was built on the principles of collegiality and self-government, but over time, the failure of these principles becomes apparent. The factory committees lacked the competence and experience to manage them. The leaders of Bolshevism realized that they had previously exaggerated the degree of revolutionary consciousness of the working class, which was not ready to govern. A bet is made on the state management of economic life. On December 2, 1917, the Supreme Council is created National economy(VSNKh).
The tasks of the Supreme Council of National Economy included the nationalization of large-scale industry, the management of transport, finance, the establishment of commodity exchange, etc. By the summer of 1918, local (provincial, district) economic councils appeared, subordinate to the Supreme Economic Council. The Council of People's Commissars, and then the Council of Defense, determined the main directions of the work of the Supreme Council of National Economy, its central offices and centers, while each represented a kind of state monopoly in the corresponding industry. By the summer of 1920, almost 50 central offices were created to manage large nationalized enterprises.
The system of centralized control dictated the need for a commanding style of leadership. One of the features of the policy of "war communism" was the system of emergency bodies, whose tasks included subordinating the entire economy to the needs of the front.
One of the main features of the policy of "war communism" is the curtailment of commodity-money relations. This was manifested primarily in the introduction of non-equivalent exchange in kind between town and country.
On January 11, 1919, a surplus appraisal was introduced by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to streamline the exchange between the city and the countryside. It was prescribed to withdraw from the peasants the surplus, which at first was determined by the "needs of the peasant family, limited by the established norm." However, soon the surplus began to be determined by the needs of the state and the army. The state announced in advance the figures of its needs for bread, and then they were divided into provinces, districts and volosts.
The curtailment of commodity-money relations was also facilitated by the prohibition in the fall of 1918 in most Russian provinces of wholesale and private trade. However, the Bolsheviks still failed to completely destroy the market. And although they were supposed to destroy money, the latter were still in use. The unified monetary system collapsed. Only in Central Russia, 21 banknotes were in circulation, money was printed in many regions. During 1919, the ruble exchange rate fell 3136 times. Under these conditions, the state was forced to switch to natural wages.
The existing economic system did not stimulate productive labor, the productivity of which was steadily declining.
Under the conditions of "war communism" there was universal labor service for persons from 16 to 50 years old.
The system of military-communist measures included the abolition of fees for urban and railway transport, for fuel, fodder, food, consumer goods, medical services, housing, etc. (December 1920). The leveling-class principle of distribution is affirmed. From June 1918, card supply was introduced in 4 categories.
The consequences of "war communism" cannot be separated from the consequences of the civil war. At the cost of enormous efforts, the Bolsheviks managed to turn the republic into a "military camp" by methods of agitation, rigid centralization, coercion and terror and win. But the policy of "war communism" did not and could not lead to socialism. By the end of the war, the inadmissibility of running ahead, the danger of forcing socio-economic transformations and the escalation of violence became obvious. Instead of creating a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a dictatorship of one party arose in the country, to maintain which revolutionary terror and violence were widely used.
2. Money circulation during the civil war
In the summer of 1918, the issue of a new type of paper banknotes called "Settlement signs of the RSFSR" began. However, to carry out a monetary reform, i.e. exchanged old money for new, failed. Settlement signs of the RSFSR began to circulate since 1919 along with the old banknotes. It should be noted that in 1917 and 1918 banknotes issued by the tsarist and Provisional governments were in circulation. In 1918, the Loan of Freedom bonds with a denomination of not more than 100 rubles, a series of bonds and short-term obligations of the State Treasury for a period up to November 1, 1919 were legalized as a means of payment. appeal were issued "State credit notes of 1918".
In mid-1918, the Civil War and foreign military intervention began. The most important source of covering government spending was the issue of paper money. In 1918 it amounted to 33.6 billion rubles, in 1919 - 163.6 billion rubles, and in 1920 - 943.5 billion rubles, i.e. increased by 28 times against 1918 Atlas ZV Money circulation and credit of the USSR. - M., 1957. - p. 32. .
The growth of the money supply in circulation was accompanied by an even faster depreciation of money. From July 1, 1918 to January 1, 1921, the purchasing power of the ruble fell 188 times. Dyachenko V.P. History of Finance of the USSR. - M.: Politizdat, 1978. - p. 54. . The resulting hyperinflation was associated with a decrease in the need for economic turnover in money: production, commodity funds were reduced, and the process of naturalization of economic relations was underway. In certain periods of the Civil War, the territory on which banknotes circulated also decreased. Thus, the purchasing power of money fell by leaps and bounds. Money has lost the ability to perform its functions.
Under the conditions of war communism, 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, writes that the production of money during the years of war communism was the only flourishing industry. At the same time, the paradox of the monetary system of the period of military 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.
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 Tenth Congress of the RCP, the New Economic Policy (NEP) was discussed and adopted. 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 is such a thing that perfectly checks the satisfactoryness of the turnover of the country, and when this turnover is incorrect, 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.
3. Activities of the People's Bank
After the October Revolution of 1917, the banking system underwent significant transformations. Their content and direction were determined by the ideology of the class struggle and economic theory socialism, one of the elements of which was the postulate of the inevitability of the withering away of commodity-money relations during the transition to socialism. At the same time, it was assumed that the principle of distribution according to work would retain its significance. Therefore, the requirement was formulated to establish the strictest accounting and control over the measure of labor and consumption in the period of transition to non-monetary relations. As a weapon of such control, V.I. Lenin considered the bank - a single, largest of the largest, state-owned, with branches in each volost, at each factory, believing that such a bank means nation-wide accounting, nation-wide accounting of production and distribution of products.
In 1917, as a result of nationalization, the share capital of private banks was confiscated, which became state property. A state monopoly on banking was proclaimed, the former private banks merged with the State Bank of Russia into a single nationwide bank of the RSFSR, mortgage banks and credit institutions serving the small and middle urban bourgeoisie were liquidated, transactions with securities were prohibited.
On December 14, 1917, a Decree was signed on the nationalization of the credit system and the formation of the United People's Bank of the Russian Republic, uniting all the state, joint-stock and private banks that existed at that time. Later, the banks' capital was confiscated, and banking was declared a state monopoly. Such actions were explained by the need to free the working people from the exploitation of banking capital. The credit system was practically eliminated.
In 1918, the State Bank was renamed the United People's Bank of the Russian Republic. The country received a kind of "single" bank, which was supposed to focus on organizational issues, such as the adoption of assets on the balance sheet. WWII and liabilities of nationalized banks. As for the performance of purely banking operations, this bank did not have time to expand its activities in this direction. High and increasing daily inflation undermined commodity-money relations, provoked their curtailment in the state sector of the national economy, which led to a sharp narrowing of the sphere of lending and settlements. The erroneous interpretation of the "flight from money", characteristic of the period of hyperinflation, as a rejection of commodity-money relations as such became the theoretical basis for the introduction of the policy of war communism. During the implementation of this policy, the United People's Bank of the Russian Republic actually stopped its operations. By the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of January 19, 1920, the United People's Bank of the Russian Republics was liquidated.
The economic system of this period was virtually penniless and strictly centralized. Within a few years (from 1917 to 1920), the Soviet government took a number of measures to eliminate money circulation. The establishment of the procedure for settlements between the state and enterprises without the use of banknotes led to the simplification of banking operations. From January 1920 there were no banks in the country.
However, quite soon, already during the civil war, the failure of the policy of war communism was revealed, and at the beginning of 1921 a transition to a new economic policy (NEP) was announced, including the replacement of the surplus appropriation tax with a tax in kind, after which the peasant could freely dispose of his products. In practice, this meant a course towards the restoration of commodity-money relations, the creation of a market, the strengthening of the ruble and, accordingly, the restoration of the banking system. One of the first practical steps in the implementation of the new economic policy there was a decree on the establishment of the State Bank of the RSFSR, which began its operations on November 16, 1921. With its establishment, the foundation was laid for the restoration of the monetary economy. Nationalized industry, which up to that time had been subsidized by the state budget, switched to an independent existence, to economic accounting. The New Economic Policy allowed the existence of a free market, and also granted the right to lease nationalized enterprises to private individuals.
All these activities prepared the basis for the development of credit relations.
On October 15, 1921, the State Bank of the RSFSR was founded with capital allocated from state funds in the amount of 2 trillion. rubles, which were approximately equal to 50 million rubles. pre-war. The main goals of the State Bank were to restore money circulation and control its implementation, as well as to promote the development of industry, agriculture and trade. The State Bank had the right to issue banknotes, which served as a powerful resource for conducting active operations. All of them were carried out on the basis of the principle of national economic expediency, in contrast to the previously existing United People's Bank, the state bank performed credit functions - issuing loans, opening on-call loans with collateral with goods and commodity documents, accounting for bills. In addition, he carried out the purchase and sale of securities, deposit, currency, transfer and other operations. Significant inflation rates led to a high interest rate on lending operations, which was set at 8% for state and 12% for private enterprises per month.
With the establishment of the State Bank, the foundation was laid for the restoration of the monetary economy.
List of used literature
1. Alexandrov A. M. The financial system of the USSR. - M.: Gosfinizdat, 1956.
2. Atlas Z. V. Money circulation and credit of the USSR. - M., 1957.
3. Belousov R. A. Economic history of Russia. XX century. - M.: publishing house, 1999.
4. Belsky K. S. Financial law: science, history, bibliography. - M.: Jurist, 1995.
5. Money. Credit. Banks / Ed. E. F. Zhukova. - M.: UNITI, 2000.
6. Money, credit, banks / Ed. G. N. Beloglazova. - M.: Yurayt-Izdat, 2004.
7. Dyachenko V. P. History of Finance of the USSR. - M.: Politizdat, 1978.
Similar Documents
Formation of taxes. Formation of the foundations of the tax device and the system of taxes in Ancient Russia. The tax system during the period of "war communism", the new economic policy (NEP), the approval of the totalitarian regime. Tax regulation in Ukraine.
abstract, added 03/09/2009
The main source of the budget during the period of war communism was the issue of paper money. food distribution system. Taxation during the NEP. Direct and indirect taxes. Budget revenues in 1922/1923-1927/1928. Mandatory payments in wartime.
term paper, added 12/09/2013
Stages of evolution of the German monetary system: before the First World War, interwar period, after the Second World War - until the 90s. Features of the national system of regulation of monetary relations. Functions of the German Federal Bank.
control work, added 03/01/2010
Monetary circulation in pre-Mongol Russia and in the period of feudal fragmentation, in the period of Russian centralized state. Monetary reform of 1535, "Copper Riot". Reform of Peter I, monetary circulation in Russia in the 18th century, measures to stabilize it.
abstract, added 10/14/2009
The concept and specifics of monetary policy. Goals, tools and principles in modern conditions. Features of economic development and monetary policy. Measures taken by the Bank of the Russian Federation to improve the banking and payment system.
term paper, added 02/25/2009
Money market in the circulation of income and products. Origin and essence of money. The mechanism of the impact of the state monetary policy on national production. Inflation, monetary circulation and monetary reforms. Modern credit system of the Russian Federation.
course of lectures, added 04/06/2009
Monetary policy system, its goals, subjects and objects. Features of the application of methods and instruments of monetary policy. The role of the Central Bank in the monetary policy of the state. Unified state monetary policy.
term paper, added 05/31/2014
The goals and means of monetary policy, the role of the central bank in its implementation. Components of the financial policy of the state: monetary, tax, budgetary, international. Characteristics of the modern monetary policy of the Bank of Russia.
term paper, added 12/06/2009
The concept and structure of the state's monetary policy, its elements and significance. Quantitative benchmarks and instruments of monetary policy. Measures taken by the Bank of the Russian Federation to improve the banking system and banking supervision, financial markets.
term paper, added 09/25/2011
State measures in the field of money circulation and credit. Credit system and monetary policy of the state. The Central Bank as a body of monetary regulation. Monetary Policy Instruments and Banking Supervision.
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 cashless 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. Incidentally, it is in Central Asia and Transcaucasia, there was the largest emission, since the printing press was in the hands of local governments, which were virtually 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 government agencies strictly on 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 contributions. The formed financial system fully met the tasks of centralizing economic development.
During the period of civil war and foreign intervention, the Soviet government pursued a policy known as war communism.
Purpose: to ensure the mobilization of all the country's resources - labor, food, commodity - and their direct distribution in accordance with the needs of wartime.
Methods:
- food allocation, i.e., the delivery by the peasants to the state of all the surplus, and sometimes even part of the food they need at a fixed price. Prodrazverstka was introduced for bread, grain fodder, meat, potatoes, and agricultural raw materials;
- replacement of commodity exchange with product exchange;
- introduction of a rationing system (rationing system);
- transition to in-kind wages;
- cancellation of payment for services provided by the state (transportation, residential premises, utilities, use of mail, telegraph, telephone, etc.);
- change in the forms of distribution of the social product. All products of enterprises were credited to national funds. To carry out their activities, enterprises received the necessary resources from centralized funds.
- narrowing the scope of the use of money. They were used to calculate the wages due to workers and employees and were paid in state signs. Monetary allowance was paid to the personnel of the Red Army and their families. For cash, small economic and operating expenses of enterprises were made.
As a result of the revolution and the ensuing civil war, foreign military intervention, the ruble as the Russian national monetary unit ceased to exist both in form, splitting into many varieties and neoplasms, and in essence, having depreciated to a vanishingly small value. On the territory of the former empire, numerous political formations were formed that tried to issue their own money. In circulation were: the former royal issues, "kerenki", "sovznaki". The national monetary units of Poland and the Baltic republics that gained state independence were issued. Issues of national Soviet republics - Ukraine, Belarus, Far East, Transcaucasia, Central Asia. Monetary surrogates: "white" governments; occupation money of the interventionists; unauthorized and disorderly issues of local authorities, all kinds of public, cooperative and private enterprises, organizations.
During the civil war, about 200 types of various banknotes issued by different authorities simultaneously circulated on the territory of the former Russian state. During 1917-21, the amount of money increased 76 times. This whole conglomerate of banknotes issued uncontrollably and immediately losing their value created chaos, the collapse of former monetary relations and ties.
The revolutionary actions of the Soviet government to destroy the mechanisms of banking, commercial and state credit led to further swelling of the money supply and inflation. The establishment of the state monopoly of banking through the nationalization and centralization of the network of banking institutions led to the paralysis of the vast and ramified monetary system that serves production and trade exchange. The consequence of this was a sharp contraction of non-cash money turnover and expansion of cash, which led to additional demand for cash banknotes. The liquidation of the state credit system turned the emission into practically the only source of satisfaction of the state's financial needs. This is eloquently evidenced by the data in Table 5.
Table 5 - Financing of public expenditures in Russia and the RSFSR
(billion rubles)
*including an extraordinary revolutionary indemnity in the amount of 10 billion rubles.
Source: Dyachenko V.P. Soviet finance in the first phase of the development of a socialist state. - M., 1947, p.31-33,123-124,186-187
The economic policy of the Soviet government was aimed at eliminating market relations and replacing them with an egalitarian distribution system. Coinciding with the civil war and foreign intervention, this policy became known as "war communism". With the policy of war communism, the Bolshevik Party tried to make a great leap into the realm of equality and social justice, where all elements of bourgeois exploitation, including money, were to disappear.
Prominent Soviet specialists of those years presented the methods of war communism in the field of monetary circulation as follows:
- Sokolnikov G.Ya. “A turning point in the financial policy of the Soviet government occurred in the autumn of 1918, along with a general change in the policy line towards war communism. In the field of monetary circulation, the era of war communism gave an orientation towards the complete elimination of money, the organization of non-monetary settlements, and the direct distribution of produced values.
- Zheleznov V.Ya. - the head of the Institute of Economic Research of the Narkomfin of the RSFSR noted: “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 only 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.
- Yurovsky L.N. noted that the ideas of the economic policy of 1918-20 were not immediately concretized .... The state power, focusing on the complete elimination of all capitalist and, in general, all commodity-money relations, built such an economic order in which money should have become redundant.
The planned measures to eliminate the market and replace commodity-money relations with centralized state accounting and distribution were put into practice in a series of legislative acts of the Soviet government. They provided for: the introduction of a surplus appraisal for grain and all other agricultural products; nationalization of domestic trade; establishment of labor service; requisition and confiscation of valuables. From November 1918 to May 1921, 17 decrees were adopted on the abolition of various types of cash payments and on the free provision and supply of the vast majority of goods and services.
As the economy became naturalized, the importance of money and credit diminished. Nationalized enterprises were transferred to budget financing. A kind of apotheosis of the "demonetization" and naturalization of the economy was the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of January 19, 1920 "On the abolition of the People's Bank." In 1920, the people's bank was abolished, and its assets and liabilities were transferred to the Narkomfin. It was instructed to policymakers to develop a project for the creation and implementation of a special labor currency instead of money.
Banknotes put into circulation were officially called not monetary, but settlement signs. Formal control over their release in the form of an authorized emission ceiling was abolished from May 1919. By the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of May 15, 1919, emission was allowed within the limits of the actual needs of the national economy. They did not find any harm in the work of the machine that prints paper money, but saw a convenient way to destroy the bourgeoisie through the disorder of monetary circulation.
The rejection of money and the general pursuit of "kind" with its catastrophic shortage have spun inflation to the level of hyperinflation. From October 1917 to June 1921, the amount of money in circulation issued by the central government alone increased 120 times, and the price level rose 8,000 times.
War communism lasted three years, but the monetary system was destroyed almost to the ground (see table 6). Soviet authority survived, but there was a bureaucratization of the economy, which deprived the producers of any initiative. Speaking with a report to representatives of the financial departments of the first All-Russian Congress of Soviets on May 18, 1918, V.I. Lenin defined
Table 6 - war communism and money circulation
| | Oct. 1917 | Dec.1918 | Dec.1919 | Dec.1920 | June 1921 |
| Money supply in circulation (billion rubles) | 19,6 | 61,3 | 225,0 | 1168,6 | 2347,2 |
| October 1917=1 | 1 | 3 | 12 | 60 | 120 |
| Million rubles in 1913 prices | 1919 | 374 | 93 | 70 | 29 |
| Monthly paper issue volume (billion rubles) | 2 | 4 | 33 | 173 | 225 |
| Million rubles in 1913 prices | 196 | 24 | 13 | 10 | 3 |
| Retail price index: -to the level of 1913 | 10,2 | 164 | 2420 | 16800 | 80700 |
| -to the level of October 1917 | 1 | 16 | 237 | 1647 | 7911 |