The years of the Civil War are a continuation of the protracted black strip 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 the white and red terror, from hunger and epidemics. The Russian economy was set back by the main macroeconomic indicators for decades. 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.
LD 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 democracy and democracy, but about the dictatorship of the party.
It seemed to some writers and orators of those revolutionary years that the world revolution and communism were not far off, that it was time to abolish money and the market. They started to think about how to do it. One of the theorists of the system of “war communism” NI Bukharin wrote in his book “The Economy of the Transition Period”: “During the transition period, in the process of the destruction of the commodity system as such, there is a process of“ self-denial ”of money. It is expressed in the so-called depreciation of money ”.
Professor V. Ya. Zheleznov: “The value of money has fallen to an extraordinary level and continues to fall, threatening with 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 long-standing social prejudices. It is possible to transfer the entire economy to payments in kind, distribute everything that anyone needs from public stores, and everyone's needs will be satisfied no worse than before. ”
The authors of this “theory” were divorced from practice, they had little idea of \u200b\u200bwhat would happen after the abolition of money. Nevertheless, it was from here that a whole line of Soviet political economists began - “non-commodities”, “anti-market people”. This was especially distinguished by the Department of Political Economy. faculty of Economics Moscow State University (Professor N. V. Kessin and his students). They fiercely discussed these issues in the 60s and 70s. and later until the beginning of the XXI century. It never occurred to them to question many of the propositions of K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin concerning the “bright future” (commodityless and penniless, but abundant, just, humane) - communism. Some of them still see "the real sprout of non-market, non-capitalist relations in the modern global world economy." Thus, Professor of Moscow State University A. Buzgalin writes: “The 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 specialists in money circulation wrote in the 1920s that monetary policy changed dramatically in the second half of 1918. G. Ya. Sokolnikov: “In the field of money circulation, the era of war communism gave an orientation towards the complete elimination of money, the organization of money-free payments, direct distribution of produced values \u200b\u200b”. However, G. Ya. Sokolnikov himself, in his own words, never shared the point of view related to the cancellation of money by devaluation.
The main generator of ideas then was V.I.Lenin, at least before the stroke in 1922. In this regard, many contemporary authors they do not remember him at all, forgetting the main thing - during these years he turned from a theoretician into a practice. It was he who, possessing tremendous power, determined the country's economic policy. During the years of “war communism,” V. I. Lenin wrote and talked a lot about moneyless commodity exchange. Even during the First World War, money depreciated greatly, 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, demand justly, refusing to give up grain for discounted pieces of paper." He repeated this again on January 17, 1919: “Without the exchange of goods, the peasants say: No, we will not give you anything for kerenk.”
Anarchist exchange of goods took place in the bazaars: peasants exchanged their products for clothes and other things they needed. Lenin wanted to establish this process at the state level. On November 26, 1918, a resolution of the Supreme Council of the 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 factory-made footwear, sugar, salt, matches, kerosene, oil lubricants, 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 path to socialization agriculture, to solving the problems of its connection with industry.
The first decree on the exchange of goods was issued on April 2, 1918. It was initially 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 experiment was unsuccessful, because the fixed prices for bread established even before the October Revolution were too low.
At the beginning of August 1918, the fixed prices for bread were increased threefold (20 times as compared with the pre-war level). The exchange of goods became obligatory for the peasants.
The difficult food situation in the country, the need to supply the half-starved cities gave rise to the decree on the food dictatorship (May 13, 1918). Its main point was formulated by V.I. Lenin: "To declare all the owners of grain who have surpluses and do not take them out to the dumping points, as well as all those who waste grain supplies for moonshine, enemies of the people." As a matter of fact, it was a question of food appropriation, a phenomenon not new. It appeared in Russia at the end of 1916, and before that in Germany. It was a state grain monopoly.
A more detailed decree on surplus appropriation appeared in newspapers on January 11, 1919. This decree clarified the concept of "surplus" as grain exceeding the personal consumption of a peasant family, as well as fodder in excess of what is needed to feed the owner's livestock.
After the transition to surplus appropriation, industrial goods began to be exchanged at fixed prices upon presentation of a receipt confirming the full delivery of the “surplus” grain to the state reception centers. The food appropriation system was canceled in the middle of 1921, or rather replaced by a tax in kind during the transition to the NEP. But the state, being a monopolist on manufactured goods, continued to exchange them for bread, that is, the exchange of products continued.
SA Dalin gives interesting data on state grain procurements in the order of allocation and exchange of goods (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.
The bread was distributed according to ration cards - to the Red Army men, workers and employees, the owners of private enterprises (“bourgeoisie”). The latter were supposed to be the least of all. An extensive network of state canteens was organized. So, at the end of 1920, out of 35 million citizens who received food ration cards, 21,261 thousand people. ate in canteens, first at fixed prices, and then free. SA Dalin wrote about this: “In April 1920, the payment for labor food rations was abolished throughout the country, and on December 4 of the same year, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars established a free release of all food products. On December 17, free supplies were extended to all manufactured goods sold to the population. Thus, a money-free, communist system of industrial production and distribution, as well as public catering, took shape. It spread to cities and barely touched 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 parallel to this “communist” system. Half of the grain was given to the cities by grain procurements, and half by the "bagmen", "speculators" (in the terminology of V. I. Lenin), and in fact - the market.
When the depreciated Sovznak did not help, the market returned to the ancient form of universal commodity equivalents, in particular to salt. This was taken into account in grain procurements, in the exchange of goods. Thus, on May 18, 1921, VI Lenin gave an order to MI Frunze: “Now the main question of all Soviet power, the question of life and death for us, is 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 extraction sites with a triple cordon of the troops, not to let a pound pass, not to let the paint go. Put it in a military fashion. Assign exactly who is responsible for each operation. I have a list of them (All through Glavsol). You are the chief of salt. You are in charge of everything. ”
V. I. Lenin in February 1919, working on the draft Program of the RCP (b), wrote: “The bourgeois elements of the population continue to use the banknotes remaining in private ownership, these certificates of the right of the exploiters to obtain public wealth for the purpose of speculation, profit and robbery working people ”. Lenin does not call for the abolition of money in general and immediately. He writes here about something else: “Nationalization of banks alone is not enough to combat this vestige of bourgeois robbery. The RCP will strive for the fastest possible destruction of money ... ”. And here quite often the quotation breaks off in order to show V. I. Lenin as a “non-cook”. However, after the comma, he writes: “... first of all, replacing them with savings books, checks, short-term tickets for the right to receive public products, etc., the establishment of mandatory keeping money in banks, etc. In the field of finance, the RCP will conduct progressive income and property taxes in all cases when there is an opportunity for this ”.
This is not about the destruction of money, but about their binding, state control over the movement of cash, over its all-round restriction due to growing inflation, speculation, disorganization, food crisis, etc.
In May 1919, V. I. Lenin clarified this question: “Even before the socialist revolution, the socialists wrote that money cannot be canceled immediately, and we can confirm this with our experience ... We say: while the money remains and will remain for a rather long time transition period from the old capitalist society to the new socialist one ”. That 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 the strategic plan, VI Lenin was at one with the "non-commodities". Along with the tasks of replacing private trade with a planned distribution of products on a national scale, the leader of the proletariat and the idol of those years called for "the destruction of the bank and its transformation into the central accounting department of communist society." The party's program formulated a principled directive: "Relying on the nationalization of banks, the RCP seeks to carry out a number of measures that expand the area of \u200b\u200bcashless settlement and prepare for the destruction of money."
The policy of severe restrictions on commodity monetary relations carried out; it was no longer a theoretical discussion, but the implementation of the RCP (b) Program. But even at this time it was not possible to do without money. Moreover, the emission of sovznots increased, because the shortage of goods was supplemented by the shortage of money. Professor SA Falkner has even developed a theory of "emission economy". He believed that there is no limit to the depreciation of money, it is only important to achieve a uniform growth in the mass of money, prices, income. In other words, he did not understand the danger of inflation; on the contrary, he thought that an antidote had been found. It is only important, he noted, that there should be no other competing money - neither metal nor paper. It was utopia pure water, complete oblivion of the theory of money in general and quantitative in particular.
A lot of money was printed, without measure, but it was 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 People's Commissariat for Finance 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. On January 1, 1921, about 14 thousand people were employed in the production of Soviet signs in Moscow, Petrograd, Penza, Perm, Rostov-on-Don.
The Sovznaks were still rapidly depreciating: if at the end of 1919 the largest denomination was 1,000 rubles, then in 1921 - 100,000 rubles. Obligations of the RSFSR in denominations of 10 million rubles were also issued.
But you can't feed people with paper money.
The then "architects" of socialism spoke out sharply. The chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Ya. M. Sverdlov, argued that the Bolsheviks must “split the village into two irreconcilable hostile camps, ... ignite a civil war there” in order to get bread from the peasants. The chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council and the 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 the country's economic problems 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 village poor (kombeda) were created. In a short period of time (at the beginning of 1919 they were merged with the local Soviets) the kulaks confiscated almost 50 million hectares of land, cars, livestock, oil mills from the kulaks. The kombeds also helped the food detachments.
In connection with the growth of naturalization in the economy in 1919, a free distribution of food rations and consumer goods, fuel and fodder, medicines, tickets for travel in transport was introduced, payments for utilities, mail, telephone, radio were canceled 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, there was even a decree “On the abolition of the People's Bank”. Its functions, along with assets and liabilities, were transferred to the budget and settlement department of the 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 payments 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 by means of the so-called non-cash circulating transfers, which formalized the movement of raw materials, materials, finished products in kind. A new decree of July 15, 1920 prohibited payments in cash, checks and direct appropriations. On August 16 of the same year, payment for the carriage of goods across railways, and on December 23, 1920, the SNK decree abolished payments for all kinds of fuel provided to state enterprises and institutions. There were other similar measures to cancel money.
And yet, despite the harsh wartime laws, trade was carried out throughout the country, food was exchanged for manufactured goods. At the largest Moscow market, Sukharevka, one could buy or exchange almost any desired product - from a pin to a cow. Here it was possible to exchange Soviet money for currency, although officially this was strictly prohibited. Prices were constantly rising.
According to data from the Market Research Institute under the People's Commissariat for Finance (headed by Professor ND Kondratyev), the free price index in Moscow in January 1921 showed an increase of 27 thousand times as compared with 1913. Prices for food products increased 34 thousand times, non-food prices - 22 thousand times. In 1920 alone, prices increased more than 10 times. The range of growth in prices for individual goods was very large. The biggest increase was seen in the price of salt - 143 thousand times, vegetable oil - 71 thousand times, sugar - 65 thousand times, bakery products - 42 thousand times. Of the non-food products, soap rose the most - 50 thousand times, thread - 34 thousand times.
There is no data on the monetary income of the population, but it is clear that it was in poverty and fought for survival. The population of Moscow has decreased by about half compared to the pre-war level. This process was typical for other cities as well; many sought salvation in the villages with relatives, on earth. But even in the countryside, life was not sweet. Market prices grew faster than the money supply, since the supply of goods in 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, due to the famine in 1921-1922. “Times” of inflating emission and devaluation of co-signs have already amounted to 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, survived. The civil war was largely over by the end of 1920. The situation began to change. As Soviet power began to establish itself over much of the former Russian Empire, monetary circulation began to improve. The following organizational principles were used.
- 1. The emissions of the local Soviet authorities were exchanged for the money of the central government, setting the exchange ratios according to the real situation.
- 2. The money of the “outlying Soviet republics” was left in circulation in parallel with the central money until the onset of favorable conditions.
- 3. The money of hostile governments and organizations was canceled.
Table 9.1
War communism: money circulation and prices
However, the recovery of the monetary system and the economy as a whole was still a long way off.
One should not think that the questions of money circulation were solved only by military commissars with "Mauser" on their side. 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 Soviet signs unsuitable for this purpose. A new consolidated accounting indicator was needed. Now it was posed not only in the aspect of the exchange of goods between town and country, the naturalization of wages, but also in the macroeconomic aspect.
A commission was created under the chairmanship of SG Strumin. In October 1920, he wrote in the article “Problems of Labor Accounting”: “Monetary accounting of economic goods must give way to the lack of money. This is beyond dispute ... This means that the ruble can no longer serve as a measure of value. But this only implies that we must find another measure of value, and not at all that we can abolish this concept and do without any evaluations. "
Similar ideas were developed by R. Owen, J. Gray, I. Rodbertus, P. Proudhon. The first attempts to introduce 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 a "national fair exchange bazaar" in London.
K. Marx and F. Engels criticized these utopias. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, discussed this problem again and again and did not find a solution. So, N. Kerve wrote: “The completely destroyed heritage of the bourgeois system - the paper ruble - is living out its last days. This is clear to everyone. But what should come next? Is there any lack of value accounting or something else? Socialism is a natural 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 the value accounting and value comparison of one product of production with another or not - this is a question that is not yet resolved equally by everyone. " SG Strumilin wrote about this more specifically in 1920: “As a unit of labor value, I propose to accept the value of the product of labor of one normal day of an employee of the first wage category when he fulfills the output rate of 100%. This normal work unit, corresponding to work of 100,000 kilogram-meters, will be abbreviated as “tr. units ", or the word" thread "". The discussion revolved around two questions: 1) about simple or complex labor; 2) about 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 1927 paper reports that immediately on the eve of the transition to NEP, the principles of the policy of moneyless circulation were still being developed and discussed. Thus, 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 surrender to the state the precious metals they have in coins and ingots free of charge. The same law limited the right to own jewelry. It was forbidden to keep paper cash at home 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. SG 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 the People's Commissariat for Finance. This is despite the fact that at the X Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in March 1921, in principle, a decision was made to switch to the NEP, therefore, to the revival of commodity-money relations. In the said draft decree it was established that “the unit of labor accounting is the average output of one normal day of simple labor with its normal intensity for this type of work. The designated work 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 in the other direction, and the "threads" (practically, the "trade" should have been equal to two pre-war rubles, that is, 1 dollar) were thoroughly forgotten. "
But even if the "trade" was 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 state papers will be aimed at making such labor banknotes, which will indicate how long a 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 conventional denominations. It is not easy to cancel money on a national scale. 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 was also not easy to carry out quickly cardinal reforms on 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, as well as the fact that the predatory surplus appropriation 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 cities and the army. The army, which the peasants fed, suppressed peasant uprisings, the Kronstadt revolt. The punitive operations were supervised 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 Sovznaki did not help. Food aid came from the United States, in particular from the American Relief Organization (ARA). Various food committees sent steamers 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 Aid to Children - 260 thousand people, the British trade unions - 92 thousand people, the Swedish Red Cross - 87 thousand people. This help was a drop in the ocean, but still it was a salvation for many people. This was the military-political and social background during the transition from the policy of War Communism to the New Economic Policy.
The complete destruction of the economic and financial system of imperial Russia after the First World War and the subsequent October Revolution led to a drop in production, an acute shortage of food and epidemics among the population. Due to the catastrophic decline in production among the population of large cities in the winter of 1916-1917. a massive famine began. These circumstances forced the government to introduce the strictest distribution system of war communism against the background of spontaneous, uncontrolled and hidden exchange of goods - barter. The policy of War Communism was carried out in conditions of suppression civil rights and religion, the expropriation of private property, housing, land, bread and other products while an irreconcilable civil war was going on between, on the one hand, the "red" Bolsheviks and on the other - the "white", who were supported by external military intervention after the proclamation of the Bolsheviks non-recognition of the external debts of the tsarist government.
Administratively, the so-called surplus appropriation was introduced, or expropriation on behalf of the state in the private sector of food for redistribution among the part of the population that belonged to the working class, the poor and other needy strata of society. However, this measure achieved a very short-lived expected result, as it led to the curtailment of voluntary production and to an enormous hyperinflation. The emerging rigid barter (without cash payments) and the use of distribution coupons actually returned the country back to a pre-capitalist barter economy, and at the same time, in 1918, a strict state monopoly on foreign trade was introduced. This, in essence, was the initial stage construction of "real" socialism in a country with an intensified class-based, irreconcilable communist philosophy of its leaders.
A one-sided emphasis was placed on revitalizing and modernizing the economy through two key pillars - production and supply of electricity and rail transport. In 1920, the first plan for the restoration and development of the national economy based on electrification (GOELRO) was adopted for a period of 10-15 years. The plan began to be effectively implemented thanks to the availability of highly qualified engineering and scientific personnel, who, unlike philosophers or social scientists who left the country, were in demand by the Bolsheviks. Also, back in 1920, a major deal was concluded with the Swedish company NOHAB for the manufacture and delivery of 1,000 locomotives to Russia by way of barter exchange for the officially known and non-announced amount of gold bullion. In Sweden, the largest consortium of locomotive manufacturers was formed to fulfill the contract.
When studying the monetary aspects of economic transformations in Russia after the First World War, which led to a rigidly centrally planned economy, the questions involuntarily arise, what were the theoretical aspects and roots of these reforms. The end of capitalism all over the world, in accordance with the general Marxist doctrine, which has found artificial application in the conditions of war communism, would mean the curtailment of commodity production, and with it the exchange of commodities through the instrument of money in its capitalist embodiment. And this concept was harshly embedded in the chaotic and scarce post-war economy of the only, very large, but fragmented country, which was under the pressure of an internal armed conflict and in a war with foreign intervention provoked by the refusal of the tsarist government by the Bolsheviks.
The above, however, cannot in any way diminish the thorough and broad analysis of wild capitalism in Russia, which was carried out by V.I. Lenin in his early work "Development of Capitalism in Russia" (1899) and in other publications that exposed capitalism of that time and the accompanying backwardness of the life of workers and peasants. This was done under the strong influence of the founder of the Marxist movement in Russia G.V. Plekhanov (1856-1918), whose circle included V.I. Lenin.
G.V. Plekhanov was a supporter of evolutionary progress and subsequently opposed the October Revolution of 1917.
Unable to evolve into a more just society, the country, led by the Bolshevik leaders and their understanding of the ways of a possible way out of the deep crisis that had come, was forced to plunge into post-war and post-revolutionary economic and monetary confusion and chaos, where money as an important tool of economic policy, which had such high status after the reform S.Yu. Witte, almost completely officially (but still working on the "black market") have lost their stable significance and value. At the same time, the nationalization of all banks in order to gain direct access to money and gold, starting with the State Bank of Russia, was carried out forcibly with an unprecedented speed and immediately, one might say overnight, after the October Revolution. Former qualified bank employees were categorically given orders to submit to new management personnel from the workers 'and peasants' councils and to train them, or in case of disobedience to such orders, immediate dismissal with threats of severe reprisals. Thus, the banking system lost many skilled workers and essentially turned into a settlement bank.
At that time, there were some other theoretical justifications for this development of events. The Austro-German Social Democrats, led by Otto Bauer, viewed War Communism as a necessary and clearly expressed form of command-administrative system, in which money would not play any significant role in an economy with a rigidly balanced distribution system based on voluntary incentives to work and very militant communist ideology.
The ideologists of building a money-free non-market economy, which was eventually sharply criticized along with the abolition of war communism, were convinced that before the onset of the world revolution, all economic exchanges with Western countries should be carried out directly by the socialist state through authorized bodies, which would apply in its calculations of gold and currency values \u200b\u200bacceptable in foreign markets. In accordance with these provisions, during the first post-revolutionary years, government decrees were adopted and implemented, aimed at achieving three main goals, namely, to establish an absolute state monopoly in foreign economic relations, placing at the forefront the monopoly of foreign trade, on revision and confiscation from the private sector of gold and other jewelry, to the concentration of all foreign exchange transactions in the public sector. Emergency civil war, foreign intervention, internal economic devastation and foreign blockade served as compelling justifications in favor of such a model of foreign trade regulation, especially since during the "war communism" the sphere of monetary relations with foreign countries decreased significantly. Annual exports reached only less than 30 million rubles. in pre-war prices, despite the fact that imports amounted to 350 million rubles, which was covered with great difficulties through the sale of gold. There was only one way to sell gold through Reval to a mint in Stockholm, where gold bars were made with the stamp of the Stockholm Mint, after which such bars were sent to the open market. The state monopoly of foreign trade, introduced by Decree of April 22, 1918, remained long time up to the 1990s, the backbone of the foreign economic activity of the state with physical, mainly planning of both production and consumption.
In the early 1920s, amid a difficult economic situation and chaos, lack of raw materials and fuel, revenues from nationalized state enterprises covered hardly about 15% of budget expenditures. The rest of the government spending was covered by issuing paper banknotes or so-called so-called sovnoeznak. “The emission of paper money by Sovznaki increased in 1918-1921. from 27.3 to 1168.6 billion rubles. " Prices on the open market skyrocketed a thousandfold, indicating hyperinflation.
As noted in the memoirs of the Minister of Finance from 1938 to 1960 A.G. Zvereva, while still a young man, he was traveling by train in one of the central regions in Russia in 1921 and bought himself something to eat. The entire meal, which consisted of a glass of tea, a slice of black bread and six raisins, cost 6 million Sovnets (!). The speed with which prices rose, generated, paradoxically, given the round-the-clock operation of money printing presses, an acute shortage of cash. About 14-15 thousand workers were constantly employed in state-owned money-printing enterprises in Moscow, Leningrad, Penza, Perm and Rostov-on-Don, issuing tons of paper money. Printing paper money was simplified to the point that counterfeiting was not a problem. Increasingly large digital denominations were stamped on banknotes, but despite all this, attempts to keep pace with the issue of rapidly rising prices were unsuccessful.
In the economy on the territory of the former Russian Empire, in principle, there could not be a single monetary system. At the early stage of the existence of Soviet Russia, at least 10 different types of banknotes and a rather small number of securities were officially issued into circulation. Turkestan, Bukhara and Khorezm had their own issues of Soviet signs in circulation. Tsarist money was in circulation, including chervontsy, Duma money or "kerenki" (the name was given by the name of the Chairman of the Provisional Government AF Kerensky). In total, by that time, more than 2000 types of banknotes were circulating on the territory of the country at the same time, and on the outskirts of the country there were US dollars, pounds sterling, Japanese yen and tsarist "chervonets" in circulation. Many of the banknotes were put into circulation by various institutions outside the Soviet government. In circulation were means of exchange, released into circulation on the orders of "white" generals and commanders, such as A.V. Kolchak, A.I. Denikin, M.V. Rodzianko, N.N. Yudenich, N.P. Wrangel, and even foreign military leaders: Vandamma, Avaloff-Bermondt (in Belarus), etc. In the border and coastal provinces, in particular such as the North European part of Russia, Siberia, the Far East, Ukraine, the Caucasian republics, and Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Finland and other places issued their own means of exchange and payments. Of particular interest from the point of view of understanding the colonial intentions of the British interventionists is the issue of the so-called "northern" rubles for use in the northern Russian territories occupied by British troops in the period from December 1, 1918 to November 15, 1919. For these purposes, a plan was developed and implemented with the participation of J. Keynes to create a Currency Board based on the formation of reserves in British pounds sterling. "Northern" rubles were pegged to the British pound sterling at a ratio of 40: 1. For the Issuer Office in London, a special reserve fund was deposited with the Bank of England, consisting of gold and foreign watt for a total of £ 750,000, or about 30 million Nordic rubles, while the permissible fiduciary issue was fixed at the Uz level this reserve
Description
1. Measures of the state, referred to as the policy of "war communism" ……………………………………………………………………… ..4
List of sources used …………………………………………… ..14
The work consists of 1 file
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………… 3
1. Measures of the state, referred to as the policy of "war communism" ……………………………………………………………………… ..4
2. Money circulation during the Civil War …………………………… ..7
3. Activities of the People's Bank ………………………………………… ..… .10
List of sources used …………………………………………… .. 14
Introduction
In October 1917, the proletariat inherited from the bourgeoisie a fundamentally disordered monetary system. All the cream of the emission tax has already been removed by the tsarist and provisional governments, which have pumped out more than 7 billion gold rubles from the population by inflation of commodity values. Having broken the resistance of the State Bank officials by armed force, the Soviet government took possession of the emission apparatus and used it to finance the "costs of the revolution."
The time from mid-1918 to April 1921 is commonly referred to as the "War Communism" period. During the period of War Communism, everything was mobilized to fight the internal and external bourgeoisie.
The introduction of food appropriation and numerous and general labor procedures, the nationalization of all production down to the smallest enterprises, centralized (through the so-called "headquarters", that is, the main departments of individual industries) management of the entire industry, the abolition of the free market and the centralized supply of the population and the Red Army with products - these are the characteristic features of this period. All these activities led to the fact that the sphere of market exchange was extremely narrowed: meanwhile, the issue of paper money continued to grow; but its real value was falling due to the continuous increase in the rate of depreciation of Soviet signs.
1. Measures of the state, called the policy of "war communism"
The internal policy of the Soviet state during the civil war was called the "policy of war communism." The term "war communism" was proposed by the famous Bolshevik A.A. Bogdanov back in 1916. In his book "Questions of Socialism" he wrote that during the war the internal life of any country is subject to a special logic of development: most of the able-bodied population leaves the sphere of production, producing nothing, and consumes a lot. The so-called "consumer communism" appears. At the same time, a significant part of the national budget is spent on military needs. This inevitably requires restrictions on consumption and state control over distribution. War also leads to the collapse of democratic institutions in the country, so we can say that War Communism was driven by the needs of wartime.
Another reason for the formation of this policy can be considered the Marxist views of the Bolsheviks who came to power in Russia in 1917. Marx and Engels did not elaborate in detail the features of the communist formation. They believed that there would be no place for private property and commodity-money relations, but there would be an equalizing principle of distribution. However, it was about the industrially developed countries and the world socialist revolution as a one-time act.
The policy of "war communism" included a set of measures that affected the economic and socio-political sphere. The basis of "war communism" was extraordinary measures in supplying cities and the army with food, the curtailment of commodity-money relations, the nationalization of the entire industry, including small, food appropriation, the supply of food and industrial goods to the population on ration cards, universal labor service and the maximum centralization of management of the national economy and the country generally.
Chronologically, "War Communism" falls on the period of the Civil War, but certain elements of politics began to emerge as early as late 1917 - early 1918.
This applies primarily to the nationalization of industry, banks and transport. The "Red Guard 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 were transferred to state ownership. In November 1920, small businesses were confiscated. Thus, the destruction of private property took place. A characteristic feature of "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 inconsistency of these principles becomes obvious. The factory committees lacked the competence and experience to manage. The leaders of Bolshevism realized that they had previously exaggerated the degree of revolutionary consciousness of the working class, which was not ready to rule. The stake is placed on state management of economic life. On December 2, 1917, the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) was created.
The tasks of the Supreme Council of the National Economy included the nationalization of large-scale industry, management of transport, finances, the establishment of trade, etc. By the summer of 1918, local (provincial, district) economic councils, subordinate to the Supreme Council of the National Economy, emerged. The Council of People's Commissars, and then the Council of Defense, determined the main directions of work of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, its central administrations and centers, with each representing a kind of state monopoly in the corresponding branch of production. By the summer of 1920, almost 50 central administrations had been created to manage large nationalized enterprises.
The system of centralized management dictated the need for a commanding style of leadership. One of the features of the policy of "War Communism" was the system of emergency organs, whose tasks were to subordinate 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 nonequivalent exchange in kind between town and country.
On January 11, 1919, in order to streamline the exchange between town and country, a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee introduced food appropriation. It was prescribed to withdraw the surplus from the peasants, which were initially determined by "the needs of the peasant family, limited by the established norm." However, the surplus soon 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 by provinces, counties and volosts.
The curtailment of commodity-money relations was also facilitated by the prohibition in the fall of 1918 in most of the provinces of Russia of wholesale and private trade. However, the Bolsheviks still did not succeed in destroying the market to the end. And although they were supposed to destroy money, the latter were still in use. The single monetary system collapsed. Only in Central Russia, 21 banknotes were in circulation, money was printed in many regions. In 1919, the ruble fell 3136 times. Under these conditions, the state was forced to switch to wages in kind.
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 payments for city and rail transport, for fuel, fodder, food, consumer goods, medical services, housing, etc. (December 1920). The class-equalizing principle of distribution is approved. 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 tremendous efforts, the Bolsheviks managed to turn the republic into a "military camp" and win by means of agitation, rigid centralization, compulsion and terror. 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 became obvious, the danger of speeding up socio-economic transformations and escalating violence. Instead of creating a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a dictatorship of one party arose in the country, for the maintenance of which revolutionary terror and violence were widely used.
2. Money circulation during the Civil War
In the summer of 1918, a new type of paper banknotes began to be issued under the name "Settlement Notes of the RSFSR". However, to carry out monetary reform, i.e. it was not possible to exchange old money for new ones. The settlement notes of the RSFSR began to circulate since 1919 on a par with the old banknotes. It should be noted that in 1917 and 1918 there were banknotes issued by the tsarist and Provisional governments in circulation. In 1918, Loan of Freedom bonds with a denomination of not more than 100 rubles, 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. To extract from circulation all the listed banknotes and various kinds of monetary surrogates in The appeal was issued "State credit notes of 1918".
In the second half of 1918, military intervention and the Civil War began, which thwarted the plans of the Soviet state to establish monetary circulation and create a monetary system.
The most important source of coverage of 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 against 1918 by 28 times.
The growth of the money supply in circulation was accompanied by an even more rapid depreciation of money. From July 1, 1918 to January 1, 1921, the purchasing power of the ruble fell 188 times. The resulting hyperinflation was associated with a decrease in the needs of economic turnover in money: production and commodity assets were reduced, and the process of naturalization of economic relations was under way. In certain periods of the Civil War, the territory in which banknotes were circulated also decreased. Thus, the purchasing power of money fell by leaps and bounds. Money has lost the ability to perform its functions.
During the war years, many enterprises, organizations, cities issued their own banknotes. The so-called "wine money" issued in Yakutia is especially distinguished. Local People's Commissar for Finance Semenov A.A. I wrote by hand: 1 ruble on the label with the inscription "Madera", "10 rubles" - on port, "25 rubles" - on sherry. Similar receipts, issued by the Yakutsk retail partnership, were introduced into circulation and successfully replaced the missing banknotes. In Vladivostok, the Kunst and Albers trading company produced its own five-ruble notes. The Mytishchensky consumer society, the Okulovskaya stationery factory, etc. had their own bonds.
In an unusual way, they solved the problem of exchange banknotes in the Trinity district of the Trans-Baikal region. According to the resolution of the Council of People's Commissariats, the branch of the People's Bank cut twenty-ruble kernels into quarters - which became five rubles, and forty-ruble kernels became ten rubles.
In the face of an acute shortage of banknotes, the Far Eastern Council of People's Commissars decides to issue regional bonds that circulate simultaneously with other banknotes of the RSFSR. At the end of the winter of 1918, the Zeysk executive committee issued its own checks in the total amount of 2,500 pieces in the amount of 585 thousand rubles instead of money, the face value of which was written by hand. Checks were issued for settlements with miners in gold mines. After June 1, 1919, the Zeya treasury exchanged checks for banknotes ruble for ruble.
Money as such was not canceled during this period, but on the contrary, the need for it was felt most acutely. By a decree of March 4, 1919, the first banknotes of the Soviet state were issued, which were called "settlement tokens of the RSFSR" in denominations of 1.2 and 3 rubles. The new money received the abbreviated name "Sovznaki". Later, calculation signs of a different value appear. In 1921, banknotes in denominations of 100, 250, 500, 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 25,000, 50,000 and 100,000 rubles were issued, since the rise in prices required an increase in banknotes. The issue of settlement signs was carried out practically without restrictions. They were supposed to oust all the previously used types of banknotes from circulation. At the same time, in addition to the settlement notes, "Obligations of the RSFSR" were issued in denominations of 1.5 and 10 million rubles, which, unlike other banknotes, have limited circulation periods.
The settlement signs had a remarkable appearance... The banknote depicts the coat of arms of the RSFSR and the inscription "Workers of all countries, unite!" The appeal looked very unusual for banknotes. The nature of the provision of money was clearly reported - "provided with all the property of the republic." This norm is absent on modern bank notes. On the settlement notes the organizer of the issue of banknotes is indicated - the issuer - not the State Bank, but the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. The listed characteristics testified that settlement notes are a new form of banknotes, different from credit or treasury notes.
White guard governments and troops of the interventionists also issued paper money. Their banknotes were issued in 1919 - 1920. generals Yudenich, Kolchak, Semenov, Denikin, Wrangel, Shkuro, Rodzianko and others. Most of such emissions were carried out abroad or supported by foreign states. For example, Petliura's "hryvnias" were printed in Berlin. Baron Wrangel printed some of his money in England. The Entente countries helped to issue Kolchak money. The counter-revolutionary governments, issuing their own money, did not care about their provision and allowed to accept in payments all the money that was available at that time on the territory of the country, including counterfeit ones. The counterfeit money circulated freely at the same rate as the real money.
lt; § 1. "War Communism" and the breakdown of the monetary system. - § 2. The disintegration of the monetary system and the price gap. - § 3. Naturalization of the economy and the course towards the elimination of money. - § 4. Theory and practice of withering away of money. - The problem of economic accounting under socialism. - Projects of cashless economic accounting. - § 5. Development of trade and the emergence of local equivalents. - Expanded form of value. - General reform of value. - § 6. Sovznaki as substitutes for local goods - money. - § 7. The reasons for the "vitality" of the sovznak.
In October 1917, the proletariat inherited from the bourgeoisie a fundamentally disordered monetary system. All the cream of the emission tax has already been removed by the tsarist and provisional governments, which have pumped out more than 7 billion gold rubles from the population by inflation of commodity values. Having broken the resistance of the State Bank officials by armed force, the Soviet government took possession of the emission apparatus and used it to finance the "costs of the revolution."
§ 1. The printing press served the proletariat as a means of fighting the bourgeoisie, along with firearms.
The time from mid-1918 to April 1921 is commonly referred to as the "War Communism" period. During the period of War Communism, everything was mobilized to fight the internal and external bourgeoisie.
“Our entire economy, both as a whole and in individual parts, was thoroughly imbued with wartime conditions. Reckoning with us, we should have set ourselves the task of collecting a certain amount of food, not reckoning completely with what place this will take in the general economic turnover ”(Lenin). Such a policy was a necessity in the face of a bitter civil war. “In the conditions of war in which we were placed, this policy was correct. We had no other possibility, except for the maximum use of immediate monopoly, up to the withdrawal of all surpluses, at least without any compensation ... This was a measure caused by not economic conditions, but prescribed to us to a large extent by military conditions ”(Lenin). Since “war communism” “was forced by war and devastation,” “it was not and not mine to be a policy corresponding to the economic tasks of the proletariat. He was a temporary measure ”(Lenin).
The introduction of food appropriation and numerous and general labor services, the nationalization of all production down to the smallest enterprises, the centralized (through the so-called "head offices", that is, the main departments of individual industries) management of the entire industry, the abolition of the free market and centralized supply of the population and the Red army products - these are the characteristic features of this period. All these activities led to the fact that the sphere of market exchange was extremely narrowed: meanwhile, the issue of paper money continued to grow; but its real value was falling due to the continuous increase in the rate of depreciation of Soviet signs.
§ 2. The following table shows the growth of the money supply and the fall in its real value.
Real price
An extreme reduction in the sphere of market exchange, a catastrophic increase in the speed of circulation of money with a continuous increase in emission, these are the reasons for such a sharp depreciation of the debt. The rate of depreciation constantly (except for the second half of 1920) outstripped the rate of emission, which can be seen from diagram 5 on page 172.
But the paper money flow during this period of the NB. Was depleted by one centralized emission of Soviet signs by the Soviet government. Since the spring of 1919, the local emission of banknotes has become extremely widespread due to the fragmentation of the entire present territory of the USSR into many politically or economically separated regions and districts and even individual cities, up to the county ones.
§ 2. The period of "War Communism" is a period of unprecedented paper money chaos in history. The disintegration of the unity of the monetary system reflected the deepest disintegration of economic ties of a previously integral economic organism and, in turn, exacerbated the general economic degradation (decline). Prices not only grew from day to day, even from hour to hour, but most importantly, the single price disappeared. For the same period for the same product - rye flour - the prices in the Soviet signs in Leningrad were 23.8 times higher than in Saratov, and 15 times higher than in Ulyanovsk. Each district set its own prices, and the more distant one district was from another, the greater the price gap. The gap in the prices of goods in the same market was no less sharp. For example, on the Moscow market in October 1920, prices for butter, sugar, millet and herring increased in comparison with 1913 by more than 10 thousand times;
Diagram No. b
The ratio of the rate of increase in the money supply and the rise in prices in percent from 1918 to 1921 in the USSR
| 1 1 masses - Price increase | ||||||
| (NOAH | ||||||
| (In pro | cents) | |||||
| gt; one | ||||||
| I " | ||||||
| »--V | to | |||||
| # # # | Г \\\\ | |||||
| і # # # | ||||||
| 1 ^ | / # r | |||||
| 1 # 1 # | h | |||||
| 1 \" / / 1 i | ||||||
| 1/ 1# | - | |||||
1918 1918
i II
n ¦ o
1919
I
1919
II
1920
1
’920
II
1921
I
and
1921
II
i
400
80
60
40
20
300
80
60
40
20
200
80
60
40
20
100
80
60
40
20
0
It is significant that the rise in prices in the second half of each year, in connection with the sale of the harvest, slows down significantly, even with an increase in the rate of emission, as, for example, in the second half of 1919 and 1920. This slowdown in the rate of depreciation of money in the second half of 1920 was so significant that the increase in the issue as a percentage turned out to be even slightly larger than the depreciation of the sovznak.
prices for meat, milk and eggs from 5 thousand to 10 thousand times, and for cabbage and fresh fish - less than 5 thousand times. On the whole, food prices have increased many times over; more than the prices of luxury goods. The market in general was driven underground, and although in fact it existed everywhere during the period of "war communism", but1 the sphere of market commodity circulation and, consequently, the sphere of monetary circulation turned out to be very narrowed. This, along with the greatly increased speed of money circulation, explains why, by July 1, 1921, the commodity circulation of the entire Union was satisfied with the money supply, the real value of which was only 29 million rubles.
§ 3. The further, the more money-market turnover was displaced, on the one hand, by the state, free supply of products in kind, and on the other hand, by illegal private economic commodity exchange.
The further, the more for the workers * and office employees ration became the main source of supply (the fixed rate of planned supply established by the state), and not the purchase of goods on the market for Soviet signs. So according to L. Kritsman in the Central Russian budget
working state supply in kind was: in 1918 -41% "in 1919 - 63%" in 1920 -75%. Also, in the general real state budget, cash income and expenses by 1920 played an insignificant role. According to S. Golovanov's assumptions, the entire state income for 1920 (including the gross income from the nationalized sectors of the national economy) was equal to 1,726 million gold rubles. Of this amount, only 126 million rubles, or 7.3 * / 0, accounted for the share of cash expenses for his calculations. Of course, these figures are approximate, because there is no data for exact calculation, but the ratio of the monetary and natural parts of the budget is approximately what it should have been. Thus, the astronomical figures of the paper money issue in 1920 actually brought the state a very modest real income. The main support of the budget was not emission, but the receipt of products in kind from the peasantry in the order of surplus appropriation and from industry through the direct withdrawal of all products necessary for the state and its planned distribution.
§ 4. During this period, practical steps were taken towards replacing monetary circulation with cashless accounting calculations. The SNK decree of January 23, 1919 established a certain procedure for settlements between nationalized and municipalized enterprises and institutions under state control. Calculations were to be made, as the decree said, "in an accounting way without the participation of banknotes." By a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of January 6, 1920, these decrees were extended to cooperation. Finally, by the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of July 25, 1920 on requisitions and confiscations, individuals were ordered to deposit all cash in current accounts with state treasuries in excess of twenty times the minimum tariff rate for a given area per person. Thus, the Soviet government took measures at that time (which were not limited to the cited decrees) to narrow the sphere of monetary circulation. So the 2nd session of the VDIK on June 18, 1920, based on the report of the NKF, adopted a resolution in which the activities of the NKF were recognized, expressed "in the desire to establish / cashless settlements for the destruction of the monetary system, which in general corresponds to the main tasks of the economic and administrative development of the RSFSR." WDIC instructed to take valid measures to enforce new system economic management.
In connection with general course on the narrowing of the sphere of monetary circulation, the question arose of replacing the old monetary accounting with a new unified method of assessing and accounting for economic activity. How to calculate the effect of production work? How can you establish which products are more profitable to produce if there is no general unit of accounting for labor productivity? And does not the establishment of a particular unit of account mean a return to money again, at least as a measure of value? These issues of organizing economic accounting in socialist society during this period acquired enormous practical importance and it is not surprising that there was a lively discussion of them in scientific and business circles.
Our economists have proposed a number of projects of the owner- "A, XX XVX
A ¦ ¦ *
accounting and valuation under socialism. Some proposed to introduce direct economic accounting of costs for each type of product separately, while others put forward a single principle for assessing costs for all types of products. On the other hand, among these recent projects, some put forward the principle of connected (ration) distribution of products, others - free distribution. In the latter case, each worker would be issued a labor coupon, for which he could receive any products of equal "labor value". A significant part of the projects came down to the establishment of a single "labor unit" of accounting and distribution, which was called "thread". According to Kreve's proposal, the basic unit of "labor" value is considered "an hour of simple unskilled socially necessary labor."
The most developed project of economic accounting under socialism was proposed by S. G. Strumilin. The problem, in his opinion, "boils down to solving a mathematical problem about which distribution of the country's productive resources can provide the maximum satisfaction of needs with a minimum of labor costs." The labor that is expended in accordance with the above principle will be considered socially necessary; as a unit of account, Strumilin proposed "to accept the value of the product of labor of one normal worker of the first tariff" category when he fulfills the output rate by 100%.
Also, the “slave group of the NKF Monetary Subcommittee” wrote in its draft: “The average output of one normal day of simple labor is taken as a unit of labor accounting, with its normal intensity for this kind of work. The designated labor accounting unit is named “trade”. The Council of Labor and Oboriny is responsible for the development and establishment of: 1) the rules for bringing complex labor to simple; 2) the norm of the general price list of all economic benefits and services subject to accounting, expressed in threads, and 3) the order of periodic, as necessary, revision of these rules and price lists ”. But what was "assigned" to the Council of Labor and Oborina, and bydr the most important and difficult. Of course, you can more or less accurately take into account how much specific labor is spent on a particular product (if the costs of raw materials are also expressed in labor units), but how to establish how much socially necessary and simple labor has been expended, how can complex labor be reduced to simple labor? It would be very difficult for the central bodies of economic management, but not. impracticable business. In the presence of a planned accounting of public consumption, on the one hand, and given technical conditions, on the other hand, it would be possible to establish what kind of labor in each industry is socially necessary. It is also quite POSSIBLE to reduce the COMPOSITION of labor to simple, if the necessary labor input for obtaining a particular qualification is precisely established. However, this moment will not play a role in communist society, for, assuming a high development of technology, this society will follow the principle: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." But in the absence of this possibility, that is, when the conditions of technical development do not yet make it possible to fully satisfy all social needs, it will of course be necessary to distribute production taking into account the labor expended by each producer, and therefore it will be necessary to reduce complex labor to the Simple.
The most appropriate to the socialist system were the projects for the introduction of general economic accounting in labor units - threads. These threads seem to be very similar to Owen's "labor bonds" or other similar attempts to directly determine the value of products in labor units (see chapter XVIII). But the essential difference between them is that the projects of our threads had more or less firm ground in the form of nationalization and centralized organization of the entire industry (and hence the theoretical possibility of establishing the amount of socially necessary labor spent on products), while Owen wanted introduce an organized and "fair exchange" for. "Labor value" in the presence of private ownership of the means of production and complete anarchy of all production.
But weren't these threads essentially the same money, just differently named? Bourgeois economists usually give a positive answer to this question, but this is completely wrong. “In social production, money capital disappears. Society distributes labor and means of production among various branches of labor. Producers can, perhaps, obtain paper certificates by which they extract from public consumption stocks the quantity of products that corresponds to their working hours. These certificates are not money at all. They do not convert ”(K. Marx).
§ 5. But the projects for the introduction of universal and unified economic accounting in threads and the distribution of products in "paper certificates" expressed in threads were not implemented in practice.
The fact is that the obligatory condition under which "money can be liquidated, according to the decree of the VIII Congress of the RCP -" complete organization of communist production and distribution ", could not be implemented either in 1918, or in 1919, or in 1920. If large-scale production had already been socialized and organized (and it is so now), then many millions of peasant farms still remained a disorganized mass, and the state actually had no opportunity, on the one hand, to extract all grain surpluses, and on the other hand, to supply peasantry in the required amount of urban products. The fulfillment of the surplus appropriation system constantly lagged behind plans; it was established that the peasantry had significant reserves of grain. All this bread went to the "underground market", the market turnover, despite all the repressions, continued to exist.
And since there is a market, then, as we already know, there must be prices and money. We know further that only one particular commodity, such as gold, is real money. What kind of commodity was money on the "underground market" in the era of "war communism", what was the measure of value here? To answer this question, we must remember what was said in Chapter I, namely, the four forms of value. In the "underground, market" during the period of "war communism" relations took shape that can be summed up both under a simple and expanded form, and under a general form. When the urban population was experiencing a real famine, and the rural population was in dire need of a whole range of products, such as bread, manufacture, etc., it was out of the question that the universal commodity equivalent was gold. Gold itself became an ordinary commodity and, moreover, much less valuable than before the war, as opposed to, for example, such goods as bread or salt.Already in 1918, gold could buy goods according to the index 10 times less than before the war, that is, gold a ruble in goods was worth only a dime.
The market, driven underground and, moreover, deprived of money, was therefore a defective market. But since the market existed, and market relations, at least in an ugly form and in a limited volume, developed, it was necessary to create new money. And we just observe this process of development of new types of goods-money during this period.
Trading “out of the box,” that is, illegally, sellers and buyers set up random exchange equivalents in each individual case, since there was no universal equivalent.
Here is an example of the establishment in Kaluga in January 1919 according to F. Termitin's data of exchange proportions corresponding to the expanded form of value according to the Marxian theory (since any one commodity did not appear here as a general equivalent):
1 lb. soap \u003d 2 lb. millet,
22 lbs. kerosene \u003d 15 lb. peas,
1 overcoat \u003d 101/2 FU 3- kernels, 3 lb. salt \u003d 30 lb. oats,
1 pair of boots \u003d 30 ftz buckwheat, U2 FUN * shag \u003d 1 lb. lard.
Since at the same time simple exchange relations were established on the market by a long series of goods, these relations can be called an expanded form of value, such as: 1 firewood \u003d 672 FUN-kerosene, or 1 overcoat, or -15 pounds. poly (proportion taken from Weisberg's book "Money and Prices"). Such proportions were established in all markets, and this was inevitable, as long as market relations existed.
The most traded and most valuable commodities become universal equivalents. Usually, not only in different areas, but even in the same area, there were several equivalents. These commodity equivalents were constantly fighting with each other for the position of the monetary, that is, the universal and single equivalent. So in Moscow in 1920, the most powerful contenders for the "monetary throne", freed after the "decline" of gold, were salt and baked bread. “We have all the data to consider,” says Weisberg, “salt for Moscow in 1920 was the scale of prices, an instrument of circulation and a means of accumulation”. Elsewhere, there were other contenders. Going to the village to buy food, he always found out “what is being exchanged in this village,” for example, for salt or bread or kerosene, and in accordance with this he took with him a certain amount of this equivalent.
Thus, the expanded form of value is transformed for each separate region into a universal form.
flour.
Here is an example of this universal form of value (also taken from life), in which rye flour is the universal equivalent:
30 lbs. kerosene 10 lb. soap 3 lb. makhorka 10 arsh. calico
"If," said Marx, "all commodities expressed their value in silver, wheat or copper, then silver, wheat or copper would be the measure of value, therefore, universal equivalents."
However, since in our country during this period the "equivalent form" was nowhere firmly merged with the natural form "of any definite commodity, insofar as we essentially did not yet have real, fully developed money. The universal form of value has not yet turned into a monetary form of value. Since there was no single equivalent on the "underground market" for the entire economic system of the USSR, it means that in the USSR there was no real money that had finished its development during this period.
§ 6. But along with these equivalents - underdeveloped money - there was something that we all called "money", namely, sovznak. But paper money is not money, but only substitutes or representatives of money. As soon as gold ceased to be real money, paper money had to find some other fulcrum, but there was no such single point. Hence the complete instability of the sovznak and the most complete confusion in prices. In one area, they said, “a shirt costs 10 pounds. flour, and in Sovznaki. today it costs 20 billion rubles. " and the shirt seller received 20 billion rubles, with which he could buy 10 pounds. flour. In that. on the same day in another district they said: “a shirt costs 5 pounds. salt, and today it costs 10 billion rubles in Sovznak. " And it turned out that the same shirt here costs 20 billion rubles, and there 10 billion rubles. Since different equivalents appeared in different regions, sovznaks had to replace salt, flour, chintz, etc.
If real and fully developed money — gold, that is, a universal and single equivalent — functioned as a measure of value and a means of accumulation, then such a situation could not exist: Soviet signs would depreciate more evenly.
But precisely because of the rupture of economic ties, profound shifts in production and consumption, the illegal position of the market, disruption of transport, etc., each region established its own, own equivalents, and each region in its own way established the value of a given commodity. equivalent - "half money" replaces the sovznak in circulation. In this absence of a single commodity-money basis, the Sovznaks have all the originality of their position on the "underground market". The Sovznaks were deprived of a solid, single, established monetary basis for the entire society - a measure of value. lt;
§ 7. If equivalents developed in some areas, \\ "at least temporarily fulfilling the functions of money (measure of value, means of circulation \\" 'and payment and instrument of accumulation), then the question is why the market has not been canceled at all in the localities, sovztsaki. and did not replace them entirely with flour or salt as a means of circulation?
¦ This is due to the fact that these equivalents were \\ "ііsklfchiellyo local equivalents, which were valid only in the narrow limits of these areas. However, there is a completely economic connection between:
12 3. Atlas. Money and credit
individual markets were never broken, and this connection could only be expressed in monetary form. If in a given area the equivalent is corn, and in another area - salt, then it is obvious that a person who had at his disposal a certain amount of equivalent in this area could not use it as a means of purchase in another area where he was Another equivalent. It was also necessary to establish a certain value proportion between local equivalents. And these proportions could be established only in such a way that all local equivalents were expressed in a certain (albeit changing from day to day) amount of universal and obligatory for admission throughout the territory of Soviet power paper money - substitutes for all local equivalents.
Thus, thanks to the existence of sovznaki, a certain unity was introduced into inter-regional market relations. All goods ііа local markets were expressed in a certain number of units of local equivalents, and these latter - in a certain amount of banknotes, and thus the equivalents of all regions received a single form of expression in sovzpaks.
In addition, one should also take into account that the “commodity form” of local equivalents, such as flour and salt, is not fully adapted to fulfill all monetary functions. How could you, for example, pay with flour for one box of matches, etc.? Flattering equivalents did not have the necessary qualities of a monetary product ¦ - portability, high value with a small volume *, different quality, etc., which gold possesses under normal conditions.
Consequently, in spite of the continuously falling cost of Soviet signs, which presented enormous inconveniences for commodity circulation, operating in the "underground market" with Soviet signs was an economic necessity.
So, while in our institutions there were discussions on non-threading as methods of socialist accounting and distribution, in the economic system of the USSR the process of formation of “underground”, illegal and therefore unregulated “monetary systems
Literature.
- Weisberg, Money and Prices. 3VL 1925.
- Prof. JI. Yurovsky, Monetary Policy of the Soviet Power. M. 1928,
- Prof. 3. S. Zhatsenelenbaum, Monetary Circulation in Russia 1914 -1924
- Prof. SA Falkner, Problems of theory and practice of the emission economy. M. 3924.
- Collection "Our money circulation", ed. L. Jurowski. M “1926.
- E. A. Preobrazhensky. Paper money. Giz. 1920.
- L. Zhritzman, The Heroic Period of the Russian Revolution, ed. 2.M. 1. 1926.
- Describe the state of monetary circulation and the naturalization process! war economy during the period of war communism.
- What projects of economic accounting were put forward during this period?
- What kind of money was real money, that is, was it a measure of value under War Communism and at the beginning of NEP?
- Were the sovznaki substitutes for any particular type of real money?
- What are the reasons for the "vitality" of the Soviet sign?
More on the topic CHAPTER XV. CASH CIRCULATION DURING THE PERIOD OF MILITARY COMMUNISM:
- 5. Soviet model \\ r \\ neconomics and Soviet \\ r \\ neconomic science
- CHAPTER XII. KEY POINTS FROM THE HISTORY OF MONETARY CIRCULATION AND MONETARY THEORY.
- CHAPTER XV. CASH CIRCULATION DURING THE PERIOD OF MILITARY COMMUNISM
- CHAPTER XVI. CASH CIRCULATION UNDER NEP BEFORE THE MONEY REFORM OF 1924
During the 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 appropriation, that is, the surrender of all surpluses by the peasants to the state, and sometimes part of the food they need at a fixed price. Food appropriation was introduced for bread, grain fodder, meat, potatoes, agricultural raw materials;
- replacement of commodity exchange with product exchange;
- introduction of a card system (rationing system);
- transition to payment in kind;
- cancellation of payment for services rendered by the state (transportation, accommodation, utilities, use of mail, telegraph, telephone, etc.);
- change in the forms of distribution of the social product. All products of the enterprises were credited to national funds. To carry out their activities, enterprises received the necessary resources from centralized funds.
- narrowing the scope of use of money. They were used to calculate the wages owed to workers and employees and were paid in Soviet signs. Monetary allowances were paid to the personnel of the Red Army and their families. Small business and operating expenses of enterprises were made for cash.
As a result of the revolution and the ensuing civil war, foreign military intervention The ruble as a Russian national currency ceased to exist both in form, being fragmented into many varieties and new formations, 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 previous tsarist issues, "Kerenki", "Sovznaki". The national monetary units of Poland, the Baltic republics, which gained state independence, were issued. Emissions of the national Soviet republics - Ukraine, Belarus, Of the Far East, Transcaucasia, Central Asia... Monetary surrogates: "white" governments; the occupation money of the invaders; unauthorized and indiscriminate releases of local authorities, all kinds of public, cooperative and private enterprises, organizations.
During the civil war on the territory of the former Russian state, about 200 types of various banknotes issued by different authorities were simultaneously circulated. In 1917-21, the amount of money increased 76 times. All this conglomerate of uncontrollably issued and immediately losing value banknotes created chaos, the collapse of the previous monetary relations and ties.
The revolutionary actions of the Soviet government to destroy the mechanisms of banking, commercial and state loans led to a further swelling of the money supply and an increase in 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 a vast and ramified monetary systemserving industrial and trade exchange. The consequence of this was a sharp contraction of non-cash money circulation and expansion of cash money, which led to additional demand for cash banknotes. The liquidation of the state credit system made the emission practically the only source of satisfaction of the financial needs of the state. This is eloquently evidenced by the data in Table 5.
Table 5- Financing of government spending in Russia and the RSFSR
(billion rubles)
* including an extraordinary revolutionary indemnity in the amount of 10 billion rubles.
Source: V.P. Dyachenko Soviet finance in the first phase of the development of the socialist state. - M., 1947, p. 31-33,123-124,186-187
Economic policy soviet government was aimed at eliminating market relations and replacing them with an equalizing distribution system. Coinciding with the civil war and foreign intervention, this policy came to be known as "War Communism." By the policy of war communism, the Bolshevik party tried to make a big 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 money circulation as follows:
- Sokolnikov G.Ya. “The turning point in the financial policy of the Soviet government took place in the fall of 1918, together 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 cashless settlements, and the direct distribution of produced values. "
- Zheleznov V.Ya. - The head of the Institute for Economic Research of the People's Commissariat of Finance of the RSFSR noted: “the value of money has fallen to the level of extraordinary 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 keeps charm only among people infected with long-standing social prejudices. You can transfer the entire economy to payments in kind, 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 economic policy of 1918-20 were not immediately concretized .... State power, focusing on the complete elimination of all capitalist and generally all commodity-money relations, was building an economic order in which money had to become superfluous.
The planned measures to liquidate the market and replace commodity-money relations with centralized state registration and distribution received practical embodiment in a series of legislative acts of the Soviet government. They provided for: the introduction of food appropriation for grain and all other agricultural products; nationalization of domestic trade; the establishment of labor service; requisition and confiscation of valuables. From November 1918 to May 1921, 17 decrees were adopted abolishing various types of monetary payments and on free provision and supply of the vast majority of goods and services.
As the economy became naturalized, the value of money and credit was curtailed. Nationalized enterprises were transferred to budget financing. A kind of apotheosis of "demonetization" and naturalization of the economy was the SNK decree 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 entrusted to the decision-making bodies, to develop a project for the creation and implementation of a special labor currency instead of money.
The banknotes issued into circulation were officially referred to not as monetary, but settlement marks. Formal control over their release in the form of establishing an authorized emission ceiling was abolished in May 1919. By a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of May 15, 1919, the 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 printed paper money, but saw a convenient way to destroy the bourgeoisie through the upsetting of money circulation.
The rejection of money and the general pursuit of "nature", with its catastrophic shortage, whipped up 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 thousand times.
War communism lasted three years, but the monetary system was destroyed almost to the ground (see table 6). The Soviet regime survived, but the economy was bureaucratized, which deprived the producers of any initiative. Speaking to representatives of the finance departments of the first all-Russian Congress Soviets on May 18, 1918, V.I. Lenin identified
Table 6- War Communism and Currency 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 \u003d 1 | 1 | 3 | 12 | 60 | 120 |
| RUB mln in 1913 prices | 1919 | 374 | 93 | 70 | 29 |
| Volume of paper issue per month (billion rubles) | 2 | 4 | 33 | 173 | 225 |
| RUB mln 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 |