How Stalin freed the ruble from the dollar

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

However, the Great Patriotic War gave rise to a number of negative phenomena that had to be eliminated. First, there was a discrepancy between the amount of money and the needs of trade. There was a surplus of money. Secondly, several types of prices have appeared - ration, commercial and market. This undermined the value of the cash wages and cash income of collective farmers by workdays. Thirdly, large sums of money settled in the hands of speculators. Moreover, the difference in prices still gave them the opportunity to enrich themselves at the expense of the population. This undermined social justice in the country.

Immediately after the end of the war, the state carried out a number of measures aimed at strengthening the monetary system and increasing the well-being of the population. The purchasing demand of the population increased by increasing wage funds and decreasing payments to the financial system. So, in August 1945, they began to abolish the war tax on workers and employees. The tax was finally canceled at the beginning of 1946. They no longer carried out cash and clothing lotteries and reduced the size of the subscription for a new government loan. In the spring of 1946, savings banks began to pay workers and employees compensation for unused vacations during the war. Post-war industrial restructuring began. There was a certain increase in the commodity fund due to the restructuring of industry and due to a reduction in the consumption of the armed forces and the sale of trophies. To withdraw money from circulation, the development of commercial trade continued. In 1946, commercial trade acquired a fairly wide scale: a wide network of shops and restaurants was created, the range of goods was expanded and their prices were reduced. The end of the war led to a drop in prices on collective farm markets (by more than a third).

Stalin's plan to create a common "non-dollar" market

However, by the end of 1946, the negative phenomena were not completely eliminated. Therefore, the course for monetary reform was maintained. In addition, the issue of new money and the exchange of old money for new ones was necessary in order to liquidate the money that got abroad and improve the quality of banknotes.

According to the testimony of the People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR Arseny Zverev (who managed the finances of the USSR since 1938), for the first time, Stalin inquired about the possibility of monetary reform at the end of December 1942 and demanded that the first calculations be submitted at the beginning of 1943. At first, they planned to carry out the monetary reform in 1946. However, due to the famine caused by drought and poor harvests in a number of Soviet regions, the start of the reform had to be postponed. Only on December 3, 1947, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided to abolish the rationing system and begin monetary reform.

The conditions of the monetary reform were determined in the Decree of the USSR Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of December 14, 1947. The exchange of money was carried out throughout the Soviet Union from December 16 to 22, 1947, and in remote areas ended on December 29. When recalculating wages, money was exchanged so that wages remained unchanged. The bargaining chip was not subject to change and remained in circulation at par. For cash deposits in Sberbank, amounts up to 3 thousand rubles were also subject to one-to-one exchange; for deposits from 3 to 10 thousand rubles, savings were reduced by one third of the amount; for deposits over 10 thousand rubles, two-thirds of the amount was subject to withdrawal. Those citizens who kept large sums of money at home could exchange at the rate of 1 new ruble to 10 old ones. Relatively favorable conditions for the exchange of money savings were established for holders of bonds of government loans: the bonds of the 1947 loan were not subject to revaluation; the bonds of mass loans were exchanged for bonds of a new loan in a ratio of 3: 1, the bonds of the freely realizable loan of 1938 were exchanged in a ratio of 5: 1. The funds that were in the settlement and current accounts of cooperative organizations and collective farms were revalued at the rate of 5 old rubles for 4 new ones.

At the same time, the government abolished the rationing system (earlier than other winning states), high prices in commercial trade, and introduced unified reduced state retail prices for food and industrial goods. Thus, prices for bread and flour were reduced by an average of 12% against the current ration prices; for cereals and pasta - by 10%, etc.

Thus, the negative consequences of the war in the field of the monetary system were eliminated in the USSR. This made it possible to switch to trade at uniform prices and reduce the money supply by more than three times (from 43.6 to 14 billion rubles). On the whole, the reform was successful.

In addition, the reform had a social aspect. The speculators were pinned down. This restored social justice, which had been violated during the war years. At first glance, it seemed that everyone suffered, because everyone had some money on their hands on December 15th. But an ordinary worker and office worker, living on a wage, who by the middle of the month did not have much money left, suffered only nominally. He was not even left without money, since already on December 16 they began to pay salaries with new money for the first half of the month, which was usually not done. The salary was usually given on a monthly basis after the end of the month. Thanks to this extradition, workers and employees were provided with new money at the beginning of the reform. The exchange of 3 thousand rubles of a 1: 1 deposit satisfied the overwhelming majority of the population, since people did not have significant funds. In terms of the entire adult population, the average deposit in a savings account could not be more than 200 rubles. It is clear that with the speculators, the “Stakhanovites”, inventors and other small groups of the population who had super-profits lost part of their money. But taking into account the general decline in prices, they didn’t win, but they didn’t suffer much. True, those who kept large sums of money at home could be unhappy. This concerned the speculative groups of the population and part of the population of the South Caucasus and Central Asia, which did not know the war and for this reason had the opportunity to trade.

It should be noted that the uniqueness of the Stalinist system, which was able to withdraw most of the money from money circulation, and at the same time the majority of ordinary people did not suffer. At the same time, the whole world was amazed that just two years after the end of the war and after a poor harvest in 1946, the main food prices were kept at the level of rations or even reduced. That is, almost all foodstuffs in the USSR were available to everyone.

This was a surprise and an offensive surprise for the Western world. The capitalist system has literally been driven into the mud up to its ears. So, Great Britain, on whose territory there was no war for four years and which suffered immeasurably less in the war than the USSR, could not abolish the rationing system back in the early 1950s. At that time in the former "workshop of the world" there were strikes of miners who demanded to provide them with a standard of living like that of the miners of the USSR.

The Soviet ruble has been pegged to the US dollar since 1937. The ruble exchange rate was calculated against foreign currencies based on the US dollar. In February 1950, the Central Statistical Department of the USSR, on an urgent assignment from I. Stalin, recalculated the exchange rate of the new ruble. Soviet experts, focusing on the purchasing power of the ruble and the dollar (compared the prices of goods), and derived the figure of 14 rubles per dollar. Earlier (until 1947) 53 rubles were given for the dollar. However, according to the head of the Ministry of Finance Zverev and the head of the State Planning Committee Saburov, as well as the Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai and the head of Albania, Enver Hoxha, who were present at the event, Stalin crossed out this figure on February 27 and wrote: "At most - 4 rubles."

The decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of February 28, 1950 transferred the ruble to a permanent gold basis, and the peg to the dollar was canceled. The gold content of the ruble was set at 0.22168 grams of pure gold. From March 1, 1950, the purchase price of the State Bank of the USSR for gold was set at 4 rubles. 45 kopecks for 1 gram of pure gold. As Stalin noted, the USSR was thus protected from the dollar. After the war, the United States had dollar surpluses that it wanted to dump on other countries, shifting its financial problems onto others. As an example of indefinite financial and, therefore, political dependence on the Western world, Joseph Stalin cited Yugoslavia, where Josip Broz Tito ruled. The Yugoslav currency was pegged to the "basket" of the US dollar and the British pound sterling. Stalin actually predicted the future of Yugoslavia: "… sooner or later the West will" collapse "Yugoslavia economically and dismember politically …". His prophetic words came true in the 1990s.

For the first time, national money was freed from the American dollar. According to the UN Economic and Social Council, the UN European and Far Eastern Commissions (1952-1954), Stalin's decision almost doubled the efficiency of Soviet exports. And at that time - industrial and science intensive. This happened due to the exemption from the dollar prices of the importing countries, which understated the prices of Soviet exports. In turn, this led to an increase in production in most of the Soviet industries. Also, the Soviet Union got the opportunity to get rid of the import of technology from the United States and other countries that focused on the dollar and to accelerate its own technological renewal.

Stalin's plan to create a common "non-dollar" market

The transfer of most of the USSR's trade with the countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), created in 1949, as well as with China, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam and a number of developing countries, into the “Stalinist golden ruble” led to the formation of a financial and economic bloc. A common market appeared, which was free of the dollar and hence the political influence of the United States.

In the first half of April 1952, an international economic conference was held in Moscow. At it, the Soviet delegation headed by the Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Shepilov proposed to establish a common market for goods, services and investment. It was free of the US dollar and was created in opposition to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and US expansion. At this time, the Marshall Plan was already in full swing. The economies of most European countries turned out to be dependent on the United States.

Back in 1951, the CMEA members and China declared the inevitability of close cooperation between all countries that do not want to subordinate the US dollar and the dictates of Western financial and trade structures. The idea was supported by countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, India, Indonesia, Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia, Yugoslavia and Uruguay. These countries became co-organizers of the Moscow Forum. Interestingly, the proposal was also supported by some Western countries - Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Iceland and Austria. A total of 49 countries took part in the Moscow meeting. During his work, more than 60 trade, investment and scientific and technical agreements have been signed. Among the main principles of these agreements were: the exclusion of dollar payments; the possibility of barter, including for the repayment of debts; coordination of policies in international economic organizations and in the world market; mutual maximum favored nation treatment in loans, investments, loans and scientific and technical cooperation; customs and price incentives for developing countries (or their individual goods), etc.

The Soviet delegation proposed at the first stage to conclude bilateral or multilateral agreements on customs, price, credit and commodity issues. Then it was planned to carry out a gradual unification of the principles of foreign economic policy and create a "block-wide" trade zone. At the final stage, it was planned to create an interstate settlement currency with a mandatory gold content (the ruble had already been prepared for this), which led to the completion of the creation of a common market. It is clear that financial and economic integration led to political integration. Around the USSR, not only socialist, but also people's democratic and former colonies, that is, developing states, would have united.

Unfortunately, after the death of Stalin, the authorities of the USSR and most other CMEA countries withdrew from the proposals of the great leader, gradually falling under the power of the dollar (and their elite under the rule of the "golden calf"). They tried to "forget" about the great Stalinist project. Moreover, due to the socio-economic and political adventures of Khrushchev ("Khrushchevschina" as the first perestroika), the "Stalinist gold ruble" had to be greatly devalued (10 times) and its gold content had to be reduced. In the late 1970s, the gold content of the Soviet ruble was de facto eliminated altogether. Since the time of Khrushchev, Soviet foreign trade with most countries began to be carried out in US dollars. In addition, the Soviet Union became a "donor" of developing countries and began to supply the Western world with cheap energy and industrial raw materials. And the gold reserve, which was created under Stalin, began to rapidly lose.

The idea of "Soviet globalization" at the financial and economic level and freedom from the US dollar, depending on the US Federal Reserve System, is now more relevant than ever. Actually, you don't need to invent anything. Everything has already been given to Russia by Joseph Stalin. You just need to show political will and bring his plans to their logical conclusion. Then Russia will be completely independent on the financial and economic priority, will undermine the power of the FRS, Western TNBs and TNCs and will receive a powerful tool for "Russian globalization." Russia will receive a powerful tool for the development of the national economy and the development of the well-being of the people.

Forgotten idea without a statute of limitations //

Zverev A. Notes of the Minister. M., 1973.

How the ruble was "freed" from the dollar //

Martirosyan A. B. 200 myths about Stalin. Stalin after the war. 1945-1953 years. M., 2007.

Mukhin Y. Why was Stalin killed? M., 2004.

Mukhin Y. Stalin is the master of the USSR. M., 2008.

Against the dictate of the dollar //

Author Samsonov Alexander