The Daily News. MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1919. BOLSHEVISTS' FINANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 March 1919, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1919. BOLSHEVISTS' FINANCE.

An interesting little cable message the other day mentioned the financial embarrassment of the Bolshevist Government of Moscow. The financial troubles of the Bolshevists are due in the main to their anxiety to be rid of the old system before they were ready with a new one. At the end of 1917 they nationalised the banks, seized the reserves, and then proceeded to deal with the private accounts. They were probably under the impression that the banks carried enormous stores of ready money, but, of course, apart from the money needed for current operations the banks were empty, their reserves being invested or represented merely by drafts on the Imperial Banks of Russia. If they had contented themselves with taxing private accounts and bad left the bank to handle the business the Bolshevist leaders would have been fairly comfortable, at any rate to the extent of the wealth available, but their initial pbnge had involved the resignation of all bank. managers and the dismissal of a good many af the senior officers. Moreover they had &a basis of the. apooxentJ

wealth by cancelling all loans and share transactions, debentures and general stocks, so that as far as the private accounts went there was very little on which they could operate. Moreover, their method provoked a general strike of the hank servants, which lasted for three months. The next Government move \va9 to commandeer all the gold on which the officials could lay their hands. Private wealth was limited by decree to roubles for each individual, and the surplus was taken over. Theoretically the reduction of the private wealth of the individual to a matter of £2500 ought to have provided an enormous fund for government purposes, but the Bolshevists seem at all stages to have confused fixed and movable wealth and the most ludicrous blunders were made in this connection by Stale officials. The Bolshevist leaders, however, were little concerned with practical details. One of their decrees limited legacies to a thousand pounds, the balance of every estate passing to the nation. No attemp'.., h;'V,u'i.-r, was made either to realise the wealth that t)un ! fell into the hands •-.! the State or to! utilise it, and in eifoct the Bolshevists were incessantly appealing to the sy3- I tern they had destroyed to help them ! through with their financial operations, j Lenin was credited with the tlirectioi; ] cf the financial side of the business, ano | his argument was that the old financial I system was the cause of class inequality , ' and that the destruction of that system wa9 an essential preliminary to the establishment of a true Socialist State. The Bolshevist experts did draft an alternative scheme as far as their know- j ledge and imagination carried them, j for they created "the People's Bank j of the Russian Soviet Republic," I which was to have branches in every [ town. In the 'arger citiea they solved die problem by taking over the branches of the Imperial Bank, btit in the provinces during the period of extreme dislocation prominent Soviet .Ten I simply took matters into their own hands and constituted themselves the national bank and trearcry ind tax collectors. Matters may be different now, for travellers assert that in many districts the old bank brani-heR iirc conducting business quite on the old lines, without interference from ths Bolshevists. Of course when business was stopped the Bolshevists learned that the cessation cf production meant general starvation. Even in Petrograd. where the Bolshevist theories were supposed to have been brought into complete operation, the old system is said to have been largely restored, with the difference that the workers take a holiday whenever they think fit and the business people have to be on their guard against periodical raids by taxcollectors. Very little coin is in circulation, and the currency is mainly in the .shape of cheques certified by the Soviet committees for the payment of workers' wages. But of course the who! ■ situation is in a tangle and what little information is available does not suggest that there will be an early improvement.