A very important event was the nationalization of banks by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of December 14, 1917. Banks are the main system-forming element of capitalism (a market economy is a special structure in which money, land and labor are converted into goods).

The abolition of the “sale of money” is a fundamental condition for the socialization of the economy on a national scale. Therefore, the question of nationalizing banks was raised starting from Lenin’s April Theses and was included in the documents of the VI Party Congress in August 1917.

In Russia, the position of banks was special; they were controlled by foreign financial capital. There were 8 large private banks in Russia, of which only one (Volzhsko-Vyatsky) could be considered Russian, but it was blocked by the “seven” and its capital grew slowly. Foreigners owned 34% of the banks' share capital. Therefore, their nationalization was an act of the state’s foreign policy. Through banks, foreign capital established control over Russian industry, therefore, by affecting the banks, the Soviet government began a huge process of changing property relations, for which it was not ready at that moment.

During the war, private banks in Russia sharply became richer and stronger (with a strong weakening of the State Bank - the gold backing of its credit notes fell 10.5 times during the war years). In 1917, banks began speculating in food, buying and renting warehouses and driving up prices. Thus they became a great political force.

In 1917, the reason for the nationalization of banks had nothing to do with theory; it was purely political and even opportunistic. Banks declared a financial boycott of Soviet power and stopped issuing money to pay salaries (government officials were given salaries 3 months in advance in order to boycott the new government). After three weeks of sabotage and fruitless negotiations, on November 14, armed forces occupied all the main private banks in the capital. A decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee declared a banking monopoly, and private banks merged with the State (from now on People's) Bank. Bank employees went on strike and only in mid-January did banks resume work, already in the People's Bank system. Large deposits were confiscated. All external and internal loans entered into by both the Tsarist and Provisional Governments were cancelled. During the war years, external loans alone amounted to 6 billion rubles. (to understand the magnitude of this amount, let’s say that in the best years, Russia’s entire grain exports amounted to about 0.5 billion rubles per year). On December 2, 1918, all foreign banks on the territory of the RSFSR were belatedly liquidated.

In April 1918, when hopes arose for the possibility of a soft transition stage (“state capitalism”), negotiations were started with bankers on the denationalization of banks, but this project was not implemented.

Worker control.

Workers' control began to spontaneously arise in many enterprises immediately after the February Revolution. Immediately after October, already at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, it was stated that the Soviet government would establish workers' control over production everywhere. On November 14, 1917, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved the “Regulations on Workers’ Control” (10). Workers' control was introduced over production, purchase and sale of products and raw materials, their storage, as well as over the finances of the enterprise. The workers exercised control through their elected bodies: factory committees, councils of elders, etc., and they were supposed to include representatives from employees and engineers. In each large city and province, the creation of a local Council of Workers' Control was prescribed. Until the convening of the Congress of Workers' Control Councils in Petrograd, the All-Russian Workers' Control Council was created. In its structure, the entire system of workers' control bodies repeated the system of the Soviets.

Owners were required to present all documentation to workers' control bodies. Those guilty of concealing documentation were held accountable in court. The decisions of the bodies of workers' control were binding on the owners and could only be overturned by a resolution of the highest bodies of workers' control.

In reality, the main tasks of workers' control were to suppress attempts by enterprise owners to curtail production, sell the enterprise, transfer money abroad, and evade compliance with new labor legislation. Entrepreneurs, together with workers' control, were now responsible for “the strictest order, discipline and protection of property” (that is, it was also about control over the anarchic sentiments of some of the workers). By participating in the work of workers' control, workers became involved in production management.

In fact, the decree on workers' control was behind the times; the process proceeded spontaneously, differently at different enterprises (there were cases when workers, having kicked out entrepreneurs and unable to cope with management, asked them to come back). The very idea of ​​workers' control at a separate enterprise corresponded more to the principles of syndicalism than of socialism, which presupposed the planned organization of production in society as a whole.

Although the decree did not have a noticeable impact on real life, it was later widely used to justify acts of nationalization of enterprises (“due to refusal to submit to workers’ control”).

In 1917-1919 In connection with the abolition of private ownership of land, the mortgage system was eliminated. But this did not mean the end of lending. x-va. The provision of land to the peasants created enormous opportunities for the rise of the village. x-va. However, the proletarian state was not simply interested in increasing marketability. farms, but in the development of favorable conditions for the socialization of individual peasant farms. Therefore, lending to peasants was supposed to help strengthen cooperative principles in the countryside. The Soviet government used credit cooperation, which existed in pre-revolutionary Russia, for this purpose. The decree on the nationalization of banks did not affect the center of cooperation - the Moscow People's Bank. The decision to nationalize this bank was made only in December. 1918 and was caused not by a change in the fundamental attitude of the Soviet state to cooperation, but by the need to break the resistance of saboteurs and counter-revolutionaries who occupied command posts in the bank. The board of the Moscow People's Bank was transformed into a cooperative department of the People's Bank of the RSFSR, and its branches into local cooperative departments. Due to the sharp narrowing of the scope of commodity-money relations during the civil war and the transfer of state enterprises to budget financing in 1920, the People's Bank of the RSFSR ceased its activities.  

DECREE ON THE NATIONALIZATION OF BANKS was adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on December 14(27). 1917 Represented a revolutionary act aimed at undermining the economic. the power of the bourgeoisie, and was the first step in the creation of socialism. banking system. V.I. Lenin, speaking at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee against the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries who were trying to disrupt the adoption of the decree, noted that bankers were sabotaging workers’ control over banks, financing counter-revolutionary conspiracies and disorganizing the work of banks. Carrying out maternity leave, -  

Forms of organization of K. s. and its tasks at various stages of socialism. construction was determined by the party and government in accordance with the achieved level of productive forces and socialist. industrial relations. After the October Revolution, the Soviet state, based on the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the role of socialism. during the transition period, took over the State Bank and carried out the nationalization of private joint-stock banks. On the basis of the merger of nationalized banks with the State Bank in 1918, a single People's Bank of the RSFSR was created. Included in the K. s. in those years credit cooperation was also included, the preservation of which corresponded to the policy of the party and government. The Soviet state proceeded from the fact that credit cooperation, which united a large number of middle peasants, would contribute to the successful solution of one of the most important political issues. tasks of that period - strengthening the alliance of the working class with the peasantry. Allocating land to peasants created an economic basis for the development of the village. x-va and increasing its marketability. Movement s. x-va according to socialist. path could only occur with economical and financial support for the peasantry from the working class. To provide financial assistance to the peasantry, the Soviet government used cooperative credit institutions that existed in pre-revolutionary Russia. The decree on the nationalization of banks did not affect credit cooperation. A careful attitude towards credit cooperation, the desire with its help to develop the cooperative principle in the countryside was a direct implementation of Lenin’s instructions on the importance of cooperation in the cause of socialism. construction.  

Decree on the nationalization of banks - 353  

To weaken the economic power of the bourgeoisie and strengthen the national economy, the Soviet government carried out the nationalization of joint-stock commercial banks. On December 27, 1917, a decree was issued on the nationalization of banks; banking became a state monopoly.  

The decree on the nationalization of banks was adopted with the resistance of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, who were then part of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In solidarity with the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, the Trotskyists opposed the nationalization of commercial banks. Exposing these counter-revolutionary actions, V.I. Lenin wrote: We simply acted without fear of causing criticism from educated people, or rather, from uneducated supporters of the bourgeoisie selling the remnants of their knowledge, we said - we have armed workers and peasants. They should borrow all the private banks this morning. And after they do this, when power is in our hands, only after that we will discuss what measures we should take. And in the morning the banks were occupied, and in the evening the Central Executive Committee issued a resolution declaring the banks to be national property - nationalization, socialization of banking took place, transferring it into the hands of Soviet power 1.  

Simultaneously with the decree on the nationalization of banks, a decree was issued on the audit of bank safes in which funds, securities and jewelry of the bourgeoisie were kept. Storing valuables in safes was used by capitalists to hide their actual illegal profits.  

As a result, the practical implementation of the decree on the nationalization of banks was greatly delayed. The instruction on the procedure for the nationalization of private banks was approved by the People's Commissariat of Finance only in December 1918. In fact, the liquidation of the affairs of former private banks and their merger with the State Bank continued in 1919. By the end of this year, valuables worth the amount of 12.7 billion rubles, which amounted to more than 9/10 of the total balance sheets of the former joint-stock commercial banks.  

Lit. Marx K. and Engels F., Manifesto of the Communist Party, Works, vol. 4, pp. 446-447 Engels F.. Principles of communism, Marx K. and Engels F. Works, vol. 4 Lenin V. I., The impending disaster and how to deal with it. Works, ed. 4th. vol. 25 Theses of banking policy, Works, vol. 27 Speech on the nationalization of banks at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Works, vol. 26 Draft decree on the implementation of the nationalization of banks and the necessary measures in connection with this, Works, vol. 26 .  

The decree on the nationalization of this bank and on lending to cooperatives was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars on December 2, 1918. The Moscow Cooperative Bank was merged with the People's Bank of the RSFSR, its board was transformed into the cooperative department of the Central Administration, local branches into local cooperative departments of the People's Bank of the RSFSR, and share capital is credited to the current accounts of shareholders in the People's Bike of the RSFSR. Thus, nationalization in this case was only a form of reorganization of the management of cooperative credit and was not accompanied by expropriation. Representatives of the cooperatives were widely involved in the management of the cooperative departments of the People's Bank of the RSFSR and in all work on lending to the cooperatives. All primary credit cooperatives and their associations (unions) remained intact and were not subject to nationalization.  

By the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the nationalization of banks dated December 14 (27), 1917, all large banks in the country were nationalized. The Soviet government established direct control over the State Bank, supplemented by general workers' control over economic and financial activities, including the movement of funds in accounts and in banks.  

The Decree of the Central Executive Committee of December 14, 1917 on the nationalization of banks stated that it was issued in the interests of the correct organization of the national economy, in the interests of the decisive eradication of banking speculation and the worldwide liberation of workers, peasants and the entire working population from exploitation by bank capital and for the purpose of education truly serving the interests of the people and the poorest classes of the unified People's Bank of the Russian Republic. The decree declared banking a state monopoly and united all private joint-stock banks and banking offices that existed in a given period of time with the State Bank, to which their liabilities and assets were transferred. In those  

Banks in the USSR. The proletarian state, among the first revolutionary measures, carried out the seizure of the State Bank of Russia. At the end of Dec. In 1917, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a decree on the nationalization of private joint-stock banks, and banking became a ro-va monopoly. An important feature of the restructuring of the old banking apparatus was that banks not only became the property of the Soviet state, but were subject to merger into a single short-term credit bank. Nationalized private banks were merged with the State Bank, and on this basis the People's Bank of the RSFSR began to function in 1918 (see). The merger of all short-term lending banks into one bank created the opportunity to make fuller use of temporarily free funds and more correctly distribute them among sectors of the national economy. The restructuring of the banking system was accompanied by giving it a strictly centralized character. The People's Bank of the RSFSR was subordinate only to the government of the Republic.  

V G D R and C h e x o l o v a k i i N. b. carried out at the first stage of the revolution. V G D R N. b. was carried out during the period of anti-fascist democracies. transformations in the East. zone of Germany. In July 1945, in accordance with the decisions of the Potsdam Conference, all banking monopolies that served as finance were liquidated with confiscation of property. the basis of fascism, which was one of the chapters. measures aimed at eradicating fascism and democratizing the country's economy. In Czechoslovakia N. b. was carried out on the basis of a decree of October 24. 1945. The process of nationalization and merger of banks took place in an atmosphere of intense struggle with the bourgeoisie and parties and ended in 1948.  

For the practical implementation of the decree on the nationalization of banks, it was necessary to establish a procedure for liquidating the affairs of former private banks and their merger with the State Bank, while ensuring the interests of small depositors, to register and inventory all assets and liabilities of nationalized banks, to develop rules for transferring them to the balance sheet of the Narodny (former State) Bank, take measures for the uninterrupted deployment of the People's Bank's operations.  

The decree on the nationalization of banks did not apply to credit cooperation. Moreover, the Soviet government took measures to strengthen credit assistance to cooperatives, subject to its subordination to workers' control. Thanks to this assistance, in the first five months of 1918 the balance of the Moscow Cooperative Bank increased from 321 ml. to 864 million rubles, the balance of deposits and funds on current accounts - from 153 million to 495 million rubles, debt to the bank for accounting and loan operations - from 174 million to 414 million rubles.  

It soon became clear, however, that the Socialist-Revolutionary-Meninevik leaders of the Moscow Cooperative Bank used this Assistance to the detriment of Soviet power. Hiding behind a cooperative banner, the bank was engaged in lending to private industrialists and traders, which was a direct violation of the basic principles of the decree on the nationalization of the bank. Moreover, this bank entered into open communication with cooperative organizations engaged in anti-Soviet activities in areas captured by the White Guards and interventionists, and financed the counter-revolution. All this forced the Soviet government to raise the question of its nationalization with the shareholders of the Moscow Cooperative Bank.  

Immediately after October, the Bolsheviks began to implement the idea of ​​a single bank. First they took possession of the State Bank. Then, at the beginning of December 1917, the mortgage banks - the State Noble Land Bank and the Peasant Land Bank - were abolished. At the end of December 1917, a decree was adopted on the nationalization of banks, which declared banking a state monopoly, and all existing private banks and banking offices were subject to merger with the State Bank. As a result, the country received a kind of unified bank in the person of the People's Bank of the RSFSR. However, this bank never had time to expand its activities, since it was abolished by the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars on January 19, 1920.  

However, the operations of the Moscow People's Bank did not correspond to the tasks of serving the expanding cooperative movement. Lending to cooperatives was increasingly concentrated in the People's Bank of the RSFSR. In this regard, on December 2, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree on the nationalization of the Moscow People's Bank, the board of which was transformed into a cooperative department of the central administration of the People's Bank of the RSFSR. The nationalization of the bank did not apply to all other cooperative credit institutions: credit unions, credit and savings and loan partnerships, etc.  

Decree II. b. preceded by the seizure of the Itrogr. banks armed detachments of workers, soldiers and sailors to prevent the capitalists from confiscating money and valuables. The banks were seized on the morning of December 27th. 1917. The decree on the nationalization and merger of banks was considered at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, held on December 26. under hand Lenin, and was adopted at a meeting of the CC IK on December 27.  

Nationalization of banks in the USSR. N. b. was one of the main economic demands of Lenin's Bolshevik Party on the eve of the October Revolution. In the April Theses, V.I. Lenin put forward, along with other economics. measures aimed at outgrowing bourgeois-democratic. revolution into a socialist one, also a demand for the merger of all banks into one national bank and the introduction of control over it by the Council of Workers' Deputies. It was also an important measure in the fight against hunger, economic. devastation and financial collapse, to which the tsarist and Provisional governments brought the country. Socialist, the socialization of banks after the October Revolution resulted in a series of successive events: the takeover of the State Bank of Russia, the establishment of control over private banks, and then their nationalization, the merger of nationalized banks with the State Bank into a single People's Bank of the Soviet Republic, the liquidation of mortgage banks. Having taken possession of the State Bank, the Soviet government was able to control the activities of private banks. However, their sabotage of control, financing of counter-revolutionary conspiracies, refusal to issue money to factories over which workers' control had been established, necessitated the need to speed up the implementation of the Communist Party's programmatic demand for the nationalization of private banks. Nationalization was carried out on the basis of a decree of December 27 (14). 1917, Crimea established a state monopoly of banking. Decree of the Council of People's Commissars dated February 8. (Jan. 26) 1918, the capitals of private banks were transferred to the State Bank with their complete confiscation, all bank shares were completely canceled. Thus, banks became national state property. N. b. took place in difficult conditions of civil war and foreign military intervention. In addition, it was necessary to overcome the resistance of the bourgeoisie and its henchmen, sabotage and sabotage by bourgeois specialists. The merger of nationalized banks with the State Bank into the People's Bank of the RSFSR was completed by the beginning of 1920.  

Banks in the USSR. Socialist. The socialization of banks in the USSR began with the possession by the victorious proletariat of the center, the bank of issue - the State Bank. Bank of Russia. Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the nationalization of all private businesses. banks and banking offices was adopted on December 27. 1917. In accordance with this decree, banking was declared a state business. monopoly. Based on the former State Bank of Russia and nationalized private banks Nar was created. Bank of the RSFSR. The final act of nationalization of private banks was the confiscation of their shares. capital. By Decree I1K of January 24. 1918 all bank shares were cancelled. The confiscation of bank capital without compensation to the owners was due to the fierce struggle of bankers against the Soviets. authorities. In connection with the nationalization of land, mortgage banks were liquidated. Credit institutions serving medium and small mountains. bourgeoisie were also liquidated. Credit cooperation, which served peasants and artisans, was not nationalized. Sov. the authorities provided it with organizational and financial support. support.  

In Hungary, Poland and Romania, under bourgeois-but-democratic conditions. Only emission and certain other large banks were subject to nationalization. Control was established over the remaining private banks. The nationalization of all private banks was carried out in the process of outgrowing the bourgeois-democratic. revolution into a socialist one or after the people's democratic. The government has begun to embrace socialism. construction. In Hungary and the People's Republic took control of the bank of issue and established control over private commercial enterprises. banks at the first stage of the revolution. Nationalization was accompanied by the merger of banks. According to the post, dated 23 air. 1948 major banks merged with Vepg. national bank, and cf. and small ones were liquidated. In the credit system of Poland, the state occupied a large place. credit institutions, which affected the process of socialization of banks. They passed into the hands of couples. authorities without any special act. Decree of the government dated October 25. 1948 legitimized the state actually carried out in the first stage of the revolution. monopoly on banking and liquidated all private banks, which had practically ceased their activities. And R u - m i n and at the first stage of the revolution, by the law of December 20. 1946 The emission national was nationalized. bank, control was exercised over private banks and measures were taken to reorganize the irrational banking system, which included St. 450 independent, mostly small banks. II. b. would-  

See pages where the term is mentioned Decree on the nationalization of banks

:                      Financial Credit Dictionary Volume 1 (1961) -- [

One of the first actions of the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution was the armed seizure of the State Bank. The buildings of private banks were also seized. On December 8, 1917, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the abolition of the Noble Land Bank and the Peasant Land Bank" was adopted. By the decree “on the nationalization of banks” of December 14 (27), 1917, banking was declared a state monopoly. The nationalization of banks in December 1917 was reinforced by the confiscation of public funds. All gold and silver in coins and bars, and paper money were confiscated if they exceeded the amount of 5,000 rubles and were acquired “unearnedly.” For small deposits that remained unconfiscated, the norm for receiving money from accounts was set at no more than 500 rubles per month, so that the non-confiscated balance was quickly eaten up by inflation.

Nationalization of industry

Already in June-July 1917, “capital flight” began from Russia. The first to flee were foreign entrepreneurs who were looking for cheap labor in Russia: after the February Revolution, the establishment of an 8-hour working day, the struggle for higher wages, and legalized strikes deprived entrepreneurs of their excess profits. The constantly unstable situation prompted many domestic industrialists to flee. But thoughts about the nationalization of a number of enterprises were visited by the far from left-wing Minister of Trade and Industry A.I. Konovalov even earlier, in May, and for other reasons: constant conflicts between industrialists and workers, causing strikes on the one hand and lockouts on the other, disorganized the economy, which was already undermined by the war.

The Bolsheviks faced the same problems after the October Revolution. The first decrees of the Soviet government did not imply any transfer of “factories to workers,” as eloquently evidenced by the Regulations on Workers’ Control approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars on November 14 (27), 1917, which specifically stipulated the rights of entrepreneurs. However, the new government also faced questions: what to do with abandoned enterprises and how to prevent lockouts and other forms of sabotage?

What began as the adoption of ownerless enterprises, nationalization later turned into a measure to combat counter-revolution. Later, at the XI Congress of the RCP(b), L.D. Trotsky recalled:

...In Petrograd, and then in Moscow, where this wave of nationalization rushed, delegations from Ural factories came to us. My heart ached: “What will we do? “We’ll take it, but what will we do?” But from conversations with these delegations it became clear that military measures are absolutely necessary. After all, the director of a factory with all his apparatus, connections, office and correspondence is a real cell at this or that Ural, or St. Petersburg, or Moscow plant - a cell of that very counter-revolution - an economic cell, strong, solid, which is armed in hand is fighting against us. Therefore, this measure was a politically necessary measure of self-preservation. We could move on to a more correct account of what we can organize and begin economic struggle only after we had secured for ourselves not an absolute, but at least a relative possibility of this economic work. From an abstract economic point of view, we can say that our policy was wrong. But if you put it in the world situation and in the situation of our situation, then it was, from the point of view of political and military in the broad sense of the word, absolutely necessary.

The factory of the A.V. Likinsky Manufactory Partnership was the first to be nationalized on November 17 (30), 1917. Smirnova (Vladimir province). In total, from November 1917 to March 1918, according to the industrial and professional census of 1918, 836 industrial enterprises were nationalized. On May 2, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree on the Nationalization of the sugar industry, and on June 20 - the oil industry. By the fall of 1918, 9,542 enterprises were concentrated in the hands of the Soviet state. All large capitalist property in the means of production was nationalized by the method of gratuitous confiscation. By April 1919, almost all large enterprises (with more than 30 employees) were nationalized. By the beginning of 1920, medium-sized industry was also largely nationalized. Strict centralized production management was introduced. The Supreme Council of the National Economy was created to manage the nationalized industry.

On this day 95 years ago - in 1917 - curious events took place in Soviet Russia. Details are in Andrey Svetenko’s section on

In Petrograd, detachments of revolutionary sailors carried out an armed seizure of the buildings of all the capital's banks. In pursuance of the Decree of the Soviet government "On the nationalization of banks". In fact, the importance of this action can only be compared with the capture of the Winter Palace. Because declaring that “we are the power here,” as the Bolsheviks did when they took the Winter Palace, is one thing, but what about financing?

Here, as surprising as it may sound, the Bolsheviks were forced to act according to the rules. On November 12, 1917, an application was submitted to the State Bank of the Russian Republic to open a current account in the Petrograd branch in the name of the Council of People's Commissars with the provision of sample signatures - Lenin and Deputy People's Commissar of Finance Menzhinsky. Bank employees led by Mr. Shipov refused to open such an account. Neither the arrest of the bank director nor the accusation of bank employees of sabotage with the threat of execution helped. Throughout the month of November, the State Bank remained an island not covered by Soviet power. He continued to independently carry out his main function - issuing money. Issued 610 million rubles into circulation, 459 of which were sent to Bank branches throughout the country. We are, of course, talking about old regime money, like the Provisional Government. A ridiculous, absurd situation. The Bolsheviks have power, but no money. You can, of course, replace Shipov with a revolutionary sailor. But even having done this, the Bolsheviks were unable to force bank employees to recognize the Council of People's Commissars as a legal entity. With a convincing credit history. The sabotage - in Soviet terms - continued. And for current needs, the Council of People’s Commissars was even forced to borrow 5 million rubles in “Kerenka” from one Polish banker, a man of left-wing convictions.

It turned out to be more difficult to break the country’s financial and credit system than to seize political power in it. Only by seizing private banks in a predatory manner did the Bolsheviks manage to hack into a well-oiled machine. The decree of the Council of People's Commissars announced the nationalization of all joint-stock and private assets, as well as the property and real estate pledged to them. And it is wrong to think that this concerned the interests of only a handful of millionaires. The Peasant Land Bank, whose depositors included millions of people, was liquidated. All assets were transferred to the State Bank. And according to the first paragraph of the decree, this - already the Soviet State Bank - had the rights of a state monopoly on all financial transactions in Russia.

However, the Decree stipulated that the interests of private investors would be respected. But after war communism was declared on the territory of Soviet Russia in the spring of 1918, monetary circulation collapsed in principle. All that was left of all the deposits were numbers on paper. Well, of course. memories...

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26.06.2019, 09:08

“Why does Russia owe everything?”

SOLOVYOV: “I want to say right away that I am sincerely glad that Tina Givievna, having heard my criticism and analysis of one of the posts dedicated to Georgia in the Telegram channel, immediately wrote to me and asked for the opportunity to come to directly express her opinion, so that this would not turned exclusively into a telephone interview.”

Banks are the main system-forming element of capitalism (a market economy is a special structure in which money, land and labor are transformed into goods).

The abolition of the “sale of money” is a fundamental condition for the socialization of the economy on a national scale. Therefore, the question of nationalizing banks was raised starting with Lenin’s “April Theses” and was included in the documents of the VI Party Congress in August 1917.

In Russia, the position of banks was special; they were controlled by foreign financial capital. There were 8 large private banks in Russia, of which only one (Volzhsko-Vyatsky) could be considered Russian, but it was blocked by the “seven”, and its capital grew slowly.

Foreigners owned 34% of the banks' share capital. Therefore, their nationalization was an act of the state’s foreign policy. Through banks, foreign capital established control over Russian industry, therefore, by affecting the banks, the Soviet government began a huge process of changing property relations, for which it was not ready at that moment.

During the war, private banks in Russia became sharply richer and stronger (with the State Bank greatly weakened, the gold backing of its credit notes fell 10.5 times during the war years). In 1917, banks began speculating in food, buying and renting warehouses and driving up prices. Thus they became a great political force.

In 1917, the reason for the nationalization of banks had nothing to do with theory; it was purely political and even opportunistic. Banks declared a financial boycott of the Soviet government and stopped issuing money to pay salaries (government officials were given salaries 3 months in advance so that they could boycott the new government). In addition, by unspoken agreement with the factory owners, banks stopped issuing money to those factories where worker control was established.

After three weeks of sabotage and fruitless negotiations, on November 14, armed forces occupied all the main private banks in the capital. By decree of the Central Executive Committee, a banking monopoly was declared, and private banks merged into the State (from now on People's) Bank. Bank employees went on strike, and only in mid-January did banks resume work, already in the People's Bank system. Since there were no workers among the bank employees, there could be no question of workers' control; reconciliation with the 50 thousand employees was required.

Large deposits were confiscated. All external and internal loans entered into by both the Tsarist and Provisional Governments were cancelled. During the war years, external loans alone amounted to 6 billion rubles. (to understand the magnitude of this amount, let’s say that in the best years, Russia’s entire grain exports amounted to about 0.5 billion rubles per year).

The Moscow People's Bank was not subject to nationalization for the longest time (until December 2, 1918). The reason was that it was the central bank of the cooperators and the government wanted to avoid conflict with them and its peasant depositors. The branches of this bank were transformed into cooperative branches of the National Bank. On December 2, 1918, all foreign banks on the territory of the RSFSR were belatedly liquidated. In April 1918, when hopes arose for the possibility of a soft transition stage (“state capitalism”), negotiations were started with bankers on the denationalization of banks, but this project was never implemented.”