The principal result is a constant depreciation which seems to have no limit. But the Government feels no great alarm about this. So long as its printing presses are in working order and the supply of rags holds out it will "get by" and make its necessary "profits" from the money market. As fast as the money falls in value it simply increases the number and denomination of the notes printed.
Discussing this phase of the financial situation, the Peoples' Commissar for Finance says, in the work above cited: "In 1917 a kopeck was still a reality, it was still possible to buy something for 50 kopecks. In 1918 the ruble plays the part of the kopeck. In 1919 not only is the word "kopeck" forgotten, but the word "ruble" as a real unit of calculation is replaced by 10 rubles. In 1920 the real unit of calculation is the hundred and the thousand: the ones and the tens disappeared. In 1921 the actual unit is the thousand and the five thousand. But when will all this come to an end? When will our paper currency fail? It is obvious that the failure cannot be brought about solely through the increase of naughts on our paper money notes. Here the difficulties are purely technical, not more. For lessening the number of naughts the three naughts in 1000 can be substituted by the letter "T" (thousand), and we can print paper money notes in 10T, 100T, 1000T, and soon. Further, we can replace the naughts in the "T" series by the letter "M" (million) and print 1M, 10M, 100M, etc. For the lifetime of our currency the existing mathematical denotations of ciphers will suffice, and should they not be sufficient others can be invented."
The enormous depreciation of the ruble has naturally sent prices skyrocketing in the realm of competitive products.[1] The following, now prevailing in the
- ↑ Besides the open market prices there are also "Soviet" prices. These apply to government manufactured or controlled products, and apply to the transactions between the various industries and to independent purchasers. They are established by the price committees of the Supreme Economic Council. The original plan was to have the articles in the Soviet retail depots priced (at much lower rates than prevailed on the open market) so that the workers might spend the money part of their wages there. But in practice these retail price lists are held in abeyance. Virtually all the retail products which the Government has at its disposal are distributed free to the workers.
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