The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-12-23
FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC
POLICY OF THE SOVIET
UNION
FOREIGN Workers DELEGATIONS Interview Comrade ernke

oisie of ali capitalist countries have built up their
industry.
We have no colonies AS successors OF the
Tsarist government we had the right to draw
from China the compensation for the Boxer war;
we renounced this right. In the interior of our
state there exist number of districts which, I'M
der the TSar, as colonies or seni-colonies, were
ruthleSsly exploited and bled white. We are ex-
pending large sums now in order to promote the
cultural and economic development of these
backward districts. We receive no contributions;
we receive no long-term loans from anybody;
although we always most punctually meet the OBJ
legations which we have ourselves undertaken.
There is not single country, there Is not single
firm that can say that the Soviet Union does
not strictly fulfil the obligations undertaken by
it. Just imagine how difficult it is when every
year we build gigantic new undertakings with
the means which we have to collect during the
year in the midst of the process of construction.
You will easily understand that this is q very
difficult task. We are very short of capital.
There is much that we are unable to build at
such a pace and on such a scale as is necessary.
Nevertheless we have such a rapid growth OF the
national income that it is unattainable in the
capitalist countries, and by means of which we
are building up socialist industry and socialist
agriculture.
MOulQ Cdu your aGUSnG1On TO announcer pOluG.
You have travelled through our country You
have seen the Urals, Magnitogorsk, Nishni-N Nov
gorod, Dnieprostroy, Kharkov Donbasin, Soviet
farms, collective farms. All these big sndertak-
ings, as well as the new railway lines, were built
with our own Soviet rubles, with our CherYo-
metz.
There recently came to me former Finance
Minister who wished to stabilize his countrys
currency, in order to study why our currency
does not fall He was incapable Of grasping the
causes of the. stability of our chervonetz. He
could not understand how we are able with our
valuta to carry out such huge constructive work.
About year ago, at the commencement of the
third year of the Five-Year Plan, the whole of
the capitalist world was declaring that we were
on the threshold of bankruptcy, that the chervo-
metz would fall, that we were Immediately be-
fore an initiation, that We were not able to fulfil
our plan. year has passed since then. The
cheryonetz stands firm; the work of construction
is being carried on. On the other hand, how
ever the English pound has fallen, the dollar is
shaky, and the currencies of other countries are
threatened.
Why does our valuta remain tirm7 Our means
of payment have a gold cover That is not the
chief matter for us, however. For us gold is a
commodity like every other commodity; we can
export gold like any other commodity il it is
necessary, and our rlble will not become shaky
as a result. The foundation of the stability of
ruble is the quantity of goods which inc state
has in its hands and the fact that we ourselves
determine the prices. The bourgeois economists
cannot grasp the idea that these two factors
guarantee the stability of the ruble. They are
incapable of imagining an economy without COM
petition and carried according to plan, with
fixed prices determined by the state Our ruble
is independent of the fluctuations of the capital
ist exchanges. We can deliberately raise or lower
prices, but we are protected from the disturbing
effects OF the anarchic economy OF the capitalist
world. You workers should get to know the
mechanism of our currency in order to explain
it to the workers in the capitalist countries and
thus defend us against the campaigns Of calun-
ny in the capitalist countries We shall never
allow prices to develop against the interests of
the broad masses of consumers, against the in
terest Of the working class.
(TO BE CONTINUED