centres. In comparison with the same month of the previous year, the
wheat production for export was 32 0p less. Even more instructive is the
somewhat veiled admission by the Soviet people that the main cause of this
failure is due to the “exclusion of the small trade”, i. e., the small private
trade not recognised in the turnover estimates of the plan system. The
suppression of this trade has forced the State to burden itself with the
provisioning of those towns in districts with a plentiful supply of bread.
The contest with the private dealer has brought about the result that every
vestige of bread supply has disappeared from these towns, leaving the
State authorities, however, quite helpless in the matter. According to the
statement of the later cited Perwushin, the price of a pood of rye-flour
has soared up to 8 roubles. Under these conditions it is a matter of course
that the Soviet trade cannot have any grain for export.
The condition of affairs is still further aggravated by the fact that
‘he State industry has no goods for the peasant. The latter, however,
naturally has no inclination to exchange the fruits of his arduous labour
for persistently sinking Cherwonezes. And so the Soviet Government resorts
to “purely communistic’’ measures, viz., to employ force. But even just
now the President of the WZIK (the All-Russian Central Committee) has
publicly admitted that these measures have only resulted in the greater
resistance of the peasants. The failure of the crops in the Ukraine will in
ill probability compel the Soviet Government to make also further pur-
chases of grain abroad.
The monopoly of the foreign trade is looked upon as a corner stone of
the system of “One Country Socialism’; it is for this reason that the Soviet
:conomists critisize the foreign trade operations with special caution in order
not to raise the suspicion that they are attacking the foreign trade monopoly
as a system. Despite of this, very interesting material has been published
within the last two years which goes to prove that even in those circles from
whence political economy is directed in Russia, the conviction is clearly
gaining ground that the foreign trade monopoly is exercising a baneful
influence on the productive capabilities of the country. The chief argument
in favour of the foreign trade monopoly holds that by this monopoly,
import and export is systematically carried out — a fact so very essential
for the adjustment of the trade balance and for the consolidation of the
monetary system — this argument, however, is not justified by actual facts.
Thus we read in the statement of accounts of the workers and peasants
mspection (Control department): “At the meeting of the council of the
peoples commissariats of the workers and peasants Inspection, it was esta-
dlished that the development of foreign trade of the U.S.S.R. falls short
of the general growth of the country... The general causes of this cir-
cumstance are the following: The slow process of restoring the marketable
103