INTRODUCTION
The recent refusal of the Assay Office to accept a $5,000,000
shipment of Soviet gold brings up the interesting question of the
Russian gold reserve. Among the various studies of this subject
the basic and most authoritative appear to be a survey by V. No-
vitzky, former Assistant Minister of Finance in the Imperial Rus-
sian Government, and the chapter on the dissipation of the Russian
gold reserve in the volumes on European Currency and Finance
orepared by the United States Senate Commission of Gold and
Silver Inquiry. These two studies, which we reprint in this booklet,
indicate that about two-fifths of the Russian gold reserve amounting
lo 1,600,000,000 rubles in 1914, was transferred by the Imperial
Government to the Allies during the war period, approximately one
bith was disposed of by the “white” generals fighting the Bolshe-
viki and in payments under the several peace treaties to Germany
and some of the independent states created on the western border
of Russia. This left only about 680,000,000 rubles in the hands
of the Soviet Government at the beginning of 1920. The Senate
Inquiry, on the basis of customs statistics of various countries,
proves that this Soviet gold reserve of approximately $350,000,000
during the following three years found its way by various channels
to the United States. Corroboration of this conclusion is also found
n contemporary press statements which are also reprinted in his
vamphlet.
As stated by Mr. Scheinman, Chairman of the Soviet State
Bank, and corroborated by statistical data, (see pp. 37, 67) the
present gold reserve of the Soviet Union represents either gold
newly mined within the Soviet territory, or else has been acquired
by the State Bank of the U.S.S.R. on the Russian and foreign
markets. The $5,000,000 shipment of gold which the United States
Assay Office refused to handle, came from the newly created reserve.

The gold reserve held by the Soviet authorities in 1920 was ex-
ported to pay for its purchases abroad at the time when the situation
in Russia did not permit of any exports of Russian products to for-
eign countries. This gold ultimately found its way to the United
States for the reason that currencies in Europe were depreciated
and the United States during these years was the only country with an