Soviet Dumping

71

ECONOMIC WAR

Y a decree issued on April 22nd, 1918, at Moscow,
all foreign trading throughout Russia was declared
a State Monopoly. The Russian merchant, as such,
ceased to exist: his place was taken by the Soviet State.
And whilst hundreds of other decrees introducing similar
Soviet experiments have had to be modified, amended,
altered, and even scrapped in the passage of time, the
decree of the Foreign Trade Monopoly has withstood all
internal and external assaults and is operative to-day in its
original form. It is by means of this monopoly that the
Soviets are carrying on an economic war against the nations
of the world.
The following extracts from official reports are translated
and are given as the authoritative Soviet definition of the
Foreign Trade Monopoly.
‘“ The basis of our foreign trade policy is monopoly. The
Socialist order in our State and the strict planning of all
our business requires a monopoly of foreign trade . . . the
monopoly is also one of the chief weapons for the necessary
regulation of the domestic market. . . .
‘‘ The united action prescribed by the monopoly in relation
 to the foreign capitalist world enables the creation of a
powerful and united commercial machinery abroad which,
thanks to its power, can obtain in its deals favourable
prices and better financial conditions. . . .
“ This machinery abroad—the Trading Agencies—acts
as a kind of General Staff of the Soviet Government, in
whom are concentrated all our mobilised plans for exports
and imports. This is not the ordinary trading machinery
employed by commercial firms, in which, among other
things, are concentrated the secrets of their firms. In our
Trade Agencies are to be found all the secrets of the whole
Soviet Union. Here are the data of all our export resources,
plans of purchases, etc. The Trade Agencies are not commercial
 organisations in the ordinary sense of the word.
They are State departments . . . they represent the interests
 of the whole Soviet Union in the countries of their