Imperial Bank of Russia was supposed to possess about $580,000,000 
gold, for which the Government that seized it is accountable. But the 
adventures of that gold reserve were mysterious. 
“The common version is that about $350,000,000 of it was sent 
for safety to the Volga before the revolution and subsequently fell 
into the hands of the anti-Bolshevist General Kolchak, its final dis- 
position being disputed. A considerable part of what was left at 
Moscow was turned over by the Soviet to Germany, under the 
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and after the war was surrendered by 
Germany to France, A lawsuit based on the supposition that the 
Soviet ‘Government still holds the old ‘Czarist gold reserve’ would 
apparently have to unravel these and numerous other intricacies. 
“It must be remembered that the contempt of ‘bourgeois insti- 
tutions,” entertained and expressed by. Lenin and his disciples during 
the early years of the Soviet experiment, was abundantly bestowed 
on gold. Whether this sentiment went so far as to exclude retention 
of a secret governmental reserve, to be used in buying real things 
from the simple-minded bourgeois countries, is not so certain. It is 
left a matter of conjecture, also, what would have happened if the 
New York banks which received the $5,200,000 gold in February 
had been in a position to ‘guarantee title,” and if the gold had then 
been duly assayed by our Government and deposited in the Federal 
Reserve.” 
xa