To WaAT Extent May THE Borsuevikr HAVE INCREASED 
Tuer Gorp Stock 
After having examined the question of gold production in 
Siberia with reference to the utilization of that gold by the Bol- 
sheviki, we have to mention two further sources from which the 
Soviet Government may have increased its gold stock, namely: 
(1) the withdrawal of gold coin from circulation, and (2) the 
confiscation of articles of gold in churches, monasteries, palaces, and 
in private homes. 
The value of gold coins in circulation was estimated at a total 
of about oo million rubles, including the 15 and 7.5 ruble coins 
which circulated prior to February 1896. This large gold circulation 
was a result of the policy pursued by the Ministry of Finance in the 
decade 1900-1910, directed towards introducing gold coin into 
circulation and thus doing away with the rush to exchange banknotes 
against gold in periods of political or economic tension. Early 
in the war an effort was made to withdraw that gold from cit- 
culation, by appealing to the patriotism of the public and by grant- 
ing special advantages to those who made payments in gold when 
transferring money abroad. The results, however, were slight. 
All those who have studied this question have reached the con- 
clusion that the greater part of that gold was scattered in peasants’ 
hoards, from which it could by no means be extracted. It is also 
thought, from more or less conclusive evidence, that part of the 
gold coin has been melted down and used for industrial and tech- 
nical purposes, owing to the difficulty of procuring the metal. It 
would, therefore, be erroneous to assume that the Bolsheviki suc- 
ceeded in withdrawing that gold from circulation. 
Tae QUANTITY OF GoLD THE BoLsuEVIKI May HAVE AT THE 
END oF 1921 
The Soviet Government has never made. public any data with 
reference to the movement of gold or to the quantities of gold which 
it had at its disposal at any given moment. Only a very approximate 
estimate of those quantities can be made . . . The total amount of 
gold which passed through the hands of the Soviet Government 
since October 1917 was certainly below one billion rubles. After 
the payments to Germany and the loss of the gold deposited at 
Kazan there was left to the Bolsheviki about 450 millions; to that 
should be added about another 450 million rubles which they 
Subsequently secured in Omsk, Nijneudinsk, and Irkutsk, also the 
Rumanian gold stock, and finally, the insignificant amounts of the 
New production, which ceased almost entirely after 1918. . 
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