The steep inflation in the latter stages of the war can be traced partly to national poverty and partly to fiscal mismanagement. Unlike the richer belligerents, Russia could not extract much of the money needed to pay for the war either from current revenues or from internal loans. It has been estimated that whereas the national per capita income of England in 1913 was $243, of France $185, and of Germany $146, Russia’s was a mere $44. And yet Russia’s war costs would be equal to England’s and inferior only to Germany’s.4 Even so, the government could have done more to pay for the war from revenues had it imposed direct taxes, made a greater effort to sell war bonds, and maintained state income at the prewar level. As it was, a good part of the war deficit had to be covered by emissions of paper money and foreign borrowing.
One cause of the decline of state revenues was the introduction at the outbreak of the war of prohibition on the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. Russia took this measure—the first major country in the world to do so—in an effort to reduce alcoholism, which was believed responsible for the physical and moral degeneration of her inhabitants. Prohibition, however, had little effect on alcohol consumption since the closing of state-owned outlets immediately led to a rise in the output of moonshine. During the war, in addition to homemade vodka, a popular beverage was
During the war, the “ordinary” income of the Russian Treasury more than covered the “ordinary” part of the budget; but this part did not include the costs of the war. In 1915, “ordinary” revenues were 3 billion rubles and “ordinary” expenditures 2.2 billion; in 1916, they were 4.3 billion and 2.8 billion, respectively.5 But, of course, the bulk of expenses went for the war, and here “ordinary” revenues were of little help. Russia’s total wartime deficit is estimated at 30 billion rubles, half of which was covered by domestic and foreign loans and the rest by emissions of paper currency.
On July 27, 1914, the government suspended for the duration of the war (but, as it turned out, permanently) the convertibility of paper rubles into gold as well as the gold-reserve requirements for the issuance of bank notes. The Treasury was empowered to print notes upon receipt of authorization without regard to the amount of gold in its vaults. The immediate effect of this ruling was the disappearance from circulation of specie. On the outbreak of the war, the Treasury issued 1.5 billion rubles in bank notes, which had the effect of doubling the quantity of paper money. This procedure would be repeated several times in the course of the war. By January 1917, the quantity of paper in circulation had increased fourfold, according to some sources, and fivefold or even sixfold according to others.* The gold backing of paper currency declined proportionately, from 98 percent (July 1914) to 51.4 percent (January 1915), 28.7 percent (January 1916), and 16.2 percent (January 1917).6 This development contributed to the drop in the exchange rate of Russian currency abroad: in Stockholm, between July 1914 and January 1916, the ruble declined by 44 percent; it stayed at this level until the summer of 1917.†
Thus, in two and a half years, the amount of paper notes in Russia increased by as much as 600 percent. This compares with a 100 percent increase in France, a 200 percent increase in Germany, and no increase at all in Great Britain during the four years these countries were at war.7 Russia printed more money than any other belligerent power and, as a consequence, suffered more severely from inflation.
In theory, the sale of domestic bonds covered slightly more than one-quarter of the Russian wartime deficit. This sum, estimated (through October 1916) at 8 billion rubles,8 was, however, in some measure fictitious, for neither the population nor the banks showed much enthusiasm for Russian war bonds. The government cajoled banks to make purchases, but even so, the bonds were difficult to move. A German expert estimates that the 3 billion bond issue of October 1916 brought in only 150 million rubles.9 Thus, the deficit had to have been larger than the official statistics indicated.
The overwhelming bulk of foreign loans incurred during the war, totaling between 6 and 8 billion rubles, came from England, which helped finance Russia’s purchases of war matériel from herself as well as the United States and Japan.
