Gold

Abstract

This chapter details how the fate of the first communist state depended not on world revolution but gold. With the beginning of industrialization, the country's leadership went through a gold panic, which reached its apogee in 1931–1932. The country had to create the nation's gold reserves from scratch. To do that, the government took whatever it could lay its hands on, without disdain for anything. Torgsin became one of many episodes in the gold panic caused by industrialization and the state's hard-currency bankruptcy. Gold played a major role in Torgsin's story, providing the lion's share of its revenues. Torgsin accepted gold in all forms: scrap, jewelry, art and household objects, coins, bullion, sand, nuggets, and even gold containing waste. The revolution and the nationalization that followed struck a death blow to private wealth, and Torgsin carried on this destruction.