The Communist’s Currency

By: Griffin Foley

The Russian Ruble

• Created in 1755• Divided into kopeks &

chervonets• 1 ruble = 100 kopeks• 1 chervonets = 10 rubles

First Coins

• Silver Rubles

• Copper kopeks

Reformation of System

• 1839

• Printed banknotes

• 1897 - Created Gold Standard

• Introduced Gold coin

The Revolution• 1905 – 1918• Crowd of protesters were fired upon• Petitioned czarist regime• Led to Civil war (1918 – 1920) between

Communists and anti-Communists • Communists were victorious

The Soviet Ruble• 1922• Issued new paper

currency• Led to extremely high

inflation (new replaced old at rate of 10 to 1)

• Created new coins called Chervonetzand backed them 25% with gold

• Kept reforming the Soviet Ruble until inflation went down

• 1923, 1924, 1947, 1961

The Fall of the Soviet Ruble

• 1989

• Replaced with Russian ruble after dissolution of the Soviet Union

• More inflation

Reasons for Inflation

• 1993

• Russian Central Bank stated all bank notes issued from 1961 – 1992 would no longer be valid

• At least 20% of cash in circulation

• People had two weeks

Why Abolish Old Bills?

• Halt Inflation

• Stop counterfeiting

• Eliminate bills bearing likenesses of Lenin and other former Communist leaders

• Prevent old rubles still circulating in other Soviet republics from flowing back into Russia and triggering inflation

Year US Ruble

1988 $1 4

1990 $1 12

1992 $1 100

1994 $1 3500

1996 $1 5000

- By the mid 90’s, One hundred-ruble notes were rare and only worth a few pennies. Kopeks disappeared from circulation.

Stabilization

• Inflation began to collapse in 1996

• Took four years to switch to “deflated currency”

• Five-thousand ruble notes became five-ruble notes

• One-thousand ruble notes were replaced by coins