ABSTRACT
The Bolshevist State occupies the key positions. First of all, it possesses a monopoly of foreign trade which is unassailable. Smuggling tempers this rigidity slightly on the frontiers, where traces of it are found in a somewhat ampler supply of goods and a heavier depreciation of money, but this does not affect the general situation. The Bolshevist State is further— and this is the second post of high command— the exclusive controller of credit. However manifold the forms of the banking system have gradually become in Russia, separate for long-term and short-term credit, for agrarian and industrial credits, variously organized in purely State institutions, in mixed joint-stock companies, in municipal savings banks and in co-operative societies, they are all subject to unified central control and respond to a uniformly directed policy. The third post of high command is the control by the State of the most important branches of industry. Large-scale industry is almost entirely in its hands.
