ABSTRACT
The financial aspect of Soviet economy is perhaps more misunderstood in this country than are other aspects of the economic system of the U.S.S.R. And in one direction, at least, popular ignorance has been exploited by interested parties and currency been given to quite erroneous conclusions. Misunderstanding seems largely to be connected, on the one hand, with a faulty appreciation of the rôle that financial relationships play in a socialist planned economy, and, on the other hand, with a misconception of the actual social relationships which prevail at the present time in the U.S.S.R. This results in two contrasted attitudes. Some-times one finds that people expect too close an analogy between the financial mechanism and the fiscal devices of the U.S.S.R. and other countries. Sometimes, on the contrary, one finds people who suppose that, as a socialist country, the U.S.S.R. should be capable of ordering everything on a strictly egalitarian basis, by direct rationing or the distribution of equal money incomes to all, without the intrusion of any specific “financial problem”.
