Public Finance and Credit

The role of the budget is (in all countries) to transfer resources, in accordance with government decision, from one part of the national economy to another. The USSR is no different in this respect. However, the relative importance of the budget is very great there, because of the direct responsibility of the state for the bulk of economic life. Thus in 1960 the Soviet national income (in its Soviet definition) amounted to 1,440 milliard (old) roubles, while the revenues of the budgets of all public authorities totalled 752 milliard in the same year. ¹