Paradise Money

After officially pretending for twelve long years that all Russian rubles were of the same value, the Soviet State at last admitted that its "official rate" is fiction by decreeing last week a second official rate which gives every piece of Russian money two different values, both official.

The old official rate, still retained in good standing, makes the ruble worth 87-c-. This must still be paid by a foreigner wishing to buy Russian goods from the State and have them exported to him. The additional official rate decreed last week makes the ruble worth about 20-c-. This rate applies when anyone inside Russia possessing dollars or other foreign money wants to buy rubles in the only way they can legally be bought, namely from the State Bank.

Most foreigners resident for any length of time in Russia have been in the habit of buying rubles illegally from furtive natives for 4-c- or even less. The new decree is Dictator Joseph Stalin's opening gun in a barrage of repressive measures to stop such illegal "black bourse" trading in torn, blotched and greasy rubles at their real worth. Last week the thousands of foreign pinks in Moscow, mostly pinks living on funds from abroad, joined the embassy and legation set in wailing at what means to them a quintupling of their living costs.

Since a great and ruthless effort will now be made to maintain the value of the ruble in Russia at 20-c-,* the State further decreed last week: 1) that all "Torgsin Stores'' which have sold goods in Russia for foreign currency exclusively are abolished as of Dec. 15; 2) that all foreign tourists, who have hitherto been discouraged by every means from the use of rubles (for fear they might have got them at "black bourse" rates), are from now on compelled to make all purchases in Russia with rubles bought at the State Bank.

*The rate is maintained at 87-c- outside Russia by confiscating smuggled rubles, sometimes shooting the smugglers if they happen to be Russian.

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