By late 1921, the Russian Civil War had ended, but a different kind of crisis was tearing the Soviet Union apart. While previous episodes covered the Cheka’s terror and the Red Army’s victories, this episode explores the economic collapse known as War Communism and the desperate measures taken to save the state from total financial ruin. We trace the chaotic history of the Soviet rouble, hyperinflation that made banknotes worthless, and the creation of the Chervonets—a gold-backed currency designed to restore trust in trade. Through the eyes of Finance Minister Yevgeni Preobrazhensky and economist Nikolai Krestinsky, we examine how the Bolsheviks attempted to transition from confiscatory grain requisitioning to a functioning market economy under the New Economic Policy. This story reveals not just numbers on a page, but the human cost of monetary instability, including the black market trades that kept cities alive and the ideological struggle between purists who wanted to abolish money entirely and pragmatists who knew the state would starve without it.
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