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Foreign concessions in the national economy of the USSRPeriod: 1922-1927
State publishing house 1928
Moscow 1928 Leningrad
Printed at the 1st Exemplary Printing House of Giza. Moscow, Pyatnitskaya, 71.
Glavlit No. A 613. Giz No. 2371 Order No. 4679. Circulation 3000 copies.
Stages of the concession policy and practice of the USSR.
First attempts and the first stage.
We meet with the first attempts to attract the attention of foreign capital to work with us in November 1917. The Petrograd newspapers of that time reported on the negotiations that were being held on this issue with the American consul in Russia.
These negotiations opened the first stage of our concession policy, which ended in 1920 with the issuance of a decree on concessions .
In the spring of 1918, the Soviet government adopted the first basic provisions on the issue of concessions. Together with the simultaneously worked out law on the monopoly of foreign trade and the system of our counterclaims on the question of debts, they were the subject of our negotiations with Kaiser Germany during the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk peace.
Theses 1918
The issue of granting concessions to foreign capital was devoted to a special report at the First Congress of Soviets of the National Economy, which took place in the spring of the same 1918. At this congress, “theses on the conditions for attracting foreign capital in commodity form to Russia” appeared. The commodity form was put forward because both Europe and America experienced a severe monetary crisis immediately after the war. The capitalists had no money, but they had goods that had accumulated in huge quantities during the war in their warehouses. An impoverished Europe could not provide a sufficiently capacious market for the sale of these goods. It is natural, therefore, that we had chances to interest the capitalists in working in Soviet Russia, since we offered them to come to us with their goods.
In general terms, the theses boiled down to the following:
1. Concessions must be leased in such a way that their distribution on the territory of Soviet Russia cannot create certain spheres of influence among foreign states.
2. For foreign capital, all laws in force in our country, both general and special laws, are obligatory; withdrawals from them are allowed in exceptional cases by special decrees of the supreme authority of the republic.
3. The Soviet government may redeem the concessions ahead of time.
4. Without the permission of the government, a concession may not be transferred from one person to another.
5. The state receives a certain part of the profit of the concession enterprise in excess of its firmly established norms.
6. Foreign capital may be guaranteed the payment of interest on the capital expended by it on the concession.
These theses did not yield practical results. The capitalist world, which had ended the bloody struggle on the fields of Eastern France, hoped that after the end of this struggle it would take over Soviet Russia. He dreamed of returning back the property that had been nationalized from him, he dreamed, following the defeated Germany, of having a defeated Russia at his feet. It is understandable, therefore, that our concession proposals aroused almost no interest either in Europe or in America.
True, before the start of the civil war, two more attempts were made to work together with foreign capitalists. In March 1918, a project arose to organize a trust in the Urals with a capital of 500 million rubles, of which 200 million rubles. the government invested 200 million rubles. private Russian industrialists and 100 million rubles. American capitalists, who, in addition, had to contribute 500 million rubles in the form of a bonded loan. A little later, a project for the organization of a trust was developed, which should cover the metallurgical plants of the South and the Central region. This trust also assumed the participation of American, French, English and German capital.
These projects were not implemented primarily for political reasons.[ 1 ].
Concession and civil war.
The civil war, which came very soon, for a long time excluded the possibility of foreign capital working in our country. True, even during this period we did not exclude the idea of the possibility of handing over concessions to foreigners. But now we considered concessions more from the point of view of politics than economics. At moments that threatened the very existence of the power of the workers and peasants, we were ready, at the cost of granting a concession, to buy off the imperialist predators, we were ready to go to great lengths if only they would leave us in peace. On February 4, 1919, the Soviet government radio announced, among other things, that we agreed to grant concessions at the choice of the capitalists themselves. Luckily, we didn't have to do this. We have managed to defend ourselves against the invasion of the imperialists of all countries and stripes by the strength of our weapons, the iron will and the fortitude of the workers and peasants of the Soviet country,
The blockade around us was lifted. The capitalists were convinced that they would not come to us with a war, they went to negotiations with us, we breathed a sigh of relief. But the country's economic situation has become even worse than it was at the time of the October Revolution. It is natural, therefore, that we did not abandon the idea of attracting foreign capital and foreign technology to the construction of a socialist economy in Russia.
On the contrary, with even greater clarity than in 1918, we placed it both before ourselves and before foreign capital. It is clear that the disbelief of the bourgeois world in the possibility of working in Soviet Russia had not disappeared by that time. It was completely incomprehensible to the mass of capitalists how we, having nationalized industry, trade, banks, conducting ardent anti-capitalist propaganda, call them to work with us. Going to Soviet Russia was, in their opinion, tantamount to a leap into the unknown. Very few people have attempted this jump, and with very little results. Naturally, we had to dispel this fear of the foreign bourgeoisie. That is why, even before the general decision on the issue of the New Economic Policy, the Council of People's Commissars, signed by Vladimir Ilyich, issued on November 23, 1920 “Decree on the general economic and legal conditions of concessions ”, which had the goal of presenting this issue in a form most acceptable to foreign capitalists[ 2 ].
1920 completed the first stage of our concession policy. This stage did not bring us concessions, but it clearly showed what enormous political significance our concession policy has in the arena of international struggle in the post-Versailles capitalist world.
Second phase. Decree of November 23, 1920
The Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of November 23, 1920, began the next important stage in our concession policy, which gave us the first concession agreements. This decree, of course, could not, by its mere appearance, attract a mass of concessionaires to Soviet Russia, but it clarified their perplexity to them, explained to them why, for what and on what grounds we lease concessions.
Here is what the decree says:
“More than a year ago, the Council of People’s Commissars put on the queue, as a practical problem, the attraction of technical forces and material resources of industrialized states both in order to restore in Russia one of the main bases of raw materials for the entire world economy, and to develop its productive forces in general. undermined by world war.
“Despite the need to wage an armed struggle against its enemies for three years, the Soviet Republic achieved significant results in three years in restoring the destroyed national economy with its own efforts and means. But this process of restoring the productive forces of Russia, and at the same time the entire world economy, can be accelerated many times over by attracting foreign state and municipal institutions, private enterprises, joint-stock companies, cooperatives and workers' organizations of other states to the extraction and processing of natural resources. Russia. An acute shortage of raw materials and an excess of free capital in some European countries, especially in the United States of America,
“At present, the Soviet government has a number of specific proposals for granting a concession both for the development of the forest and land resources of Russia (such as, for example, proposals to provide free arable land for tractor cultivation) and for the organization of individual industrial enterprises.
“In order to widely apply this method of restoring and strengthening the productive forces of the republic and the entire world economy, the Council of People’s Commissars decided to publish the following general economic and legal conditions for concessions, as well as enumerate the objects of the concession that can be concluded with reputable, trustworthy foreign industrial societies and organizations :
"one. The concessionaire will be rewarded with a share of the product stipulated in the contract, with the right to export it abroad.
“2. In the case of applying special technical improvements on a large scale, the concessionaire will be provided with trade advantages (such as: procurement of machines, special contracts for large orders, etc.).
"3. Depending on the nature and terms of the concessions, extended concession periods will be granted to ensure that the concessionaire is fully reimbursed for the risk and technology invested in the concession.
"4. The Government of the RSFSR guarantees that the concessionaire's property invested in the enterprise will not be subject to nationalization, confiscation or requisition.
"five. The concessionaire will be granted the right to hire workers and employees for his enterprises on the territory of the RSFSR in compliance with the Code of Labor Laws or a special agreement guaranteeing the observance of certain working conditions in relation to them, protecting their life and health.
“6. The government of the RSFSR guarantees the concessionaire the inadmissibility of unilateral change by any orders or decrees of the government of the terms of the concession agreement.[ 3 ].
This decree differed from the theses of 1918 in that it openly stated that we were ready, in derogation from our laws , to give foreign capitalists the right to work with us without fear that their enterprises might be subjected to nationalization or confiscation. The guarantee that the concession agreement would not be changed without the consent of both parties was also the most important factor, which was supposed to dispel the fear of the capitalists to invest in the economy of Soviet Russia.
The significance of this decree is not only that it established certain legal frameworks for concessionaires. By this decree, the Soviet government declared to the whole world that it wanted to attract foreign capital not only to restore its national economy, but also to help restore the world economy.
Vladimir Ilyich believed that by this plan we were attracting not only the sympathy of the world proletariat, but also the sensible capitalists. “We didn’t even dream,” he said, “that here we are at war and peace will come and the socialist calf will embrace next to the capitalist wolf. No. We put forward ... a world program, considering concessions from the point of view of the world economy ... This is of great propaganda importance. Even if not a single concession is given to us—I consider this quite possible—even if all this noise about concessions will result in only a certain number of party meetings, decrees, but not a single concession will come out, we have already won something. ..."[ 4 ].
The decree listed those concessions that the Soviet government was willing to grant to the capitalists. These were concessions mainly on the outskirts, primarily forest ones: about 17 million acres of forest in European Russia.
Next came the mining concessions in Siberia: the Kuznetsk coal basin, the Ekibasstous coal deposit, the Zyryanskoye and Zmeinogorskoye deposits of zinc, lead and copper, the Irbinskoye and Abakanskoye iron ore deposits. The development of these deposits by the concessionaires would then give Soviet Russia one of the most important positions on the world market.
Food concessions were last on the list of objects of the decree. It was proposed to concession 3 million acres in the south-east of European Russia. These were still untouched lands, of which only about 5% were cultivated.
Concessions and NEP.
However, neither the decree nor the list of concession facilities produced immediate results in terms of concluding concession contracts.
The transition to the New Economic Policy put the issue of concessions on a more realistic basis. The 10th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, simultaneously with a resolution on replacing the surplus tax with a tax in kind, adopted a resolution in which it indicated that the possibility of contractual "relations between the Soviet Republic and the capitalist countries should be used primarily to raise the productive forces of the republic." This task, in the opinion of the congress, can be partially solved through concessions, which should serve as a powerful means of developing the productive forces of the Soviet Republic and strengthening the foundations of the socialist economy laid in it. If in previous years the work of concessions was conceived in the absence of trade, the absence of a stable monetary system, now with the restoration of trade turnover, that is, the system that exists in the capitalist countries, it took on other forms, perhaps more acceptable both to the consciousness and to the pocket of a European or American capitalist. The concessionaire got the opportunity to buy raw materials on the market, sell his products, hire labor, etc. The NEP facilitated and simplified the execution of the concession agreement.
First contracts.
The New Economic Policy brought with it the first concession contracts. At the end of 1921, concession agreements were concluded with the Big Northern Telegraph Society and the United African Company (for the extraction of asbestos in the Urals). Almost at the same time, the first concession mixed companies, Deruluft and Derutra, were created. The terms of these treaties were for the most part the starting points for subsequent treaties.
At the same time, a special body in charge of concession issues was created - the Main Committee for Concessions under the State Planning Commission. This Committee was supposed to unite and direct the concession work of individual people's commissariats. Almost simultaneously with him, a Special Commission for Mixed Societies was created at the SRT. A few months later, the practice of work required their merger, by April 1922, the Main Committee for Concessions and Joint-Stock Companies under the STO was established.
Genoa and The Hague conferences.
The economic ruin in post-war Europe, which caused the struggle of the economic interests of the Western European states for the Russian market and Russian raw materials, led to the convening, as is known, first of the Genoa, then the Hague conferences. At these conferences, we outlined the main principles of the concession policy and proposed a list of concession objects. At the Hague Conference, oil concessions, mining, forestry, in the sugar industry, in the cement industry, in the chemical industry, in electrical engineering and finally in agriculture, were awarded. If the decree of 1920 featured only raw material concessions, here there were proposals for concessions in those branches of the manufacturing industry that we could not quickly restore on our own.
1922
Neither the Genoa nor the Hague conferences, as such, specifically brought us a single concession agreement. However, 1922 was the first year that a mass of applicants for concessions came to us. We had 338 concession offers this year, 124 of them from Germany[ 5 ], North American United States - 45, England - 40, France - 29. Among these proposals, about 20 come from reputable firms, while the rest were largely of a little serious nature and came from individuals and firms that did not have any capital and counting on cashing in on the fact of obtaining a concession.
The two tables below show with exhaustive clarity how, by years and branches of industry, foreign capital strove for us.
Table number 1.
Distribution of proposals received by the GKK by nationality of applicants from 1922 to November 1 , 1927
Table number 2.
Distribution of proposals received by the GKK according to the main sectors of the national economy from 1922 to November 1 , 1927
As a result of consideration of 338 proposals received in 1922, only 15 concession agreements were concluded (4.4% of the number of proposals received)[ 6 ]. Among these contracts were: "Russtranzit", "Indo", "Dvinoles", agricultural concession "Druzag", "Russgertorg". The last concession, in which the largest German capitalist Otto Wolff was a foreign party, caused a great influx of offers from German firms.
The Urquhart case.
In 1922, we liquidated negotiations that lasted for 2 years with the Englishman Urquhart, a representative of a group of former owners of huge mountain wealth in Siberia. A preliminary agreement was signed with them, but the Council of People's Commissars, at the suggestion of Vladimir Ilyich, rejected this agreement. Under this agreement, the development of ores, metals and coal in the Urals and Siberia, at deposits and enterprises that previously belonged to the Russian-Asiatic Society, of which Urquhart was chairman, was given into concession.
By breaking with Urquhart, the Soviet Union showed that it would not agree to all kinds of concessions and not all kinds of conditions for foreign capitalists.
1923
1923 brought with it the further development of the concession business. This year, concession issues, due to their special specificity, were transferred to the jurisdiction of the Main Concession Committee created under the Council of People's Commissars, while issues of joint-stock companies were transferred to another body, as having a completely different character than concessions. The Committee at the STO was liquidated.
In 1923, as can be seen from the table, 607 concession proposals were received. As in the previous year, only about 20 concession offers came from reputable firms, while the rest were mostly speculative. Those who contributed them wanted to get huge profits from work in Soviet Russia without investing capital in this work. 45 concessions were handed over in 1923 (7.2% of the number of proposals received), 27 of them still exist. The most important of these concessions are: Russavstorg, Mologoles, Russnorvegoles, s.-x. Krupp concession, production of ball bearings - SKF. In the same year, the first technical assistance agreement was concluded, namely, an agreement with the General Wireless Telegraph Company for assistance to the Low Current Trust.
Both in 1922 and in 1923, foreign capital was especially willing to go into trade (Table 2), because here, in view of the huge difference between prices on the Soviet and foreign markets, it was counting on huge profits. For reasons of propaganda of our concession policy, we still went for the delivery of such concessions in the first years of our concession work.
In the early years of our concession policy, among the applicants for concessions there were a significant number of former owners of nationalized enterprises, who looked at concessions as one of the forms of compensation for the losses they suffered from nationalization. Urquhart had these requirements, as we have already said, and they were also in all other concession proposals of this group of persons. Here, for example, are the demands of the heirs of the famous sugar factory Tereshchenko, who in 1922/23 wished to obtain a concession for the plants they previously owned:
1) Pay them the difference between the state of the enterprise at the time of nationalization and the state at the time of handing over to the concession (the enterprises suffered significantly during the revolution and the civil war).
2) To return to them equipment, livestock, agricultural machinery, the cost of seeds, standing crops, various supplies, etc., which were in the economy of enterprises at the time of nationalization.
3) Issue a reward for the transformation of the property right into a concession right.
Naturally, we categorically rejected all such demands, and we proposed to conduct negotiations on the basis of recognition by the applicants of the nationalization of their former property. Applicants who seriously thought about working with us usually agreed to this, while others stopped negotiations.
1924
1924 ends the second stage in the concession policy of the USSR. This stage, begun by a decree of November 23, 1920, covers 1921, 1922, 1923 and 1924. It includes the period of the Genoa and The Hague conferences, the period in which we clearly told the whole world what and under what conditions we want to hand over the concession, the period of formation and strengthening of our bodies that took over the leadership and implementation of our concession policy . This stage is characterized by the fact that it includes the year of the first concession agreements and the year of the largest influx of concession applicants to us. During this period, our concession practice was developed, our ability to conclude agreements, our ability to negotiate with the capitalist world alien to us about joint work for the benefit of the socialist economy, close and dear to us and hated by it, was developed. In the same period, a number of treaties concluded by us were still of more political than economic significance for us. At that time, we often made rather large concessions to the capitalists in order to propagate our concession policy, in order to interest the capitalist world in working with us.
Compared with the previous two years, 1924 gave a sharp decrease in the number of concession proposals. Received, as we saw from the table above, this year there are a total of 311 proposals. 25 contracts were concluded (8% in relation to the number of proposals received), of which 21 are still in force.
The lull in concession work in 1924 is due to both political and economic reasons. Our conflict with Germany[ 7 ] caused an almost complete cessation of concession proposals from Germany this summer. The recognition of us by foreign states that took place in the same year aroused hope among the owners of nationalized enterprises to receive compensation for the losses incurred, and the capitalists refrained from concluding individual concession agreements with us.
The general political and economic situation in Europe during this period also did not contribute to the influx of foreign capital to us, because in Europe after Versailles there was no free capital, and the available money was needed to restore capitalist Europe itself, fairly battered by the imperialist war. America, on the other hand, was generally not inclined to go with its capital to a country with a socio-political system alien to it, preferring to work in a capitalist world that was close and understandable to it, shocked by the war.
Finally, the last circumstance that influenced the decrease in the influx of concession proposals to us in 1924 was that foreigners were convinced by experience that proposals that were speculative and incompatible with the laws of Soviet Russia met with a sharp rejection.
Third stage 1925
1925 - brings some change in our concession policy. By this time, the stabilization of world capitalism was outlined, the influx of American capital into Europe increased, and the speculative spirit of wartime Europe was outlived. This led to the arrival of more solid foreign capital in the USSR. On the other hand, by 1925 the favorable consequences of the stabilization of our currency were finally determined. The rise of our national economy has received general recognition in the foreign press. All this increased the interest of reputable foreign firms in working in the USSR. True, this year there are even fewer concession proposals than in the past - 253, but there are a number of very large proposals. In the manufacturing industry this year, for the first time in the entire period of our concession work, there are more offers than in trade. manufacturing industry,
The concessions concluded in 1925 are the largest of those concluded so far. This year, agreements have been signed with Lena Goldfields (gold mining concession), Harriman (manganese mining), Tetyukhe (zinc and lead). Also noteworthy are 4 agreements with Japanese firms (one for oil and 3 for coal concessions) concluded as a result of our agreement with Japan.
1926
1926 brings a sharp increase in the number of concession proposals received - there are twice as many as in the previous year (506), and from Germany there were 4 times more proposals than in 1925, from England - 2 times more, from America - 1½ times, from France - 1½ times. This year, as in the previous one, the largest number of proposals falls on the manufacturing industry. This is explained by the fact that the sales crisis in Western Europe, in particular in Poland and Austria, led a large number of firms to the idea of transferring their enterprises to the USSR, where this crisis was not felt.
In 1926, 28 concessions were handed over (5.5% of the number of proposals received).
The most significant of the concession agreements concluded this year are: an agreement with an American aluminum company, with Matier Plastik (film production), Russgerstroy, an agreement on technical assistance from the German company Interessen Geminschaft for our chemical industry.
1927
The frenzied attack of international capital launched against us by the British Conservatives was reflected both in the number of concession proposals that came to us this year and in the number of contracts concluded. But while the number of concession offers decreased by more than two times compared to the previous year, the number of contracts concluded in 10 months is about 70% of contracts concluded in the previous year. This indicates that in 1927 there was a further sifting out of elements who were only groping for the ground in our country, but who did not think about serious work. Of the 196 concession proposals that took place before November 1, 1927, 19 concessions resulted in contracts, which is 9.7%. Of these 19 agreements, 10 are technical assistance agreements (Table No. 4 clearly shows how the attraction of technical assistance in the USSR is growing from year to year).
In the same month, serious concession negotiations took place with the large American financial association Farquhar on financing our metallurgical industry, with the largest German firm producing bicycles, on a concession for a bicycle factory with a large Franco-Belgian firm on a concession for asbestos deposits, etc.
These negotiations with the largest capitalist firms show that solid foreign capital is well aware that there are many opportunities for work in the USSR, that the Soviet government is strong enough to have serious business with it, whether the Chamberlains like it or not and their allies.
General results.
In total for the period from 1922 to November 1, 1927, as can be seen from the tables above, 2,211 concession proposals were received.
In terms of the number of proposals received, the first place, as we have already seen above from the analysis of our concession work for individual years, is occupied by Germany (35.3% of all proposals), followed by England (10.2%), the United States (9.4 %) and France (7.9%). Among the applicants for concessions were citizens of the USSR (5%), whose proposals were also considered by the Main Concession Committee.
It should be noted that, as a result, the largest number of concession proposals came in the manufacturing industry (31.9%), although until 1925 the first place was occupied by proposals for work in the field of trade. This confirms the fact that in recent years more reputable and serious entrepreneurs came to us than in the early years of our concession policy, because the manufacturing industry, unlike trade, requires more long-term investments of capital, and investments in which the entrepreneur does not immediately receive significant profit.
The interest of individual countries in individual branches of our national economy is not the same - for example, Germany was interested primarily in manufacturing, then in trade and agriculture; England by commerce, then by mining and manufacturing; the United States by mining, then by commerce and manufacturing; finally France - manufacturing industry, then trade and mining.
It is curious, finally, that among the applicants we see both countries that have recognized us de jure, and countries that have recognized us de facto, and, finally, those that have not recognized us either de jure or de facto.
This once again confirms the old truth that capital takes little account of all kinds of legal and political principles where the possibility of profit is visible, where solid interest is dreamed of.
If we now summarize the data on contracts concluded as a result of consideration of all these proposals, which we have already cited above, we will see that only 163 concession contracts were concluded, that is, 7.5% of the total number of proposals received.
For clarity, here we present a table that characterizes the distribution of concluded agreements by countries of citizenship of the concessionaires and by sectors of the national economy.
Distribution of concluded contracts by nationality of concessionaires from 1922 to November 1, 1927
The table shows that the most serious proposals were for technical assistance, followed by construction and mining. Recall that the largest number of mining proposals came from the United States and England. This once again indicates a comparatively greater seriousness in relation to work in our country on the part of the citizens of these countries who decided to come to us than on the part of citizens of other countries, including those countries bound by treaties.
In general, the comparatively insignificant percentage of concluded contracts can be explained by a number of reasons. First of all, we are extremely attentive and often overly cautious approach to the possibility of commissioning one or another object. Almost 50% of the concession proposals were rejected because they concerned objects that we did not want to hand over in concession for one reason or another. Further, we approached the concession applicants with extreme caution, and 35% of the proposal was rejected because there was not enough capital behind these concession applicants. Finally, 15% of the proposals were rejected due to the unacceptability of the conditions proposed by the concession applicants.
The uneven flow of concession proposals over the years of the past five years is explained both by the changing international position of the USSR and by the hope of the capitalist world that we will not cope with our economy and will make more and more concessions to capital. They believed that tomorrow they would get concessions cheaper than today, and the day after tomorrow, perhaps, they would get them for free. On the other hand, they were not averse to obtaining forest concessions and buying animal products and raw materials, because the operation of such concessions required relatively little investment in fixed capital and, in addition, the products of the concessions went to the foreign market, so the concessionaire had more confidence that with a new “nationalization” he risks less than when working in the domestic market. The construction of expensive factories and plants, the opening of new mines, and, in general, the investment of large funds in fixed capital, which, moreover, do not immediately give large profits, are another matter. Therefore, they came here in much smaller numbers.
They were not averse to coming to rob Soviet Russia, but they were not inclined to contribute to the development of its wealth. Their desires boiled down to the payment of debts, to the restoration of nationalized private property, to the introduction of bourgeois courts.
Needless to say, we did not concede here. True, we were very poor and weak; our industry, our transportation, our agriculture were utterly ruined, but we were able to raise our economy fairly quickly to pre-war levels on our own, almost without any help from foreign capitalists.
The foreign capitalists are now beginning to realize that the Soviet Union provides sufficiently favorable conditions for work, that the sooner they decide on a concession, the more they will be able to achieve.
Fourth stage.
The year 1928, when the Soviet Union, having stepped over the restoration of the national economy to the pre-war level, will come to grips with its reconstruction on the basis of the latest achievements of European and American technology, will be the beginning of a new - fourth - stage in our concession policy. Not in words, but in deeds, we are beginning to look at the concession policy as a policy that can fill a definite, predetermined part of the general plan in building our socialist economy. Starting from this year, the concession policy must follow the path of fulfilling the plan given to it, which is aimed at attracting foreign capital in the part of the national economy indicated to it, so that from its work the acceleration and easing of the rate of development of the country's productive forces will be obtained.
If up to that time we had been negotiating projects put forward by foreigners themselves, and only in rare cases did we ourselves offer concession objects to foreigners, then the plan of concession projects now developed will enable us to attract capital precisely to the narrowest places in our economy, places where we indeed, it is difficult to manage now and where we will hardly cope on our own in the next few years.
Notes :
[ 1 ] M. Yoelson . Foreign capital in industry. Article in the collection "Financial problems of industry", ed. TsUP VSNKh 1929
[ 2 ] See below.
[ 3 ] Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, No. 256 of November 25, 1920.
[ 4 ] V. I. Lenin , Collected Works, vol. XVII, p. 394.
[ 5 ] Both in this and in subsequent years, Germany gives the largest number of concession proposals. This is explained mainly, of course, by the fact that Germany, as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, which took away her colonies, lost her markets. It was not allowed into the West, and Soviet Russia was a natural outlet for this industrialized country. Of course, the Rappala Treaty between us and Germany also played its role here .
[ 6 ] Distribution of concluded concession agreements by years of conclusion, countries of origin of the concessionaire and sectors of the national economy, see below, tables No. 3 and No. 4.
[ 7 ] The Berlin police under the guise of combating Soviet propaganda conducted a search in our trade mission, destroying the offices of senior officials of the trade mission. This caused a sharp aggravation in 1924 of our relations with Germany.
[ 8 ] This treaty provides for the granting of concessions to the Japanese for the extraction of coal and oil on Sakhalin.