Tales of Parallel Currencies: The Early Soviet Experience

The search for stable money has produced a variety of monetary arrangements which have fascinated economists. History is a useful laboratory for testing monetary experiments such as the economic effects of introducing two circulating or parallel currencies. Several such episodes exist in the Soviet history of the 1920s. An analysis of this period in monetary history can also provide useful insights for the current post-Soviet experiment in parallel currencies and the prospects for a continued monetary union in what was the Soviet Union.2 Indeed, some of the former Soviet Republics, in particular the Baltic States, the Ukraine as well as Kyrgystan, have each introduced parallel currencies as a probable prelude to the introduction of separate currencies. Whether continued monetary union with a single currency, or parallel currencies, or some form of ‘dollarisation’ takes place remains to be seen. This chapter adds historical frame of reference to the continuing debate about these questions.