As Lenin after the revolution appropriated the gold reserves of Romania

History 21/02/20 Vikipedija after the revolution, Lenin appropriated the gold reserves of Romania

In August, 1916, Royal Romania, hoping for a quick victory over Austria-Hungary, bruised, as it seemed, Brusilovsky breakthrough, entered the First world war on the Entente side. However, after three months the Romanian army was soundly defeated German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian troops. Russians came to the aid of his hapless ally after December 5, 1916, the Germans entered Bucharest.

As the Romanian gold was in Russia

Before the evacuation from Bucharest to Iasi, the Royal court and the government of Romania has decided to transfer to Russia for storage of the gold reserves of their country and jewellery of the dynasty. Nobody then had no idea that in Russia, soon the revolution will take place, and the government, which Romania will rely on their gold, will not.

In December 1916, in Moscow, (not Saint Petersburg because of the threat of a breakthrough of the German fleet in the Baltic main state-owned assets of the Russian Empire were also evacuated to Moscow in 1915) came to the first echelon of the Romanian gold. In August of 1917 when the power of the king passed to the Provisional government to Moscow from Jassy came second, the main party of the Romanian gold reserves. The total value sent in the 41 car values exceeded 7.5 billion Romanian LEU, and the weight of the gold amounted to 150 tons.

But among these figures the value of the delivered, capital values are not confined, as Russia for the possession was also handed over dynastic jewels and relics (in particular jewellery), works of art, rare coins and archival documents.

At the end of 1917 in Russia began turmoil. Taking advantage of the Bolsheviks of the right to self-determination, Moldovan Bessarabia nationalists argued for unification with Romania. In Keysinew in January, 1918, entered the Romanian soldiers. However, Lenin and his comrades were willing to admit only such an independent state, the head of which would stand the local Bolsheviks. Considering the accession of Bessarabia to the Romanian occupation, Lenin ordered the confiscation of the Romanian gold reserves until the time of the “revolution in Romania”.

That the USSR returned to Romania

In 1935, trying to build a system of “collective security” in Europe and getting closer to France, the Soviet government restored diplomatic relations with the Union of France Romania, while not requiring concessions from Bessarabia. In a sign of goodwill, the Soviet leadership sent to Bucharest from 3469 1436 of the boxes, which in tsarist Russia was transferred to the Romanian values. But impressive figure should not be misleading. In the boxes were mostly archives of the Romanian Kingdom. Gold there was only 12 tonnes of the 150.

Return all the Romanian gold reserves of the USSR promised “a final settlement of the Bessarabian question”. However, when in the summer of 1940 under the threat of Soviet military invasion of Romania agreed to give the Soviet Union the required land of gold in response, she did not wait for the reason that went to a transfer of territory, not willingly, but under pressure.

as a result of the Second world war Romania from the enemy, the Soviet Union became its ally. Although under the Treaty of Paris (signed also by the Western powers) 1947 Romania, as a former ally of Nazi Germany, had to pay the USSR $ 300 million in reparations, Stalin knocked off the debt in exchange for the approval of Romania’s Communist regime. In addition, in the late 1940s, Stalin ordered the return of the Romanian part of the gold reserve, and in 1956 Nikita Khrushchev sent to Bucharest another batch of Romanian values.

However, in 1965 the Romanian Communist leader N. Ceausescu invited Brezhnev to give remained in the Soviet Union (according to his calculations) is approximately 93 tons of Romanian gold. Tenderthe he desire of the USSR to consider this issue became a stumbling block in Soviet-Romanian relations, which were the most tense inside the unit Pro-Soviet States in Europe.

After the 1989 revolution in Romania and the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the new Romanian government will not cease to demand from Russia to return remaining, in their opinion, in Russia a large part of the gold reserves of the Kingdom of Romania.

Uncertainty and ambiguity remain

When signing in 2003 in Moscow by presidents Vladimir Putin and Ion Iliescu of the Russian-Romanian Treaty on friendship and cooperation, it was decided to establish a joint bilateral Commission to investigate the fate of Romanian values given to tsarist Russia. Russia says that all Romanian gold was returned to Romania in Soviet times. The Romanian side continued to deny it.

the Issue of Romanian gold is not confined to only one value of the precious metal, as gold reserves included a lot of unique items. It is possible that their in modern Russia do anymore (that, however, does not remove the issue of compensation for lost values).

Remember that in 1917 about half of Russia’s gold reserves (along with the Romanian values) were transferred for storage in Kazan. But in the summer of 1918, Kazan was captured by the whites, and during the retreat brought all the gold, inherited Kolchak. After the flight of whites and interventionists from Siberia found the remains of red gold, and brought them back to Kazan. Some of the gold reserves had been spent and plundered by the whites and Czechs, some probably Bolsheviks during transportation.

Remember that in the late 1920-ies, collecting funds for industrialization, the Soviet government arranged the sale of works of art stored in the state museums of our country. Among them could be some objects of art that belonged to the Romanian Royal family.

Saying that the Soviet Union in 1940s – 1950s returned to Romania all the values, the publishers of such information never give quantitative data about when and exactly how much was returned. They then repeat these assurances, Recalling the statements of the Communist government of Romania of that time, the claim that the rest of the gold reserves of the Soviet Union was supposedly entitled to hold in account of reparations for world war II. However, this ignores the fact that officially, the Soviet Union abandoned the levying of reparations from Romania, his newfound ally. Themselves such conflicting statements give rise to the assumption that Russia is still a significant part of the Romanian Royal gold. What exactly – there is no clarity.

Characteristic in this respect, the emergence of recent publications that have no references to sources, that the second, the main party of Romanian gold that is sent from Iasi to Moscow in August 1917, the destination is not reached, and disappeared somewhere on the way.

Yaroslav Butakov

Source:
© Russian Seven

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