[Marxism] Who Said "Debauch the Currency": Keynes or Lenin?

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Thanks to Louis for sharing the complete text.

I'd have to go back and read what else Lenin and Trotsky were saying around
economic matters around this time, but the whole line of argument that
they're running the printing presses so as to make the leap to moneyless
communism in one swell foop doesn't really sound like Lenin to me. I can
kind of half-see the argument around the peasants, but Lenin of all people
would have understood that politically, wiping out whatever currency savings
of the small and middle peasants as a way of destroying their illusions and
the fetishism of money wasn't the sure road to solidifying the
worker-peasant alliance. That was Lenin's North Star in terms of policy.
These comments about Russia running the presses just to devalue
--completely-- fiat currencies just doesn't feel right. There is that, PLUS
the failure to provide the name of the interviewer, date, etc.. Also, a
piece like this printed in leading New York and London papers would likely
not have escaped Soviet notice, so its non-inclusion in the Collected Works
raises obvious issues about its authenticity. 

And Keynes himself, by how he phrases the reference to Lenin, also stops way
short of assuming or vouching for the authenticity of the interview.

But the second part of the interview, where Lenin is presented as talking
about how the capitalists  are ruining their currencies, does sound more
plausible, albeit not necessarily in the crude, gloating way that Lenin is
depicted as having presented it.

I do not know how likely it would be that someone would check the leading
Soviet papers of the day to see if there is any echo of the interview in
there, or indeed whether the other interviews that have been legitimized by
inclusion in the Collected Works found reflection in the contemporaneous
Soviet press or not. 

But the key thing is that someone who in really intimate with the evolution
of Lenin's policy thinking over this period and its timing take a look and
see whether it fits in at all.

But it is striking --and I think it says something about academic
scholarship-- that this alleged interview apparently had been lost sight of
for decades. I was also struck by the fact that the authors of this paper
did not carry out or at least propose further investigation and analysis. To
me, the paper has a once-over-very-lightly feel to it.

Joaquin