On the Issue of Utilizing Foreign Capital

Do the socialist countries want to use foreign capital? Marx answered this question a long time ago. Lenin and Stalin, when they were leading the socialist construction in the Soviet Union, regarded the utilization of foreign capital as an important policy. In the early twenties, Russia had suffered severe war losses and urgently needed a restoration of peace and development of industry; it thus met the farmer's demand for commodities. At that time, Lenin was of the view that the most appropriate of all feasible measures was to absorb and utilize foreign capital to develop industry and forge a union between the Soviet regime and the peasants. Following the direction pointed out by Lenin, the Soviet Union obtained 2 billion rubles from Sweden, England, Germany, Italy, and Japan from 1920 to 1935. Russia overcame its economic problems, accelerated industrial construction, and consolidated the Soviet regime by using these loans.