Written: December 14/27, 1917
First Published: Sobranie Uzakonenii i Rasporiazhenii Rabochego i Krestianskogo Pravitelstva, 1917, No. 10, p. 150.
Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, The Bolshevik revolution, 1917-1918: Documents and materials, Stanford University Press; London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934, p. 324.
Translated: Emanuel Aronsberg
Transcription/Markup: Zdravko Saveski
Online Version: marxists.org 2017
1. All moneys kept in safe deposit boxes should be transferred to the current account of the holders.
Note: Gold in coin or bullion is to be confiscated and handed over to the State Gold Reserve.
2. All holders of safe deposit boxes are under obligation to appear at the bank upon notice, bringing the keys to their safe deposit boxes, and to be present while their boxes are searched.
3. All holders of safe deposit boxes who fail to appear after three days' notice will be considered as having maliciously declined to comply with the law of search.
4. Safe deposit boxes owned by persons who maliciously decline to comply with the law will be opened by investigating commissions appointed by the Commissar of the State Bank; all property contained in those vaults will be confiscated and declared the property of the people.[1]
Notes
[1] Up till July 1, 1918, a total of 35,493 safe deposit boxes had been searched in
the Moscow banks, yielding the following:
| Paper money | ......................................... 64,649,091 rubles |
| Gold in Russian coin | .............................................. 401,662 rubles |
| Gold in bullion | ....................... 13 puds, 8 fonts, 46 zolotniks |
| Silver in Russian coin | ............................................... 251,709 rubles |
| Silver in bullion | .......................................................... 25 fonts |
| Platinum in coins | .................................................... 2,241 rubles |
| Platinum in bullion | ...................... 2 funts, 57 zolotniks, 70 dolias |
| State bonds | ......................................... 307,679,902 rubles |
| Private bonds | ......................................... 256,453,861 rubles |
In addition there was a considerable sum of foreign money. Izvestiia, No. 158, July 27, 1918, p. 6.