Our Money
Romania was one of a handful of countries in the region that introduced monetary reforms at the beginning of the 50s: Poland in October 1950, Bulgaria in May 1952, and Czechoslovakia in June 1953. Following its first reform in 1947, Romania began a second monetary reform in January 1952, which was presented to the population as a solution to the prevailing economic problems. The first monetary reform had been put into practice during a period of maximum inflation, when the bourgeois class was still strong and the new regime was trying to confiscate the accumulated funds. Between the reform of 1947 and that of 1952 great changes had taken place at the economic level, in particular the nationalization of banks, transport and the main industrial enterprises (June 1948), as well as the establishment of several hundred collective farms.
But even before January 1952 in the wake of the new plans for the management of the national economy, the press reported a series of “unhealthy events”, such as the increase in food prices and the accumulation of hoarded cash by the rural population (chiaburii– the kulaks), which also included a significant volume of goods destined for the market. The 1952 reforms were implemented between January 28 and 31, 1952, without any prior announcement. The old coins were withdrawn from circulation and replaced with new banknotes. The basis of foreign exchange was considered the ruble, “the most stable and powerful currency in the world”. Exchanges were made at different rates for different parties (e.g. 1 new lei /20 old lei for state enterprises and diplomatic missions versus 1 new lei/100 old lei for private individuals for amounts under 1,000 lei )- the limits imposed meaning massive losses for people with savings.
At the beginning of 1952, Aristid Moldovan (the future director of the Sahia studio), published an article in Probleme de cinematografie (Cinematography Issues, the internal bulletin of the Cinematography Committee) titled “Some of the newsreel’s problems”, in which he discussed the absence – or indeed the problematic execution – of certain types of subjects in the newsreel. In Moldovan’s opinion, one of the newsreel’s main problems was that even after two years of existence, the operators had allegedly not had yet become reporters – that is, professionals “prepared from a political standpoint, discerning, and with the ability to bring to the surface what is new in the character and behaviour of our people”. He goes on to say that the newsreels produced by the studio were “lacking combativeness: the topics approached are surface-level, everything looks rosy, everything goes smoothly, and class struggle does not exist”.
Referred to as an “unforgivable absence” is the “almost total lack of mention of the ongoing monetary reforms”: indeed, the cinematographic journal produced only one topic on this- “Our Money” (no 4/ 1952, included on this platform). “When the whole country enthusiastically welcomed this measure designed to strike out capitalist elements in the villages and raise the standard of living of the working people” – writes Moldovan – “the newsreel was content to show two meetings, before considering itself absolved of the task. But even after the decision on consolidating the successes of the monetary reform was made, there was no attempt to hold a mirror up to the struggle for this noble cause: I only cane across a few words about the the activity of one or another Stakhanovite which led to the strengthening the purchasing power of the new leu.”
Although it is true that this very short subject (approx. one minute without credits) fails to build any context around the wider societal and political significance of monetary reform, it does preserve fragments of a significant moment in economic and social history with a certain veracity: we see a snapshot of what ‘the present’ looked like seven decades ago in the yard of the Vulcan factory. We can watch it attentively, without sound, expanding the image and freezing the frame on one shot or another, starting with the long shot that establishes the spatial context of the moment, then stopping on the physiognomy of the people, enough to note a few curious glances turned towards the camera placed at the back of the crowd. We also see the genuine enthusiasm – punctual, perhaps, and subdued afterwards – as well as the genuine applause at the beginning and the domesticated, rhythmic ones at the end. A question remains: How much, and what kind of historical context do we have to build around these images, in order to then use, with a clear conscience, these images today, without worrying about simplifying/distorting it? (AB)
