The extraordinary tax aims at the savings which remained in the hands of the urban and larger rural bourgeoisie from former times. Insofar as it is directed at non-labor savings it cannot be levied more than once. As regards the taxes in kind, borrowing Comrade Krestinsky’s expression, “it will remain in force during the period of transition to the Communist order, until the village will from practical experience realize the advantage of rural economy on a large scale compared with the small farming estate, and will of its own accord, without compulsion, _en masse_ adopt the Communist method of land cultivation.” Thus, the tax in kind is a link binding politically the Communist socialized urban economy and the independent individual petty agricultural producers. Such are the two “direct” revolutionary taxes of the latest period. In regard to the old system of pre-revolutionary taxes, the work of the Commissariat of Finance during all of the latest period followed the path of gradual change and abolition of the already outgrown types of direct taxation and partial modification and adaptation to the new conditions of the moment, of the old taxes still suitable for practical purposes. At the present moment the Commissariat of Finance has entered, in the domain of direct taxation reforms, upon the road toward a complete revolution in the old system. The central tax board is now, for the transitional period, working on a project of income and property taxation, the introduction of which will liquidate all the existing direct taxes, without exception. The single tax which is being proposed, is so constructed that it covers the very property of the citizen, i.e., it constitutes a demand that the citizen yield that part of his savings which is above a certain standard, etc. In closing the review of the activity of the Commissariat of Finance during the two years of its existence, one must note briefly the great purely organizational work, conducted by it on a natural as well as a local scale. The reform has been definitely directed towards simplifying the apparatus and reducing its personnel as far as possible. Finally, with this reform, the Commissariat of Finance has been organized in the following manner: the central office, the central budget-accounting board (former People’s Bank and Department of State Treasury) and, finally, the central tax board (former Department of Assessed Taxes and of Unassessed Taxes). Upon the same pattern are also being modeled the local financial bodies. ----------------------- DOCUMENT IV—A, B, C From _Economic Life_, (Nov. 7, 1919). The official organ of the Supreme Council of National Economy Finance, food, trade, and industry ------------------ A—OUR METAL INDUSTRY