The expansion of Soviet oil sales gave rise to bitter price wars with established oil groups. The bitterness was made more intense by the fact that the Bolsheviks had neglected to settle for the foreign oil properties that they had seized after the revolution. As in all exports, the U.S.S.R. was more interested in total receipts of foreign exchange than in making high per-unit profits; so it could and did use price cutting as a means of achieving a foothold. Subsidiaries of some of the world oil trusts then tried to drive the Soviet oil back home by underselling the Soviet monopoly. But the attempts failed, and Soviet oil won an important place in world markets. In the late 1930's, the oil was withdrawn. Soviet exports dropped back to 1.4 million tons in 1938, and kept fading. After the war, they came back only in a trickle--for example, 100,000 metric tons in 1951 and 250,000 in 1952, then rising to 450,000 in 1953 as some of the new commitments of 3.5 million tons began to be fulfilled. Meanwhile the war had swept additional oil into the Kremlin's hands, including the oil wells of Rumania and those which were taken over as "German assets" in the Soviet zone of Austria. And the oil exported to the West from these new Eastern European acquisitions greatly exceeded the exports of the U.S.S.R. itself, amounting to 1.2 million metric tons in 1951, 1.7 million in 1952, and 2.3 million in 1953. In recent months, while the U.S.S.R. was making agreements to ship 3.5 million tons, the new export commitments of these other properties in Eastern Europe became known only in part, at least at this writing. The Soviet bloc, though still short of certain specialized refined products, probably has the oil capacity to make considerable exports for at least some years, if the Kremlin so decides. Whether the bloc will indeed step into the world markets in an important way, as the U.S.S.R. did in the twenties, is of course not known. The West is watching closely to see whether the Kremlin will again use its monopoly control to undertake a major campaign of underselling other suppliers in world markets. It was natural for oil-importing countries in the free world to be interested in new supplies from the Soviet bloc, especially if the price was attractive or if the transaction also enabled a free country to market its own products in the East. But the West could not forget past patterns, nor ignore the problems brought by new Soviet sales.