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Abstract

The article examines the reasons behind the intensified sale of works of art from the Soviet Union abroad in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It demonstrates the close connection between this process and the need to obtain foreign currency to purchase foreign equipment and technology for accelerated industrialization. The urgency of earning currency to pay for these orders stemmed from the refusal of foreign states to grant credit after the Soviet government repudiated the country’s external loans in 1918, and from the failure of multilateral and bilateral negotiations over the repayment of Russia’s pre‑revolutionary loans in the 1920s. Since the external debt of the Russian Empire was the largest in the world, this resulted in a financial and credit blockade of the USSR. As a result, obtaining currency and conducting foreign‑trade operations required exporting not only grain, timber, oil and other natural resources, but also the most celebrated and valuable works of art.