Debt in History
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Part 12: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
Reasserting debt repudiation ends with success
20 September 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
Before the Genoa conference, Soviet Russia had managed to sign bilateral treaties with Poland, the Baltic Republics, Turkey and Persia. More importantly, it had managed to sign a trade agreement with the UK. Signed in 1921, this agreement had (...) -
Portugal’s Debt Repudiation in 1837
19 September 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
After an armed struggle for succession that lasted from 1831 to 1834, Queen Maria of Portugal repudiated a loan issued in 1833 by the self-proclaimed king, Dom Miguel. She justified the repudiation by saying that bankers should not have lent (...) -
Part 11: Series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
Debt— Lloyd George blames the Soviets
11 September 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
In the final plenary conference, Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, made a revealing reply: "There is a real sympathy for Russia’s condition. If Russia is to get help, Russia must not outrage the sentiments — if they like, let them call (...) -
Series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
Genoa (1922): proposals and, counter-proposals on the Tsarist debt
4 September 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
On 20 April 1922, Chicherin announced the Soviet response to the Western powers’ proposals of 15 April. It indicated that: “The Russian delegation are still of the opinion that the present economic condition of Russia and the circumstances which (...) -
Part 9 of the Series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
The Soviet counter-attack: the Treaty of Rapallo, 1922
28 August 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
The London report presented in the previous chapter was such a deliberate provocation on the part of Western powers that the Soviet delegation immediately got in touch with the German delegation, which Paris and London had somehow prevented from (...) -
Part 8 of the Series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
In 1922 creditor powers again attempt to subjugate the Soviets
22 August 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
Western governments presented a full list of demands aimed at solving in their favour the litigation over debt repudiation and expropriations decreed by the Soviet government. Those demands were presented in Genoa on 15 April 1922, five days (...) -
Part 7 of the Series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
Diplomatic manoeuvers around Russian debt repudiation
14 August 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
For five weeks in April and May 1922, a summit conference was held. Britain’s prime minister, Lloyd George, played a central role in it, as did Louis Barthou, the minister of the French president Raymond Poincaré. The main aim of the meeting was (...) -
Part 6 of the Series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
Russian bonds never die
9 August 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
Even though Russian bonds were repudiated by the Soviet government in February 1918, they were still traded right up until the 1990s. French government policy and that of other governments was directly related to this life after death. How (...) -
Part 5 of the Series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
The French press in the pay of the Tsar
4 August 2017 - by Eric Toussaint, Nathan Legrand
With the overthrow of Tsarism in February 1917 and the seizing of power by the Bolsheviks and their Socialist Revolutionary allies in October, numerous previously confidential documents were made public (see further on). This allowed Boris (...) -
Part 4 of the series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
The Russian Revolution, Peoples’ Right to Self-determination, and Debt Repudiation
25 July 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
The Versailles Treaty was eventually signed on 28 June 1919 without Soviet Russia being involved. Even so, this treaty cancelled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Under Article 116 of the Versailles Treaty, Russia could claim compensation from (...) -
Part 3 of the Series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
The Russian Revolution, Debt Repudiation, War and Peace
12 July 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
In early January 1918, the Soviet government suspended payment on foreign debt, and in early February 1918 it decreed that all Tsarist debts were repudiated as were those contracted to continue the war by the provisional government between (...) -
Part 2 of the Series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
From Tsarist Russia to the 1917 revolution and the repudiation of debt
7 July 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
The Napoleonic wars ended with Russia emerging as a great European power and participating in the Holy Alliance of three European monarchies, founded on September 26, 1815 in Paris, at the behest of Tsar Alexander I. The Alliance had won over (...) -
Part 1 of the Series: Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Repudiation of Debt
Russia: Repudiation of debt at the heart of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917
5 July 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
In February 1918, the repudiation of the debt by the Soviet government shocked international finance and sparked off unanimous condemnation by the governments of the great powers. This decision of repudiation was intrinsic to this first big (...) -
Debt as a Primeval Weapon of Dispossession (part 2)
Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Illegitimate Private Debt
19 April 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
Throughout human history, private debt has been used by the dominant classes to subjugate, despoil, expropriate, and dispossess the toiling classes (among whom women have always been the hardest-hit victims): small farmers, artisans, fishers, (...) -
Debt as a Primeval Weapon of Dispossession
Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Illegitimate Private Debt
13 April 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
Throughout human history, private debt has been used by the dominant classes to subjugate, despoil, expropriate, and dispossess the toiling classes (among whom women have always been the hardest-hit victims): small farmers, artisans, fishers, (...) -
Mexico proved that debt can be repudiated
24 March 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
Mexico is the only former colony which, in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, won decisive victories over its creditors through its own determination. In 1861 Mexico repudiated a portion of the external and internal debt being (...) -
How Europe cancelled Germany’s debt in 1953
27 February 2017 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign
The 1953 London Debt Accords show that European leaders know how to resolve a debt crisis in the interests of justice and recovery. Here are four key lessons for Greece’s debt crisis today. On 27 February 1953, an agreement was signed in London (...) -
When France Used the Public Debt to Colonise Morocco
17 February 2017 - by Adam Barbe
It is now widely recognised that the French protectorate over Morocco was acquired thanks to that country’s public debt. Guy de Maupassant in Bel Ami (1885) alludes to this possibility twenty years before the event! Yet still today many (...) -
Demystifying Alexander Nahum Sack and the doctrine of odious debt
14 February 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
We here publish, in its entirety, Eric Tousaint’s study of the odious debt doctrine. Only extracts have previously been published. Rarely do people, whether detractors or defenders of the doctrine elaborated by Alexander Sack, take the time to (...) -
The struggle for socialism in Mauritius
30 January 2017 - by Rajni Lallah
Mauritius is being, and will continue to be, seriously hit by economic crisis, perhaps more than other countries, because as a nation, Mauritius was invented by an emerging capitalist system that populated it though successive waves of Dutch, (...) -
8 hours against illegitimate debt
Debt system and capitalism: what are the links?
12 January 2017 - by Mariella Caponnetto
Minutes from the keynote speech: The “debt, capitalism’s lethal weapon” Speakers: Silvia Federici (feminist activist, emeritus professor of social sciences at Hofstra University, New York, USA), Éric Toussaint (spokesperson for CADTM (...) -
The Doctrine of Odious Debt: from Alexander Sack to the CADTM
24 November 2016 - by Eric Toussaint
Alexander Nahum Sack (Moscow 1890 – New York 1955), a Russian lawyer who taught in Saint Petersburg then in Paris, is considered to be one of the founders of the doctrine of odious debt. The doctrine, based on a series of precedents in (...) -
Three Waves of Public-Debt Repudiations in the USA during the 19th Century
7 November 2016 - by Eric Toussaint
Did you know that in the United States, on three separate occasions, governments have successfully repudiated public debts owed to private bankers? In the 1830s, four of the United States repudiated their debts – Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida (...) -
History: the Policies of the United States toward its Neighbours in the Americas in the 19th and early 20th Centuries
4 November 2016 - by Eric Toussaint
In 1823, the government of the United States adopted the Monroe Doctrine. Named after a Republican president of the USA, James Monroe, it condemns any European intervention in the affairs of “the Americas.” In reality, the Monroe Doctrine served (...) -
What other countries can learn from Costa Rica’s debt repudiation
1 November 2016 - by Eric Toussaint
In January 1917, the government of Costa Rica, under President Alfredo González, was overthrown by his Secretary of the Army and Navy, Federico Tinoco, who called new elections and established a new constitution in June 1917. The Tinoco putsch (...)
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