How much debt to Wall Street/ US government did the Bolshevik government renege on?

Factual Questions
1

How much debt to Wall Street/ US government did the Bolshevik government renege on ?

2

Remember Wall Street was not the dominant financial center in the years leading up to 1918 as it is today–so the vast majority of the Russian foreign debt was held in Europe: Great Britain, France…

In 1914, 80% of the Russian government debt was held in France and 14% in Great Britain.

3

The less loaded term is “repudiate,” and US repudiation of debt owed to Britain in the 19th century even made it into a song. Written in 1846, the song “Annexation,” sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” includes two verses that go

Yankee has some public works,
Well he may parade them,
English money paid for all,
And Irish labour made them.

Then hey for Yankee Doodle’s luck,
And for Annexation;
Hey for Yankee Doodle’s pluck
And for Repudiation.

4

I didn’t do a deep dive, but several sources indicate that most of the debt repudiated at the time of the revolution was to bankers and bondholders rather than governments. After the war, governments stepped in, especially the French, to limit the damage. France alone had 1,600,000 bondholders.

In Rome, London and Washington the authorities did the same [as in France]: they exchanged Russian bonds respectively for Italian, British or U.S. bonds. As for the Japanese government, it indemnified Japanese holders of Russian bonds at a rate of 100%.

I can’t find any figures for the U.S. The total must have been greater than zero, but a minuscule amount of the £3,385 million the Russians owed by 1919.

5

ISTR there is one US state, I think it may have been Georgia, that is prohibited from doing any sort of business or borrowing through the City of London, having reneged on certain bond payments in the 19th century. Always keep your receipts. You can be sure some successor corporation still wants to be paid back. The Soviets were always “Nyet” on this matter.

6

Thanks Exapno_Mapcase. I came across the same sums you mentioned. I couldn’t find and figured in $ amounts.

7

There are conversions to convert pounds to dollars: In 1919 £1 = $4.43

https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/exchangepound/result.php?year_source=1900&year_result=2012

So £3,385 million = $14,996 million

But back then $1 was worth a great deal more than today:

The average number of hours worked per week was 45.6, and the average earnings per hour were 56.1 cents.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1820827

Or a cup of coffee cost a nickel in 2020: