In 1927, relations between the capitalist West and Soviet Union turned increasingly hostile. Soviet political elites felt encircled by imperialists and sought to rearm the country. There was no blueprint for financing rearmament in a largely agrarian country. In the process, the Soviet regime turned to Marx’s economic texts for inspiration. Doing so, it ushered in a financial revolution-from-above which sought not only to confront capitalism but overtake it. In seeking to overcome the historical capitalism described by Marx in his most famous works, Soviet elites used Marx’s critique as a template for socialist finance. Drawing on unpublished archival sources from Ukrainian and Russian archives, my dissertation explores the monetary and financial system the Bolsheviks brought into being during the 1920s and 1930s. It aims to show how Soviet economic reforms and financial institutions evolved in the context of the global financial meltdown of the inter-war period.