Moscow Gold (Spain)

"Moscow gold", ''el oro de Moscú" in Spanish, sometimes also called "Negrín's gold", was a term applied to Spanish gold reserves transferred to a Soviet controlled bank in France and to the Soviet Union by the Spanish Republican government in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. At the time, Spain had held the world's fourth largest gold reserves, worth more than US$750 million. More than US$500 million worth of these reserves were used to purchase arms from the Soviet Union, the only nation to supply significant quantities of arms and equipment to the Spanish Republic during the war. Spanish historians have contended in years since that much of the Soviet hardware sold to the Republic was of marginal quality and was sold at deliberately inflated prices and that the Republican government of Juan Negrín López failed to respond to this and may have been complicit in this malfeasance, contributing to the Republican defeat in the Civil War. The issue of "Moscow gold" was raised as a critique of the reemergence of the PSOE party during the Spanish transition to democracy.