1000 Lei Red Army Command

Issued under Soviet military authority during the Red Army's occupation of Romania in 1944, this note was part of a series of occupation currency printed in Moscow specifically to pay Soviet troops and facilitate procurement without drawing on local Romanian lei reserves — a deliberate mechanism to extract resources while insulating the occupying force from local monetary conditions. The Romanian public was obliged to accept it at face value, though the National Bank of Romania had no role in its issue and no obligation to back it.

Goznak produced the series to its usual exacting standard, which made counterfeiting difficult but did nothing to address the inflationary pressure these notes generated in the Romanian economy.