Central Asia as chairman of the government of Turkestan and commander of the Turkestan Front. He led the suppression of the Basmachi rebellion. He also oversaw the introduction of a new currency, the introduction of tax in place of appropriation of surplus produce, the return of free trade, the return of land to Kirghiz that had been seized by Russian settlers, and the revival of cotton production. Commissar for Finance Sokolnikov was appointed USSR Deputy People's Commissar of Finance on 10 January 1922. Since the People's Commissar, Nikolai Krestinsky had been appointed Ambassador to Germany, he was in fact in charge of Narkomfin from that time. In March 1922, he was re-elected to the Central Committee (from which he had been dropped in 1920) and in the autumn he was formally appointed as People's Commissar. This role made him central to the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP). More than anyone else, he is credited with introducing a stable currency to end the economic chaos of the civil war years. He proposed the introduction of a new currency in the month when he first took office. The 'gold bank notes' or chervontsi were issued by the state bank in November 1922. During 1922, Sokolnikov argued persistently in favour of relaxing the state monopoly on foreign trade, to allow some of the private enterprises that came into existence under NEP to import equipment sell their produce abroad without going through government agencies. He was supported by Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharin - i.e. by a majority of the Politburo - but met vehement opposition from Lenin, who warned: "Sokolnikov is making a great mistake, which is sure to ruin us, unless the C.C. corrects his line in time, and actually secures implementation of the corrected line. His mistake is abstract enthusiasm for a scheme (something of which Sokolnikov has always been guilty, as a talented journalist and a politician who is easily carried away)." In October 1922, Sokolnikov persuaded the Central Committee to agree to partially lift the monopoly, provoking an angry reaction from Lenin, who missed the meeting through illness. He accused Sokolnikov of being someone who "likes paradoxes". The Central Committee backed down in December, after Trotsky - who also missed the October meeting - had backed Lenin. Speaking to the 11th Congress of the CPSU in March 1922, Sokolnikov flatly contradicted those who suggested that the