The Soviet Union's Lop-Sided Industry

L. B. Kameney (1883-1936) modifications are in the long run liable to shake it to the foundations.

Apart from the military leaders, it is mainly the Stalinist faction that the Khrushchev group have 'rehabilitated'. They consist of their comrades in arms suppressed by Stalin following the Kirov assassination.

M. D. Orakelashvili. Former chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars of the Transcaucasian Republic.

Secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party from 1921 to 1937. Shot on December 16 1937, after secret trial 'Rehabilitated' after the trial of the Georgian chiefs of police in September 1955.

Aveli Yenukidze. Personal friend of Stalin. Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets after November 1917. Fell into disgrace in 1935 and allegedly shot on the same day as Orakelashvili. Discreetly 'rehabilitated' in 1959.

An article by L. Chaou Mian praised das name 1962, 1962, praised 'the name resolute Bolshevik' in lyrical terms, and added that 'the Communist Party and the Soviet people deeply honour his shining memory.

N. Voznessensky. Member of the Central Committee from 1939 then of the Political Bureau •in 1947. Close collaborator of Zhdanov.

Liquidated after the latter's death in 1948. Author of a THE Soviet economy continues to grow rapidly, with heavy industry still leading the way. The official claim is that industrial production has increased 171 per cent in the past ten years, against 36 per cent in the USA, while total national production has increased by 127 percent compared with 33 percent in the USA.

The US Central Intelligence Agency claim that growth in the past two years was under 2} per cent has gained little support from Western 'experts' whatever reservations they may have about the accuracy of the Soviet figures.

Growth has been sustained at a rapid rate, although the bureaucracy has deliberately concealed many shortcomings. But growth is not everything.

PROGRESS

As Trotsky wrote in the thirties: "To characterise industrial progress by quantitative indices alone, without considering quality, is almost like describing a man's physique by his height and disregarding his chest measurements. Moreover, to judge correctly the dynamic of Soviet industry, it is necessary, along with qualitative corrections, to have always in mind the fact that swift progress in some branches is accompanied by backwardness in others."

One recalls that at the time of the first Sputnik a Western journalist complained that despite this great achievement of Soviet science and technology, he was unable to buy a decent 1. "The Revolution Betrayed', pp. 113-4. razor blade in Moscow.

Consumer goods production not only lags in terms of output, but it is often poor in quality. Last year the official Soviet figure for increase in light industry's output was only 2 per cent, against 13 per cent in machinery and metals.?

Cars and washing machines show the biggest increase on the previous year. But how many Soviet citizens can afford these goods?

OUTPUT

In this country of vast distances and isolated villages the total output of all motor vehicles was only 587,000. Take off the needs of the army, agriculture and public transport and not much is left but a few cars for the highly privileged.

The Us motor vehicle output last year was 7.6 million, some fourteen times the Soviet total. There is no need for a Buchanan in Russia!

When talking about outstripping the United States, Khrushchev lays main emphasis on the products of basic industry. The planning system also insists on quantity, rather than quality.

GROWTH

The result is that the rapid rates of growth made possible by planned economy are not matched by an equivalent development of the most modern types of industry or by attention to quality.

Meanwhile the Russian wor2. Report on State Plan for 1963. With reference to last week's article, this report shows that output of milking machines was only 83 per cent of that in 1962. kers have secured shorter working hours. Increases in output now have to come, and can only come, from increased productivity. 3 True, wages can buy more, but workers have to produce a good deal more in return.

In the battle for productivity in competition with the advanced capitalist countries there is no doubt that Russia still lags behind.

Even in the main branches of heavy industry the annual output per Soviet worker scarcely exceeds 50 per cent that of the American worker.

More and better machines are needed in industry before the gap can be closed. To catch up in total output, even when that comes about, will not be really catching up if nearly twice as many man hours are needed to achieve it.

INVESTMENT

Not only does investment have to be kept high, but the pressure of world capitalism imposes a strain on resources in the shape of heavy arms expenditure. Today it is probable that the West has a marked superiority, not only in strategic bombers - which Khrushchev claims are 'obsolete'-but also in long-range missiles.

It is admitted that Russian industry does not produce much of the equipment needed to introduce or expand those industries which rest on the most advanced technology.

Trade missions are scouring 3. If planned targets for the next two years are to be achieved productivity must rise by no less than 70 per cent! the capitalist countries offering contracts for plant and equipment needed to modernise Soviet industry.

At the same time, some forms of equipment can now be produced in excess of requirements and a market is sought abroad.

GOLD

A big problem is to pay for what is required. Gold and petroleum can partly meet the need. For the rest, Khrushchev is now prepared to offer capitalists big advantages if they trade with Russia, reflecting, in another way, the pressures from the capitalist world market.

Soviet industry grows in a lop-sided, not a balanced way, with big technological lags which can only be overcome by the bureaucracy through dependence on capitalism-the enemy it claims to be going to bury• Leonid Kostandov, boss of Chemical and Engineering development, recently made an offer to the world: 'We say to business circles in the West: We are interested in new and original equipment of the highest technological standard. The Soviet Union is also prepared to buy licences. Nobody can lose by these deals as they are based on mutual benefit.'4 PROFITABLE The bureaucracy finds 'mutual benefit' with the Japanese Mitsubishi trust, the Montecatini chemical combine of Italy and Humphries and John Brown of Clydeside. 'Khrushchev offers businessmen profitable deals and the working class honeyed words about "peaceful co-existence'.

4. 'Soviet report, 24, 1964.

Soviet steel furnace

The aim of this article is not to belittle the achievements of the planned and nationalized industry of the Soviet Union but to deflate the boastful claims of the bureaucracy and to expose its mismanagement of the economy.

It is now frantically trying to remedy deficiencies and make a virtue of its crash programme of rapid expansion.

Thanks to the healthy economic base inherited from the Revolution of 1917 though, considerable expansion will be possible.

The working class, which has yet to have its say, will meanwhile be asked to buckle down to more hard work on the strength of a few material gains and plenty of promises.

More and more it will question the policy of the bureaucracy and begin to draw the same conclusions as the Hungarian workers in 1956.

Februa Three