SOVIET RUSSIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 128, 1 June 1936, Page 11

SOVIET RUSSIA

TWO ASPECTS OF PLAN

An address on two aspects of the Soviet five-year plan—the problem of leadership in connection with a planned economy, and the Soviet Union as a factor in the preservation of world peace, was given by Mr. W. N. Pharazyn at a recent meeting of the Wellington Group of the Institute of Pacific Relations. Mr. Pharazyn questioned whether people sunk in deepest ignorance could in the short space of eighteen years be educated up to the point where they could take an active and intelligent part in the conduct of their social and economic affairs. Until the people were sufficiently educated there was the danger of the leadership developing into a bureaucracy. There were certain disturbing tendencies at the present time, such as the almost deification of Stalin and the denial of the Communist youth organisation of the right to take part in politics. All countries, he said, had this problem, for it was difficult to educate people to be socially minded. Military development was very much in evidence even in the first five-year plan, and the tendency was to increase the military role, due to a desire to prevent interference. There seemed to be no doubt that the military preparedness of Russia had tended to check the aggression of Japanese militarists. In comparing the Soviet five-year plan with the National Recovery Act of the United States, Mr. Pharazyn pointed out that finance was never a difficulty in Russia, while President Roosevelt had against him powerful money combines and vested interests.