FUTURE OF RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20384, 12 October 1929, Page 13

FUTURE OF RUSSIA.

LOOKING FIVE YEARS AHEAD.

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

EFFORT .IN AGRICULTURE.

The "Pyatiletka," or five-year plan of national development, prepared in Moscow by the State Planning Commission, has made a marked impression upon the Russian popular imagination, says the Moscow correspondent of the London Observer. This project, the full details of which would fill many volumes, represents an extremely ambitious and probably uniquo effort to forecast with almost mathematical precision the progress of the Soviet Union in industry and agriculture, trade, finance, education and many other fields. By referring to the five-year plau, one can find predictions on such varied subjocts as how many pcoplo will be attending cinema performances in 1933, how many books will be published, how much pig iron will bo produced, and how much cotton will be imported.

The psychologically stabilising effect of the Pyatiletka on the Soviet economic administrators is very great. It gives them definite goals at which to aim. It conveys a senso of control and direction in the midst of every-day problems and difficulties. No effort has been spared in making the idea of the five-year plan widespread and popular: one can scarcely go into a Government office —and all the large industries in Russia are managed by Government offices—without finding in some conspicuous place a map or chart, showing -the amount of now building which the department in question expects to carry out during the next five years. The general economic outline of the fiveyear plan calls for an extremely rapid development of Soviet agriculture and industries, with special emphasis upon the so-called heavy industries, such as mining, metallurgy, and chemical production, and an intensive extension of the use of electrical power in the country. The Pyatiletka aims at a noteworthy industrialisation of agriculture, calling for a very great increase in the supply to the peasantry of agricultural machinery, tractors and chemical fertilisers.

Thero can bo no doubt that the plan is taken with the utmost seriousness by tlio Soviet and Communist leaders, and every nerve and fibre of tho national economic organism is being strained to ensure success. So far as it is possible to judge at present, tho projected increase of 20 per cent, in tho output of the Soviet industries during tho present year—the first of the Pyatiletka—will bo realised. Satisfactory harvest prospects and a successful spring planting campaign tend to ease tho situation in regard to agricultural supply. At the same time there have been unmistakable deviations from tho plan in tho spheres of price and quality. In tho effort to reach tho high quantitative standards which aro required, many managers of State trusts forgot that ono pair of good boots gives more satisfaction to tho consumer than two pairs of bad ones.

Tho plan makes no allowanco for foreign assistance. Optimists in Moscow express a belief that American and British financial circles will realise the opportunities of tho Soviot Union as a market for investment of capital long before tho five-year period is over. Such developments as the recent discovery of oil near Perm are in the nature of assets which were quite unsuspected when the plan was originally promulgated.