SOVIET’S FIVE-YEAR PLAN

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1931, Page 7

SOVIET’S FIVE-YEAR PLAN

THE CRUCIAL TEST THIS YEAR. HOW RUSSIA STANDS TO-DAY. An informative and analytical review of'the Russia of to-day, and a story of th„ “Five-Year Plan,” that threatens the world with its low-living standards, was given recently in Canada by Professor T. H. Soward, of the University of British Columbia. How this great Soviet experiment will end no one can yet prophesy, he said. Even the success of the plan would not be the end of it. The present year will see the crucial test, and the present question is whether the workers and agriculturists can stand the strain forced upon them by a ruthless minority vested with absolute power. The burden on the workers this year will be greater than ever, with little, if any, improvement in standards of living, with scarcity and poo” quality of food, and lack of decent necessities of life as these are known to other people. But the Russians are a patient, enduring people, and inured to hardship and privation. “No other nation we know would submit to the privations dictated by a few powerful men. The Communists are only one per cent, of the population of Russia, but they are able to enforce their will,” he said. It is quite clear that Russia is not “dumping” wheat or lumber or canned salmon or any other product for the purpose. of smashing capitalism in other countries. That may be done later, but for the present Russia must sell at any price she can get in order to finance the Five-Year Flan and secure the imports necessary to its success. Three great questions, not one of which can yet bo answered, arise from the Five-Year Plan.

(1) Will the higher standards of living’, which its success would bring, tend to° make the succeeding generations “softer” toward the drastic tenets of Communism?

(2) If the plan succeeds and Russia works her way to a plane of productive efficiency comparable with that of other nations; will she co-operate with the rest of the world, or will she try to impress her policies on other peoples by means of propaganda? (She will not try-to do it ‘by force, Professor Soward believes). (3) How will the rest of the world meet tho problem of competition? As to the latter question, Professor Soward suggested that there are but two alternatives: To meet it by some improvement of our own systems of production and distribution, or to enter on a war of extermination. This question was now being discussed by many of the great minds of the world. If war is the answer, it will be a pitiless struggle in which the horrors of the late world war will sink into insignificance.

Tn leading up to these declarations, Professor Soward gave a vivid and compact history of the aims and results to date of the Five-Year Plan fathered by Stalin, but which lie said was a natural working out of the original plans of Lenin, who had always envisaged raising Russia to the competitive efficiency of other nations.

• Leading' Russians had admitted that as a nation they -were 50 years behind the world. In tho first years after the revolution' the drastic ideas of Communism had found full sway. I'rom 1021 to 1928, when the plan was initiated, there had been considerable compromise with capitalism, with the result that ruined production in industry and agriculture had recovered so much as to encourage Stalin to embark on his ruthless programme. Trotsky had been banished because he predicted failure from any compromise, but many of his suggestions were now being adopted by Stalin. Stalin’s objective was to double industrial output, to increase agriculture by 50 per cent., wages by 35 per cent., and to increase profits while lessening the terrific load of taxation on the producer of every class. Russian workers are inefficient, lazy and ignorant., but they are improving under the whip of force and necessity. All sorts of new industries have been brought into being, some 290 new factories being opened in 1930. A strong effort is being made to enlist the co-operation of the driven workmen and to make a success of the seven-hour day and the five-day week. When the Five-Year Plan started Russia had only 60,000 expert technicians left in the whole country, but this number had been increased by training. At the end of J 930 there were approximately 4500 foreign experts in the factories and other industries, of whom 1000 were Americans. It is proposed to have 13,000 foreign experts helping this year in the supreme effort to complete the plan by December, 1932. The most important and perhaps the most significant change in the whole Russian situation, Professor* Soward declared, has been the “revolution"’ in agriculture, doing away with all landlordism, and substituting State-owned farms, collective farm operations, co-operatives, and community farms.