DOUBT THAT RUSSIA CAN CONSOLIDATE HER SATELLITES

Wanganui Chronicle, 5 June 1950, Page 5

DOUBT THAT RUSSIA CAN CONSOLIDATE HER SATELLITES

WASHINGTON, June 3 (Recd. 6 pm).—There was still “considerable doubt” that the Russians would succeed in welding the Soviet Union and her East European satellites into a solid economic bloc, said the United State s Agriculture Department in a statement in a monthly publication “Foreign Agriculture.” It added that the entire creation of the Soviet bloc was geared to the needs of the Soviet Union, and not of those of the Satellites. Success of Soviet integration with satellites would depend on three factors; (1) Success in industrialising predominantly agricultural satellite countries. (2) Continued ability of the Soviet Union to supply East European countries with the raw materials and other goods so necessary for industrial production. (3) The continued ability of the satellites io ship industrial goods, such a.s locomotives, to the Soviet Union. A shortage of those very goods was hampering the satellites’ own Economies. The department, said that the Soviet. Union, by arbitrary price-fixing, was getting far more valuable goods out of satellite countries than she was shipping in. The Soviet Union set a high price on the goods she sold to satellites, and a low price on those she bought from the satellites.