With which Is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1930. SOVIET FIVE-YEAR PLAN.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18166, 3 November 1930, Page 4

With which Is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1930. SOVIET FIVE-YEAR PLAN.

In recent references to Russia, which have been of increasing frequency by reason of her bearing influence on the world’s wheat prices, there has been mention of the five year plan, the operation of which may have profound effects on world markets and conditions. This five-year plan is a system of planned centralised economio development known as the “pyatiletlca” and has been in operation for two years. It is unquestionably one of the most important changes made in Russia since the Bolshevist Revolution. Under this system everything, from the number of tons of coal to be mined to the number of schoolbooks to be printed, is mapped out in advance for five-year periods, the first of which is two-fli'ths over. Primarily the five-year plan sharply emphasises the difference between the Soviet Economic order and the system knowm as capitalism, which prevails with minor variations in other countries. During the first years of the new economic policy, hostile observers could argue with some show of reason that many features of Soviet industrial, financial and commercial organisation represented a copy, and an inferior copy, of existing capitalist models. This is no longer true. Many of the characteristics of the five-year plan, notably the ignoring of market demand, the strict regulation of prices, the drastic curtailment of the satisfaction of immediate needs for what are hoped to be future economic benefits of the country, could not be realised under the capitalist system except during the stress of some major emergency, such as war. The five-year plan has undoubtedly led already to a rapid increase of industrial production and has set in motion many" huge building projects of which some, likd the Turksib railroad and the Stalingrad tractor factory, have been formally completed, while others, such as the Dnieprstroi hydro-electric power plant, the automobile factory in Nizhni Noygorod, the South Russia shipbuilding yards, and the irrigation works in Turkestan, are in process of construction. So rapid is the present speed of new building that unemployment, which was a serious problem in Russia a year' or two ago, has been largely eliminated. Soviet sympathisers are convinced that, as a result of the present period of inordinate effort, Russia will achieve., results in industry and in agriculture that will equal and surpass other examples of national development to be seen in history. The pyatiletka .is not without its dark side, however. With its accompaniment of rapid collectivisation of agriculture, it has involved the cold-blooded economic annihilation of a whole class of people the kulaks, or more prosperous peasants —but it has inflicted considerable deprivation even upon other categories of the population. The increasing stringency of the food rationing and the difficulties of supply with many articles of broad consumption, such as shoes, textiles and soap, constitute a visible expression of the price which the present generation is being obliged to pay for the sake of the future. One might state the problem in somewhat different fashion by saying that a gigantic industrial structure is being reared on a narrow agricultural basis as regards food and agrarian raw material. In general, while large-scale economic planning has doubtless made possible some of The major construction works of the last years, it has proved impossible to anticipate such things as a wholesale destruction of cattle by the peasants last winter, - which has led to various difficulties with food and raw material. Such developments as the world economic depression and fall in prices are also beyond the calculations of Soviet planning, although foreign trade cannot be planned with any certainty unless such contingencies be taken inLo account. A closer approximation to final judgment on the fiveyear plan and its scheme of economics will be possible in two or three years. If the present material difficulties are alleviated, and there is a genuine rise in the standard of living, one may say that a daring economic experiment has been vindicated, at least from the standpoint of practical success. If, however, there should be further dangerous contraction of the already narrow agrarian basis for the huge industrial superstructure, the Soviet Union may face a crisis, compared with which the present world industrial depression may seem mild.