RUSSIA: The Great Upsurge

“Our economy is in a state of great upsurge,” proclaimed Chief Soviet Planner Aleksei Kosygin last week, and Radio Moscow, going further, called Russia the “greatest power in the world.” The occasion was one of the rare gatherings of the

Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., in theory the supreme political authority of Russia. Meeting for the first time since December 1958, the 1,378 assorted welders, milkmaids, bureaucrats, and novelists who are delegates were allowed to endorse Russia’s new 1960 budget.

A Soviet budget is unlike anything in the West. Since the government runs not only itself but almost all industry, shops, and farms, its budget determines not only its own spending but how many TV sets will be made and how many shoes sold. At 745 billion rubles (roughly $74.5 billion), it is on the same order as President Eisenhower’s $77.1 billion budget, but to be really comparable, the U.S. budget would have to include the spending of U.S. Steel, General Motors, A.T. & T. et al. But if the Russian budget is hard to compare to the U.S.’s, it is nonetheless the biggest in Soviet peacetime history. A single sheet of statistics was handed out to the delegates to study. To judge by it, Soviet citizens may live a bit better in 1960, but far from overtaking the U.S., they will still not have caught up to Polish or East German living standards.

Seeking Shelter. The real Soviet “upsurge” will continue to be felt, as before, in heavy industry and rocketry. The spending for defense will continue at this year’s spending levels, but the outlay on “science,” which presumably includes the space effort and missilery, is to increase by an impressive 15.4%. Furthermore, 30% more will be invested in the key chemical and machine-tool industries next year. While Khrushchev talks grandly of more consumer goods, Kosygin affirmed only a 3% rise in spending on light industry in 1960. Consumers could take comfort in Kosygin’s promise of “2,400,000 new, well-appointed apartments” to house 10,000,000 Soviet citizens. The government is making a real effort to catch up on the nation’s desperate housing shortage, and though the acres of new mass housing are bleak in design, cramped in individual space, and shoddy in workmanship, they are a godsend to lucky tenants.

One dark shadow clouded Kosygin’s glowing canvas: the poor 1959 grain harvest. Because of “unfavorable weather conditions” in the Ukraine, Kosygin said, the yield would merely “exceed the average annual harvest for the last five years.” This was a tricky way of saying that the 1959 crop would be 20% below last year’s.

Keeping Time. As usual, to make a show of debate, delegates were allowed to nitpick a few details. Thus a Moscow bank clerk complained that the Ministry of Culture was hoarding quantities of furniture, including 224 clocks. Then delegates unanimously approved both the budget and the 1960 plan. After all, everything was subject to change anyway: last year’s plan was changed 37 times, and the chief planner himself was replaced.