The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-09-28
Russia and Our Next President

Wearied and discouraged by ten years of futile
effort to lift herself by her own bootstraps Soviet
Russia appears today the eve of another revolution
airy shift OF policy.
The reason is the need for manufactured goods
which can be sold to the Russian peasants at
able prices Russia can't manufacture these goods in
anything like the quantity necessary and foreign in
dustralsts afraid take the risk of building large
plants in the Soviet Union.
At the present the only alternative Is to buy the
goods abroad. But even that is difficult because
Russa's export trade is too small to provide the
necessary foreign exchange to pay the bill Con-
tinued purchases abroad year in and year out would
wreck the Russian ruble.
= What, then is to be done? The answer made to
this question by the Moscow government according
to reports reaching this country to offer the neces-
sary inducements to make it worth while for foreign
ndustrialists to enter the Russian field
Agriculture always has been, and for a long time
must remain, the backbone of Russian economics.
Farm products grain mostly have been Russias chief
exports At present, however her export trade is in
bad way put there by the attitude of the peasants
who compose than 30 per cent of the population
There is about as much wheat for example, pro-
duced in Russia today as there was before the war.
But the amount of wheat available for export is fifteen
twenty times less. All sorts of excuses have been
advanced for this state of affairs but the real
is that the peasants object to selling their grain to
the towns when the towns are empty of goods which
the peasants must have Money is good if you
can't buy what you need with it.
The position of the peasants is very human. They
work hard all year raising bumper crop. At harvest
time they haul their surplus to town and sell it. Then
with money in their pockets they enter a store and
call for plows, tools, clothes, pots, pans, medicine
furniture and whatnot, only to be told by the mer-
chant that he has none in stock Or, if he has a
limited supply, that the prices are prohibtive.
Disguised, the mujik returns home, determined not
to raise such big surplus next year. else keeps his
surplus himself. At least he make Samogon, Rus
sian moonshne out of it, which many of the peasants
Ire doing.
All manner of tricks have been tried to make the
farmer cooperate and all have been in vain. There
nave been searches and seizures of stored grain with
lines, super-taxes and conhscation Of property
Russia, not being Industrial country, can not
produce the goods within it's own borders. So she
must do tko things First she must buy all the goods
abroad that her credit will permit without disturbing
the value of the ruble, and second, allow foreign
investors to enter the Russian field on basis salts
factory to such investors.
Russia said to be particularly DESTROYS of inter-
esting American business men. She wants and needs
American capital and American industry.
Thus, while it is unlikely any steps will be taken
in that direction pending the American elections,
soon as a new President has been named, Moscow
likely will make another bid for some sort of recog-
1ition by this country.