Evening star., 1941-11-11
IngersoII Predicts Greater Future for Russia
After War Despite Blanket of Poverty
Fourteenth OF a series. J
By RALPH INGERSOLL.


There are no millionaires in Rus.
sia, but there are many powerful
men who are responsible for the
management of the nations enor-
nous resources. If a careerist il
an exceptional man he will rise still
higher-as an engineer Of the Soviet
Republics, as an executive RESPONSE
BILE for the operation of first plant
then district and finally a whole
trust. Each post will bring its Salts
factions, but they will no longer be
translatable into rubles.
In what I have written previously
I have stuck as close as I could tc
tangible things And 1 have sought
the simplest financial denominator
what an average man can trade fol
an average days Work-in things
to eat and a place to sleep ano
clothes to wear. From an econo-
mists point of view the problem is
still more complicated For one
thing. there has been a steady none
tary initiation in Russia for at least
10 years.
I came across this fact when
looked up wage and exchange rates
for 1880 and found that the official
pegged exchange was then rubles
for ST dnStead of 5.3 for ST as now
and learned that the base wage was
only go rubles then, as against zoe
now. The ruble was no more worth
so cents in 1880 than it is worth 18. {
cents now. But in the free market
1t might have been worth 18 cents
then and it's certainly worth nc
more than or cents noW-at
somewhere around 30 for 81.
Initiation Hits Workers.
Initiation has had the same effect
in Soviet Russia that it has always
had in other countries: it is borne
heaviest by citizens of low fixed in
come.
The Soviet workman is entitled to
special low rates. He can buy food
and clothes at the cheapest prices
But If the cost of living rises faster
than his income it will soon offset
these small reductions. Those who
are in a position to make more
money Will-like Alice-have to run
faster and faster all the time just
to stay in the same place.
But the workman whose wage
scale is fixed by the state will slip
gradually backward, until there is
more and more discrepancy between
his standard of living and the stand
ard of living of those who have
greater resources than he And this
indeed seems to be what has hap
pened in the Soviet Union in the
last decade, with the gap steadily
widening between the standard of
living available to a skilled and to
an unskilled worker.
The workers have unions to rep
resent them. They can argue their
case. even if they have not the right
to strickland they haven't But
the unskilled worker soon finds him.
self up against the law of supply
and demand. The state needs the
ability of the skilled worker to sur
vive and finds it must pay for it.
So the real wages of skilled workers
rise faster than the real wages of
unskilled-and there you are.
Poverty Is Characteristic.
I hope in all this talk about in
centives and careers and the pre-
MUM that the Soviet state puts on
skill haven't misled you into think
ing of the Soviet Union as a place
where TIE prosperous and the poor
live wholly different lives and the
gap between them is becoming un-
bridgeable What may happen in
the future I don't know, but the in
centives I have written about are
still available to all but a relatively
insignificant number of the disen-
franchiSed. The characteristic of
the country is not wealth but pow
erty. There is no ostentation any,
where.
In fact, particularly after you
have left the Orient. the lack of os-
tentatious display Of wealth in the
U. S. S. R. is conspicuous by its
absence. The coolies who haul the
big blocks of building stone up the
steps in Chungking would be mis-
cradle sight in any setting. But see
rich man pass. carried on the
shoulders OF other men, tanning his
fat bland face, and you will never
forget it.
There Is poverty everywhere In
Russia. but it is not contrasted with
display OF personal wealth as 1t is
in so many other places in the world
I think this must be an important
factor in the morale of the Rus
sians-before the war and now.
And there is an even more i'm
portant consideration-in thinking
of what their poverty means to the
Russians. You must remind your
self that the people of Soviet Rus
sia, poor in things we take for
granted-food and clothes and shell
ter-feel themselves collectively rich
in the plant they have purchased
and in the army in which they still
have such confidence. Before the
war, by any fair standard, they were
rich in these things.
Days Of Gar Recalled.
You have only to look back "a
years to realize this. Under the i'm
perial regime of the Car, they were
dependent for their food upon the
impact of nature on a backward
agricultural system. 1t often starved
them to death by the millions. They
were ignorant and slothful They
had indeed nothing to lose but their
chains"
The Gar put on fine show in his
court, but there was not a factory in
Russia that could produce a ball
bearing, let alone a tractor or a
tank. Hitler could have had the
TJEroina for Sirola nonzar livicio,,