Evening star., 1949-03-12
Arms and the Soviet BUDGET

1t is not possible to draw precise COM
parisons between the new Soviet budget
and the one proposed for the United
States for fiscal 1850. Roughly, however,
figuring the ruble to be worth the 19-cent
value put upon it by the Russians, the
Kremlin expects to spend something like
$81 900 100000 in the current calendar
year, or almost twice the total outlays
projected for us by President Truman.
The Soviet budget-the largest in Rus
sian history-is much bigger than ours,
of course, because the economy of the
country Is owned and operated by the
government, and the spending setup &C
cordingly covers huge investments of state
capital in agricultural and industrial prof.
ects of kind that are financed by private
enterprise In the United States. There Is
thus nothing particularly startling about
the overall magnitude of the Kremlin's
expenditures, which will be about $4,000,-
100000 higher this year than last
What is interesting and significant, how
ever, is that the greater part OF the
increase is devoted to Soviet military
expenditures. Last year these were in
about II per cent of the full budget but
this year they will be up to approximately
$4,000, 100000, or close to 20 per cent of
the total outlays BY way of comparison,
President Truman has requested 4,300-
100000 for the further development and
maintenance of our armed forces during
fiscal 1885, or roughly "a per cent of the
whole.
But comparisons of this sort are of
little value as measure OF the
relative preparedness effort being ex-
erted by the United States on one
hand and the Soviet Union on the
other. For one thing the Russian
budget does not classify as military a
number of items that are so classified by
u.s. For another, the wage and price
structure in the U. S. s. R. is entirely diff
ferent from ours Thus, although there
are no exact figures to illustrate the point,
the cost of material and labor is un-
doubtedly much less in Russia than here.
Although probably offset to a consider
able degree by our superior productive
efficiency, this significant fact-the fact
that Russian wages and prices are lower
than ours-makes it safe to assume that
when the ruble equivalent of SIS, 00O,-
900 is spent on preparedness over there,
it represents a good deal more effort than
the expenditure of comparable sum on
defense in this country. In other words
even though that effort may actually
produce less than ours because of Soviet
industrial deficiencies in such fields as
steel, there is every reason to take sober
view of what the Kreanlin is doing; plainly
enough, its program is far too big to be
shrugged off.
The program, moreover, can hardly be
described as program drawn up by men
looking forward to an early easing of the
tense and potentially explosive cold war.
What 1t suggests is that the Soviet Union
proposes to build up power second to none
and hold fast to it's policy of aggressive
obstructionism. AS far as their own pre-
paredness is concerned, the free nations
of the world can only respond by making
sure that they remain as we'll armed as
prudence demands. Meanwhile, the drear-
lily familiar question must be asked once
more: How much longer can this danger
Gus race continue without bringing down.
catastrophe on all?