Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-02-13
Battling Boost

The Central Committee of the Soviet Com
munist Party, in another of its long winded
manifestoS, has treated the world once again
to the Kremlin'S hackneyed old line of peace"
propaganda. At the same time, in the domestic
field, 1t has given voice to an almost Strident
boast that must surely battle the Russian people
when they measure it against their living con-
ditions and against what Premier Malenkov
himself has had to say on the subject.
AS set forth in the manifesto, the boast is
this: That the Soviet Union during the past
SO years has demonstrated "the indisputable
worldwide superiority of socialism over cap
italism'-that is to say, the superiority" of
the Communist economic system over the sYs-
tenn prevailing in the United States and other
advanced free lands. The claim here is more
sweeping than any made in the days Of Stain,
when the Kremlin's propagandists qualified
themselves at least to the extent of suggesting
that it might take little time to outstrip the
West in productivity and living standards.
Actually, of course, although he is always
hearing promises of pie in the sky by and by,
the average Russian is very much down at the
heels in material things. With his weekly pay,
he can buy little more than enough to keep
body and soul together Apart from the bare
necessities, nearly everything else is for him a
luxury far from his reach. Clothing, home ap-
plianceS, furniture, sewing machines, refriger-
atorS, decent houSing-theSe are items that are
still largely part of his dream world. BY way Of
contrast in terms of wages, purchasing power
and goods available, the average American en-
joys standard of living that is almost ten times
higher. In fact, in every free Western nation,
most individuals are better off economically
not to say politically-than the masses of the
Soviet Union, despite the Soviet Unions great
resources.
Premier Malenkov, without saying so di-
rectly, has himself acknowledged this fact. AS
he declared in his significant speech last Au-
gust, there is urgent" need for "a drastic
change" in the Soviet economy to improve "the
material well-being of workers, collective
farmers and intelgentsia" by producing more
food (the country today has far fewer cattle,
for example, than in the late l930s) ending
acute housing shortages, turning out much
greater volume of household goods and elimi-
mating the marked scarcity of things like good
quality smart clothes and elegant footwear"
RuSsiaS miSerably low living standards in these
fields have resulted primarily from the Krem-
Inns wrong and ruthless agricultural policy and
from its about concentration-at the expense
of light industry-on building up heavy industry
for ornaments purposes
The Malenkov regime, as if prodded by
open sullenness and discomfort among the
masses, has promised to correct this situation,
and what remains to be seen now is whether
the promise will be fulfilled. Meanwhile, despite
the censorship that keeps them in the dark, the
Russian people-since they have at least some
awareness of conditions in the free world-are
not likely to be impressed by tall talk about the
''indisputable" supremacy of the Soviet eco
nomic system. They have, lived and suffered
under it too long to be hoodwinked by such
boasts.