Evening star., 1961-10-19
Man Proposes

is honestly determined to carry out the
program it has drafted for Soviet
economic development over the next 20
years. For the program, first published
last July, and now explained in further
detail by Nikita KhruShchev, promises
to make RuSSia'S living standards the
highest in the world by 1880, and if Mr..
K and his colleagues are really serious
about trying to work this miracle, then
there is some reason for confidence that
they will be careful with their brink
manShip lest it suddenly explode into
nuclear war.
At any rate, in discussing the pro-
gram before the 22nd Congress of the
Soviet Communist Party, Mr.. Khru-
Shchev has once again warned that the
plans involved can be fulfilled sue
ceSSfully only in the conditions of
peace" And he has gone on to reaffirm
his own conviction-one that apparently
is rejected by Red China-that great
military clash is not inevitable between
the free world and the world behind the
Iron Curtain. On the contrary, as he
has put it, the prospect of averting
such conflict is good, and he and the
USSR "are confident that socialism
communism will be victorious in the
competition with capitalism. We are
confident that the victory will be won
in peaceful competition and not through
war. We. shall do everything to
strengthen peace throughout the world"
If these words may be taken at face
value, they strongly suggest that the
Kremlin under Mr.. Khrushchev-despite
all the brandiShing of missiles and So
megaton thermonuclear bombS-iS. ac-
tually as anxious as the Western powers
to check the present drift toward
catastrophe and find some sound, accept
able basis for settlement of the Berlin
crisis and other issues of a similarly
grave nature. At any rate, the new 20
year Soviet economic program-which
boasts that the USSR will outStrip the
United States in every particular by
1980-obviouSly makes no sense what
ever If the high command in Moscow is
planning at the same time to keep on
engaging in the raSheSt and most dan
gerouS sort of war-breeding brinkman-
ship. To that extent at least, the new
program for Russian advancement seems
to serve the cause of peace.
AS for the program itself, it is so
ambitious and grandioSe that it appears
to be made up more of dream than
substance. This holds true especially
for its blithe assumption that the econ
omy of the United States and the West
in general is going to stand still between
now and 1880 and that therefore, with
our miS-called capitalism "decaying"
and dying" at an ever-accelerating
pace, the whole world is bound to
succumb in due course, completely and
utterly, to communism, which thus far
has Jagged miSerably behind. Well, Mr.
Khrushchev conceivably may be right,
but he should keep in mind, as a self
avowed atheist who occasionally refers
respectfully to the Deity and the Bible,
the old maxim about how man proposes,
but God diSpoSeS
In any event, we wish him we'll with
his super ambitious 20-year program,
and we do so for two primary reasons:
Q) 1t promises to improve the lot of
the long g-Suffering Russian people and
(2) the men of the Kremlin, if they
sincerely wish to effectuate it, even in
small part, must discard those present
policies of theirs that now endanger the