Sentence:  Over all these fairly awkward problems Khrushchev was to skate rather lightly ; and , though he repeated , over and over again , the spectacular figures of industrial and agricultural production in 1980 , the `` ordinary '' people in Russia <WSD>are</WSD> still a little uncertain as to how `` communism '' is really going to work in practice , especially in respect of food . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)