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April 30 -- New Delhi, Morning

Air India for Tashkent and Moscow is having trouble organizing
itself, so we are stalled in Palam airport. My fellow travelers, about
twenty-five in all, are mostly Russians, most of them, I assume,
returning from Bhilai. They are solid and square, designed for use and
durability. The men were tailored by highly imprecise artisans. The
women are of strictly parallel construction and also sag at the edges.
Most carry children and hula hoops. The contrast made by one or two
well-groomed Russian diplomats, and by the Indians, is striking. Well-to-do
Indian women are certainly among the most elegantly attired in the world,
and they all have good lines.

Yesterday was an interesting but terrible day, and I am feeling
the effects. We were sleeping on the lawn to escape the heat; and after
five, the Indian birds, which greet the morning with a fierce, insane
chorus, make sleep impossible.

I used the early hours to finish a note that the Indian government wanted on the steel plants I had visited. Then at 9:30 I had a session with the Labor Minister who is also Minister for Planning. At 10:00 I spoke to the officials of the Planning Board with a discussion afterward, and at noon to the staff of the new Institute of Applied Economics with yet another discussion. I had lunch with the Bunkers and then a long talk with Nehru. Then I visited C. D. Deshmukh for an hour and went to collect some clothes for Russia -- I had lost or mislaid my raincoat, hat and pajamas. Following this, I visited a wedding and arrived late

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for a dinner that ended at eleven and not a minute too soon. I was
far too tired to sleep.

Two events of the day, though they have nothing to do with
the U.S.S.R. might deserve a note. I visited Nehru in his parliament
office where we had tea and a relaxed and casual talk that was almost
completely charming. The "almost" concerns the steel plants. He
asked how I found them; and, after saying that they were encouraging
and impressive, I added that a great deal was wrong -- administration
was ridiculously over-centralized in New Delhi, morale was poor and
one missed a real dedication of purpose. Too many problems were being
too easily solved by shifting them to foreign engineers. I cannot
believe that the Prime Minister much likes hearing such a recital from
a visitor. He listened with great attention, but I was glad when it was
finished.

We went on to easier matters -- whether the great industrial
societies are becoming more alike; his own discovery that possession
and prosperity add little to happiness; the undoubted advantage, in
view of these attitudes, of having a rich father, the way Ghandi had
taught Indians to value those who renounced wealth, including some who
had no other merit.

In my comment on the steel plants, I had mentioned that the young
Indian engineers seemed technically competent, but socially barren.
Most seemed much concerned with their bureaucratic status and salary.
Few seemed aware of the great national tasks in which they were engaged.

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If they felt this way, the common workers would certainly have little
sense of purpose. It seemed too bad. He recalled his own visit to
Bhilai. A group of young engineers told him how happy they were to
be engaged in the project. But then some women with baskets of earth
on their heads filed by. "Have you explained to these women what they
are building?", he asked the engineers. Alas! It had never occurred
to them, and on questioning the women, Nehru found that they had no
idea what they were doing. The engineers received some memorable
instructions.

We also talked a little about the United States -- the Prime
Minister had just finished *The Affluent Society*. He said he was
fascinated but not enchanted by the United States and that he could
not endorse all features of American society. I said that this was a
tolerably well-known fact of current history, and he laughed. He
expressed his doubts about any society where success depended on
trampling someone else down. Such was capitalism. I suggested that
the average corporate executive in the United States had a security
wholly comparable to that of a member of the I.C.S. and made his way
up through the corporate hierarchy in a similar way. Nor could it be
said that the average union member with seniority in an established
capitalist industry was involved in any great struggle. The real
problem was the poor farmers and the urban workers who lived outside
the shelter of corporate capitalism. These were the ones who got
trampled on. Nothing was decided.

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We ended with a half-serious discussion of the philosophy of international finance. I pointed out that India had made the grave mistake of developing in the Twentieth rather than the Nineteenth century. In the last century one could borrow and, if things got bad, repudiate. In the Twentieth, there was no alternative, especially for nations, but to pay. Nehru was delighted and asked if I would say on my professional authority that repudiation was a good thing. I replied that I couldn't conscientiously recommend it to India though it had been very convenient for us in the past. Times had changed.

Nehru's office, adjacent to the floor of parliament, is workmanlike, rather like that of a Dean of Admissions with the same well-trod appearance. He looks marvelously fresh and, if not young, certainly not old. His hair is grey, but his face is smooth, unlined, and his voice is soft, fluent, and almost musical. Two or three times he sought (I thought) to involve me in an argument over capitalism and socialism. This may be a way of entertaining himself at the expense of visiting Americans. Eventually I said I was devoid of passion on the issue -- what was right or anyhow inevitable for the United States was unlikely to be right for India. On the contrary.

All in all, it was a most interesting visit. I would have enjoyed it much more if I hadn't been so tired.

The other event was the wedding. Earlier in the day I had noticed a large house near Connaught Circle being decorated with an

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entrance arch, endless strings of colored lights, and garlands of flowers. On the way to dinner we overtook the wedding procession -- a band, villainous-looking bearers carrying gas chandeliers, and in the middle, the groom dressed in white with a white turban on a horse completely garlanded with flowers. Two men walked beside him to wave away the flies, of which in modern Delhi there are few; but the movements of their large fly swatters provided a regal touch. The groom himself, a stout lad of about twenty, seemed to be bearing up well.

After we passed the groom, we came to the house. I asked if we might stop and the father of the bride, no less, came out to welcome us and show us the arrangements. The grounds were full of people. The men were either in dhotis, Indian formal dress, or western clothes. The women, clustered near the house, were all in elegant saris. In one corner a military band, consisting mostly of Scotch bagpipes, was playing "The Campbells Are Coming" and various other Highland marches and laments. Near the band was a little flower-decked platform where the bride would meet the bride. Adjacent were the tables for the dinner. This is for a selected group. Government regulations, in the interest of austerity, forbid the serving of dinner to more than forty-nine guests. Elsewhere was another garlanded pavilion, the function of which escaped me, and then a vast area served by a buffet and waiters where the second-class guests received drinks, sandwiches, fruits and sweets. The drinks were all soft, and we were equipped with fruit juice. Beyond this area were hundreds of easy chairs facing a stage on which there would

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be entertainment.

The drums heralding the groom were nearly at the gate, so the father of the bride took us on the briefest of visits to the presents. These were beyond belief. The floor of a very large room was covered with saris. I asked the father of the bride how many. He replied, "Oh, countless." I pressed him for a useable statistic and finally he said, "Maybe two hundred, maybe more."

Other presents included a tape recorder and an impressive display of gold jewelry and signed checks. The father of the bride drew specific and prideful attention to the jewels and checks and explained that additional jewelry was adorning the bride.

By this time the groom was at the gate. We went out to see him enter. Then I hurried on to dinner, arriving half an hour late. Before going, I gave my card to the father of the bride and sent wishes for happiness to the newlyweds. With such wealth, it seemed unnecessary.

No westerner watching this magnificence could conceivably be satisfied with his own ceremonies. They may serve to legitimize a relationship which most cultures regard with some suspicion, but by comparison, they are undramatic and sadly unremunerative.

I did not see the bride. My Indian companion thinks all such ostentation should be suppressed in the interest of economic development.

## Later in Tashkent

The route to Tashkent is over the upper Ganges Plain, across the Punjab and the headwaters of the Indus and over the mountains to Kabul

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and so to Soviet Central Asia. The crossing is at a comparatively low altitude, and the mountains are less striking than one expects. In five hours -- the Russian jet does it in less -- one is in the U.S.S.R.

The Tashkent airport, now a considerable crossroad, is heavy and traditional, especially in interior decoration, but neat. Customs inspection was quick and perfunctory. Intourist had no knowledge of my arrival, but I was saved by a young black-haired interpreter-guide who picked me out for a traveler, apologized, and said some highly uncomplimentary things about some unspecified members of her organization. After a slight delay, we were packed into a limousine and brought into town.

The hotel is new -- the elevators run only episodically and construction continues in the back regions. The outside is rather square and plain; the public rooms large and sparsely furnished. I have a small suite -- the living-room has a modern sofa, a Persian rug, a large glass-topped desk and red plush table covers. There is also radio and television and a speaker for some piped music. The television doesn't seem to work.

Since I was near exhaustion, I declined the ballet and slept for several hours. (I foresee more than my usual difficulty in escaping the ballet during the next four weeks.) In the early evening, I went for a walk and then on to dinner.

The city hereabouts is composed mostly of one-story buildings -- this hotel is an exception -- and the streets are neater, cleaner, cooler,

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and far less interesting than in India. There are some, but not many, autos. The streetcars are modern and frequent. The new buildings are either linear "social realism" or heavy Soviet classicism. Flags and bunting are out for the May Day parade tomorrow, and the square in front of the hotel is bedecked with lights, although it makes a poor comparison with an Indian wedding.

The dining-room, quite large with an orchestra, was full of people including many very plainly dressed men who could only be peasants or workers. From time to time, there being a shortage of tables, various proletarians sat down at mine. The waiters shooed them away, and I came to feel exceedingly class-conscious.

Drawing at random from the menu, I won some cold beef and horse-radish, followed by a vast bowl of soup and some tea. I forgot to say that during the afternoon, I was issued some coupons for meals -- all this plus travel was prepaid months ago. Apparently I ate enough to justify detaching a breakfast ticket.

As I was finishing dinner, a young lad who works at translating technical books from French to Russian joined me and we had a pleasant chat. He speaks English, French, Russian and Uzbek and is interested in the promotion of Esperanto. He was eager to know which Russian writers were most popular in the United States and was vastly interested to see that I was reading *Dead Souls*.

Tomorrow I am being turned out at an early hour to see the May Day parade. My guide says it will be quite good but, remember please, that

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this isn't Moscow.

The population of this part of the U.S.S.R. is traditionally
Moslem, and the men wear small black and white embroidered caps. The
women seem to risk normal exposure. Our guide, when pressed, said
some were still in purdah in the countryside. "They are all
one hundred years old and have to keep covered. It is vanity, not
religion." Only the old go to the mosques in numbers.

May Day in Tashkent

This morning, most unseasonably, it was pouring rain -- a steady
and penetrating downpour. But, after waiting a bit, we were filed into
a bus along with a famous Indian film producer, a Fainsod-Radcliffe-
trained political scientist now teaching in India, and about twenty-five
members of a visiting delegation from East Germany. This latter
consisted of massive, middle-aged to elderly couples whom I would judge
to be old Communist Party members.

At Red Square we disembarked and were shown to our seats which
were at one end of the reviewing stand a few yards from the members of
the Uzbek cabinet who, with a general, were doing the honors. My stout
neighbor from Rostock after asking whence I came, turned to his equally
stout wife and said delightedly: "Look, Mommy! From America."

Mommy had a brother in Detroit. Her husband told me he had spent
ten years in concentration camps.

As the parade began the rain stopped and by mid-morning it was

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quite fine. First two generals, standing erect and at salute, toured the Square in big Zims and surveyed the troops drawn up around. Then came the military part of the parade -- air force, army, cadets, motorized troops, jeeps and some light armored equipment and artillery -- all to the music of a big band. The soldiers looked healthy and formidable but they soon passed. Thereafter, so far as I could tell, came every organized group in Uzbekistan -- the schools, colleges, research institutes, collective farms, cotton mills, cotton gins, furniture factories, carpet mills, construction companies, machinery firms, cities, towns, electric light companies, gas companies, book publishers, and on and on. Some had small floats. A textile machinery firm displayed a spinning machine in full operation, and a clothing factory had girls busy at sewing machines. Nearly all showed pictures of national prophets and heroes. Lenin dominated, followed by Marx and Engels. Stalin showed up only three times all morning and looked like a very crafty gate-crasher, a kind of one-eyed Connolly. Khrushchev was present only as a member of the Presidium.

There was no pretense to marching. Many parents had their children and on occasion someone was moved to do a dance in front of the reviewing stand. At the end came the sports organizations looking very fit and muscular with much healthy arm-swinging. The boxers boxed, the weight-lifters lifted, and the gymnasts jumped as they went by. Once or twice the procession was interrupted for a sports tableau or physical exercises in front of the reviewing stand.

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At noon it was over. I was introduced to the President and then came back to the hotel for lunch. My guide ordered me a vodka and one for himself explaining that sometimes it could be paid for with Intourist coupons and sometimes not. This time it worked.

In the afternoon, the drivers being on holiday, we took a walking tour of the town. Everyone was abroad, and the parks were well patronized. In one we watched an exceedingly good puppet show and listened to a record concert which was featuring Paul Robeson. We also took pictures of a large statue of Stalin - erected, the guide said, "before his death". My Indian colleagues pressed him for his view of Stalin. "He did much that was valuable, but, of course, he made mistakes."

My Indian friend is recently back from four months in China where he did a lengthy documentary film soon to be released over television in the United States. Though respectful of Chinese accomplishments, he is very critical of the communes. In his view they are driving the people unmercifully and in a manner that cannot last and might produce a considerable reaction.

Hearing this, our guide, a teacher of languages at the Pedagogical Institute who looks after visitors for extra pay, said, "Of course, we feel that the Chinese are making a mistake on the communes. It is the last stage of Communist development, not the first." He seemed to be stating, almost casually, the accepted view.

### Notes

The people in the parade were poorly dressed by European standards,

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certainly no better than in Poland. However, they looked healthy, well-fed and rugged.

While the service is well below that of a Canadian small-town tavern, the food in the hotel is good and interesting. The bread is excellent. So are the soups. And there is caviar, wine, and beer. The entrees are a bit heavy with fried potatoes, but entirely edible.

This hotel was built for an African-Asian writers' conference which was held here, and both architect and contractor (or the Soviet equivalent) should have been given a long period of corrective detention. The front doors do not open; the elevators run only at infrequent intervals; the bedroom doors stick; the coat rack collapses when you hang up your coat; yesterday the same happened to a big chair in the lobby when I settled into it; the bathroom, though new, has a look of mildewed age; when you pull the lever, there is often only a sullen silence.

## May 2 -- Tashkent

This morning we saw the city. The population is about a million. The old city consists of one-story mud huts with mud and thatched roofs, sometimes with grass and flowers on top. It is fast making way for progress -- broad avenues are being cut through and big apartment and office buildings are going up. The new buildings are clean and straight and not very attractive. The architecture is unimaginative; the finish is very poor; and today they are covered with bunting and slogans from

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the May Day parade.

Later we visited a lake with adjacent park where children were operating a small railroad and men were playing open-air billiards. Then after a very good luncheon, we visited a mosque which is the headquarters of the Moslem Council of Middle Asia. The mullahs met us and ushered us into their headquarters and, I believe, expected us to ask about the religious freedom accorded the Moslems. Soviet tolerance is then praised. However, I have never been wildly excited about Moslem religious freedom which in recent centuries has been, more often than not, an instrument of servility and intellectual sterility. We asked instead about the strength of the various Moslem sects -- mostly Sunnis with She'as second. No Ismailis.

Next we went to the Mosque -- a hideous building of no conceivable interest except to one underprivileged son of the Prophet who was praying noisily outside.

Finally we drove about thirty miles out in the country and visited a collective farm. It is lovely country with cotton fields, vineyards and fruit trees. The houses are primitive but not unpleasant. All is irrigated. The young cotton was just coming through the ground. It being Saturday afternoon and a holiday, the collective was not in operation. A husky farm hand shook hands with us, and I asked him how large the farm was. He said "very big" but could not be more precise. He was the fountainhead of no other information.

I had dinner sans interpreter and comparatively good luck --

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radishes, cheese, bread, fried potatoes, onions and beef. An orchestra and singer -- more wholesome than sultry -- provided entertainment for a big crowd.

This region has been heavily colonized by Russians, but integration is by no means complete. Marriage between Uzbeks and Russians is still comparatively rare. Housing is still a serious problem.

I had always heard of the Soviet parks but was unprepared for the variety of the amusement and entertainment they provide. They are also exceedingly well-used. One this morning also had a comprehensive display of statistics showing the prospective increases in everything now until 1965. It is too bad the gardening isn't better. Lawns are unmown and unkempt. By contrast, streets are meticulously kept and the square in front of the hotel is washed down four or five times a day.

## May 3 - Alma Ata

Intourist, on the basis of brief acquaintance, is an amiable but unpredictable organization. This morning at Tashkent as we were about to visit some museums, our car -- a splendid black Zim -- disappeared on unspecified business and did not return for an hour or two. In the end, we took a taxi but might have saved ourselves the trouble.

Apart from some nice Uzbek handicrafts, the offering consisted only of terrible paintings. The modern ones were of the realistic, or Dwight D. Eisenhower, school; the ancient were heavily varnished and poorly chosen reproductions of Italian and Dutch originals.

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We were late for lunch and late to the airport and were soundly scolded by the dispatcher, a formidable young woman with a fine command of polemical English. She then softened and wished us a pleasant journey. There was no nonsense about weighing bags, or putting out cigarettes, or fastening seat belts. We got in and flew off. The plane was an Ilushian -- very shabby, but comfortable and competent.

The flight from Tashkent to Alma Ata takes about three hours, most of it above the northwestern rim of the Tian Shan mountains. Just beyond is China. It was a clear day and the peaks, densely snowcapped, were a fine sight.

The road into town was through the apple orchards, all in bloom, for which this district is famous. Alma Ata, the capital (since 1929) of Kazakhstan, has about half a million people, or half as many as Tashkent. It is almost all new; the streets are wide, around square blocks and well planted with elms. The houses are small and agreeable; the public buildings are large and less agreeable. Architecturally and otherwise it resembles and compares favorably with a city of similar size in (say) Colorado. Both abstain from novelty in their building; both are excessively proud of accomplishing the accepted.

Towering over the city are the Tian Shans, rugged and heavily snowcapped. Tomorrow we are to see them at close range. There is a twice weekly plane to Sinkiang and Peking which it would be amusing to board.

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May 4 -- Alma Ata

The day began auspiciously. The air was clear and cool, and I got up at seven to see the city and the early light on the Tian Shans. Children were hurrying to school or being marshalled into classes outside the school buildings. They looked as serious as billed. Thirty years ago only two per cent or so of the population of Kazakhstan was literate. Now illiteracy is confined to the aged.

After breakfast we toured the town. The public buildings are monumental and unexciting, but the individual houses are small, compact, mostly in light blue stucco with carved, shuttered windows and small gardens. They are most attractive, and especially so at the moment, for everywhere there are fruit trees in blossom. Alma Ata, surprisingly enough, is a city of privately-owned homes. People build their own houses on land leased for long terms from the state. These are subject to bequest and inheritance. There are very few blocks of flats.

Next we drove up into the mountains to the snow line. At first the road was very good, but eventually it petered out and we turned around. Ahead, though not near, was the Chinese border. Our guide told us that there is still a small illicit traffic in opium. Some is grown medicinally in the U.S.S.R. and some, though not much, finds its way into China and Afghanistan.

On our return we paused to photograph the peaks, and I crossed a foot bridge over a small stream to look at the cottages of a village on a collective farm. A large, angry and exceedingly accurate dog roared

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out of his kennel and bit me slightly on the ankle and severely in a
more vulnerable spot. They are trained so to attack, and I encountered
an academician. As a result, I had a brief glimpse of the practice of
medicine in a Soviet provincial town.

At first I persuaded myself there had been no serious damage, but
by the time we were back in town, it was evident that the dog had removed
a considerable filet and I was bleeding freely. The radio-controlled
ambulance came in a few minutes and a woman doctor and orderly administered
first aid. Then I was taken at alarming speed to an emergency clinic
where the head doctor, a woman of perhaps fifty, and a male surgeon and
a nurse proceeded to patch me up. The clinic was far from fancy -- it was
an ancient wooden building that might have been a boarding house or small
inn; and the doctors and attendants were far from spic. However, the
antiseptic precautions and procedures, to my unlearned eye, were up to
the Brigham. Everyone cleaned up thoroughly before touching me; all
instruments came from the sterilizer; everyone wore face masks; injections
were followed by swabs of both alcohol and iodine. The whole procedure
reminded me of an extremely well-run garage or service station. It was
rather more impersonal. When I thanked the doctor afterward, she looked
surprised and a little embarrassed.

As the result of the accident, I am committed to a course of
fifteen anti-rabies injections at the rate of one a day. If the dog
turns out to be rabid, of course there will be more. But I believe
that his trouble is not disease but disposition. Since I cannot move

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without opening the wound, my education has come to a temporary
standstill. I was also told I must not touch alcohol, even beer, for
six months. Alcohol stimulates any lurking rabies germ -- or something.
The dog is to be examined, and I will be cabled either "The dog is
sick" or "The dog is okay". My medical interpreter thinks that this
cable in English to an American will fascinate the authorities.

## Notes

I have been talking with a voluble and friendly former army
officer who speaks good English. He questioned me at length about the
reception of **Doctor Zhivago** in the United States, whether I had read
it, what I thought of it, and what others thought of it. Finally he
said, "Of course, it should have been published here. We are not kids."

He referred to Stalin as "Uncle Joe", a phrase he got from his
American reading.

The native Kazakh language is dying out. All Kazakhs learn
Russian; few Russians learn Kazakh, a difficult tongue. Uzbeks and
Kazakhs seem quick to suggest that the Russians drink too much.

My Indian companion has had an interesting talk with a well-
informed young Russian who has lived for several years in Kazakhstan.
He says the Republic is still a problem child. The government in the
recent past has been neither efficient nor wholly honest. A recent
president was an accomplished sybarite -- when he traveled, one plane
was required for him and two for his considerable standard of living,
which included selections from a great number of mistresses. The people

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are not very efficient by Russian standards. However, all of this is
second-hand.

May 5 -- Alma Ata

At ten this morning I met with the Faculty of Economics of the
State University. About ten were present. The meeting was in the
office of the senior professor of the faculty -- a rather severe room
with desk, tables and well-disciplined oak chairs.

At first the session was very formal. My questions were about
the development of the Kazakh Soviet Republic. What had been the most
important problem of development? To change the social structure. What
were the most important problems now in prospect? To fulfill the
seven-year plan. What was the dimension of capital imports? Large,
but the Union and Republic are one. What are the priorities between
education and industrialization? They go hand in hand. All answers
came from the senior professor.

However, in time things thawed and others joined the discussion
to stress the importance of education for development of such an area
and to tell of the problems in settling a nomadic population. At the
time of the Revolution, much of the population of Kazakhstan was
nomadic. The nomads were assigned land and given, I would gather, a
fairly firm intimation of the wisdom of remaining on it. At the same
time every effort was made to show them the economic advantage of
sedentary agriculture.

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Then we talked of the virgin lands program, a considerable part of which is in Kazakhstan. (The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic stretches endlessly across Central Asia from the Caspian Sea to China.) It is difficult to imagine so large an area -- some thirty million hectares in Kazakhstan alone -- lying unused in reasonable proximity to the world's oldest civilizations. I pressed them as to the reason. They replied that so far as the Soviet Union was concerned while development was discussed from the outset, it was only in 1953 that the capital was available in combination with an urgent need for more food. The problem posed by the earlier history remained unsolved.

I then asked to have the decentralization program explained to me. This has given much more power to the regional planning councils, the Sovnarkhozy, for preparation of plans and much more responsibility to plant managers for accomplishing targets. They were enthusiastic. Decisions come much more quickly, references to Moscow are fewer, "efficiency and initiative" have increased.

By this time the ice was well broken and after I had asked a few questions about students and curriculum --economics rank well below physics and mathematics in popularity; most graduates aim to work in industrial enterprises or in planning organizations -- I was plied with questions about Harvard and the United States. What are our courses? Do we teach about socialism? What texts? What are the most serious problems of the United States? Why does unemployment persist? Could the United States sustain a seven per cent increase in output as called

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for by Mr. Rockefeller in his report? Was the United States opposed
to trade with the U.S.S.R.? Would there be less opposition if the
Democrats were elected? Was Mr. Dillon against trade? Did I assume
that outstanding issues could be resolved without war?

I told them our students studied socialism but without drastic
consequences, and heard myself explaining unemployment with a restraint
that would have astonished old Meade Alcorn. (I did not excuse it.)
I think I surprised them by suggesting that, taking relative supplies
of food and automobiles as cases in point, the Soviet Union _should_
grow faster than the United States.

It was a pleasant and instructive morning, and I was tired when
it was over. So was my interpreter who was struggling with unfamiliar
ideas and thinks he may now write an economic history of Kazakhstan.

This afternoon I visited the economists of the Kazakh Academy
of Sciences. They were in a palatial building, and we met in a large
and comfortable office on the second floor. Progress thereto was over
a great marble foyer and up a vast double stair.

This discussion was much more informal but covered much the same
ground as the one during the morning. The academicians thought the
vital initiating factor in development had been education and the
imported technical talent from Russia. They said Kazakhstan had been
a big importer of capital from Russia and continued to be. The biggest
problem of the past, they all agreed, had been converting the nomads
from their tribal and feudal patterns of life. I asked if all had been

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convertible. One said all people were open to persuasion, but then conceded that after a certain age the cement tended to set. They told also of the difficulties with the early stages of industrialization. Machinery for some early plants was brought in on camel trains. At the time of the Revolution, the railroad was six hundred kilometers distant. It reached Alma Ata only in 1931 during the first five year plan.

The most important task of the future is to improve efficiency and cut costs in existing industry and agriculture, particularly in agriculture.

I think they would have liked to question me, but I wished to see a local engineering plant. This, the largest in the city, employs about 2,500 people in the manufacture of special purpose machinery and cable. (They did work on the skiphoist and coke oven batteries at Bhilai.) The plant looks well-used, but the grounds are pleasantly planted with trees, hedges, and flower beds. The manager, a friendly and forthright Ukrainian, received me in his office. This was a large room panelled in oak plywood, with desk, conference table and chairs, and more executive than beautiful.

The decentralization moved him from the Ministry of Heavy Industry to the Alma Ata Sovnarkhoz, a change of which he vastly approved. Much cross-hauling is saved. In the past he received components from Leningrad which a local firm was producing and shipping to Kiev. Apart from his greater control over procurement, he is now at liberty, once he has met his targets, to produce for other local firms. In other respects

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he has gained in authority and, in any case, he can evidently swing
more weight with the local Sovnarkhoz than against Moscow.

I asked him about his internal organization which he sketched
out as follows:

He asked me how it compared with an American firm. I replied that I missed the vice presidents. He laughed and excused himself to go to a workers' meeting at which he was overdue. I went for a walk and saw a policeman with a hand amplifier for reproaching motorists and pedestrians. I asked to take a picture of this nasty invention but was refused.

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May 6 -- Samarkand, Uzbek S.R.

The mail plane, which leaves Alma Ata at 8:30 for Tashkent, makes a couple of stops en route. One was near a new industrial area near Tashkent and we landed quite literally on a cow pasture. The Ilushian bumped a bit and taxied past a large herd of cattle. On the take-off a woman guard came out to protect the runway from livestock, and we took off over a flock of sheep. At Tashkent I changed to the plane to Samarkand. At Samarkand, also, there is no strip, but the ground was smoother and the plane smaller. A woman doctor at the airport medical station -- there is one in every airport -- gave me my miserable dog shot.

Samarkand has declined since Timur and the Soviets have not yet entirely reclaimed it. Most of the streets are unpaved and deeply rutted although the sidewalks are meticulously swept even when only of dirt. Much of the housing is primitive; there are many mud huts, and this would seem to be standard architecture in the villages as we approached. The older people wear traditional caps, beards, and dress, with an occasional woman in purdah. There are at least as many donkey carts as automobiles. The inn I take to be old Russian - it is low and rambling with high-ceilinged rooms and altogether nicer than socialist modern.

There was time only to see the Bibi-khanum mosque (1399-1405), a soaring domed structure with an entrance arch, smaller mosques to the sides, and minarets in the manner of the Taj, of which only one survives.

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The outer walls are covered with blue and gold tile in formal but striking designs, including passages in Arabic from the Koran.

The Bibi-khanum is named for the most beautiful of Timur's wives who, according to legend, had a remarkably un-Muslim-like affair with the architect in Timur's absence. It is said to be the largest mosque in Islam. Now it is crumbling away. Much of the great blue dome has gone, and one goes inside at his peril and after solemn warning. The contractor was almost certainly a rascal, for the walls under the rich tile are filled with unbaked brick. Nothing can be done to save them.

Before dinner I strolled about visiting a church -- Russian Orthodox -- where mass was being said for a modest crowd; a park with an avuncular, a soldierly, and a philosophical Stalin and posters showing the hideous consequences of alcohol; and the main shopping street where I did some comparative shopping. The merchandise in the stores is quite abundant, but one has the usual impression of indifferent quality and very poor styling. The principal exception was a large food store which was well-stocked with very palatable-looking products. Luxuries are very high -- a 100-gram chocolate bar, for example, costs 13 rubles, which is $1.30 at the favorable tourist rate. Staples are much cheaper.

I am struck at how frequently references to making money come up in conversation. "He has a chance to make good money." "He is getting quite rich." "Not much chance to make money on this job." "How much

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money does a professor earn in the United States?" People speak enviously of writers with their royalties.

May 7 -- Samarkand, Tashkent, Moscow

I was the only foreign visitor in Samarkand this morning, and so I had the services of two guides -- a regular Intourist man and a novitiate from the University. Otherwise, one would have been unemployed. We began with Ulugbek's observatory which had a giant sextant sunk into the rock of which the great carved foundation remains. Ulugbek, the grandson of Timur, was not only one of the world's great scientists but also the author of some of the more important of the surviving buildings.

Then we visited the Shakh-y-Zinda group of mausoleums on the Afrosiab, a long hill adjacent to the present city and even closer to the center of the ancient capital. The Shakh-y-Zinda was the burying place of the royal descendants of Timur in the female line. The buildings are beautifully proportioned and mostly well-preserved. The domes are covered with rich turquoise tile and the facades have elaborate and exquisite designs. It is perfectly lovely and a photographer's dream.

Next we went to the Registan, which is within the borders of the present city and was the civic center of ancient Samarkand. It consists of three huge seminaries in high Moslem style facing what was once a market square. The mosques, hostels, and minarets have suffered greatly over the centuries, and the present effect is spoiled by the guy wires

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that hold the minarets (more or less) upright. Extensive restoration
is also under way. This restoration, incidentally, looks very adept
and when it is finished, the Registan will again be one of the
showplaces of Asia. It is proceeding at a great pace with dozens of
men at work and a special shop to turn out the ancient ceramic tile.

Finally we visited the Gur-Emir, the burial place of Timur and
his male descendants. It is extensively but capably restored, and the
towering blue dome is both dramatic and beautiful. Much of the inside
decoration has been lost and most of what remains is hidden by the
heavy buttresses which now support the dome. Timur is still there --
Soviet scientists opened his grave some twenty years ago to assure
themselves -- and we crawled down to the crypt to see it.

I am reminded that at Shakh-y-Zinda we also visited a small
functioning mosque -- it was on the hillside in a meadow filled with
red poppies. It was the hour of prayer and as we were there, a mullah
called his eerie, singsong, strangely repetitive chant. Responding
were two old and one younger man. I asked my guides if they had ever
reflected that the Moslems might be right and we wrong and on the
ultimate consequences of this miscalculation. They said the idea had
not previously occurred to them.

What there is of Samarkand is very interesting, but it isn't
time-consuming. Early afternoon I was at the airport, received my dog
shot, and crowded into the plane filled with produce-laden peasant women
for the trip to Tashkent. Because of price differentials, it is said

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often to be profitable to take a basket of fresh produce to some
distant market by plane. I am now waiting for the "TU" to Moscow.

May 8 - Moscow

The "TU" is a sleek, handsome plane on the outside and moderately
well-appointed within. It leaves Tashkent at 10:00 p.m. and makes the
two thousand odd miles to Moscow in three hours and fifty minutes to
arrive at 10:50 Moscow time. Last night we cruised at 27,000 to 33,000
feet, and of course saw nothing. Since much of the journey is over
desert, the same is said to be only slightly less true by day.

The train takes four days instead of four hours.

Moscow airport is like any airport -- perhaps a little larger and
a little less fancy. It is some fifteen or twenty miles from the city
and the first part of the journey -- as seen at night -- is over
level scrubland. Then all of a sudden the blocks of flats begin -- large,
rectangular and a uniform eight, ten or twelve stories. They stretch
on for several miles and then one is in the center of the city.

By night the wide, silent streets and freshly budded trees, all
young like the flats, give the city a pleasant parklike appearance. This
does not survive in daylight.

I am housed in the Ukraine hotel, a vast skyscraper, which on the
outside resembles a heavily ornamented Woolworth building and inside is
early Palmer House regal. It is perhaps a mile from Red Square and across
the river. The beds are good; the bathroom works; and it is comfortable.

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These are compensation for unparalleled ugliness.

This morning I studied the map, strolled along the river and visited Tommy Thompson, the Ambassador and an old friend. The Embassy combines offices with living quarters, and I rode up in the elevator with assorted wives, children, dogs (genial) and some parcels of green onions.

After lunch I drove out to the post office where foreign parcels came in to collect some books. This proved an interminable procedure, for I had not brought my passport. No passport, no parcel, all complicated by no English. Finally the manager agreed to call the hotel where according to rules I had deposited it at the desk. Before handing the parcel over, it was opened and the contents checked. All this took the entire afternoon. Early evening I went to Spasse House, the large Victorian and slightly deteriorating residence of the Ambassador, for a reception and then to dinner with Henry Shapiro of the United Press and his wife and Henry Heald and Shepard Stone of the Ford Foundation. The latter I had met in Tashkent airport. The Ford Foundation is not only omnipotent but ubiquitous.

The dining-room at the National was filled, mostly with young Russians, some badly and some quite elegantly dressed, who were dancing to asserted jazz. I am advised that this is the best band in Moscow, but I couldn't tell. One popular piece was "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" which, no doubt, translates as "from each according to his ability."

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May 9 (Saturday) -- Moscow

Today being Saturday we investigated Moscow and began, no doubt appropriately, with the Kremlin. In the time of Stalin, it took -- Henry Shapiro told me -- as many as seven security checks for a newspaper man to get in. Now it is open to all comers although the buildings of state that are in active use are off limits.

It was a cool and cloudy morning, but with intervals of sunshine; and a great crowd was out. By ten o'clock the queue to see Lenin and Stalin was perhaps a quarter of a mile long. The tomb opens only at noon.

The Kremlin is intensely interesting and, in its own way, eccentric and charming. Except on the side facing Red Square, the walls are not very formidable. Inside, it is nicely landscaped by Soviet standards. There is an astonishing collection of large and elaborately worked cannons, including one exceedingly vast but purely decorative monster, a two-hundred-ton bell -- the famous King of Bells -- and a variety of multi-domed, onion-top churches, including the Uspenski Cathedral, a wonderful specimen of sixteenth century eastern ecclesiastical decoration.

At noon, although we had barely scratched the surface, we came out on Red Square. With police permission, my colleagues -- I was joined late last night by Lloyd Reynolds and Michael Montias of Yale, who are my companions for the rest of the journey -- got into the line to the tomb near the top. By now it was a half mile or more long and proceeding slowly to the bier. I could not overcome my disapproval and

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looked instead at GUM, the big department store which forms one side
of the Square. It is well stocked and the merchandise, much of fairly
good quality and attractively presented. The contrast with the
provincial stores is marked.

My companions rejoined me, and we were promptly approached by
a couple of black marketeers who wanted to buy dollars -- twenty rubles
to the dollar, instead of the tourist rate which is ten. I said no,
that we were Americans and therefore impeccably honest. One, with a
good command of the idiom, said, "Bunk." Both departed in search of
other prospects.

After lunch we drove out to the University, stopping en route at
the Novodevichi Monastery and the Cathedral of our Lady of Smolensk --
the latter another fabulously adorned church. (The monastery is in
bad repair.)

The University is vast, and the main building -- the skyscraper --
should probably be considered hideous. Newer additions are cleaner of
line with less pointless adornment and in somewhat better style and taste.

Then we had tea with Rani and Prasanta Mahalanobis and were joined
by a professor of the (Moscow) Institute of World Economics and
International Relations. We talked of whether scientists and writers
were forming a new and privileged aristocracy in the Soviet Union and
elsewhere. That they should be privileged was held to be proper and
wise. I suggested, partly for purposes of argument, that all elites had
always felt that their privileges were peculiarly justified by their own

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extraordinary merit and that scientists and scholars would not be immune to this tendency. The point was not widely accepted by my scholarly friends.

At a late dinner tonight at the hotel, many people were in white tie and tails.

According to Mahalanobis, all major business enterprises send to Moscow each night a coded telegram giving the day's production, deliveries and stocks - and possibly also materials position -- and these data are transferred to punch cards, tabulated and supplied to the relevant officials the next morning. Twenty thousand people are employed in the statistical operation.

This morning a rather good looking girl from Chicago asked, somewhat pathetically, if she could join us at breakfast. She had ordered orange juice, toast, and bacon, none of which the waiter seemed disposed to produce. With difficulty she was converted to bread, butter, tea and fried eggs.

She is on a round-the-world trip and going next to India. She said she had heard there was a difference between the Russian system and ours but had never thought to inquire what it was. To get the conversation on a more manageable level, I asked if she were going to Siam after India. She said no, just to "Thailand".

May 10 -- Moscow

Today we joined the Sunday crowds on some sight-seeing including

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**Oruzheynaya Palata** (the armory) in the Kremlin with its wonderful carriages, sleighs, plates, and artifacts from Tsarist times. The museum is beautifully maintained and admirably patronized.

At dinner at the National Hotel I had a long chat with a young Englishman who is studying at the Cinema Institute. He was very interesting on the relation of politics to film production. On the formal side, all students, including those from other countries of the socialist camp (but not including those from the non-Communist countries) attend lectures and stand examination on Marxism-Leninism and at intervals (as on Zhivago), a professor outlines the official view on a subject.

A positive view of Soviet life is required in films as in literary expression. One may criticize institutions but not fundamental policy. Pasternak questioned the Revolution while Dudintsev in *Not By Bread Alone* attacked only the instruments by which the Revolution was being carried (or not carried) out. He also talked of Western literature in the Soviet Union. Of Western authors Dickens remains by far the most popular except that *A Tale of Two Cities* is unknown. It is ambiguous on the subject of revolution. Other English classics are highly regarded. Among the Americans, Dreiser, Hemingway, Faulkner and Upton Sinclair are most popular. Dos Passos was once well known but has been dropped from sight. So also in the United States.

Toward eleven o'clock when we finished dinner, we walked out on the square between the National Hotel and the Kremlin. A considerable

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crowd was gathered, and we investigated. It turned out to be composed exclusively of teenagers, mostly male but a few girls. Some were wearing elements of a kind of Teddy-boy garb. They were milling about to no evident purpose although some seemed to be playing some kind of game by which they passed under the upraised arms of the others. I have rarely seen a less prepossessing group.

## May 11 -- Moscow

Today we settled down to talk economics, or at least that was our intention. However, we spent most of the morning arranging appointments. Then we went briefly to the Pushkin Museum. This is an interesting but slightly random selection of western art with some modern French. The Gauguins are good, and there are one or two superb Van Goghs.

The wretched dog shots give me a headache and fever, and today I had to give up and go to bed. But by five o'clock, I felt better and had tea with the Embassy economists. This was on the economy, on which more later when I understand more.

Then I met a young but distinguished Russian economist, a young woman who teaches Russian in one of the technical institutes, and our Indian friends and we went to see *The Merry Widow* in Russian. It was enchanting. The stage settings were gay and light, and on one occasion, the chorus came down from the sky swinging to the waltz on swings festooned with colored lights.

Then we went on to dinner at a great old-fashioned restaurant

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which was once a favorite haunt of Rasputin. We talked of many things
including book publishing and libraries, both great points of pride in
Russia and not without reason. Our hosts spoke of the great popularity
of English and American novelists -- it has never been possible to
satisfy the demand for _An American Tragedy_ -- vast editions have repeatedly
sold out. Both our Russian friends were enchanted by _Porgy and Bess_. The
economist had read _Doctor Zhivago_ and thought it far less astringent and
effective criticism than _Not By Bread Alone_, a judgment in which I would
concur. There was also much on economics to which I shall return.

I asked if there were ever a time when production of _The Merry Widow_,
which surely portrays a decadent feudal and bourgeois society, was not
deemed advisable. They thought not -- light opera was not taken that
seriously.

I have mentioned the people in white ties in the dining-room of my
hotel. This could be how peculiar reports get started. It is, I discover,
the French National Orchestra.

## May 12 -- Moscow

This has been a very instructive day. This morning we visited the
Committee on Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and there completed
further arrangements for our journey. I was questioned at some length on
the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. The
dispatch of three Soviet plant managers to the Program is contemplated,
but a difference of opinion has arisen as to the value of doing so. They

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heard the work might be concerned excessively with finance, salesmanship, "small competitive tactics", and other purely capitalist concerns.

While not professing to excessive knowledge, I gave a larger view and mentioned some of the nascent tycoons who had been there in recent years. This made an obvious impression. Our host remarked perceptively that the presence of Soviet managers would doubtless lead to some active debates on the merits of different economic systems.

This afternoon with Mahalanobis, I went to see the Institute for research into iron and steel production. This is a huge organization. Since the decentralization, which brought the elimination of the Iron and Steel Ministry, it has inherited some of the functions of the erstwhile Ministry. The building is not very remarkable -- a poor quality post-war product -- but the laboratories, testing machines, and equipment had a well-used and efficient appearance. Of the two-thousand-odd professional research workers, sixty per cent are women. In laboratory after laboratory, both heads and staff were women. Flowers and plants give many of the labs a pleasant unchemical touch.

At six o'clock many workers were still on the job, and an experimental electric furnace and steel working shop was going at full speed.

Soviet iron and steel technology has been advancing rapidly in recent years, and the Institute credits itself with several of the important discoveries, including the use of oxygen-enriched blast which has greatly increased output from given furnace capacity.

Our hosts, the directorial staff, were all mild and unassuming

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scientists, all of whom spoke English. One or two had visited M.I.T. and Harvard since the war. After our tour they brought us back to a handsome supper in the director's office -- cognac, wine, caviar, salmon, cold chicken, fruit and tea -- and told of recent developments in the iron and steel business.

They think the decentralization is showing good results. The U.S.S.R., one said, had become too big to run from Moscow and, in any case, the tendency to centralize things in the capital has constantly to be resisted. The staff of the ministries was dispersed to the Gospans of the Republics and the Sovnarkhozy, and not everyone was happy to go. Many want to live in Moscow.

The decentralization -- reorganization is the preferred name -- substantially increased the authority of the plant manager, and the legal power to hire and fire subordinate executives was mentioned as particularly important. Local procurement of supplies and components is encouraged although those industries which have no local sources may well experience difficulties. There is a rule which requires plants to supply "your neighbor first, yourself second". I gather that the rule is hortatory, not binding, and would not be necessary if the tendency were not to the contrary.

They asked if I assumed there would be peace. I made my usual reply -- that modern technology has made this the only practical assumption. To this they nodded. They also asked if Herter would be better than Dulles. I replied that he would be more to my taste but cited Churchill's

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rule about not criticizing one's government when away from home and not ceasing to do so when at home.

The widespread use of women as scientific manpower was to me the most impressive thing about the Institute. We train women expensively, and then they contentedly disappear into home and motherhood. And still more, knowing that this is what they are slated for, avoid serious subjects and concentrate on educating their bodies rather than their minds.

After dinner, I went with friends to the Tchaikovsky Theatre to see Russian folk dancing. My allergy to folk dancing is exceeded only by my dislike of folk music, but this was excellent from start to finish. The regional dances of the various Republics were admirably executed with great verve.

The theatre, modern and ugly outside but handsome within, was filled with a highly appreciative audience. It included two Harvard exchange students whom I invited to lunch tomorrow.

I had an interesting discussion of Moscow architecture with a highly intelligent young teacher this evening. She defended it on the grounds that nothing was so serious as the housing shortage and so urgent as the need to enclose people if only in a square box. But she conceded that there was no defense for the heavy gingerbread and wedding cake architecture of which my hotel is a dismal example. However, the worst of this is regarded as belonging to a past period.

### Notes

Women also run the great street-sweeping machines (or some of them)

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which brush the streets and suck the dirt into a tank. Trams belong
exclusively to women.

May 13 -- Moscow

After my dog shot this morning, I bought some books -- for less
than five dollars. I got Marx, _The Poverty of Philosophy_; Tolstoy,
Childhood, Boyhood, Youth; Gorky, _The Three_; Dostoevsky, _Poor Folk_; and
some pamphlets. They were from a special store devoted to books published
in Russia in foreign languages. The list of titles in English was not,
however, very long; and quite a few were story-books for beginners in the
language.

Then I looked in at the historical museum and took the various
Harvard students who are here to lunch. They are enjoying their work and
the experience. The lectures are often of indifferent quality and, in
economics, almost uniformly poor. The Russian students counter by paying
little attention -- at the beginning of the lecture, the professor competes
with a buzz of conversation and only gradually becomes audible. The other
students are friendly except the Chinese who are totally distant. The
Chinese, who work very hard and humorlessly, are regarded with mistrust by
the easier-going Russians.

Then we went to the University, which is three or four miles from
downtown Moscow. The students live as well as work in the great skyscrapers.
We saw the rooms which are small but not unpleasant. A graduate student
has one to himself and shares a bathroom and toilet with another student in

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the same "block" or unit of two rooms and bath. Each floor has a kitchen plus a cafeteria. An inspection squad of students goes through the rooms at intervals and grades the occupants on their housekeeping. A low grade, if not corrected, will bring probation and eventually expulsion. One of the American students thinks he is subject to surveillance including a "bug". But I did not think the evidence very convincing. I sense that some of the students who are studying in Russia are obliged to feel that they are living dangerously.

To dinner with John Oakes, the Shapiros, and Harrison Salisbury. Back after five years, Salisbury is greatly impressed by the change and improvement -- more goods, a greater appearance of contentment and well-being, and more freedom. We talked of the censorship which has eased in recent years, although it is still sensitive on comparisons between Soviet and non Soviet countries, anything whatever related to the private lives of the leaders, and any criticism of Soviet foreign policy unless fully documented and argued. It is somewhat erratic. Correspondents are occasionally forbidden to send on their own authority what has already appeared in the Soviet press. Incidentally, the reporter never sees the censor. He is strictly a backroom man in the communications office. Censorship may be protected but only in writing.

There was an interesting comment during the evening on the American tourist. In the thirties, he came with a powerful bias either for or against the system and went away with his bias intact and reinforced. Now he comes, typically, with a much more open inquiring mind.

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May 14 -- Moscow

This morning we made a long visit to the Institute of World
Economics and International Relations. An earlier visit had been
scheduled but cancelled when the Iron and Steel Institute put me on
at the same time. Coordination of life in Moscow (and in Russia) is
an imprecise art.

The Institute of World Economics and International Relations
obviously enjoys considerable prestige and has handsome quarters near
the Kremlin. It is divided into sections for the study of different
areas -- the United States and Canada, Latin America, the Arab countries,
Africa, India, Indonesia, etc. Some fifteen or twenty people concentrate
their attention on the United States. Perhaps a dozen top members of
the staff were on hand to greet us.

After an exchange of formalities, they began by questioning us.
The queries were in great variety, many were very detailed, and a few
were heavily loaded. The first was whether Adlai Stevenson, as evidenced
by some recent speech, had turned against public power. A number of the
questions involved lurid quotations from U. S. sources on the intricate
machinations and pregnant dangers of world communism. Was all this
believed? Eventually I suggested as mildly as possible that we
undoubtedly had our Communist bogy and that perhaps other countries had
their bogies, for example, monopoly capitalist bogies. I wondered if it
was altogether fruitful to debate the merits and demerits of our respective
bogymen. The presiding professor said he agreed that it was not.

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Then came queries on the role of arms expenditure in the economy, these buttressed by a quote from Leon Keyserling, purporting to call for increased defense spending as a recession remedy. I expressed a strong doubt as to whether Leon had ever advocated defense spending for this reason and gave figures on the civil spending and tax reduction that could be used as an alternative to defense outlays. I was glad when we got off this topic.

Following some other quotes designed to prove various points, I said on behalf of Reynolds and myself, that we were not to be held responsible for all the published remarks of all Americans. They laughed and said they had no such thought.

Then a man who had read all my books and remembered things I had forgotten asked me for clarification of numerous points. He also said agreeably that he found ideas in *American Capitalism* that could be reconciled with Marx. Finally I was pressed hard on the question of whether "the affluent society" was really affluent.

Then we asked questions: If the U.S.S.R. foresaw a huge increase in foreign trade? "Yes. It is our view that with increasing industrialization, countries trade more, not less." What products? "Machinery, iron ore, manganese, petroleum, lumber, other materials, and possibly bread grains." Have the socialist countries autarchic tendencies? "No. In the past this may have been so, but the tendency is being overcome." In the Eastern European countries in the earlier stages of their planning, economic and planning talent was scarce and poor. Hence, mistakes. Talent

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is now better and there are great hopes for the coordination of
perspective (long-range) plans. It was noted that the Soviet Union
is extending pipeline facilities to supply the Eastern European countries
and looks forward to connecting with their power grids. "We see no
reason why these arrangements should not be extended to Western Europe."

Finally we asked about the work on economic development. I got
the impression that this is not very advanced. They said their principal
study of the Arab countries was of Arab nationalism. There was only
passing mention of Africa and India. They said that like the West, they
had settled on the adjective "underdeveloped" to describe these countries
while agreeing that "poor" or "backward" might be more descriptive but
less tactful terms. Someone noted that the gap between the underdeveloped
countries and the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. continues to widen and that this
is the most serious aspect of the problem. Someone else suggested that
the urgent question was whether these countries would develop under
capitalism or socialism. I advanced the thesis that the freedom of choice
in these matters was less than often imagined.

The meeting broke up with general felicitation. Though there was
much debate, it had been very courteous. Reynolds and I presented books.
We each received a pleasantly autographed volume detailing, I am pleased
to say, the sins of American capitalism.

In the afternoon I had tea with Mahalanobis and a Russian economist and then visited yet another Russian economist. I heard of a dynamic model input-output matrix which projects itself over the next seven years.

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However, the mathematics have not yet been completely worked out. I was unable to help. Otherwise, discussion was directed at filling gaps in my knowledge of the Russian economy, and the latter I shall display later.

Finally to the ballet.

May 15 -- Moscow

First we paid our respects to Minister Yuri Zhukov, the Chairman of the State Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, to give his full title. He sent greetings to Adlai Stevenson, Nathan Pusey, and William L. Langer. Then we visited the Zil auto works in company with Averell Harriman. We talked with the director and his deputy and then toured the plant. Harriman stopped repeatedly to talk with the workers, and they crowded around him by the dozens and once or twice gave him a vigorous handclap. He was a major success and should have been running for the local Soviet.

The Zil plant covers several hundred acres on the edge of Moscow and employs some twenty thousand workers. A large proportion are women, who seem to do about every job. The principal products are cars, trucks, buses, and bicycles. On the bicycle assembly line, the machines spring to life under your eyes. The plant looked workmanlike in all respects.

The plant area is planted in trees and shrubs -- the apple trees were in blossom -- and workers are housed in big blocks of flats of which many are now being built. There is a club -- the Palace of Culture --

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which includes an auditorium, a large and well-used library, hobby rooms, and an assembly hall for dancing, banquets, and other festivities. The plant director -- a well-tailored man in blue pin-stripe who could have been from Chrysler -- pointed to the auditorium as a principal forum of his activities. "In our country, a plant manager must be a speaker." "Explaining production" was his usual topic, he said.

The buses are built on American lines and look well-finished and comfortable. Long distance bus travel is only beginning to be important, I was told. One can go by bus from Moscow to Leningrad, but it isn't recommended for speed.

The tour lasted until nearly two, and we had time for only a light snack before a meeting with leading economists -- academicians and professors of the economic institutes.

The talk began on input-output and linear programming, and included a rather tendentious outline of the development in Russia by a senior professor. Leontief developed his system only as the result of his early training at Leningrad. After he left for America, his work deteriorated. The origins of linear programming are also Soviet. I had the feeling (it was nothing more) that the explanation was partly defensive. Having decided to use these techniques -- although further questioning cast doubt on the extent and depth of the use -- the non-bourgeois roots need to be shown.

The present use is, in fact, experimental -- the necessary computers have only recently become available. Before, they were needed for rocketry. For the near future they foresee the input-output matrix mostly

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as a device for checking the consistency of plans and calculating
inter-area balances.

Then we went on to prices. Price-making has been decentralized,
and the Sovnarkhozy have already gained authority over prices of regional
importance. Prices for the same thing may now differ materially in
different areas. The trend to price autonomy will be extended and
eventually some firms may be given power to set their own prices. (For
custom-made goods, this power now exists.) However, prices will not be
set in accordance with demand. Socially necessary cost will continue to
be the criterion.

Pricing below cost has now been largely eliminated. (Coal seems
to be a surviving case.) This was once common for raw materials and
capital goods. While not regarded with approval, it was justified as a
wartime and emergency measure. The senior professor reminded us that of
the forty years of its existence, the Soviet Union had been subject to
the tensions of war, including cold war, for twenty. Since he seemed to
be holding us personally responsible for this inconvenience, I reminded
him that during the more serious of these war years, the United States
had been an ally. He accepted the comment good-humoredly and said that
he had been in the United States in 1942 during this period.

Then we went on to labor problems and labor management. Soviet
workers are, of course, extensively on piece rates, i.e., fixed pay for
standard output or "the norm" and the percentage increase for production
above the norm. The increase may be proportional to the increase in

["-47-", "[LC]", "output -- 110 per cent of the standard wage for 110 per cent of the norm\nand so forth; or there may be an accelerating increase -- for 110 to 120\nper cent of the norm, pay may be 120 to 130 per cent of the standard rate.\nFor a higher percentage of the norm, the rate may be still higher.", "We asked, among other things, if workers disliked a rate-buster --\na man who too greatly exceeds the norm and thus causes it to be revised.\nThis produced a curious incident. First, we were told (by a woman\nprofessor) that other workers tended to imitate him in accordance with\nwell-established principles of socialist emulation. Pressed then as to\nwhether norms were ever raised if they were too widely exceeded, our\nfriend said this never happened and that a decree of some two years ago\nforbade increases in norms except where there had been an improvement in\nequipment and of productivity. (This, according to Reynolds, is a fairly\ncommon stipulation of our collective bargaining agreements.) I asked if\nthis step had been taken in response to earlier abuses. She then\nexplained, rather elaborately, that even in the earlier period there had\nbeen none. While her answer was being translated, a young professor\nsitting near me observed, in Russian, but in the full hearing of Montias,
"She shouldn't say such things. These people are not kids. If there\nwere no abuses, why the decree?\"", "The session lasted three and a half hours, after which we went to\na party given by the editors of one of the leading economic and business\nmagazines, *Industry and Economics*. Canapes, vodka and cognac were served,\nand by comparison with the afternoon, it was a relaxed and jovial session."]

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We talked about the impending tasks and objectives of the Soviet
economy. They said one of the most important tasks, in their view,
was to even up the presently uneven state of mechanization and then
to proceed, through automation, to the greatest possible elimination
of manual toil. We also talked some about journalism and their sources
of U.S. information. The two most important are _Business Week_ and _The
Wall Street Journal_. Then they asked if I would write an article for
their journal. I eventually agreed -- my reluctance was related only
to time and labor -- and will do a piece on cultural and scientific
exchanges. This would seem to be suitably bland.

This party made me slightly late for _Snow White_ at the Bolshoi,
and I saw the first part from a temporary bivouac at the back. The
stage settings were as magnificent as billed and the music and singing
nice. Snow White herself was perhaps a bit old to be my mother but she
certainly could have been my grandmother. The Bolshoi is very grand
in red and gold, and the great curtain has an intricately worked hawser
and sickle design. It seems a little like seeing a clenched fist from
a Cadillac. The opera lasted four hours and, except for cold sturgeon,
sliced sausage, and vodka, I had not eaten since breakfast.

By this time all restaurants were closed, so I go hungry to bed.
At the Bolshoi, I did have some ice cream. It required a long wait in
line because each cup had to be weighed and, not infrequently, something
had to be added or extracted.

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May 16 -- Moscow

After breakfast, I had a press interview for the *Moscow* (twice-weekly) *News*. I told the reporter, a very *Front Page* type, that I thought most American economists took Soviet planning seriously and expected it to achieve its general goals. This he thought surprising. I reacted favorably to more trade and to what I had seen of economic development in Central Asia. Later he brought me a copy to check and approve. It was remarkably banal, but this is not the best organ for sensational news breaks.

Then we visited the State Committee on Cultural Relations to go into further details on our journey. Then I was visited by an editor of *Industry and Economics* to discuss my article. He also had an envelope of large coarse ruble notes and said according to rules he had to pay me in advance, i.e., on conclusion of the contract for the article. I told him I was highly in favor of paying writers -- I couldn't undercut Adlai Stevenson -- but that my rules required me to decline payment until I had sent in the article.

Then I had a luncheon for Averell Harriman, to which I invited, in addition to our group, the Embassy economists and Dick Judy, an economics student from Harvard now in Moscow. Judy told in interesting detail of the life of a graduate student at the University. Economics is a low priority subject as compared with the natural sciences. The students in economics, many of more privileged parents, are inattentive and poorly motivated. This is especially true of the girls. Debate and discussion with foreign students is free and welcomed but excessive fraternization

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is discouraged. Fraternization at the highest level, i.e., between sexes, has led to expulsion.

One American student - so it is told -- selected as his thesis subject "The Struggle of the Ukrainian Nationalists Against the Communist Party." This provoked discussion. After a time a compromise was made, and he is now writing on "The Struggle of the Communist Party Against the Ukrainian Nationalists".

My colleagues also introduced Harriman to the debate over Input-Output and Linear Programming.

Next I visited the Mahalanobises for an hour or two and talked about the role of dogma in Soviet economics. Prasanta thinks it is still considerable but partly a device by which older professors hold their franchise against the younger men equipped with newer ideas and techniques.

Then I had tea with another old Indian friend, then corrected my interview, and finally went to a most pleasant dinner party with the Shapiros. There was much talk about the Soviet economy. I sense a common and serious error in some -- not all -- of this discussion. There are many flaws in the system -- wrong prices, the plan errors and consequent shortages, the lag in agriculture, and in chemicals, the poor quality of some goods. These are aggregated into ever-all failure. This doesn't follow. The war economy of the United States was not a failure although there were many detailed shortcomings. The latter can, in fact, be the result of trying to do too much, not too little.

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Another cliche holds that as consumer goods output increases, this will create grave and even insuperable problems for the Soviet planners. How is consumer taste to be anticipated and served? It will be impossible. This is nonsense. Doubtless there will be difficulties, but it is silly to say that the solving of the economic problem makes the economic problem more difficult.

I got back to the Ukraine about 1:30, but by the time I had traced down some missing laundry in what may have been a combination of German, Esperanto, and Old Norse, it was after two, with departure at six.

The Ukraine is, without rival, the ugliest and most awkward building I have ever been in. A round trip to your room can take twenty minutes. A single meal can consume an hour and a half. Yet, oddly enough, I am no longer astonished by its horrors. Still, anyone going to Moscow should avoid it at all costs.

Lunch today with vodka, caviar, wine and pressed chicken as an entree came to about nine dollars a head.

The anti-alcohol drive is leading to a shift from vodka to cognac which is considered less paralyzing. There is a one hundred gram limit on individual vodka servings. The amount of cognac is at the discretion of the waiter or waitress. They have full authority to turn off the tap. A young Embassy economist, sober but with a ruddy face and a naturally gay aspect, tells me that waitresses have taken one look at him and removed the bottle.

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May 17 -- Moscow to Stalingrad

The Moscow-Stalingrad trip takes about three hours by Ilushian and was uneventful. The stewardess was a trifle worried when I changed my camera film and told me aerial photography was forbidden. A most serious-minded Intourist guide this afternoon was also concerned that we not photograph industrial plants or even the railroad line. Elsewhere no one seems to worry about such matters.

Stalingrad stretches for some sixty kilometers along the Volga and at most points is only a few hundred yards thick. The surrounding countryside as well as the town shows many scars of the battle. Eighty-five per cent of all buildings were destroyed, and the shacks that were built as emergency replacements still stand. One also sees open areas that were much charred by bombing and shellfire. On some hills, where the fighting was intense, the metal splinter was so thick that the grass did not grow the following summer.

The center of the city and the waterfront are almost wholly rebuilt. Our hotel is next door to the department store in the basement of which Von Paulus turned in his cards. This is only a few hundred yards from the Volga and it must have been a forward command post to which he came to surrender. The new city has an intelligent layout of parks and gardens and is rich and fragrant with acacia trees. But, as usual, the architecture is divided between the utterly severe and the excessively ornate. The latter running to heavy, ungraceful Greek revival is very bad. However, again the very new buildings, including

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those under construction, are better.

A large crowd was out along the river promenade this evening -- girls with girls and boys with boys, and a smaller number of couples. We decided that, on the whole, the standard of attire and appearance was not much below that of a provincial town in Western Europe. The women are effectively and sometimes attractively garbed. They are rarely chic.

## May 18 -- Stalingrad

This morning we visited the big hydre dam which spans the Volga a few miles above the city. According to our guide, it will be for a short time (until surpassed by one in Siberia) the largest in the world. These comparisons are not impeccable, but it is big enough. From end to end it is about three miles -- earth fill with a large central section of concrete. The water, slightly brown in color, was going over this with a thunderous roar. We would have liked to talk with engineers and planners, but this was not on the program.

This afternoon we took the boat which goes by the Volga, the Don canal and the Don River to Rostov to the first stop at the mouth of the canal. This is about an hour's ride from the center of town, but still in Stalingrad. There we disembarked below a giant statue of Stalin, watched a Young Pioneer demonstration and then drove back. The Volga bears a considerable resemblance to the lower Mississippi, and our boat was a sidewheeler though not of Mark Twain grandeur.

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This evening we walked over to the hostels of the medical school to meet and talk with students. But, alas, we found them all glued to two television sets and with no attention to spare for lesser wonders.

Our guide here is a short stalwart blonde, very serious, without humor and with firm and predictable views. Most workers in the United States are unemployed; all Negroes are mistreated; other things are not good. But she also has a vast curiosity and today, while retreating from the dam, she asked me to describe life in the United States. After I had disposed of this, she asked me what my pay was -- a normal question here, but in the presence of two academic colleagues, I found it most unusual and troublesome. Such is habit.

May 19 -- Stalingrad

Before breakfast I went to photograph the market where peasants from the collective farms market the products of their private plots. There was a considerable assortment -- radishes, onions, potatoes, apples, flowers, flour, garden seeds, sunflower seeds, dried apricots, and some straw handicrafts. The peasants looked rugged and weather-beaten but were solidly dressed. All were more than pleased to pose. Trade was brisk. Prices here are higher, often by a considerable margin, than in the state shops. This trade is a considerable share of the total in farm products.

After breakfast we had a long visit with the director of the plant making oil-refinery equipment followed by a brief visit to the plant itself. The latter employs about two thousand workers and though

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relatively new has the well-used aspect of all Soviet plants. It is also well planted with trees and, it being noon hour, the workers are playing cards and dominoes outside the shops.

The manager, an engineer, rather sharply dressed and about forty, administers the plant through a chief engineer who acts as his general deputy. Beneath is a production engineer and below him the shop superintendents. Staff functions -- finance, accounting, procurement -- report to the director. I am impressed again with the simplicity of Soviet plant organization. The manager selects his own staff subject to the approval of the Sovnarkhoz. He deals with individuals and not through staff meetings. "Meetings serve only to confuse issues."

Formerly he reported to the Ministry of Oil Industry and like everyone else approves the change by which he now deals with the regional planning board or Sovnarkhoz. Formerly it was difficult to arrange for local production of equipment and the distant sources assigned by the Ministry were often costly or unreliable. The reorganization has made possible a great deal of reciprocal or "cooperative" trading -- "You make this for me and I will make that for you."

The decentralization of price-making has gone fairly far in his case. Over some thirty per cent of his production, constituting mostly custom work, he has full discretion. What is more remarkable, he prices mostly on the basis of market demand. Oil refinery equipment is in strong demand because of the large oil program, so he is able by his account to charge a good stiff price. His actual profit is about

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[LC]

ten per cent as compared with a planned profit for the enterprise of eight or nine per cent.

Most labor he gets from the technical schools in response to requisitions stating his requirements, but some are always hired off the street. "A man has a row with his foreman, spits on the ground and quits. Then he comes looking for another job." Rates go up by flat percentages over the norm -- for 110 per cent of standard production, 110 per cent of pay; for 120 per cent, 120 per cent of pay. However, priority orders are handled by calling a brigade of workers together and offering them, say, fifty per cent more if they can polish off a normal ten-day job in five days, or double pay if they can do it in two and a half days. If one group declines, a rare occurrence, another accepts. "Money still plays a certain role in our system."

The union plays a role in housing -- this factory like most sponsors a housing program -- and in welfare, recreation and grievances. Dismissals are dealt with jointly between union and management; and, in case of disagreement, the matter goes to a higher authority. However, the manager made it clear that this was something he neither welcomed nor allowed.

We had a hurried lunch and spent the afternoon at the Agricultural Institute. This is a combined teaching and research enterprise and occupies a large neo-classical structure some miles from the hotel. It serves southeastern Russia and also strikes me as a sound and serious organization. However, the contact with United States technology seemed

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surprisingly slight -- much less, from the questions, than at the Iron
and Steel Institute.

The students study in four curricula -- agronomy, zootechnology
(which I would gather to be animal agriculture), agricultural
engineering, and agricultural electrical engineering. Graduates go
into the agricultural services or to the collective or state farms. A
good agronomist will become chief agronomist of a collective with a
good chance of becoming president after a few years. There is a good
stiff dose of practical agriculture in the curriculum, partly designed
to weed out those whose interest in agriculture does not survive
exposure to manual labor.

All of this came out at a round table discussion with the faculty
-- agreeable professional men (plus one woman) who were obviously much
pleased by our visit. Scores of pictures were taken during the two
hours or more of our talk.

We also discussed agriculture in general. The collectives are
still too small despite recent enlargements and consolidations. For
wheat the optimal size is 45,000 acres. (For a state farm, the optimum
is considered even larger -- say, 75,000 acres.) The larger size is
needed to get the economies of good management and high technology, but
it is also dictated by the dissolution of the Machine Tractor Stations.
Only the large farms can afford the full line of equipment and use it
economically.

Now technology reaches the collective through the Inspectorate,

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a professional supervisory service with power to audit practices and specify improvements, or from the agricultural section of the Oblast, or on occasion by direct contact with the Institute. Perhaps more on this later.

Last year per capita collective farm incomes approximated urban labor incomes, perquisites considered. However, the harvest was very good.

Labor productivity -- production per worker -- on the good collective may be twice that on the poor one. Soil and management quality are the principal reasons, but historic cultural differences between the progressive and backward areas still play a part, though a declining one.

After a tour of the Institute, which provided a pleasant relief from tedium for the students, and after many more photographs, we took our departure. Chinese, Bulgarian, G.D.R., and other delegations had visited the Institute, but only one party of Americans had preceded us. The professor wished for many more and said he looked forward to a visit to the United States.

Now we are on a small Ilushian -- a carbon copy of a DC-3 -- for Kharkov via Rostov. One takes off over dry plains still deeply pockmarked by shells and bombs. The zig zag trenches and strong points are still visible.

I gave our determined and stolid little guide a package of lipstick as a souvenir of our medium machine industry. At first she didn't

-39-

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recognize what it was; when she got it open, she was much touched and promptly went to buy me a package of postcards. I think the latter also removed any onus of gift-taking.

We had planned, while in Stalingrad, to see the famous tractor factory and the local Sovnarkhoz. But we ran into a stone wall on both -- "Very sorry but too busy." In fact our second choices were about as good.

May 20 -- Kharkov

We arrived about midnight last night and passed into the hands of an intelligent young guide who has made friends with Granick, Holzmann, and numerous other Soviet experts who have been making the rounds.

This morning I got up early and went to the market area. It was already crowded and, although the light was not especially good, I strolled through the stalls and found some interesting shots of peasants, peasant women and their wares. I did close-ups and, as elsewhere, they mostly posed readily enough. Once a policeman helped me persuade a nice but shy old lady.

Then while I was photographing a peasant woman in front of some funeral wreaths, a party of four gendarmes put the arm on me and we made a solemn little procession to the nearest police station. All were short, and I felt rather embarrassed at the way I towered over them. They were very polite. At the poky I was shown into the inner of two

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shabby, ill-furnished and very dingy rooms. A uniformed cop departed and brought a higher official in civilian clothes -- short, solid, and I would judge, of modest intelligence. After some thought, he decided it was a matter for a higher echelon. Various uniformed policemen peered in at me. One, bolder (or more curious) than the rest, asked me where I came from. I was repeatedly assured, not unpleassantly, it would be only *funf Minuten*. (We had German as a quasi-common language.) After about half an hour I expressed impatience and told them we had a tour coming up to a collective farm. They counselled further patience and invited me to sit down again.

Presently a more elaborately uniformed officer arrived. After considering the matter, he also decided that I should be reserved for higher authority.

After a time, higher (or highest) authority arrived -- a youngish, well-groomed man in a neat grey civilian suit and an air of command. He spoke no German so matters were further delayed while an interpreter was brought from the hotel. I then learned my crime. My photographs in the market were designed to show the "negative aspects of our society". I said I had no such purpose -- that I considered the peasant women to have strong, beautiful and interesting faces. He said they were poor and toil-worn, and I would probably publish them as typical. I said I had no such plan. He then said that he had heard that Soviet tourists in the United States were forbidden to take out unfavorable pictures. I expressed polite but grave doubt. None of this was rancorous and when he repeated the

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reference to toil-worn faces, I said that neither Marx nor Lenin would have thought the faces of honest working people unbeautiful -- that Marx, on the contrary, identified beauty with labor. He asked what, as an American, I knew of Marx, and I said that I had read Marx and written on him and ventured to ask if he could say as much. I added that any artist would surely consider the peasant women more beautiful than he. He laughed as did the others.

However, none of this got anywhere, for he insisted on my destroying the film. This I was most reluctant to do, for, while the morning's pictures were not important, I had some very good ones on the same roll from Stalingrad. I said I valued the pictures as an artist and drawing on the precedents of the morning suggested that I couldn't give up the film without appeal to "higher authority". After a tedious debate, he finally said he would have the film developed. I pointed out that I had been shooting color and asked if they could process it before I left next day and with proper technique. He said it would be easy: "We launched the Sputnik, didn't we?" I suggested that this might not be an entirely comparable achievement -- that processing in the same time would be difficult in a similar town in the United States.

But after some further debate, I surrendered the film to the interpreter to be taken to the photographic store. We shook hands and I took leave of the other policeman who had been regarding me with vast interest (and no excessive disapproval) and was driven back to the hotel.

All this greatly delayed our departure to the Bolshevik Collective

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Farm some twenty-five miles west of Kharkov. My colleagues should have been annoyed but did not show it. We drove out over a very good road and by rich green fields and deep black plowland. The country is gently rolling and strangely reminiscent of much of Indiana or central Illinois. It gives an impression of high cultivation and great natural opulence.

We were received in the assembly hall of the Bolshevik by the President, a square, intelligent man of about forty-five who was once a teacher. The chief agronomist was also there and a third man -- I believe the Party leader. (The President was a party member, but not the agronomist.)

These are the vital statistics for the Bolshevik. It was formed in 1930 of eight hundred individual farms; there are 11,000 acres of which a little over two-thirds is plow land; 2,400 acres are in wheat; the same in corn, smaller acreages are in sugar beets, alfalfa, potatoes and other crops. There are 450 dairy cows, 200 sows, 1200 sheep, and also chickens, silver foxes, fish and rabbits. The farm has 15 tractors, 6 grain combines, 5 corn pickers, and 16 trucks.

As to souls, there are 760 households and 900 workers. The latter are divided into five brigades, each under a brigade leader. Each household has private plots of from one-half to two acres each. One cow and a calf, one to three pigs and any number of chickens are permissible. The farm plant and buildings were almost completely destroyed by the Germans in World War II.

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The President thinks the farm would be more efficient if larger -- it works out only to about twelve acres per worker. Another collective would not improve the ratio, for more people would come with the new land. But it would cut down on the managerial overhead. However, he hesitates to advocate an increase in size lest his neighbors think him aggressive and imperialistic.

The abolition of the Machine Tractor Stations he considers a big improvement. Now he is the boss; formerly he shared power with the Machine Tractor Station. The latter had its own agronomist, and there were troublesome disagreements between this man and his.

Incomes from all sources last year were about on a par with urban incomes. A few workers, as a result, are coming to the farm from cities. A worker leaving the collective must have the permission of the President, but he says this is given more or less automatically. Forty people on the farm are members of the Communist Party -- including, besides those mentioned, two of the five brigade leaders.

After our session with the manager -- where cheese and beer were supplied -- we toured the farm. The livestock barns looked clean and efficient although most milking is still done by hand. The manager asked not to have his picture taken near some girls who were handling green feed with pitchforks and commented that he felt such labor retrograde and obsolete. Then we visited the machinery park. Much of the machinery resembled American models though rather heavier. I was not impressed by the maintenance.

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All in all, however, it seemed like a very good farm.

On our return to Kharkov, we did some general sight-seeing which included a visit to a magnificent children's railroad. This has more than half-size locomotives, including a spanning new diesel, and sparkling new rolling stock. There is also a station in CPR Gothic, and the whole thing is operated by children who earn the right by good school performance. There are two passenger classes -- soft and hard -- and the right-of-way winds through a park. An excellent enterprise.

Late afternoon my film was returned untouched and undeveloped. The photographic store was "closed" and couldn't develop it.

We were paid a considerable compliment by our guide during a tour of the city this evening, who is favorably (perhaps unduly) impressed by our knowledge of Russian history. He was outlining some historical sequences and came to the October Revolution. He said, "In your case, I will omit the propaganda."

A general note. In the U.S.S.R. the past is always discussed more candidly than the present. Old errors are readily conceded, but not the possibility of current ones. Everything works well until it is drastically reformed.

Likewise, the second question in a series almost always elicits more information than the first. Thus, this afternoon I was inquiring as to the reason why Kharkov replaced Kiev as the capital of the Ukraine for some years following the Revolution. Our guide said it was because

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Kharkov had become a center of military command and defense for the Ukraine during the Revolution. I then asked if it was also because Kiev was more traditionally a center of Ukrainian nationalism. He replied, "Of course."

May 20 -- Tblisi

We had asked to be taken to a consumers' goods factory in Kharkov and this morning we went to see a cooky mill. It employs about eight hundred people; through mechanization and automation, it is to double output during the next seven years, but without taking on extra hands. The manageress was away at the Sovnarkhoz, and we were taken in hand by her deputy, the chief engineer, a very solemn young man of thirty-two. Present also were the Party chief and another plant executive.

Not much that was new emerged from our talk with the deputy. The decentralization has increased the authority of management in many directions and eased the problem of procurement. The latter remains one of his chief troubles. The organization of the top staff follows a general design for such plants -- director, chief engineer, departmental chiefs, staff functions -- and they have a half hour staff meeting twice a week on operating problems. The Sovnarkhoz appoints the top staff but clearly the director's preference and choice are important, possibly decisive.

The Sovnarkhoz sends down preliminary goals or targets some months before the opening of the year. These are commented upon and revised by

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the plant, returned to the Sovnarkhoz and then laid down in final form
in the October or November preceding the new year. There are then
further quarterly breakdowns.

The deputy declined to tell us his profit. Elsewhere this was
not a secret.

We toured the plant briefly. It was rather old-fashioned with
many hand operations -- packaging, boxing, shipping -- which could
readily be mechanized. This is planned.

The afternoon we spent flying -- to Bostov and over the Black Sea
to Tblisi, about seven hours in all. For a part of the trip, the
Caucasus towered up beside the plane, and we had a good glimpse of the
Black Sea Coast or Russian Riviera.

The trip was also enlivened by our traveling companions who
included two or three Jewish businessmen on their way home from Moscow
to the Caucasus. One, in conversation with Michael Montias, was
wonderfully outspoken -- at least when pressed. He was a slender,
dark-haired man of medium height with sharp, darting black eyes, a small
mustache over a mouth of solid gold, and a shifty expression which
somehow inspired the maximum of mistrust. He said he made his living
(of several thousand rubles a month) from making slippers and selling
them to a state store. The proceeds from this exceptional supply of
merchandise were divided with the store. Asked if this was not illegal,
he conceded that it wasn't strictly legal and said that some bribery was
necessary. The required payment was increased in his case because he

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was a Jew.

This led to questions about the position of Jews in Georgia. He said it was unsatisfactory. Pressed as to what his co-religionists wanted, he replied, "Three things: To pray as they wish, to trade, and to get out of this country."

This was all in a crowded plane, and Michael Montias asked if he didn't fear talking so freely. He replied that prior to 1952, he would have been more careful but Khrushchev was not as smart (apparently at suppressing such comment) as Stalin.

He said he expected to pay up to 100,000 rubles to get his son into medical school -- a difficult thing for a Jew to manage -- and that he had lost 100,000 of presumably ill-getten gains in the currency reform. He has never had serious trouble with the police. A brother spent some five years in jail. He may well have earned it.

How seriously this is all to be taken, I cannot say. As noted, our informant had the appearance of a thorough-going rascal. But it is hard to see why rascality should extend to cooking up such a story.

## May 23 -- Tblisi, Georgian Soviet Republic

We toured the town for an hour or two yesterday morning. It lies in a shallow valley beside an exceptionally muddy river. On the hill above is an ancient walled fortress, now a picturesque but crumbling ruin. The main streets are shaded and pleasant, and the shops are clean and seem fairly well-stocked -- better, I thought, than in Central Asia. Our hotel

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is immediately across from the huge Palace of the Republic, a vaguely
Persian building with high columns and arches leading up a series of
stairs to a great central court. The lines are exceptionally clean,
and it is not unattractive.

Next we visited the largest cognac factory in town, this being
a prominent local industry. Cognac, as I have noted, enjoys a considerable
preference over vodka as being less brutal for inducing intoxication. The
manager, in the course of a couple of hours' discussion, told us of the
remarkably complex administrative machinery under which he lives. His firm
is part of a cognac trust which incorporates other producing and distributing
units. In this capacity, it reports to some central authority; I am not
sure what. But it is also subject to the local Sovnarkhoz and through
that to the state Gosplan. However, he seemed not to mind.

The plant pays a turnover tax of eighteen per cent. Its "planned
profit", less a small deduction for welfare, goes to the state. The
excess over the planned profit remains mostly with him. As elsewhere,
housing of workers has a major claim on these proceeds.

It is worth noting that the U.S.S.R. operates a profit-sharing
mechanism with the profits being taken in the most urgently wanted thing,
which is not money but housing.

Prices are adjusted in accordance with harvest and resulting cost.
The manager denied that either demand or the need to discourage it played
a part.

After the discussion we went upstairs to sample the product and

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have lunch. It tasted all right. A well-known French journalist had joined our party and he expressed his candid doubts that any other country could (or should) make cognac. But he also conceded that it wasn't bad. He said, however, that it would not seem be bought by preference in France.

At two we went to the Stalin University for a meeting with the economics faculty. Much of the discussion had to do with curriculum and fields of study. Their study of capitalist economics began, they said, with the Greeks and ended with Harris and Hansen. They said their students were as good as those in the natural sciences -- the incentive being the prospect of high posts in the planning (or like) bodies. Students are assigned to their jobs after graduation and expected to remain for three years. Preferences are consulted, and for good reason a student can decline the assignment. But pressure is evidently applied to any who are tempted.

We talked briefly of the industrial reorganization. They think it offers great advantages in flexibility and local responsibility. The danger is of particularism -- that local planning authorities will think exclusively of their own performance and at the expense of other areas dependent on them for materials and components.

We were asked about teaching at Yale and Harvard. Reynolds, to whose questions this record is deeply indebted, gave a lucid and interesting outline. They asked why, at Harvard and elsewhere, business was separated from economics. I said I supposed it was to preserve

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economics from bourgeois influences. They were delighted and replied that they weren't faced with this problem at all. They expressed strong disapproval of all mathematical economics, Marx's formulae alone excepted.

We then toured the university, looked in briefly at a political discussion -- where we offered brief greetings and were roundly applauded -- and on a meeting of the Party unit of the university. This is the first such gathering I have ever risked attending, and I think it was too brief to be permanently damaging.

Finally we were the guests of the local Council on Foreign Relations -- the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. This was a round table discussion with professors, jurists, planning officials, and other men of distinction and involved an unyielding defense of Soviet institutions in all particulars. The only problem is to fill the Seven Year Plan. Heavy industry remains the key to this. Agriculture presents no serious problems. I pressed them on this -- pointing out the more serious social resistances in agriculture. What, for example, did one do about the excessive labor utilization in agriculture, and I cited the farm we visited earlier this week. Nor could surplus workers easily be tossed out. Nor could the peasant mind be modified at will. Surely all this was more difficult than building steel mills. They denied the "correctness" of my view. I think they agreed with it.

Then we talked a little about industrial organization. In Georgia the hierarchy consists of one Sovnarkhoz reporting to the Council of

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Ministers and Gosplan of the U.S.S.R. The state Gosplan has 200 to 300 employees; the Sovnarkhoz has about 800.

In response to a question, they said that the Republic Gosplan had
important substantive functions in refining and giving detail to the much
more general directions of Gosplan U.S.S.R. It is not a mere transmission
belt to the one Sovnarkhoz, and the attention of the latter is much more
to detailed guidance of the subordinate industries and allocation of
materials.

Questions to us included: How long did it take us to build a
plastics industry? What difference does the private airplane make in our
lives? What about unemployment? Was it not true that 700,000 farmers
had gone bankrupt since the beginning of the fifties? The latter question
was evidently inspired by reading some Democratic comment on the life and
works of Ezra Taft Benson.

Finally I had a pleasant talk with the French journalist of this
morning. Some thirty years ago, he wrote one of the first books on
post-revolutionary Russia. He didn't think the system had much future.
He is now much impressed -- especially by the increase in "tolerance", the
quality of the social security system, the "precision" of the transport
and other services, the schools, and the rising standard of living on the
farms he has visited. He thinks that as Soviet achievements become better
known in France in the next few years, it will have a profound influence
on the balance of French politics. He is alarmed.

This afternoon I was asked what I had heard about Georgia before

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coming. I said only three products: wine, Stalin, and useless princes.
For some reason this selection was much approved. Our guide, a somber
youth who writes for the local *Krokodil*, proposed to immortalize it in
his pages.

Incidentally, Stalin has not been downgraded here. His picture is
ubiquitous and so are his statues, and he is mentioned with reverence
and possibly even affection.

May 24 -- Tblisi, Kiev

Yesterday we visited a rather large -- two thousand employee --
machine tool plant, but most of the discussion was by way of confirming
what we already knew, or is relevant to later comment on the economy.

Our tour of the shop was during the noon hour, and the workers
crowded around in great friendliness and great curiosity. They wanted
to know who we were, and if we had such plants in the United States, if
I played basketball, and if we would convey their greetings to their
fellow-toilers in America. I made a brief speech and had my picture
taken with them.

In the afternoon we visited the ancient capital of Georgia where
the kings are buried -- it is devoid of interest -- and a Sovhoz, or
state farm. The latter produces table grapes and is clean and well-
maintained, but I fear far from typical. It reports through a trust,
combining numerous similar farms in the area, to the Ministry of Agriculture.
About seventy-five per cent of the grapes are sold locally. It pays no

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rent and no interest on long-term capital and makes considerable money. However the crop, it was explained, is counted a very profitable one.

Afterward, we climbed to the old citadel above the town, whence a nice view, and so much for Tblisi. Tastes might differ, but I think two days sufficient.

* * * * * * * * *

Now I must see if I can give some impression of the Soviet economy -- first a word on the system and structure and then the strengths and weaknesses. The strengths, technically speaking, unquestionably outweigh the shortcomings, at least for all but the wishful.

Proceeding from the top down, the economic machinery of the Soviet Union begins with the Council of Ministers and the Ministries and the Gosplan, U.S.S.R. The first are, of course, the executive direction of the government. The Gosplan is a very large planning organization employing some thousands of people. It is more than a staff agency. It evidently has considerable direct power over subordinate bodies.

Until the reorganization, individual industries reported through various intermediate bodies to the relevant ministries -- steel to the Ministry for Heavy Industry and so forth. Now only a few such ministries remain -- for the construction of electric power stations, transport, and some others.

Next in line is the Council of Ministers and Gosplan of the individual republics. These duplicate for their area the all-union structure. Next downstream are the Sovnarkhozy or regional economic bodies. They cover an

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industrial area such as the Kharkov region or the Kiev region or in the less industrialized parts of the country, a whole Republic. At the bottom are the factories, although small ones producing similar products may be grouped together in trusts, and there are various cooperative groupings. (One of the rare shoe-shining establishments we encountered was a member of a cooperative of shining and repair establishments, and, incidentally, the operative, while he shined, wanted us to explain how workers in the United States could be well-off if they were exploited by capitalists.)

The Seven Year Plan in the Kharkov industrial area was developed as follows: Toward the end of 1957, industrial plants were asked to submit production targets for the next seven years. Economists associated with this work in the economic institutes from the Sevnarkhoz worked over and revised the figures. In January, 1958, these figures were discussed at a large conference at Kharkov. This was attended by 2,400 people who worked in fifteen sections -- machine tools, chemical industries, iron and steel, etc. At a final plenary session, the plan was adopted and this and the product of similar work in the other Sevnarkhozy went to the Gosplan, Ukraine Soviet Republic. Here it was further revised for consistency and equality of effort between regions and then sent to the Gosplan, U.S.S.R. Here the Seven Year Plan was drawn up to be promulgated in late 1958 by the XXI Party Congress.

This was a broad plan. It specified general goals in production of power, steel, transport and reconciled these with available materials and

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resources by fairly broad categories. Thus steel requirements by major
categories were balanced against the steel that would become available
at the various stages of the plan. Later requirements and availabilities
were more precisely matched by finer categories and also by smaller
geographical units.

The plan then made its way downstream. Goals allocated to the
republics were reallocated to the Sovnarkhozy. The latter in turn gave
final targets to the individual plants.

This is the perspective, or long-range, plan. It is, of course,
subject to modification at the various levels -- to increase or decrease
-- from year to year.

Since the plan has been broadly checked for internal consistency,
materials and components should be available to provide for the planned
production of finished products. The individual factory is encouraged
to contract for the largest possible part of its needs from other
neighboring firms. If it cannot so supply itself, the Sovnarkhozy reports
the need to the Gosplan of the Republic and supply is arranged from
another source within the Republic. If this is not feasible, the report
goes to the Organization for Inter-Republican Needs at the level of the
U.S.S.R. Gosplan. This arranges the shipment as needed.

For small and standard items, stocks are evidently carried within
the Sovnarkhoz; and for a considerable number of products in scarce supply
-- at present there are 560 of these "funded" products -- all production
is declared to the Gosplan U.S.S.R., and it makes specific allocations

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to the using plants. As material supplies increase, this list of products
is being shortened and more and more items are being handled on a local
basis.

I sense that not all functions have yet been clearly distributed as
between the several levels of authority. However, the Sovnarkhozy are
obviously assuming a key supervisory role. They inhabit very large
buildings and have an elaborate organization of "sections" corresponding
to the industries under their jurisdiction. If a firm is doing badly,
i.e., failing to fulfill its plan, the intervention of the Sovnarkhoz
would appear to be prompt. It may, on occasion, bypass the factory manager
to ascertain the causes of the difficulty.

It also supports the factory in procurement. If items cannot be
arranged from within the jurisdiction of the Sovnarkhoz, then it seeks
out the more distant sources. (The plant director may also do so in
practice.) As an antidote to "localism", there is the rule that such
distant requests must be accorded priority.

At the bottom of the whole pyramid is the plant or factory. However,
it is far more important than its position on the ladder might suggest,
If the plant is very large, it will have proportionately great influence on
the Sovnarkhoz (this was sometimes denied) in the shaping of its own plan.
But most important, it is at plant level where resources are combined and
where -- no less than under capitalism -- performance, including efficiency,
can be most readily measured. Accordingly, the factory director has a
clearer responsibility for results than anyone else. Directors feel this

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and, as a result, are keenly interested in insuring their own supply of
labor, raw materials, and equipment. (This may extend to some
precautionary hoarding.) Certainly no successful director is content
to leave such matters to the Sovnarkhoz or other higher authority.

Related to this whole apparatus and concerning itself with all
aspects of performance is the Party. How much its role is educational
and hortatory and how much operational and administrative, i.e., how
much it intervenes to identify and correct sloppy performance or to
finger incompetent managers or planners, is not clear to me. But
certainly it is pervasive and important and a vital factor in making
the system work.

Now as to the price and incentive mechanism. Except for special-
order products and the produce (a very considerable volume) which farmers
market from their own plots, prices are determined at the Sovnarkhoz or
above. They are calculated on the costs of an efficient firm with
provision for a "planned" profit. The latter for many firms seems to be
around eight or ten per cent. In items such as machine tools, we were
told that U.S. price lists are studied as a guide.

Pricing, as a broad principle, is on the basis of uniform delivered
prices -- uniform either for the Union as a whole or by broad geographical
belts. In consumers' goods, in addition to the profit, a sales tax (the
turnover tax) is inserted between the producer's price and the retail
price. This can be very high for luxuries and is the reason for the very
great spread between prices of everyday requirements and such luxuries.

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The definition of a luxury is broad. In Tblisi I saw a pair of men's oxfords which were $42.00 at the favorable tourist rate. Bread prices by contrast are close to those in the United States.

The system makes much use of non-monetary incentive -- honor, prestige, medals, congratulation and glorification. (Every plant has a bulletin board displaying the faces of its best workers and the super-performers are often celebrated in the manner of a United States war memorial on a plaque in town.) The effect of this, given the value system and education, may not be negligible. However, the system also makes extensive and rational use of pecuniary incentives. These are several: Plant directors are paid a salary plus a bonus based on the efficiency, i.e., profits of their operation. Workers are almost entirely on piece rates. They get the standard rate per unit of output for their standard production, or norm, and more for more, the rate being related to the amount of over-fulfillment - 100 per cent of the standard rate for producing "the norm", one per cent or more additional for each additional one per cent. There are also group incentives. Teams get special rewards for special performance. More important, perhaps, is the profit-sharing. The planned profit, less some deduction, goes to the State, but a large share of the excess remains at the disposal of the firm. This goes for welfare services and particularly for housing.

In Russia, as in the United States, it is possible to imagine that the incentive effect of shared profit in the form of cash is not high. But to pay off extra performance in housing, which is extremely scarce and much

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wanted might have a considerable effect.

Finally there is the incentive role of the plant education and
training schemes. These are taken very seriously by both management
and workers. A good worker can raise his skill and productivity and
is rewarded by higher pay and status for doing so. (Either in the
plant school or through what seem to be very effective correspondence
courses, he can do engineering or scientific work to whatever level
he is capable.) The effect of these schemes on the quality and output
of the working force must be considerable.

Pecuniary incentives are not very effective if consumer goods
are scarce -- if there is little to buy with the money. This, no doubt,
has been a weakness in the past. However, the supply of consumer
products, if not opulent, is now increasing, and the quality is also
improving. Russian workers are certainly not stimulated by as wide a
range of products as the American worker, but the supply is considerable,
and one imagines that the marginal utility of money is fairly high.

From the profits of its enterprises, from taxes, including the
turnover tax (this accounts for perhaps 50 per cent of all state
revenues), and from the voluntary savings, the state supplies itself
with the wherewithal for investment. The amount and distribution of
investment is given by the Plan. The amount of savings can be readily
controlled by changes in the turnover tax or by increasing (or not
lowering) prices and thus regulating the level of profits. It follows
that the rate of growth in the economy is under fairly complete control.

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This is a formidable thing to have predetermined.

Enterprises, as a matter of high doctrine, do not pay interest on
funds that they borrow for investment; but, increasingly, a back-hand rate
of interest -- the calculated pay-out period which relates return to the
cost of the asset -- is used in calculating the relative advantages of
different types of investment. However, the rate of return is only one
criterion in assigning investment priorities.

To the organization, pay and the incentive systems outlined above,
agriculture is, of course, a considerable exception. There can be no
question that both the social and technical resistances to socialist
planning are greatest in this industry. This is indicated by the survival
of private plots and private trading. These remain, though somewhat
perilously, even on the state farms. The collective continues to represent
an intimate combination of traditional and capitalistic structure with
central guidance and control. A large amount of product still comes from
the private plots. The collective is, of course, a system for sharing the
residual return after payment of costs and provision for investment. No
one can be as impressed by the effectiveness of the agricultural as by the
industrial planning.

Now let me venture a few more general observations on the weaknesses
and strengths of the economy. It seems plain that Soviet planning after
a long period of trial and error has now conquered most of its most
difficult problems. Apart from the special case of agriculture, there are
still many specific faults. Price relatives are often wrong -- some prices

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are too high and some too low. This distorts the incentive structure -- in some industries, profits come too easy, and in others too hard. There is almost certainly some hoarding of labor and materials -- in this economy, procurement, not salesmanship, is the critical function, and hoarding protects against procurement failures. The problem of quality, especially in consumers' goods, is still serious. There may be considerable bureaucratic conservatism as regards innovation in production processes. (I would guess that there is a good scientific organization for innovation in production methods, but less pressure than in the United States to use the results.) In serving consumer taste, there is almost no innovation. This is handled by copying United States or Western European products, often down to container and even label.

Such are the shortcomings. But they do not add up to failure as some observers too readily conclude. Nor may they be terribly serious. In respect to total performance, they are details.

In total performance, the Soviet economy has several great and undeniable advantages which it is idle to minimize. From a technical economic view -- I am not concerned here with the liberties of the subject or the ethics of the system -- these are:

(1) Assuming growth to be a goal, there is a profound advantage in the planning of total saving and investment. There can be no serious doubt of the ability of the U.S.S.R. to sustain a perfectly predictable rate of growth. With time, the rate will both increase and require less deprivation. Indeed, at present it is sustaining a rate of expansion several

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times our own and also an improving standard of living. As our economy
is organized, we must expect irregular growth -- more in boom, less in
recession -- and we still have to choose between rate of growth and
inflation.

(2) The Soviet Union can allocate its investment more efficiently
than do we. After a certain point in economic evolution, and as a
function of rising affluence, the chief allocative question is not the
claims of different forms of physical investment. This is a problem
that exists largely to occupy the minds of the defenders of faith and
the intellectually static. All really urgent claims are covered, and
hence the price of error will not be great. The profound problem is
allocation between physical investment and personal investment -- between
material capital and training, education, health, and nutrition. In our
system, the latter investment, being in the public domain, requires a
constant struggle. It is almost certainly starved. For the Soviets,
starting as they do with all resources under public contract, there is
no problem. The result is tangibly evident in the technical quality of
the schools, workers' training, scientific research institutes and health
services, and, for different reasons, in the high standards of public
consumption. The high investment in education and research will also,
no doubt, soon overcome the lags in innovation.

(3) I would sense, for what it may be worth, that the costs of
bureaucratic rigidity and centralism in the Soviet system, including the
costs of procurement and materials allocation are probably less than the

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effervescent appurtenances of the modern capitalist market. (This is the critical comparison: The waste, lost motion and stifling tendencies of bureaucracy versus the waste and lost motion of the market.) The Soviet system has no advertising managers, no salesmen, no uncontrolled multiplication of retail outlets and service stations, no billboard painters, and no Madison Avenue. Perhaps some of these will become necessary as the standard of living rises. For the moment, the economy of resources and the resulting ability to concentrate on investment and growth must be enormous.

(4) The Soviets make fuller use of their manpower than do we. There is indeed no unemployment. Women are far more effectively used. There is considerable offset in labor hoarding and unnecessary labor intensive processes, especially in agriculture; but the net advantage, actual and potential, would seem to be great.

These are large advantages. Against them I would imagine that our industry, some exceptions like steel apart, has still a higher technical dynamic. And on two matters we have an overwhelming advantage. We have vast innovating powers in consumers' goods development and design. The Soviet Union has almost none. As I have noted, everything in the stores follows a United States or European model -- usually even to the package and label. The difference here goes to fundamentals. Our system seeks ardently to devise new ways of satisfying old wants and to develop new ones. The machinery for doing this is highly developed. (In part, it is the "effervescent appurtenances" mentioned above.) The Soviet system

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does not include machinery for this purpose. So, save in its public
consumption, it accepts the demonstration effect of the United States
and Western Europe.

Our second advantage is in the multitude of minor services which
spring up spontaneously in response to need. The absence of these
conveniences -- from dry cleaning to shoe-shining and diaper services
-- is noticeable to the visitor and would be even more evident to
anyone living here. Even shopping must on occasion be a trying ordeal
for Soviet women. The accommodation of services to consumer convenience
probably lends itself badly to socialist planning. It is interesting
that the Seven Year Plan promises improvement in this area.

We should notice that our advantages are in the realm of comfort
and convenience. The Soviet advantages are in the area of growth and
determined concentration of resources and energies on the predetermined
goals. Ours clearly is the more compatible and convenient economic
society. It is unfortunate that convenience and effectiveness may not
coincide.

## Later, May 24

The journey from Tbilisi to Kiev, with several intermediate stops,
was uneventful and very long. We left around nine and arrived at five.
The early weather was cloudy, and there was little to see. Kiev, certainly
one of the more beautiful of the Soviet cities, looked bright and almost
stately in the late afternoon sun, and the streets were filled with

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strollers. We are housed on the fourth floor of a nice old hotel, and
the elevator has a semi-permanent sign saying, "Temporarily Defunct".

We got last minute tickets for *Swan Lake* performed by the local
ballet company. I, at least, thought it very graceful and good.

## May 25 -- Kiev

This was a comparatively uninspired day. While appointments were
being arranged, we went sightseeing. Kiev is indeed pleasant. The
streets are full of trees and there are nice views of the Dnieper. Many
pre-war buildings survive, and the best of the new ones are less than
bad. Some decoration relieves the otherwise severe facades but without
the usual bric-a-brac effect. Vines and greenery have been worked into
the balconies with interesting effect.

We looked at St. Sophia, an unbeautifull curiosity, which was little
damaged during the war but badly afflicted by a restorative coat of
plaster which now covers the entire exterior. Then we visited an old
monastery (still functioning) which was badly damaged by the Germans,
and on to various government and party buildings. Some of the latter
are of an earlier period and prove that taste is improving. This
afternoon we went to the Exhibition of Ukrainian Agriculture and Industry.
This is a smaller edition of the huge exhibition (both are permanent)
in Moscow, which was temporarily closed at the time of our visit. Some
eight or ten buildings give an instructive display of Ukrainian products
of agricultural and industrial processes, often with full-size machines.

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In many buildings, chairs are arranged as in a classroom, so children
can sit to be instructed. A recorded commentary in BBC English is
available for the enduring. The architecture is hideous.

Later we looked at the shops, including the largest department
store. The latter had a fair stock -- less good than GUM -- and there
was a remarkable throng of buyers at every counter.

We have a charming guide here -- tall, well-groomed and a trifle
opulent with a good sense of humor and firm control of her customers.
One Party building she described as "not our best architecture but
anyhow big." She expressed discreet but passionate interest in any
English novels we might have finished. She remembered Marshall McDuffie
from U.N.R.R.A. days and also, with gratitude, the U.N.R.R.A. food.

May 27 -- Kiev, Leningrad

In the morning yesterday we had a long session at the Economic
Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Science. Our hosts were all
closely associated with planning activities and were friendly, informal,
precise and helpful. We talked mostly of planning procedures and much
of what I learned I have added to my comment on the economy.

At the XXI Party Congress, Khrushchev laid down the broad policy,
in the interests of economy, of expanding old plants rather than creating
new ones. They see this as an important change with particular importance
for an old industrial area like the Ukraine where there are so many
functioning enterprises. It was once Soviet doctrine that big plants

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are often inefficient. This view is no longer held. The optimum can
be very large.

Agricultural units are also becoming larger as indicated. In
1947, there were 27,000 collectives in the Ukraine. Now there are
11,000 and at the end of the Seven Year Plan, there will be 10,000.
The collective, in their view, will not disappear. It was blessed in
its early form by Lenin. Though an inferior socialist form to the state
farm, it will continue and evolve into something more closely resembling
a state farm. One cannot yet be precise.

The flow of workers from farms to cities continues in the Ukraine
but at a diminishing rate. Although figures are not published, our
hosts believe that real farm income, exceptional cases apart, is still
below urban incomes. We discussed the question: Which had the strongest
position in competition with the United States, industry or agriculture?
I believe there was tacit agreement with my argument that our agriculture
is the most formidably ahead. Questions to us covered the recession, farm
supports, movements in farm population and steel investment prospects. A
collection of my books and articles had been assembled from the library
for the occasion. It even included a short, recent piece in the *Economic
Journal* dealing affectionately and generously with a misguided critic which
I had not seen myself.

In the late afternoon we were the guests for vodka, caviar, wine and
a light dinner, of one of the senior members of the Institute. A former
U.N.R.R.A. staff member and a former high official of the Ministry of

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Foreign Trade, he inquired for numerous American friends -- Herbert Lehman, Roy Hendrickson, the late Andrew Cairnes, Marshall McDuffie, and many others. Most of the talk was of the United States on which he is gathering material for a book. However, he told us of the expansion in petroleum output, especially from the Volga region, and on which they are counting substantially as an export item. (The Volga fields are now more important than Baku which, in fact, is declining.) He expressed much discontent over the restricting of United States-Soviet trade. They recently wanted some pipeline pipe for the new Y line to Eastern Europe to offset a temporary shortage but could not get a license. (This was evidently the license approved by the State Department but disapproved by Lewis Strauss with the approval of the State Department.)

In the evening we saw Ukrainian folk dances at the opera. Very, very good -- colorful, amusing and incredibly energetic. I was vicariously exhausted from such unaccustomed exercise.

## May 28 -- Leningrad

We arrived early yesterday afternoon from Kiev by way of Minsk, but omitting Pinsk. We scarcely had time to glimpse at the canals, churches, palaces, and general majesty of Leningrad before business at the University. This was a meeting of the economists concerned mainly with international relations. It was in the pleasant, rather stately office of the senior professor and, following a fairly usual procedure, we first discussed Russia and then paid off with the United States. The first

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covered the benefits of the new organization and the evils of the old system. I asked if these had been recognized and discussed at the time. The answer was a slightly bruised "no". I have already commented on the contemporary versus the past in Soviet discussion. As another example, at the XXI Party Congress, Khrushchev flatly accused Malenkov of faking the figures on the 1953 grain crops -- exaggerated estimates of the field or "biological" production were used instead of statistics of grain actually harvested. The result was a vast over-estimate. But if anyone had said so at the time, he would certainly have invited uncomplimentary comment.

In response to a direct question, our hosts said that Soviet economists now accepted the fact that depression could be prevented in capitalist countries by Keynesian methods. "It has been done. We do not deny the facts."

My visit to India led to a brief discussion of that country. Our hosts expressed concern over the greater rate of increase in the private as compared with the socialist sector of the Indian economy. All American economists were assumed to have a single-minded enthusiasm for private capitalism in India. We disassociated ourselves from this zeal, but without carrying much conviction. I got the impression -- only that -- that Indian socialism is not taken very seriously.

The questions about the United States were rather sharp. I must say I have yet to find a way of handling questions about unemployment which puts it in perspective, does not condone it, and avoids unseemly

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criticism of the government while at the same time suggesting that any
other one would have done more.

American economists were assumed to stand for uninhibited capitalism
both at home and abroad, a minimum of compassionate or counter-cyclical
intervention by the state, pervasive support of profit wherever it might
lead, the sanctity of undefiled pecuniary motivation, and the reconstruction
of evidence to prove the desirability of the foregoing. In support of
these propositions, they had made a competent study of all of the
ultra-conservative, obscure and absurd American economists. Without
assigning him unfairly to any of these categories, it must be said that
they have made a special favorite of Warren Mutter, a former Chicago and
Yale economist now at Virginia. He has acquired further fame with the
Russians by proving that the Soviet Union has a dubious record of growth.
Mutter for the Russians is great.

In the evening the Moscow circus. The troop of highly talented
bears was interesting -- boxing, bicycle riding, balancing and marvelous
clowning -- as were the clowns -- but the rest would have astounded
neither Barnum nor Bailey.

May 29 -- Leningrad

I began the day yesterday with a walking tour to take pictures.
Unhappily, though it is light nearly all night, it is not reliably light
during the day. There were dark, heavy clouds over the Neva and, the
approach of June notwithstanding, it was overcoat weather.

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Next we went on a motor trip to see more distant points -- the Smolney Cathedral, the Smolney Institute, and the Winter Palace, both of the latter being of much revolutionary fame. We drove down the Neva to the new stadium, looked at the Cruiser Aurora whose shells into the Winter Palace played a decisive role in the October revolution, saw various other palaces -- Potemkin's and Michael's -- and finished up at the Fortress of Peter and Paul. The prison cells have plaques giving the names of the more distinguished boarders, and the interiors are far from cozy. Yet they are not quite as awful as I had imagined. In the cathedral in the middle of the fortress, we surveyed the tombs of the (later) Tsars and the beautiful wood-carved icon stand. Only the tomb of Peter I had flowers. He is counted a progressive.

After lunch we spent a couple of hours at the Institute of Mathematics talking of the application of quantitative and mathematical methods to economics. I was not the most valuable of visitors, but I was struck by the quality of the youthful staff and bright undoctrinaire approach to problems. No one bothered to pay even lip service to the Marxist gods or show concern whether the United States or the U.S.S.R. had priority on this method or that. American books were being unabashedly translated. They told freely of their uses of activity analyses. Linear programming has been applied to such problems as metal economy in pattern cutting. However, use is limited generally by lack of data. A chair in mathematical and quantitative economics is being established in the University next year. The curriculum, as outlined,

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sounded very stiff.

Next we spent two hours at the University talking with the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and with the professors concerned with planning. This discussion also figures in my general comment on the economy. Reynolds and I tried, more or less unsuccessfully, to get at the economic hierarchy of Soviet life. Generally speaking a man of distinction appears to think of moving up from factory director to top position in the Sovnarkhoz, to Gosplan Republic and Gosplan U.S.S.R. But this is far from definite, and good men may continue at any level. Some have a positive preference for factory management. I also pressed as to whether the students taking up economic careers were as good as those in science or other fields. The answer was not clear, but it is my strong impression that they are not so regarded.

In the evening we went to the ballet at the opera -- a large number of small selections and very interesting. The theatre is only slightly less grand than the Moscow Bolshoi. The crowd as usual was large and, compared with Kiev, was well-dressed. All men wore ties, and the girdle is having an unmistakable impact under conditions of considerable need. Perhaps one woman in ten is so restrained. A number of the women were elegant.

Our guide yesterday -- a chic and amusing little girl -- was telling of her professional experiences. Last week a woman said, "Do tell me about your revolution. I know it was six or seven years ago, but I have been so busy with my husband and my house that I haven't

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really followed it." Another visitor asked: "This Pushkin. Did he come before or after Stalin?" She asked (such is the story), "Do you mean Pushkin I or Pushkin II?"

## May 30 -- Leningrad, Helsinki

So much for my month under Communist management. My colleagues are off to Moscow and Tashkent and I to Finland.

Though it was still overcoat weather, the sun came out yesterday for a spell. In the morning, we explored the Winter Palace and the Hermitage collections. Both are fine. The great state rooms of the Palace, which look out on the Neva are luxurious in white marble and endless intricately inlaid floors, but on the whole are stately and even graceful. The French impressionists -- Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, Monet, and Van Gogh -- are wholly up to their billing. They are on the third floor in one of the less favored but most frequented parts of the museum. A good many people evidently think that the prejudice against this art and the insistence on social realism is dying out. It is said that there will soon be an exhibition of the Russian impressionists -- which are still in storage though accessible to visitors and students. Our guide, who studied art, has seen them many times.

Next we went to Peterhof -- Peter the Great's Versailles on the Baltic, about forty-five minutes from Leningrad. It was terribly damaged by the Germans but is being restored. The gardens and fountains

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are now nearly back to normal. One fountain sprays the visitor who sits on a bench. Another on the edge of a mushroom surrounds him with a wall of water. The outside of the Palace has been rebuilt. The interior is still unfinished and the furnishings are gone.

In the afternoon we were to have a session with the economists of the Leningrad Institute of Finance on bolshevik banking. At the last minute, Reynolds and I were both assailed by a strong desire not to go. I have a cold and was suddenly appalled by the need to get into a new subject. I am overstuffed from trying to absorb so much in so little time. Reynolds being in a similar situation, we tossed a coin. He lost, and with his characteristic and utterly unfailing good humor, went off to the meeting. I bought some books and while looking over a collection of pamphlets, accidentally referred to them as propaganda. I quickly changed the word to "educational materials". The woman behind the counter said, "I heard you correct yourself. You needn't bother. This is pure propaganda."

Later I called at the student dormitory of the University to invite the American students for tea. They live in large but somewhat crowded rooms at the top of the dormitory. I left word with a large and amiable young Russian who rooms with two Americans. He said they were very satisfactory roommates. The dormitory halls were filled with men and women students, and my pretty guide was interested when I told her that at Harvard, we segregated the sexes. She could see no point to it.

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Two students got my message and joined me in the evening. They felt the work substantial and good and are treated, they believe, as any other foreign students. They work harder than the Russian students but far less hard than the Chinese. (The Chinese are regarded here also as terrible norm-busters.) They believe the atmosphere in Leningrad to be freer than in Moscow, and they are conscious of no surveillance. Some of the other Americans imagine they are watched. In the view of my visitors, this is largely self-dramatization. The students do not wish to spend a year in a police state without some of the heroics. They think some of the reports on risks and adventures, real or imagined, which will be made when these heroes return may be damaging to the prospect for future exchanges.

This morning I spent another couple of hours at the Hermitage and then left for the plane. The outgoing currency and baggage inspection was casual, even perfunctory, but an officer climbed on the plane for a second passport check after we were seated. The clouds are gone, and we are approaching Helsinki. The water is bright blue, and the sky in the distance is an odd pink pastel shade.