The Challenge of Foreign Policy; 3; What are the Russian People Like? How Do They Live?

This is National Educational Television, a program produced for the Educational Television and Radio Center. The University of Michigan presents Challenge of Foreign Policy, an exploration of vital questions in America's relations with other countries. Today's subject, Russia, how strong are her industry and agriculture? And here is your moderator for this series, George A. Pete Jr., Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. Last week, in the first program on our series, we considered the problem of the stability of Russia's political leadership and the strength of her military power. Today, we wish to talk about Russian industry and agriculture. Many of you may recall that the fall of Malenkov brought about changes in Russian policy.

The new leadership in the Kremlin shifted its emphasis and direction of the Soviet economy. The purpose of this shift was to strengthen heavy industry and agriculture to aspects of Russian Soviet economy that are of great concern to the United States. To suggest these problems of industry and agriculture, we have two pictures here. The first is a farm near Leningrad, and the second, are the oil fields at Baku. First that will be helpful to see just what this change is all about. We have with us, to talk about these important subjects, Mr. Harrison Salisbury, correspondent for the New York Times and author of the book, American in Russia. Mr. Salisbury spent five years in the Soviet Union. Mr. Salisbury, what is this shift in Soviet economy all about?

Well as you know, the Soviet Union for many years has had emphasized its heavy industry. They have been trying to industrialize the country. At the same time, they have been building up their agriculture almost slowly. With the death of Stalin, there came a certain slight shift and emphasis on consumers' goods, things for the people, a slight shift away from heavy industry. Now, they seem to be shifting back to the more traditional pattern, the emphasis on heavy industry. Thank you. And now to join us in considering this question of industrial and agricultural strength in Soviet Union, we have Mr. George Kish, professor of geography at the University of Michigan. Mr. Kish, what do you think about this matter of Soviet industrial expansion and the shift in the Soviet economy? I think it might be interesting, perhaps, to have a look at Soviet industrial expansion as it compares with growth of industry and the economy in general in the Soviet Union

and Western Europe and the United States. Mr. Salisbury, what would you say would be a good comparison between the growth of the USSR in this field of agriculture and industry in particular, and that of the nations of Western Europe and the United States? Well, I think the rate of growth in Soviet industry is a head of that either in the United States or in Western Europe. For example, a steel industry, which I think is the key to the industrialization of a country, is growing very rapidly in the Soviet Union. It's always has been emphasized, it was emphasized under Stalin. For example, in the last five years, in the years that I was in the Soviet Union, Soviet steel production practically doubled. They went up from about 22,500,000 to 45 million tons a year. It's a good, healthy steel production. It's only about half of ours, but it is increasing at a rate, which would indicate that they

will exceed Europe's steel production, I should think, in relatively few years. Another factor, which is even more important, is the fact that this steel production is in the country, which is still essentially on a wood economy. As a matter of fact, Mr. Salisbury, if I recall correctly, from the United Nations survey of Europe, it was found out that the basic production in Western Europe and Great Britain would be matched by the Soviet Union in approximately 1965. Now, this has tremendous political consequences, indeed, it seems, that the kilowatt-hours of power and steel in France and Russia equal, then this has political consequences for the French Communist Party, for example. It has, it has all over the world this increase in basic industry, steel, coal, hydroelectric power. Those are the things that Russia has emphasized.

Of course, the reason the rate of Russian growth, I suppose, Mr. Kish is faster now, isn't it? Because they've started from a much lower base than we have in the United States. Back in 1913, on the eve of the First World War, Russia would have compared very poorly with any country in Western Europe and certainly with the United States and the great industrial development, particularly on a heavy industry, to be dated almost entirely from 1927, or thereabouts, when they began their series of great five-year plans of industrial expansion. One of the things which isn't generally known in this country is that while our coal production, for example, has been going down each year as we've shifted more over to oil and things like that, Russia's coal production continues to expand to the point that within another year or two Russia may exceed the United States in coal production, may become the number one coal producer in the world. Isn't it also true, Mr. Kish, that recent oil deposits have been discovered in Russia to indicate that there may be quite a bit of potential there in oil or is that not so?

The problem of Russian oil is very controversial. The oil deposits size and extent is subject to quite a bit of discussion, but as Mr. Salisbury pointed out in regard to steel that Russia's steel production is devoted to whatever purpose the Russian regime wants to use it. In the same manner, Russia does not have the tremendous number of trucks, personal automobiles and so forth, which use oil, that homes are not heated with oil, so whatever the oil production is, which is already rather substantial. Most of it can be devoted, let us say, to propelling war vehicles, tanks, armored cars and of course aircraft. That's a great deal. It's true in a totalitarian system, since it wouldn't have to listen to the amount of public opinion in terms of consumer goods, that's what you mean. Yes. At the present time they actually have a surplus of oil and gasoline over their own domestic needs, which they're exporting.

They're making certain European countries close to their borders, become dependent on them, Finland, for example, gets the bulk of her petroleum supplies now from the Soviet Union. A Soviet oil is going into the Middle East, the Israelis, for example, are buying oil from Russia. Are they also exporting in a steel product of heavy industry? Yes, they've gone into that. Now again, I think that steel in export follows policy, because these steel exports that they seem to be trying to encourage are to India and the countries of Asia, places where they may expect to win a certain amount of political support by providing steel. The Russians, for example, at the present time, I believe, have signed a contract to build a new steel mill for the Indians. For General, let's pause here a minute and look at a few examples of Russian activity on the industrial front. The film that you are about to see shows three stages of hydroelectric development. A further point that indicates the extent of Russian activity is that these three developments

take place in three different parts of the Soviet Union, Leningrad, the Nipur River, and Kwebishel on the Volga. Mr. Salisbury, I wonder if you would point out these three areas to us before we stop the film. Well, here is Leningrad. This is the Nipur River, and the big part of element is about at this point. This is the Volga here, and Kwebishel would be about in here at the great bend of the Volga. Thank you. Now let's look at the film. This blasting locked the beginning of excavation for the new power plant at Kwebishel, which will be the largest in the world. In many ways, the activity looks like any similar job in the United States.

But note the red star, and note the coal climate. We'll come to that later in connection with agriculture. And here is another phase of construction that leads to industrial power. This town was created especially for builders of a dam on the Nipur River. These men are serving the critters on supports for the dam. Under the direction of a worker who Mr. Kish tells me comes from Asiatic Russia. While others do the surveying that goes with any such extensive building project, are the welding, are the strengthening of concrete, tasks that will eventually result in a plant

to provide Russia with a new source of industrial strength. And here a third stage in the creation of power, the rotor for a giant hydroelectric turbine, the world's largest being completed at a factory and then engraved. The axis for the rotor and drilling the shaft. Just the hub of the rotor weighs 82 tons, so it takes a huge water wheel to turn the rotor and vent the force of water into electricity. These pictures give us an indication of at least one phase of Russia's industrial growth. Mr. Kish, what interests me is how do you know that man?

That's an Asiatic Russian. Well, two things would indicate it very definitely, one, the shape and slant of the eyes and two, the prominent cheekbones and I think it's also interesting because it's indicative of another great change that has come about in Russia in the last 40 years. And that is the extent to which non-Russian people living within the USSR participate in all phases of the industrial growth of a country which before that has relied almost entirely on people who were Russians. Does this industry that we saw, Mr. Somsberg, extend to all parts of the Soviet Union, how is it confined just to the area of Western Russia? Well, industrialization is going on throughout the Soviet Union and as a matter of fact, these hydroelectric developments of which we've seen just mirror shots of a couple are going on all over Russia, some of them far out in the Far East, in some cases quite clearly these hydroelectric developments are associated with the development of nuclear power and atomic

plants of one sort and another. However, there is another association that these hydroelectric developments have which is very important. The Quibishav development that we've seen in these films is primarily a power project. It will send most of its power into the huge Moscow grid. It will feed the industries of Moscow and the Upper Volga River. However, the one that we saw down the NEPER has another purpose. It has the purpose of providing power and also of water for irrigation and there we come to the link between electrification, industry and agriculture, a highly important link in the Soviet Union where agriculture really is a number one problem. They need more land for agriculture, more good land, they need bigger crops. The Soviet population, as you may know, is increasing every year at the rate of nearly 4 million people, 4 million new mouths to feed.

Their farms, however, are not turning out more food at anything like that rate. For example, their grain production is only a little bit higher than it was back in 1937 or 38 when the population of the Soviet Union was, what do you say Mr. Kish, maybe 20 million less than it is today. It was considerably less than 200 million whereas today it is about 210, is it something like that? Something like that. Their livestock are in even more shocking state. There are fewer cattle and hogs on Soviet farms today than they were in 1916 the year before the Bolshevik Revolution. It doesn't take much arithmetic to see that they have a great food crisis. Today, they have enough food to feed their people, but tomorrow or the year after that or any year when there is a drought or a famine, there will be a major crisis. What's the problem in the amount of food production? What's the critical area?

I can understand why in 1916 there were many cattle as they are now, there must be some cheek in the arm or somewhere. So there are probably two principle points to bear in mind. One is the very great loss of livestock, cattle horses, pigs and so forth, which were slaughtered by Russian farmers in the late 20s and early 30s, and the great drive was on for the collectivization of Soviet agriculture. That was the first difficulty. The second one was the damage of war, the second world war which has damaged food stocks and has actually taken quite a toll in livestock. This probably explains why the most recent development emphasized since about two months ago has been the emphasis of the Soviet leadership on the expansion of Soviet food production in the field of animal foods at all cost. And several of the top leaders of the Kremlin have come out with the rather startling statement that the crop of the future for Russia has to be corn, I don't understand, agro corn.

Well their first and foremost reason for that was that, though they did not say it in so many words, that corn as being used for fodder is the secret of success of American agriculture. Therefore, the thing to do is to produce large amounts of corn which will inevitably lead to large number of pigs, even larger numbers of poultry, and the healthy herd of beef and dairy cattle. The question is, can you grow corn in such quantities on Soviet territory? It's a big question Mr. Kish, I don't know that I mentioned this to you, but I tried to go corn in the Soviet Union myself. I had a little cottage outside of Moscow and one summer I tried to grow some American corn there. Well it was a pretty sorry experiment, the end of the summer came too quickly. The climate was just too short for growing corn. To go and corn for Mr. Salvesbury to eat. Where I was. I wasn't going to fatten any hogs.

Now if you look at this map, which at first will strike you somewhat odd because the United States is put at an odd angle, but that is to show one critical point about Soviet geography, and that is that a very large part of the Soviet Union, including most of the great cities, and a substantial part of the good agricultural land lies far north of the Canadian American boundary. Therefore, in terms of the length of the growing season, as well as other such essentials as the amount of rainfall, the degree of humidity, and the summer temperatures, it will be quite a task to bring about a substantial increase in corn production which here to work for, has been a very unimportant part of Soviet agriculture. There have been largely a nation of wheat and rye eaters and eating oatmeal in various forms where they are not. Have they been successful at all in this, Mr. Keshe? Mr. Salvesbury, you were then a growing of corn? In the growing of corn.

Well, that has only just been started in 1955, and years before that, they had very extensive programs trying to increase the growing of wheat, and that I would say is still their basic program. They are trying to expand wheat into Siberia. But this corn thing has been added this last year, and it is an open question in my mind whether they are going to succeed. It is a long ways north to grow corn in the Soviet Union. Well, let's keep these points in mind, then, gentlemen, when we consider Russian efforts to improve agriculture. One way to increase production, of course, is to increase the mechanization of agricultural equipment, and this, the Soviet Union, is going all out to do. In this plant in Rostov, we can see the mass production of farm machinery. These new combines will step up the temper of harvesting, and bring food to the people

more quickly. The problem, of course, is seeing to it their sufficient grain to be harvested. And here we see a new machine being forged, and lured, and bolted. A kind of wedge, a clearing wave brush, and trees, for one of the primary aims of Russian leaders, is to open up large areas of unproductive land so that more acreage will be available for planning. What about the picture, Mr. Salisbury? Do you think this is going to solve the problem of Russian agriculture? Well, honestly, I don't think it's going to solve the problem. They're trying to put under the plow this year, and last year, something like 35 million acres out in Siberia and in northern Kazakhstan.

It sounds like a lot. It is a lot. It's taking, well, they've sent out to those areas, perhaps 200,000 people, young people, mostly, from the big cities of Russia. They're plowing up these stepped lands, as they call them. We would call them prairie lands. I think we'd call, we have an area, as a matter of fact, it's very similar to most of these regions, an area in the United States that we plowed up once. We got some crops off of it for a while, too. Then it turned into something else. It's the dust bowl of Oklahoma. That is the kind of land, for the most part, that the Russians are trying to clear and plow and put under grain at the present time. It's grazing land. It's perhaps good land for grazing, but not too good even there. It's arid land. There's a minimum amount of water out in those areas. I don't think they'll solve their problem by growing grain on those lands if they're lucky. They may get a good crop in a given year, because you can always get one or two or maybe three good crops off those, that kind of land. Then comes the year when it doesn't rain.

The whole county blows away, and the sky turns black with the dust of your land blowing away. Then where are you if you're dependent on those lands? I don't see them solving a problem. What sort of method of organization do they use in this type of farming? Well, there you have. You're getting pretty close to the core of the Russian agricultural problem, because I think it centers around what is called the collective farm. We've mentioned that term here today, a collective farm. What is it? In theory, it's a cooperative effort in which all the farmers work together. They plow their fields together. They till the soil, and then they divide up the profits, giving the state a percentage of it, and keeping the rent. The trouble with that system has been over the years that the state has gotten a lion's share of the grain. The farmers haven't gotten enough. The farmers in Russia are peasants, and I think everybody world around knows peasants. They peasants are stubborn people. They don't want to do something that you can't make them do it.

Now they've tried all kinds of things with the Russian peasants to make them work in this collective system. The Russian peasant doesn't mind working collectively, he's used to doing that by tradition, but he doesn't like to work collectively, and then see the government take all the grain. I don't want him. The government owns the land. The peasant doesn't own any of his own land. He doesn't own the land himself, although he has an inalienable right, or virtually inalienable right, to his little peasant hut and a small plot of personal land that he can tell for himself. The land is held in common by the collective farm, but it belongs to the government. He doesn't have his own land. He was promised originally, at the time of the revolution, he was promised land. The great slogan of the revolution was, a bread, land, and peas. He got, I don't think he got very much peas. He certainly didn't get very much bread, and he didn't get any land. So the promises were fraudulent in part. All they didn't turn out, the way he expected in the turn out.

What about the amount of rainfall in these areas? Suppose you have famine in one of these areas, do the Soviets take care of that? I think Mr. Salisbury's parallel was a very good one, where there is the first great limitation which is limitation of rainfall. And there is a second one, which was, I think, intimated by our map, which we had seen earlier. And that is that Russia is a northern country, so that expanding territory, which is under cultivation further, runs into not only the difficulty of possible lack of rainfall, but the difficulty of cold. In a very large part of Russian territory, actually something like a half of Siberia, has its soil permanently frozen, something that we encounter in Alaska. But a very large part of Russian territory in the east, that is in Asia, northern Asia is of that kind, there any attempt to use it for agriculture is hopeless. So that between the northern limit, which is the limit of cold and low temperatures,

and a southern and eastern limit, which is the limit of rainfall, the possibilities of Soviet expansion are very severely limited and limited in the long range. Like we did in the west, they can make a quick expansion, but nature will catch up. What does this mean for policy alternatives for the United States foreign policy? This expansion of Soviet industry and the problem of Soviet agriculture. How would you put it, Mr. Sofberg? Well, the industry, the industrial part is very, very important, because Russia has become the second industrial power of the world. That has great military significance. It has great scientific significance. We know what she's done with her technology. We know how she's developed her nuclear forces. That is very, very important, as far as our policy is concerned. We must remember that Russia has enormous capabilities. So far as agriculture is concerned, I don't know, but what we might almost call at the Achilles heel of this great giant, because until they can make their agricultural

system work, until they can produce enough food for their people and be sure of producing that food for their people, they always have a limitation on their own possibilities for action. And always this spectre, which must hunt them, of the year when the crops fail. The chink in the arm of the Soviet Union is agriculture. I think we have production of corn, you say, production of corn, production of food generally speaking. Both the corn, grain, and livestock, all of those things, they represent a chink, certainly a chink in the Soviet army. And the strength of the Soviet economy, at least at present time, seems to lie in the tremendous boost of heavy industry, steel, oil, coal, kilowatt-hours, and things of that sort. That's right. But how long can you go on developing your industry, unless you have constantly growing supplies of food to feed your workers? How long can you continue to draft peasants from the farms into the mills, and without the food to feed them?

That's what the roars of Russia are up against today. And that's why the amount of collected farming is so important, because it really hasn't worked out, hasn't mystification. There is no incentive for the collective farmer, and as long as there is no incentive, he will never put his entire effort into the work. Well, gentlemen, I can sum up. What you are saying in effect, then, is that the Soviet economy is very powerful in terms of industrial production, in terms of production of steel, in terms of production of kilowatt-hours, in terms of production of oil, and of coal, and that it's rate of growth is greater than that of the United States, although it does start by law-based. And you're also saying that it's going to match in heavy industry, the output of Western Europe by about 1965. On the other hand, the Achilles heel of the Soviet economy is agriculture. The collective farming simply has not worked because the peasant does not have the incentive to work, collective farming has not been effective.

And if we look for the Achilles heel, it will be in Russian agriculture. If I can return to the question now of the prairie farming in the Soviet Union, you say if they continue to plow these fields up, that they will be another dust bowl, I believe. You have just heard the second of three programs on the relations between the United States and Russia, with Mr. Harrison Salisbury, author of American In-Russia, and correspondent for the New York Times as special guest. Joining him in today's discussion were professors George A. Peak Jr. and George Kish of the faculty of the University of Michigan. Be with us again next week, when Mr. Salisbury will again be our guest. The subject? What are the Russian people like? How do the Russian people live? Program number three in the series, Challenge of Foreign Policy. This program was produced in the television studios

of the University of Michigan. This is Don Hall speaking. The preceding program was produced for the Educational Television and Radio Center. This is National Educational Television. Thank you.