RUSSIA: On Schedule

Burly, sulky Nikolai Alexeevich Voznesensky is a Politburo bigwig and the Soviet Union's chief planner. Fifteen months ago, in a book called War Economy of the U.S.S.R. in the Period of the War of Liberation, he laid down the Soviet Union's postwar industrial program. Then he explained why the program had to be so big.

Wrote Voznesensky: "Having fattened itself on the people's blood in the Second World War, monopolistic capitalism in the United States of America is now at the head of the imperialist... expansion of the world . . . [This] is directed toward unleashing a new war as a means of winning world supremacy . . . We must keep our powder dry . . . Only an armed people equipped with strong productive capacity can prevent it."

Voznesensky's book was more than mere fear mongering. It was also a statistical statement of the Soviet war potential. From it, after months of painstaking analysis, the U.S. House Select Committee on Foreign Aid (Herter Committee) last week drew some important conclusions. The highlights:

¶ The Soviet Union's overall Industrial capacity is now about equal to its 1940 level, but its ability to produce war goods is about 2½ times greater than in 1940.

¶ Soviet expenditures on war material were 51% greater in 1947 than in 1940, when war was imminent.

¶ Soviet capacity is still only about one-fourth that of the U.S., but this is offset, "in terms of European power politics, by the fact that the U.S. requires tremendous amounts of shipping . . . to supply Europe, whereas the Soviet Union is there on the spot."

Concluded the committee, in careful officialese: "It would appear incorrect to argue that the Soviet Union . . . is not now strong enough to undertake substantial military operations should the need arise." In other words, Voznesensky's program was roughly on schedule.