RUSSIA: Down With the Piatiletki

To change horses—the peasant plow horse for the horse of heavy industry—that is the goal. . . of the Five-Year Plan.

—Stalin (1933)

At the beginning of Soviet Russia's climb from a plow-horse to a horsepower economy, the Five-Year Plan, or Piatiletka, was a dramatic slogan as well as an effective method of primitive state planning. But when the sixth Piatiletka arrived last year, the word had lost its power for millions of Russian workers, case-hardened by 30 years of ceaseless urging to achieve ever higher production norms. Last week the Soviet...