RUSSIA: Sounding the Retreat

If there is one rhythm Russia's 200 millions are well used to, it is the succession of five-year plans. Last week Radio Moscow broke the rhythm by announcing the abrupt scrapping of the current five-year plan (1956-60) before it had even reached the halfway mark. In its stead there is to be a seven-year plan running from 1959-65. Radio Moscow tried its best to make this sound like progress: "Large new deposits of various raw materials and sources of power have been discovered in recent years," and thus "there are possibilities for creating new enterprises and industrial centers not...