Background For War: How Strong Is Russia?

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The Russian economy's shortages, especially in steel and transport, are not necessarily as serious as comparable shortages would be in the U.S. One factor beyond statistics — and possibly more important — is Russia's ability to turn all its resources relentlessly to war needs. An example of this ability is the Russian munitions output in 1944. At that time Russia's national income was only 20% of the U.S.'s. Nevertheless Russia's munitions output reached 35 to 40% of U.S. production and Russian production of some weapons was equal to the U.S. output. Despite the abuse inflicted on it, the Russian industrial machine does not seem to break down; in the words of one baffled U.S. economist it "somehow" goes on producing.

U.S. Intelligence analysts have boundless appreciation of the Russians' ability to suffer and carry on — and of the Kremlin's ability to control the country despite shortages and hardships. "The Russian economy is not only flexible," says one Washington expert, "but it is Spartan.

They can make substitutions that we can not conceive of here. There is no one commodity that will cripple Russia by its absence — unless maybe it is munitions, in the simple sense that the Russians have got to have something to throw at our heads. That means steel. Beyond that they can substitute and improvise — and eat nothing but bread for years." The U.S.'s chance to exploit Russian shortages and cripple its war machine is to force Russia to fight the kind of war in which it will have to expend its resources faster than it can replace them. In the absence of such expenditure, strategic bombing of the U.S.S.R. is unlikely to have a decisive effect.

Will They Crack Up?

Can the U.S. reasonably hope that opposition to Russia's Red masters would, in case of war, grow to the point of widespread passive resistance, sabotage or even revolt?