Environment: Communist Pollution

U.S. industry is often painted as the chief villain by conservationists, but pollution is hardly unique to capitalist nations. It is often worse in Communist countries, where technocrats toil to boost industrial production with little thought to environmental consequences.

In Russia, a huge chemical plant was built right beside a beloved tourist attraction: Yasnaya Polyana, Leo Tolstoy's gracious country estate. Unmonitored fumes are poisoning Tolstoy's forests of oak and pine, and powerless conservationists can only wince. With equal indifference, the Soviet pulp and paper industry has settled on the shores of Lake Baikal....