European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 11, 1967, Darmstadt, Hesse Stripes sold go Magazine up City on stilts in the Caspian sea is typical of Industrial growth since communists seized Power but per capita output has grown Little since tsar was ousted in revolt. After 5o years of communism by Henry Bradsher a staff writer e this 50th anniversary year of coir nudist Rule the soviets Are proudly presenting to the world their achieve ments. Officials talk about the improved housing situation and the increasing con Sumer goods the rising production of steel and the rising life boast of higher economic growth rates than the West. Achievements Are real. So Are Short comings. The 235.5 million people spread across one sixth of the world land surface Are Only 23rd among nations in Gross National product per capita the amount each Man produces. This is just about where the 159.2 Mil lion people of Tsa Rist Russia stood be fore the the bolshevik revolution half a Century ago families of russian Tex tile workers Liv a in curtained off Cor ners of rooms with other families and urals miners lived in Barracks Low close and they worked 70 hours week. The typical soviet Industrial work Erpf today has a Small apartment of his own in a suburb of apartment House with shops on the ground floors. He works a 41-hour the land of Tolstoy and Chekhov less than a Quarter of the people could read. Almost everyone is now literate although soviet citizens have not Bee allowed to read probably he greatest wednesday october 11, 1967 work of their Era or. beget factories. Great dams close Remote Gorges and electricity hum across the wilderness on spider legs. Whole new cities Are springing up. Rings of new apartment houses their growth years distinguished by different construction styles expand Moscow into the Birch and Pine forests while other cities mushroom with new districts of multistory housing. The Symbol of the country is the construction Crane an the line of people waiting to buy some thing that just came into a store aftera lengthy shortage. The soviet Union today is a vast nation advanced in Many Fields backward in Many others controlled absolutely Bya Small self perpetuating apparatus. Under communism it has grown into up giant rocket powered soviet space achievements. The world s second Industrial Power second too in general Power and importance to the United states. The soviet Union has led the world in successive strides into space. It has impressed the world with strides in Industrial production. It also has dragged along with the most backward agriculture of any Industrial nation feeding its people bread and cabbage and has Given the consumer a tougher time than other economically advanced countries. Man for Man the soviets have mad Little if any Progress in comparative International economic status. With the world s third largest population after underdeveloped China and India the have an impressive looking total nation Al economic picture Industrial productivity is Only about one half the . Rate agriculture the soviet Union today is a vast nation advanced in Many Fields Back Ivard in Many others controlled absolutely by a Small self perpetuating the stars and stripes Al productivity Only one Quarter to one fifth. The soviet consumer gets Only one third As much As an american. Where would the nation be without communism it is a question frequently asked by Western visitors. It is an impossible question. Russia before the revolution was inthe terrible Early stages of industrialization thai England had suffered through Century earlier the United states a Little less painfully a few decades earlier some countries now. England and Amer Ica went on to greater Prosperity than soviet Russia without the terror of Stal no one can say How Russia would have gone without that seizure of power50 years ago by Lenin and Trotsky with out the heedlessly single minded drive of Stalin. The ideology is blended from a faint bit of marxism i practice and abit More in theory leninism selectively applied to fit the moment some Stalin Iii a lot of old fashioned Russia nationalism and perhaps an overriding dose of pragmatism do whatever the circumstances seem to require and later find something in the writings of Marx or Lenin to justify it. It is a mixture called communism but meaning what Ever the men in the Kremlin at the continued on Page 12j Page 11
