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The Blueprints. It is the judgment of most Western analysts that the armed Soviet Union should soon be able to afford both superbombs and more consumer goods. Its economy is growing, says the Harvard Russian Research Center, at the rate of 5% to 6% a year—theoretically enough to double its gross national product once every twelve years. Short of war, Russia's gross output may pass Western Europe's by 1965 or 1970. According to these figures, its output per capita equaled Italy's in 1950; it will catch up to the 1951 output of France by 1955, and to that of Britain by 1962. This does not mean that Soviet living standards, in one decade, could possibly catch up with Western Europe's, for European kitchens and wardrobes are crammed with "capital goods" — cutlery, linen, clothing — that have taken years to accumulate.
The ugly necessities of the 20th century have driven most observers in the rest of the world to measure these possibilities solely by what they promise in terms of war or peace. In these terms, a State Department expert concludes that the Soviet New Course "ultimately creates power that will add to their war potential . . . They would be knuckleheads to start a war now, but in the late '50s, who can tell?" This vast upheaval over one-sixth the earth's surface might also be measured by the small easements—a pair of shoes, a full plate of food—that it may bring to that most forgotten of forgotten men, the Russian serf. The tragedy is that these benefits will add little to his joy, and nothing to his freedom, but will work only—for this is the intent—to fasten tighter the control of his masters.
-*1952 U.S. outputs in millions of tons: coal, 458; steel, 85; crude oil, 313-Electricity: 399 billion kwh.
*Winston Churchill once asked Stalin how many had been "blotted out or displaced forever." The Russian's reply as recorded in Churchill's memoirs: " 'Ten million,' he said, holding up his hands. 'It was fearful. Four years it lasted . . . It was all very bad and difficult—but necessary.' "