ABSTRACT
In recent years Soviet economy has made very considerable strides towards fulfilling its aims of “surpassing the capitalist countries of the West”. In view of the backwardness which she inherited from Tsarist Russia, the extent to which the U.S.S.R. has in several directions caught up to the level of older industrial countries, and even to that of U.S.A., is an impressive achievement. Nevertheless, in most cases she has not yet overtaken them in the race in which she had so large a handicap; and in a number of respects she unfortunately remains considerably weaker in her economic equipment than is Germany. The U.S.S.R. to-day heads the list among world producers of wheat (of which she produces a quarter of the world’s supplies), barley, oats, rye, sugar-beet, flax (with two-thirds of the world’s supplies) and manganese; and she takes first place in the world as a producer of tractors and locomotives. Her output of electricity in kilowatt hours, which is some twenty times the 1913 level, already exceeds that of Great Britain by about a third. As an oil producer she has risen to second place behind U.S.A., and in natural phosphates and linseed oil she also ranks second. In 1938 she was actually bracketed with U.S.A. as the world’s largest producer of iron ore. 1 But since 1938 was a slump year in America and other countries, this 1938 figure was much lower than that for U.S.A. in other years and also for France in 1930. Although again she produced of pig-iron and steel in 1938 nearly twice as 37much as Great Britain, this output in the case both of steel and pig-iron was lower than that of Germany, and substantially lower than that of U.S.A. even in 1938. As a coal producer she takes fourth place behind U.S.A., Britain and Germany.
