completely occupied in
the concentration of labor on the solution of these problems, which is a
condition of further progress.

"The second period (it will be difficult to say now whether it will
be measured in months or years, since that depends on many factors
beginning with the international situation and ending with the unanimity
or the lack of it in our own party) will be a period occupied in the
building of machines in the interest of transport, and the getting of
raw materials and provisions.

"The third period will be occupied in building machinery, with a view to
the production of articles in general demand, and, finally, the fourth
period will be that in which we are able to produce these articles."

Does it not occur, even to the most casual reader, that there is very
little politics in that program, and that, no matter what kind of
Government should be in Russia, it would have to endorse that programme
word for word? I would ask any who doubt this to turn again to my first
two chapters describing the nature of the economic crisis in Russia, and
to remind themselves how, not only the lack of things but the lack of
men, is intimately connected with the lack of transport, which keeps
laborers ill fed, factories ill supplied with material, and in this way
keeps the towns incapable of supplying the needs of the country, with
the result that the country is most unwilling to supply the needs of
the town. No Russian Government unwilling to allow Russia to subside
definitely to a lower level of civilization can do otherwise than to
concentrate upon the improvement of transport. Labor in Russia must be
used first of all for that, in order to increase its own productivity.
And, if purchase of help from abroad is to be allowed, Russia must
"control" the outflow of her limited assets, so that, by healing
transport first of all, she may increase her power of making new assets.
She must spend in such a way as eventually to increase her power of
spending. She must prevent the frittering away of her small purse on
things which, profitable to the vendor and doubtless desirable by the
purchaser, satisfy only individual needs and do not raise the producing
power of the community as a whole.

RYKOV ON ECONOMIC PLANS AND ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

Alexei Rykov, the President of the Supreme Council of Public Economy, is
one of the hardest worked men in Russia, and the only time I was able to
h