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This advance, however, finds an immediate obstruction in the
relative inadequacy of the Soviet productive forces, which have not
been developed sufficiently or have been developed too one-sidedly
to secure for the bulk of the people a standard of living much higher
than at present, a standard of living at which human relations could
cease to be a constant competition and struggle of all against all and
could become permeated by the spirit of socialist cooperation and
association. The relative scarcity of consumer goods (especially of
housing!) is the decisive
objective
factor which sets limits to egalita–
rian and democratic reform.
That scarcity should not be viewed merely in the context of
the domestic economic situation of the U.S.S.R. It must be seen
against the background of the world situation which imposes upon the
U.S.S.R. an economic and power-political race with the United
States and up to a point compels the Soviet rulers to press on with
the development of heavy industry at the immediate expense of con–
sumer interests. The needs of the industrialization of China and
partly of Eastern Europe, too, have the same effect. The Soviet work–
er has begun to "finance" in all earnestness the industrialization of
the underdeveloped Communist countries; and he "finances" it out
of the resources which might otherwise have been used to raise his
own standard of living. This, incidentally, is another usually over–
looked yet extremely important aspect of de-Stalinization. (Stalin,
at least in the first postwar years, compelled other Communist coun–
tries to "finance" Russia's economic recovery!) Here indeed two as–
pects of de-Stalinization-Russian domestic reform and reform in
Russia's relationship with the entire Soviet bloc-can be seen in actual
conflict with each other. (The fact that the Soviet worker "finances"
at his own immediate expense the industrialization of underdeveloped
Communist countries is, of course, an historic innovation of the
greatest possible consequence. It contrasts sharply with the practice
of imperialism which has secured surplus profits to capitalists but
has also raised the standards of living of the workers of imperialist
nations at the expense of colonial subjects. An exactly opposite de–
velopment is taking place within the Soviet bloc. This explains per–
haps why Western talk about Point Four programs has become the
laughing stock of Asia. However, Russia's new commitments toward
other Communist countries act also as a brake on the reformist trend
inside Russia.)
