VADIM BELOTSERKOVSKY
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tarian " chaos, poverty , and generally poor quality of life .
Everyday life is sorely affected by mismanagement and disorder ,
and at times is almost un bearable. Ramshackle wooden barracks or
worn-out railway vans · serving as living quarters ; filth, cold,
repugnant food, frequent lack of hospitals, medical centers , electric
light and drinking water , damp and unheated schools for children ,
are only some of the features of Soviet life. Here are some figures,
taken from a survey of 2,700 workers' settlements near new industrial
installations or construction projects in the
northern regions,
shown
to
me at the Central Committee headquarters of the Trade-Unions
Federation.
Hospitals were lacking in 483 settlements , medical centers in
286 , kindergartens in 396, day-nurseries in 388 , public baths in 113 ,
service shops for residents in 833, electric light in 88 and drinking water
in 340 settlements. Sixty percent of all houses were declared unfit for
habitation .
We also know about the low level of wages , the shortages and
the poor quality of goods . And although the Moscow intelligentsia
believes that the lot of kolkhoz peasants has improved , a restricted
report by the Deputy Minister for Trade (made available to
Izvestia)
stated that some 50 percent of money in circulation is not
counterbalanced by goods , and that this imbalance exists mostly in the
provincial cities and in the countryside.
Moreover , the USSR ranks last among the industrial nations in
work safety . In the Ministry of Public Health I was shown data on air
pollution in mines. In the United States and Europe the pollution
rates vary between 0.02 and 0 .05 percent , in South Africa it was 0 .2,
but in the Soviet Unioh it was
2
percent. And physicians believe that
the official figures are too low.
This is bound to happen , because the lion's share of the Soviet
budget is consumed by an unprofitable and inflated heavy industry .
Thus the needs of machines and factories are taken care of first , while
people are forced to work in unsafe and unhealthy conditions .
Countless losses-caused by lack of interest and carelessness , and by
the mistakes of the planners-always have to be compensated for.
In the Soviet Union an industrial plant is built for non-stop
operation , because stoppage would mean certain revolution. Industri–
alization has become self-propelling, and this is both the' 'secret" and
