Books in Review
Schwarz, Solomon M.
Books in Review The Face of Russia Review by SOLOMON M. schwarz THESE ARE THE RUSSIANS. By Richard E. Latiterbach. New York ana London. Harper & Brothers, 1945. 368 pages. $3.00. It is a curious...
...There is no business district, no theater district...
...Ia reality ansa "negoUations," "agreements" and "her...
...In Pittsburgh or Gary, American laborers would refuse to work under similar conditions...
...rherjmowa, annonas, mangos teen, papaya, sapodilla and a profusion of leaser known fruits, By improved cultivation, increased plantation, more rapid transportation, better refrigeration and preservation, the introduction of these new, healthful and delicious food products will add considerably to life's enjoyment...
...We all had the feeling that they were probably pretty unhappy and dissatisfied In plant after plant one of us would complain: 'Phillip Murray or William Green would sura rsise a stink about theeo conditions...
...The workers in the open-hearth department "looked like black dwarfs...
...Fascinating is the story of the varied and lusciqus fruits of the tropics, and sub-tropics, verjj few of which are known to the peoples of the ^emperate zones...
...The net impression one gets from this book is that tha age of scientific miracles is yet before us snd that there's no limit to man's ingenuity and in nature's primitive stocks to make possible still larger populations of well-fed and comfortable peoples as man's knowledge of and control over nature advances...
...Laftterbaeh had a chance to see in ' Russia many thing* denied to the average foreign correspondent With Eric John attar (and White) he'travelled through •the Urals, Western Siberia snd Russian 'Middle Aaia, He saw many industrial plants, and met industrial managers snd meal leaders...
...With the loss ol the Ukraine in the first years ef war, tha Soviet Union lost IS percent of its heavy industry, SO percent of the nation's pig iron, 60 percent of its coal and so forth...
...In the Arat half of this year three American authors published books on (•Jb-viet Russia...
...Ths new colonial systems involve varying degrees of control pragmatically applied within tbe confines of a single idea, the safety and wealth of a dominant Britiah capitalism...
...Still more amazing is Lautar-bach't statement concerning the Soviet war industry...
...Whether or not the party has become sufficiently strong ao that it la willing to foster political self-expression, I do not know...
...He found that the bosses of Soviet industry were of the same mettle ss the American industrial pioneers Of the last century...
...Only in an airplane plant in Novosibirsk did Lauterbach find labor conditions similar to those in good American plants, Lauterbsch was specially interested in meeting Communist Party members...
...gaining' no longer exist in the Soviet Union...
...I kept looking for the 'center' of tbe city, hut I never found it...
...If no agreement can British Colonial Policy Review by MILTON FfNMELSTEIN THE FALL OF THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM: A 'Study in British Free Trade, 1770-1880...
...I MPORTANT world crops, the further exploitation of natural resources and Is* economic development of tbe tropics art among the intensive researches engaging the attention of many scientists...
...Magnitogorsk needs safety precautions, paint, better ventilation, sanitary and other conveniences, and a more scientific arrangement of equipment" He found the same picture in the great Siberian renter, Omsk: "Tbe workers I saw in the tank plant were both very young and \ery dirty...
...The improvement of root stocka aad the opening of great areas in Central and South America for crops of maize, cane and beet sugar and soy beans...
...Edited by Charles afar-row Wilton...
...The state controls enforced under mercantilism were not suited to an expanding economy...
...The old i colonies had become economic entities whose future development might lie in their own hands . ¦ a ¦« It was, suggests Professor Schuyler, the threatened growth of- rival Krem-h and German empires, in both Asia and Africa, which later revived the expansive and coercive elements in British imperialism...
...There will be work to do for the dictatorship...
...Actually they were kids,-fourteen to sixteen years, and undersized...
...Pries UM...
...Speaking, for Instance, of Magnitogorsk he declares that "in a combine of this sise wages are negotiated directly between a union committee and Director Nosov...
...All ot the advantages of free trade held true in the first half of tha 19th century, and its disadvantages were only to become apparent when the Industrial Revolution had bestowed its benefits, including the ability to compete with England, to other parbi of the world...
...Though Lauterbach cannot be classed among fellow-trsveilers, he often uncritically accepts the Soviet viewpoint on Russisn developments, and finds ample justification for Soviet policy...
...There will be no freedom of speech for those who advocate any changes of baiic concepts...
...ship of the Party and of tbe Communist Youth League considerably increased, when Lauterbach writes about things be did not observe himself, he is often misled to distortions which result from his unshakable belief that Soviet official and semi-official sources cdntain nothing but the holy truth...
...A comparison' of • I he three 'books written from 1 three different angles may ba a contribution to the study of present day Russia...
...Lauterbach was also struck by the hard labor conditions in the Magnitogorsk plants...
...Suddenly you left Nevada City ot the wide-open mining days and found yourself In Tarry town, Bronx ville oleoma other upper-class New York suburb...
...better breeds of cattle and,, iiv* Block...
...White, an independent, liberally minded American, was followed by Russia U No Riddle, by Edmund Stevens, an apologist for "Soviet Democracy...
...This, "despite obvious hardships snd limitations...
...But as far as facts are concerned the three suthors often 'present the same picture...
...be achieved, tbe negotiation, are iuta taken up by the Central Committee tff the Trade Unions in Moscow, which bar gains directly with the Commissariat «f Black Metallurgy...
...tea transplantation of Asiatic growths te : American tropica such as' abaca (Manila hemp) and other grasses, drug plants and exotic floWers- all - those revolutionary possibilities in increasing the world's food and raw material supplies sre described in detail in this interesting series of papers...
...The legal abolition' of the preferential system within tbe Empire, and the end of the routining practices best observed ia the - Nsvigatioa Act, came as an anti-climax to increasing non-enforcement and numerous legal -exceptions...
...Professor Schuyler is to be congratu-latetf for having so aptly summarised the work of Andrews, Boar and others, aad for having* combined their researches and his own in thia well-documented study of gradually changing British colonial policy...
...Professor schuyler's suthoritaliVe synthesis' of available research on the transition of mercantilist England Into its Free Trade period, admittedly based on printed sources alone, awards ' honors to Briitsh "economic1 llbefaltstn" in thje 19th century...
...With the expansion of British capital, and with England's carefully maintained supremacy In the industrial world, came the need for new and greater markets, and for goods Which might aid in further expansion...
...And yet, "plea en change, plus e'eet la mini chose...
...What haa been accomplished in the propagation, increased production and popularization, of the banana, orange, grape fruit and pineapple is but a, preview.of tbe possibilities ahead of us for the enjoyment of the avocado, the ma/\go, the lycqee (which M known, to us only ,in dried form as a Chinese "nut"), the.kaki...
...804 pp...
...Half the workers had ao shoes...
...Tha MaemiUan Company...
...Party leaders view the coming decade with its gisnt task ot rehabilitation as a period of crisis as vital to Russis's security snd Russia's future aa the two Five-Year Plans...
...Everything needed paint...
...The Fall of the Old Colonial System describes the manner in which England's colonial policies, for long the immutable reflection of unyielding mercantilist practices, changed ' under the pressures of a powerful developing capitalism...
...The commonwealth idea implies the' end of the old • system, but only as applied to the old colonies, for many important elements of coercion, monopoly, and control still operate within the empire...
...Professor Schuyler speaks of a rising anti-imperialism, of increasing numbers of British thinkers convinced of the folly Of expending large sums of money on the retention of colonies who couW give little of the wealth to be derived from the manufacturing processes, snd who •were free to trade as they pleased, following a series ef relaxations in the enforcement of the resisting old colonial policy, Britain modified mercantilism out of existence...
...Our convoy of cars rolled smoothly up a paved, threc-laned, tree-lined avenue...
...The ride to our destination took a long time...
...Dynamic, cheerful, bright man, with no ideological make-up, hard .working, self-confident, they, take their soeial privileges, for W|«j(...,HS.i|l ,IS».M . ,<,jUr^fcrt^'l|PV^w«fi Magnitogorsk, a Soviet-built industrial center that has arisen in s semi-desert during tbe last fifteen years...
...In spite of this, the book is useful, not for theory, but ss a source of factual information* on modern Russis...
...The Report on the Rsto-tiana, by William I...
...344 and vii page: 13.00...
...The only center in Magnitogorsk is the guts —the steel mills...
...The last of the three books, that by Lauterbach, takes the middle rosd between the first two...
...For them, and for their supporters in tbe British economy, free trade was part ef the new world of' "laUses faire...
...Throughout the entire trip we were to • be confronted with this fsct: the bulk of the work was being done by youngsters - snd wonten: The kids, in particular, were doing spectacular work...
...the better and fuller utilisation ef tropical forest trees, the hard woods and other timber, palm oils and waxes, bamboos (whose usee are limitless), tk* extensive cultivation of rubber snd cinchona (quinine) and tang oil trees...
...the war against plant diseases snd insect pests...
...The city had never been bombed, but there Were shattered windowpanes everywhere...
...But Lauterbach Immediately wsrns against optimism: "In the peace that follows there will be no 'withering away' of the state...
...By Robert Livingston Schtiylerl OxfordVnivettity Pre...
...Magnitogorsk was a keen disappointment eathetically...
...Increasing Our Food Supply •evlew by AUGUST CLAESStMS -NEW CROPS FOR THE NBW WORLD...
...He states thst during the war the member...
...The old colonial system was one of complete controls...
...This book contains sixteen papers by experts in their respective fields and a wealth of information is revealed of the enormauj possibilities for increasing the world supply of foods and raw materials...
...The people on the streets needed new, bright clothes...
...New York, 1946...
...Such errors sre many...
...Once in a, while we would pass a big modem (architecturally) apartment house which looked old and worn...
...The section where Director Nosov resided was surprising in a totally differ snt way...
...Ths living area just pprawls and rambles...
...With free trade as an idea and later as a realizable policy came a series of gradual changes in the colonial practices...
...Yet the Soviets kept producing in evta greater than peacetime quantities," asserts Lauterbach...
...There were t lot of rutted dirt streets, along which were set down a series of dull, jerry-built stucco snd wooden houses...
...On both sides of us were solid, prosperous, Tudor-style, two-story stucco bouses, surrounded by spacious grounds, wall-groomed shrubs and stout iron fences...
...Accordingly, the group of politicians snd thinkers whose primary text of action was Adam Smith were able to move quite essily in the direction of free trade...
...The Empire itself did' not contain all wealth, and Britain's ability to transform raw materials into profitable manufactures wade it essential that colonial and trade policies be revised in the direction of free trade...
...It is a curious feature of the literature dealing with Soviet problfma that while the authors largely agree on facta, their inferences from theae facts, prompted by ideological differences, are often poles apart...
...Actually the two basis industries—iron aad coal—have net reached the prewar level even today, after two years of rehabilitation work...
...They glanced up at us with sharp-eyed interest when we passed them, but they never left their jobs—not even for one of Eric's (Erie Johnston's) pencils...
...This is where the highly paid, highly skilled technicians and executives of Magnitogorsk lived...
...But with sucii widely divergent groups entering the ranks during the war one of the results may be a slow liberalizing of inner party debate and discussion...
...There just didn't seem to.be any city at all in the accepted physical sense of the word...
...Yet might, one not point, to Aden snd Sues, to the Opium Wars, to the continued expansion , in India throughout the century, to the severs I wars within Europe, and wonder whether ."Little England" was ever a real policy ? One might speak, not of the decline and . fail of the Old .Colonial System, but rather of the substitution of several colonial systems for one...
...When, finally, the imperial garrisons were withdrawn from < those colonies which had or were soon to develop responsible self-government, the > eld colonial system was dead...
...He was at ruck by the sharp social contrasts, existing among tbe various industrial groups...
Vol. 28 • September 1941 • No. 39
