Preface ... _For some forty years critics of the U.S.S.R. have been
desiring, predicting, not to mention praying for, its collapse. For
twenty of these years the author of this story has vaguely wondered what
would replace the collapsed Soviet system. A return to Czarism? Oh, come
now! Capitalism as we know it today in the advanced Western countries?
It would seem difficult after almost half a century of State ownership
and control of the means of production, distribution, communications,
education, science. Then what? The question became increasingly
interesting following recent visits not only to Moscow and Leningrad but
also to various other capital cities of the Soviet complex. A
controversial subject? Indeed it is. You can't get much more
controversial than this in the world today. But this is science fiction,
and here we go._
* * * * *
Paul Koslov nodded briefly once or twice as he made his way through the
forest of desks. Behind him he caught snatches of tittering voices in
whisper.
"... That's him ... The Chief's hatchetman ... Know what they call him
in Central America, a _pistola_, that means ... About Iraq ... And that
time in Egypt ... Did you notice his eyes ... How would you like to date
_him_ ... That's him. I was at a cocktail party once when he was there.
Shivery ... cold-blooded--"
Paul Koslov grinned inwardly. He hadn't asked for the reputation but it
isn't everyone who is a legend before thirty-five. What was it
_Newsweek_ had called him? "The T. E. Lawrence of the Cold War." The
trouble was it wasn't something you could turn off. It had its
shortcomings when you found time for some personal life.
He reached the Chief's office, rapped with a knuckle and pushed his way
through.
The Chief and a male secretary, who was taking dictation, looked up. The
secretary frowned, evidently taken aback by the cavalier entrance, but
the Chief said, "Hello, Paul, come on in. Didn't expect you quite so
soon." And to the secretary, "Dickens, that's all."
When Dickens was gone the Chief scowled at his trouble-shooter. "Paul,
you're bad for discipline around here. Can't you even knock before you
enter? How is Nicaragua?"
Paul Koslov slumped into a leather easy-chair and scowled. "I did knock.
Most of it's in my report. Nicaragua is ... tranquil. It'll stay
tranquil for a while, too. There isn't so much as a parlor pink--"
"And Lopez--?"
Paul said slowly, "Last time I saw Raul was in a swamp near Lake
Managua. The very last time."
The Chief said hurriedly, "Don't give me the details. I leave details up
to you."
"I know," Paul said flatly.
His superior drew a pound can of Sir Walter Raleigh across the desk,
selected a briar from a pipe rack and while he was packing in tobacco
said, "Paul, do you know what day it is--and what year?"
"It's Tuesday. And 1965."
The bureau chief looked at his disk calendar. "Um-m-m. Today the Seven
Year Plan is completed."
Paul snorted.
The Chief said mildly, "Successfully. For all practical purposes, the
U.S.S.R. has surpassed us in gross national product."
[Illustration]
"That's not the way I understand it."
"Then you make the mistake of believing our propaganda. That's always a
mistake, believing your own propaganda. Worse than believing the other
man's."
"Our steel capacity is a third again as much as theirs."
"Yes, and currently, what with our readjustment--remember when they used
to call them _recessions_, or even earlier, _depressions_--our steel
industry is operating at less than sixty per cent of capacity. The
Soviets always operate at one hundred per cent of capacity. They don't
have to worry about whether or not they can sell it. If they produce
more steel than they immediately need, they use it to build another
steel mill."
The Chief shook his head. "As long ago as 1958 they began passing us,
product by product. Grain, butter, and timber production, jet aircraft,
space flight, and coal--"
Paul leaned forward impatiently. "We put out more than three times as
many cars, refrigerators, kitchen stoves, washing machines."
His superior said, "That's the point. While we were putting the product
of our steel mills into automobiles and automatic kitchen equipment,
they did without these things and put their steel into more steel mills,
more railroads, more factories. We leaned back and took it easy, sneered
at their progress, talked a lot about our freedom and liberty to our
allies and the neutrals and enjoyed our refrigerators and washing
machines until they finally passed us."
"You sound like a Tass broadcast from Moscow."
"Um-m-m, I've been trying to," the Chief said. "However, that's still
roughly the situation. The fact that you and I personally, and a couple
of hundred million Americans, prefer our cars and such to more steel
mills, and prefer our personal freedoms and liberties is beside the
point. We should have done less laughing seven years ago and more
thinking about today. As things stand, give them a few more years at
this pace and every neutral nation in the world is going to fall into
their laps."
"That's putting it strong, isn't it?"
"Strong?" the Chief growled disgustedly. "That's putting it mildly. Even
some of our allies are beginning to waver. Eight years ago, India and
China both set out to industrialize themselves. Today, China is the
third industrial power of the world. Where's India, about twentieth? Ten
years from now China will probably be first. I don't even allow myself
to think where she'll be twenty-five years from now."
"The Indians were a bunch of idealistic screwballs."
"That's one of the favorite alibis, isn't it? Actually we, the West, let
them down. They couldn't get underway. The Soviets backed China with
everything they could toss in."
Paul crossed his legs and leaned back. "It seems to me I've run into
this discussion a few hundred times at cocktail parties."
The Chief pulled out a drawer and brought forth a king-size box of
kitchen matches. He struck one with a thumbnail and peered through
tobacco smoke at Paul Koslov as he lit up.
"The point is that the system the Russkies used when they started their
first five-year plan back in 1928, and the system used in China, works.
If we, with our traditions of freedom and liberty, like it or not, it
works. Every citizen of the country is thrown into the grinding mill to
increase production. Everybody," the Chief grinned sourly, "that is,
except the party elite, who are running the whole thing. Everybody
sacrifices for the sake of the progress of the whole country."
"I know," Paul said. "Give me enough time and I'll find out what this
lecture is all about."
The Chief grunted at him. "The Commies are still in power. If they
remain in power and continue to develop the way they're going, we'll be
through, completely through, in another few years. We'll be so far
behind we'll be the world's laughing-stock--and everybody else will be
on the Soviet bandwagon."