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Show cepted as sufficient justification justifica-tion for occupying and purging the prodigal sattelite. In spite of the emphasis on defense, Dr. Fuller sees considerable consid-erable evidence of growing affluence af-fluence inside the USSR. As an economist he interprets the rising standard of living as a sign of gradual de-emphasis on defense and basic industry. indus-try. Dr. Fuller's tour took him to seven of Russia's fifteen republics. He talked with government gov-ernment officials, industrial managers, educators and private pri-vate citizens he met at random. ran-dom. He says the issue that seems to be most obviously troubling the Soviet people today to-day is an acute manpower crisis. For the past several years Russia's economic growth rate has been almost twice that of the United States. But the country's economic expansion expan-sion is now being retarded by an estimated labor shortage of some three million workers. To a large extent the Russians blame that problem on foreign aggression, since a considerable consider-able number of men who could be working today were killed or crippled in World War II. Dr. Fuller says that although the Russian people are skeptical skep-tical of foreign nations they are quite hospitable to individual individ-ual citizens of those nations. He said that most of the Russians Rus-sians he met were friendly and eager to converse with him. U' PROFESSOR SAYS RUSSIAN 'PARANOID' A University of Utah professor profes-sor says the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia is "symptomatic "sympto-matic of a paranoid complex that has prevailed in the Soviet So-viet Union since World War II." Dr. George Fuller, professor of economics, is one of 17 prominent international economists econ-omists who recently returned from a sixweek tour of Russia. He was in Moscow the day Czechoslovakia was occupied. "Russian citizens remember losing 21 million people and 40 of their productive capacity capac-ity to the invading Germans in World War II," says Dr. Fuller. "As a result of that experience the people have been solidly behind their government's gov-ernment's efforts to build a fortress state, impregnable by foreign aggressors." For the past 25 years the Soviet Union has directed a sizable part of its productivity to a massive defense program. As an adjunct to their internal defenses the Russians have also secured a network of buffer buf-fer states through which a hostile hos-tile power would have to pass in reaching the nation's perimeter. perim-eter. Dr. Fuller says the Russian government espoused the view that Czechoslovakia had become be-come corrupted by decadent capitalist influences and therefor there-for constituted a threat to Soviet security. He reports that among the Russians he met that explanation was ac- |
