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The Ex-Soviet Republics: Can They Prosper?
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20562 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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11 / 1992 |
2,228 Words |
| Author
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Ellsworth Raymond
Ellsworth Raymond, now retired, was a professor of politics
and head of Russian area studies at New York University. |
Freedom will bring us prosperity! is the oft-expressed dream of the 14 non-Russian ex-Soviet republics, which under USSR rule complained that their natural resources were purchased by Soviet Russia at low, unfair prices. Meanwhile, many Russians say that Russia will prosper, now that it is free from the burden of giving technical aid to ungrateful minorities of the old Soviet empire.
But freedom does not necessarily create prosperity, as Africa's ex-colonies have learned to their sorrow. To flourish in wealth, a nation today cannot be mostly agricultural. Much industry is needed to become wealthy, as was proved after World War II by the rise of West Germany and Japan from rags to riches. The size of a country is not too important. Huge, underindustrialized India and Brazil are poor. Small Sweden and Switzerland are wealthy, because they are the leading producers of precision machinery in western Europe.
Predicting the economic future of the ex-Soviet republics is difficult. Much depends on absence of civil war and the success of the Yeltsin-inspired Confederation of Independent States. The history of the old USSR was stormy, and storms can strike fast and hard, without warning.
Four ex-Soviet republics are heavily industrialized: big Russia and Ukraine, plus small Estonia and Lithuania. Kazakhstan ranks next in proportion of industry to population. Least industrialized are Latvia on the Baltic Sea, Georgia in the Caucasus, plus Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in central Asia. Latvia has a strong agricultural sector, but the other three industrial laggards cannot grow enough food to feed themselves.
In industry, huge Russia dominates all other ex-Soviet republics. Russia alone is the third-greatest industrial country in the world, trailing only the United States and Japan. Russian industry is bigger than the industries of all other ex-Soviet republics taken together.
Of ex-USSR output, Russia produces 92 percent of all timber, 91 percent of oil, and 85 percent of paper. It produces more than half of total output in a number of industries: natural gas, cotton cloth, radios, cement, steel, farm machinery, coal, and chemical fertilizer. As for transportation, Russia manufactures all ex-USSR railway freight cars and the vast majority of automobiles and trucks. All these Russian products are exported to other ex-Soviet republics, and autos, fertilizer, gas, oil, radios, and timber are sold to the outside world as
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