RETURN AFTER 31 YEARS

Economically, things are bad and growing steadily worse. But when have they been good? When was the Soviet economy not on the verge of collapse? Under Stalin, the railroad system was under such stress that any official taking more than 24 hours for unloading and returning a truck after arrival was subject to the standard penalty¾death. So when a "war reparations" truck load of eyeglass lenses from the Zeiss works in Jena, East Germany, could not be immediately transferred to an automobile truck for its final destination, the station commander ordered it unloaded onto a muddy road crossing the railroad tracks, which thus became the world's first road paved with eye glass lenses. Such outrages would be hard to find now, but . . . Cars stand in line at the gasoline pump for 2 to 3 hours for an allowance of 10 gallons. Food is rationed (3 lbs of meat/month/person), but the ration is not necessarily avail-able. Families find it ever more difficult to make ends meet, for Gorbachev's reign coincides with the beginning of inflation, now running at well over 100%/year and accelerating. Neither Gor-bachev nor Yeltsin has the political will to stop the presses which print currency day and night. As in the West, everybody claims to want a free market, and as in the West, few understand that a free market is the natural state of things that need not be "introduced," only its obstacles removed by kicking out the bureaucrats and other spongers unable to live by voluntary exchange. Will the Rus-sian economy be helped by free marketeer Bush, who twists Japanese arms to reduce car sales in the US? Or the European Community whose farmers take to the streets when their subsidies are in danger?