With Epaulets Off

The Soviet armed forces make up the biggest labor pool left in Russia, and at long last Nikita Khrushchev is tapping it to relieve the tight manpower shortage created by his seven-year plan. Last January, jauntily telling the world that Russia's missile lead was so great it could afford to disarm, Khrushchev announced a 1,200,000 cut in the number of men in uniform. Last week his Defense Minister, in a major policy statement, hinted at a further release of military manpower to farms and factories. "Our government and the party Central Committee," wrote Marshal Rodion Malinovsky in Pravda, "are now thinking over and studying the question of eventually shifting over our armed forces to a territorial system."

Under such a system, which the marshal said would in no way weaken Red army firepower, men who have completed their three-year draft training would join units near their homes and "serve without leaving production" after work and on weekends. Western military specialists pointed out that if a third of existing Soviet armed forces were converted to territorial units, manpower savings would amount to about 250,000 men.

Army caps and tunics with the epaulets and other badges of rank ripped off have lately become familiar sights around Moscow. For the 250,000 officers due to go, the adjustment is going to be tough; in theoretically classless Russia, the officer caste enjoys high status and perquisites. To induce veterans to settle in the labor-short central Asian "virgin lands," the state is offering free land, low-interest loans, and a bonus of 600 rubles ($60). Last week the first ex-servicemen arrived in the harsh pioneer land of Kazakhstan, where the Communist leader was fired recently after a quarter of the wheat crop went unharvested for lack of workers.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.