The Bristle Gap

In addition to all its other troubles, the Soviet Union is losing the battle against tooth decay. "It's always the same story," moaned Georgy Gladkov, chief of the State Distribution Trust responsible for toilet articles, "brushes, brushes, brushes, they keep asking for. But we don't even have stocks to meet one-tenth of the demand. Just try and divide a few thousand toothbrushes among all the cities of the Soviet Union."

Until about four years ago, toothbrushes were plentiful--so plentiful that the State Planning Commission decided there were too many. In 1959 the country's biggest toothbrush plant, in Moscow, cut back annual production from 15 million to 6,000,000, retooled to make artificial flowers and plastic toys. Toothbrush production in the Ukraine all but stopped.

Planners discovered their mistake early last year when toothbrush stockpiles fell dangerously low. Hastily, they set a production goal of 48 million toothbrushes for 1962, but new troubles arose that will reduce output to about half the quota. Inefficient meat-packing plants were blamed for tossing out the hog bristles from which Russian toothbrushes are made. Also, there is a shortage of molds for plastic handles. In many factories, handles are whittled one by one, while half the plastic block drops to the floor as useless shavings.

The obvious solution to the shortage is ideologically sound but unsanitary: communize privately held toothbrushes.

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