Presumably, it was because Japan was not among the highly industrialized nations that Russian statisticians, who so impartially compared the Russian growth to that of the advanced nations of the capitalist world, did not include “feudal” Japan in their comparison. We must, however, pause here and note that not only “socialist” Russia but also “feudal” Japan showed a tremendous rate of growth during that period. If we take a comparable period of development, say 1932-37, we find that the total value of the output of Soviet heavy industry was 23.2 billion rubles in 1932 and 55.2 billion in 1937, the value at the end of the Second Five Year Plan thus being 238 per cent of that in 1932.
Japan, also passing to a more rationalized economy, had an index of 97.9 for heavy industry in 1932 and 170.8 in 1937, or 176 per cent of the 1932 figure. Moreover, Japan, poor in materials of industry, was compelled to travel long distances to import 85 per cent of its iron ore and 90 per cent of its crude .oil and was far short of being self-sustaining in copper, lead, zinc, tin and other essential industrial metals. Further-more, were we to take Japan’s high point of industrialization, August, 1940, as the criterion, we would see that Japan had achieved a 253.5 per cent growth in the means of production, as compared to the index of 1931-33.