PERSPECTIVE ON THE SOVIET UNION : Western Aid Can Win the People : Economic aid to the Soviet Union serves U. S. interest--and the world community’s--no less than those of the Soviets.

The Soviet and American economists who put it together call it the “Grand Bargain”--a swift transformation of the Soviet command economy into a market economy, in exchange for massive transfusions of aid from the leading industrial nations, perhaps $30 billion to $50 billion annually for up to five years. The American critics of this plan call it no bargain, and base their argument on one or more of the following points:

1) Why should we help the Soviet Union when we have so many pressing issues of our own?

2) Why should we help the Soviet Union when it continues to support communist regimes, such as Castro’s Cuba?

3) We should not give Gorbachev one cent until he demonstrates his commitment to creating a market economy in the Soviet Union. Broad privatization would bespeak such an intention. If it’s given earlier it would be wasted--thrown down a black hole.

4) The Soviet Union has no one but itself to blame for its predicament. Far from helping to keep it afloat, we should let it sink or go belly up.

The first three objections (the last one is an irrational knee-jerk Cold War reaction) deserve serious consideration.

The first assumes that any money granted to the Soviets would be taken away from sums aimed at helping Americans. If this were true, then it would be easy to understand the fury it would provoke in America. However, it is completely false. The difficulties of America in the 1990s are in no way related to U.S. aid furnished to other countries. They are the result of eight years of Reaganomics, a growing polarization of wealth and poverty in the richest nation in the world. The homeless, the unemployed, the needy, the sagging public-school system, the substandard public health system, soaring crime--none of these were or are remotedly related to foreign aid. They are all the result of a defense-oriented economy that has no qualms about feeding its military-industrial complex to the tune of $300 billion annually, but has a problem in feeding its own people.

Far from worsening the lives of Americans, money invested in helping perestroika succeed and making the transition to a market economy easier would do the opposite. It would lead to a convertible ruble, to the creation of a vast market for American goods (which are the most coveted by Soviets) and, as a result, to the creation of more jobs for Americans and a less lopsided trade deficit.

Which brings us to the second point, the “bolstering-communist-regimes” gambit.

To be sure, the Soviet Union trades with such countries as China, Cuba, Mongolia, North Korea and Vietnam. But Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, Japan, Canada and, yes, the United States, also trade with one, several or all of these countries. Are they “bolstering” these communist regimes? And if they can, why can’t the Soviets? Other Soviet aid to these nations has declined drastically and will continue to do so.

Besides, what by now should be evident to one and all is the simple truth that the more a regime is forced into isolation, the more rigid and repressive it becomes--witness Albania in the very recent past and North Korea and Cuba today. On the other hand, the best way to weaken a totalitarian system is to involve it, draw it out. I have little doubt that, had the United States adopted a policy of involvement in Cuba rather than total boycott, both Fidel Castro and Cuba would be very different today.

To those who argue that Mikhail Gorbachev must first prove his intentions by pushing for broad privatization in the Soviet Union, privatizing means selling to whoever can afford to buy. So let us ask: Who in the Soviet Union has the money to buy? They are the “economic mafia,” the black marketeers who have accumulated tremendous wealth over the past 40 years, and the party elite who have had it for even longer. Both classes are despised by the people, who, of course, have heard for more than 70 years that private property is the root of all evil. That alone represents a formidable obstacle to the creation of a market economy. That the party and underworld bosses would be the first to profit from such change adds insult to injury. The average citizen has seen no concrete proof that perestroika will improve his quality of life.

Things are hard already, and an immediate switch could lead to disaster--even the election of a Hitler-type demagogue playing to the hurt pride, frustration and anger of the Soviets.

But economic support--tangible support--from the West would go a long way toward turning the population around in favor of economic and political reform. Yes, some of the initial aid would go to food and consumer goods to ease the transition. But with popular support will come stability and a rapid shift to long-term capital investments and infrastructure repair, to say nothing of democracy.

Economic aid to the Soviet Union at this time serves the interests of the United States and the world community no less than it serves those of the Soviet nation.

A final point for the proponents of the “let-’em-sink” and “belly up” approaches: Nations are not ships or fish, and they do not sink or go belly up. They suffer and ultimately--though at tremendous cost--prevail. They also, unlike ships or fish, remember those who helped them--as well as those who wished to see them suffer and die.