Petroleum in the Soviet Union: An Appraisal of a Recent German Study

] ) ERHAPS at no other time in the history of the world have the magnitude of a nation's petroleum resources and the productivity of a nation's petroleum industry so dominated international policy discussions as do those of the Soviet Union today. And rightly so--experiences of two world wars have demonstrated that the future of a nation as a world power depends to a very large degree on its possession of, or accessibility to, large reserves of petroleum. The current atmosphere of tension between East and West gives appraisal of the petroleum situation in the Soviet Union an uncommon timeliness. To assess the Soviet petroleum industry's success in rehabilitating war-damaged producing fields and refineries and in supplying growing domestic demands of manufacturing, agriculture, and commerce, as well as the Soviet war machine and its ancillary activities in Korea, is indeed a lofty purpose. It is also a huge task. Such assessment is made more