The Kremlin made strenuous efforts to maintain the flow of farm products to the cities, even while drawing labor away from the farms. But heavy metalworking industry was always considered more important than food and clothing. And more important, too, was the long, bitter and as yet unsuccessful attempt to cram collectivism down the throat of the Russian farmer. Stalin considered this struggle ideologically essential. Moreover, it was the means of forcing the peasants to supply food and raw materials to the growing industrial complex without receiving consumer goods in return. All in all, the failure of Soviet farm policy was one of the most resounding failures in the brief history of the U.S.S.R.--and it still is. Bread and potatoes are the principal diet of the masses, and even the grain and potato crops are unsatisfactory. During the years of Hitler's devastating invasion, the Kremlin had to dedicate the energies of Soviet Russia to a fight for survival. But when the Grand Alliance crushed Hitler, and the western nations, hoping for a peaceful world under the United Nations, practically dismantled their military establishments and fell back into their normal roles as consumption economies, the Kremlin did not alter the lopsided war economy of the Soviet setup. The Stalin regime inaugurated a new phase of hostility toward the West. The grim drive to build up an industrial-military foundation continued. Consumer goods were still given a low priority in the scheme of things. And all this was discouraging not only to prospects of world peace but also to the prospects of happiness and dignity for the weary and heroic Soviet peoples. =How Forced Industrialization Affects Trade= Moscow laid the same pattern upon the European satellite countries and cut them to fit the pattern. Heavy industrialization was imposed on them regardless of their desires and the needs of the people. This forced industrialization absorbed large amounts of commodities that were formerly available for export to the free world. At the same time the collectivization of agriculture was imposed on the satellites, and this aggravated the difficulties of keeping pace in farm output. While these policies were reducing the total amounts of goods the satellites had available for export to the West, the U.S.S.R. was siphoning off great trainloads of what remained. The ability of these countries to trade with the West was further reduced as they were pushed into granting priorities to one another on the exchange of items they could have more profitably sold to the free world.