Send Green to the Old Reds

IF YOUR NAME were Vasily Gusov, you wouldn't be so happy these days.

You'd be living in a place called Yekaterinburg in Russia's Ural Mountains. You'd be working each day at a fiery steel-casting oven. And, because the factory pays wages only sporadically, you wouldn't know when to expect your next paycheck.

In your pocket would be the ruble equivalent of 13 cents--all the money you'd have. That wouldn't be enough to pay the rent, put food on the table for the family or even buy a lunch of steamed cabbage at the factory.

You probably wouldn't even like steamed cabbage, but that's not the point.

The point is, as the real Vasily Gusov recently told Business Week, he and his fellow workers are" angry as dogs." And with industrial production dropping and unemployment soaring, the future isn't looking much better for Vasily--or most of the rest of the population of the former Soviet Union.

That's a problem not only for Vasily but for Americans as well. The solution for both is foreign aid.

BAD THINGS can happen when lots of people in important foreign countries are hungry, unemployed and discontented.

Exhibit A, of course, is Russia itself. Back in 1917--thanks to an unpopular war, a repressive regime and a devastated economy--Vasily Grusov's grandfather was probably as angry as Vasily is now.

Lenin and the Russian communists, however, were happy. They exploited the anger of the masses, overthrew the provisional government that had taken over from the deposed czar and imposed a regime that would repress Russia for the next 70 or so years.

Exhibit B is Germany following the First Would War. The victorious Allies--in addition to forcing Germany to accept complete blame for the war--demanded huge monetary reparations. This undermined Germany's economy, causing staggering hyperinflation, and destroyed the popularity of the democratic Weimar regime that signed the War Guilt Clause and paid the bill.

When the worldwide Great Depression came, the German economy collapsed. Promising to end reparations, rebuild Germany and restore German national pride, Hitler capitalized on the people's despair. The Nazis rose to power (through democratic elections, it should be noted) in 1993 and wreaked worldwide havoc for the next 12 years.

Exhibit C is Western Europe and Japan after World War II. With devastated economies and disenchanted populations, Western European countries were ripe for Soviet-style revolutions.

Instead of revolution, however, there came the Marshall Plan for Western Europe and significant U.S. aid for Japan.

We had learned an important lesson from World War I: It's not a good idea to demand reparations from losers. That can only ruin the economy of an already-devastated country and build militant nationalist sentiment out of which a stable government is unlikely to emerge.

So rather than further punishing its defeated opponents, America gave the West Europeans and the Japanese vast sums of foreign aid, which played a crucial role in rebuilding the economies of former enemies and allies alike.

TODAY there's a lot of talk about putting "America First"--of taking care of problems in the United States before sending billions off to foreign countries. The first premise of this argument--that America cannot be strong abroad without being strong at home--is undeniably true.

One need not look far to see signs of the debilitating recession, the health are crisis, a widening drug problem, faltering schools and lingering unemployment. All of these domestic problems need to be addressed by the nation's leadership.

But the second premise of America First--that in order to protect national interests America must turn isolationist and withdraw from foreign affairs--is dangerously naive. Domestic and foreign affairs are far from mutually exclusive domains. With a global economy, common environmental problems and thousands of nuclear weapons, decisions we make abroad are very likely to affect our lives at home.

We all have heard the argument that "before we go helping the Russians with billions of dollars of aid, we should get the homeless off OUR streets and improve OUR schools..." In addition to dismissing out-of-hand a humanitarian concern the United States may have in feeding starving Russians, this argument totally ignores the threat a chaotic former Soviet Union--and its thousands of nuclear weapons--could pose to our country.

PROPOSED earlier this month, the $24 billion aid package for Russia--including an $11 billion contribution from the U.S.--is a step in the right direction. It will provide import credits, humanitarian aid, International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans, debt rescheduling and ruble stabilization.

"It's also a step that came just in time. Just before the aid package was announced, supporters of Boris N. Yeltsin's economic reforms were battling in parliament against those afraid of the short-term destabilizing effects of restructuring. The reformers could use the proposed aid as leverage to keep the changes in place.

Now that the reformers have the upper hand in Moscow, we should come through with the aid. If the United States denies Russia much-needed aid today, it should prepare for a crisis tomorrow.

History teaches that powerful nations in disarray--particularly those with the capacity to destroy the would--must be helped if they can't help themselves.