AND, IN RUSSIA...

The Kremlin insists that inflation does not exist in the Soviet Union, and there is no Western-style CPI to disprove the claim. Nonetheless, consumer prices are raised at times by state decree; the government represents those changes as progress toward a more rational ordering of the controlled economy. Last week such "progress" cost Soviet consumers dearly.

Coffee drinkers, a minority among tea-drinking Russians, suffered most. The price of a pound soared from $2.62 to $13. Gasoline doubled, to $1.30 per gal., and 4 million private car owners will also pay 30% more to get those autos serviced. Gold-jewelry prices leaped 60%, though the cost of first-time wedding rings will be partly rebated to encourage marriages.

The state-controlled press downplayed these boosts and stressed news of simultaneous price cuts. Many were on goods that few people want, like black-and-white TV sets. State Price Chairman Nikolai Glushkov, who, like other party bosses, can shop in special low-price stores, insisted with a straight face that gasoline was raised by popular demand. Russian drivers, he said, complained that they were paying too little compared with the rest of the world.

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