Catch Up and Overtake the West: The Czech Lands in the World-System in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This article interprets the modern history of the Czech lands by using the world-system approach. The author shows that it is plausible to distinguish between the political and economic semiperiphery, and it is important not only to use these terms at an international level but also within the state borders. The Czech lands were during the existence of the world-economy part of its semiperiphery, and they were in the interstate system part of its semiperiphery or periphery. Although there were ups and downs in their economic and political development, the position of the Czech lands in the modern world-system has been relatively stable since the sixteenth century. The author sees the late nineteenth century when the process of industrialization spread to the Czech lands as a period of catching up the core of the world-economy. The twentieth century was on the other hand characterized by a weakening of their economic position (disintegration of Austria–Hungary, great depression, inclusion in the soviet bloc, and post-communist transformation) and the unstable political position of either a relatively independent country (the politically influential interwar Czechoslovakia, the years before the Stalinist take over, 1968, and the years after 1989) or a semicolony (of Austria–Hungary, Nazi Germany, the Stalinist Soviet Union, the USA, Germany in part, and the EU). It does not seem that the semiperipheral status of the Czech lands can change in the near future.

Notes

¹According to Wallerstein: “The semiperiphery is then assigned as it were a specific economical role, but the reason is less economic than political. One might make a good case that the world-economy would function just as well without a semiperiphery. But it would be far less politically stable, for it would mean a polarized world-system. The existence of the third category means precisely that the upper stratum is not faced with the unified opposition of all others because the middle stratum is both exploited and exploiter (1995:57).”

²Chase-Dunn and Hall offer another and somewhat broader definition of semiperiphery. The both authors define it as the regions which: “1. mix both core and peripheral form of organization, 2. are spatially located between core and peripheral region, 3. are spatially located between two or more competing core regions, 4. in which mediating activities linking core and peripheral areas take place and in which institutional features are intermediate in form between those forms found in adjacent core and peripheral areas (78).”

³We should not forget that the Hapsburg dynasty was divided after 1521 into Spanish and Austrian lines. The Spanish Habsburgs ruled in Spain, the Netherlands and south Italy, the Austrian Hapsburgs ruled in the Holy Roman Empire, Czech and Hungarian kingdoms.

⁴Some historians evaluate the German aggression in the First World War rather as a defensive step. The German government was afraid that the existing economic development would not continue in the near future, and that the Entente powers would soon modernize their armies. From the point of view of the German general staff, the war was a necessary step if they did not want to experience a further fall in the power of the state.

⁵We know that Stalin forced the French, Italian or Chinese communist not to take the power in their countries. The Chinese communists won power against his will. Known also are his intentions to hand over Eastern Germany to the West in return for a pledge that the united Germany would stay neutral. (Kagarlitsky 286). We can suppose that Stalin did not want to build an empire which exceeded the soviet powers.

⁶The solid base for the development of this industry is shown by the production of the first Czechoslovak television set in 1953 and the first broadcasting in the same year. Czechoslovakia was the seventh country in the world in introducing television broadcasting in the year 1948.

⁷We can see the fact that the indebtedness was considered as dangerous by the Czechoslovak communist leaders in the famous speech at the party meeting by Miloš Jakeš in 1989: “We have borrowed from them (International Monetary Fund (IMF), note SH) eleven milliards of dollars. They dictated to us what we may and what we may not exactly do, for what we can use it, what to do with that. And we had to pay back 20 milliards, not 11. It was interest and annuities. And the annuities were in these years 18%. So after 5 years you had to pay back two times as much as what you borrowed.” (Jakeš 1989).

⁸Hungary joined the IMF already in 1982 as the first of the soviet countries, Poland was second in 1986.

⁹We find the reason for the high index of Poland in the fact that its economic crisis was already at its peak in 1989, while the crisis in the rest of Central and Eastern Europe was at its beginning.

¹⁰These illusions can be useful in the colonial fight. Were the indigenous army to know the strength of colonial power it might not fight with great courage. An example might be the Vietnam War or the wars of Native Americans. In the second case, however, the bravery led almost to the extermination of indigenous populations.