Comecon and the South in the years of détente: a study on East–South economic relations

Abstract

The article deals with the economic relations of the socialist bloc with less-developed countries in the 1960s and 1970s. It focuses on the economic policies envisaged by technocrats and policy-makers in the Comecon's Commission for technical assistance. It argues that the original formula based on autarky, whereby socialist aid aimed at building a clear alternative to the West and less-developed countries were advised to introduce Soviet-style planning, nationalisation and industrialisation, was progressively abandoned during détente. Doubts on the appropriateness of the Soviet model emerged, especially in Eastern European governments. Trade became increasingly crucial and the strategy of promoting an international division of labour based on mutual advantage turned into an obsession with importing strategic raw materials. In the mid-1970s, despite the official socialist view, the East pursued ‘realist’ policies that made sense in terms of economics rather than ideology. The myth of socialist modernity as a variant of industrial modernity had definitely collapsed, and socialist countries' participation in the Western-dominated world economy became a necessity. Eventually, the developing world became the place where a joint East–West co-operation could take place, often in the framework of the so-called trilateral co-operation, where Western Europe had a special role.

Keywords::

• Comecon
• development
• aid
• Third World
• Tripartite Industrial Cooperation
• Commission for Technical Assistance

Notes

^1. Some titles of scientific works employing the concept are: African Institute and University of Leningrad, The “Third World;” Mirsky, “Third World;” Ganev, Comecon and the “Third World.”

^2. For a discussion on the expression Third World, and of the expression South see Lavigne, East–South Relations in the World Economy, 10–11.

^3. The President of the Chamber of Commerce, M.V. Nesterov, quoted in Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 1–2.

^4. Quoted in Walters, American & Soviet Aid, 30.

^5.Sharing the Costs of Military Alliance and International Economic Aid, 16 April 1962, in National Archives Records Administration (NARA), RG59 General Records of the Department of State, box 25.

^6. The documents of the CTA used for this article are held by the Bundesarchiv Berlin (BArchB), Ministerium für Außenwirtschaft (DL2). Reports on the CTA meetings were part of the dossiers used by the East German delegation and cover the years 1960–74.

^7.Rubinstein, “Soviet Policy Toward Under Developed Areas,” 233.

^8.Suri, “The Cold War, Decolonization,” 355.

^9. This was especially the case of Czechoslovakia, see Gespräch David/Stibi, in Politisches Archiv des Früheren Ministeriums für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (MfAA), A17085; Bundesarchiv Berlin (BArchB), Ministerium für Außenwirtschaft (DL2) VAN 57. On the consortia: Rosenstein-Rodan, “The Consortia Technique,” 223–30.

^10.Hilger, “The Soviet Union and India,” 5.

^11.Bericht, Konsultation der Stellvertretenden Minister für Außenhandel, Moskau, September 1965, in BArchB, DL2 VAN 57. See on this Engerman, “The Second World's Third World.”

^12. A common system for the collection of statistical data was introduced in October 1963; see BArchB, DL2 VA 6767.

^13. See for example the reports on the trip to Africa of GDR Minister Otto Winzer, and his conversations with Soviet Ambassadors, in Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massorganisationen der DDR DY 30 IV A 2/20, 795.

^14. BArchB, DE1 VA 42175.

^15. BArchB, DL2 VAN 76.

^16.Atlantic Affairs Conference. Discussion Guide, 6 May 1965 and Record Atlantic Affairs Conference, 17 May 1965; NARA, RG59, Records relating to the OECD and DAC 1959–1967, Lot File 68D83, box 26.

^17.Friederich Ebert Stiftung, Protokoll –Forschungsbeirat “Ostblock und Entwicklungsländer,” 3 September 1966; Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin (PA AA), B2 153.

^18. On this see Lorenzini, “Globalising Ostpolitik.”

^19. Amembassy Paris (Bohlen), Paris Speech of FRG Aid Minister Wischnewski, 15 May 1967, NARA, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967–1969, box 440.

^20.Report on the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's 1967 Annual Meeting, 24 January 1968, in NARA, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967–1969, box 440; Entwicklungshilfe des Ostens, Bonn 23 September 1968, IIIB1 Schleich, 81.02/0, in PA AA, B58 IIIB1 848; Entwurf, Zusammenarbeit mit osteuropäischen Staaten auf dem Gebiet der Entwicklungshilfe, 13 May 1970, in PA AA, B58 IIIB1 848.

^21. For a sceptical West German evaluation of inter-firm co-operation in the late 1960s and early 1970s see Bolz, Tripartite Industrial Cooperation, 79–88. On trilateral co-operation see also Saivetz and Woodby, Soviet-Third World Relations and Saunders, East–West–South.

^22. Quoted in V. Rybakov in “Metopolii bez kolonii,” MEiMO, no. 12, December 1965.

^23.Hough, The Struggle for the Third World, 78–81.

^24.Pravda, 1971, quoted in Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 17.

^25.Vorstellungen der Delegationen der Mitgliedsländer des RGW in der SKTU bei der Frage einer möglichen Beteiligung an der Organisierung und Erweiterung der Produktion von Kupfer, Nickel, Kautschuk, und Baumwolle in den EL (1964), BArchB, DE1 VSII 12720.

^26. BArchB, SKAH, DL2 VAN 57.

^27. Yurii Konstantinov in 1977, quoted by Stone, CMEA's International Investment Bank, 66.

^28. BArchB, SKAH, DL2 VAN 56.

^29. BArchB, SKAH, DL2 VA 1225.

^30. See the meeting of foreign trade representatives of the Comecon (21–23 April 1971, Moscow), BArchB DL2 VAN 57; on the 23, SKTU 1972 BArchB, DE1 VA 52248. On the Kindia project see Barham and Bunker, States, Firms, and Raw Materials.

^31. The GDR, for example, concluded new trade agreements at a governmental level in 1973 with several African states. See Analyse 1970, BarchivB DL2 VA 1225.

^32.Mikulsky, CMEA International Significance of Socialist Integration, chapter 9. The authors of this chapter are: V. Kves [CZ], I. I. Orlik and G. M. Prokhorov [USSR], M. Simai [Hu]).

^33. BArchB, DL2 1894. See also Stone, CMEA's International Investment Bank.

^34. Paul Maurer, discussion on session II-tripartite co-operation, in Saunders, East–West Cooperation in Business, 104.

^35. See Joswig, “Zur Perspektive der okonomischen Zusammenarbeit;” Klaus Fritsche, “Sozialistische Entwicklungsländer.”

^36.Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 26

^37.Bogolomov, “The CMEA Countries and the NIEO,” 251–2.

^38.Mikulsky, International Significance of Socialist Integration, 316.

^39. See Kridl Valkenier, “Revolutionary Change in the Third World” and also Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 136.

^40. EU Historical Archives, BAC 25/1980, 305 and 304.

^41. Quoted in Lavigne, East–South Relations, 4.

^42. S.A. Strachkov and N.S. Patolichev, quoted in Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 25.

^43. BarchivB, DL2 Bereich Kommerzielle Koordinierung (KOKO), HP 1.

^44.Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 25.

^45. The joint ventures were constituted to build textile plants in Kombolcha and Addis Ababa. The first involved Textima (GDR), Srtrojexport (CSSR) and Generale Impianti (I), the second Unitechna-Textimaprojekt (GDR) and Krupp (FRG). See Schulz, Development Policy in the Cold War Era, 147 and Schulz, The German Democratic Republic and Sub-Saharan Africa, 223.

^46. BarchivB, DL2 KOKO HP 1, 241–50.

^47. BarchivB, DL2 KOKO HP 1.

^48. General Heinz Hoffmann, however, rejected al Qadhafi's requests. Quoted in Döring, Es geht um unsere Existenz, 78.

^49.Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 19.

^50.Ohlin, East–West Patterns of Trade, 276; Gutmann, West-östliche Wirtschaftskooperationen in der Dritten Welt, 396.

^51.Gutmann, Tripartite Industrial Cooperation, 346. Gutmann analyses a sample of 226 TIC operations, completed or in progress (and principally of the years 1976–9), as well as an additional 199 protocol agreements 1965–79, which show clearly that 1975 constitutes a break.

^52.Saunders, East–West Cooperation in Business, 12.

^53.Davydov, UNCTAD and Tripartite Industrial Cooperation, 97.

^54.Gutmann, Tripartite Industrial Cooperation, 337.

^55.Hough, The Struggle for the Third World, 81.

^56.Davydov, UNCTAD and Tripartite Industrial Cooperation, 102.

^57. Aroon K. Basak's comments in Saunders, East–West–South, 369.

^58.Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 59, 65.

^59. See Michail Kalecki, Essays in Developing Economies, 36.

^60. This is Saunders' synthesis of the views that emerged during the conference, in East–West–South, 3.

^61.Brandt et al., “North–South: a Program for Survival.”

^62.Zevin, “Cooperation of CMEA Member-Countries in the Resolution of the Food Problem.”

^63. See Ferguson et al., The Shock of the Global;Doering-Manteuffel and Lutz Raphael, Nach dem Boom.

^64. M. Maximova, quoted by Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 55.

^65. Quotation of Viktor Goncharev, Deputy Director of the USSR's Institut Afriki, in “Soviet Policy in Southern Africa: An Interview with Viktor Goncharev by Howard Barrell,” Work in Progress 4 (1987): 140–1.

^66. N.N. Inozemtsev, ed., Global'nye problemy sovremennosti (Moscow: Mysl', 1981), quoted in Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 68.

^67.Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World, 136.

^68.Zevin, “Problems of Increasing the Stability.” In an earlier contribution (“Vzaimnaya vygoda sotrudnichestva sotsialisticheskikh i razvivayushchikhsia stran.” [Common benefits in the cooperation between the socialist and the developing countries.] Voprosy ekonomiki, 2 [1965]: 72–80). Zevin had been advocating that the USSR should stop striving for self-sufficiency and take advantage of the international division of labour; see Kridl Valkenier, “Recent Trends in Soviet Research on the Developing.”

^69. See Zevin, Economic Cooperation of Socialist and Developing Countries.

^70.Zevin, “Concepts of Economic Development,” 295–302.

^71.Zevin, “Concepts of Economic Development,” 302.

^72.Olshany and Zevin, CMEA Countries and Developing States: Economic Cooperation, 91.

^73. See MacFarlane, “Moscow's New Thinking.” See as well Kridl Valkenier, “The USSR, the Third World, and the Global Economy.” For a discussion on this see also Dobozi, “Patterns, Determinants, and Prospects,” in The Soviet Bloc and the Third World.

^74. See Maier, “Malaise;” Calic, Neutatz and Obertreis, “Introduction,” in The Crisis of Socialist Modernity, 7–27.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sara Lorenzini

Sara Lorenzini is Senior Researcher and an Adjunct Professor of International History at the School of International Studies of the University of Trento (Italy). She is currently working on a book project on the history of development aid during the Cold War. Recent publications on similar topics include: “Sviluppo e strategie di guerra fredda: il contagio difficile” in Storica, 2012, n. 53 (2012), p. 7–37, DOI: 10.1400/203993; “The Dilemmas of Solidarity: East German Policies in Africa in the Age of Modernization” in Die eine Welt schaffen: Create One World, Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 2012, p. 57–72, (ITH Tagungsberichte); “East-South relations in the 1970s and the added value of GDR involvement in Africa. Between bloc loyalty and self interest’, in The Globalization of the Cold War: Diplomacy and Local Confrontation, 1975–85, M. Guderzo and B. Bagnato, London: Routledge 2010, 104–115; “Globalising Ostpolitik”, in Cold War History 9, No. 2 (May 2009): 223–242. Among her books are L'Italia e il trattato di pace del 1947, il Mulino, Bologna, 2007 and Due Germanie in Africa. La cooperazione allo sviluppo e la competizione per i mercati di materie prime e tecnologie, Polistampa, Firenze, 2003.