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Eastern Europe: Developments in Social and Economic Structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

George Kemény
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Extract

In Central and Eastern Europe, roughly ninety million people live in a political setting labeled as “People's Democracy.” The area constitutes a bloc which stretches from the Elbe and the Baltic to the Black Sea and includes six countries: Poland, Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria. According to official Communist interpretation, these countries are in a phase of transition toward socialism; they have not yet attained the “summit” of development as represented by the Soviet Union. While the People's Democracies are traveling along the road to the form of organization of society established by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the period of time within which complete adoption of the Soviet system is to be achieved has not been defined.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , October 1953 , pp. 67 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1953

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References

1 Albania, the seventh People's Democracy, is geographically isolated from the bloc and has little significance except from a strategic point of view.

2 Heavy industry includes, besides iron, steel, and engineering, the production of building materials and of basic chemicals.

3 The U.S. “Battle Act” has speeded up this development.

4 Economie Planning in Hungary, 1947–1949, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London and New York, 1952, pp. 92–95.

5 Written in July 1953.

6 In a report submitted to the Executive Committee of the Polish Workers' Party on June 15, 1952.

7 Economic Survey of Europe Since the War, Geneva, 1953, p. 176.

8 The official organ of the Hungarian Workers' Party, Szabad Nép, recently admitted past adherence to a policy of economic nationalism. Under the heading, “Economic Cooperation of the Democratic Countries,” the paper stated in its issue of August 3, 1953: “We did not rely on the strength of cooperation and instead allowed our economic plans to be influenced by tendencies toward autarky and by policies striving at economic isolation. … Disregarding requirements of economy, we embarked on the production of a wide range of goods with the sole objective of reducing imports. Obviously, it would have been more reasonable to import those goods and to manufacture other articles in exchange for them.” It remains to be seen whether more than lip service will be paid to these sound principles in the future.

9 Economie Survey of Europe Since the War, p. 205.

10 Ibid., p. 217.