Abstract
Most of the foreign investment activity of state enterprises in the Comecon countries has developed since the late 1960s. A few Soviet investments that were established before World War II — those concentrated in timber, oil and banking — survived the war. The Communist regimes which came to power in Eastern Europe after World War II inherited some foreign assets when they nationalised large capitalist firms with foreign branches and affiliates. By the 1960s, however, these and a few additional investments constituted only a handful of cases and could be regarded as exceptional, even anomalous, in terms of the priorities of contemporary policy.
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Notes and References
See, for example, O. Bogomolov, ‘East-West Economic Relations: Economic Interests of the Socialist and Capitalist Countries of Europe’, in F. Nemschak (ed.), World Economy and East-West Trade (Vienna-New York: Springer-Verlag, 1976) pp. 66–77;
and N. P. Shmelyov, ‘Scope for Industrial, Scientific and Technical Cooperation between East and West’, in N. Watts (ed.), Economic Relations between East and West (London: Macmillan, 1978) pp. 211–21.
See. M. Kaser, Comecon: Integration Problems of the Planned Economies (London: Oxford University Press, 1965).
This was recognised in The Comprehensive Programme for the Further Extension and Improvement of Cooperation and the Development of Socialist Economic Integration by the CMEA Member Countries (Moscow: CMEA Secretariat, 1971) Ch. I. See also C. McMillan, ‘The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance: A Historical Perspective’ in R. Nyrop (ed.), Czechoslovakia: A Country Study (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, for Foreign Area Studies, The American University, 1981) pp. 251–76.
For details, see G. Schroeder, ‘Soviet Economic “Reforms”: A Study in Contradictions’, Soviet Studies, July 1968; M. Bornstein, ‘Economic Reform in Eastern Europe’, in East European Economies Post-Helsinki (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, for the Joint Economic Committee, US Congress, 1977), pp. 102–34;
and K. Thalheim, ‘The Balance Sheet’, in H. Höhmann et al. (eds), The New Economic Systems of Eastern Europe (London: C. Hurst, 1975) pp. 529–68.
See the discussion in Bornstein et al. (eds), East-West Relations and the Future of Eastern Europe (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981).
On the interaction of politics and economics in the development of East-West relations see C. Friesen, The Political Economy of East-West Trade (New York: Praeger, 1976);
and A. Stent, From Embargo to Ostpolitik, the Political Economy of West German-Soviet Relations 1955–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
Philip Hanson carefully traces the evolution of Soviet policy in this area in his Trade and Technology in Soviet-Western Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981) Part II. More generally on evolving East European perceptions of the need to import Western technology, see E. Zaleski and H. Weinert, Technology Transfer between East and West (Paris, OECD Secretariat, 1980) especially Chs 1 and 4.
Valkenier traces this policy evolution in Chapter 1 of her The Soviet Union and the Third World: An Economic Bind (New York: Praeger, 1983). See also R. Lowenthal, Model or Ally? The Communist Powers and the Developing Countries (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).
For the parallel policy development in East Europe, see M. Radu (ed.), Eastern Europe and the Third World (New York: Praeger, 1981), especially the contribution by Radvanyi.
See J. Hannigan and C. McMillan, ‘CMEA Trade and Cooperation with the Third World in the Energy Sector’, in NATO Economic and Information Directorates (eds), CMEA: Energy, 1980–1990 (Newtonville, Mass.: Oriental Research Partners, 1981) pp. 215–37.
On these various points, see D. Nayyar (ed.), Economic Relations between Socialist Countries and the Third World (London: Macmillan, 1977);
Dobozi (ed.), Economic Cooperation between Socailist and Developing Countries (Budapest: Hungarian Scientific Council for World Economy, 1978);
and P. Desai, ‘Transfer of Technology from Centrally Planned and Market Economies to the Developing Countries’, report prepared for the UN Association of the United States of America, New York, August 1979, mimeograph.
See J. Stopford et al., The World Directory of Multinational Enterprises (London: Macmillan, 1980) pp. xviii–xix.
See McMillan, ‘Eastern Europe’s Relations with OPEC Suppliers in the 1980s’ in European Economies: Slow Growth in the 1980s (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, for the Joint Economic Committee, US Congress, 1985) Vol. I, pp. 368–82.
See Nayyar, op. cit.; J. Diambou, ‘Faiblesses et qualités des relations Est-Sud’ in Lavigne (ed.), Stratégies des pays socialistes dans l’échange international (Paris: Economica, 1980) pp. 119–32; and US Department of State, Soviet and East European Aid to the Third World, 1981 (Washington, DC: Department of State Publication 9345, February 1983).
F. Levcik and J. Stankovsky, Industrial Cooperation between East and West (White Plains, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1979).
On these, see D. St Charles, ‘East-West Business Arrangements: A Typology’ in McMillan (ed.), Changing Perspectives in East-West Commerce (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath and Co., 1974) pp. 105–24;
and D. Barclay, ‘USSR: The Role of Compensation Agreements in Trade with the West’ in Soviet Economy in a Time of Change, Vol. 2 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, for the Joint Economic Committee, US Congress, 1979) pp. 462–81.
McMillan, ‘The International Organisation of Inter-Firm Cooperation’ in N. Watts (ed.), Economic Relations between East and West, op. cit., pp. 171–91, and compare M. Casson, Alternatives to the Multinational Enterprise (London: Macmillan, 1979).
J. Laux, ‘Eastern Europe in a Changing International Division of Labor’ (Paper presented to the International Studies Association 24th Annual Convention, Mexico City, April 1983).
See UN Economic Commission for Europe, East-West Industrial Cooperation (New York: United Nations, 1979).
I. Grosser and G. Tuitz, Structural Change in Manufacturing Industries in the European CMEA Area and Patterns of Trade in Manufactures between CMEA and Developing Countries (Vienna: UNIDO document ID/WG.375/5, January 1982) pp. 122ff.
See J. Vanous, ‘East European Economic Slowdown’ in Problems of Communism, July–August 1982, and the contributions to East European Economic Assessment, 2 vols (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, for the Joint Economic Committee, US Congress, 1980/1981).
See also J. Drewnowski (ed.), Crisis in the East European Economy: The Spread of the Polish Disease (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1982).
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© 1987 Carl H. McMillan and the Trade Policy Research Centre
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McMillan, C.H. (1987). Comecon Countries and the World Economy. In: Multinationals from the Second World. Trade Policy Research Centre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08839-3_2
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