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Professor Schroeder’s Report on Soviet Economic Development Trade with Eastern Europe(1): A Comment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

F. Praussello*
Affiliation:
University of Genoa
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Extract

In my comment paper on Professor Schroeder’s report (1974) I shall discuss two points. First of all I intend to examine whether the benefits that the Soviet Union gained and is gaining from its trade with the Comecon countries can be meant as due to «exploitation » or a « discrimination » against them. The second topic on which Professor Schroeder’s paper (1974) mainly caught my attention is that of Comecon integration. In the last part of my paper I shall therefore attempt an evaluation of the integration efforts within the Comecon compared with the parallel efforts made in Western Europe in the framework of the EEC.

In the economics relationships between the Soviet Union and the Comecon countries Professor Schroeder (1974) distinguishes two main periods and argues that until 1956 the Soviet Union benefited from a net capital transfert from Eastern Europe, whose size however cannet be specified. This «unequal partnership » was made possible by the political dominance of the Soviet Union and its means were war reparations, unrequited export deliveries to Eastern Europe and discriminatory pricing in trade. Professor Schroeder (1974) seems therefore to support the opinion that during the first main period in the Comecon’s life. the Soviet Union, in a sense, « exploited » and « discriminated » its socialist partners in Eastern Europe.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 1975 

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Footnotes

(1)

See G. Schroeder (1974), pp. 12-26

References

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