The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Global Economy

The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are moving away from a centrally planned economy towards integration within the global economy. How did this transition begin? Is this an aim which all the countries can afford? What conditions are to be met so that the countries will achieve a level of development comparable with the average level of their industrial partners? In this volume, political economists from the East and West provide an in-depth analysis of these questions. They explore how the communist bloc is redirecting its economic relations away from the political privileges of trade and cooperation with CMEA and the Third World towards the West and how their plans for economic development imply an increased involvement of Western capital. The authors also assess how the transition to the market requires liberalizing foreign trade, introducing convertibility, transforming property structures, all of which are also part of the ongoing domestic reform.