On the situation in the countries of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance after the “Prague Spring” of 1968 (based on declassified archival documents)

Annotation

The relevance of the research is determined by the need to study the historical experience of implementing economic reforms in order to develop an optimal strategy for the development of the Russian Federation. On the basis of the now declassified documents from the RGANI funds, the problem of the reorganization of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance at the turn of the 1960s-1970s is considered, the factors that determined its necessity are identified. It is proved that the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the difficulties in the economy caused both the Soviet leadership and the governments of the participating countries to adjust the strategy regarding the activation of integration processes within the CMEA. The conclusion is formulated that the Soviet leadership had sufficient information about the economic and internal party situation in the study period in the COMECON member countries, it was familiar with the results of the analysis of Western analysts and Soviet specialists. These conclusions, as well as the positions of the parties involved in discussions on the further activities of the CMEA, could not be ignored when developing a program on further integration, the need for which was objective and was caused, first of all, by urgent internal economic problems, the growing technological gap from Western countries. Among the key areas where this lag was observed was the production of modern computer technology and instrumentation. In general, the interstate coordination of cooperation between countries within the framework of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, based on the international division and cooperation of labor, taking into account the economic interests of all participants in the integration association, has proved its effectiveness.

Keywords

• economic reforms
• Prague Spring
• COUNCIL for Mutual Economic Assistance
• integration
• cooperation
• international division of labor
• technological sovereignty
• instrument making
• computer technology
• conversion
• planned economy
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Contribution of the authors

Bodrova E. V. – generalization of materials, writing of the original text, formulation of conclusions; Kalinov V. V. – study of archival documents, development of the research concept, final conclusions; Efremenko V. V. – analysis of scientific literature on the topic, revision of the text, final conclusions.

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