Mutual Economic Assistance Council

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Flag of the Comecon
25 years RGW
stamp of the GDR 1974

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (short- RGW ; Russian Совет экономической взаимопомощи Soviet ekonomitscheskoi wsaimopomoschtschi shortly СЭВ; English Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , shortly CMEA or Comecon ) was an international organization of socialist countries led by the Soviet Union .

The Comecon was founded in 1949 as a socialist counterpart to the Marshall Plan and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC). It can also be seen in the context of the formation of the Cold War and the two-camp theory . Like the Warsaw Pact military alliance founded in 1955, the Comecon was dissolved in 1991 as a result of the fall of the Iron Curtain and the associated political upheavals in 1989 .

history

Comecon in 1986
  Member
  Dormant Membership
  Associate Country
  Observer

In response to the Marshall Plan , the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov drafted a plan that was supposed to bind the states of Eastern Europe more closely to the Soviet Union. Initially, this was done politically via the Cominform and then also economically via the Comecon. The founding communiqué was published on January 25, 1949, after representatives from six Eastern Bloc countries had signed the protocol on January 18 in Moscow. In addition to the Soviet Union, the founding members were Poland , Romania , Bulgaria , Hungary and Czechoslovakia . On February 23, 1949, Albania joined the alliance (whose membership was later suspended), and the GDR followed on September 29, 1950 (until 1990). The Mongolia (6 July 1962), Cuba (1972) and Vietnam (1978) were also members later. On September 17, 1964, Yugoslavia joined some Comecon organs.

China (until 1961) and North Korea had observer status. On May 16, 1973 Finland signed a cooperation agreement with Comecon, followed by Iraq and Mexico in 1975 , Angola 1976, Nicaragua 1984, Mozambique 1985. In November 1986 delegates from the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan , Ethiopia , the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) and Laos attended a meeting as an observer.

In 1991, the attempt to reform the Comecon’s central administrative system into a market economy failed . With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Comecon also dissolved on June 28, 1991.

tasks

Comecon had the task, on the one hand, of achieving better economic specialization and division of labor between the socialist states and, on the other, of gradually harmonizing the very different economic conditions. As a result of the specialization based on the division of labor, mutual dependence arose between the USSR and the other Comecon states. The specialization was intended to achieve higher quantities and thereby reduce costs ( synergy ).

The "mutual economic aid" formulated in the name was mainly due to the fact that the economically relatively strong countries (Soviet Union, GDR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary) supported the weaker ones (Bulgaria, Romania, Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam) economically within the framework of socialist economic integration . At the same time an ideological strengthening in the sense of Marxism-Leninism was pursued.

The foreign trade between the members was marked by several years of bilateral agreements and some multilateral treaties. For the coordination of the long-term economic plans in the Soviet Union ( five-year plan , from 1959 seven-year plan), a bureaucratic apparatus, the Gosplan authority, was created, which also ensured the link with the economic plans of the other Comecon countries.

Although the system did not provide for it, trade between the members was almost balanced, as the lack of convertibility of the currencies made it less attractive to build up creditor positions in foreign trade. The payment transactions were handled by the International Bank for Economic Cooperation (IBWZ), founded as a Comecon organ in 1957 with headquarters in Moscow. The means of payment were transfer rubles and gold reserves . Since national prices were political prices, they were little suited for fixing prices in foreign trade. Therefore average prices of the world market were used as a basis.

Standardization efforts were also made under the umbrella of the Comecon, for example on December 23, 1968 to the contract on a uniform system of electronic computing technology (ESER), which aimed at the development of standardized computing technology.

A sub-organization of the Comecon was the Common Freight Car Park (OPW), which existed from July 1, 1964 to August 31, 1990.

Common projects

Energy sector

  • At the tenth meeting of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (Comecon) in December 1958 in Prague, the decision was made to build the friendship oil pipeline , which was put into operation in 1963.
  • On the XXVIII. At the Comecon meeting in June 1974 in Sofia, it was decided to build the Druzhba natural gas route .
  • With the establishment of international pipeline and high-voltage line networks, important, politically effective networks took place.

specialization

As part of the specialization, the individual states were responsible for certain products as follows:

From 1976 the Deutsche Reichsbahn had to have its medium-heavy diesel locomotives of the 119 series from the locomotive factory “23. August " import from Romania .

The plan was also a passenger car of the lower middle class as a joint project of the Comecon countries under the leadership of the GDR and Czechoslovakia, known as Comecon car .

Problems

In the beginning there were mainly problems with the production capacities, as the executing companies had not been prepared for increased production volumes. A permanent problem was that the quantities delivered never corresponded to the quantities required and the quality of some products left a lot to be desired. In the beginning, around 50% of the diesel locomotives made in Romania were not operational on the Deutsche Reichsbahn.

For the GDR this meant that some branches of vehicle construction had to be discontinued (including Gothawagen T57 ), for this purpose tram cars such as the Rekowagen were built , and buses continued to be built by Fritz Fleischer KG under difficult conditions.

organs

Meeting of the Executive Committee

All the main bodies of the Comecon could only make non-binding recommendations. Each member state had only one vote, and until 1967 the principle of unanimity was in effect , later the member states could abstain from voting.

Council meeting

The council meeting was formally the supreme body of Comecon. It was composed of delegates from all member countries and usually met once a year, since 1987 alternately in the chairman's capital. A delegation was led by the Prime Minister of a member state or his deputy.

Executive Committee

The executive committee was actually the decisive body, which consisted of a deputy head of government of each member country.

office

The secretariat consisted of a Soviet general secretary, his non-Soviet deputies and other staff. The seat of the secretariat was Moscow. The founding was decided at the fourth meeting of the Comecon on March 26 and 27, 1954 in Hungary.

Other organs

Further organs were standing commissions (last twenty-two) and committees (six). They had existed since 1957, but were not upgraded to major organs until later. There was also the International Bank for Economic Cooperation , the International Investment Bank and the Medunion .

The end of GDR membership in Comecon

The GDR had the State Treaty of 18 May 1990 on the monetary, economic and social union commits itself to the Federal Republic of Germany to adapt to the conditions of the market economy with its economic system. Continuing membership in Comecon was not compatible with this. The statute of the Comecon Council provided for the possibility of resignation, which only came into effect six months after the termination. The GDR government correctly assumed that “upon the end of its existence as a subject of international law , its membership in Comecon would automatically expire.” It therefore intended, in accordance with Art. 54 lit. b of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties to hold consultations with the member states and then to inform the government of the USSR as depositary of the Comecon Statute by note verbal about the termination of GDR membership, combined with the request to inform the member states about this. However, since the Soviet side refused to hold consultations, this procedure did not take place. The President of the People's Chamber, Bergmann-Pohl, as the incumbent head of state , declared the GDR's withdrawal from the Comecon and its sub-organizations on October 2, 1990, with effect from October 3, 1990.

The united Germany has taken over the handling of all claims and liabilities arising from the previous membership. The transfer ruble settlement with the former Comecon countries was continued by the Federal Republic after reunification until the end of 1990 to protect legitimate expectations . As recently as 2016, payments for this were made from the federal budget , albeit to a lesser extent. At the time, the federal government was still conducting legal disputes to collect repayment claims.

Comecon building in Moscow

According to the German opinion, the GDR's share in the Comecon office building in Moscow also belongs to the GDR's asset position (see picture). It had been financed with contributions from the member states, of which the GDR contributed 40 million rubles, about one sixth of the construction costs. The market value of the 30-story building was estimated at $ 250-300 million in the early 1990s  . The Soviet, later Russian government has not recognized this claim to this day. Since the GDR had already declared its exit as a legal entity before its end, no asset position had passed to the unified Germany.

See also

literature

  • Arie Bloed: The External Relations of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance . Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht / Boston / London 1988, ISBN 90-247-3783-4 .
  • Martin Dangerfield: Socialist Economic Integration. The Council for Mutual Economic Aid (Comecon). Translated from the English by Felix Kurz. In: Bernd Greiner , Christian Th. Müller, Claudia Weber (eds.): Economy in the Cold War. (= Publication series of the Federal Agency for Civic Education . Volume 1095). Bonn 2010, ISBN 978-3-8389-0095-7 .
  • Adam Zwass : On the problem of currency relations between East and West. Europaverlag, Vienna 1974.
  • Adam Zwass: The Council for Mutual Economic Aid 1949 to 1987. The thorny road from political to economic integration. Springer, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-211-82049-3 .

Web links

Commons : Council for Mutual Economic Aid  - Album of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthias Uhl : The division of Germany, defeat, east-west division and reconstruction 1945-1949 . Berlin 2009, be.bra verlag, ISBN 978-3-89809-411-5 , p. 162.
  2. ^ Curt Gasteyger : The Council for Mutual Economic Aid . Founding communiqué of January 25, 1949 . In: Europe from division to unification . Bonn 1997, p. 108 f . ( ungarisches-institut.de [PDF; 11 kB ; accessed on January 26, 2009]).
  3. ↑ Protocol on the establishment of a Council for Mutual Economic Assistance between the Governments of the USSR, the Republic of Poland, the Romanian People's Republic and the Republic of Bulgaria, signed in Moscow on January 18, 1949 . In: Alexander Uschakow (Ed.): Integration in the RGW (COMECON) . Baden-Baden 1983, p. 19–21 ( ungarisches-institut.de [PDF; 15 kB ; accessed on January 26, 2009]).
  4. ↑ Hans-Joachim Schröter : On the inclusion of the GDR in the Comecon , in: Content and methodological problems of a comparative economic history of socialism , Berlin Humboldt University 1979, pp. 157-162.
  5. ↑ Communique of September 17, 1964 on the signing of an agreement on the participation of Yugoslavia in the work of certain Comecon organs . In: Alexander Uschakow (Ed.): Integration in the RGW (COMECON) . Baden-Baden 1983, p. 888 ( ungarisches-institut.de [PDF; accessed on January 27, 2009]).
  6. ^ Library of Congress (Ed.): The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance . ( Country Studies [accessed January 27, 2009]).
  7. ↑ Proletarian Profits . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 1966 ( online ).
  8. ^ Statute of the International Investment Bank . In: Alexander Uschakow (Ed.): Integration in the RGW (COMECON) . Baden-Baden 1983, p. 249–261 ( ungarisches-institut.de [PDF; 33 kB ; accessed on January 26, 2009]).
  9. ↑ Dieter Papenfuß: The treatment of the international treaties of the GDR in the course of establishing the unity of Germany. A contribution to the question of state succession in international treaties . CF Müller Verlag, Heidelberg 1997, ISBN 3-8114-5797-7 . P. 88.
  10. ↑ See also Art. 24 Paragraph 3 Unification Agreement .
  11. ↑ Federal Budget 2016: (6003 Tit explanation of chapter 671 03..) "In addition, the Federal Republic of Germany leads litigation for debt recoveries." 72. (PDF) Retrieved on 15 March 2016.
  12. ↑ Cf. Dieter Papenfuß: The treatment of the international treaties of the GDR in the course of the establishment of the unity of Germany. A contribution to the question of state succession in international treaties . CF Müller Verlag, Heidelberg 1997, ISBN 3-8114-5797-7 . P. 220 f.