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East-West Trade Possibilities: an Appraisal of the Moscow Economic Conference
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2017
Extract
At an “International economic conference” held in Moscow in April, 1952, speakers from Soviet bloc countries presented summary figures on the volume of East-West trade which, as they claimed, could be achieved within the next two or three years on condition that “artificial barriers” (i.e., mainly Western security export controls) were removed. These figures were intended to document the contention that, in the absence of such barriers, the Soviet bloc would welcome expansion of East-West trade to a level high enough to produce most far-reaching and beneficial effects in the West in respect of relieving the dollar shortage, improving living standards, reducing unemployment, assisting the development of backward economies, and so on.
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- Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1953
References
1 An English text of the proceedings of the conference has appeared: Committee for the Promotion of International Trade, International Economic Conference in Moscow, April 3–12, 795.2 (Moscow, 1952). This publication is cited hereafter as I.E.C.M.
2 For these claims see, particularly, the speeches to the conference by Nesterov, M. V. and Orlov, N., both of the USSR in I.E.C.M., pp. 59–73, 153–60.Google Scholar
3 The term “East-West trade” is used here to describe trade between Soviet bloc countries (as specified below) and all countries outside the Soviet bloc. All trade figures refer to the sum of imports and exports, a procedure adopted because the Moscow conference data were stated as import-export aggregates. The terms “target” and “program” are used solely for brief reference to the Moscow figures on “possible” trade and the context in which they were presented; their use does not imply any judgments as to the actual meaning and intent of these data on alleged Soviet bloc trade intentions.
4 It may be noted that the Moscow program would also modify the present distribution of East-West trade. In 1951, the USSR accounted for 20 percent of total Soviet bloc exports, Eastern Europe (including Eastern Germany) for 50 percent, and China for 30 percent. Cf. United Nations, Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, VI, No. 8 (August 1952), vi.Google Scholar
5 Stalin, Joseph, Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (New York, 1952).Google Scholar
6 Ibid., p. 27.Google Scholar
7 With few exceptions, the ruble values of “possible” trade were presented in terms of three-year totals of exports and imports.
8 The Research and Planning Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe appears to have assumed that “current prices” stands for “1952 prices,” cf. “Developments in Trade between Eastern and Western Europe from 1950 to Mid–1952,” Economic Bulletin for EuropeVol. IV, No. 3, p. 51.Google Scholar The present writer has found nothing to support this inference in the published material on the Moscow conference. It is not clear how the Moscow data, prepared in March, 1952, at the latest, could have been stated, literally, at 1952 prices.
9 Thus, a Soviet speaker at the conference listed ruble values of “possible” trade with the West by the USSR and its satellites in 1953–1955 totalling 80–101 billion rubles. This he describes as equivalent to an annual average volume “two and a half or even three times … the present volume,” I.E.CM., p. 159. Converting at the official exchange rate (1 ruble = $0.25), this implies a Soviet estimate of the “present” (presumably, 1951) value of East-West trade of about $2,750 million. However, according to United Nations data (as cited in our footnote 4) trade between the Soviet bloc and the rest of the world in 1951 aggregated $3,120 million. The authors of the Economic Commission for Europe article cited in note 8 do not refer to this discrepancy when they confront the dollar equivalent of the “possible annual turnover” derived from the three-year ruble total cited above with their own estimate of East-West trade in 1951, $3,350 million; a figure which represents the United Nations estimate referred to above, plus an allowance for trade by Eastern Germany ﹛Economic Bulletin for Europe, Vol. IV, No. 3, Table 13, p. 51).
10 I.E.C.M., p. 64.Google Scholar
11 Soviet speakers at the conference consistently used the “next two or three years” formula. However, most satellite speakers related their trade programs explicitly to 1953–1955, see I.E.C.M., pp. 36 Google Scholar, 120, 125, 137, 143. From the context of Nesterov's statement one may also infer that his enumeration of continents and regions, although incomplete, was intended to comprise all countries outside the Soviet bloc.
12 Obviously, some arbitrary assumptions and imprecise procedures are necessary to define a category of international trade in 1938 comparable to present East-West trade, and also to deflate 1948 trade values to 1938 prices. For an appraisal of the degree of comparability and accuracy achieved here, the reader is referred to the appended notes on Table 3, at the end of the article.
13 I.E.C.M., pp. 158–59.Google Scholar
14 Bulgaria, Czechslovokia, Hungary, Poland, Rumania.
15 Jen-Min, Lei, I.E.C., p. 112:Google Scholar “China … can … develop commerce with the countries of private enterprise to the value of 15,000–19,000 million rubles in the course of two or there (sic) years, i.e., to the amount of 6,000–9,000 million rubles a year.“
16 I.E.C.M., p. 159.Google Scholar
17 Such trade amounted to $3,500 million in current f.o.b. prices. Calculated from League of Nations, The Network of World Trade (Geneva, 1942), Annex III.
18 Calculated from ibid., cf. notes on Table 3 in the Appendix.
19 Grigor'ev, N., “K voprosu o vnutrigermanskoj torgovle” (On the question of German Intra-trade), Voprosy èkonomiki, No. 3 (1952), p. 87.Google Scholar