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158-637: Pioniereisenbahn ( Pioneer Railway ) is the German term for a narrow gauge railway operated by children in the countries of Comecon . The children who work there in their free time were interested in rail transport and often members of the Junge Pioniere or the Freie Deutsche Jugend , called Pioniere (pioneers). The children and teenagers became acquainted with the railroad's occupations and get practical experiences. Also apprentices of

316-872: A beachhead in Europe and acted as China's chief spokesman at the United Nations. To Albania's dismay, however, Chinese equipment and technicians were not nearly as sophisticated as the Soviet goods and advisers they replaced. Ironically, a language barrier even forced the Chinese and Albanian technicians to communicate in Russian. Albanians no longer took part in Warsaw Pact activities or Comecon agreements. The other East European communist nations, however, did not break diplomatic or trade links with Albania. In 1964,

474-485: A monopolist seller would face a monopsonist buyer, with no structure to set prices. Comecon was established at a Moscow economic conference January 5–8, 1949, at which the six founding member countries were represented; its foundation was publicly announced on January 25; Albania joined a month later and East Germany in 1950. Recent research by the Romanian researcher Elena Dragomir suggests that Romania played

632-519: A "people's republic." However, the country had already been under out-and-out Communist rule for just over two years. After months of angry debate, the assembly adopted a constitution that mirrored the Yugoslav and Soviet constitutions. A couple of months later, the assembly members chose a new government, which was emblematic of Hoxha's continuing consolidation of power: Hoxha became simultaneously prime minister, foreign minister , defense minister , and

790-472: A Soviet apology to Albania and reparations for damages which it had inflicted on the country. Albania had also been feuding with Moscow over suggestions that Albania should focus on agriculture to the detriment of industrial development. Soviet-Albanian relations dipped to new lows after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Albania felt that the Soviet Union had become too liberal since

948-663: A Soviet double agent working as a liaison officer between the British intelligence service and the United States Central Intelligence Agency, had leaked details of the infiltration plan to Moscow, and the security breach claimed the lives of about 300 infiltrators. Following a wave of subversive activity, including the failed infiltration and the March 1951 bombing of the Soviet embassy in Tirana,

1106-434: A Yugoslav cession of Kosovo to Albania after the war. In January 1945, the two governments signed a treaty establishing Kosovo as a Yugoslav autonomous province. Shortly thereafter, Yugoslavia became the first country to recognize Albania's provisional government. In July 1946, Yugoslavia and Albania signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation that was quickly followed by a series of technical and economic agreements laying

1264-637: A boon for Albania because Moscow had far more to offer Albania than hard-strapped Belgrade had. The fact that the Soviet Union had no common border with Albania also appealed to the Albanian regime because it made it more difficult for Moscow to exert pressure on Tirana. In November at the First Party Congress of the Albanian Party of Labor (APL), the former Albanian Communist Party which renamed itself at Stalin's suggestion, Hoxha pinned

1422-500: A call for "a common single planning organ." This was resisted by Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, but most emphatically by increasingly nationalistic Romania, which strongly rejected the notion that they should specialize in agriculture. In Central and Eastern Europe, only Bulgaria happily took on an assigned role (also agricultural, but in Bulgaria's case this had been the country's chosen direction even as an independent country in

1580-415: A country could still veto, but the hope was that they would typically choose just to step aside rather than either veto or be a reluctant participant. This aimed, at least in part, at allowing Romania to chart its own economic course without leaving Comecon entirely or bringing it to an impasse (see de-satellization of Communist Romania ). Also until the late 1960s, the official term for Comecon activities

1738-827: A deputy prime minister, the executive committee met quarterly, usually in Moscow. In 1971 and 1974, the executive committee acquired economic departments that ranked above the standing commissions. These economic departments considerably strengthened the authority and importance of the executive committee. There were four council committees: Council Committee for Cooperation in Planning, Council Committee for Scientific and Technical Cooperation, Council Committee for Cooperation in Material and Technical Supply, and Council Committee for Cooperation in Machine Building. Their mission

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1896-523: A form of associate status in the organization, specified in its 1964 agreement with Comecon. Collectively, the members of the Comecon did not display the necessary prerequisites for economic integration: their level of industrialization was low and uneven, with a single dominant member (the Soviet Union) producing 70% of the community national product. In the late 1980s, there were ten full members:

2054-686: A formal or informal way, often the countries were discouraged from developing their own designs that competed with the main Comecon design. Although not formally part of the organization's hierarchy, the Conference of First Secretaries of Communist and Workers' Parties and of the Heads of Government of the Comecon Member Countries was Comecon's most important organ. These party and government leaders gathered for conference meetings regularly to discuss topics of mutual interest. Because of

2212-594: A founding member of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, better known as the Warsaw Pact , the only military alliance the nation ever joined. Although the pact represented the first promise Albania had obtained from any of the communist countries to defend its borders, the treaty did nothing to assuage the Albanian leaders' deep mistrust of Yugoslavia . Hoxha and Shehu, utilizing their immediate successes and Albanians' deep-seated fear of Yugoslav domination, were able to successfully maintain power during

2370-540: A fresh series of purges that removed the defense minister and many top military officials. A year later, Hoxha purged ministers who were responsible for the country's economy and replaced them with younger people. As Hoxha began to experience more health problems, he progressively withdrew from state affairs and took longer and more frequent leaves of absence. Meanwhile, he began to plan an orderly succession. He worked to institutionalize his policies, hoping to frustrate any attempt which his successors might make to venture from

2528-628: A hemp factory at Rrogozhinë , a fish cannery in Vlorë , and a printing press, telephone exchange, and textile mill in Tirana. The Yugoslavs also bolstered the Albanian economy by paying three times the international price for Albanian copper and other materials. Relations between Albania and Yugoslavia declined, however, when the Albanians began complaining that the Yugoslavs were paying too little for Albanian raw materials and exploiting Albania through

2686-525: A high number of passenger seats, and was lightweight. According to the designers, the train was technologically more advanced than the trains used in New York's Subway, London's Tube or the Paris Metro. However, due to the plan of Comecon, older Soviet trains were used, which guaranteed profit for the Soviet Union and work for workers in Soviet factories. That economical change lead to the cancellation of

2844-527: A large Palace of Culture in Tirana as a symbol of the Soviet people's "love and friendship" for the Albanians. But despite these gestures, Tirana was dissatisfied with Moscow's economic policy towards Albania. Hoxha and Shehu apparently decided in either May or June 1960 that Albania was assured of Chinese support, and when sharp polemics erupted between the PRC and the Soviet Union , they openly sided with

3002-538: A more "law-governed" and technocratic price-based approach. However, with the August 1948 death of Andrei Zhdanov , Voznesensky lost his patron and was soon accused of treason as part of the Leningrad Affair ; within two years he was dead in prison. Instead, what won out was a "physical planning" approach that strengthened the role of central governments over technocrats. At the same time, the effort to create

3160-719: A new People's Assembly , but voters were presented with a single list from the Communist-dominated Democratic Front (previously the National Liberation Movement). Official ballot tallies showed that 92% of the electorate voted and that 93% of the voters chose the Democratic Front ticket. The assembly convened in January 1946. Its first act was to formally dethrone Zog, abolish the monarchy and to declare Albania

3318-514: A pledge to build textile and sugar mills and other factories and provide agricultural and industrial machinery to Albania, Joseph Stalin told Milovan Djilas , at the time a high-ranking member of Yugoslavia's communist hierarchy, that Yugoslavia should "swallow" Albania. The pro-Yugoslav faction wielded decisive political power in Albania well into 1948. At a party plenum in February and March,

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3476-538: A plot within the APL to unseat Hoxha and Shehu by force. But given their tight control of the party machinery, army, and Shehu's secret police, the Directorate of State Security (Drejtorija e Sigurimit të Shtetit— Sigurimi ), the two Albanian leaders easily parried the threat. Four pro-Soviet Albanian leaders, including Teme Sejko and Tahir Demi , were eventually tried and executed. The PRC immediately began making up for

3634-925: A producer and any foreign customer, limiting the ability to learn to adjust to foreign customers' needs. Furthermore, there was often strong political pressure to keep the best products for domestic use in each country. From the early 1950s to Comecon's demise in the early 1990s, intra-Comecon trade, except for Soviet petroleum, was in steady decline. Beginning no later than the early 1970s, Soviet petroleum and natural gas were routinely transferred within Comecon at below-market rates. Most Western commentators have viewed this as implicit, politically motivated subsidization of shaky economies to defuse discontent and reward compliance with Soviet wishes. Other commentators say that this may not have been deliberate policy, noting that whenever prices differ from world market prices, there will be winners and losers. They argue that this may have been simply an unforeseen consequence of two factors:

3792-539: A pronounced role in the Sino-Soviet split . By 1958, Albania stood with the People's Republic of China (PRC) in opposing Moscow on issues of peaceful coexistence , de-Stalinization , and Yugoslavia 's " separate road to socialism " through decentralization of economic life . The Soviet Union, other Eastern European countries, and China all offered Albania large amounts of aid. Soviet leaders also promised to build

3950-466: A radical change in the status of Albania's women . Considered second-class citizens in traditional Albanian society, women did most of the work at home and they also did most of the work in the fields. Before World War II, about 90% of Albania's women were illiterate, and in many areas, they were regarded as chattel under ancient tribal laws and customs. During the Cultural and Ideological Revolution,

4108-477: A rather important role in the Comecon's creation in 1949. Dragomir argues that Romania was interested in the creation of a "system of cooperation" to improve its trade relations with the other people's democracies, especially with those able to export industrial equipment and machinery to Romania. According to Dragomir, in December 1948, the Romanian leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej sent a letter to Stalin, proposing

4266-531: A recent paper by Faudot, Nenovsky and Marinova (2022) the functioning and the collapse of the Comecon has been studied. It focuses on the evolution of the monetary mechanisms and some technical problems of multilateral payments and the peculiarities of the transfer ruble. Comecon as an organization proved unable to develop multilateralism mainly because of issues related to domestic planning that encouraged autarky and, at best, bilateral exchanges. After Stalin's death in 1953, Comecon again began to find its footing. In

4424-504: A single regime of planning "common economic organization" with the ability to set plans throughout the Comecon region also came to nought. A protocol to create such a system was signed January 18, 1949, but never ratified. While historians are not unanimous on why this was stymied, it clearly threatened the sovereignty not only of the smaller states but even of the Soviet Union itself, since an international body would have had real power; Stalin clearly preferred informal means of intervention in

4582-433: A totalitarian state, travel and visa restrictions made Albania one of the most difficult countries to visit or travel from. Being Europe's only Muslim-majority country (aside from Turkey ) at the time , it declared itself the world's first atheist state in 1967, but after the fall of communism in Albania in 1991, the practice of religion slowly increased. It was the only Warsaw Pact member to formally withdraw from

4740-499: The Bulgarian People's Republic , and Marshal Josip Broz Tito and Bulgaria's Georgi Dimitrov talked of plans to establish a Balkan Federation to include Albania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. Yugoslav advisers poured into Albania's government offices and its army headquarters. Tirana was desperate for outside aid, and about 20,000 tons of Yugoslav grain helped stave off famine. Albania also received US$ 26.3 million from

4898-527: The Deutsche Reichsbahn were taught signal technique there. Today they are often called Parkeisenbahn or Kindereisenbahn but the principle is the same. Examples for German pioneer railways can be found at List of children's railways . This German rail transport related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Comecon The descriptive term was often applied to all multilateral activities involving members of

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5056-689: The Eurasian Economic Union with Armenia , Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Along with Ukraine, Georgia , Azerbaijan and Moldova are also part of the GUAM . Vietnam and Laos joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1995 and 1997 respectively. Albania had stopped participating in Comecon activities in 1961 following the Soviet–Albanian split , but formally withdrew in 1987. East Germany reunified with

5214-550: The Helsinki Conference of July 1975. Soon after Mao's death in 1976, Hoxha criticized the new leadership as well as Beijing's pragmatic policy towards the United States and Western Europe. China retorted by inviting Tito to visit Beijing in 1977 and ending assistance programs for Albania in 1978. The Sino-Albanian split left Albania with no foreign benefactor. Albania ignored calls to normalize relations by

5372-510: The Nazis , the LNÇ quickly moved to consolidate its power, liberate the country's tenants and workers, and fraternally link Albania with other socialist countries. King Zog I was permanently barred from returning to Albania. The internal affairs minister, Koçi Xoxe , "an erstwhile pro- Yugoslavia tinsmith", presided over the trial of many non-communist politicians who were condemned as " enemies of

5530-702: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development . All four Central European states are now members of the Visegrád Group . Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, along with Ukraine and Belarus founded the Commonwealth of Independent States which consists of most of the ex-Soviet republics. The country also leads the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation with Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and

5688-780: The People's Republic of Albania from 1946 until 1976, and as the Republic of Albania from 1991 to 1992, was the communist state in Albania from 1946 to 1991. It succeeded the Democratic Government of Albania (1944–1946). During this time period, the country was ruled mainly by Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour of Albania . They ruled Albania by establishing a Stalinist , and later Hoxhaist , style of state administration and adhering to policies which stressed national unity and self-reliance . Described by scholars as

5846-657: The Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, when Khrushchev denounced Stalin's Administration in his " secret speech ". Hoxha, deeply alarmed by the denunciation, defended Stalin and refused to follow Khrushchev's attempt at stepping away from the prior Soviet Administration. As the first years of the Khrushchev Administration passed, Hoxha continued to maintain this position, including through

6004-596: The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration immediately after the war but had to rely on Yugoslavia for investment and development aid. Joint Albanian–Yugoslav companies were created for mining, railroad construction, the production of petroleum and electricity, and international trade. Yugoslav investments led to the construction of a sugar refinery in Korçë , a food-processing plant in Elbasan ,

6162-538: The University of Tirana ) was founded in 1957 and the Albanian Academy of Sciences opened 15 years later. Stalin died in March 1953, and apparently fearing that the Soviet leader's demise might encourage rivals within the Albanian party's ranks, neither Hoxha nor Shehu risked traveling to Moscow to attend his funeral . The Soviet Union's subsequent movement toward rapprochement with the Yugoslavs alarmed

6320-497: The West and withdrew from Comecon on 2 October 1990. In the late 1950s, a number of communist-ruled non-member countries – the People's Republic of China , North Korea , Mongolia , Vietnam , and Yugoslavia  – were invited to participate as observers in Comecon sessions. Although Mongolia and Vietnam later gained full membership, China stopped attending Comecon sessions after 1961. Yugoslavia negotiated

6478-495: The communist bloc 's organization for coordinating economic planning , the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon). Tirana soon entered into trade agreements with Poland , Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Romania , and the Soviet Union . Soviet and East European technical advisers took up residence in Albania, and the Soviet Union also sent Albania military advisers and built a submarine installation on Sazan Island . After

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6636-708: The disturbances in Poland and the rebellion in Hungary in 1956. Hoxha during this period purged party moderates with pro-Soviet and pro-Yugoslav leanings, however toned down his anti-Yugoslav rhetoric after a successful April 1957 trip to Moscow. This trip proved pivotal for the Albanian State, Hoxha having won cancellation of about US$ 105 million in outstanding loans and about US$ 7.8 million in additional food assistance. By 1958, however, tensions had re-sparked between Hoxha and Tito, with continued conflict over

6794-584: The ongoing civil war in Greece , would back Greek demands for territory in southern Albania ; and anxieties grew in July when a United States Senate resolution backed the Greek demands. A major incident between Albania and Britain erupted in 1946 after Tirana claimed jurisdiction over the channel between the Albanian mainland and the Greek island of Corfu . Britain challenged Albania by sailing four destroyers into

6952-406: The 1930s). Essentially, by the time the Soviet Union was calling for tight economic integration, they no longer had the power to impose it. Despite some slow headway – integration increased in petroleum, electricity, and other technical/scientific sectors – and the 1963 founding of an International Bank for Economic Co-operation, Comecon countries all increased trade with

7110-578: The 1957 Treaty of Rome . Once again, efforts at transnational central planning failed. In December 1961, a council session approved the Basic Principles of the International Socialist Division of Labour, which talked of closer coordination of plans and of "concentrating production of similar products in one or several socialist countries." In November 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev followed this up with

7268-404: The 1957 abandonment of the 1956–60 Soviet five-year plan , as the Comecon governments struggled to reestablish their legitimacy and popular support. The next few years saw a series of small steps toward increased trade and economic integration, including the introduction of the " convertible rouble  [ ru ] ", revised efforts at national specialization, and a 1959 charter modeled after

7426-460: The 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania on the activity of the Party's Central Committee that the 1976 Constitution was an embodiment of the free will of the Albanian people, because genuine democracy was necessary in order for socialism to actually exist. He said that, "the broad masses of the working people freely aired their views on the new Fundamental Law of our state of the dictatorship of

7584-591: The APL and army, and using economic blackmail. "Soviet rats were able to eat while the Albanian people were dying of hunger," Hoxha railed, referring to purposely delayed Soviet grain deliveries. Communist leaders loyal to Moscow described Hoxha's performance as "gangsterish" and "infantile," and the speech extinguished any chance of an agreement between Moscow and Tirana. For the next year, Albania played proxy for China. Pro-Soviet Communist parties, reluctant to confront China directly, criticized Beijing by castigating Albania. China, for its part, frequently gave prominence to

7742-644: The Albanian government introduced an austerity program, appealing to the people to conserve resources, cut production costs, and abandon unnecessary investment. In October 1964, Hoxha hailed Khrushchev's fall from power, and the Soviet Union's new leaders made overtures to Tirana. It soon became clear, however, that the new Soviet leadership had no intention of changing its basic policies to suit Albania, and relations failed to improve. For decades, Tirana's propaganda continued to refer to Soviet officials as "treacherous revisionists" and "traitors to Communism," and in 1964, Hoxha said that Albania's terms for reconciliation were

7900-479: The Albanian leaders' morale, elevated diplomatic relations between the two countries to the ambassadorial level. Despite some cautious expressions of enthusiasm, Hoxha and Shehu quickly turned against Nikita Khrushchev 's programs of " peaceful coexistence " and "different roads to socialism". Raising concerns over supposed steps towards Marxist Revisionism , the Albanian Communists relationship with

8058-512: The Albanian nation and kept it mired in backwardness. Student agitators combed the countryside, forcing Albanians to quit practicing their faiths. Despite complaints, even by APL members, all churches, mosques, monasteries, and other religious institutions were closed or converted into warehouses, gymnasiums, and workshops by year's end. A special decree abrogated the charters by which the country's main religious communities had operated. The campaign culminated in an announcement that Albania had become

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8216-751: The Albanians went so far as to seize the empty Soviet embassy in Tirana, and Albanian workers pressed on with construction of the Palace of Culture on their own. The shift away from the Soviet Union wreaked havoc on Albania's economy. Half of its imports and exports had been geared toward Soviet suppliers and markets, so the souring of Tirana's relations with Moscow brought Albania's foreign trade to near collapse as China proved incapable of delivering promised machinery and equipment on time. The low productivity, flawed planning, poor workmanship, and inefficient management at Albanian enterprises became clear when Soviet and Eastern European aid and advisers were withdrawn. In 1962,

8374-614: The Albanians' fulminations against the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, which Tirana referred to as a "socialist hell." Hoxha and Shehu continued their harangue against the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia at the APL's Fourth Party Congress in February 1961. During the congress, the Albanian government announced the broad outlines of the country's Third Five-Year Plan (1961–65), which allocated 54% of all investment to industry, thereby rejecting Khrushchev's wish to make Albania primarily an agricultural producer. Moscow responded by canceling aid programs and lines of credit for Albania, but China again came to

8532-400: The Chinese. The Soviet Union immediately retaliated by organizing a campaign to oust Hoxha and Shehu in the summer of 1960. Moscow cut promised grain deliveries to Albania during a drought, and the Soviet embassy in Tirana overtly encouraged a pro-Soviet faction in the Party of Labour of Albania (APL) to speak out against the party's pro-Chinese stance. Moscow also apparently involved itself in

8690-598: The Comecon members deemed underdeveloped, Cuba obtained oil in direct exchange for sugar at a rate highly favorable to Cuba. Within the socialist economic paradigm, the subsidies in favor of Cuba and other underdeveloped Comecon members were viewed as rational and fair because they counteracted unequal exchange . The organization of Comecon was officially focused on common expansion of states, more effective production and building relationships between countries within. And as in every planned economy, operations did not reflect state of market, innovations, availability of items or

8848-688: The Communist Party of Yugoslavia's Central Committee accused Hoxha of following "independent" policies and turning the Albanian people against Yugoslavia. This was the closest Hoxha ever came to being removed from power. Apparently attempting to buy support inside the Albanian Communist Party, Belgrade extended Tirana credits which were worth 40 million USD, an amount which was equivalent to 58% of Albania's 1947 state budget. A year later, Yugoslavia's credits accounted for nearly half of Albania's 1948 state budget. Relations worsened in

9006-630: The Communist authorities implemented harsh internal security measures. In September 1952, the assembly enacted a penal code that required the death penalty for anyone over eleven years old who was found guilty of conspiring against the state, damaging state property, or committing economic sabotage. Political executions were common and between 5,000 and 25,000 people were killed in total during the Communist era. Albania primarily depended on Soviet assistance and know-how after its break with Yugoslavia in 1948. In February 1949, Albania gained membership in

9164-482: The Council Committee for Cooperation in Planning drew up draft agreements for joint projects, adopted a resolution approving these projects, and recommended approval to the concerned parties. If its decisions were not subject to approval by national governments and parties, this committee would be considered Comecon's supranational planning body. The international Secretariat, Comecon's only permanent body,

9322-548: The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, officially the highest Comecon organ, examined fundamental problems of economic integration and directed the activities of the Secretariat and other subordinate organizations. Delegations from each Comecon member country attended these meetings. Prime ministers usually headed the delegations, which met during the second quarter of each year in a member country's capital (the location of

9480-597: The European Community (the renamed EEC), and the " Sinatra doctrine " under which the Soviet Union allowed that change would be the exclusive affair of each individual country marked the beginning of the end for Comecon. Although the Revolutions of 1989 did not formally end Comecon, and the Soviet government itself lasted until 1991, the March 1990 meeting in Prague was little more than a formality, discussing

9638-631: The European people" had spurned east–west collaboration within the framework agreed within the United Nations, that is, through the Economic Commission for Europe. Some say that Stalin's precise motives in establishing Comecon were "inscrutable" They may well have been "more negative than positive", with Stalin "more anxious to keep other powers out of neighbouring buffer states … than to integrate them." Furthermore, GATT 's notion of ostensibly nondiscriminatory treatment of trade partners

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9796-454: The R1 trains by A. Honzík. The Comecon plan, though more profitable for the Soviets, if less resourceful for the Czechs and Slovaks, forced the Czechoslovak government to buy trains "Ečs (81-709)" and "81-71", both of which were designed in early 1950s and were heavy, unreliable and expensive. (Materials available only in Czech Republic and Slovakia, video included) On the other hand, Czechoslovak trams ( Tatra T3 ) and jet trainers ( L-29 ) were

9954-458: The Soviet Union in the Warsaw Pact . There were three kinds of relationships – besides the 10 full memberships – with the Comecon: Working with neither meaningful exchange rates nor a market economy, Comecon countries had to look to world markets as a reference point for prices, but unlike agents acting in a market, prices tended to be stable over a period of years, rather than constantly fluctuating, which assisted central planning. Also, there

10112-444: The Soviet Union, six East European countries, and three extra-regional members. Geography, therefore, no longer united Comecon members. Wide variations in economic size and level of economic development also tended to generate divergent interests among the member countries. All these factors combined to give rise to significant differences in the member states' expectations about the benefits to be derived from membership in Comecon. Unity

10270-408: The Soviet Union, were not acceptable to Stalin, who in July 1947, ordered these communist governments to pull out of the Paris Conference on the European Recovery Programme. This has been described as "the moment of truth" in the post- World War II division of Europe. According to the Soviet view the "Anglo-American bloc" and "American monopolists ... whose interests had nothing in common with those of

10428-452: The Soviet-Yugoslav split, Albania and Bulgaria remained the only countries that the Soviet Union could use to supply war material to the communists fighting in Greece . What little strategic value Albania offered the Soviet Union, however, gradually shrank as nuclear-arms technology developed. Aligned with the orthodox line of Stalin , Albania's Communist Party implemented elements of Stalinist policy and economics. In 1949 Albania adopted

10586-399: The Stalinist path which he had blazed for Albania. In December 1976, Albania adopted its second Stalinist constitution of the postwar era. The document guaranteed Albanians freedom of speech , the press , organization , association , and assembly but subordinated these rights to the individual's duties to society as a whole. The constitution continued to emphasize national pride and unity,

10744-419: The Union began to decline. Tirana and Belgrade renewed diplomatic relations in December 1953, but Hoxha refused Khrushchev's repeated appeals to posthumously rehabilitate the pro-Yugoslav Xoxe as a gesture to Tito. The Albanian duo instead entrenched their political position, expanding their control over their country's domestic life and letting the propaganda war with the Yugoslavs grind on. In 1955 Albania became

10902-506: The United States and the Soviet Union. Instead, Albania expanded its diplomatic ties with Western Europe and the developing nations , and it also began to stress the principle of self-reliance as the keystone of the country's strategy for economic development. Albania, however, did not have many resources of its own, and Hoxha's cautious opening to the outside world was not enough to bolster Albania's economy, and nascent movements for change stirred up inside Albania. Without Chinese or Soviet aid,

11060-452: The West relatively more than with one another. From its founding until 1967, Comecon had operated only on the basis of unanimous agreements. It had become increasingly obvious that the result was usually failure. In 1967, Comecon adopted the "interested party principle", under which any country could opt out of any project they chose, still allowing the other member states to use Comecon mechanisms to coordinate their activities. In principle,

11218-489: The Yugoslav advisers in Albania 48 hours to leave the country, rescinded all bilateral economic agreements with its neighbor, and launched a virulent anti-Yugoslav propaganda blitz that transformed Stalin into an Albanian national hero, Hoxha into a warrior against foreign aggression, and Tito into an imperialist monster. Albania entered an orbit around the Soviet Union, and in September 1948 Moscow stepped in to compensate for Albania's loss of Yugoslav aid. The shift proved to be

11376-440: The academic and technical cadres necessary for construction of a socialist state and society, also improved dramatically. The number of schools, teachers, and students doubled between 1945 and 1950. Illiteracy declined from perhaps 85% in 1946 to 31% in 1950. The Soviet Union provided scholarships for Albanian students and supplied specialists and study materials to improve instruction in Albania. The State University of Tirana (later

11534-466: The alliance before 1990, an action which was occasioned by the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. The government implemented reforms which were aimed at modernizing Albania, and they resulted in significant gains in the areas of industry, agriculture, education, the arts, and culture, which contributed to a general increase in the Albanian population's standard of living. However, these developments coincided with political repression by

11692-489: The army's commander in chief . Xoxe remained both internal affairs minister and the party's organizational secretary. In late 1945 and early 1946, Xoxe and other party hard-liners purged moderates who had pressed for close contacts with the West, a modicum of political pluralism, and a delay in the introduction of strict communist economic measures until Albania's economy had more time to develop. Hoxha remained in control despite

11850-416: The auspices of Comecon; compilation of digests on Comecon activities; conduct of economic and other research for Comecon members; and preparation of recommendations on various issues concerning Comecon operations. In 1956, eight standing commissions were set up to help Comecon make recommendations pertaining to specific economic sectors. The commissions have been rearranged and renamed a number of times since

12008-442: The basic elements of the Soviet fiscal system, under which state enterprises paid direct contributions to the treasury from their profits and kept only a share authorized for self-financed investments and other purposes. In 1951 the Albanian government launched its first five-year plan, which emphasized utilizing the country's oil , chromite , copper , nickel , asphalt , and coal resources; expanding electricity production and

12166-511: The blame for the country's woes on Yugoslavia and Xoxe. Hoxha had Xoxe sacked as Albania's internal affairs minister in October, and he was replaced with Mehmet Shehu . After a secret trial in May 1949, Xoxe was executed. The subsequent anti-Titoist purges in Albania brought the liquidation of 14 members of the party's 31 person Central Committee and 32 of the 109 People's Assembly deputies. Overall,

12324-564: The cancellation of Soviet wheat shipments despite a paucity of foreign currency and its own economic hardships. Albania again sided with the People's Republic of China when it launched an attack on the Soviet Union's leadership of the international communist movement at the November 1960 Moscow conference of the world's 81 communist parties. Hoxha inveighed against Khrushchev for encouraging Greek claims to southern Albania , sowing discord within

12482-590: The channel. Two of the ships struck mines on 22 October 1946, and 44 crew members died. Britain complained to the UN and the International Court of Justice which, in its first case ever, ruled against Tirana. After 1946 the United States and the United Kingdom began implementing an elaborate covert plan to overthrow Albania's Communist government by backing anti-Communist and royalist forces within

12640-605: The communist leadership voted to merge the Albanian and Yugoslav economies and militaries. Hoxha even denounced Spiru for attempting to ruin Albanian-Yugoslav relations. During a party Political Bureau ( Politburo ) meeting a month later, Xoxe proposed appealing to Belgrade to admit Albania as a seventh Yugoslav republic. However, when the Cominform expelled Yugoslavia on 28 June, Albania made a rapid about-face in its policy towards Yugoslavia. Three days later, Tirana gave

12798-593: The coordination of non-existent five-year plans. From January 1, 1991, the countries shifted their dealings with one another to a hard currency market basis. The result was a radical decrease in trade with one another, as "(Central and) Eastern Europe… exchanged asymmetrical trade dependence on the Soviet Union for an equally asymmetrical commercial dependence on the European Community." The final Comecon council session took place on June 28, 1991, in Budapest , and led to an agreement to dissolve in 90 days. The Soviet Union

12956-440: The cost of documentation. This, naturally, benefited the less industrialized Comecon countries, and especially the technologically lagging Soviet Union, at the expense of East Germany and Czechoslovakia and, to a lesser extent, Hungary and Poland. (This principle would weaken after 1968, as it became clear that it discouraged new research – and as the Soviet Union itself began to have more marketable technologies.) In

13114-483: The country began to experience widespread shortages of everything from machine parts to wheat and animal feed. Infrastructure and living standards began to collapse. According to the World Bank , Albania netted around US$ 750 in gross national product per capita throughout much of the 1980s. As Hoxha's health slipped, muted calls arose for the relaxation of party controls and greater openness. In response, Hoxha launched

13272-540: The country, charging that they had instigated anti-Communist uprisings in the northern mountains. Britain announced in April that it would not send a diplomatic mission to Tirana; the United States withdrew its mission in November; and both the United States and Britain opposed admitting Albania to the United Nations (UN). Albania feared that the United States and Britain, which were supporting anti-Communist forces in

13430-463: The country, including those at work on the Palace of Culture , and halted shipments of supplies and spare parts for equipment already in place in Albania. In addition, the Soviet Union continued to dismantle its naval installations on Sazan Island , a process that had begun even before the break in relations. China again compensated Albania for the loss of Soviet economic support, supplying about 90% of

13588-597: The country. By 1949 the United States and British intelligence organizations were working with King Zog and the mountainmen of his personal guard. They recruited Albanian refugees and émigrés from Egypt , Italy , and Greece; trained them in Cyprus , Malta , and the Federal Republic of Germany ( West Germany ); and infiltrated them into Albania. Guerrilla units entered Albania in 1950 and 1952, but Albanian security forces killed or captured all of them. Kim Philby ,

13746-500: The creation of the Comecon. At first, planning seemed to be moving along rapidly. After pushing aside Nikolai Voznesensky 's technocratic , price-based approach (see further discussion below ), the direction appeared to be toward a coordination of national economic plans, but with no coercive authority from Comecon itself. All decisions would require unanimous ratification, and even then governments would separately translate these into policy. Then in summer 1950, probably unhappy with

13904-453: The death of Joseph Stalin . The invasion served as the tipping point, and within one month (September 1968) Albania formally withdrew from the Warsaw Pact . Leonid Brezhnev made no attempt to force Albania to remain. In the mid-1960s, Albania's leaders grew wary of a threat to their power by a burgeoning bureaucracy . Party discipline had eroded. People complained about malfeasance , inflation , and low-quality goods. Writers strayed from

14062-420: The deliberate elimination of barriers to trade and other forms of interaction"). Although such equalization had not been a pivotal point in the formation and implementation of Comecon's economic policies, improved economic integration had always been Comecon's goal. While such integration was to remain a goal, and while Bulgaria became yet more tightly integrated with the Soviet Union, progress in this direction

14220-529: The early 1950s, all Comecon countries had adopted relatively autarkic policies; now they began again to discuss developing complementary specialties, and in 1956, ten permanent standing committees arose, intended to facilitate coordination in these matters. The Soviet Union began to trade oil for Comecon manufactured goods. There was much discussion of coordinating five-year plans . However, once again, trouble arose. The Polish protests and Hungarian uprising led to major social and economic changes, including

14378-590: The early 1950s. The number of Albanian doctors increased by a third to about 150 early in the decade (although the doctor-patient ratio remained unacceptable by most standards), and the state opened new medical-training facilities. The number of hospital beds rose from 1,765 in 1945 to about 5,500 in 1953. Better health-care and living conditions produced an improvement in Albania's dismal infant-mortality rate, lowering it from 112.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1945 to 99.5 deaths per 1,000 births in 1953. The education system, geared towards cementing communism and creating

14536-466: The early 1970s, and its press and radio ignored President Richard Nixon 's trip to Beijing in 1972 . Albania actively worked to reduce its dependence on China by diversifying trade and improving diplomatic and cultural relations, especially with Western Europe . But Albania shunned the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe , and it was the only European country that refused to take part in

14694-413: The establishment of the first eight. In 1986 there were twenty-four standing commissions, each headquartered in the capital of a member country and headed by one of that country's leading authorities in the field addressed by the commission. The Secretariat supervised the actual operations of the commissions. The standing commissions had authority only to make recommendations, which had then to be approved by

14852-422: The executive committee or its specialized committees. The scientific institutes on standardization and on economic problems of the world economic system concerned themselves with theoretical problems of international cooperation. Both were headquartered in Moscow and were staffed by experts from various member countries. Several affiliated agencies, having a variety of relationships with Comecon, existed outside

15010-483: The executive committee, presented to the Session, and ratified by the interested member countries. Commissions usually met twice a year in Moscow. The six interstate conferences (on water management, internal trade, legal matters, inventions and patents , pricing, and labor affairs) served as forums for discussing shared issues and experiences. They were purely consultative and generally acted in an advisory capacity to

15168-458: The fact that he had once advocated restoring relations with Italy and even allowing Albanians to study in Italy. The government took major steps to introduce a Stalinist-style centrally planned economy in 1946. It nationalized all industries, transformed foreign trade into a government monopoly, brought almost all domestic trade under state control, and banned land sales and transfers. Planners at

15326-513: The fall, however, when Spiru's commission developed an economic plan that stressed self-sufficiency, light industry, and agriculture. The Yugoslavs complained bitterly. Subsequently, at a November 1947 meeting of the Albanian Economic Central Committee, Spiru came under intense criticism, which was spearheaded by Xoxe. Failure to win support from anyone within the party (he was effectively a fall guy for Hoxha) he

15484-427: The favorable implications for the effective individual and collective sovereignty of the smaller states, Stalin "seems to have taken [Comecon's] personnel by surprise," bringing operations to a nearly complete halt, as the Soviet Union moved domestically toward autarky and internationally toward an "embassy system of meddling in other countries' affairs directly" rather than by "constitutional means" . Comecon's scope

15642-507: The former. Ramiz Alia , at the time a candidate-member of the Politburo and Hoxha's adviser on ideological questions, played a prominent role in the rhetoric. The Sino-Soviet split burst into the open in June 1960 at a Romanian Workers' Party congress, at which Khrushchev attempted to secure condemnation of Beijing . Albania's delegation, alone among the European delegations, supported

15800-418: The genuinely socialist character of Albania's socialist democracy. During the Cultural and Ideological Revolution, traditional kinship links in Albania, which were centered on the patriarchal family, were shattered by the postwar repression of clan leaders, collectivization of agriculture, industrialization, migration from the countryside to urban areas, and suppression of religion. The postwar regime brought

15958-539: The government confiscated property belonging to absentee landlords and people not dependent on agriculture for a living. The few peasants with agricultural machinery were permitted to keep up to 40 hectares (99 acres) of land. Landholdings of religious institutions and peasants without agricultural machinery were limited to 20 hectares (49 acres). Finally, landless peasants and peasants with tiny landholdings were given up to 5 hectares (12 acres), although they had to pay nominal compensation. In December 1945, Albanians elected

16116-480: The groundwork for integrating the Albanian and Yugoslav economies. The pacts provided for coordinating the economic plans of both states, standardizing their monetary systems, and creating a common pricing system and a customs union. So close was the Yugoslav-Albanian relationship that Serbo-Croatian became a required subject in Albanian high schools. Yugoslavia signed a similar friendship treaty with

16274-480: The intellectuals (Hoxha and his allies) of the Albanian Party and, through Xoxe and his loyalists, attempted to unseat them. In 1947, Yugoslavia acted against anti-Yugoslav Albanian communists, including Hoxha and Spiru. In May, Tirana announced the arrest, trial, and conviction of nine People's Assembly members, all of whom were known for opposing Yugoslavia, on charges of antistate activities. A month later,

16432-552: The issue of Albanians in Kosovo . There was further tension over a Comecon plan for integrating the East European economies, which called for Albania to produce agricultural goods and minerals instead of emphasizing the development of heavy industry. On a twelve-day visit to Albania in 1959, Khrushchev reportedly tried to convince Hoxha and Shehu that their country should aspire to become " socialism 's orchard". Albania played

16590-427: The joint stock companies. In addition, the Albanians sought investment funds to develop light industries and an oil refinery, while the Yugoslavs wanted the Albanians to concentrate on agriculture and raw-material extraction. The head of Albania's Economic Planning Commission, and Hoxha's right-hand man, Nako Spiru , became the leading critic of Yugoslavia's efforts to exert economic control over Albania. Tito distrusted

16748-506: The last years of Stalin's life, although Albania was an economic liability for the Soviet Union. Albania conducted all its foreign trade with Soviet European countries in 1949, 1950, and 1951 – and over half its trade with the Soviet Union itself. Together with its satellites, the Soviet Union underwrote shortfalls in Albania's balance-of-payments with long-term grants. Although far behind Western practice, health care and education improved dramatically for Albania's 1.2 million people in

16906-527: The meeting was determined by a system of rotation based on Cyrillic script ). All interested parties had to consider recommendations handed down by the Session. A treaty or other kind of legal agreement implemented adopted recommendations. Comecon itself might adopt decisions only on organizational and procedural matters pertaining to itself and its organs. Each country appointed one permanent representative to maintain relations between members and Comecon between annual meetings. An extraordinary Session, such as

17064-590: The mid-1970s. They were largely unaffected by the 1973 oil crisis . Another short-term economic gain in this period was that détente brought opportunities for investment and technology transfers from the West . This also led to an importation of Western cultural attitudes, especially in Central Europe. However, many undertakings based on Western technology were less than successful (for example, Poland's Ursus tractor factory did not do well with technology licensed from Massey Ferguson ); other investment

17222-458: The military, and renounced professionalism in the army. Railing against a "white-collar mentality," the authorities also slashed the salaries of mid- and high-level officials, ousted administrators and specialists from their desk jobs, and sent such persons to toil in the factories and fields. Six ministries, including the Ministry of Justice, were eliminated. Farm collectivization even spread to

17380-468: The newly founded Economic Planning Commission emphasized industrial development and in 1947 the government introduced the Soviet cost-accounting system. Until Yugoslavia 's expulsion from the Cominform in 1948, Albania was effectively a Yugoslav satellite. In repudiating the 1943 Albanian internal Mukaj agreement under pressure from the Yugoslavs, Albania's communists had given up on their demands for

17538-450: The official Comecon hierarchy. They served to develop "direct links between appropriate bodies and organizations of Comecon member countries." These affiliated agencies were divided into two categories: intergovernmental economic organizations (which worked on a higher level in the member countries and generally dealt with a wider range of managerial and coordinative activities) and international economic organizations (which worked closer to

17696-471: The one in December 1985, might be held with the consent of at least one-third of the members. Such meetings usually took place in Moscow. The highest executive organ in Comecon, the executive committee, was entrusted with elaborating policy recommendations and supervising their implementation between sessions. In addition, it supervised work on plan coordination and scientific-technical cooperation. Composed of one representative from each member country, usually

17854-1034: The operational level of research, production, or trade). A few examples of the former are the International Bank for Economic Cooperation (managed the transferable rouble system), the International Investment Bank (in charge of financing joint projects), and Intermetall (encouraged cooperation in ferrous metallurgy ). International economic organizations generally took the form of either joint enterprises, international economic associations or unions, or international economic partnerships. The latter included Interatominstrument (nuclear machinery producers), Intertekstilmash (textile machinery producers), and Haldex (a Hungarian-Polish joint enterprise for reprocessing coal slag). People%27s Socialist Republic of Albania The People's Socialist Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë ), officially as

18012-425: The organization, rather than being restricted to the direct functions of Comecon and its organs. This usage was sometimes extended as well to bilateral relations among members because in the system of communist international economic relations, multilateral accords – typically of a general nature – tended to be implemented through a set of more detailed, bilateral agreements. Comecon

18170-620: The orthodoxy of socialist realism , which demanded that art and literature serve as instruments of government and party policy. As a result, after Mao Zedong unleashed the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966, Hoxha launched his own Cultural and Ideological Revolution. The Albanian leader concentrated on reforming the military, government bureaucracy, and economy as well as on creating new support for his system. The regime abolished military ranks, reintroduced political commissars into

18328-400: The other Chinese leaders reassessed their commitment to Albania. In response, Albania began to broaden its contacts with the outside world. Albania opened trade negotiations with France , Italy , and the recently independent Asian and African states, and in 1971 it normalised relations with Yugoslavia and Greece . Albania's leaders abhorred the contacts of China with the United States in

18486-430: The other Comecon states. This lack of either rationality or international central planning tended to promote autarky in each Comecon country because none fully trusted the others to deliver goods and services. With few exceptions, foreign trade in the Comecon countries was a state monopoly , and the state agencies and captive trading companies were often corrupt. Even at best, this tended to put several removes between

18644-445: The parts, foodstuffs, and other goods the Soviet Union had promised. China lent Albania money on more favorable terms than Moscow, and, unlike Soviet advisers, Chinese technicians earned the same low pay as Albanian workers and lived in similar housing. China also presented Albania with a powerful radio transmission station from which Tirana sang the praises of Stalin, Hoxha, and Mao Zedong for decades. For its part, Albania offered China

18802-490: The party encouraged women to take jobs outside the home in an effort to compensate for labor shortages and overcome their conservatism . Hoxha himself proclaimed that anyone who trampled on the party's edict on women's rights should be "hurled into the fire." Albanian-Chinese relations had stagnated by 1970, and when China began to reemerge from isolation and the Cultural Revolution in the early 1970s, Mao and

18960-422: The party expelled about 25% of its members. Yugoslavia responded by launching a propaganda counterattack and canceling its treaty of friendship with Albania and in 1950, it withdrew its diplomatic mission from Tirana. Albania's relations with the West soured after the Communist government's refusal to allow free elections in December 1945. Albania restricted the movement of United States and British personnel in

19118-542: The party's first secretary, Enver Hoxha , became Albania's prime minister . From the start, the LNC government was an undisguised Communist regime . In most of the rest of what became the Eastern Bloc, the Communist parties were nominally part of a coalition government for a few years before seizing full control and creating one-party states. Having sidelined the nationalist Balli Kombëtar after their collaboration with

19276-473: The people " and " war criminals ". Many were sentenced to death. Those spared were imprisoned for years in work camps and jails and later settled on state farms built on reclaimed marshlands. In December 1944, the provisional government adopted laws allowing the state to regulate foreign and domestic trade, commercial enterprises, and the few industries the country possessed. The laws sanctioned confiscation of property belonging to political exiles and "enemies of

19434-400: The people. It demonstrated in practice that in socialist Albania the people are the masters, that nothing is done against their will." The numerous testimonies of those who suffered under the religious persecution of this era, however, casts serious doubts into how "free and fruitful" the thrashing out of opinions in this grand debate were, and consequently as critics of the regime would argue,

19592-480: The people." The state also expropriated all German- and Italian-owned property, nationalized transportation enterprises, and canceled all concessions granted by previous Albanian governments to foreign companies. In August 1945, the provisional government adopted the first sweeping agricultural reforms in Albania's history. The country's 100 largest landowners, who controlled close to a third of Albania's arable land, had frustrated all agricultural reform proposals before

19750-441: The power grid; increasing agricultural output ; and improving transportation . The government began a program of rapid industrialization after the APL's Second Party Congress and a campaign of collectivization of farmland in 1955. At the time, private farms still produced about 87% of Albania's agricultural output, but by 1960 the same percentage came from collective or state farms. Soviet-Albanian relations remained warm during

19908-449: The previous year. Although the Cominform was disbanded in 1956, interparty links continued to be strong among Comecon members, and all participated in periodic international conferences of communist parties. Comecon provided a mechanism through which its leading member, the Soviet Union, sought to foster economic links with and among its closest political and military allies. The East European members of Comecon were also militarily allied with

20066-414: The problems they had been intended to solve. One economic success of the 1970s was the development of Soviet oil fields. While doubtless "(Central and) East Europeans resented having to defray some of the costs of developing the economy of their hated overlord and oppressor," they benefited from low prices for fuel and other mineral products. As a result, Comecon economies generally showed strong growth in

20224-420: The proletariat. About 1,500,000 people, practically the entire adult population of the country, participated in the meetings which were held, and about 300,000 people contributed to the discussion... The great popular discussion, characterized by a free and fruitful thrashing out of opinions, by lively and constructive debate, was a clear expression of our socialist democracy in action and the genuine sovereignty of

20382-490: The purpose of inculcating the scientific materialist world outlook in people" and Article 55 explicitly forbade the formation of "any type of organization of a fascist, anti-democratic, religious, and anti-socialist character" and stated that "Fascist, anti-democratic, religious , war-mongering, and anti-socialist activities and propaganda, as well as the incitement of national and racial hatred are prohibited." On 1 November 1977, Enver Hoxha claimed in his Report submitted to

20540-478: The rank of conference participants, their decisions had considerable influence on the actions taken by Comecon and its organs. The official hierarchy of Comecon consisted of the Session of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the executive committee of the council, the Secretariat of the council, four council committees, twenty-four standing commissions, six interstate conferences, two scientific institutes, and several associated organizations. The Session of

20698-463: The remote mountains. In addition, the government attacked dissident writers and artists, reformed its educational system, and generally reinforced Albania's isolation from European culture in an effort to keep out foreign influences. After the 5th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania and Enver Hoxha's speech on 6 February 1967, the authorities launched a violent campaign to extinguish religious life in Albania , claiming that religion had divided

20856-475: The rescue. After additional sharp exchanges between Soviet and Chinese delegates over Albania at the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Twenty-Second Party Congress in October 1961, Khrushchev lambasted the Albanians for executing an allegedly pregnant, pro-Soviet member of the Albanian party Politburo Liri Gega , and the Soviet Union finally broke diplomatic relations with Albania in December. Moscow then withdrew all Soviet economic advisers and technicians from

21014-399: The rise to power of Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev increased Soviet influence in Comecon operations and led to attempts to give Comecon some degree of supranational authority. The Comprehensive Program for Scientific and Technical Progress was designed to improve economic cooperation through the development of a more efficient and interconnected scientific and technical base. This

21172-696: The secret police, the Sigurimi , for the purposes of preventing a counter-revolution , which included dismissal from employment, imprisonment in forced labor camps and executions. The first multi-party elections in Socialist Albania took place on 31 March 1991 – the Communists gained a majority in an interim government . The Republic of Albania was proclaimed on 29 April 1991 and the country's first parliamentary elections were held on 22 March 1992 . The People's Socialist Republic of Albania

21330-447: The slow adjustment of Comecon prices during a time of rising oil and gas prices, and the fact that mineral resources were abundant in the Comecon sphere, relative to manufactured goods. A possible point of comparison is that there were also winners and losers under EEC agricultural policy in the same period. Russian and Kazakh oil kept the Comecon countries' oil prices low when the 1973 oil crisis quadrupled Western oil prices. As one of

21488-475: The smaller states of Central Europe, and which were now, increasingly, cut off from their traditional markets and suppliers in the rest of Europe. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland had remained interested in Marshall aid despite the requirements for a convertible currency and market economies . These requirements, which would inevitably have resulted in stronger economic ties to free European markets than to

21646-399: The specific needs of a country. One example came from former Czechoslovakia. In the 1970s, the Communist party of Czechoslovakia finally realized that there was a need for underground trains. Czechoslovak designers projected a cheap but technologically innovative underground train. The train was a state-of-the-art project, capable of moving underground or on the surface using standard rails, had

21804-482: The standard for all Comecon countries, including the USSR, and other countries could develop their own designs but only for their own needs, like Poland (respectively, Konstal trams and TS-11 jets). Poland was a manufacturer of light helicopters for Comecon countries ( Mi-2 of the Soviet design). The USSR developed their own model Kamov Ka-26 and Romania produced French helicopters under license for their own market. In

21962-407: The two Albanian leaders. Tirana soon came under pressure from Moscow to copy, at least formally, the new Soviet model for collective leadership . In July 1953, Hoxha handed over the foreign affairs and defense portfolios to loyal followers, but he kept both the top party post and the premiership until 1954, when Shehu became Albania's prime minister. The Soviet Union, responding with an effort to raise

22120-482: The war. The communists' reforms were aimed at squeezing large landowners out of business, winning peasant support, and increasing farm output to avert famine . The government annulled outstanding agricultural debts, granted peasants access to inexpensive water for irrigation , and nationalized forest and pastureland. Under the Agrarian Reform Law, which redistributed about half of Albania's arable land,

22278-606: The world's first atheistic state , a feat which was trumpeted as one of Enver Hoxha's greatest achievements. While the Albanian Constitution had formally guaranteed freedom of religion to the Albanian people right up until that time, religious freedom was virtually non-existent after 1967. The 1976 Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania later stipulated in Article 37 that "The state recognizes no religion whatever and supports atheist propaganda for

22436-762: Was cooperation . The term integration was always avoided because of its connotations of monopolistic capitalist collusion. After the "special" council session of April 1969 and the development and adoption (in 1971) of the Comprehensive Program for the Further Extension and Improvement of Cooperation and the Further Development of Socialist Economic Integration by Comecon Member Countries, Comecon activities were officially termed integration (equalization of "differences in relative scarcities of goods and services between states through

22594-422: Was "to ensure the comprehensive examination and a multilateral settlement of the major problems of cooperation among member countries in the economy, science, and technology." All committees were headquartered in Moscow and usually met there. These committees advised the standing commissions, the Secretariat, the interstate conferences, and the scientific institutes in their areas of specialization. Their jurisdiction

22752-532: Was Comecon's primary economic research and administrative organ. The secretary, who has been a Soviet official since Comecon creation, was the official Comecon representative to Comecon member states and to other states and international organizations. Subordinate to the secretary were his deputy and the various departments of the Secretariat, which generally corresponded to the standing commissions. The Secretariat's responsibilities included preparation and organization of Comecon sessions and other meetings conducted under

22910-429: Was a tendency to underprice raw materials relative to the manufactured goods produced in many of the Comecon countries. International barter helped preserve the Comecon countries' scarce hard currency reserves. In strict economic terms, barter inevitably harmed countries whose goods would have brought higher prices in the free market or whose imports could have been obtained more cheaply and benefitted those for whom it

23068-467: Was assassinated the very next day and his death framed as a suicide. The insignificance of Albania's standing in the communist world was clearly highlighted when the emerging Eastern European nations did not invite the Party of Labour of Albania to the September 1947 founding meeting of the Cominform . Rather, Yugoslavia represented Albania at Cominform meetings. Although the Soviet Union gave Albania

23226-834: Was dissolved on December 26, 1991. After the fall of the Soviet Union and communist rule in Eastern Europe, East Germany (now unified with West Germany ) automatically joined the European Union (then the European Community) in 1990. The Baltic States ( Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania ), Czech Republic , Hungary , Poland , Slovakia , and Slovenia joined the EU in 2004, followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013. To date, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany (former GDR), Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia are now members of

23384-463: Was generally wider than that of the standing commissions because they had the right to make policy recommendations to other Comecon organizations. The Council Committee for Cooperation in Planning was the most important of the four. It coordinated the national economic plans of Comecon members. As such, it ranked in importance only after the Session and the executive committee. Made up of the chairmen of Comecon members' national central planning offices,

23542-566: Was not a success. "The Gorbachev regime made too many commitments on too many fronts, thereby overstretching and overheating the Soviet economy. Bottlenecks and shortages were not relieved but exacerbated, while the ( Central and) East European members of Comecon resented being asked to contribute scarce capital to projects that were chiefly of interest to the Soviet Union…" Furthermore, the liberalization that by June 25, 1988, allowed Comecon countries to negotiate trade treaties directly with

23700-519: Was officially dissolved on 28 November 1998 upon the adoption of the new Constitution of Albania . On 29 November 1944, Albania was liberated by the National Liberation Movement (In Albanian: Lëvizja Nacional-Çlirimtare LNÇ). The Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council, formed in May, became the country's provisional government. The government, like the LNÇ, was dominated by the two-year-old Communist Party of Albania, and

23858-404: Was officially limited in November 1950 to "practical questions of facilitating trade." One important legacy of this brief period of activity was the "Sofia Principle", adopted at the August 1949 Comecon council session in Bulgaria. This radically weakened intellectual property rights, making each country's technologies available to the others for a nominal charge that did little more than cover

24016-789: Was otherwise continually frustrated by the national central planning prevalent in all Comecon countries, by the increasing diversity of its members (which by this time included Mongolia and would soon include Cuba) and by the "overwhelming asymmetry" and resulting distrust between the many small member states and the Soviet "superstate" which, in 1983, "accounted for 88 percent of Comecon's territory and 60 percent of its population." In this period, there were some efforts to move away from central planning, by establishing intermediate industrial associations and combines in various countries (which were often empowered to negotiate their own international deals). However, these groupings typically proved "unwieldy, conservative, risk-averse, and bureaucratic," reproducing

24174-446: Was provided instead by political and ideological factors. All Comecon members were "united by a commonality of fundamental class interests and the ideology of Marxism-Leninism" and had common approaches to economic ownership (state versus private) and management (plan versus market). In 1949 the ruling communist parties of the founding states were also linked internationally through the Cominform , from which Yugoslavia had been expelled

24332-659: Was the Eastern Bloc's response to the formation in Western Europe of the Marshall Plan and the OEEC, which later became the OECD . The Comecon was founded in 1949 by the Soviet Union , Bulgaria , Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Poland , and Romania . The primary factors in Comecon's formation appear to have been Joseph Stalin 's desire to cooperate and strengthen the international relationships at an economic level with

24490-444: Was the era of perestroika ("restructuring"), the last attempt to put the Comecon economies on a sound economic footing. Gorbachev and his economic mentor Abel Aganbegyan hoped to make "revolutionary changes" in the economy, foreseeing that "science will increasingly become a 'direct productive force', as Marx foresaw… By the year 2000… the renewal of plant and machinery… will be running at 6 percent or more per year." The program

24648-479: Was the other way around. Still, all of the Comecon countries gained some stability, and the governments gained some legitimacy, and in many ways this stability and protection from the world market was viewed, at least in the early years of Comecon, as an advantage of the system, as was the formation of stronger ties with other socialist countries. Within Comecon, there were occasional struggles over how this system should work. Early on, Nikolai Voznesensky pushed for

24806-442: Was thought to be incompatible with notions of socialist solidarity. In any event, proposals for a customs union and economic integration of Central and Eastern Europe date back at least to the Revolutions of 1848 (although many earlier proposals had been intended to stave off the Russian and/or communist "menace") and the state-to-state trading inherent in centrally planned economies required some sort of coordination: otherwise,

24964-493: Was wasted on luxuries for the party elite, and most Comecon countries ended up indebted to the West when capital flows died out as détente faded in the late 1970s, and from 1979 to 1983, all of Comecon experienced a recession from which (with the possible exceptions of East Germany and Bulgaria) they never recovered in the Communist era. Romania and Poland experienced major declines in the standard of living. The 1985 Comprehensive Program for Scientific and Technical Progress and

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