Iehc 2006 session 101
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IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 25 1953, Sweden requested that the clearing debt be converted at a ratio of 1:5 instead of the ratio of 1:7 defined by the law. To support its claim, Sweden terminated the payment agreement. Czechoslovakia did not enter any further negotiations 66 because during 1953, Czechoslovakia succeeded in getting rid of the dependency on the import of Swedish iron ore, ball bearings and accumulator material. Iron ore was purchased from Brazil, India, Norway, France, Austria and Iran on a diversified basis. Nevertheless, Prague was ready to resume import of Swedish ore in a certain quantity due to the high quality of Swedish ore and the advantageous transport routes, if the negotiating situation improved. 67 A provisional agreement between the central banks on a provisional system of payments was concluded in 1953: 50% of the value of Czechoslovak export was used to repay the Czechoslovak clearing debt and 50% was used for import of goods. The absence of a trade agreement resulted in reduction of mutual trade by 75% in comparison with 1952. A new trade agreement was not concluded until 1955. After 1948, the trade relations with Sweden were constantly retaining their significance in comparison with the relations with most developed capitalist countries and the scope of these relations did not change substantially until 1951. However, the structure of the trade was changing. The amount of raw materials was decreasing, while the amount of machines and – to the discontent of the Czechoslovak planners – the consumer goods and food was increasing (see appendix no. 7). During the critical period 1950-1952, Sweden also served as a country, through which deliveries of "strictly embargoed goods" were shipped to Czechoslovakia. One example of this was an electronic microscope made in the USA and imported to the Czechoslovak Republic in May 1951. 68 After 1948, Czechoslovakia had constantly a passive trade balance in relation to Sweden (see appendix no. 5). Starting from 1952, the trade was declining. The quotas set in the agreements for the volumes of exchanged goods were clearly decreasing since 1950; however, until the absence of agreement in the trade relations, the volume of the actually exchanged goods was not affected by this. The market but also "largely a result of the sabotage by the anti-governmental centre of Slánský in foreign trade". (A report of 11 January 1954 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Viliam Široký, the Prime Minister, PMO – confidential files 1945 – 1959, file 262, ref. no. 17.879/53). 66 A report of 6 August 1953 by the Ministry of Finance for the government, NAP, the resources of ÚPV-T 1952 – 1954, file 262, ref. no. 13.594/53; a proposal for governmental resolution, with a rational report of 11 November 1954, NAP, PMO 1945 – 1968, uninventoried materials, resolutions and source materials for resolutions, no. 2319/1954. 67 A proposal for governmental resolution, with a rational report of 11 November 1954, NAP, PMO 1945 – 1968 uninventoried materials, resolutions and source materials for resolutions, no. 2319/1954. 68 A record of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, dated 25 May 1951, NAP, MFT, Secretariate of Dr. Margolius, Sweden, no. 1406/51. IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 26 reason was that the quotas only represented the limit of the proposed relations but the reality was substantially different. In practice, the value of the exchanged goods was lower even by one half. The cause of this phenomenon lied with numerous implementation problems predominantly on the part of the Czechoslovak Republic, which was unable to carry out the deliveries of agreed goods by agreed deadlines; it sometimes even happened that the deliveries were not carried out at all. The Czechoslovak Republic succeeded in getting rid of its commercial dependency on Sweden as concerned iron ore as a mono-commodity in a relatively short period of time. Conclusions 1/ Czechoslovak trade with advanced capitalist states during the years 1949 – 1953 underwent a dramatic transformation under pressure from the international situation and the structural changes of the Czechoslovak economy, both in its territorial focus and in its volume and structure. The first complications in relations with the West occurred even before the beginning of the embargo, since interest fell in Czechoslovak “non-essential” goods (mainly food and consumer goods). Export difficulties were all the more unpleasant in that Czechoslovakia used the export proceeds to pay off loans and obligations from the inter-war period, to which was now also added compensation for nationalized property. The total volume of trade with capitalist states during the years 1948 – 1953 was reduced to less than half.
69 It wasn’t until the early 1960s that it reached the level from 1948. The measures of the most advanced western countries with which Czechoslovakia traditionally traded, whether the USA, France, Britain, Denmark or Japan, led to the fact that relations with these advanced countries, from which Czechoslovakia took a number fundamental raw materials, substances and technical products essential to the economy, became dramatically constricted. Czechoslovakia searched for a substitute on the markets of advanced neutral countries which offered possibilities of ensuring the missing commodities, whether as producers or mediators. Occupying an exclusive role in connection with the Czechoslovak economy on the world market were Sweden and Switzerland. 2/ Assessing the impact of the western embargo on the Czechoslovak economy and the significance of substituting Czechoslovakia’s economic relations with the most developed and biggest economies of the world is in truth not easy. It is evident that the embargo’s impact on 69 Calculations by a team of economic historians of the University of Economics from the early 1950s show 45%. Václav Pr cha et al., Hospodá ské d jiny eskoslovenska v 19. a 20. století [Economic History of Czechoslovakia in the 19th and 20th Centuries], Praha: Svoboda 1974, p. 423. IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 27 the Czechoslovak economy was considerable. It brought the country deeper under the Soviet patronage of the approved project to hyperindustrialize the already industrialized Czechoslovakia producing in fact a whole profile of world production. It also brought serious problems in carrying out gigantic growth of a number of industrial sectors on the order of hundreds of percent. Of course Czechoslovakia managed to find and secure substitute sources, albeit with difficulty. The country’s economic stability and the program to carry out the first five-year plan were not threatened. Internal documents of the Czechoslovak economic report showed relief from overcoming the difficulties that had arisen relatively easy. In short, losses and difficulties that arose were considerable, but less than had been originally expected both in western countries and in Prague. Available statistics, either of Czechoslovak origin, Swiss or Swedish, do not give the full picture of trade with these countries or the significance of the commodities for the national economy, which should not only be measured by price but also by their real significance to the functioning of the economy. The scope of trade of goods was evidently greater than these statistics show since the statistics include only bilateral trade; the significance of goods guided by these two countries (so-called transit trade) and the significance of so-called triangular trade, which brought in a third partner to secure essentially significant goods, remains unevaluated. 3/ Czechoslovak trade with neutral Switzerland and Sweden have the following factors in common:
a/ They were relations with advanced market economies of medium size, whose distance behind the global technical and technological elite was relatively not big. Neutrality undoubtedly provided business entities with wider room for beneficial trade with the East than to companies from large western democracies. b/ Relations with both economies stemmed from long-term traditions laid out by treaty during the inter-war period, and in fact based back in the period of the Habsburg monarchy. The traditional part of such trade was supplemented after 1948 by the part representing the substitution of relations with the biggest and most advanced economies of the world. c/ Relations were renewed on a treaty basis after the end of World War II even in late 1945. Also symptomatic was the fact that in both relations during 1945 – 1948 Czechoslovakia played the role of the “stronger” partner, i.e. a partner whose goods were in demand and which gave it a good starting position in compensation negotiations. The reality of Czechoslovak predominance was also expressed in the given period by the Czechoslovak trade balance. Technically and technologically these were fundamental comparable IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 28 economies. After 1948 the role of Czechoslovakia and its neutral partners was transformed. Czechoslovakia became a weaker partner, looking to the Swiss and Swedish markets for strategically important raw materials, substances and technical products. The Czechoslovak trade balance with both countries changed to deeply passive. The falling quality of Czechoslovak products did not meet the demands of these countries’ markets for goods more demanding in terms of production. In both cases relations after World War II were carried out by barter transactions, after 1948, when Czechoslovakia was faced with foreign currency problems, it was solved by clearing. d/ In both cases Czechoslovak partners also managed to gain a number of extra concessions from their own apparent superiority after 1949. These were mainly compensation payments for nationalization that were resolved in parallel to trade relations. Both neutral countries thus over dozens of years surpassed the compensation granted to legal entities of large western democracies like the USA and Great Britain. Czechoslovakia made these concessions unwillingly and only under the pressure of circumstances. Czechoslovak documents at the time interpret such meetings as “extortion”. e/ In any case it involved mutual beneficial trade whose conditions were toughly negotiated. It was made on the principle of deficit goods for deficit goods, or goods for foreign currency. Mutual trade allowed Czechoslovakia to overcome the effects of restrictions of relations with advanced western markets, and thus provided Switzerland and Sweden the special bonus of overcoming the post-war crisis and improving their position in European trade more easily. Switzerland was even very much perceived as a country temporarily taking the place of defeated Germany. f/ Both Switzerland and Sweden occupied unique, irreplaceable positions in Czechoslovak foreign trade. In the case of Sweden it involved supplies of quality iron ore and metal alloys (still the major part of Czechoslovak consumption in the early 1950s). In the case of Switzerland it was about using its geographical position in the middle of Europe, its traditional relations with most states of the world and its extraordinary international position of financial center that enabled reexports of western goods and the development of so-called transit trades with partners from countries that applied an embargo against eastern states. g/ The trade with the two countries was gradually declining (see graphs in appendix 3 and 4). The American pressure contributed significantly to this fact. Switzerland and Sweden were gradually losing their exclusive position of the "Czechoslovak gate to the international market". The process of reducing trade exchange culminated in 1953. It was the year when IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 29 the legal regulation, on which the relations with both of these countries were based and which was building on the contractual pre-war documents complemented by annual innovating trade negotiations, became obsolete and lost validity to be subsequently replaced by other agreements, which were indisputably less important for Czechoslovakia.
IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 30
0 200 400 600
800 1000
1200 1400
1600 1947
1948 1949
1950 1951
1952 1953
1954 1955
1956 1957
Years Mi llions of US Dolla rs U.S.S.R.
European Soviet Satellities Source: The 1958 Revision of East-West Trade Controls. Mutual Defence Assistance Act of 1951, Washington: Department of State, Publication 6797 April 1959, p. 38. IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 31
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
1948 1949
1950 1951
1952 1953
years % o f to tal co n su mti o n iron ore
pyrrites ferric alloys aluminium copper
lead Source: Data on performing of First Five-Year Plan of The Czechoslovak Republic, Part III, Geologic survey, technical advancement, capital construction, foreign trade, NAP, State Planning Office II 1949 – 1959, carton 335, no 51.734/53.
IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 32
0 500 1000 1500
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3000 1946
1947 1948
1949 1950
1951 1952
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1955 Years Mi ll ions of C zec hosl ovak C row ns Switzerland Sweden Developed capitalistic countries Appendix no. 4 Czechoslovak Imports from Switzerland and Sweden 0 500 1000 1500
2000 2500
1946 1947
1948 1949
1950 1951
1952 1953
1954 1955
Years Mi llions of Cz e c hos lov a k Cr owns Switzerland Sweden Developed capitalistic countries IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 33
-200
-150 -100
-50 0 50 100 150
200 1946
1947 1948
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1955 Years Mi ll ions of C zec hosl ovak C row ns Sweden
Switzerland Appendix no. 6 Structure of Czechoslovak Imports from Switzerland 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1948
1949 1950
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1953 1954
1955 Years P er cen t o f C zech o sl o vak i mp o rt s f ro m S wi tzer lan d Maschines Raw materials Animal
Foods Consumption goods IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 34
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1948
1949 1950
1951 1952
1953 1954
1955 Years Pe r c e nt of tot a l impo rt s fr om S we de n Maschines Raw materials Animals
Foods Consumption goods Sources of graphs in Appendix 3-7: IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 35
machines (13,67 mil. Sfrs)
material of metallurgy (6,52 mil. Sfrs) ship´s material (2,9 mil. Sfrs) coke (1 mil. Sfrs) machines tool (1 mil. Sfrs)
11,42 mil. Sfrs Goods in Polish-Swiss clearing (2,25 mil. Sfrs)
2,25 mil. Sfrs Czechoslovakia - export material of metallurgy (6,52 mil. Sfrs) ship´s material (2,9 mil. Sfrs) coke (1 mil. Sfrs) machines tool (1 mil. Sfrs)
11,42 mil. Sfrs - import coal (9,137 mil. Sfrs) zinc (2,284 mil. Sfrs)
Goods in Polish-Swiss clearing (2,25 mil. Sfrs)
2,25 mil. Sfrs coal (9,137 mil. Sfrs) zinc (2,284 mil. Sfrs)
machines (13,67 mil. Sfrs)
IEHC 2006 SESSION 101 Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe 36
Source: Ministry of Foreign Trade, Secretariate of viceminister Dr. Rudolf Margolius, 1951, Trojúhleník Sulzer- SR-Polsko, Information for Minister Antonín Gregor, Prague 3.2.1951 Yüklə 265,21 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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