Iehc 2006 session 101

IEHC 2006

SESSION 101

Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe

7

made that the aim of our policy should be to remove all imports from capitalist states if

possible, and every import from capitalist states is just a necessary evil”.

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Czechoslovak documents of official origin in connection with overcoming the effects

of the embargo of the USA and its allies highlighted the role of two countries especially:

Switzerland and Sweden.

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 For this reason we have decided to devote deeper attention to the

development of relations with these two states and attempted to find points of contact between

these two “grand” relations of Czechoslovak foreign trade as well as differences. Let’s

consider their specific benefits to the Czechoslovak economy in one of the most critical

periods of the Cold War: 1949 – 1953. If the years 1948/1949 represent a quite clear

milestone defined by the communist takeover of power and the changes in position of the

SR on the world political and economic scene that unfolded from it on the one hand, and the

revolutionary changes expressed by the so-called General Line of Building Socialism,

approved by the ninth congress of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, the practical

formulation of which in the national economy became the first five-year plan, then the second

milestone, i.e. 1953, is a less conspicuous, rather technical one. It expresses a time

concurrence of several factors and events that fundamentally influenced the political and

economic development of relations between both crucial political-economic blocs in the

future, as did the development of the world market and the Czechoslovak economy itself. The

international situation was characterized by the death of J. V. Stalin, the end of the Korean

War and a certain provisional relaxing of international tensions expressed in the apparent rise

of trade between East and West in all its items. The rise of trade stimulated an obvious

predicament on world capitalist markets, which made room for the renewal of trade with the

East.

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 In Czechoslovak economic relations with the U.S. there was temporarily a virtual

revival of the completely deadened mutual trade (the return of the American trade attaché to

the Prague embassy and a renewal of issuing and confirming consular invoices). A milestone

in the internal economic development of the CSR was the systemic transformation which

12

 Report on the effects of harmful activities on the segment of foreign trade and measures to eliminate them,  16.

7. 1953 (material for the ministers advisory board), 30. 7. 1953, NAP, MFT –  minister´s secretariate,

uninventoried materials, attachement to no.  4753 taj.-53; Heda Margoliová-Kovályová, Na vlastní k ži

[Personally Experience], Praha: Academia 2003, s. 70.

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  Analysis  of  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Trade  of  February  8,  1949  on  the  effects  of  the  Marshall  Plan  on

Czechoslovak production and trade stated that despite the trade limitations with the U.S. most kinds of American

goods managed to be re-exported to the CSR through Western European countries, mainly Switzerland and

Sweden (council meeting document dated March 24, 1949), NAP, MFT, minister´s secretariate, uninvertorised

materials, no. 203.835/49.

14

 Report on Czechoslovak foreign trade in the year 1953, 22. 2. 1954, NAP, MFT - minister´s secretariate,

uninvertorised materials, no. 220041/072/54.

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IEHC 2006

SESSION 101

Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe

8

according to the Soviet example introduced into the economy the principle of general

planning binding for all organizational segments of economic life.

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 This stage of

development of the national economy was formally concluded with the declaration of the

fulfillment of the aims of the first five-year plan.

Our study in Swiss relations was able to rely much on the outstanding, extremely

thorough work of Christoph Späti, monitoring Czechoslovak-Swiss relations in its full

political, economic, social and cultural profile, and moreover in a similarly defined time

period.

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 Späti relies on documents and statistics mainly of Swiss origin. Czechoslovak

documents were based mainly on the documents of the Czechoslovak Communist Party’s

Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which are already compiled to a large

extent in archives and accessible. The documents of the economic ministries (mainly of the

Finance Ministry and the Foreign Trade Ministry) were not compiled and so only a relatively

narrow selection was available. Using another survey of documents of the above-mentioned

economic ministries, our study attempts to complement the essential work of Späti at least in

part. Unfortunately, the work of the Swiss historian is unrivalled in this country or in

European historiography. Other Czechoslovak relations with neutral states have not yet been

processed in such a detailed way and so competently. This applies also for Sweden. Our

analysis therefore is based exclusively on original archival material.

Czechoslovak – Swiss Econ omic Relations

Both Czechoslovak and Swiss business circles showed enormous interest in restoring

economic relations after the end of the war conflict. As early as on 15 August 1945, a

Czechoslovak business delegation arrived in Bern on an invitation by the Swiss government.

Both parties agreed that the pre-war economic agreement dated 16 February 1927

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 was still

valid. Under this agreement, a protocol on exchange of goods and payment regulation was

signed on 31 August 1945. This was the first inter-state economic arrangement, which

Czechoslovakia signed after the end of World War II. With regard to the uncertain transport

situation, the plan of mutual deliveries was only prepared for a period of 6 months. It was a

15

 Srv. Václav Pr cha, Rozwój systemu zarzadzania gospodarka czechoslowacka i jej funkcjonowanie w latach

1948 – 1989 [Development of the Czechoslovak steering system and his functioneering in the years 1948 –

1989], in: Mezi dv ma transformacemi.  eskoslovensko a Polsko v letech 1947 (1948) – 1989 [Between two

transformations. Czechoslovakia and Poland in the years 1947 (1948) – 1989], Praha: Univerzita Karlova 2001,

p. 11 – 16.

16

 Christoph  Späti, Die Schweiz und die Tschechoslowakei 1945 – 1953 (Wirtschaftliche, politische und

kulturelle Beziehungen im Polarisationsfeld des Ost – West – Konflikts), Zürich: Chronos Verlag 2000.

17

 No. 95/1927  Sbírky zákon  a na ízení republiky  eskoslovenské.

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