The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are moving away from a centrally planned economy toward integration within the global economy. How did this transition begin? Is this an aim which all the countries can afford? What conditions are to be met so that the countries will achieve a level of development comparable with the average level of their industrial partners? In this timely volume, leading international political economists from both the East and West provide an in-depth analysis of these questions. In doing so they explore the three main challenges that currently face the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. First, the contributors analyze how the Communist bloc is redirecting its economic relations away from the political privileges of trade and cooperation with the CMEA and the Third World toward the West, in particular Western Europe. Secondly, they examine how the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are eager to overcome their development lag and implement a restructuring policy, which implies increasing involvement of Western capital.
Finally, the authors assess how the transition to the market requires liberalizing foreign trade, introducing convertibility, transforming property structures, all of which are also part of the ongoing domestic reform. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Global Economy provides a comprehensive understanding of the international dimensions and will be widely read by students and specialists of Soviet and East European studies, economics, and political science.