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Numerous studies on the economies of socialist countries indicate that one of the main sources of their weakness was the attitudes and behavior of "socialist managers". Contrary to the predictions (e.g. by Joseph Schumpeter), they were not characterized by entrepreneurship, innovation, the ability to lead changes or the ability to formulate strategies. This was due to the nomenclature system existing in all countries of the Soviet bloc. Nominations, promotions, but also dismissals were at the discretion of party bodies. It was the main source of the communist party's dominance in the country and the fundamental factor guaranteeing control over all spheres of social and economic life. Determining why the nomenclature system turned out to be dysfunctional requires considering three issues: what were the goals of the communist personnel policy, what methods were used to implement it, and finally who were the people appointed to perform managerial functions in the economy. We will focus our analysis on the management of Polish industry in the years 1945–1956. This is because it was the most important sector of the economy of the People's Republic of Poland, and the personnel policy mechanisms developed at that time remained valid until the end of the "real socialism" system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sino–Soviet alliance paved the way for the implementation of a vast and systematic programme of industrial and military construction, as well as one of technology transfer. One of the earliest projects regarded a car-production complex in Changchun, situated in Northeast China's Jilin province. While this factory was built following the highly verticalized model that the Soviets had derived from Fordism, car component clusters proliferated in other areas of China, cooperating with the big industrial complex and eventually surviving as an alternative model until Deng Xiaoping's reforms. Scholars have so far identified the inventive indigenous use of technology during the Great Leap Forward (1958–60) as the main reason for the success of China's dualistic industrialization process. The present article contends that the case of the car industry should be predated and better contextualized. Multi-archival research shows that from 1950 Chinese leaders had already seen the need to keep a foot in the global developments of technology and placed a bet on the pre-1949 Western European, Japanese and Republican legacy. These findings also add to the narrative of the Soviet-led industrialization process by integrating into the picture a strong transnational dimension and by recasting the debate on the Sino–Soviet alliance by placing high-quality technology, materials and human resources centre stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies on the economies of socialist countries indicate that one of the main sources of their weakness was the attitudes and behavior of “socialist managers”. Contrary to the predictions (e.g. by Joseph Schumpeter), they were not characterized by entrepreneurship, innovation, the ability to lead changes or the ability to formulate strategies. This was due to the nomenclature system existing in all countries of the Soviet bloc. Nominations, promotions, but also dismissals were at the discretion of party bodies. It was the main source of the communist party’s dominance in the country and the fundamental factor guaranteeing control over all spheres of social and economic life. Determining why the nomenclature system turned out to be dysfunctional requires considering three issues: what were the goals of the communist personnel policy, what methods were used to implement it, and finally who were the people appointed to perform managerial functions in the economy. We will focus our analysis on the management of Polish industry in the years 1945–1956. This is because it was the most important sector of the economy of the People’s Republic of Poland, and the personnel policy mechanisms developed at that time remained valid until the end of the “real socialism” system.

Zbigniew Horbowy (1935–2019), a graduate of the Faculty of Glass of the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Wrocław, conducted from the end of the 1950s, throughout the next several decades, exceptionally fruitful and original artistic, academic, design and managerial activities on the intersection of art and industry. His artistic achievements quickly found recognition in the national art circles and in the international arena. At the same time, as the only glass designer in the times of the Polish People's Republic, he managed to combine artistic and commercial success. The utility glasses designed by him and mass-produced and sold on a mass scale were a symbol of Polish glass in general in the public awareness. He carried out his entrepreneurial activity with amazing efficiency in spite of the conditions of the industry in the People's Republic of Poland. And this, in principle, was extremely difficult to effectively use innovation or design. As a lecturer at the PWSSP (State Higher School of Fine Arts), then a member of the university's management and at the same time the head of design units of the leading Lower Silesian glassworks, he played an extremely important role in educating design staff and development directions of Polish industrial design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the winter of 1968, tensions between Cuba and the Soviet Union boiled over as the Cuban leadership's mouthpiece, Granma , accused the Soviet Union of imposing oil sanctions on the island in order to subjugate it. Those accusations went on to become inscribed into the historiography of Soviet–Cuban relations. This intervention into that historiography is two-fold: on the one hand it uses recently declassified documents from the Soviet archives to show that there were no oil sanctions on Cuba, but rather a continuum of logistical and infrastructural challenges that created delays and tensions in the relations between these two socialist allies. On the other hand, the article contextualises the relationship within the capitalist institutions of exchange that in effect mediated it, finding in these not only part of the reason for the setbacks and tensions, but also a wider framework for better understanding the Soviet–Cuban economic relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zbigniew Horbowy (1935–2019), a graduate of the Faculty of Glass of the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Wrocław, conducted from the end of the 1950s, throughout the next several decades, exceptionally fruitful and original artistic, academic, design and managerial activities on the intersection of art and industry. His artistic achievements quickly found recognition in the national art circles and in the international arena. At the same time, as the only glass designer in the times of the Polish People’s Republic, he managed to combine artistic and commercial success. The utility glasses designed by him and mass-produced and sold on a mass scale were a symbol of Polish glass in general in the public awareness. He carried out his entrepreneurial activity with amazing efficiency in spite of the conditions of the industry in the People’s Republic of Poland. And this, in principle, was extremely difficult to effectively use innovation or design. As a lecturer at the PWSSP (State Higher School of Fine Arts), then a member of the university’s management and at the same time the head of design units of the leading Lower Silesian glassworks, he played an extremely important role in educating design staff and development directions of Polish industrial design.

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The main objective of this paper aims the distribution of finite resources under the imperatives of collectivist institutions and a governance based on the precepts of socializing the means of society. In the first instance theoretical formulas will be used that propose methodologies for governing the common goods from the ostromian perspective (Ostrom, 2007) and alternatives for overcoming the dilemmas of collective action starting from basic concepts (Hardin, 1968), respectively forms of government that can overcomes the excesses of users of common goods that inexorably lead to the spoiling and depletion of existing resources. Complementary to this preliminary discussion necessary for further operationalization I will use the theoretical model that explains, as an extension, the typology and functionality of natural resources and according to this link between combined theoretical models I will determine what type of asset each institutional form proposed for governing assets mentioned above. The final section will be dedicated to determining which type of institutional alternative, for the governance of common resources, is joined by the socialist ideological approach when talking about the collectivization of agriculture and the institutional form that agricultural associations must take, respectively in which typology could allocate the goods, following the de facto analysis of the agricultural collectivist type organization for the socialist period, in the same way of working – identifying institutional arrangements, typology of goods, in order to identify possible inconsistencies between the normative, declarative ideological model and its implementation in real social space. The study starts from the socialist ideological assumptions regarding the governance of agricultural households and tries to test whether the factual representation of agricultural cooperatives in Romania and implicitly in the general ideological project overlaps and fulfills the theoretical aspirations regarding the collectivization of agriculture. For these it will be considered to formulate research questions and consult the extensive bibliography in the field of agricultural groups proposed by the socialist frame of reference.

Socialism passes through three stages, which capture the qualitative transformation of the relations of production caused by changes in the productive forces. Specifically, the primary stage = public ownership as central (private ownership as supplement) + market-based distribution according to labor as central (distribution according to capital as supplement) + state(plan-) dominated market economy. The intermediate stage = multiple forms of public ownership + multiple commodity-type distribution according to labor + state-dominated planned economy (market adjustment as supplement). Finally, advanced socialism = singleform public ownership by entire society + product-based distribution according to labor + complete planned economy. Communism = single-form public ownership by entire society + product-based distribution according to need + fully planned economy. By contrast, the modern capitalist economic system = private ownership + distribution according to capital + state-directed market economy. This new theory of the three stages of socialism reasonably coordinates the various systemic criteria in the Marxist classics, and helps reveal the inherent connection between the primary stage of socialism and the great systemic goal of communism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on various forms of illegal and semi-illegal activities, mainly smuggling and black marketeering as experienced by transport workers during the 1970s and 1980s in former Czechoslovakia. It is based primarily on several dozens of oral history interviews recorded with people from river, sea, air, and road transport. The interview analysis (together with archival resources) shows that while there were significant differences in the scope and types of these "transactions" in various transport fields, the risks and benefits were very similar. The second part reflects on "negotiations" between the uses of the opportunity to obtain money and goods abroad (sometimes in semi-illegal or illegal ways) and the fear of losing this chance, and eventually of losing the job, which was one of the most common punishments. This was a great threat, often more for the very love of the profession than for material benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper aims the distribution of finite resources under the imperatives of collectivist institutions and a governance based on the precepts of socializing the means of society. In the first instance theoretical formulas will be used that propose methodologies for governing the common goods from the ostromian perspective (Ostrom, 2007) and alternatives for overcoming the dilemmas of collective action starting from basic concepts (Hardin, 1968), respectively forms of government that can overcomes the excesses of users of common goods that inexorably lead to the spoiling and depletion of existing resources. Complementary to this preliminary discussion necessary for further operationalization I will use the theoretical model that explains, as an extension, the typology and functionality of natural resources and according to this link between combined theoretical models I will determine what type of asset each institutional form proposed for governing assets mentioned above. The final section will be dedicated to determining which type of institutional alternative, for the governance of common resources, is joined by the socialist ideological approach when talking about the collectivization of agriculture and the institutional form that agricultural associations must take, respectively in which typology could allocate the goods, following the de facto analysis of the agricultural collectivist type organization for the socialist period, in the same way of working – identifying institutional arrangements, typology of goods, in order to identify possible inconsistencies between the normative, declarative ideological model and its implementation in real social space. The study starts from the socialist ideological assumptions regarding the governance of agricultural households and tries to test whether the factual representation of agricultural cooperatives in Romania and implicitly in the general ideological project overlaps and fulfills the theoretical aspirations regarding the collectivization of agriculture. For these it will be considered to formulate research questions and consult the extensive bibliography in the field of agricultural groups proposed by the socialist frame of reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subito dopo la pubblicazione dell’articolo su Econometrica del 1944, annoverato tra i più importanti contributi alla sintesi neoclassica, Franco Modigliani torna a riflettere, come già negli anni Trenta in Italia, sul superamento dell’economia capitalistica a seguito del prevalere di forme di monopolio in cui interesse individuale e collettivo entrano in contrapposizione. In un lungo saggio pubblicato nel 1947 sul Giornale degli economisti Modigliani esamina i vantaggi di una transizione, ritenuta necessaria e urgente, verso un’economia socialista. Egli individua le regole di condotta, di matrice marginalista, per una efficiente ed equa allocazione delle risorse e i discute dei vantaggi da un punto di vista macroeconomico sulla base di argomentazioni keynesiane. Soon after the 1944 Econometrica article, among the most relevant contributions to the neoclassical synthesis, Franco Modigliani returns to reasoning about the future of the capitalistic system, as he did in Italy in the 1930s, about the widespread of monopolies over competitive markets and the relationships between individual and collective interests. In a long essay published in 1947 in the Giornale degli Economisti, Modigliani analyzes the advantages of a rapid and urgent transition towards a socialist economy. He clearly identify and discusses the behavioral rules to be followed for an efficient resources allocation, all derived from the marginalist analysis and, from a macroeconomic perspective, on the basis of Keynesian arguments. JEL codes: B20, B24, B31

Based on the application of the formation approach to the development of the economic and social structure of countries, a comparative analysis of the capitalist and socialist economies is carried out. The inconsistency of the materialist doctrine of the socio-economic formation is shown. The illegitimacy of ignoring spirituality, values of society and elites in the economic development of countries is proved. The thesis that the basis of society is not the economy but spirituality of society is substantiated. To understand the driving forces of capitalism and socialism, there used economics and chrematistics, the latter considers not physical indicators, as economics does, but is aimed at exploitation, usury. Approaches to the assessment of the economy as a dynamic, constantly changing internal and external social development are considered. There studied the evolution of capitalism in terms of improving skills of employees, level of income, formation of the middle class, creation of forms of social security — insurance, the pension system. It is proved that the fundamentals of capitalism remain unchanged: the industrial material and technical base, private ownership of the means of production, the social form of production under the private capitalist form of appropriation, liberalism as the dominant theory in economics. Characteristic features of the socialist mode of production, the Soviet economy are revealed. It is proved that all above mentioned ensured the application of countervailing mechanisms of economic development, active introduction of the achievements of scientific and technical progress, belief of the population in social justice in society, care of the state about man, and confidence in the future. Proposals are made as to changing the methodology of economic research and real reforms in favor of the primacy of fundamental moral values, evaluation of activities by physical rather than cost indicators.

Copyright of Moneta e Credito is the property of Associazione Economia Civile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates Bulgaria's trade strategy towards the European Economic Community (EEC) in the 1970s: a decade of intensified economic exchange between East and West thanks to détente and, simultaneously, of growing trade barriers due to the consolidation of the EEC's Common Market. The successes and failures of Bulgaria's endeavours are discussed through a study of economic cooperation with Denmark before and after its accession to the EEC in 1973. The main argument is that while Bulgarian economic policy focused on the rising regulatory impediments to trade with EEC members, it neglected the structural deficiencies of Bulgarian export production. Thereby, Bulgarian state officials strove to resolve foreign trade problems through diplomatic negotiations over customs regulations instead of advancing domestic economic reforms. This argument is supported by analysis of intergovernmental economic negotiations and trade deals between Bulgaria and Denmark during the 1970s. It highlights the different ways in which Bulgarian trade envoys in Copenhagen and top officials at home evaluated recurrent problems in accessing the Danish market and formulated solutions for these problems. Thus, instead of tackling internal structural problems, the blueprints for Bulgaria's foreign trade focused on external foes, namely trade discrimination against socialist countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose--Tourism development in North Korea has received unprecedented attention since the onset of the Kim Jong Un regime, becoming a prime concern of the supreme leader and therefore a national priority. The scale of resources dedicated to tourism development is noticeable evidence of this phenomenon. outside observers view this primarily as the regime's attempt to circumvent debilitating international sanctions to earn foreign currency. while indeed one motive, such narrative is rather simplistic. This study seeks a refined interpretation via a reading of the North Korean discourse. Design, Methodology, Approach--This study examines predominantly North Korean materials--specifically, the supreme leaders' speeches, leading domestic scholarly journals, and other publications--to gain insight on the evolution of North Korea's expedition in tourism development. Findings--North Korea's past vision and current designs for tourism--now defined as "socialist tourism"--point to both its role in the construction of a socialist economy and its manifold importance to Kim Jong Un as a means to legitimize his leadership, build his image, modernize the country, and strengthen his power base. Practical Implications--Confirmation of the multifaceted importance of tourism to North Korea points to new directions for research and policy as the international community seeks new directions to engage the DPRK. Originality--No study to date has examined tourism development in the DPRK from the angle of North Korean discourse, nor incorporated the scope of such materials as this study does. The references alone provide significant value as an academic resource in this subject area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the industrial wastes and environmental effects of Soviet technological development through the history of the Karelian Isthmus, a border territory that had previously been Finnish. Focusing primarily on the history of two large enterprises – the Svetogorskii (former Enso) and Sovetskii (former Johannes) pulp and paper making plants, the authors illustrate the polluting nature of the Soviet economy in the 1940s–1980s. We contend that from the very beginning, important as they were for the USSR, the enterprises of the Isthmus were built into a system of shortages of techniques and materials that contributed to the hectic fulfilment of the plan. Producing pulp and pulp-based products remained a priority during the whole Soviet period. On the level of industrial enterprises, the Soviet system revealed itself as incapable of solving the problem of pollution and wasting. After waste treatment facilities developed by Soviet engineers in the 1960s turned out to be inadequate for dealing with increasing pollution, the Soviet authorities called on Finnish companies to carry out substantial modernisation of a few enterprises on the Isthmus. This helped the modernised plants remain functioning in the age of economic crisis at the end of the Soviet epoch. Old problems, however, such as shortages and lack of expertise, remained pivotal, while new sources of pollution, such as carbon emissions, appeared. As a result, the level of contamination was still high and led to negative environmental impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Stasi, the secret police in the GDR, was an integral part of the planned economy. Over time, Stasi officers took on tasks related to economic planning and adopted the mentality and behaviour typical of the field. This paper takes a closer look at their aims and the ensuing consequences as illustrated by the GDR chemical industry. It focuses on a contradictory phenomenon: the co-existence of growth and inefficiency. Although the secret police enjoyed growing responsibilities, resources and partners, they were surprisingly inept at achieving their own economic and security targets. This phenomenon can be explained in two ways: Historically, by identifying the Stasi as the profiteer of economic crisis, or in terms of organization theory, by revealing some typical bureaucratic characteristics of the secret service (MfS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of School Chronicle / Šolska Kronika is the property of Slovenski Solski Muzej and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)