#World domination in retrospect full#

Therefore, the role of COMECON was twofold: to outweigh any possible effects of the Marshall Plan in the Soviet zone of influence and to redirect the economic links of Eastern Europe from the West to the East building a second level of autarky over the national economies.

Naturally, trade with the West was an evil and the Marshall plan could rapidly spread the evil (together with the political influence) in Eastern Europe. Within the Soviet bloc trade itself was considered to be dangerous, as a greater autarky guaranteed higher chances to survive in a case of the next big war. ran a race for the world domination where both military and economic capacities played a role.

#World domination in retrospect full#

The council for mutual economic assistance, which later became known as COMECON, was born in 1949 when the Cold war was in its full rights. The end of the WWII put an end to the war but not to the confrontation of the states. Sandor Richter represented wiiw at the event, sharing the insights about trade within COMECON, which was an important issue for four decades (1949-1991) and belongs to history now. For two days, Regensburg became a host for a conference with the leading scholars in economic history that brought their collective efforts to summarize our knowledge about economic development of Eastern Europe from the early modern period until now. Filling the gaps is a challenging task, which requires exchange of knowledge, advancement of the statistical instruments, and financial support. To see this, one does not need to be an expert in the field – a brief look at the time series from the Maddison database is enough to capture the degree of the problem. The economic history of Eastern Europe is full of white spots.