Red globalization: The political economy of Soviet foreign relations in the 1950s and 60s

This dissertation argues for the importance of world economic developments in explaining the Soviet Union's domestic and international economic policies as well as its foreign policy. It argues that the Soviet Union's comparatively humble level of economic development played a critical role in many of the decisions taken by Soviet policy-makers, and that they were often constrained by events outside of their control. Ultimately it examines the place of the Soviet Union in the incipient globalization of the 1950s and 60s.;More specifically, the dissertation looks at the country's foreign trade and aid policies. It finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Soviet policy-makers sought at all times to engage the world economy. They were only able to do so, however, when developments in the world economy and international politics allowed. The study uses published documents for the NEP and Stalin eras, and archival evidence for the 1950s and 60s.;The dissertation begins by arguing that events in the 1920s and 30s forced the Soviet Union into an unexpected autarkic path. Soviet leaders inherited a largely agrarian economy that proved to be particularly vulnerable to the disappearance of international trade during the Great Depression. Despite plans to use primary export commodities to finance the industrialization drive, rapidly deteriorating terms of trade that resulted from the passing of the international liberal order during the first half of the 1930s forced the Soviet leadership into a harsh and unwelcome import substitution strategy. There was little that was particular to the Soviet system in that choice; states all around the world in the 1930s took over the reins of their respective economies in order to navigate the world economic meltdown. The political consequences of the Great Depression reinforced this autarkic policy, as international insecurity further encouraged autarky and eventually led world leaders to gear their national economies for war.;The postwar period saw the emergence of a preponderant United States trying to reestablish the old liberal order. Although American success in this endeavor brought a measure of hegemonic stability, the onset of the Cold War insured that the Soviet Union would remain ostracized from the world economy. And yet signs of the Soviet leadership's enthusiasm for foreign trade were already apparent in the fast growth of trade between the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe.;The explosion of trade with the rest of the world would have to wait for two events, both happening almost simultaneously from the mid-1950s. The first was the end of the European empires, which saw the creation of new governments eager to diversify their economic relations away from their former colonial masters. The second was the wane of American economic preponderance over the other two former industrial centers in Western Europe and Japan. As prosperity returned to these countries, its governments and businessmen became more willing to ignore American pressure against economic engagement of the eastern bloc. These two developments ushered in an era of economic globalization that quickly determined the role the Soviet economy would play. In fact throughout these developments, the Soviet leadership, eager though it was for foreign economic relations, played a surprisingly passive role in establishing economic relations, underscoring the importance of developments outside Soviet control and influence.;Although Soviet leaders at first supposed their role would be similar to that of developed countries as providers of industrial capital, the realities of the Soviet level of economic development, along with the constraints of an economic system that abhorred export, soon convinced them otherwise. Europe and Japan did not want Soviet manufactured products, which were usually of suspect quality. They wanted, rather, to tap into the Soviet Union's raw materials, which by and large they did. Although at first recalcitrant, Soviet leaders ultimately acquiesced to an economic relation that increasingly mirrored the traditional relationship between developed and developing countries.;Similar problems hampered the intensification of Soviet economic relations with the developing world. In the Third World, enthusiasm for economic engagement with an industrialized power that carried less political baggage than trade with former imperial powers quickly gave way to disappointment, as Soviet aid and trade did little to further those countries' economic development. The low quality and small assortment of Soviet products ensured that relations with the Soviet Union remained a second-best choice to world markets. There were, nevertheless, certain uses to a relationship with the Soviet Union. The Soviets mostly bartered their goods, for example, which helped to alleviate pressure on Third World countries' often inadequate hard currency reserves.;The implications for Cold War history of Soviet economic inadequacy were clear. The Soviet Union's powers of attraction and influence were circumscribed by a world economy in which Western powers were preponderant. In the final outcome, it was the relationship with Western Europe, Japan, and eventually the United States, that proved the most resilient and desirable to the Soviets. As the second wave of economic globalization got underway in the 1950s and 60s, the weight of that relationship grew ever more important. The legacy of that development lives on in Russia's place in the world economy today.