Accession Number:

AD0694050

Title:

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND POLITICAL CHANGE IN COMMUNIST EASTERN EUROPE,

Descriptive Note:

Corporate Author:

RAND CORP SANTA MONICA CA

Personal Author(s):

• Burks, Richard V.

Report Date:

1969-08-01

Pagination or Media Count:

72.0

Abstract:

The report examines the nature of the dilemma posed for European Communist leadership as they seek to increase their productivity while maintaining tight political control. Symptomatic of the effect of an inflexible, power-oriented, centrally controlled command structure is the low rate of technological innovation in Eastern as compared with Western Europe. The widening technological gap is forcing the Communists to modify both their philosophy and their economic system. All East European states except Albania have some kind of economic reform under way. The more conservative type of reform East Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria eases the central command problem, but runs the serious risk of not achieving significant gains. The more radical reform Yugoslavia, Hungary, and, until 1968, Czechoslovakia shifts to a market economy and risks economic and political pluralization. Author

Descriptors:

• *EASTERN EUROPE
• USSR
• CONTROL SYSTEMS
• ECONOMICS
• SOCIAL SCIENCES
• CZECHOSLOVAKIA
• COMMUNISM

Subject Categories:

• Government and Political Science

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE