jan 5, 1949 - Comecon

Description:

The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance
Members:
USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, (from 1950) GDR
- Soviet response to increasing Western unity and the Marshall Plan
- aimed to foster trade cooperation in Eastern Europe
- failed to have much significance initially
- established centralised economies in Eastern bloc countries, including collectivisation and 5-year-plans
- often detrimental to productivity
- viewed by the West as evidence of the growing influence of the Soviet Union

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