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When East and West Germany re-united, the world was amazed — but this great moment should have been foreseen. East Germany, the GDR, was not transformed by a counterrevolution from the outside; the leadership was always capitalist at heart. The author shows how they were undermining the socialist foundations even in the 1950s, as soon as Stalin died. Gerhard Schnehen leads us through the historic events that led to the formation of the German Democratic Republic, GDR. He documents what others have left out of the story, explaining the underlying causes why the supposedly 'Communist' part of Germany collapsed in 1989, to be completely integrated into the capitalist Federal Republic of Germa...
History is replete with examples of scientists and social scientists working under the yoke of oppressive regimes. In The Closed World of East German Economists, Till Düppe tells the story of a generation of economists whose entire careers coincided with the forty-one-year existence of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In a micro-historical fashion, he examines the world of East German economists through the formative episodes in the lives of five different economists from this “hope” generation. Using both the perspective of the actors as expressed in interviews and archival material unknown to the actors, the book follows East German economics from the early days of the acceptance of Marxism-Leninism through to its interaction with Western economics and its eventual dissolution following the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It is fascinating insight into the challenges faced by economists in a unique period of European history.
This volume examines concepts of central planning, a cornerstone of political economy in Soviet-type societies. It revolves around the theory of “optimal planning” which promised a profound modernization of Stalinist-style verbal planning. Encouraged by cybernetic dreams in the 1950s and supporting the strategic goals of communist leaders in the Cold War, optimal planners offered the ruling elites a panacea for the recurrent crises of the planned economy. Simultaneously, their planning projects conveyed the pride of rational management and scientific superiority over the West. The authors trace the rise and fall of the research program in the communist era in eight countries of Eastern E...
Survey Research and Public Attitudes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is a collection of research studies the survey's the opinions of demographics from Eastern Europe on socialists systems. The title analyzes the development of survey research in the socialist systems of Eastern Europe to provide an overview of the nature of socialist countries. The territories covered in the selection are Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Germany Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. The book will be of great interest to sociologists, political scientists, economists, and behavioral scientists.
Jeffrey Kopstein offers the first comprehensive study of East German economic policy over the course of the state's forty-year history. Analyzing both the making of economic policy at the national level and the implementation of specific policies on the shop floor, he provides new and essential background to the revolution of 1989. In particular, he shows how decisions made at critical junctures in East Germany's history led to a pattern of economic decline and worker dissatisfaction that contributed to eventual political collapse. East Germany was generally considered to have the most successful economy in the Eastern Bloc, but Kopstein explores what prevented the country's leaders from res...
Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universit'at Jena, 2008.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.
Includes entries for maps and atlases.