Abstract
Since the mid-1950s the rate of Soviet commercial acquisition of Western technology has grown rapidly. Moreover, it appears to have grown faster than most other Soviet economic activities. In section B of Chapter 2 it was suggested that the most important channel of international design transfer was almost certainly through machinery trade. Machinery imports from OECD countries may therefore be taken as an indicator.1 If we exclude the estimated effect of inflation, growth of these imports of Western machinery in ‘real’ terms between the two years 1955–6 and the two years 1975–6 was at an average annual rate of 13.9 per cent.2 This growth rate exceeded that of Soviet domestic output and that of total foreign trade volume.3
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Notes
E.I. Artem’ev and L.G. Kravets, ‘Izobreteniya i uroven’ tekhniki’, EKO, 1979 no. 1, pp. 49–68: estimate derived from pp. 58 and 59 (number of sales, and number of purchases as a multiple of sales). It is likely that only a small proportion of these purchases were from other CMEA countries. Payments for intra-CMEA transfers of ‘pure’ technology were introduced only in the late 1960s, and Soviet sources generally imply that such transactions are still relatively few.
Yu. Naido and S. Simanovskii, in ‘Uchastie Stran SEVa v mirovoi litsenzionnoi torgovle’, Voprosy ekonomiki, 1975 no. 3, pp. 67–77, state (p. 76) that there were at that time only around 100 intra-CMEA licence arrangements in force. Many Soviet statements about licence transactions probably refer only to ‘pure’ licence deals handled by the specialised licence-trading FTO, Litsenzintorg, and exclude licences bought (or sold) by other FTOs as part of package deals along with machinery. (In characteristic Soviet fashion, most sources fail to define the entities to which the number refer, and usually leave the exact period referred to unclear.) The Artem’evKravets (implied) number is higher than most and may well include package-deal licence acquisitions. Artem’ev is a deputy chairman of the State Committee for Inventions and Discoveries and not a Litsenzintorg official, so he may have access to more comprehensive data.
J.P. Hardt and G.D. Holliday, ‘Technology Transfer and Change in the Soviet Economic System’, in Fleron (ed.), Technology and Communist Culture (New York: Praeger, 1977) pp. 1–71, 146–83 and 183–224, respectively);
Cooper, ‘Research, Development and Innovation in the Soviet Union’, in Z.M. Fallenbuchl (ed.), Economic Development in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, vol. 1 (New York: Praeger, 1975) pp. 139–96;
A.J. Longrigg, ‘Soviet Science and the Closed Society’, The World Today, vol. 28, no. 5 (May 1972), pp. 216–24;
B.B. Parrott, ‘Technological Progress and Soviet Politics’ in J.R. Thomas and U. Kruse-Vaucienne (eds), Soviet Science and Technology (Washington DC: George Washington University, 1977), pp. 305–29 and idem, The Politics of Technological Progress in the USSR (forthcoming);
R.W. Lee, Soviet Perceptions of Western Technology (Bethesda, Maryland: Mathtech Inc., 1978);
P.J.D. Wiles, ‘On the Prevention of Technology Transfer’ in NATO Economic Directorate, East-West Technological Cooperation, (Brussels: NATO, 1976), pp. 23–43;
Hanson ‘External Influence on the Soviet Economy since the mid–1950s: the Import of Western Technology’, University of Birmingham, CREES Discussion Paper RC/B7 (1974).
Archie Brown, ‘Political Developments: Some Conclusions and an Interpretation’ in Brown and M.C. Kaser (eds), The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1978), pp. 218–276, at pp. 244–9.
J.M. Cooper, The Development of the Soviet Machine Tool Industry, 1917–41, Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 1975, pp. 326–31.
G.D. Holliday, Western Technology Transfer to the Soviet Union, 1928–1937 and 1966–1975: with a Case Study in the Transfer of Automotive Technology, Ph.D. dissertation, George Washington University, 1978, pp. 86–90, 153–5 and 159. Of course, people said things they did not believe on a spectacular scale in the USSR in the 1930s, but the enforced official optimism must have impeded communication about problems from specialists to senior officials.
A.C. Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, vol. 3 (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution, 1971), chs 1 and 2.
L.E. Nolting, The Planning of Research, Development and Innovation in the USSR, Washington DC: US Department of Commerce Foreign Economic Report no. 14, 1978, p. 7.
M. Maksimova, ‘Vsemirnoe khozyaistvo; mezhdunarodnoe ekonomicheskoe sotrudnichestvo’, MEMO, 1974 no. 4, pp. 3–21.
O. Bogomolov, ‘O vneshneekonomicheskikh svyazyakh SSSR’, Kommunist, 1974 no. 5, pp. 89–100, at p. 90. Bogomolov is director of the Institute of the Socialist World Economic System. This institute, in addition to its intra-CMEA concerns, has a strong group of specialists on East-West economic relations. For another paraphrase of this standard formula,
Yu. Pekshev, ‘Vazhnyi faktor mira; sotsial’noekonomicheshkogo progressa’, Planovoe khozyaistvo 1974 no. 12, pp. 6–15, at p. 6.
Ye. Kapustin, Yu. Subotskii, ‘Problemy razvitiya ob“edinenii’, Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, 1975 no. 17, p. 7. More details on the influence of the USA institute is given by J. M. Cooper, ‘Innovation for Innovation in Soviet Industry’ in Amann and Cooper, op. cit.
L.H. Theriot, ‘US Governmental and Private Industry Cooperation with the Soviet Union in the Fields of Science and Technology’ in US Congress Joint Economic Committee, Soviet Economy in a New Perspective (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1976), pp. 739–67.
Smelyakov, ‘Delovye vstrechi’, Novyi mir, 1973, no. 12, pp. 203–40. The biographical details and opinions mentioned in this paragraph are all taken from this article. Note that this article, like several cited above, was published during the brief period of optimism about Soviet—US trade and economic relationships between early 1972 and late 1974. Smelyakov has also published a volume of memoirs and a book on American business, Delovaya Amerika which expressed admiration for several aspects of US business practice.
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© 1981 Philip Hanson
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Hanson, P. (1981). Evolution of Soviet Perceptions. In: Trade and Technology in Soviet-Western Relations. Studies in Soviet History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05163-2_5
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