Transformation of Agriculture in Central-Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union: Major Policy Issues and Perspectives

Abstract

Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union are at present undergoing fundamental economic and political transformation. Far-reaching changes going far beyond the reforms of earlier years characterise the agrarian economy of Eastern and Central Europe where the creation of a new agricultural structure based on private ownership, true cooperatives and the market economy has now begun. The Soviet Union also wishes to overcome its serious economic difficulties with comprehensive economic and political reforms, though here the changes have not yet affected the most important basic elements of the so-called socialist economic and political system. This process is still far from finished in any of the countries concerned. Most of the details have yet to be clarified, especially in the Soviet Union and there is a very high degree of uncertainty as regards future developments. However, there can be no doubt that all these changes will fundamentally reshape agriculture as a whole in the respective countries and will influence the behaviour and role of the region in the system of international agrarian relations. This study was written to survey the problems of Bulgaria, Hungary, the former GDR, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. Due to the preliminary stage of transformation in the Soviet Union, the discussion of major issues of transformation is based mainly on the experience of the smaller Central-Eastern European countries.