1134 Ch. 27 • Rebuilding Divided EuropeThe economic development of the German Democratic Republic, how
ever short on freedom, was at first impressive. Before Soviet occupation, the
eastern zone of Germany had had a small industrial base, but this industrial
infrastructure had suffered the Soviet extraction of raw materials and
machinery. The collectivization of industrial production then proceeded
rapidly, and by 1952 the state employed three of every four workers. Despite
the loss of many skilled workers to the German Federal Republic, East Ger
many emerged with the strongest economy of the Soviet Union’s Eastern
bloc; only Hungary boasted a similar standard of living by the 1960s. Steel
production and shipbuilding, particularly, expanded rapidly in the 1950s
and 1960s, as the German Democratic Republic fulfilled its assigned role in
the Soviet government’s plan for economic development in the Communist
states. Nonetheless, to many East Germans conditions of life seemed more
attractive in West Germany. Hundreds of thousands of people voted with
their feet and left for West Germany.
The planned economies of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European
allies could count some accomplishments, although adequate attention to
the desires of their citizens was not one of them. The Soviet gross national
product, which had stood at 36 percent of that of the United States in
1957, rose to about 50 percent of that of its rival in 1962, and it edged
closer in the subsequent two decades. Yet the Soviet economy remained
haunted by daunting inefficiency. The housing shortage remained acute
into the 1960s, and families still had long waits for better apartments.
While Stalin promoted economic growth in the Communist states of
Eastern Europe, economic policies furthered a division of labor whereby
some of the Soviet satellite states produced agricultural products and others
manufactured particular goods. The Soviet Union used the Eastern Europe
an economies to further Soviet economic interests through unfavorable
trade arrangements. One by one, beginning with Bulgaria and Czechoslova
kia in 1949, the states of Eastern Europe launched five-year plans based on
the Soviet model. However, consumer goods of all kinds were de-emphasized
until the mid-1950s, sacrificed, as had been the case in the Soviet Union
before the war, to the drive for heavy industrialization that gave birth to enor
mous plants that produced steel and iron.
The collectivization of agriculture began in earnest, but this at first sharply
reduced productivity. Like peasants in the Soviet Union during the early
1930s, hundreds of thousands of peasants in Eastern Europe resisted by
rebellion, arson, sabotage, and simply by dragging their feet. Yet gradually
there were increases in productivity. By the mid-1960s, state farms
accounted for more than 80 percent of the land in the German Democratic
Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. In Poland, in sharp con
trast, more than 85 percent of the land remained in private hands because
the Polish Communist leadership feared open popular resistance to massive
agricultural collectivization.