Talk:Comecon

Finland does not fit the description

Currently, the opening paragraphs states that "Comecon [...] was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world." However, Finland was neither a communist state nor was it part of the eastern bloc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.183.135.194 (talk) 04:58, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

And? Finland isn't listed as a member of Comecon anywhere in the article. Finland was one of a few nations that had trade pacts (particularly with Czechoslovakia) and so held an "associate" status. Markvs88 (talk) 12:05, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Untitled

Parts of the article are from http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/, which is in the Public Domain

Information contained in the Country Studies On-Line is not copyrighted and thus is available for free and unrestricted use by researchers. As a courtesy, however, appropriate credit should be given to the series.

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Origin of copyvio: [1]. --snoyes 22:55, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

shsu.edu used Library of Congress as a source. Checking copyright state of that ... -- JeLuF 22:57, Jan 10, 2004 (UTC)

OK, i reverted the revert - should have been more careful. --snoyes 23:02, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Forced membership

The membership was (almost?) obligatory. Even Party member believed that Comecon destroys their country because they had to help the SU. The Soviets believed they help the others. Everyone was happy when the Comecon collapsed. Your text is biased as hell. Quoting Communist documents has the same value like quoting Nazi propaganda. Xx236 10:49, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

What an intelligent comment on your part. Bring proof then talk. No proof no talk.

COMECON was called the "dollar pump" in the satellite states. Nominally "convertible USSR rubel" was 1:1 to US dollar, but in reality there wasn't much purchase power in it, because the USSR produced very few desirable things beyond weaponry.

Eastern european countires were forced by USSR to produce relatively advanced, nomially civilian goods with a significant western component content in them. The USSR bought these for convertible rubels and promptly misused them for dual- or straight-out military purposes. The satellite states could decide to buy weapon systems or oil/gas from USSR in exchange, because those were the only goods available for convertible ruble.

On the other hand, communist satellite states of eastern europe had to produce US dollars and west german marks to buy advanced components for use in soviet-bound export equipment. Those dollars were produced by agricultural export and textile exports with very low profit margin or even at a net loss, due to the more advanced production infrastructure available in the capitalist countries.

To summarize, satellite states had to sacrifice their growth and divert from internal consumption to feed the USSR with goods it could not obtain due to western embargo. An example are the microwave radio relay link stations my father used to design in a Budapest factory. 82.131.210.163 (talk) 16:13, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Dating of the Article

The article seems to be a bit dated - I would guess it was written in 1988 at latest. It is as if history stops at 1987 if you rely on this article alone for accurate information, and putting Comecon as a current events entity and not something that is already history. Anyone who can overhaul this article to underlie a different perspective? --JNZ 08:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm making some additions, hope this helps. - Jmabel | Talk 18:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Names in languages of the member states

That list has Estonian in it, why? And if E. is seen as a language of the Soviet Union alongside Russian, then why not the other languages of the SU? 213.243.182.3 16:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

--- and Spanish too... was Spain a member?

Cuba was. El_C 09:14, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Who founded what in response to whom?

The article says:

"The Comecon was the Eastern Bloc's reply to the formation of the Organization for European Economic Co-operation in western Europe.[1]"

The source that is cited does compare the two, but doesn't talk about "replies" at all. The Comecon was founded in 1949 - the EEC in 1961. 1) Do we have to pretend that the socialist camp "copied" everything? 2) Is there any link at all between the foundation of the two? NATO-Warsaw has a pretty close and obvious linkage, but apart from the fact that the above statement seems to be wrong as it is now (I'm not a specialist on the topic at all), could it be argued that the creation of economic assistance is a natural development in alliances? (Bruggel (talk) 16:24, 11 August 2011 (UTC))

The OEEC (C for co-operation) was founded in 1948, just before Comecon. In 1961 the OEEC became the OECD. It was not related to the 1958 EEC (C for community), which only involved six countries. 15:54, 29 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C6:1489:9900:1C66:1400:8347:CDC4 (talk)

Graphics colors

Can someone fix the colors of the graphic? The two shades of red are way too close to one another and it's hard to figure out what's what. Like, is Vietnam and Cuba proper members or just associates? It's hard to tell. — 76.14.41.41 (talk) 05:56, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Vietnam and Cuba were full members while Yugoslavia was an associate member 15:56, 29 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C6:1489:9900:1C66:1400:8347:CDC4 (talk)

Emblem

This emblem/red flag is in no way official. This is a project by some Bulgarian designer, which could, but NEVER became official. I couldn't figure out how to add this information ("unofficial project") to the infobox.Faust-RSI (talk) 18:02, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Faust-RSI, I have removed it. Thank you. --MarioGom (talk) 14:39, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Why this organisation has translated name?

In the case of "Soviet" Union, the word that means "Council" was transliterated despite having the direct equivalent. Why in the case of "СЭВ" organisation, [almost] the very same word was been decided to be translated not transliterate? 46.242.74.209 (talk) 09:51, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

This is an insightful question, with a linguistically interesting answer. The words "soviet" and "Soviet" first entered the English language in the 1917-1920 period (in other words, the whole span of time comprising the Russian Revolution into and through the Russian Civil War and the creation of the Soviet Union). Because of the historical-political environment in which the words entered the English language, monolingual-native-speaker English ended up never fully/completely internalizing (into English or its mentalese ontologies) the fact that the word "Сове́т" means "council" and also thus that the word "soviet" can/could be [simply/identically/with full cognitive synonymy ] another word for "council", and thus that the name "Soviet Union" literally means "Council Union" or, that is to say, "Council-based/-constituted Union". If one wishes to test that assertion, I can point out that if one were to poll a thousand monolingual-native-speaker English speakers, I guarantee that rather few of them will report being fully/consciously aware of that synonymy or most precisely of that potential for full cognitive synonymy. I myself (a native English speaker) was never fully/consciously aware of it until adulthood, after university, and I can guarantee that most monolingual-native-speaker English speakers similarly are not. Instead, the English language ended up taking in the word "Soviet" in the 1920s as a transliterated loanword with the primary word sense being "of or related to the Soviet Union" and only the secondary sense being "any of the councils therein, such as the USSR Supreme Soviet, any of the city soviets, and so on"; furthermore/relatedly, English truly does not even have a third word sense of its English word "soviet/Soviet" that would simply mean "council/Council" with no other connotation or denotation (that possible third word sense is simply a lexical gap in this language, which also explains exactly why if anyone were creating any new council in any anglophone context, they would never name it, for example, the Soviet on Such-and-Such; it would only be the Council on Such-and-Such). Rather, what English has is a vague/semiconscious theme that the words "soviet/Soviet" mean [only] either "[of/related to] the USSR" or "a type of council therein (ie, in the USSR)"; there is no sense of the word "soviet/Soviet" in idiomatic monolingual-native-speaker English that is fully independent in meaning from the USSR-related/USSR-specific senses. Thus by the time the Comecon was created (mid-/late-1940s post-WWII period), the translation of its name into English that English-speakers would (and did) first reach for was the one that made more full/natural/idiomatic sense, namely, "Council for Mutual Economic Assistance", not *"Soviet for Mutual Economic Assistance", which (latter) would not have been "wrong" (per se/on every level) but which we can see was not the most natural possible translation to reach for first. If one needed a one-line summary of this effect, it would be something like this: "When an English speaker hears the word 'Soviet', they don't think 'council', they think 'USSR'. Thus, in English, one does not name non-USSR-specific councils as 'Soviets', under any normal/average conditions." [Not to say that a special condition for doing it could not be invented — merely that "it is not done" under any normal conditions.] Another summation: In English, the word "soviet" or "Soviet" does not mean simply "council"; rather, it means more specifically "a council of commies for commie-type purposes" (to articulate the connotation crudely but accurately). Lest anyone think that that is horrible, the effect is not at all linguistically unique to this term — consider, for example, that not every attic studio is labeled an atelier in English (notwithstanding that English has a loanword, atelier), and that not every brewpub terrace is labeled a biergarten in English (notwithstanding that English has a loanword, biergarten). Languages sometimes sequester loanwords from the native-vocabulary (near-)synonyms under a rubric of "only the 'Frenchy' ones are called that" or "only the 'German-ish' ones are called that" or "only the Russky-ish ones are called that", and so on. It's how natural language works, notwithstanding any ideal of how else it could or should work. — Quercus solaris (talk) 16:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC); additions, 2 November 2021 (UTC).