Czechoslovak participation in joint projects within the CMEA in seventies and eighties of 20th century
Abstrakt
International projects within the CMEA should be considered as specific areas where widely declared socialist economic integration was to certain extent successful, not only in the context of the times. These projects symbolized one of few fields in which particular economic integration of the CMEA countries was based on really multilateral level (not only in the way of bilateral cooperation).
Cooperation in case of these projects was realised on multilateral base (considering not only investments, but also the exchange of manpower from participating countries). From the point of view of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the most important projects in the given period were the participation on the construction of gas pipelines Soyuz, Progress and integrated mining and metallurgy plant in Dolinskaya near Krivoy Rog.
Czechoslovak participation in above mentioned integration projects seems to be a good starting point when analyzing the topic ČSSR in the CMEA in the seventies and eighties. The CMEA was proud of these projects as they represented notable outcomes of its functioning.
Such positive image was also widely publicized in media and the participants on the projects gained in some way great experience. Besides publicity function, some projects were important also because of their economic function, even after the disintegration of the CMEA.
On the other hand, some were not successful ‒ such as Czechoslovak participation in the construction of plant in Dolinskaya symbolizes the end to an attempt at socialist economic integration. The paper summarizes the topic of Czechoslovak participation on international projects within the CMEA as it has been dealt with up to now and will outline possible approaches to the future.
