ABSTRACT
Planned economic growth and the priority developm ent of the industrial sector were central features of the socialist model as it evolved from the experience of the Soviet Union and came to be applied in Central Europe. The contours of this model sharpened as Stalinism tightened its grip and the Cold War intensified with the outbreak of hostilities in Korea on 25 June 1950. Ambitious economic plans were reform ulated and geared to a faster rate of growth and higher levels of production. Although the Stalinist phase was relatively short in Central Europe, it was during this time that the basic features of central control and detailed adminis tration of the economy were established. Some changes and a certain relaxation were to come after Stalin’s death, but these concerned the intensity with which the principles that underlay the model were pursued rather than any major change in structure. The fundamentals of the economic structure imposed under Stalin persisted throughout the communist period in Central Europe. More thoroughgoing changes were contem plated but never enacted in Poland, and reform was not allowed to progress far in Czechoslovakia. Concerted reform measures were taken in Hungary but it became evident in the course of the economic difficulties encountered during the 1980s that even these were not sufficient to overcome the fundam ental problems of the com m and economy and many features of the initial Stalinist economic model remained.
