ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Soviet perceptions of Western attitudes toward environmental problems and contrast these perceptions with Soviets' official position on these issues. It outlines actual Soviet performance in the environmental area and explains the institutional factors which cause actual performance to differ so radically from the official position. The Soviets believe that mankind today holds capitalism and colonialism primarily responsible for the rapacious exploitation of natural resources and for damages to the habitat of mankind as a whole. Soviet planners were quick to exploit the area's recreational resources and in the late 1930s began large scale construction of hotels and resort accommodations along its shores. Working from a Marxist ideological base, the Soviets have constructed an administered price system. The Soviets claim that socialist production will solve any long-run environmental problem. This will occur through the internalization of all costs of production and the efficiency of central planning for both short and long-run time periods.
