ABSTRACT
The second century covered by this book is divided in two because, although both periods are concerned with nation states and their struggles to maintain growth in a challenging global situation, there are fundamental differences in the methods adopted and the international relations forged. The first period covers the two world wars of the twentieth century and the short interlude of two decades between them. This period is being widely re-evaluated as the immediate forerunner to the communist era. While shortcomings and contradictions were overemphasised retrospectively through the ideologically motivated critiques of the communist period, more objective examination of the evidence points to balanced programmes to expand factory industry while seeking a measure of rural diversification. But security was always a great problem which diverted capital into the armed services and defence industries: not only was there a danger of a German and/or Russian resurgence, but the smaller nations of the regions were themselves divided through the opposed interests of the ‘winners’ of 1918 (Albania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia) and ‘losers’ like Germany, Hungary and-to a lesser extent-Bulgaria. This chapter will therefore deal with these various contextual issues as well as the changing economic geography. It will also be appropriate to consider alternative development models in the context of growing German influence: the urge for accelerated growth after the depression years through imitation of German methods requiring greater cooperation and cartelisation, underpinned by greater state investment and planning. Tariff systems were very much the order of the day: it was assumed that any reduction in protection would be damaging-given the importance of industry based on import substitution that would not be competitive on a free trade basis-so only bilateral or multilateral reductions could be contemplated. But industrial countries whose exporters were barricaded out of the markets of agrarian countries naturally took measures against the latter’s food exports, thereby keeping food prices low in the region with returns to farmers that were wholly inadequate to sustain peasant proprietorship and moderate rural-urban migration pressure.
