ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the most important economic features, problems and outcomes in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland on the eve of transformation. It considers the complex nature of systemic change and the critical relation between general economic principles and rules and local circumstances, and how these combined in the transformation strategies. The chapter examines the three standard components of transformation and how these were implemented in the countries considered: macroeconomic stabilization, liberalization, and privatization. The three countries had different starting conditions concerning their macroeconomic situation. They also had different economic structures, levels of development, features of enterprises, management styles, features and size of the non-socialized sector, features of the state and the public administration. Poverty increased dramatically during the decade following the start of transformation. In a sense, transformation was moved by the desire and the necessity for former Soviet-type economies and socialist countries to go back to sound general economic rules and principles.
