Introduction and General Survey

The account of developments in post-war Central Europe that follows, then, be largely narrative and sequential in the early chapters. It presents a fairly straightforward historical account. Following this introduction and general survey, the broad contours of the region's history are sketched out and the foundations of the post-war order delineated. Suddenly, however, much of the nature and experience of post-war Central Europe became 'historical' in the sense of forming part of a closed chapter in the history of the region-one characterized by social conditions, forms of rule and economic organization whose ineffectiveness and unnatural basis seemed not just inappropriate and wasteful but now also archaic. While formally a supranational body and an agency of international organization, it in fact tended to enhance national economic isolation, maintain rather outdated forms of autarchic economic organization and help support unproductive patterns of trade. The early years of the organization were marked more by passivity than by any signs of economic activity.