ABSTRACT
Established in 1949, several years before the Warsaw Treaty Organization, COMECON was the counterpart of the regional military institution in more ways than one. Alongside the multiple structures of political linkage and military co-ordination, however, were those of the Committee for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). The Committee for Mutual Economic Assistance was originally composed of Soviet Union and Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The economic setback for the Central European countries was soon worsened by the United States' imposition of a licensing system on all exports to Europe. The dominance of bilateral agreements channelled through the Soviet foreign trade ministry and its embassy-based system of liaising with national leaderships led to the further marginalization of recently established economic organization. The notion of all-round economic development solidly rooted in a heavy industrial base continued to be influential and pervaded national elite conceptions of overall social development, contributing to the persistence of the orthodox Soviet model of comprehensive industrial growth.
