From the July 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard
In recent years there have been many signs that Russian industry is becoming more and more interested in finding foreign markets for its products, from ships and motor cars to oil and from timber to diamonds.
Immediately after the Communists captured power in Russia in 1917 they introduced State control of all foreign trade largely because they feared that German and other exporters would undercut Russian home industries with a flood of cheap goods. It was the aim of the Russian Government to restrict imports to those articles regarded as essential and to pay for them by exporting surpluses produced in home industries. There was at that time no urge to expand trade and in 1938 the volume of foreign trade was only fifty per cent of what it had been before they came to power, though trade was expanding fast in the world as a whole. But by 1959 with the successful building up of great manufacturing industries Russia had come into line with the general expansion of foreign trade, and her imports and exports had recovered so far that they were half as large again as in 1913 and three times what they had been in 1938.
This change of trend found expression during June of this year at the Conference of the Russian bloc countries in Moscow, which dealt with industrial and trade relations with each other and with the rest of the world. They are reported (Times 9 June, 1962) to have “expressed their desire for the further expansion of foreign trade with capitalist countries”, and also supporting a call for an international conference to set up a worldwide organisation to promote trade, and remove discriminatory actions by one country against another. Doubtless, from the Russian government’s standpoint, the latter proposal is directed against the development of the European Common Market and the possibility of Britain joining it, both of them developments that may threaten Russia’s position as expanding exporter in world markets.
Edgar Hardcastle
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