From Internationalization to Development: Czechoslovak Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation in the Gottwald and Novotny eras (1948-1968)

During the period of communist supremacy, Czechoslovakia teetered between two geopolitical blocs. On the one hand, it was an official constituent of the socialist wing with far-reaching responsibilities to the other member states of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, but on the other, Czechoslovakia’s economy was traditionally pro-Western, and even the political drawing of the Iron Curtain could not completely deconstruct the deep-rooted ties with its Western neighbors. This thesis examines how senior officials of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (Klement Gottwald, Antonín Zápotocký, Antonín Novotný, Viliam Široký, Ota Šik, etc.) as well as individual rank-and-file workers and the scientific-technical intelligentsia dealt with Czechoslovakia's delicate position on the border of two geopolitical blocs. Specific attention is paid to the factors that guided Czechoslovak foreign economic policy, as well as to the question of how the individual actors, forms, platforms, and projects of Czechoslovak intra- and inter-bloc cooperation demonstrate the precariousness of the Czechoslovak position on the international stage. In pursuit of these goals, documents from the Czechoslovak Communist Party and Czechoslovak industrial ministries stored in the Prague archives are consulted and supplemented by the records of international organizations such as the UN Economic Commission for Europe and GATT. These often recently disclosed archival materials have proved capable of opening new doors to grasp the history of the Cold War in a revolutionary way and to expand its hitherto rather one-sidedly antagonistic and conflictual characterization with a new dimension of constructive cooperation.