The Concept of Socialist International Integration in the Gorbachev Era

The conceptual meaning of international integration within the community of socialist states has by now evolved through several distinct stages. From fairly primitive beginning which cast the newborn Council for Mutual Economic Aid(COMECON) in the role of a clearing-house for trade liaisons between the member states, the operation has progressively assumed more elaborate functions and forms. Each phase has been marked by its own set of doctrinal rationales, policy priorities, economic techniques and organizational methods. Official rhetoric has pictured all the segments as vitally interrelated and the entire record as a consistent and coherent application of the principles of Marxist analytical theory to the phenomenon of emergence and growth of a socialist economic union on a regional scale