Greece

[Michael Hoover]

> > I don't know anyone who thinks that the Greek
> > people would have had a happier time in the years since World War II if
> > their domestic politics had been more like the politics of Bulgaria,
> > Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, or Yugoslavia.
> 
> The EAM/ELAS had broken with Stalin by 1947.
> Yugoslavia was called by a
> Western economist "the most laissez-faire society on Earth" or something like
> that. 
> Sam Pawlett

Soviet Union lent only moral support to revolution waged by Greek
communists and other anti-monarchists although Stalin feared 
Yugoslavia's material aid to the revolution might signal a 
Pan-Balkan movement independent of Soviet control...nominal and
indirect Sovet involvement in Greece was only one instance of
tactical retreat that resulted in 'sell out' of European working
class even as its limited role was used by Truman to justify Cold
War...

re: Yugoslavia's 'market socialism'....central planning was greatly 
weakened in early 1950s, agriculture remained private (though 
redistributed from pre-WW2 ownership), prices of most goods & services 
were marketized, economy was open to extensive trade with capitalist 
West, a good deal of small-scale private enterprise existed in service 
and tourist sectors, free emigration for citizens was permitted,
profit-making governed success/failure in larger self-managed factories,
worker participation through councils...

also...mass unemployment, chronic inflation tied to tendencies of 
Western capitalist economies, growing foreign debt related to need for 
importing Western goods and technologies (fostered by Carter's 
'kinder/gentler' Cold War), divergent levels of development among
the six republics and two autonomous regions comprising the
federation...Michael Hoover