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Officiai Corruption Before Soviet Courts "Officiai corruption" is a broad notion. In this paper, the author discusses only one particular kind of corruption, namely bribery. Bribery is severely punished under the Soviet legislation and Soviet courts decide annually a few thousand cases of bribery, many of which are officially or unofficialy reported. The major focus here will be on the various functions which bribery fulfills in the Soviet economy and society. A point of special interest is the relationship between bribery and the functioning of the Soviet economy in both its public and private sectors. In the second part of the paper, the centrally established penal policies towards bribery, as well as actual patterns of enforcement, are discussed.

Tibor Liska's Socio-economic Model of the «Socialist Enterprise». The existence of a free market, realistic monetary relationships, freedom of competition and of enterprise are the basic perequisites for the functioning of Liska's model. The latter is based on two fundamental principles, that of "personal social property" and "social heritage", in which Liska develops the idea of the right of enterprise, as a right proper to all citizens, which leads in turn to the original feature of this particular model, namely the idea of putting enterprises out to auction. These are "knocked down" to the highest bidder, that is the individual who offers to make the highest profit, and undertakes to fulfil to the highest degree the profitability potential of the unit in question. Inevitably, the operation of such a model raises certain theoretical and practical problems, which the author of the article duly analyses.

Some Observations on Tibor Liska's View of a Socialist Economic Model. According to Berend, Tibor Liska has become something of a legend among Hungarian economists, and his highly original model has understandably aroused considerable controversy, not least with the author himself. Berend attempts first of all to situate Liska's ideas within the framework of Hungarian theory and practice. He outlines briefly the historical development of the socialist economic system, from Marx and Engels, via the Soviet experience, to the Hungarian model which has been evolving since the mid-sixties, and which, as we know, has generated much interest. In Berend's view, Liska's activities, his ideas and his writings, form an integral part of the historical development of socialist economic theory, particularly the reformist currents in the last three decades. However, while in agreement with certain of Liska's propositions, he is unable to accept any system based on these ideas. In particular, he is critical of his notorious principles of free competition and the auction, which in his view have no contact with reality, a consideration which does not at all enter into Liska's calculations. He sees in Liska's model an extremist system, which in practice would preclude any intervention by the state, even in social or cultural activities. Liska's radical concepts, when systematized, turn out to be conservative, therefore retrograde and in any case Utopian. This is Berend's conclusion after a well-argued case.

The Countries of Eastern Europe and the Marshall Plan. This article sets out to reconstruct the circumstances in which, in 1947, the U.S.A. proposed a scheme of large-scale aid (the Marshall Plan) for the economic rehabilitation not only of Western Europe but also of Europe from the Elbe to the Urals. It emerges from the relevant documents that the countries of Eastern Europe, which spontaneously agreed to send representatives to Paris to discuss their participation in the Marshall Plan, were all obliged to abandon their original intention because of the negative attitude of the Soviet Union. The author examines, on the one hand, the aims of the United States in attempting to persuade the U.S.S.R. and their allies to join the Marshall Plan, and, on the other hand, the reasons which may had led Moscow to reject the American proposal. He ends his analysis with an assessment of the economic and political advantages and disadvantages of this decision for both parties. The article concludes with some speculations on the appropriateness or likelihood of a new Marshall Plan in the 80's.

Retail Prices in Moscow and Four Western Cities in March, 1982. The primary purpose of this study is to facilitate a comparison of the purchasing power of industrial workers in the Soviet Union and four Western nations by recording the retail prices of selected consumer goods and services in Moscow and four Western cities at a given time, and computing the worktime equivalent of these prices. The retail prices of 177 consumer goods and services were recorded in March 1982 in Moscow, Munich, Paris, London and Washington by at least five independent surveyors in each city, and average prices were calculated. The lowest common denominator in respect of availability was the selection in Moscow. The average retail prices thus derived were converted into worktime equivalents using the latest available national average take-home pay data of male and female industrial (manufacturing) workers. The limitation of the methodology, the sample and the take-home pay data are discussed. In terms of a weekly family basket of food, beverages and cigarettes at the Soviet levels of consumption, the purchasing power of a Soviet worker was found to be roughly one-third of that in the U.S. and just over one-half of the West European levels.

Labour Crisis and the Non-Applicability of Fordism in Soviet- type Economies. In Soviet-type economies, what might be termed the pathology of the organization of the work-force has deteriorated to such an extent as to justify the use of the word crisis. The causes of this crisis are to be sought partly in the organization of work in enterprises, partly in the mode of accumulation peculiar to Soviet-type Industry. Unstable Taylorism and the non-applicability of Fordism are the terms which might be used to define the first and the second of these conditions. The "Hungarian" way, in fact an attempt to develop a Fordist mode of accumulation, and the "Soviet" way, which aims at management by more stringent norms, are the two solutions at present being tried in economies of the Soviet type.

Morals and Society in Poland : the Church's Attitude. On the basis of the Church's pronouncements, and particularly the writings of Cardinal Wyszinski, Primate of Poland from 1948 to 1981, this article takes the main lines of the social/moral problem, as represented by the issue of work ethics and alcoholism, as a starting point for analysis of the complex interaction of competition and collaboration which caractérises the relationship between Church and State. The author then goes on to discuss the results of efforts on both sides to "raise the moral standards" of the country. Having indicted those in authority for their failure to inculcate any code of personal and professional morality based on the leninist ideal of "communist man" as a new man motivated by ideals of service and sacrifice for the community, the Primate stressed that there was no alternative code which could take the place of Christian moral standards, and emphasised that a return to these standards was an essential prerequisite for economic recovery. In the final analysis, the Church's teachings may have most impact, on the one hand, at that point where Catholicism most closely identifies if not with the sense of nationhood, at least with certain traditional national values, and on the other hand where there is a moral vacuum to fill.