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Conditions for efficacious reform in the socialist countries There are five main conditions which are essential for a country to achieve optimal growth in the context of the world economy : 1) Its enterprises must have reliable information available about the world market for products and factors which they are likely to produce or to use. This information includes, inter alia, a system of prices of products and factors fairly accurately reflecting their relative scarcity in terms of world demand. 2) Its enterprises must be independent of the public authorities, and free to adjust their production, their work force and their productive capacity in accordance with home and world demand. 3) Its enterprises must be stimulated to maximise physical yield of the factors employed, which assumes a conventional free market of the factors of production (labour, capital, natural resources), and which requires legal, temporary protection of the ownership of innovations. 4) Setting aside a minimum of resources required for the financing of production of indivisible goods and services which is incumbent upon the Stade, and which must be raised essentially by an income tax (moderately progressive) and value added tax, distribution of the profits of the productive system must be freely effected by market forces, so as to give maximum stimulus to the most productive branches and factors. 5) Hierarchical responsibility to the Party and the Stade must be replaced, at all decision-making points in the area of divisible goods and services, by the direct material responsibility of the decision-makers, which assumes the re-establishment of private ownership of the means of production. It is clear that none of the reforms at present taking place in the socialist countries, including perestroïka, meets even one of these conditions. It is for this reason that these reforms can only contribute very partial improvements, which are quite inadequate to affect the present system. On the other hand, immediate and wholesale application of the five conditions described above would bring about massive closures of useless offices and unprofitable enterprises. The resulting inevitable unemployment would gradually be reabsorbed by the creation of new enterprises, with massive participation of Western technology and capital, attracted by the low level of wages and the immensity of unsatisfied demand in the socialist countries.

Totalitarianism, the economy and the Soviet Union : a critical essay The concept of totalitarianism has played, and still plays, an important part in analysis of the Soviet Union. This poses a problem which goes far beyond the province of sociologists and political scientists ; economists are directly concerned by the implicit primacy of politics. Rapid examination of the concept shows that one is dealing with an idea of fairly elastic definition. The weight given to the theme of mobilization, emphasized by almost all the commentators, is outstanding. But it lays greater emphasis on the kinship of the USSR with war economies rather than on the existence of a radical alternative to Soviet society. Indeed the evidence shows there are certain economic and social procedures which are peculiar to the USSR. The problem is that they do not enable one to classify this society in a category which shows no common element with more usual forms. Specificity by itself is not enough, for it is too often forgotten that each society is unique. Hence, the need for a precise definition of the standpoint of the analyst. To remain at the level of these apparent procedures is not relevant. To proceed to fundamentals only serves to emphasize similarities with forms which, however specific they may be, have always been considered capitalist. In addition, it is possible to deduce a number of procedures, from among the more strange examples of the Soviet economy, from guarantees of sale and rationing by quantities. The ideological and political monisms implicit in the concept of totalitarianism are discredited by this formal possibility. In this way, the concept of totalitarianism proves not utilisable as an instrument of analysis. But this failure underlines the need for a new analytical approach, to integrate the various aspects of the study of a particular society. And so, while discarding it, it should be recognized that the debate to which it has given rise has occasioned considerable progress in perception of the problem, as much for economists as for scholars in other disciplines.

Reforming socialist economy : Polish perspective. The history of reformist thinking and changes in the economic system in the postwar Poland seems to be particularly rich, dramatic and still remaining without conclusion. The successful rebuilding after the Second World War of the nearly totally destroyed economy was followed by the promotion of the Stalinist economic system. Its promoters claimed that it was necessary to accelerate economic growth and to build a modern industrial base. But the traditional Soviet-type system collapsed as elsewhere and economic and political reforms were undertaken after 1956 under Gomulka's leadership. However, they were cautious, partial and revocable and a recentralization of the economy took place during the sixties. After a new wave of violent protest, due to the deterioration of wages and standards of living, the new party leader Gierek tried to hit two targets at the same time : to increase the standard of living of the population and to modernize the industry. But once more it was a failure and a new reform project was completed and published in July 1981. The economic reform was officially started at the beginning of 1982 under very special conditions of deep economic and political crisis as everyone knows. In 1987, a more radical reform movement started again which had three major components : a reorganization of central economic bureaucracy and limitation of its formal and informal powers ; an opening of new possibilities for individual entrepreneurship including joint ventures with foreign capital and an increase of the role of monetary categories. The future of the reform depends however upon the solving of four basic problems : the ideological problem of the identity of the system ; the problem of the economic mechanism ; the institutional and organizational problem and the problem of the economic and social policy which the author tries to analyze in this article.

Financial difficulties of enterprises in Hungarian industry. After 1968, enterprises in the Hungarian economy which were in financial difficulty were identified and sanctioned in accordance with various indicators and criteria, as laid down in a number of legal enactments. In the present article, the authors inform us, on the basis of their empirical research, that these enterprises represented in an average year 3 to 5 % of economic units. Financial problems arose in enterprises in almost all branches of industry, but were particularly acute in some sectors, e.g. in the steel and textile industries. However, the nature of the economic mechanism did not enable enterprises with a poor record to improve their performance, or to reduce or even abandon their activities, for they always found some means of extracting aid from the authorities, to help them bridge the financial gap. In view of the country's overall financial difficulties (including the budget deficit), in 1986 a change in the law was found indispensable, and legal measures had to be introduced, similar to those enactments on bankruptcy which exist in industrially developed countries. The responsible authorities counted on the new legal measures to curb the frequency of these financial crises ; they were anticipating a considerable reduction in the role and financial charges of the State. But the present findings on the new measures (and relevant experience to date) demonstrate that great efforts are still needed in the implementation of these measures, if the expectations bound up with them are to be fulfilled. Furthermore, in order to carry out the allotted tasks successfully, account must be taken of the considerable conflict of interests involved in the solution of financial problems and political conditions for economic and industrial development.

Consequences of Bulgarian perestroïka over the condition of women. Three main factors support the assertion that under the new reform, the condition of women, far from progressing, may become more difficult or, at best, remain unaltered. First of all, the very nature of the Bulgarian perestroïka is not favourable to a reduction of the double burden of women. Since the current political priority is given to the development of sophisticated technology, women, who have traditionally carried the whole burden of family obligations, are particularly penalized by postponed and above all uncertain development of goods and services, which are essential to the alleviation of their constraining double role. Besides the specific objectives of perestroïka, it is important to indicate that its formulation is justified by the necessity to counter slowing down of economic growth. Consequently, it is very unlikely that social policies, promoting the spreading of day care centres, the increase of various family allowances and the wage parity between the sexes, can be introduced soon. Finally, it is advisable to talk about deleterious effect of demographic decline on the improvement of women's conditions. Women will be destined to maintain ? possibly to intensify ? their participation in the work force without benefit of reduced domestic burdens. Having at the same time to look after the maintenance of the work force (through domestic task), its reproduction (through child care and education) and its current optimal productivity (through work outside the home), and this in a context where consumer goods and services are few and deficient, admirably summarizes the difficult conditions of Bulgarian women.

An essay on the Vietnamese economy since 1975. In this paper, we are attempting a description of the Vietnamese economy from 1975 to 1988. Broadly speaking, this falls into two periods, 1976-1980 and 1981-1985. The first is based upon a « voluntarist » policy which, coupled with the serious consequences of a prolonged war (30 years) brought about a noticeable drop in the standard of living of the inhabitants. The second period saw the introduction of certain reforms, in particular, the system of contractual obligations entered into with the peasants, brought about an economic improvement, which unfortunately collapsed as a result of the disastrous measures of 1985 aimed at purging the economy.

Ten years of co-operation between Vietnam and Eastern Europe. After the end of the second Vietnam war, Hanoi continued to define its foreign policy according to the concept of « independence ». Within the socialist camp, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) sought to hold the middle ground between its two « big brothers », Chinese and Russian. During the summer of 1978, everything changed at a stroke, and the S.R.V. became the genuine ally of the U.S.S.R. in S.E. Asia. Hanoi, by signing a treaty of friendship and co-operation with the U.S.S.R. in Moscow on the 2nd November, 1978, radically changed the direction of its foreign policy. The first consequence, several months later, was the intervention in North Vietnam of Peking's troops, an operation following on the Vietnamese intervention in Kampuchea. Once more, in this context, the attention of foreign observers focused on the military relations between Hanoi and Moscow. In stressing the advantages which the U.S.S.R. stands to gain from the crisis with People's China, in terms of naval and air facilities at Cam Ranh, Danang, and even in Kampuchea, observers are apt to lose sight of other aspects of these bilateral relations. In fact, the military accords are complemented by a whole range of economic aid, trade and co-operation. At the same time as this treaty was signed, there were five other agreements, providing for economic, technical, scientific and cultural assistance over the next ten years. It is time now to reassess the situation, particularly since June 1988 was also the tenth anniversary of Vietnam joining Comecon. The basic philosophy underlying Comecon is the encouragement of economic planning and integration through trade ; how should the « tasks » be apportioned among the various constituent members in order to assist Vietnam to emerge from its profound economic under-development ? The economy of Vietnam, damaged by over thirty years of war, can only respond in a limited number of ways to a socialist division of labour. In order to analyse the effectiveness of these attemps, a destription of the various sectors of Vietnam external trade with various Eastern European countries was undertaken. In the knowledge that membership of Comecon was not voted unanimously, and was only effected by Soviet pressure, it was important to have a geographical analysis of Vietnamese foreign trade in order to check though time whether a greater equalization of contributions was operating among the countries of Eastern Europe. The trade deficit, Vietnamese indebtedness, and the malfunctioning of most of the jointly-financed projects, are beginning to worry the Kremlin, particularly since its special relationship with Hanoi represents a certain drawback vis-à-vis the other states in the region. Moscow, which is seeking to improve its image and increase its influence in Pacific Asia, finds that the bill for economic co-operation is particularly steep given its poor results in the developement of the R.S.V. In 1987, the U.S.S.R. had to spend almost 2 billions dollars in economic aid to Vietnam, and almost as much in military aid. To redress the balance in respect of the inflationary process, a relatively little known phenomenon seems to have been developing since the 1980's, that is to say the export of Vietnamese labour to Eastern Europe. If there is profound disagreement between Moscow and Hanoi on a certain number of issues, such as relations with China, and the cost of economic aid, their common interests are still, and probably will remain for a long time to come, despite the prickly nature of Vietnamese nationalism, too numerous to place the developments of these last ten years in question.