Unified Military Industries of the Soviet Bloc: Hungary and the Division of Labor in Military Production by Pál Germuska (review)

Although more than a quarter of a century has passed since the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening of East European archives, the history of military industry in this part of the world still has not been entirely uncovered or understood. Unified Military Industries of the Soviet Bloc: Hungary and the Division of Labor in Military Production is a bold, and—in many ways—successful endeavor to fill that gap. The text has been profoundly well-documented, primarily using sources that have not been previously accessible to English-speaking readers, which is a great asset.

Pál Germuska’s introduction situates his work within the broader historical context by examining the general constraints that shaped the development of military and industrial cooperation within the Soviet zone of influence, from the early postwar period until the disintegration of the bloc in 1990. Although focused on the Hungarian case, the book contributes substantially to general historiography as it provides new insight into the organizational and institutional framework of the Warsaw Pact, as well as COMECON. The author emphasizes that the “unbreakable friendship” between the countries tied by ideological bonds was indeed a hard friendship, wherein their particular economic interests played a far more important role than contemporary NATO analysts might suspect.

Chapter 1, “The Roots of International Military Industrial Cooperation,” explains how the reciprocal deliveries of armaments and military equipment between socialist countries were negotiated, arranged, and accomplished before the Warsaw Pact was enacted in 1955. In Chapter 2, while tracing the “Establishment of the Framework for Cooperation,” Germuska discusses the role of COMECON’s Military Industrial Standing Commission, which oversaw the distribution of tasks of making particular armaments. This division of labor—also adopted in the civilian sector—was a powerful tool, as it could stimulate development of technologically advanced branches in one country, or, with the stroke of a pen, perpetuate an anachronistic industrial structure in another. The 1960s saw the first signs of discrepancy between the adopted regulations and actual policy, particularly in a reluctance to obey the specialization curb, and this stimulated a stronger drift toward the tightening of ties between the member states, as described in Chapter 3, “Transformation of COMECON and the Warsaw Pact.”

In Chapter 4, Germuska explores copious examples of disputes among comrades, to prove that the bloc’s “Common Interest” was often in conflict with the national interests of its members. These were not only different, but contradictory; for example in computer technology, where Soviet technological supremacy over the smaller member states was not as evident as in missiles, Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, and Bulgaria all fought vigorously for their chance to win this emerging and promising sector for themselves (p. 174). Apart from the particular technologies, views on the scope and pace of the bloc’s economic and political integration differed too, although in general the “need to significantly improve the economic cooperation of socialist countries and modify COMECON’s operational procedures” (p. 147) was not contested.

Quite naturally, the more the member states were led by their own interests, the more discipline within the bloc deteriorated. Unlike the 1950s, when it was “possible to thrust almost anything upon” them, as the author notes in chapter 5, “Crumbling Cooperation: Primary Developments of the 1980s,” thirty years later they “declined to accept recommendations in excess of their national economic capacities” (p. 236).

In chapter 6, “Integrated Military Industries,” while summarizing his exploratory and very engaging text, Germuska concludes that cooperation in military industry “played a prominent role” in the activities of COMECON. It should then be evident to the reader that the whole concept behind the debut and nearly four decades of existence of this organization was not an alternative concept of integration, competitive with the European Economic Community (as COMECON was sometimes portrayed in communist propaganda), but a...