Communist countries doesn't forbid emmigration
- Thread starter Blackhills
- Start date
How are they going to do that short of abandoning the Communist System?
Egypt was across the Med and its culture is considerably different than Europe. Outside USSR , Western Europe was across the border and the cultural differences much less.
So, the point here is that western Europe would have been largely receptive to those wanting to leave communist Europe?
Contrary to Communist Propaganda , Russia was industrializing and quickly before the revolution and the Russian people were starting to get more educated as well. There were quite a few educated people in Russia in 1917, not Western standards certainly but better than say China.
To a large extent, for propaganda reasons if nothing else. Since they would be more educated than the average immigrant that is even more true.
Travel to other Communist countries was always much easier. The Soviets were far less worried about their citizens , particularly Russians, going to Poland or Hungry rather than France or GB. This is both for ideological and practical reasons. There is far less reason to defect when you go from one crappy Communist country to another crappy Communist country.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
It's a skimpy investment. But I think we in the United States have done something similar, a program which paid for medical school as long as the person agreed to work in the public health service or in under-served areas. I knew a guy from college who became a dentist and worked in an Indian reservation for something like five years.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
That's kind of amazing, for a centralized economy of any sort. You'd think that mechanics could do more preventive maintenance, doctors and nurses could spend a little more time with their patients, smaller classes for teachers. That is, things we probably ought to be doing anyway and which would be good for the overall economy.
The East Germans did, since most of the country was within range of West German television and radio broadcasts. This is why the Berlin Wall and border fortification were necessary to maintain the viability of the DDR. It is no coincidence that the Wall went up in 1961, when the Wirtschaftswunder was well underway and West Germany had mostly left behind the privations of the postwar years while the East German economy was still struggling. After the Wall went up, some 70% of East Germans could receive West German TV by the 1980s, so the living standards of the West were no mystery to most of the population. Those who did not get West German TV were said to live in "The Valley of the Clueless" (Tal der Ahnungslosen).
"More lenient" restriction regimes doesn't change the fact of emigration controls, which are basically unknown in much of the rest of the world (outside of Eastern Europe).
"Freedom of movement" is actually one of the rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (for what it's worth...)
I think that's why most of the early part of this thread was talking about emigration of the skilled and educated. Unskilled workers of all stripes have always had more difficulty being permitted to immigrate, but relatively few countries will say "no" to a raft of doctors and engineers.
Also, guest workers are not the same as immigrants (at least, not in theory, though in principle many guest workers do eventually permanently immigrate), and it isn't difficult to conceive of a country that wouldn't want guest workers but might be more willing to consider immigrants proper.
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
The point is that Yugoslavia wasn't a centralized economy, but a socialist market economy. Planning did exist, but was only indicative, like in France after WWII or in current China. This was due to the Yugoslav aversion for the Soviet system, to the Yugoslav federalism and due to the higher efficiency of a market economy. Indeed, both planned and market economies has existed in capitalist as well as socialist countries.
The special characteristic of the Yugoslav economy was workers' self-management of enterprises. This wasn't self-evident, and in fact quite exceptional even in the eastern block. At first, the Yugoslavians nationalized their industry in 1945 and followed the Soviet example of centralized planning and collectivization of the agriculture. But the Tito-Stalin Split made it possible for Yugoslav theorists to discuss the merits and flaws of the Soviet system, and most Yugoslavian communist more or less agreed that the Soviet system was very similar to the capitalist system, given that it concentrated economic power in the hands of a small class: the capitalists in western countries, the bureaucracy in eastern countries.
After experiments with advisory workers' council, this self-management was introduced by a law on June 26, 1950, on the proposition of Milovan Djilas -- later on the most famous Yugoslavian dissidents. Tito agreed to this system not because he was really convinced of economic democracy, but because he wanted to found a Yugoslavian, communist ideology which was clearly different from Soviet dogma. Over the years planning became less and less important, while the power of the banks as main investors grew. The role of the market finally became predominent.
The Yugoslav system was, in fact, not without flaws, despite being quite appealing to democratic socialist and social-democrats. First, it was a democratic system on paper, but in the context of a one-party dictatorship, the workers had often no other choice than to elect candidates endorsed by the Leage of Communist of Yugoslavia, as well as to approve the party's proposition. Second, the system was very complicated, the laws written in an incomprehensible style (I read some translations of the Yugoslav constitution -- horrible) and the workers often uneducated in economic matters, leading either to bad decisions or to decisions dictated by the bureaucracy: thus, the system didn't result in the participation of the workers in the economic democracy. The discussion were dominated by the (elected) management of the companies and the skilled workers. Most of those participating in economic democracy were party members. Thirdly, the wage of each worker depended on the profit of the enterprise, and since the individual share of profit was higher the fewer workers there were in an enterprise, the workers tended to oppose new associations (the fancy Yugoslav word for hiring somebody).
Especially the third point caused a high unemployment rate, and due to the named reasons, the economic democracy was as inefficient as central planning. The differences between the different republics were great, and both federalism and the absence of central planning made it difficult to improve the standard of living of the southern republics at the expense of the northern ones. One hillarious aspect of the Yugoslav systems were strikes, which occured more and more frequently. Why were there strikes in a system in which every worker was an entrepreneur? How can you strike against yourself? Well, I think this demonstrates that many Yugoslav workers weren't convinced that they had the direction of their enterprise, and often the state intervened in favor of the workers to end the strike. Probably at the expense of economic efficiency.
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
I never denied that there were emigration controls. But if we want to gain a greater insight in the subject, it is necessary that we deal with the different systems and degrees of emigration restrictions.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
I observed this at a furniture store I worked at! And I mean, right here in the good ol' U. S. of A.
The existing sales people did not want the company hiring more sales people.
this is why market forces dont mix too well with socialism, would need the coin for wages to come from the state or would need the company to act as a capitalist siphoning off surplus value. what im trying to say is that thier needs to be some way to standardise wages and purchasing power. perhaps a universal income would instead ease this issue?
I'm just not sure how it's relevant. Hungary allowing very occasional trips out of the country doesn't have any bearing on the topic of the thread, which is emigration - which Hungary did forbid.
IIRC, only Yugoslavia actually did let people emigrate.
(I do realize the slight irony of me questioning the relevancy, considering my post earlier in the thread, though in my opinion my post is largely relevant because it discusses how the phenomenon was more Russian than Soviet)
The big difference is that the guy you are talking about is very likely to remain in the US after his time is up. Not as likely for a Soviet doctor. You pay for his schooling and shortly after it pays off he goes to Germany or the US to make more money.
Earth Judicar
Banned
I'd say if anything that's why a revolution happened there-you have semi feudal barbarism and backwardness in the countryside along with a rotten regime with a quickly developing urban core that was packed densely with working class citizens and peasants who for part of the year worked in the factories.
Also where do you think of a lot of the Bolsheviki intelligentsia got there education from?
Trotsky and some of the other communists actually acknowledged Russia's situation in the early 20th century and made a point as to how it led the revolution to be.
CaliGuy
Banned
In order for this to be even remotely possible, you'd have to indefinitely keep the New Economic Policy (NEP). Indeed, if the Soviet economy was actually in good shape, then less people would want to emigrate.
The way that the Soviet economy was actually set up for most of its existence, though, would ensure that extremely massive numbers of people would want to emigrate.