Gorbachev's CMEA Policy and the End of the Cold War

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K13388
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 03040:History of Europe and America-related
• Research Institution: Kobe University
• Principal Investigator: Fujisawa Jun 神戸大学, 人文学研究科, 准教授 (90801100)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 冷戦史 / ソ連史

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study has analyzed the process leading up to the dissolution of Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) in 1991 on the basis of Soviet and East German archival documents. The scholarship often presupposed that the CMEA came to a "natural" death after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of socialist system in Eastern Europe. As this research shows, however, the dissolution of the CMEA was not as self-evident as has been considered. In fact, even the Central European countries agreed to co-found a new successor organization of the CMEA with consultative functions since the EC rejected their immediate membership. After the Visegrad agreement in February 1991, however, they retracted their position and decided jointly to disband the organization without any successors.

Free Research Field

西洋史

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の成果は、国際組織はどのようにして「終わる」のかという国際関係論の議論に有益な一例を提供できる。解散された国際組織は機能不全で非効率であったため、「終わり」は自明であったと考えられがちであるが、本研究が明らかにしたように、コメコンのように非効率な組織であっても、40年にわたって維持されるなかで、各国の対外経済関係を大きく規定してきた。そのため、いざ終わらせるときに、後継組織の有無や別組織への吸収等をめぐって活発な議論が繰り広げられ、現に行われたような形での解散は必ずしも唯一の選択肢でもなければ自明でもなかった。こうしたアプローチは、他の消滅した国際組織の研究においても有益であろう。