Revisiting the First Experience of Bilateral Consultations for Mongolia’s Planning Agency within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance,September to October of 1963

Introduction. Since Mongolia joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance it became obliged to coordinate its planning activities with other member countries. And the planning coordination process proper essentially included arrangements of bilateral consultations between Mongolia’s planning agency and those of corresponding member countries. Goals. So, the study aims at examining earliest bilateral consultations held by Mongolia’s Planning Commission in September–October of 1963. Materials and methods. The article analyzes documents from the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History and the Russian State Archive of the Economy. The key research methods employed are the comparative historical and typological ones. Results. The mentioned bilateral consultations were discussing two groups of questions, namely: a list of enterprises the Mongolian party was going to construct with the aid of other CMEA member countries, and lists of goods to be exchanged between the involved countries through the balance method. Conclusions. The bilateral consultations between the MPR’s Planning Commission and planning agencies of CMEA member governments held in September–October of 1963 proved an absolutely new line of activity for Mongolian economists. The former’s key points were discussions over lists of construction and other facilities required by the Mongolian party. And the almost full absence of data pertaining to construction funding sources implies the negotiation process — at that very stage — was far from being complete. It was the Soviet Union that was still expected to invest most in Mongolia’s economy and bear the bulk of responsibility for the to be constructed enterprises. The ‘greediest’ government engaged in discussions over economic aid to Mongolia was that of Romania, other CMEA member countries to have clustered into a group of so called ‘averages’. The latter did not differ much in scales of to be rendered aid, while essentials of their sector-specific investments did vary to some extent. 

1. Russian State Archive of Contemporary History.

2. Russian State Archive of the Economy.

3. Godard S. The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the failed coordination of planning in the Socialist Bloc in the 1960s. In: Christian M., Kott S., Matejka O. (eds.) Planning in Cold War Europe. Competition, Cooperation, Circulations (1950s–1970s). Munich: De Gruyter, 2018. Pp. 187–210. (In Eng.)

4. Gombojav D. The Role of Economic Cooperation in the MPR’s Development. Moscow: Ekonomika, 1969. 112 p. (In Russ.)

5. Kiss T. International cooperation in planning within COMECON. Eastern European Economics. 1976. Vol. 14. No. 4. Pp. 3–29. (In Eng.)

6. Kudryashov M. D. (comp.) Main Documents of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. 4th ed, suppl. Moscow: COMECON, 1983. Vol. 2. 630 p. (In Russ.)

7. Ladygin B. N., Sedov V. I., Ultanbayev R. R. CMEA Member Countries: Historical Experiences of Cooperation. Moscow: Mysl, 1980. 285 p. (In Russ.)

8. Lipkin M. A. Council for Mutual Economic Assistance: Historical Experiences of an Alternative World Order, 1949–1979. Moscow: Ves Mir, 2019. 184 p. (In Russ.)

9. Safronov A. V. Practices of the Soviet Gosplan in Brezhnev’s Era: Archival Materials and Interviews with Vladimir Kossov Analyzed. Moscow: Higher School of Economics, 2021. 22 p. Available at: https://wp.hse.ru/data/2021/03/31/1387177387/WP11_2021_01_.pdf (accessed: August 8, 2022). (In Russ.)

10. Sedenjav N. The Mongolian People’s Republic and CMEA Member Countries: Cooperation on Planning Activities Reviewed. Cand. Sc. (economics) thesis. Moscow, 1978. 176 p. (In Russ.)