Beginning with increased West European interest in East European markets, contacts between the two halves of Europe increased in the late 1960s. Trade between East and West European countries had so encouraged national economic roads to socialism in East Europe that plan coordination within COMECON was significantly complicated. Also, collaboration among COMECON countries excluding the Soviet Union had increased. Increased East European trade with the West generally and with West Europe in particular could diminish the Soviet burden of subsidizing the East European national economies and free up raw materials for Soviet export to the West in return for hard currencies.
Economic integration in West Europe appears irreversible to the Soviets. An integral part of the Soviet reply to political integration in West Europe has been to intensify the ideological struggle. There is relatively little the USSR can do with respect to military integration in West Europe. The Soviets will continue to have difficulty addressing other forms of political integration in West Europe because of deficiencies in their analysis of it. The relation of Soviet security in Europe to European integration, as perceived by the Soviets, is twofold: first, the USSR wants West European integration to take place to the exclusion of United States influence, while East European integration continues to be supervised by the USSR; and second, it is desired that West European integration, though it may continue in the economic sphere, not find military or political expression.
See this chapter in 
full
text.
- 1. Introduction
- 1.1. Soviet Thinking About World Politics
- 1.2 A Note on Terminology
- 1.3. Assumptions of the Soviets’ Analytical Framework
- 2. Soviet Analyses Of West European Integration
- 2.1. Economic Integration
- 2.2. Political Integration
- 2.3. Military Integration
- 3. Soviet Policies toward West European Integration
- 3.1. From the End of World War Two to the Beginning of the Seventies
- 3.2. The 1970s in Perspective
- 4. Conclusion
- 4.1. Evaluation of Soviet Analyses
- 4.2. Evaluation of Soviet Policies
- 4.3. Final Remarks
- Notes
Abstract of: Robert M. Cutler, “The View From the Urals: West European Integration in Soviet Perspective and Policy,” in Werner J. Feld (ed.), Western Europe’s Global Reach: Regional Cooperation and Worldwide Aspirations (New York: Pergamon, 1980), pp. 80–109; available at ⟨http://www.robertcutler.org/ch80wf.htm⟩, accessed 19 April 2024.