Economic Cooperation as 'Patriotic Duty': The Western Polish Diaspora as an ‘Icebreaker’ in People’s Poland’s Growing Economic Relations with the West

• In Event: Varieties of Economic Nationalism in Cold War Europe: Small State Responses to Economic Changes, 1960s-1980s

Abstract

During détente between East and West, cross-bloc economic cooperation increased considerably in the 1970s, and some state socialist countries such as Hungary, Romania, Poland or non-aligned Yugoslavia implemented liberalizing economic reforms to allow limited Western capital investment in their domestic markets. For People's Poland, the large Polish diaspora in the West began to play a key role in building economic relations with the West, as in the 1970s and 1980s Warsaw endeavored to expand its access to Western sales markets and Western investment capital with the help of its compatriots in the West.
The presentation will show how Poland, as a Comecon-state politically and economically dependent on Moscow, pursued a gradual economic opening-up towards the West under the cloak of nationalist narratives and thus attempted to assert its own national economic interests within the Comecon bloc.

Author

• Martin Gumiela, U of Vienna (Austria)