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The Environmental Crisis in Eastern Europe: The Price for Progress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

John M. Kramer
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Extract

Environmental pollution is the price that has to be paid for industrial development and the development of civilization. Arresting and eliminating these processes is extremely costly and we do not always have the means at our disposal for the necessary action. (Kurier Szczecinski [Szczecin], June 9, 1981)

Judging by most indexes of modernization, Joseph Stalin's long cherished dream of the socialist East overtaking the capitalist West remains unfulfilled. Ironically, however, the states of Eastern Europe may be close to preeminence in one unwelcome area: environmental pollution. Atmospheric emissions of sulfur dioxide in Czechoslovakia and Poland reportedly approximate similar emissions in France and the Federal Republic of Germany. Many waterways in Yugoslavia are said to be “polluted beyond all domestic, European, and world standards,” and in East Germany and Romania less than 20 percent of the main water-courses are sufficiently pure to provide potable water. The Slovak capital of Bratislava allegedly possesses the “worst environment among our own and other European cities,” while Western experts consider air pollution levels in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia to be among the highest in the world.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , Summer 1983 , pp. 204 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1983

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References

1. Eastern Europe here refers to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (“the G.D.R.” or “East Germany“), Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Few accounts of environmental pollution in Eastern Europe have been published in English. The following Radio Free Europe (“R.F.E.“) Situation Reports do provide overviews of environmental pollution in Eastern Europe as of 1972: no. 5 (Bulgaria), May 18,1972; no. 15 (Czechoslovakia), May 17,1972; no. 10 (Hungary), May 23, 1972; no. 18 (Poland), May 26, 1972; no. 8 (Romania), May 18, 1972. See also “Pollution in Eastern Europe,” East Europe (July, 1971), pp. 20-23; Ivan, Volgyes, ed., Environmental Deterioration in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (New York: Praeger, 1974)Google Scholar.

2. Technický týdeník (Prague), September 23, 1975, cited in R.F.E. Situation Report no. 40 (Czechoslovakia), October 8, 1975; Borba (Belgrade), August 6, 1977; Einheit (East Berlin), July 1979, translated in Joint Publications Research Service (“J.P.R.S.“), no. 74081, August 27, 1979, p. 27; Lupta de Clasӑ (Bucharest), April 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 73989, May 11, 1979, p. 99; Nové slovo (Bratislava), November 4, 1976, cited in R.F.E. Background Report, no. 237 (Czechoslovakia), November 19, 1976; The New York Times, September 14, 1975.

3. For material on the activities of the Polish Ecology Club, see, R.F.E. Situation Report no. 2 (Poland), January 30, 1981; Wall Street Journal, July 24, 1981. For expressions of public concern over environmental pollution in Yugoslavia, see, for example, Delo (Ljubljana), May 5, 1978, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 71373, June 28,1978; Vecer (Maribor), February 18,1977, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 68941, April 15, 1977. Data on Czech public opinion are found in Životni prostredi (Prague), no. 1, 1973, cited in R.F.E. Situation Report no. 32 (Czechoslovakia), September 13, 1973.

4. A Czech émigré journal has alleged, for example, that in Czechoslovakia the “first ecological rule is concealing information” about the state of the environment, while in Poland activists in the Polish Ecology Club asserted that Communist party officials accused those who expressed alarm at the state of the environment of “trying to stop the building of socialism.” Listy (Rome), April 1980, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 76077, July 21, 1980; Wall Street Journal, July 24,1981.Instructions to censors in Poland have included a prohibition against publishing any materials regarding pollution of Polish rivers from sources in the USSR. For materials on Polish censorship practices, including those related to pollution, see the New York Review of Books, August 17, 1978, pp. 16-18.

5. Data on energy consumption from Central Intelligence Agency, Energy Supplies in Eastern Europe: A Statistical Compilation (ER 79-10624, December 1979), p. 8. The distribution of passenger cars in the region provides another example of this diversity. The passenger car, with all of its adverse consequences for environmental quality, has begun to make its appearance in Eastern Europe, but stocks range from over two million in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, and Yugoslavia to fewer than one million in Hungary, to several hundred thousand in Bulgaria and Romania. Data on passenger cars derived from Statisticheskii ezhegodnik stran-chlenov soveta ekonomicheskoi vzaimopomoshchi (Moscow: Statistika, 1980), pp. 7, 59.

6. For recent discussions of air pollution in Czechoslovakia, see Nové slovo (Bratislava), June 7, 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 74081, August 27, 1979; Tribuna (Prague), January 10, 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 72993, March 14, 1979.

7. Nové slovo, June 7, 1979; Životni prostredi (Prague), no. 4, 1973, cited in R.F.E. Situation Report no. 6 (Czechoslovakia), August 29, 1974. According to Právda (Plzen), June 20, 1979, the quality of coal utilized in Czechoslovakia has deteriorated greatly in recent years. The calorific value of the coal now being used is between 3,000 and 3,500 kilocalories, while that of the coal formerly available was 4,500 kilocalories. The average content of cinders has risen from about 6 to 15 percent, and the ratio of sulfur and dust particles has increased markedly

8. Tribuna (Prague), January 17, 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 72993, March 14, 1979, p. 24; Rude prdvo (Prague), July 10, 1975.

9. For an extensive discussion of the various costs of air pollution, see Planovane hospodarstvi (Prague), July 7, 1981, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 79122, October 2, 1981. For discussions of the damage that air pollution has inflicted on agricultural and forest lands, see, respectively, Tribuna (Prague), November 4, 1981, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 79837, January 11, 1982, p. 12; Tvorba (Prague), March 17, 1982, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 80869, May 20, 1982, p. 34. ‘

10. Ibid.

11. See ibid.; Lidova demokracie (Prague), April 2, 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 73745, June 22, 1979; Radio Prague, October 29, 1979; Tribuna, March 14, 1979.

12. On the purification of industrial wastes, see Rude pravo (Prague), March 2, 1974, and Lidova demokracie, April 2, 1979. Pollution from the highly developed chemical industry is especially intensive; the Dimitrov Chemical Works in Bratislava, for example, annually pollutes the Danube River with a volume of wastes equivalent to that produced in a city with 360,000 residents. Noéi slovo, November 6, 1976, cited in R.F.E. Background Report no. 237 (Czechoslovakia), November 16, 1976.

13. For two of the relatively few accounts of pollution from pesticides and chemical fertilizers, see Smena (Bratislava), May 25, 1981, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 78493, June 14, 1981, and Tribuna, November 4,1981. Planovanehospodarstvi (Prague), January 1979, translatedinJ.P.R.S., no. 73050, March 21, 1979, and Pravda (Bratislava), June 6, 1978, provide data on, and problems encountered in, the purification of urban sewage.

14. Data on pollution by motor vehicles from Przegląd techniczny inowacje (Warsaw), June 10, 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 74142, September 7, 1979. For materials on industrial emissions, see Gospodarka planowa (Warsaw), no. 3, 1980, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 76022, July 10, 1980, especially pp. 31-35; Nowe drogi (Warsaw), July 1978, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 72225, November 14, 1978.

15. See the citations in n. 14 as well as Polityka (Warsaw), January 17,1981, and the Wall Street Journal, July 24, 1981, for discussions of the costs that air pollution has inflicted on Polish society. Data on damages to metals, buildings, and foodstuffs based on reports from members of the “Green Movement,” a Polish environmental group, as reported in Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm), December 4, 1981, p. 24, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 79972, January 28, 1982, p. 20. Przemysl Chemiczny (Warsaw), February 1977, provides a detailed account of the deleterious impact of air pollution on the Upper Silesian Industrial District.

16. Recent accounts of water pollution include Aura (Warsaw), October 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 75153, February 15, 1980; WiadomoSci statystyczne (Warsaw), November 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 75153, February 15, 1980; ibid., May 1980, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 76022, July 10, 1980.

17. Aura (Warsaw), November 1978, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 72619, January 15, 1979, provides a detailed account of the state of waste purification.

18. See Kurjer polski (Warsaw), April 23, 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 73745, June 22, 1979, for a discussion of water pollution in the Vistula River basin, efforts to ameliorate the problem, and problems encountered.

19. For surveys of air pollution in Yugoslavia, see Jedinstvo (Pristina), November 7, 10, 12,13, 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 74881, January 7, 1980; Privredni pregled (Belgrade), November 22, 1978, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 72490, December 21, 1980. See also The New York Times, September 14, 1975, and August 31, 1976, for material on this subject. Komuna (Belgrade), November 1981, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 79879, January 18, 1982 provides data demonstrating the positive impact that increased utilization of liquid fuels has had on atmospheric quality

20. On the impact of air pollution on public health, see ITD (Ljubljana), November 12, 1976, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 68490, January 17, 1977; Privrednipregled (Belgrade), January 21,1976, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 67107, April 7, 1976; 7D (Maribor), February 17, 1977, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 68941, April 15, 1977.

21. Delo (Ljubljana), May 9, 1978, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 71373, June 28, 1978; Komuna (Belgrade), January 1978, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 70868, March 31, 1978; Nedeljne informativne novine (Belgrade), January 4, 1976, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 66794, February 13, 1976; Privredni pregled (Belgrade), March 29, 1979, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 73317, April 26, 1979.

22. On the situation in Slovenia, see Radio Belgrade, August 25, 1979. Technika (Belgrade), no. 5, 1974, also provides a detailed account of the adverse consequences of water pollution for public health.

23. Nedeljne informativne itovine, January 4, 1976; Privredni pregled, March 29, 1979.

24. Privredni pregled (Belgrade), February 16,1977, translated in J. P.R.S., no. 68871, April 4, 1977, p. 17. For accounts in the Czech and Polish press that make the same point, see, respectively, Planovane hospodarstvi, January 1979; Tribuna ludu (Warsaw), June 5, 1981. See R.F.E. Situation Reports cited in n. 1 for details of the limited efforts before 1970 to protect the environment in these countries.

25. Nowe drogi (Warsaw), July 1980, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 76690, October 24, 1980, p. 15.

26. For an excellent discussion of Eastern Europe's growing economic problems, see Alfred Zauberman, “The East European Economies,” Problems of Communism (March-April 1978), pp. 55-69. On the limited facilities for the production of purification equipment, see Przeglqd techniczny inowacje (Warsaw), November 30, 1975, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 66948, March 11 1976; Rude právo, June 9, 1975. Ironically, both Czechoslovakia and Poland export pollution control equipment to other socialist countries while shortages of this equipment persist on their domestic markets.

27. Thus, expenditures on air pollution control in Poland dropped by approximately 50 percent between 1977 and 1979. As one account commented, “after inflationary trends in construction are taken into account, the dangerous drop in outlays will appear even more drastic.” Pwblemy (Warsaw), no. 10, 1981, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 79719, December 23, 1981, pp. 18, 21.

28. Życie gospodarcze (Warsaw), May 21, 1978. For a general discussion of Eastern Europe's energy problems, including the renewed emphasis on coal and the impact that this will have on the environment, see John M., Kramer, “Between Scylla and Charybdis: The Politics of Eastern Europe's Energy Problem” Orbis (Winter 1979), pp. 929–50Google Scholar.

29. Among the numerous descriptions of such behavior, the following are representative: Borba (Belgrade), November 19, 1980; Nowe drogi (Warsaw), July 1978; Tvorba (Prague), March 17, 1982.

30. Delo (Ljubljana), May 11, 1977.

31. Aura (Warsaw), November 1978.

32. Planovane hospodarstvi, January 1979.

33. Aura (Warsaw), April 1978, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 72346, December 1, 1978; Wall Street Journal, July 24, 1981; Tvorba (Prague), March 7, 1982; Problemy (Warsaw), no. 10, 1981.

34. Tvorba (Prague), March 7, 1982.

35. Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo (Moscow), no. 11, 1973, provides a general discussion of these issues. See, also, Borba (Belgrade), November 19, 1980; Tribuna (Prague), November 4, 1981; Problemy (Warsaw), no. 10, 1981.

36. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Conference on Problems Relating to Environment (New York, 1971), E 71.11.e.6, p. 220.

37. Delo (Ljubljana), May 11,1977; Pravda (Bratislava), June 6,1978. Czechoslovak statistics indicate that in 1976 industrialists actually paid less than one-half of the fines that were levied against them. The New York Times, February 6, 1977.

38. WiadomoŚci statystyczne (Warsaw), July 1975, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 66011, October 28, 1975.

39. For instance, in Czechoslovakia environmental protection agencies are component parts of the ministry responsible for the exploitation of timber reserves. For a discussion of the deleterious consequences of this circumstance for the environment in the USSR, see Keith Bush, “Environmental Problems in the U.S.S.R.,” Problems of Communism (July-August 1972), p. 28.

40. See R.F.E. Situation Report no. 15 (Czechoslovakia), May 17, 1972, for details of Czech pollution of German and Polish rivers. Nové slovo (Bratislava), November 6, 1976, provides a particularly detailed account of pollution in the Danube River; on this subject see also The New York Times, February 6, 1977. See Przegląd techniczny inowacje (Warsaw), August 18, 1974, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 63526, November 25, 1974, p. 5 and Planovane hospodarstvi, November 7, 1981, for references to transnational air pollution in the region.

41. Trybuna ludu (Warsaw), June 5, 1981.

42. For details on environmental legislation and organization in Eastern Europe, including the three countries examined here, see the following: R.F.E. Situation Reports cited in n. 1; Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, no. 11, 1973; Voprosy ekonomiki (Moscow), no. 7, 1977.

43. See, especially, pp. 18-19 of Problemy (Warsaw), no. 10, 1981, for a particularly forceful exposition of this view; a Polish jurist writing in Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo (Moscow), no. 11, 1973, makes a similar argument. Representative examples of this position among Western economists include Allen, Kneese, Pollution, Prices, and Public Policy (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1975 Google Scholar) and Dales, J. H., Pollution, Property, and Prices (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976 Google Scholar).

44. For an overview of such measures in all East European countries, see United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Conference on Problems Relating to Environment. Gospodarka planowa (Warsaw), no. 10, 1982, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 80939, May 28, 1982, p. 19, provides a detailed account of these initiatives in Poland.

45. See Aura (Warsaw), November 1978 and Československe zdravotnictvi (Prague), no. 2, 1978, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 71100, May 11, 1978 for accounts of such measures.

46. Przeglqd techniczny inowacje (Warsaw), June 10, 1979; Tvorba (Prague), March 17, 1982

47. For material on initiatives to control pollution from motor vehicles in Warsaw, see Przegląd techniczny inowacje (Warsaw), June 10, 1979. See Privrednipregled (Belgrade), January 21, 1976, for material on the Yugoslav regulations. John M., Kramer, “The Energy Gap in Eastern Europe,” Survey (Winter-Spring 1975), pp. 75–76Google Scholar, discusses measures to conserve energy in Eastern Europe, including restrictions on the utilization of motor vehicles.

48. Voprosy ekonomiki (Moscow), no. 4, 1978, pp. 68-76, provides a good summary of environmental cooperation within CMEA. MTI (Budapest), April 25, 1982 carries the report of the CMEA session devoted to transnational air pollution.

49. Voprosy ekonomiki, no. 4, 1978.

50. Thus, the founding assembly of the National Environmental Council in Yugoslavia “decisively rejected” the arguments advanced in Limits to Growth. Gledista (Belgrade), February 1973, translated in J.P.R.S., no. 58909, May 2, 1973, p. 50.