SINO-SOVIET BLOC ECONOMIC OFFENSIVE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP62S00545A000100100027-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 16, 1998
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: April 22, 1959
• Content Type: SPEECH

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Sino-Soviet Bloc Economic Offensive
April 22, 1959
I appreciate this opportunity, provided by the Foreign
Policy Clearing House, to speak to you on the subject of the
Sino-Soviet Bloc economic offensive in underdeveloped areas.
I wil.1 confine my remarks opening to the economic side of
25X1A9a things; Mr.- will handle the political side.
The Communist bloc trade and aid programs moved into high
gear last year. The equivalent of over one billion dollars in
new credits were extended.
If you look at Table 1, you can see that the total is now
about $2.5 billions. It has been, of course, far smaller than
our own economic and military aid program.
However, the Soviet program is centered on a few key
countries. In Afghanistan, Ceylon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and
Indonesia, Bloc economic aid exceeds our own.
In Burma, Cambodia, and India, while less than ours, Bloc
Aid is quite substantial.
Bloc trade with underdeveloped areas shows. a similar con-
centration. The Bloc now is a major trading partner of Afghanistan,
Egypt, Syria, Iceland, Turkey and Yugoslavia.
Further, the Bloc today is trading with many countries where
it never did much, if any, business before. In South America,
this includes Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Tables 3 and 4 in
your set give you a quick idea of the pattern of this trade and
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the number of trade and payment agreements now in force.
Over 4,000 Bloc technicians have been sent out to assist
the development of nations of the Free World. About 70 percent
of these are engaged in economic activities. The rest are re-
organizing local military establishments and teaching bloc
military doctrine to indigenous personnel. (See Figure 2)
The Bloc also has a well-developed program for training
students from underdeveloped countries. About 3,200 students,
technicians and military specialists have now received such
training behind the Iron Curtain.
The Soviet policy of economic penetration fits like a glove
into their world-wide campaign of subversion.
The Communist world, in dealing with the former colonial areas
and newly emerging nations of the world, has appealing slogans
to export and vulnerable economic conditions to exploit.
The cost of all the Bloc economic and military aid has
been small indeed. The amounts delivered each year to the under-
developed countries represent a diversion of resources whose
total value is far less than one percent of gross national product.
Further, we must not forget the repayment side. If you
look at Chart 3 for a moment, you can see that well over half of
what the Bloc imports from the underdeveloped countries consists
of foodstuffs and about another 30 percent is crude materials,
such as cotton. There is no overall surplus of food and fibers
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in the Bloc. The European Satellite countries, for example,
are deficient in both. Consequently, the Bloc can use to good
advantage much of exportable surpluses of the underdeveloped
countries, which we would find economically difficult and
politically impossible to do.
It seems certain that Communist competition is going to get
rougher, not easier, in the future. As Soviet capabilities grow,
their activities in the free world will increase. For them, it
is a cheap investment in disorder.
I read this into Khrushchev's statement of intention, made
nine months ago.
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BEST COPY
A VAILABLE
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 /Another form of. r.ls`tio a is `tb-t bttveen the socialist c:a=tr ea
aad the eooaosicaUy smderd ve1oped couuztries which need economic
aid. As a result of the colonialist policy of msnycenturies, the
econaagr of mint' countries of Asia and Africa which recently
gained indapaodanaa is considerably lagging. The Soviet Won Sad
the other countries of the socialist cs deem it their d4zty to
help them, to expand by every :sans trade with them add other
forms of eol msia.relaatiaeu. Oee may not, of course, say that
in this case our economic relations are based an autmsl advance.
Speaking generally from the commercial viewpoint, our economic
and technical aid to the underdeveloped countries is .even un-
profitable for us. But we bold that aid to the =dsrdeveloped
countrius is amecess&x tram the viewpoint of btmanity and of
general human solidarity.
F118, 14 Jaly 19$8
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