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Less Visible Chains. Because the Soviet Union alone is excused from limiting itself to certain specialties, COMECON is fast binding the satellites to greater dependence on Russia than they knew in Stalin's time. By 1965 Russia's share of Czech foreign trade will rise from a third to more than half.
COMECON claims that all Eastern economies are growing faster than those of Western Europe. They should, because they started from so much farther back. And they still have a long way to go, though the Reds sometimes sally spectacularly at economic targets of opportunity, e.g., when Russia tries to capture Nasser's economy by offering to build the billion-dollar Aswan Dam for him. Communist-bloc imports and exports still make up less than 10% of world trade.