Council for Environmental Mutual Aid: Environmental Protection and CMEA Issues

Abstract

The article deals with the initiatives of the CMEA member states in the field of environmental protection. The holding of the UN conference on the environment in Stockholm in 1972 actualized the environmental agenda both in the world and within the socialist camp. In parallel with the preparations for the UN conference in 1972, the journal “Problems of Peace and Socialism” held an international symposium “Marxism-Leninism and the Problems of Environmental Conservation”. This event was designed to develop a common point of view for communist parties on environmental protection. In 1976, an international meeting on environmental protection was held at the CMEA Secretariat. The meeting was organized by the Institute of Economics of the World Socialist System of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Committee on Scientific and Technical Cooperation of CMEA. The main issues of the meeting were related to the state policy on environmental protection and use of natural resources in the CMEA member countries. Thus it can be stated that in the CMEA countries, as well as all over the world, since the 1970s the attention to environmental issues began to grow. At the same time, environmental rhetoric was often in conflict with the current objectives of the economies of the CMEA countries. Although the official discourse was dominated by the idea of aspirations for the future, the leaders preferred to solve the problems of the current moment.