Editing Comecon (section)

===Nikita Khrushchev era===
After Stalin's death in 1953, Comecon again began to find its footing. In the early 1950s, all Comecon countries had adopted relatively [[Autarky|autarkic]] policies; now they began again to discuss developing complementary specialties, and in 1956, ten permanent standing committees arose, intended to facilitate coordination in these matters. The Soviet Union began to trade [[petroleum|oil]] for Comecon manufactured goods. There was much discussion of coordinating [[Five-year plans of the Soviet Union|five-year plan]]s.<ref name="Jeffries 1998, p. 542"/>

However, once again, trouble arose. The [[Poznań 1956 protests|Polish protests]] and [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|Hungarian uprising]] led to major social and economic changes, including the 1957 abandonment of the [[Five-year plans of the Soviet Union#Sixth plan, 1956–1958|1956–60 Soviet five-year plan]], as the Comecon governments struggled to reestablish their legitimacy and popular support.<ref>Bideleux and Jeffries, 1998, pp. 543–34.</ref> The next few years saw a series of small steps toward increased trade and economic integration, including the introduction of the "{{ill|convertible rouble|ru|Переводный рубль}}", revised efforts at national specialization, and a 1959 charter modeled after the 1957 [[Treaty of Rome]].<ref name="Jeffries 1998, p. 544">Bideleux and Jeffries, 1998, p. 544.</ref>

Once again, efforts at transnational [[economic planning|central planning]] failed. In December 1961, a council session approved the Basic Principles of the International Socialist Division of Labour, which talked of closer coordination of plans and of "concentrating production of similar products in one or several socialist countries." In November 1962, Soviet Premier [[Nikita Khrushchev]] followed this up with a call for "a common single planning organ."<ref>Bideleux and Jeffries, 1998, p. 559.</ref> This was resisted by Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, but most emphatically by increasingly nationalistic Romania, which strongly rejected the notion that they should specialize in agriculture.<ref>Bideleux and Jeffries, 1998, p. 560.</ref> In Central and Eastern Europe, only Bulgaria happily took on an assigned role (also agricultural, but in Bulgaria's case this had been the country's chosen direction even as an independent country in the 1930s).<ref>Bideleux and Jeffries, 1998, p. 553.</ref> Essentially, by the time the Soviet Union was calling for tight economic integration, they no longer had the power to impose it. Despite some slow headway{{snd}}integration increased in petroleum, electricity, and other technical/scientific sectors{{snd}}and the 1963 founding of an International Bank for Economic Co-operation, Comecon countries all increased trade with [[Western World|the West]] relatively more than with one another.<ref>Bideleux and Jeffries, 1998, pp. 560–61.</ref>