Do the USSR Satellite States still exist in the shadow of the Iron Curtain?
Immediately after the end of World War 2, there was a sudden new problem. Without the common cause of defeating the Axis powers, it turns out that the Allied powers (the US, Britain, USSR) weren’t as buddy-buddy without a common enemy. The US was pushing for a massive alliance, called the United Nations, but the USSR didn’t like having to give up the land that they had taken during the war. The USSR withheld itself from the UN and NATO, instead signing a treaty with many eastern European countries, namely East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. This began a social, economic, and cultural tug of war between the NATO Countries, with the U.S at the forefront, and the Warsaw Pact countries, with the USSR at the forefront. I want to compare countries on either side of the “Iron Curtain”, a political boundary created by this schism, during the Cold War, and also today to see if the echoes of being behind the Iron Curtain are still harming the countries of the Eastern Bloc today, and if they are, how are those countries lagging behind?
Using data from the World Development Indicators database, the first statistic analyzed was life expectancy. Life expectancy is a general measure of prosperity in a country, so massive differences between countries behind the curtain from those outside of the curtain will be a good general barometer for conditions in those countries during this time. For this comparison, data is from each decade mark, starting from 1960, to maximize the chance of larger differences.
As you can see, the life expectancy over the decades from 1960 to 2020 for countries that were behind the curtain is lower on average than the life expectancy for countries on the western side of the curtain, those being the UK and France. The average difference between the two groups is about 5 years, and that tracks throughout time, as all of the countries life expectancies increase. An interesting visual trend is that before 1990, the life expectancies of the USSR satellite states are relatively flat in their growth, and then after 1990, which was when the “Iron Curtain” fell and the Cold War ended, their life expectancy growth became much more pronounced.
The next statistic that seemed to fit the best for analysis was overall GDP. GDP is the gold standard for testing economic growth around the world. Again, the data points will be per decade. I will be using data that measures GDP in USD.
As you can see in this image, the GDP of countries on either side of the Iron Curtain are vastly different. The countries that were satellite nations to the USSR have a later start, and have much less growth than the countries on the other side of the iron curtain. Most of the Eastern Bloc countries GDP statistics start in 1990, which is, once again, when the iron curtain fell and the cold war was over.
From both of these analyses, I think it’s fair to say that countries in the modern day are still affected by the Iron Curtain and the fall of the USSR. The major difference between GDP and life expectancy that started in the 60s is still affecting these countries in a major way. The difference is most stark in the GDP statistics, but the one that is more impactful for me is the life expectancy statistics, because it really puts into perspective how much of a difference there has been in the living conditions and development of these two areas of the world. A difference of 10 years in life expectancy is massive, and also a little disheartening. The GDP difference is more expected, as the difference in economic policy on either side of the curtain is about as stark a difference as possible. I think it’s very interesting how the recovery of GDP has not been even close to enough to be on par with the bigger western countries, but that seems to be largely due to other factors, such as population growth, resource availability, and frequency of conflict. The Eastern Bloc was not unfamiliar with uprisings and revolts during it’s time in the USSR. Overall, I think one can safely say that the shadow of the Iron Curtain is still weighing on Eastern Europe, though they have started to move past it.
