The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc

Lewis H. Siegelbaum, ed. The Socialist Car: Automobility in Eastern Bloc. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011. 256 pp. $65.00, cloth; $24.95, paper.Born out of a 2008 workshop held at Berlin School for Comparative European History, this edited volume consists of eleven chapters that explore juncture between automobility and ideology in various Eastern European contexts. Although there are chapters on Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Romania, majority of book focuses on developments in either East Germany or Soviet Union. Given traditional areas of research interest, this is understandable; however, it does leave open question of extent to which broad generalizations about automobility in Eastern Bloc can be made at this point.The introduction presents standard theoretical models for understanding post-World War II consumption practices and complex negotiating strategies used by Eastern Bloc citizens to improve their quality of life. What is new here is formulation that itself situated at point of convergence between state and private sphere (p. 2). To this point, first section of book addresses manufacturing and distribution of cars, by focusing on Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary.Valentina Fava's contribution reveals vicissitudes of production in Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1968. She demonstrates that idea of a people's car in immediate postwar period was thwarted by Five Year Plan of 1949 to 1953 which declared cars a useless luxury (p. 20). Policies changed again in 1960s when automobile production was seen as a way to compete with Western Europe and vital to road to socialism. By 1970s, automobiles were used to reward loyal elements of society and thwart anti-government activism. The loyalty phenomenon shows up in Mariusz Jastrzab's Cars as Favors in People's Poland. He argues that Polish case was representative of a larger phenomenon: [...] leaders of Eastern Europe offered their subjects a certain deal: social safety and satisfaction of basic consumer needs in return for conformism (p. 30).Hungary was a slightly different case. In his chapter, Gyorgi Peteri notes that Khrushchevian ideas about socialist use of personal cars did not fall on particularly fertile ground in Hungary (p. 47). In its stead emerged highest percentage of automobile ownership in Eastern Bloc, as 89% of Hungary's personal cars were in private hands by 1970 (p. 48). This sneaking privatization in Peteri's estimation did a great deal to undermine socialist rhetoric of Kadarist regime (p. 68).The second section of book, Mobility and Socialist Cities, reveals that post- World War ii reconstruction boom was an opportunity to re-think what a socialist city should look like. What stands out, as one surveys chapters here, is endurance of utopianism, much of it inspired by Le Corbusier's Radiant City of 1930s, in face of bureaucratic and consumer pressures. Elke Beyer's study of urban planning in East Germany and Soviet Union reveals that the 1960s stand out as possibly last moment of serious debate among architects and planners about designing an all- encompassing city model for a Communist future (p. 72). Her review of documents reveals that generosity and spaciousness were emphasized as key qualities of new urban landscape, conducive to development of new people with new tastes and new forms of social interactions (p. 75).Le Corbusier emerges again in Brigitte Le Normand's piece on Yugoslavia, which investigates urban planning in Belgrade as a nexus between state socialist and larger global forces. Her discussion of first master plan in 1950 reveals that postwar city was envisioned in terms of mobility without motorists (p. 93). By time of second master plan in 1972, an influx of automobiles and rise of middle-class values undermined government's intention to focus on public transportation. …

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