University of Utah

Western Political Science Association

Personal Mobility and Communication in the Warsaw Pact States
Author(s): Alexander J. Groth and William C. Potter
Source: The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1977), pp. 225-235
Published by: University of Utah on behalf of the Western Political Science Association
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PERSONAL MOBILITY AND COMMUNICATION
IN THE WARSAW PACT STATES
ALEXANDER
J. GROTH, University of California,
Davis
and
WILLIAM C.
POTTER,
Stanford University
HT
HE RELATIONSHIP between social communication and various indices
of economic and
political development
has
long intrigued
social scientists.'
Relatively
few
studies,
however,
have
sought
to assess the
impact
of
type
of
political system
on a nation's social communication
profile.
A
major hypothesis
of this
paper
is that
political organization
and
ideology
do influence a
society's
distribution of communication resources with considerable
independence
of its level
of economic
development. Specifically,
we
suggest
that the Marxist-Leninist states
grouped
in the Warsaw Pact have
developed
a distinctive social communication
profile, tending
to inhibit the movement and communication
among
their citizens
to a
greater degree
than have other
political systems
of
comparable
affluence and
development. They may
have allocated fewer resources to
goods
and services as-
sociated with communication and
personal transportation,
even
though
all of these
states
have, by
the
1970s,
become
relatively
advanced and affluent members of the
world
community.
In order to test this
hypothesis,
this
paper
examines data on various forms of
interpersonal
communication and
transportation (our
indicators of social com-
munication)
in a number of states
ranging
from 112 to 50
depending
on the
availability
of information. More
precisely,
we
compare
the
performance
of the
Warsaw Pact states to that of all other states which have
reported
relevant infor-
mation to the United Nations.
Thus,
our
political system
variable consists of
"communist,"
or more
precisely,
Warsaw Pact states and "non-communist" states.2
In order to take account of the
great
variation
among
states in terms of levels of
economic
development, area, population, size,
as well as differences in the
degree
of
political pluralism, multiple regression analysis
is
employed.
This
analytic
tech-
nique (discussed
in more detail below under the
heading, "Analytic Methods")
enables one to
study
the
relationship
between a set of
independent
or
predictor
variables
(e.g., political system type,
level of economic
development, population
size)
and a number of
dependent
variables
(e.g., personal mobility
and communi-
cation),
while
taking
into consideration the
interrelationships among
the
predictor
variables. One thus
may
address the
question
of whether at X level of resource
capability
there are not
significant
differences between Warsaw Pact and non-
communist states with
regard
to communication and
mobility
variables such as
millions of
passenger
miles
traveled,
total
messages exchanged,
etc.
THEORETICAL ORIENTATION
In a seminal
study
of Nationalism and Social
Communication,
Karl Deutsch
suggested
that the
"processes
of communication are the basis of the coherence of
'See,
for
example,
Karl
Deutsch,
Nationalism and Social Communication
(Cambridge:
MIT
Press, 1953);
Daniel
Lerner,
The
Passing of
Traditional
Society (New
York: Free
Press,
1968);
Lucian
Pye, ed.,
Communications and Political
Development (Princeton:
Princeton
University Press, 1963); Phillips Cutright,
"National Political
Development:
Measurement and
Analysis,"
American
Sociological
Review 28
(September 1963), pp.
253-64;
Daniel Lerner and Wilbur
Schram,
Communication and
Change
in the De-
veloping
Countries
(Honolulu:
East-West Center
Press, 1967);
Everett
Rogers
and F.
Floyd Shoemaker,
Communication
of
Innovations
(New
York: Free
Press, 1971).
Non-Warsaw
Pact,
communist states are excluded from the
study
due to data
gathering
difficulties.
226 Western Political
Quarterly
societies,
cultures,
and even of the
personalities
of individuals...."3
Moreover,
Deutsch
argued
that abilities to communicate should be measurable and
provide
the basis for an evaluation and
prediction
of national
development
or nation-
building.
Ten
years
later another renowned
political scientist,
Lucian
Pye,
re-
newed Deutch's call for research into the
relationship
between communication and
political development. "Communication,"
Pye
maintained,
"is the web of human
society....
The flow of communication determines the direction and the
pace
of
dynamic
social
development."4
In the ten and
twenty years
since the calls for research
by
Deutsch and
Pye,
significant
studies have been undertaken in the area of communications and
political
development.5 Surprisingly, however,
there have been few
attempts
to
explain
dif-
ferential rates of social communication in terms of as traditional a
political
variable
as
type
of
political system.
It
may
be that level of economic
development,
social
mobility,
and
political
and social
integration independently
or in interactive fashion
influence the
degree
of national and transnational intercourse. It is also
possible,
however,
that these variables are less
potent
in their
explanatory power
than the
traditional,
if
presently unfashionable, political dichotomy
of communist-non-
communist
political systems.
Perhaps
the most
important
reason to assume that
type
of
political system
strongly
influences a
society's
social communication
profile
is the demonstrated
concern of communist
ruling parties
to
preserve
the
one-party
character of their
regimes
and to stifle
potential
as well as actual
opposition.
In the Stalinist
period
this fear of loss of control and alien subversion and contamination led to a structur-
ing
of intrasocietal and interbloc communications
along
vertical rather than hori-
zontal lines. In other
words,
an
attempt
was made to establish control over domes-
tic
interpersonal
as well as communist international relations
by linking
citizens
and states to Soviet
party-controlled institutions; at the same
time,
an effort was
made to atomize
society
and
preserve
Soviet control over the international com-
munist movement
by discouraging
customs and
dismantling
institutions that
pro-
moted lateral ties
among
citizens and multilateral ties among
communist states.6
The "transmission belt" mode of communication has been modified substan-
tially
in the
years
since Stalin's death and
genuine
lateral ties of communication
and influence
today
characterize relations in and
among
most communist societies.
Nevertheless,
the
ruling
Marxist-Leninist
parties
of the Warsaw Pact retain
control over communication and
transportation
networks with a
thoroughness
which makes their
particular preferences
the dominant ones in their
respective
societies. It is
reasonable, therefore,
to
hypothesize
that these
preferences
-
ordinarily sympathetic
to
public
communal as
opposed
to
private
modes of
opera-
tion
-
will be reflected in a distinctive social communication
profile
for the War-
saw Pact states. To some
extent,
the
explanation
of the
profile
also relates to the
historic orientation of the
parties
to
dampen
investment in all kinds of goods
of
private consumption
and enhance
public-communal
expenditures
particularly
on
industrial and
military
objectives.7
'P. 87.
4
Pye, Communications, p.
4.
'
See Hamid Mowlana,
International Communication: A Selected Bibliography (Dubuque,
Iowa:
Kendall/Hunt, 1971).
e
See, for
example,
Zvi
Gitelman,
The
Diffusion of Political Innovation From East Europe
to the Soviet Union (Beverly
Hills:
Sage, 1972);
R. V. Burks, "The Communist Poli-
ties of Eastern
Europe,"
in
James
Rosenau, ed., Linkage Politics (New York: Free
Press, 1969), pp. 275-303;
David Lane, Polities and
Society
in the USSR (New York:
Random House, 1971);
H. Gordon
Skilling
and
Franklyn Griffiths, eds., Interest Groups
in Soviet Politics (Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press, 1971 ).
'
See
e.g., Stanley H. Cohen,
Economic Development in the Soviet Union
(Lexington,
Mass.:
Heath, 1970);
cf. the conclusions of Phillip M. Weitzman, Planning
Consumption
in
the USSR (Ph.D. dissertation, University
of
Michigan, 1969),
pp.
199-202,
both with
Personal
Mobility
and Communication 227
Our more
general hypothesis
on the
relationship
between
political systems
and
the allocation of resources and services transcends the communist-non-communist
dichotomy.
The
assumption
here is that all
systems
which are
highly
authoritarian,
i.e.,
effectively repress
or inhibit the articulation of demands
emanating
from the
society-at-large,
are more
capable
of
lop-sided
allocations than
pluralistic regimes.8
In the
latter, conflicting
demands are less
likely
to result in "all for some" and
"nothing
for others" outcomes. The
particular objectives
of such allocations are
likely
to
vary
with the
systems.
In the case of the Warsaw Pact
states,
the
historic,
dominant
tendency
of the dominant member
-
the U.S.S.R.
-
has been to em-
phasize
the industrial
military
sector at the
expense
of
consumption.
One result
of this
tendency
has been that with a GNP less than 50
percent
as
large
as the
U.S.,
the U.S.S.R. has reached or even exceeded
parity
with the United States in the
accumulation of several
major types
of armaments as well as the
production
of
steel, iron,
cement,
and
coal,
and near
parity
in oil.
Against
the
background
of
these
prodigious efforts,
we have the contrast of stark
neglect
of other sectors-
some of them discussed in this
paper.
RESEARCH STRATEGY
Our method is
comparative.
As
previously indicated,
seven Warsaw Pact
states are
compared
to a maximum of 112 other nations on a number of indicators
of social communication.
Our
communication-mobility
data are drawn
principally
from United Nations'
statistics,
in
reflecting
international
comparisons
for the
year 1970,
and in some
cases the nearest available
year
between 1967 and 1971.9 We
group
our information
in two basic
categories.
The first combines data on the movement of
persons
simplified
to
passenger
kilometer
figures.
This includes
railroad, air,
and automo-
bile
transportation.
In the case of
automobiles,
we use an estimate of
passenger
kilometers
by multiplying
the number of automobiles for each state
by
the 1970
respect
to
pre-
and post-Stalin periods. Also, Philip Hanson,
The Consumer in The
Soviet Economy (London: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 48-82;
Willem
Keizer,
The Soviet
Quest
for
Economic Rationality (Rotterdam: University Press, 1971), pp. 91-94;
and
on the earlier period
of Soviet development,
Naum
Jasny,
Soviet Industrialization 1928-
1952 (Chicago: University
of
Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 366-68, particularly;
and also
Nicolas Spulber,
The State and Economic
Development
in Eastern
Europe (New
York:
Random
House, 1966), pp. 31, 76-81;
and his earlier The Economics
of
Communist
East Europe (New
York:
Wiley, 1957), ch. 9, pp. 306-80;
Stanislaw
Wellisz,
The
Economics
of
The Soviet Bloc
(New
York:
McGraw-Hill, 1964),
ch.
3, pp. 53-98;
Alfred Zauberman,
Industrial Progress
in
Poland,
Czechoslovakia and East
Germany,
1937-1962 (London:
Oxford
University Press, 1964), ch. 1, pp.
1-68.
8For a more extended discussion see A.
J. Groth, Comparative
Politics: A Distributive
Ap-
proach (New
York: Macmillan, 1971);
see also Gabriel A.
Almond, ed., Comparative
Politics Today:
A World View
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), pp. 34-35;
Karl W.
Deutsch, Politics and Government: How
People
Decide Their
Fate,
2nd ed.
(Boston:
Houghton-Mifflin, 1974), pp. 360-62;
on the theme that
policies
are
basically
structured
by levels of economic development,
see Thomas R.
Dye, Understanding
Public
Policy
Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice
Hall, 1972),
and Frederic L.
Pryor,
Public
Expenditures
in
Communist and Capitalist
Nations
(Homewood,
Ill.:
Irwin, 1968).
United Nations,
Statistical Yearbook 1971
(New
York: Statistical Office of The United
Nations, Department
of Economic and Social
Affairs, 1972), pp. 398-401; 410-16;
439-57, in relation to
transportation; pp.
477-90 on communication. Our source of
GNP estimates is International Institute for
Strategic Studies,
The
Military
Balance
1971-1972 (London, 1971).
There are alternative indicators of economic
development
which yield
similar
rankings.
In 1970 in world-wide terms G.D.R. ranked 8th in the
proportion
of urban
population;
Czechoslovakia
15th;
U.S.S.R.
17th; Bulgaria 20th;
Poland 22nd; Hungary 27th;
Romania 33rd. In
proportion
of work force outside
agri-
culture, G.D.R. ranked
10th;
Czechoslovakia
14th; Hungary 18th;
U.S.S.R.
19th;
Bul-
garia 21st;
Poland
22nd;
Romania 25th. Among
the world's
top
steel
producers
in
1970 U.S.S.R. ranked
2nd;
Czechoslovakia
10th;
Poland
11th;
Romania
15th;
G.D.R.
19th; Hungary 24th; Bulgaria 26th. See
Glowny
Urzad
Statystyczny,
Rocznik
Staty-
styczny (Warsaw, 1973), pp. 635, 647,
and 659.
228 Western Political
Quarterly
United States
passenger
km.
figure (1.9 passengers
carried an
average
of
9,978
miles);
this works out to
30,000
rounded off.10 The second
part
of our data com-
bines the various forms of
messages
sent and received
-
mail
flows,
domestic and
foreign telegrams,
and
telephone
calls. We thus have two
composite
indices of
social communication.
One basic
problem
with the data is its
regrettably very aggregate
character.
We have no breakdown within such
categories
of information as "railroad
pas-
senger miles," "telephone messages,"
and "items mailed."
Thus,
we
necessarily
lump together official, public
uses of the
transportation
and communication
systems
with
purely private ones;
the utilization of these facilities
by foreign
nationals and
their
usage by
the
indigenous population;
the
exchange
of
messages among govern-
mental officials and the
exchange
of letters and
packages among private citizens;
and local calls with
long
distance ones. Our
capacity
for
inference, therefore,
is
necessarily
limited to
aggregate categories."'
ANALYTIC METHODS
One
objective
of this
study,
as
previously indicated,
is to assess the
relationship
between
type
of
political system
and its social communication
profile.
Another
objective
is to
weigh
the relative
explanatory power
of alternative
predictors
of
social communication such as level of economic
development, area,
and
population.
Bivariate correlation
analysis
and
step-wise multiple regression
are the chosen
analytic techniques.
The former
provides
a
single summary
statistic
describing
the
strength
of association between the two variables. The
latter,
a
powerful
variation of
multiple regression,
is a
technique
for
constructing
a
multiple regres-
sion
equation through
the successive choice of those
predictor
variables which
explain
the most variance in the
dependent variable,
after
accounting
for the
variance
explained by
the
previously
selected variable.
As our
step-wise regression
indicates that a variable other than
political system
is the best
predictor
of level of social
communication,
we
carry
the
analysis
one
step
further. First we divide our
pool
of nations into two
categories:
communist
and non-communist states. The best
predictor
in the
step-wise regression equation
then is
regressed against
our two indices of social communication.
This,
in turn
enables us to construct
regression equations
for
estimating
the level of social com-
munication in both Warsaw Pact and non-communist states.
FINDINGS
Tables 1 and 2
present
the
rankings
of nations on the two
composite
indices
of social communication. Table 3 presents the correlation coefficients
describing
the association
among type
of
political system, population, area,
GNP
per capita
and our two
composite
indices of social communication labeled "kilometers" and
"messages," respectively.
Tables 4 and 5
present
the
findings
from the
step-wise
multiple regression.
We find that of the 112 states for which automobile data is
available,
the
U.S.S.R. ranked
81st,
just
behind
Paraguay
and ahead of
Cameroon,
with
only
one automobile for 147 inhabitants.'2 East
Germany
ranked
highest among
the
0
The source for this estimate is Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of the U.S.
Inc.,
1972 Automobile Facts and
Figures (Detroit, 1972), pp.
35 and 51.
Data gathering
difficulties
precluded
inclusion of informations on
motorcycle
and
bicycle
mileage,
on
private aircraft, passenger ships, boats, buses, streetcars,
and horsedrawn
transport as well as on communication
through messengers.
In relation to
personal
mobility,
our
findings
are foreshadowed
by
the
paucity
of automobiles
among
the War-
saw Pact
states, and in relation to communication
by
the
paucity
of
telephones.
12
For reasons of
space
the individual indicators
(e.g.,
automobiles and
telephones)
have been
omitted. See footnote 9 for sources.
Personal
Mobility
and Communication 229
TABLE 1. PASSENGER KILOMETERS
(AUTO, TRAIN, AIR)
PER CAPITA
Rank
Country* Variable Valuet
Rank
Country*
Variable Valuet
1 United States
2 Australia
3 New Zealand
4 Canada
5 Sweden
6
Luxembourg
7 Switzerland
8 France
9 FRG
(West)
10 Denmark
11
Belgium
12 United
Kingdom
13 Netherlands
14
Norway
15
Italy
16 Austria
17
Japan
18 Finland
19 Ireland
20 GDR
(East)
21 CZECHOSLOVAKIA
22
Spain
23 Israel
24
Argentina
25
Portugal
26 HUNGARY
27 Lebanon
28
Yugoslavia
29 Venezuela
30 U.S.S.R.
31 POLAND
32 'BULGARIA
33 Greece
34 ROMANIA
35 Brazil
36 Mexico
37 Chile
38 'Costa Rica
14125
11967
10271
10143
9436
8970
8796
8639
7602
7595
7493
7263
6819
6777
6511
5796
5493
5177
4816
3294
2970
2679
2543
2516
2433
1948
1773
1637
1627
1621
1503
1410
1177
1089
918
906
868
802
39 Taiwan
40
Ivory
Coast
41 !Peru
42
Nicaragua
43 Tunisia
44 Morocco
45
Ceylon
46
Senegal
47
Algeria
48 Korea South
49 Iran
50
Egypt
51 Colombia
52 Saudi Arabia
53
Turkey
54
Philippines
55
Iraq
56 Thailand
57
Madagascar
58 Ecuador
59 India
60 Cameroon
61 Ghana
62
Syria
63 Bolivia
64 Pakistan
65
Togo
66
Dahomey
67 Zaire
68 Burma
69 Vietnam
(South)
70 Indonesia
71
Ethiopia
72 Mauritania
73 Mali
74 Malawi
75
Nigeria
*
Warsaw Pact states are in
capital
letters.
t There is
incomplete
information on some of the indicators for:
Angola; Burundi;
Chad;
Congo PR; Gabon; Kenya; Liberia; Mazambique; Nigeria; Rwanda; Sierra Leone;
Somalia; S. Africa; S.
Rhodesia; Sudan; Swaziland; Uganda; Zambia; Bahamas; Cuba;
Dominican
Republic;
El Salvador; Guatemala; Haiti; Honduras; Jamaica;
Panama-
Trinidad-T; Guyana; Paraguay; Uruguay;
Af-
ghanistan; China
(P.R.C.); Cyprus;
Jordan; Khmer Rep; Korea North; Kuwait; Laos; Mongolia; Nepal;
Singapore; Vietnam
North; Albania; iceland; Malta.
Warsaw Pact
states,
followed
by
Czechoslovakia at 15 and 18 inhabitants
per
auto-
mobile,
respectively.
But even these most advanced communist states ranked 28th
and 33rd
internationally, lagging
behind all of their
economically comparable
counterparts. Hungary
ranked
48th;
Poland
55th;
Romania and
Bulgaria
82nd
and 84th
respectively.
The communist states also ranked low in air
passenger
travel. The U.S.S.R.
was
admittedly
a laudable
16th,
and first
among
the Warsaw Pact
countries,
in
this
category
of
transport.
It
outperformed
a number of wealthier
states, among
them
Sweden,
France, Belgium,
Finland and West
Germany.
But the remainder
of the Pact nations ranked
very low,
in no case
matching
or
surpassing
their GNP
rankings:
Czechoslovakia
46th;
G.D.R.
52nd; Bulgaria 59th;
Hungary
65th;
Romania
82nd;
Poland 83rd.
The Warsaw Pact states were
among
the world leaders in
railway passenger
traffic.
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, U.S.S.R., G.D.R., Poland,
and Romania were
4th
through
9th in world
rankings
of 80 nations for which information was avail-
able.
Bulgaria
was 13th.
617
615
585
571
521
484
453
395
393
377
370
344
322
322
301
283
274
270
267
253
252
216
198
197
190
178
176
173
130
123
103
98
72
62
61
57
43
230 Western Political
Quarterly
TABLE 2. PERSONAL MESSAGES PER CAPITA
Country*
I
United States
Sweden
Iceland
Switzerland
New Zealand
Denmark
Japan
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Australia
Belgium
United Kingdom
Norway
F.R.G.
(West)
Austria
Finland
Italy
France
Ireland
S. Africa
Greece
Israel
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Spain
Cyprus
Variable Valuet
1255
914
715
680
634
580
520
494
483
465
418
416
400
376
352
346
324
312
279
273
264
255
254
244
201
Rank
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
Country*
G.D.R.
(EAST)
HUNGARY
Lebanon
Portugal
Yugoslavia
POLAND
U.S.S.R.
ROMANIA
Ceylon
Zambia
Turkey
Ghana
Syria
India
Madagascar
Angola
Kenya
Mozambique
Thailand
Vietnam
(South)
Pakistan
Uganda
Nigeria
Burma
Indonesia
*
Warsaw Pact states are in capital letters.
t
There is incomplete information on some of the indicators for
Algeria; Burundi; Cameroon; Chad;
Congo
P R; Dahomey; Egypt;
Ethiopia; Gabon; Ivory Coast; Liberia; Libya; Malawi; Mali; Mauritania;
Morocco; Nigeria; Rwanda; Senegal; Sierra Leone; Somalia;
S.
Rhodesia; Sudan;
Swaziland[
Togo; Tunisia;
Zaire; Bahamas; Canada; Costa Rica; CUBA; Dominican
Republic;
El Salvador; Guatemala; iHaiti; Honduras;
Jamaica; Mexico; Nicaragua; Panama; Trinidad-T;
Argentina; Bolivia; Brazil;
Chile;
Columbia; Ecuador;
Guyana; Paraguay; Peru; Uruguay; Venezuela; Afghanistan;
China
(P.R.C.); Taiwan; Iran; Iraq; Jordan;
Khmer Rep; Korea
North;
Korea South;
Kuwait;
Laos; Mongolia; Nepal; Philippines; Saudi Arabia; Singa-
pore; Vietnam N; Albania; BULGARIA; Malta.
TABLE 3. CORRELATION MATRIX FOR 6 VARIABLES
Po Sys
Pop
Area GNP/capita Miles Messages
Political System
..........
1,000
-0.001 0.188 -0.066 -0.235 -0.223
Population
.................. -0.001 1.000 0.493* -0.085 -0.098 -0.057
Area ............................ 0.188 0.493* 1.000 0.196 0.116 0.095
GNP/capita
................ -0.066 -0.085 0.196 1.000 0.906* 0.891*
Miles .......................... -0.235 -0.098 0.116 0.906* 1.000 0.911*
Messages
.................... -0.223 -0.057 0.095 0.891* 0.911* 1.000
*
Values are significant at the .05 level.
TABLE 4. STEP-WISE MULTIPLE REGRESSION FOR 4 VARIABLES
(KILOMETERS
=
DEPENDENT
VARIABLE)
Independent
variables
Multiple Rt
R
Squaret RSQ Changet Bt Betat
GNP/capita
.................. 0.906 0.820 0.820 2.817 0.900
Political
System
............ 0.922 0.851 0.031 -1438.410 -0.170
Population*
...................
Area .............................. 0.923 0.852 0.001 0.000 -0.028
(Constant)
..............
-47.958
*
There are no reported values for population
as an
independent
variable since the "level of tolerance"
used to calculate the
step-wise multiple regression
coefficients fell below the minimum
specified
in the com-
puter program.
f
The
Multiple
R measures the total effect of all the
independent
variables upon the dependent one. R
Square (r2) may be interpreted as the proportion of the total variation in the
dependent
variable explained by
the independent variable. RSQ Change represents
the change
in r2 from the value of the
previous step.
B and
Beta represent the regular and normalized regression coefficients, respectively.
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Variable Valuet
198
172
171
121
115
83
69
48
45
38
37
35
31
17
16
15
13
11
11
11
8
6
6
4
3
Personal
Mobility
and Communication 231
TABLE 5. STEP-WISE MULTIPLE REGRESSION FOR 4 VARIABLES
(MESSAGES
= DEPENDENT
VARIABLE)
Independent
variables
Mulitple
R R
Square RSQ Change
B Beta
GNP/capita
...................... 0.891 0.794 0.794 0.200 0.903
Political
System
................ 0.906 0.821 0.027 -88.202 -0.148
Area ............................. 0.907 0.823 0.002 0.000 -0.085
Population
..................... 0.909 0.826 0.003 0.000 0.061
(Constant)
........................ -24.480
The
clustering
of the communist states in this
category
of travel
suggests
a
pattern
of
transportation policy
for these
states;
it is
particularly
remarkable in
light
of the low
railway passenger mileage
of some of the more advanced
states,
such as the
U.S.,
a mere
48th,
the Scandinavian nations,
France,
West
Germany,
Italy,
Ireland and Canada. It
appears
that this form of
transportation, long
on
decline in some of the
developed
western
nations,
has been a
mainstay
of Warsaw
Pact
passenger
traffic.
(The
data for railroad
freight
also underscore the remark-
ably
uniform Warsaw Pact commitment to this form of
transportation.
The
U.S.S.R. led the world in this
category
in
1970,
1st
among
84 states with available
information,
followed
by
Czechoslovakia at 4th
place;
G.D.R.
6th;
Poland
7th;
Romania
8th; Hungary 11th; Bulgaria 12th).
One can
certainly speak
of a
partial
substitution in the Warsaw Pact states of rail for road and air
transport.
When account is taken of all three forms of
passenger transportation
-
rail,
air and
automobile, however,
all of the Pact states fall behind the
per capita passen-
ger
kilometer
figures
for
economically comparable
countries. The
highest ranking
communist
state, G.D.R.,
at
3,294 passenger
kilometers
(pkm) per inhabitant,
as
well as the
lowest,
Romania at
1,089,
both fall well behind their non-communist
GNP
per capita counterparts. Illustratively,
the total 3-index
"mileage"
of the
U.S.S.R. was 388.6 billion
pkm
for a
population
of 242
million,
while it was 451.8
billion for West
Germany's
59 million
people
and 411.4 billion for Britain's 55
million
people!
East
Germany's
total
mileage
of 52.4 billion
pkm
for 16.2 million
people
was exceeded
by
Sweden's 75.9 for 8.04. The U.S. total exceeded Russian
mileage by
a ratio of more than 9 to 1.
It is
possible,
but not
likely,
that this
general
order of
relationships
is altered
by
information not covered in this
paper.
The
U.S.S.R., e.g., possessed
4.6 million
trucks and buses in 1970 whose unknown
mileage may
be
weighed against
19.1 mil-
lion in the U.S. East
Germany
had
245,000
trucks and buses
against 1,228,406
in
West
Germany.
It would
appear
that even if a
larger proportion
of Warsaw Pact
commercial vehicles consisted of
buses,
more
heavily used,
the total
advantage
of
the non-communist states would not
likely
be overcome. Our data for commercial
vehicles
per
inhabitant indicate that the Warsaw Pact states have made
only
some-
uwhat more
generous
allocations to this form of
transport.
G.D.R. led the Warsaw Pact
countries,
22nd
among
112 world states in com-
mercial vehicles
per inhabitant; Hungary
was
25th;
U.S.S.R.
33rd;
Czechoslovakia
40th;
Romania
47th;
Poland 52nd and
Bulgaria
76th.
There is a similar case with
motorcycles. Poland,
for
example, reported
1,789,000 motorcycles
in addition to its
479,000
automobiles in 1970. It was thus
ahead of
Spain
with about the same
population
and
only 1,267,000 motorcycles.
But where allowance is made for
Spain's 2,378,000 automobiles,
or
roughly
five
times as
many,
the
advantage
does not seem
significant."3
In the area of
communication,
we have examined four kinds of information
relating
to the
conveyance
of
messages among
individuals: mail
flows,
domestic
13 See
Statystyczny, Rocznik, p. 700,
Table 106
(1006).
232 Western Political
Quarterly
and
foreign, telegrams
in both
categories,
the number of
telephones
in each
country,
and in most
cases,
also the number of actual
telephone
conversations.14 We have
not examined
centrally
disseminated information
flows,
such as
newspapers,
radio,
television,
cinemas and the like.'5
On the
whole,
Warsaw Pact states ranked
conspicuously high
in one
category
of
interpersonal
communication,
however,
which accounts for
relatively
few mes-
sages:
domestic
telegrams. Here,
the U.S.S.R. ranked 3rd
among
72 states with
available information.
Bulgaria
was
5th;
Czechoslovakia
6th; Hungary 8th;
G.D.R.
16th;
Romania 21st and Poland 23rd.
On the other
hand,
these states ranked
relatively
low in
telegrams
sent
abroad,
and,
much more
significantly,
low in the domestic and
foreign
volume of mail.
In
1970,
in
likely
connection with East-West German
rapprochement,
the
volume of
foreign
mail sent and received in the G.D.R.
placed
it 6th
among
72
states with relevant information.
Hungary,
however, ranked 28th; Poland 44th;
Romania
50th;
there was no information on
Bulgaria.
Czechoslovakia and the
U.S.S.R.
reported
their domestic and
foreign
mail in one
category.
The
general
communication
lag
of the Warsaw Pact states was
principally
accounted for
by
the
sparse deployment
and use of
telephones.
In the number of
telephones per capita,
Czechoslovakia was
23rd;
G.D.R.
25th; Hungary 32nd;
Bulgaria 40th;
Poland
42nd;
Romania 49th and the U.S.S.R. an
amazing
87th
among
116 states
reporting
such data. The U.S.S.R. ranked behind
Ceylon
and
ahead of
Angola
in this
category
of communication. The seriousness of the War-
saw Pact's
apparent lag
is seen when allowance is made for the
very
substantial
use
generally
made of
telephones
-
ranging
from about 700 to more than 4,000
messages per telephone exchanged annually
in different areas of the world.'6 When
we combine the various forms of communication into a number of
messages
con-
veyed,
the
U.S.S.R.,
with some 16.5 billion for a
population
of 242 million, lagged
almost 20-fold behind the United States with its 258 billion
messages
and a
popula-
tion of 205 million in 1970!
As is evident from our
rankings
of GNP
per capita
and the total
messages
per capita,
no Warsaw Pact state matched the level of communication
among
other
comparably wealthy
states.
Indeed,
this is true in both
categories
examined in our
paper: passenger
kilometers
per capita
and
messages exchanged per capita.
An examination of the included
tables,
as well as the tables on the
separate
constituent elements of the
passenger
kilometer and
personal message composites,
shows that of all the Warsaw Pact
states,
the U.S.S.R.
lags
farthest behind eco-
nomically comparable
non-communist states.
Thus, if we look at states which
range within, e.g., $300
GNP
per capita
above
and below the U.S.S.R.,
we find that the differences between it and the other states
in
passenger
kilometers and in
messages per capita
are in
virtually
all cases differ-
ences of several
magnitudes.
The Soviet
figure
of
1,621 passenger
kilometers
per capita may
be
compared
with a
figure
of
5,796
for
Austria; 5,493
for
Japan; 5,177
for Finland:
7,263
for
the United
Kingdom; 10,271
for New
Zealand;
and
6,511
for
Italy; only
Israel
with a
figure
of
2,543
is
relatively
close to the U.S.S.R. The Soviet Union
actually
14
See American Telephone
and Telegraph Company,
The World's Telephones (New York,
1973)
Table 4, pp.
11-12 and 26. Based upon averages
for several European
and Latin
American states reported in this source,
we estimate the probable
number of messages
in several cases where only
the number of
telephones
is known.
'5
See Charles L. Taylor and Michael C. Hudson, eds.,
World Handbook
of
Political and
Social
Indicators,
2nd ed.
(New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1972);
Ellen
Mickiewicz,
ed.,
Handbook of
Soviet Social Science Data (New
York: Free Press, 1973).
l'
Brazil registered
a remarkable 12,637,834,000
calls on 2,000,726 telephones.
Netherlands
had
3,409,842 telephones
but recorded only 2,879,212,000
conversations. See AT&T
Co.,
The World's Telephones, pp.
4, 11, 12.
Personal
Mobility
and Communication 233
ranks behind such
relatively poor
states as
Portugal,
Lebanon,
Yugoslavia
and
Venezuela, and
among
non-Warsaw Pact
states, modestly
ahead of Greece and
Brazil.
An even
greater magnitude
of differences holds true in
messages per capita.
The U.S.S.R. is ahead of but far closer in this
category
of communication to
Cey-
lon,
Zambia and
Turkey
than it is to
Austria, Finland, Italy, Israel,
or
Japan.
It
may
also be observed that all non-Warsaw Pact countries in the
$2,000
GNP
per
capita category
-
or even its reasonable
vicinity
-
range
above 250
messages per
capita;
the Soviet Union's 69
messages per capita
amount to
approximately
one-
fourth of that
figure.
As Tables 4 and 5
indicate, GNP/capita
is
by
far the best international
pre-
dictor of social communication
outputs, accounting
for 82
percent
and 79
percent
of the
explained
variance in the two indices of social communication
(kilometers
and
messages).
Political
system, although
the second best of our four
predictor
variables,
adds
only
3
percent
to the
explained
variance for both indices.
A somewhat different
picture
of the
relationship among GNP/capita (our
indicator of level of economic
development), political system,
and level of social
communication
emerges
from the
secondary regression equations.
The results of
regressing GNP/capita against
"kilometers" and
"messages"
for both non-com-
munist and Warsaw Pact states are
presented
in Table 6.
TABLE 6.
NON-COMMUNIST STATES WARSAW PACT STATES
Independent
variable r rs B r r2 B
Kilometers =
Dependent
Variable
GNP/Capita
.............. 0.935 0.845 2.881 0.780 0.624 1.452
(Constant)
................ -91.756 -325.023
Messages
=
Dependent
Variable
GNP/Capita
............ 0.920 0.847 0.200 0.614 0.377 0.107
(Constant) ....--........-
. -16.837 -38.971
The
regression
results summarized in Table
6, among
other
things,
indicate
that
GNP/capita
is a better
predictor
of social communication
outputs
in non-
communist as
opposed
to Warsaw Pact states. The data in Table 6 also enables
one to construct
regression equations predicting
the social communication
profile
of Warsaw Pact and non-communist states
knowing
their level of economic de-
velopment
as indicated
by GNP/capita.
The
regression equations
are as follows:
A. Non-Communist States
Kilometers =-91.756 +
(2.881) (GNP/capita)
Messages
=-16.837 +
(.200) (GNP/capita)
B. Warsaw Pact States
Kilometers
=
-325.023 +
(1.452) (GNP/capita)
Messages
= -38.971 +
(0.107) (GNP/capita)
Our two
equations
relating
GNP/capita
with
passenger
kilometer
per capita
and
messages per capita
indicate a
general "underperformance"
for the Warsaw
Pact states. The differences
however,
are not uniform. The
"underperformance,"
is
clearly
less for Czechoslovakia and East
Germany, and, considering
available
wealth,
also for
Poland,
Hungary,
Romania and
Bulgaria,
than it is for the U.S.S.R.
234 Western Political
Quarterly
SOME SOVIET-U.S. COMPARISONS
When account is taken of additional data available for the Soviet Union and
the United States but,
unfortunately,
not available for
many
of the other states in
our
sample,
what is the effect
upon
our communication
profile comparisons?
An extended
comparison
of Soviet and U.S. communication
profiles
is
par-
ticularly
useful in
light
of certain
objections
that
might
be raised
regarding
the
restricted nature of our initial
country
estimates. These
estimates,
as
previously
acknowledged,
did not include information on various forms of
public transporta-
tion
(e.g. buses, streetcars, subways)
or
motorcycle, bicycle, private aircraft, passen-
ger
ship, pleasure boat,
or horsedrawn traffic. If one maintains that the Soviet
Union and other Warsaw Pact states
depend heavily upon
some of these forms of
transportation
-
to an extent
greater
than that of non Warsaw Pact states in the
sample
-
then one
may challenge
the relevance of our
comparisons. Similarly,
if
one contends that the
composition
of mail
(e.g.,
first
class, parcels, periodicals,
and
"junk")
varies
substantially
across
nations,
the
significance of the
"personal
mes-
sages per capita" comparisons may
be
questioned.
Data limitations do not
permit
an
entirely satisfactory
evaluation of these
potentially confounding
factors. An
examination of data on several
categories
of
transportation
and communication not
included in our
general
indices, but available in Soviet
sources, suggests
that our
initial
comparisons
need not be
significantly
modified.
These data indeed indicate that the Soviet Union
compares
more
favorably
with the United States in terms of
personal mobility
if one focuses on certain forms
of
local, public
urban
transportation."?
A
comparison
of urban
transport
facilities
and the number of
passengers
carried
(in
1968 for the Soviet Union and 1970 for
the
U.S.)
indicates that there were
15,373
million
passengers
carried on 37,686
Soviet urban
transportation
units
(streetcars, trolleys
and
subway cars).
The cor-
responding
American
figure
was
7,332
million
passengers
carried on
61,930
urban
transportation
units.18 These
figures, however,
do not reflect the fact that much of
U.S. urban traffic was
by way
of
private
automobile.
Moreover,
Narodnoe
Khozyaistvo
indicates that traffic on local urban electrical
transport
facilities ac-
counted for less than five
percent
of the Soviet total
(all vehicle) passenger
kilo-
meter
figure.
It thus
appears
that
although
individual
mobility
in Soviet urban
areas is somewhat
greater
than
might
be inferred from our
aggregate
national
transportation comparisons,
the total national
transportation comparisons
(at
least
for the U.S.S.R. and the
U.S.)
are not
greatly
affected
by
inclusion of urban transit
data.19
A similar conclusion is reached if one examines Soviet data on total
passenger
kilometer
figures (based upon railroad, ocean, river, air,
and auto
traffic).
The
Narodnoe
Khozyaistvo figure
for 1968 is 492 billion. This
figure
is
considerably
in excess of our estimate of 388.6
billion,
which was based
upon only air,
railroad
and automotive traffic. Since the contribution of ocean and river
transport
was
negligible (7.2
billion
passenger
kilometers)
and because Soviet
figures
for railroad
and air traffic were
similar,
the
major
discrepancy
in total
passenger
kilometer
figures appears
to be due to the
higher "mileage"
attributed to automotive traffic
by
Soviet sources. If the Soviet data in fact reflected the same narrow definition
17
See, for
example,
the Soviet statistical yearbook,
Narodnoe Khozyaistvo
SSSR
(Moscow)
and Soviet data reported
in
Mickiewicz, Soviet Social Science Data.
18 U.S. Department
of
Transportation, Summary of National Transportation Statistics:
June
1974
(Washington, D.C., 1974), p.
61.
9Whatever bias results in not
reporting
Soviet urban
transport
also would appear to be
counterbalanced by
Soviet
underperformance
in international mobility. UN data for
1972 show that, allowing
for
multiple entries, slightly
over 1 million Soviet nationals
traveled abroad in comparison
to some 50 million Americans. See United
Nations,
Statistical Yearbook
1975, pp.
498-515.
Personal
Mobility
and Communication 235
of automotive
(i.e.
cars)
used in our initial
country estimates,
the American ad-
vantage
would be reduced from 9 to 1 to 7 to 1.
If,
on the other
hand,
as seems
likely,
the Soviet source
figure
is
higher
due to a broader definition of "automotive"
(to
include
buses),
the Soviet
"advantage" disappears
since our initial country
comparison
excluded bus
transportation
data. The fact that
separate page
entries
in Narodnoe
Khozyaistvo
under the
headings
"automobile"
passenger
kilometers
and "autobus"
passenger
kilometers are
nearly
identical
suggests
that the 492 bil-
lion total Soviet
passenger
kilometers
figure
includes buses as well as automobiles.
With
respect
to
messages
and other
personal communications,
our overall
comparisons might
be
subject
to the
charge
that the
high
volume of unsolicited and
unwanted
"junk"
mail in the United States distorts
any
U.S.-second
country
com-
parisons.
Nevertheless,
Soviet data disclose that the
largest component
of the rela-
tively meager
volume of mail in the U.S.S.R. is made
up
of
periodicals.
In 1968,
for
example,
"letters" constituted
only
29.38
pieces
of mail
per capita
while
peri-
odicals counted for 124.63.
Telegrams
and
packages
accounted for 1.43 and 0.67
items
per capita, respectively.20
In
comparison
to the Soviet mail
distribution,
the
large
volume of American
mail consisted of 252 airmail and first class letters
(including
international de-
liveries) per capita,
43 second class mail items
per capita,
and 108 third class mail
pieces per capita.21 Thus,
even if one made the dubious
assumption
that all items
received or sent
by
Americans second or third class were
"junk"
while all Soviet
"letters" were
highly meaningful,
a
surprising
8.5 to 1
per capita disparity
remains.
We would
emphasize
that the
comparisons presented
do not
support
and are
not intended to
suggest
an "atomization
theory"
of the Soviet
polity
or other com-
munist
systems
in the sense of absence of
interpersonal
contact and communication.
Indeed, extensive face-to-face
communication, particularly
in the realm of low-
level
politicalization at the
work-place
and
domicile,
is
very
evident in Soviet
society.
What is
suggested by
our
aggregate communication-mobility comparisons
is that to the extent that
passenger
kilometers
per capita
and
messages exchanged
per capita
reflect
opportunities
for autonomous contacts and
communications,
the
Soviet Union does not
compare favorably
with states at similar levels of economic
development
(including
other Warsaw Pact
states).
A diachronic
study
would
help
to determine whether this
gap
between the
U.S.S.R. and other Pact states has
significantly
narrowed or widened in the three
decades of the
1940s,
1950s and 1960s, and
particularly during
the
post-Stalin
period.
It
might
also make it
possible
to
develop appropriate,
GNP
per capita-
related
equations
that would show how increments of national
products
in the
several Warsaw Pact states have correlated with
mobility
and communication
outputs.
Nevertheless,
with all
proper
reservations about the
accuracy
of our informa-
tion,
it
appears
that as of
1970,
at
least,
the
transportation-communication "pro-
file" of the Warsaw Pact states was still
significantly
different from that of other
states at
equivalent
levels of economic
development.22
More precisely, although
excelling
in two
categories
of
transportation
and communication
(railway passenger
travel and domestic
telegrams),
the
majority
of Warsaw Pact states tend to cluster
in a
range
below that of
comparably developed
noncommunist nations for the
remaining
indicators of
personal mobility
and communication.
20
Mickiewicz, Soviet Social Science Data, p. 180.
21
U.S. Department of
Commerce, Bureau of the
Census,
Statistical Abstract of the United
States 1975
(Washington, D.C.,
1975), p.
513.
2
For a profile of the highly developed centrally directed communication systems in the War-
saw Pact states see A.
J.
Groth and L. L. Wade, "International Educational Policy
Outcomes" in Dusan
Sidjanski,
ed., Political
Decision-Making
Processes (Amsterdam:
Elsevier Press.
1973), pp. 111-43.