Integration: Word and Concept in Discussions of Party Leaders of European Member States of Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

Abstract

The article deals with the process of formation of the terminological framework of socialist rhetoric. The study is based on the materials of the Meetings of the Central Committee of the Communist and Worker’s Parties Secretaries and the heads of the member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance government in the period from 1956 to 1969, the program documents of this organization. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the evolution of the categorical framework, which was used in the description of cooperation between countries. It is noted that in the mid-1950s, at the beginning of the formation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the language for describing its activities, the term integration was stigmatized, as it was associated with economic processes in Western Europe. It is clarified that at the same time, descriptive constructions were actively used, revealing the essence of integration in the countries of the socialist camp, and there were also frequent cases of the use of the term in official speeches by party leaders. The author comes to the conclusion that since the late 1960s — early 1970s the term socialist integration began to be actively used to construct the image of a socialist economic system as an effective analogue of the European Economic Community, while this concept had an important symbolic meaning and was an element of ritual socialist discourse.