Eastern Europe: The Search for Quality

In the ruins of a tumbled-down medieval castle in Hungary, a group of explorers this fall unearthed a 500-year-old pair of shoes. Radio Budapest remarked sardonically that the shoes were in better shape than most of the footwear produced in present-day Hungary. That is not as funny as it might seem. The problem of shoddy goods, long the bane of Communist nations, is seriously hampering new efforts to increase trade with the West. Last week, in a drive to upgrade the quality of industrial products, East Germany sent 20,000 faithful party stalwarts across the country to inspect, inspect, inspect.

Very Honorable. The goods badly need inspection. In 1963, only an insignificant 13% of East Germany’s trade was with the West—and the poor quality of the goods must share much of the blame. A plant in the town of ZellaMehlis, for example, sent roller bearings to India, but had the whole shipment refused and returned because it was of inferior quality. A marine-engine factory in Magdeburg that makes cooling systems for export has gained a reputation for producing faulty equipment, including a shipment of engines that broke down shortly after arriving in Turkey.

Hungary has been unable to take full advantage of the $125 million trade treaty it signed with West Germany in 1963 because many of the goods it would like to sell—bicycles, sewing machines, textiles—proved so inferior that the Germans would not buy them. Hungary has a glut of poor-quality textiles, including cheap shirts labeled in English “The Very Honorable, Foreign Made,” also produces cheap shoes called Baby Doll to compete with those from Czechoslovakia’s Communist-owned Bata shoe factory. Unable to sell either item to the West, Hungarian companies were forced to unload them on home consumers at cut-rate prices.

In Poland, 4,000,000 pairs of shoes last year had to be reclassified to lower categories, and 18.3% of radio and TV sets were declared substandard. To stop unwanted goods from piling up in warehouses, the Polish government last year clapped fines totaling $8,000,000 on producers of TV sets, radios and appliances that did not meet quality specifications. For the same reason, Bulgaria’s Foreign Trade Ministry has refused to issue licenses for more than 600 shipments destined for abroad, complained that poor-quality production seemed to be a permanent feature of many plants.

No Incentive. Quality reform in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland has begun to improve many goods. Managers have been ordered to produce goods that the domestic market needs and foreigners will buy. Some Czech factories had their state subsidies slashed and were told to fend for themselves in the market—either to make a profit or face bankruptcy. The Eastern bloc is aware that it will have to continue improving quality if it hopes to increase its trade with the West but finds it difficult to give incentive and motivation to workers in socialized industries. No one is better aware of the great need for higher quality than the Communists themselves. They much prefer to buy from the West whenever possible, rather than from each other.