Background

After World War II, the Soviet Union put in place five-year plans in the East European countries imitating their own five-year plans in order to recover from the war. The Soviets believed that the economic policies that helped them recover would similarly help the Eastern European counties recoup. They therefore required the countries under their sphere of influence either to have industries similar to their own – regardless of whether or not they had the natural resources to support those industries – or to concentrate on an industry that the country had already strongly developed in order to benefit the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia was told to concentrate on heavy industry. This concentration on heavy industry caused the natural resources of the state to deplete at an extraordinarily fast rate and used up an excessive amount of energy. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Eastern Europe is, by convention, a region defined geographically as that part of Europe covering the eastern part of the continent. ... Eastern Europe is, by convention, a region defined geographically as that part of Europe covering the eastern part of the continent. ... A sphere of influence (SOI) is an area or region over which an organization or state exerts some kind of indirect cultural, economic, military or political domination. ...

Extent of the Problem

The pollution produced by the excessive energy usage seriously degraded air quality. The air contained a high concentration of sulfur dioxide due to the fact that the energy production was largely based on combustion of fuel high in sulfur. As a result, 50 percent of the forests were either dead or dying. Cases of bronchitis and asthma in children almost doubled with the increase in the use of sulfur dioxide. The water, too, was affected by the excessive pollution, both from industrial fertilizers and oil spills. The lack of water waste treatment meant that a large portion of the water was undrinkable for the population, and some of the water was so bad that it was even unusable by the industries that produced the pollution. Conditions were worst in Northern Bohemia, which was a part of the so-called ‘triangle of death’ that also included South-East East Germany and South-West Poland, but the effects were also felt beyond the region in which the pollution originated. The Danube River, which flows through Czechoslovakia, carried much of the pollution to other areas of the state and other countries, and acid rain brought the pollution directly to the cities, where it could eat away at the buildings and statues.¹ It has been suggested that Pollutant be merged into this article or section. ... Sulfur dioxide (or Sulphur dioxide) has the chemical formula SO2. ... Bronchitis is inflammation of the bronchi (medium-size airways) in the lungs. ... Sulfur dioxide (or Sulphur dioxide) has the chemical formula SO2. ... It has been suggested that Pollutant be merged into this article or section. ... GDR redirects here. ... It has been suggested that Pollutant be merged into this article or section. ... Length 2,888 km Elevation of the source 1,078 m Average discharge 30 km before Passau: 580 m³/s Vienna: 1,900 m³/s Budapest: 2,350 m³/s just before Delta: 6,500 m³/s Area watershed 817,000 km² Origin Black Forest (Schwarzwald-Baar, Baden- Württemberg... It has been suggested that Pollutant be merged into this article or section. ... The term acid rain also known as is commonly used to mean the deposition of acidic components in rain, snow, dew, or dry particles. ... It has been suggested that Pollutant be merged into this article or section. ...

The Government's Role

Another major problem that the environment suffered was that while pollution was increasing, records of pollution became increasingly inaccessible to the public, so they did not know how bad the conditions were. Students who tried to make the public aware of the problems were arrested and detained by the police. Often records were not even kept on the industrial effects on the environment. There were some people involved with nongovernmental organizations that tried to correct the situation, but these groups were largely interested in acting as an adversary of the totalitarian state. The state itself was required under the constitution of 1960 to protect the quality of the environment as far as necessary to protect human health, but in northern Czechoslovakia, pollution reportedly shortened a person’s life by three to four years. The government even acknowledged these poor living conditions by offering a bonus to people who lived in the area for more than ten years – called burial money by the people in the area.³ It has been suggested that Pollutant be merged into this article or section. ... It has been suggested that Pollutant be merged into this article or section. ... It has been suggested that Pollutant be merged into this article or section. ...

Yet another issue the government faced in trying to solve environmental problems was that there was no central branch responsible for environmental safety and protection. Instead, there were many different branches responsible for different aspects of the environment – one for water, one for land, one for air, etc., and these different branches often had conflicting interests. One problem with this multiple-branch system was that each branch would try to enforce its own environmental priorities without regard to the overall environmental picture. On top of the conflicts between the branches, there were internal conflicts within the branches themselves. These branches were in charge not only of the environmental issues in their area, but also of the economic issues, and this would give each branch a set of conflicting priorities; not surprisingly, the economic preferences would generally win out. Even if the government put up a front of working on the environmental problems--for example, by imposing fines for failures to comply with pollution regulations--the companies would request money from the government to help pay off the fines. So the money would go around in a circle from one area of the government to another, and the industries would have no incentive to change their policies.^{1, 4} It has been suggested that Pollutant be merged into this article or section. ...

References

1. Adamova, Eva. “Environmental Management in Czecho-Slovakia.” Environmental Action in Eastern Europe. Ed. Barbara Jancar-Webster. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1993. 42-57.

2. Crampton, R. J. "Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – and After." 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1997.

3. East Europe: Greening of the Reds, The Washington Post, December 24th, 1989.

4. The Scars of Pollution; Iron Curtain Rises to Reveal Dirt, Death; POISON IN THE EAST, The Boston Globe, December 17th, 1989.

5. Students Take Word of Protests to Czechoslovak Towns, Villages; Communist Authorities Try to Stop Activists from Spreading the News, The Washington Post, November 24th, 1989.