This will be an economics 101 question from me--but I hear this often repeated that it was the problem of "Central Planning" that caused 'The Collapse'. To what degree is it true? Was Soviet economics really one of guys sitting around 'planning' the economy, or is there more to it than that? -------- Me:
This isn't a very popular view in the US, but I think that the idea that central planning was doomed to collapse for internal reasons is crap. I see no reason a priori that Brezhvenian really existing socialism couldn't have kept trundling along at its relatively inefficient, stodgy rate. The collapse had a lot more to do with power struggles within the elite than economics, which were volatized when Gorbachev emasculated the power of the CPSU and the KGB (and himself). It certainly wasn't some love on the part of the Soviet masses for market economics, since 90% of them hadn't a clue what it was, and in any case voted for the preservation of the Union (70% of Soviet citizens, as opposed to 15% of CPSU delegates -- see what I mean about it being an elite thing?).
Economic planning was (mostly) centralized in Moscow, but there were of course feedback mechanisms on the municipal, local and republican level. If CPSU HQ came up with a plan, for instance, for Armenia that the Armenian Party thought wouldn't play out, they would get cancelled or modified. There was also a competitive grant system for the defense industry and a small-scale private agricultural market.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal