> In the 20s, most people in the USSR had never
> seen a toilet. In the 50s, the USSR was an industrial superpower. In the
> 60s, it was building hovercraft and sending men into space.
>
> That was Stalin.
Yep. Somewhere in _The Short Twentieth Century_, Hobsbawm says that by the time Stalin died, the USSR had become totally self-sufficient and barely traded with the rest of the world. (He also says its relative economic decline during the 70s and 80s was caused by the Politburo becoming too reliant on oil exports --- and by extension on global commodity prices.)