"the Soviet economy was a deranged system that directed people and resources through state commands, threats, and the force of the Gulag"
" the rigidities and lies of the Soviet economic and political system proved to be largely impervious to change, culminating in the complete collapse of the Soviet state and economy in 1991. "
" Gorbachev relentlessly tried to reform the system not through commands but through persuasion and appeals to truth and cooperation. "
however
"Without the terror and threats, Soviet central planning collapsed and the economy descended into massive shortages, collapsed production, and by 1991 an extreme financial crisis. "
"The dire outcomes proved De Tocqueville's famous maxim that "the most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform itself."
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"During 1989-91, I was a senior economic advisor to several post-communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe"
once safely beyond arms reach
the scoundrel impudence of some two legged rodents in the face of their own monstrous actions is nearly limitless
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Al has a comment :
" Jeffrey has chutzpah, I'll grant him that much, the miserable rodent.
The Soviet economy functioned in spite of itself, and in spite of
willful external sabotage, thanks almost entirely to the good nature
and competence of the same kind of people he climbed over to become a
destroyer of nations and a safely tenured hack"
