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From Reform to Ruin in the USSR
The Soviet Collapse: A Tale of Botched Reform or Entrenched Bureaucracy?
The “helpless” narrative lineage thus traces back to a framing that took hold in Western analysis around the time of Gorbachev’s ascension in the 1980s, in a manner not entirely dissimilar to the rise of the “collective leadership” and “fragmented authoritarianism” frameworks in the China field in the 80s and 90s. These groups, ranging from the agrarian collective farms’ lobby to the military-industrial complex, are presented as the main culprits of the excessive monetary demands, the inflationary pressures on the budget, and ultimately the political gridlock that destroyed Soviet finances and the economy. Unfortunately, as Stephen Kotkin noted of it: “Ultimately, the only unambiguous results of the elections, which were carried out against the astonishing deepening of glasnost, were to discredit the prevailing Soviet system of one-party rule and magnify the general disgust with all political authority.”
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