Russian President Vladimir Putin has long regarded the collapse of the Soviet Union as a “geopolitical catastrophe.”
The invasion of Ukraine, now approaching its one-year anniversary, could be seen as the culmination of his years-long quest to restore the Soviet empire. While this effort will almost certainly fail, Putin may succeed in reviving one of the USSR’s worst features: its centralized, sclerotic economic system.
With Russia’s economy straining under Western sanctions, some of the country’s leading economists and mathematicians are advocating a return to the days of five-year plans and quantitative production targets. In an interview marking the centenary of the Soviet Union’s founding, economist Ruslan Grinberg called for the reinstatement of the planned economy — an opinion that could be easily dismissed were Grinberg not the head of the influential Institute of Economics at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.