> I've been interested in understanding how the Soviet economy worked for a long time.
After the '91 collapse Western scholars briefly got their hands on some Soviet archives and worked to piece this together. The Soviet economy was run by fixers; Party people that answered to Party leadership and mediated the difference between the State's official socialist schemes and reality. The system was opaque and kleptocratic in the extreme and, except for a brief period after the collapse, it appears not much has changed.
A concise survey of the archives can found found in: "Behind the Facade of Stalin's Command Economy: Evidence from the Soviet State and Party Archives" (Paul Gregory, 2001).
After the '91 collapse Western scholars briefly got their hands on some Soviet archives and worked to piece this together. The Soviet economy was run by fixers; Party people that answered to Party leadership and mediated the difference between the State's official socialist schemes and reality. The system was opaque and kleptocratic in the extreme and, except for a brief period after the collapse, it appears not much has changed.
A concise survey of the archives can found found in: "Behind the Facade of Stalin's Command Economy: Evidence from the Soviet State and Party Archives" (Paul Gregory, 2001).