ot;The main task of the Five Year Plan," proclaims this 1971 poster, "is to ensure a significant rise in the material and cultural standard of living. . . ." Since the mid-1970s, the Soviet GNP-which grew at an average annual rate of nearly five percent from 1960 to 1975-has stagnated, rising in 1980 by only 1.4 percent.
TheWil.wn QuarterlyIAutumn 1985
46
Why is the Soviet system, with so many problems, as stable as it is? Princeton University's Stephen F. Cohen argues that the...