By the rise of the 1970′s the people of the Soviet Union craved and sought after new fashion, new technology, and better products. The first eight Five Year Plan’s had failed to produce enough of the common household necessities for each … Continue reading →
Tag Archive for black market
Desperate for Jeans
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In the 1970s, the USSR is thought to go through a period of stagnation. However, there was little stagnation in the economy. Brezhnev’s Five-year plan from 1971-1975 had as its goal the improvement of the people’s standard of living. To achieve … Continue reading →
The Black Market and Institutionalized Corruption
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A friend of mine at Virginia Tech was born in Moldova in 1992 and the remnants of an underground economy still existed. He was telling me about how if you gave the men who worked in the passport office good … Continue reading →
The First Cracks in the System
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After forcing out Nikita Khrushchev in 1965, Leonid Brezhnev became First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. Some consider the regime under Brezhnev, as the ‘golden era of USSR’. Brezhnev managed to improve the quality of life, stabilize social … Continue reading →