ABSTRACT
This question has rarely been asked by either proponents or opponents of socialism. Among proponents of socialism, as well as traditional comparative systems analysts, the question is not raised because socialist central planning is assumed to be possible (and perhaps desirable). Even though Marxist critics of the Soviet Union have challenged the conceptualization of the Soviet Union as centrally planned, they do so from the perspective that this is evidence of a perversion of socialism by Stalin.2 The workers’ revolution was thwarted by bureaucratic intrigue, and the forces of state capitalism. On the other hand, traditional comparative systems analysis (whether conducted by a proponent or opponent of socialism) argues that the conceptualization of the Soviet Union as centrally planned was essentially correct.3
