ABSTRACT
One of the most fateful consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union is the nearly unanimous agreement of American popular opinion on the cause of collapse. It was, in the generally held view, the malfunction of the Soviet economic system—the empty shelves and the revolt of the consumer—that brought the Marxist-Leninist regime to fall. In 1914, the economy of czarist Russia was in shambles. Czarist Russia lived on credit—loans floated in London and Paris that nobody in the high places of finance and government expected Russia to repay and that, as a matter of fact, never were paid off, either by the czarist government or its communist successor. Directly or indirectly, the Soviet Union's revenue from plunder accrued to the benefit of the one and only sector of the Soviet Union's economy that could claim a high efficiency and uninterrupted growth rate, namely, war-oriented industry.
