ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the origins and implications of five propositions or assumptions connected with imperative planning that were rooted in this type of faith rather than experience, and that were widely shared among communist elites. Those are imperative planning was more efficient than market production, the formation of plans was a technical, not a political, process, imperative planning and democratization were compatible and mutually reinforcing ends, imperative planning fostered cultural revolution and imperative planning was crisis-free. Erosion of imperative planning similarly played key roles in paving the way for regime change in East Europe and in undermining party legitimacy and the ideological commitment of cadres in China. On the eve of the collapse of communism, in the face of mounting economic crisis, that faith had largely exhausted itself, leading to profound ideological and political repercussions. The irreconcilability between a centralized economic order and political democracy was precisely the center of controversy between Marx and Nikolai Bakunin.
