Unironically the Malenkov era was such a giant cluster fuck that it discedited central planning.
I often feel that Blackstar is a bit too optimistic about the Soviet system. The fall of Mikoyan and Malenkov and Kosygin rising to the top job was what I'd have used as exhibit "A" if I ever were to complain about that optimism. Particularly as Kosygin enjoyed years of strong support doing economist brained reforms in a system that even TTL is mostly run by engineers (Soviet politicians in OTL were usually engineers in the same way that American politicians are usually lawyers, and OTL Kosygin faced serious headwinds due to being the only non-engineer in high Soviet politics - TTL we were only a little bit better before Kosygin's rise, mostly because we avoided Stalin's purges of the Leningrad party).
But it turns out that was all us traumatizing Soviet politics! First with the statist ruthlessness Mikoyan got from being our MC for years, then with Malenkov's well-meaning incompetence.
TTL's Kosygin might even have been like OTL's Kosygin, and not wanted power, only ending up in power due to Malenkov making such a big mess he felt duty bound to do a job he didn't want...
And that he had the political support to deliver economist brained reforms was because everyone was reacting against Malenkov's engineer brained love for the trains of the future... Political support that has outlived Kosygin's career, what with politics still moving rightward for now (though I don't underestimate Vorotnikov, Zimyanin and Balakirev's ability to change that).
Kinda wild.
This is also a good example of good things coming from the Ministry failing tho. I think we kinda get obsessed with the idea of our ministers winning every political fight or thinking that we are the only ones who can solve the problems of the Soviet Union, when our actual track record is of being actually pretty bad at our jobs since Stalin's fall.
Alot of the ways this TL is better is due to us managing to avoid the worst outcomes in the Stalinist period, since Stalin we've almost destroyed the Soviet economy to build shiny trains under Malenkov, were super corrupt under Voz, almost started a nuclear war under Klimenko and are pushing the Soviet war against nature into overdrive under Balakirev.
I think we urgently need to come to terms with the Threadviet not having all of the answers and recognizing that giving other actors in the political system opportunities might be a good thing sometimes.
He developed productive forces, is what he did. He was a genius Soviet economist. And in this house, Nikolai Voznesensky is a hero. End of story!
I'll bet that Voz's competence is a big reason for why the Vorotnikov and his allies are the way they are. If the conservatives are Voz fans, that might have implications for their behavior and choices.
Does anyone remember where Voz is now? He's still alive right?
Both our rail network and our paved road network are in a better state than the USSR or successor states have ever achieved OTL. Not that this is really an indicator of how good we are at Infra spending, more just how much more money and industrial capacity we have than OTL that even with decades of fuckups sub-optimal capex allocations we can't help but do better.
How much of our steel industry was built up to supply our demand for rails as well? Like... Is that a separate mistake, or an aftershock of the rail obsession?
If it hadn't been for the sterling work of Comrade Ashbrook our steel industry would be in full on crisis right now. I have a feeling that our oversized steel industry will be revealed to be another one of our major mistakes down the road.
And you know what will be hilarious? If in a few years when Blackstar gives us the OOC commentary on Klimenko, we find out that nearly causing a nuclear war and dooming the Algerian people to genocide is what gave Ashbrook the political capital to save our steel industry...
Regards,
fasquardon
