In 1971, Paul Craig Roberts created a firestorm among professional Sovietologists by proclaiming that the economies of the USSR and its East Bloc allies were doomed because their "planned" economies were, in reality, anything but planned.

In this revised edition, Paul Craig Roberts examines how reality triumphed over Marxist theory and the implications for the future of Russia and eastern Europe. Expanding on his original ideas, Roberts demonstrates the fatal shortcomings of Marxist economies, ranging from misallocation of resources to ersatz capitalistic concepts grafted onto a system that calls for production without regard to profit. Roberts argues that the economies of the nations emerging from the USSR's collapse must grasp the profound truths in this book if they are to become viable.

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Paul Craig Roberts is the John M. Olin fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and former senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Dr. Roberts has held academic appointments at Virginia Tech University, Tulane University, University of New Mexico, George Mason University where he had a joint appointment as professor of economics and professor of business administration, and Georgetown University where he held the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy in the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In addition, Dr. Roberts was President of the Inlet Beach Water Company, President of Economic & Communication Services; advisor to J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Tiedemann-Goodnow, and Lazard Freres Asset Management; and a member of numerous corporate and financial boards. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia. Aaron B. Wildavsky (1930-1993) was a Research Fellow and founding member of the Board of Advisors at the Independent Institute, Class of 1940 Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Founding Dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of California Berkeley, and President of the California Association of Scholars. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University.