Reflections on Further Thoughts

Extract

Messrs. Davies and Wheatcroft add useful perspective to the discussion in the June 1973 issue of the Slavic Review. I am particularly impressed with their description of how initial enthusiasm among some staff technicians led after a year or two to overoptimism at higher levels that alarmed even the initial enthusiasts. The sorcerer’s apprentice in this case was not a junior underling but a determined major figure. Unfortunately, the sequential transmission of overoptimism upward in the political structure took place precisely during a period when the surrounding economic environment was becoming less, favorable. By the time the first plan was issued, its overoptimism embodied high-level desperation in the face of technically informed skepticism.