Oh absolutely. A rigid inflexible economy held to ransom by different vote banks that had to be appeased at every election cycle, cancelling any movement in the sclerotic arteries of the economy. It was stuck in a vague socialist ideology which lacked the will and determination to be truly socialist or champion free enterprise. Neither fish nor fowl.
The point is it tore itself apart under the weight of the cold war, certainty the west hastened and abetted this fracture, but it was the Soviet Unions choice to maintain a communist economy which collapsed the entire Union.
The IMF is a mechanism set up as a lender of last resort. Countries go to the IMF because no one else can fix the accumulated economic quagmire. When no one offers any means to sort out the structural problems. Those that abide by the strictures of the IMF reap very long term rewards. Those that wriggle and be duplicitous with the prescriptions end up in a endless cycle of going to the IMF. Like Pakistan.
India came out with a economy that had done the structural correction, as did Ireland, Jordan, Tanzania, Iceland. Their economies have moved from strength to strength because they stuck to the unpalatable IMF prescriptions. You waste this opportunity or stick to the prescriptions and come out of the dark tunnel.
