Yakov Feygin, "Building a Ruin: The Cold War Politics of Soviet Economic Reform" (Harvard UP, 2024)

Soviet economic planning functioned not as a monolithic system, but as a site of intense contestation between competing technocratic cliques vying for political influence. Yakov Feygin, author of *Building a Ruin: The Cold War Politics of Soviet Economic Reform*, argues that economic ideas served as essential instruments for legitimizing institutional power and navigating trade-offs within the Soviet hierarchy. The transition from Stalinist military-industrial priorities to Khrushchev’s focus on peaceful socioeconomic competition opened a window for reform, most notably the Kosygin reforms, which ultimately stalled due to systemic contradictions. These historical dynamics reveal that economic expertise was never politically neutral; rather, it was deeply embedded in the struggle to manage capital efficiency and social stability. Today, these patterns of state-led mobilization and the challenges of balancing investment with consumption offer critical insights into the structural dilemmas currently facing Russia and China.