The Soviet Union was founded on a fairytale. It was built on 20th-century magic called 'the planned economy', which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the penny-pinching lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working. "Red Plenty" is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan, every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche and sputniks would lead the way to the stars. And it's about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending.
Cast List
PART ONE
Introduction 3
1 The Prodigy, 1938 8
2 Mr Chairman, 1959 18
3 Little Plastic Beakers, 1959 40
4 White Dust, 1953 59
PART TWO
Introduction 81
1 Shadow Prices, 1960 93
2 From the Photograph, 1961 108
3 Stormy Applause, 1961 120
PART THREE
Introduction 141
1 Midsummer Night, 1962 151
2 The Price of Meat, 1962 187
PART FOUR
Introduction 205
1 The Method of Balances, 1963 212
2 Prisoner's Dilemma, 1963 224
3 Favours, 1964 234
PART FIVE
Introduction 269
1 Trading Down, 1964 276
2 Ladies, Cover Your Ears!, 1965 283
3 Psychoprophylaxis, 1966 302
PART SIX
Introduction 323
1 The Unified System, 1970 329
2 Police in the Forest, 1968 341
3 The Pensioner, 1968 357