many Western diplomats called the Soviet Union
‘Upper Volta with rockets’.
What an insult – that is, to Upper Volta (renamed Burkina Faso in 1984)
which was being branded the quintessential poor country
when it wasn’t even near the bottom of the world poverty league.
The nickname, however, succinctly summarized what was wrong with the Soviet economy.
Here was a country that could send men into space but had people queuing up for basic foodstuffs such as bread and sugar.
The country had no problem churning out intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines, but could not manufacture a decent TV.
It is reported that in the 1980s the second-biggest cause of fires in Moscow was – believe it or not – exploding TVs.
The top Russian scientists were as inventive as their counterparts in capitalist countries, but the rest of the country did not seem able to live up to the same standard.