[marnett]

American embargoes

[acchow]

This ignores the Soviet Union and all of it's allies, which did trade amongst themselves but failed regardless.

[marnett]

I had mostly cuba in mind with this comment

[ericd]

From what I understand, life in the Soviet Union itself wasn't exactly luxurious, even if you weren't one of the unlucky people to be put in a Siberian labor camp.