It is astonishing because if you look around the world at other countries you will find many many countries in the developing world which were not fully socialist like the USSR, which yet failed to ever develop even remotely at the level Soviet did. You could pick India as an example. While they did have a lot of state intervention they non the less had a market with market prices. People could start their own private companies and they did. Yet India did not see the kind of development that the USSR experienced. And if you look beyond mere economic factors and look at health care, education, literacy etc, they were completely outperformed by the USSR which had a very highly regarded educational system and health care.<p>You have to add to this story as well that the USSR was devastated from WWII and received no marshal help, and yet managed to recover surprisingly quickly.