If this interests you, you might like the book "Red Plenty". It alternates between novel and essay about Khrushchev-era USSR, when people on both sides of the

If this interests you, you might like the book "Red Plenty". It alternates between novel and essay about Khrushchev-era USSR, when people on both sides of the curtain thought there was a pretty good chance that the Soviets would succeed, if not as a Socialist Utopia at least in economically overtaking the west in output and quality of life. Also, this excellent essay about the computational aspects of Gosplan, the USSR's mostly human-powered predecessor to Cybersyn: http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-problem-solves-you/ http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimiza... (which is where I learned about Red Plenty)