Quiz question
Sir: Stephen Handelman's interesting arti- cle (`Goodbye Gorbachev', 1 December) about the sad failure of the Soviet com- mand economy reminds me of the follow- ing useful piece of advice: `If there existed a universal mind — that could register simultaneously all the processes of nature and that could forecast the results of their interaction — such a mind, of course, could a priori draw up a faultless and exhaustive economic plan, beginning with the num- ber of hectares of wheat and down to the last button for a vest. In truth the bureaucracy often conceives that just such a mind is at its disposal.'
Who do you think said that? Milton Friedman? Margaret Thatcher? No, Sir, it was Leon Trotsky. One wonders what would have happened if he rather than Stalin had won the struggle for power.
G. Bridger
18 Harvey Road, Guildford, Surrey
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