Part 8/11:
The Decline: Bureaucracy and Backwardness
As the decades wore on, it became evident that the Soviet car industry was rife with bureaucratic inefficiencies; production was often stalled and lacked innovation. The eventual fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked not only a political but also an automotive crisis. The once-promising automotive landscape turned into a cautionary tale of what happens when economies are engineered rather than organically developed.