The Economic Collapse of the Soviet Union

There were many economic problems for the Soviet Stalinist system. One very general problem was the the lack of incentives for productivity. As anonymous Soviet citizen said
They pretent to pay us and we pretend to work.
The Russian economist, Grigory Yavlinsky, who ultimately became an important advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, became convinced to the need for reform when he investigated the low productivity in the Soviet mines. He found the miners were not working because they had no incentives to work. Said Yavlinsky
The Soviet system is not working because the workers are not working.