Stalin’s first Five Year Plan was aimed at industrializing the Soviet Union and collectivizing farms to reduce the influence of the Kulaks (wealthy peasants). It was successful in dramatically increasing industrial production, but the collectivization of farms led to widespread famine in many regions of the Soviet Union.

Glasnost and perestroika were two reform policies enacted in the waning years of the Soviet Union. Many historians believe that they contributed directly to the decline and downfall of the Soviet Union. The primary goal of perestroika was to restructure the Soviet political and economic system to allow for a rudimentary free market.

In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Boris Yeltsin – who then became the leader of the Russian Federation – instituted a program known as “shock therapy.” Designed to help the Russian economy transition from socialism to capitalism, Yeltsin’s program involved the removal of price controls, an increase in both taxes and interest rates, the liberalization of foreign trade, and a massive increase in the privatization of state industries. Unfortunately for both Russia and Yeltsin, shock therapy was implemented much too soon and much too swiftly – the Russian economy couldn’t withstand the rapid changes and instead fell into hyperinflation and a severe depression.

The Treaty of Versailles is generally heavily condemned by historians who tend to blame its provisions for the outbreak of the Second World War. The treaty was designed to punish the Germans for their part in the outbreak of the First World War, but ultimately it led to widespread economic depression in Germany and on the European continent, which in turn led to the rise of totalitarian rulers like Hitler and Mussolini.

Supply-side economics, a function of capitalism more greatly, became most popular under Ronald Regan and involved the general lowering of corporate and personal taxes, as well as expanded free trade. It grew as a direct response to the shortfalls of Keynesian Theory. 

The Bretton Woods System, which was a direct result of the aftermath of WWII, was an agreement among the United States, Australia, Western Europe, Canada, and Japan which cemented the use of available gold to grantee the exchange values of given state's money. It lasted until 1971 when President Nixon took the United States off of the Gold Standard. 

The United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom all suffered terribly in the Great Depression. These three countries were tied together by the global capitalist market. Japan also suffered as a result of the Great Depression, but less so than the other three countries because Japan was less integrated into the global economy and was still undergoing its period of industrialization and modernizing growth. Only the Soviet Union remained largely unaffected by the Great Depression, indeed Soviet heavy industry grew dramatically during the Great Depression. This is because the Soviet Union was a communist country and the economy was almost entirely isolated from the economy of the rest of the world.