Thanks for your long reply Janek. Interesting to hear your perspective. I should clarify a bit what I meant with gradualism. One has to be pragmatic and not follow it to a fault. For instance the unification of East and West Germany had to happen fast.

However one could have done things similar to e.g. China, such as having special economic zones in East Germany as to avoid that all industry collapse within short time.

Yes, think happen rapidly at times. Sometimes we are just statists in the drama that unfolds. But my gradualism is more about what I advocate for those in power. I am not necessarily opposed to the rapid dissolving of the USSR. What I think was a grave mistake was the shock therapy that Russia later employed. There was a lot of market liberalists who pushed that, and I think that was an obvious mistake.

We can look at China as an alternative which switched to market economy through a gradualist approach with reforms over many decades and special economic zones. That worked significantly better.