Again, from Martin Pring:
Nikolai Kondratieff was a Russian economist who was commissioned by the communist government in the late 1920s to prove that capitalism would not work. Kondratieff’s theory showed that, far from being self-destructive, the capitalist system actually had the ability to cleanse and renew itself, eventually moving on to greater strength. For this astute and courageous conclusion, Kondratieff was rewarded with permanent exile to Siberia.