What stopped the Soviet Union from launching a manned mission to the moon in the early weeks of December 1968 and thus beating the US to the moon?

by oxyhydroxide

I recently finished Robert Kurson's book Rocket Men describing the successful Apollo 8 mission, and in it he mentions how the Soviet Union had a good window for launching their own manned mission to the moon a couple of weeks prior to the launch of Apollo 8. The Soviet launch was ultimately scrapped, but the author does not elaborate as to why. Given how contested the space race was up to that point, and how the USSR had appeared to be winning, I'm curious as to why they wavered.

Was an early December 1968 launch planned by the Soviet Union? What stopped them from launching?

Archahcra

u/kieslowskifan went into some detail in comparing the US and Soviet space programmes here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/898hyd/why_did_the_soviet_unions_space_program_drop_off/ which may give you a general idea of how things were going for the Soviets.

The answer didn’t particularly address 1968 though, so perhaps there are more to be said specifically regarding the narrative you’ve read.