What was the Primary Reason for the Fall of the U.S.S.R.?

[stepnw1f]

I hear people on the right always giving Reagan the credit, but I just don't buy it. Since my history of this time is dim, I really would like a summary of what led to the Fall of Comunism in Russia. Was it the Arms Race?

[Politicub]

1. It was Gorbechev, IMHO

And his visionary leadership. He had far more to do with it than reagan.

[genius]

15. YOu are absolutely correct about Gorbechev. Reagan had nothing to do with

it

[ramapo]

17. Thank you.

Without Gorby, Reagan would've gotten nowhere. Economics played a role but Gorbechev's Glasnost policy is what opened the Iron Curtain.

I'd go so far to say that Gorbechev had more courage and vision than any leader in the second half of the 20th century. It's a shame that Reagan gets as much credit as he does.

There's some truth that we spent the USSR into ruin. It's ironic that we now seem to be doing the same thing to ourselves.

[LSdemocrat]

28. Yup. Gorby DIDN'T send the tanks into the streets

Any other Communist leader would have sent in the tanks and the Cold War could still be around today.

[lenidog]

37. No I think you are wrong

Gorbachev never wanted to destroy Communism or dismantle the Soviet state he wanted to reform it. he just didn't realize that when he took away the repressive tactics of the state that he was opening the bottle to a genie that he couldn't control or ever put back in.

[Yupster]

82. Agree lenidog

Gorby was no the first leader to ever try reforms and have them spin out of his controll.

[LisaL]

52. Oh come on. Visionary leadership?

He had destroyed the Soviet Union, and those were never his intentions.
So much for visionary leadership.
:eyes:

[Politicub]

77. I guess it depends on which perspective you have

If you consider the falling of the Berlin Wall a good thing, the I would say -- as another DUer pointed out in his reply -- that Gorbechev could have stopped the whole thing by ordering tanks into the streets.

Now, as to whether the disolution of the USSR is a good or bad thing, that's based mostly on opinion. I can see both sides, so I can go either way. The reality today is that that USSR was disolved, and we can't move backwards.

My best friend is a PhD student who is studying russian ethnomusicology. Many of my views on USSR and Russia are based on my conversations with her. She is a huge admirer of Gorbechev and Perestroika. That influences my view.

And, Gorbechev is a brillant man. I've heard him speak at several technology conferences and he appears to me as someone who "gets it." I don't agree with all of his positions, but no one is perfect.

[T Town Jake]

84. "If you consider the falling of the Berlin Wall a good thing"...Say what?

...do you know someone who doesn't consider that a "good thing"?

[Politicub]

92. I consider it positive that the wall fell

Someone else was bemoaning the fact that the USSR was dissolved under Gorbechev. That person could have a different perspective on the whole thing. I frankly could care less if someone thinks the wall coming down is a good or bad thing. It seems juvenile to assign "good" and "bad" labels to everything. I would rather have a dialogue with a well meaning person than whine about his POV.

The wall came down -- that's the reality. The circumstances that surrounded the wall coming down, as well as the aftermath, are the elements that I find interesting.

[Bullshot]

74. It was Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul and others

who were behind the iron curtain and helped stir things up.

The Soviet Union was falling apart long before Reagan took office. While Jimmy Carter was president, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and they stood up to, and drove out the Soviets.

I met a professor from Miami University (Ohio) who was in the Soviet Union before Reagan was president and showed pictures of the Soviets' infrastructure and food production/distribution system in shambles. If you can't eat, you can't fight. Reagan just had the good fortune to be president when all of these and other factors came together and collapsed the Soviet Union system. But our lazy-ass media and the conservative stooges who dominate talk radio keep prolonging the myth that it was Reagan and only Reagan who brought down the Soviet Union.

[hughee99]

93. I agree with almost all of this, but...

Do you truly believe that Reagan just "came along at the right time" or do you think that the arms race that he initiated had something to do with hastening the downfall? Reagan didn't create the situation, but IMHO, the Soviet Union could have held on much longer without having to compete in an arms race. I don't think Reagan deserves all, or even most of the credit, but he does deserve some.

[illflem]

2. The war in Afghanistan drained them economically.

Whose next?

[ooglymoogly]

47. you nailed it

[htuttle]

3. Poor quality toilet paper

It undermined morale for decades, until it finally brought the whole thing down.

[catbert836]

4. I personally think it was the Beatles

Once that first copy of "The White Album" was snuck into the country, it was only a matter of time.

[tk2kewl]

9. you should footnote that

or use end notes if you want to obsucre the truth ;)

[catbert836]

13. Whatever... n/t

LOL!!!

[indianablue]

5. The USSR was starting to collapse in the mid to late 70's.

It defense budget was shrinking etc.

The Afghan war was its 'Last Gasp'

I believe economics was the primary reason and information becoming easier to get.

The USSR could no longer keep its people in the Dark about the west.

Reagan and his Hawks lengthened the cold war not shorted it.

[tk2kewl]

6. remember

the arms race began right after WWII, so there were a lot of presidents other than Regan involved in keeping the pressure on the Soviets. Also remember Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika

[JI7]

7. combination of factors, but Reagan wasn't really one of them

as others have said on this thread, the war in afghanistan was a drain, Gorbechev deserves credit because of his policies which opened things up for the people some more which got them to want more.


i would give most credit to Gorbechev.

[TwentyFive]

8. Not sure probably a combination of a

Regular violations of citizens privacy. Excessive military spending. Control of the media. Political corruption.

Many things the greedy republicans are planning - or already doing. :(

[evil genius]

10. phffft...reagan...

that begs the question of whether Cummunism would have fallen anyway, and more gently with a nice soft glasnost-ish US-Russian rapproachment. Would Russia be better off like China with a booming private sector and a communist-in-name-only gov., or like the beaten up whore that Reagan used like a toilet and left for the russian mob ro take over?

[StClone]

22. Didn't Jimmy Carter have a relationship with Gorbachev

Did his presidency have a reaching out to Gorby, too? Wasn't Glasnost appearance during Carter's time in office?

[Menshevik]

24. Gorby came to power in 1985

Carter was prez when Brezhnev was in power

[StClone]

31. Right!

I thought there was a flaw in my chronology.

[lenidog]

38. No that was Detente in the 70s

Nothing changed internally in the USSR but they the Russians tried to warm relations up with us and try a live and let live attitude.

[illflem]

67. Carter and Gorby

received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts in changing the USSR
Reagan didn't do shit.

[T Town Jake]

87. Ummm...President Carter actually got his Nobel Peace Prize...

...for something totally unrelated to the Cold War. But thanks for playing.

[whistle]

11. Rock and radiation. . .

...according to Harvey Wasserman

<snip>

Rock & Radiation, Not Reagan, Brought Down USSR
Friday, 11 June 2004, 1:54 pm
Opinion: Harvey Wasserman

Rock & radiation, not Ronald Reagan, brought down the Soviet Union

By Harvey Wasserman
http://www.freepress.org
From: http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2004/909
No greater nonsense will accompany Ronald Reagan to his grave than the idea that he brought down the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War.

Among the many causes of Soviet collapse two words stand out, and they aren't Ronald Reagan.

They are rock and radiation.
<link> http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0406/S00099.htm

[CarbonDate]

12. There were a number of factors, from what I understand

1) Arms race was a big one. That, coupled with the war in Afghanistan, created a serious dent in their national economy.

2) Their imperialistic nature made true communism impossible to maintain.

3) Glasnost allowed the people to speak their minds, which shattered any illusions that may have existed about the strength of their nation.

4) Gorbachev recognized that the people of his country deserved better than what they had.

Reagan's diplomatic efforts created the conditions under which reform was possible much better than his earlier hubris. The arms race was a fool's gamble that if continued, both sides would have lost. To the extent that Reagan reached out and attempted to show Gorbachev that there was a better way, Reagan does deserve *some* credit, but not for the reasons that his hawkish supporters think.

[hatrack]

23. Add to that: brutality, cynicism, corruption, economic ineptitude

Oh, and let's not forget mind-numbing environmental degradation up to and including massive releases of radioactive toxins (Chernobyl is just the tip of the iceberg - google "Semipalytinsk Polygon" or "Kyshtim/Kyshtym Incident" sometime.

It's way, way more complicated than GOP Happy-Speak would have you believe.

[Obviousman]

14. They rusted from the inside

[Menshevik]

16. Gorbachev

Tried to reform the Soviet economy but his reforms actually heightened the problems in the central planning system....even greater discontent among the Soviet populace (shortages of everything, etc)

As part of his reforms he instituted glasnost (to enlist the Soviet media to pressure the conservatives who were against his reforms)...this led to greater freedom of the press...he instituted some more democratic reforms...it really got out of hand.

The right gives way too much credit to Reagan

[Lizzie Borden]

18. They couldn't keep up

with the hugely expensive arms racce for one thing. Soviet sociiety just sort of imploded. It certainly wasn't because Reagan won the cold war or some other such nonsense. One thing few people here know is how dire their real standard of living was. I have friends in Russia who had been in the military and had trouble believing how much better the E. German standard was, but when they found out how we lived, they were totally blown away. They thought it was all propoganda. I think it's probably always going to be easier to get a person to work for himself (capitalism) than for the good of the whole(communism). It's just human nature to be greedy. That's just a couple thoughts. I don't hold Gorbachev responsible at all.

[formernaderite]

49. Or you could argue it's just human nature to be lazy.....

....not keep up your end. Communism is viable only as a non-cocercive program, probably small scale communities, ie. communes. I have great issues with anything forced upon humans without their explicit permission.

[autorank]

19. Vodka. Even a nation of geniuses will fail if drunk all the time.

These bad boys can really knock back their booz. Seriously, a bottle of vodka is nothing on a festive occasion. There was so much drinking many alternated between two states: drunkenness and hang over. Can't run a country long with that. Our drinking is Class "C" ball compared to their big league consumption.

There are other reasons but this is a big one.

Corporate America controls the media and we get manufactured news.
Corporate America now controls the voting machines and we get manufactured elections.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

[hatrack]

25. Ivan Blow's vodka comes in an interesting package

Perhaps things have changed since 1989, but the Budweiser-level vodka into the 1990s came with a foil top. Once you opened the bottle, you couldn't reseal it, making it all the easier to drink the WHOLE DAMN THING.

[NEDem]

20. The Solidarity movement in Poland.

IMHO, it really started with this movement. It got the ball rolling and then Gorbechev came along and ended it all. Reagan just happened to be in the right place at the right time and was able to grab credit in the US for it.

[Liberal Veteran]

21. Magic Reaganwaves eminating from the White House....

At least that's what OxyRush says.

[Florida_Geek]

26. TV and Afghanistan

Afghanistan had many bodies coming home and that upset the people. TV IMHO and news from the outside world showed the people there that most people do not live like they lived. Remember they were a very rationed society.

[XemaSab]

27. My college prof

Spent a lot of time in the former Soviet Union, and he had a tale that he thought summed the whole thing up.

There was a dude in Moscow selling burned out light bulbs for ten kopecks. My teacher asked why someone would buy a dead light bulb. The man said "So you can go to work, and swap it out with a new light bulb, and take the new bulb home."

Near total lack of responsibility surrounding work. This resulted in crappy products, chronic shortages of food and goods, and no export market.

That and the toilet paper.

[RegexReader]

43. the attitude of

"You pretend to pay us and we pretend to work."


RegexReader
$USA =~ s/Republican/Democrat/ig;

[The Flaming Red Head]

29. lack of legitimately elected leaders

[ScotTissue]

30. Gorby didn't dissolve the USSR voluntarily

And he doesn't deserve all (or even the bulk) of the credit. Presidents of the USA from Kennedy to Reagan held the USSR at bay. And how about Yeltsin? He stood up to the tanks when the Russian generals did, in fact, send them in...after staging a coup against Gorby. If not for Yeltsin's moment of courage, the Russians might be in a different place.

[DrWeird]

32. I seem to remember a failed coup...

having something to do with it.

[T Town Jake]

88. Then you remember badly...as usual. (n/t)

[pretzel4gore]

33. people forget why the 'Soviet Union' even came to exist!

out of the horrible chaos of 1914-18 war (a war inspired by aristocratic avarice) the dream of a society ruled by the working people with the 'needs of the many' trumping the 'priviledges of the few' somehow got going in russia....the dream of course went off the rails almost immediately, with the bolsheviks murdering the russian royal family, widespread civil war, famine then the death of lenin, and trotsky (who might have saved the dream) acting sorta like john kerry has (trotsky went on vacation at a critical time just as stalin consolidated power etc)....the dream hardly survived stalin's murderous rule (1/3 of the russian intelligensia, or university graduate class, died under stalin's rule, plus uncounted millions of ordinary people)....even then, the soviet union, a society that suffered like few in history, developed nuclear weapons by 1949 and sent men into space before the US did....if you want to get an idea of what the USSR was, listen to the soviet (which means 'workers') national anthem, it must be the most tragically beautiful piece of music ever....

[brentspeak]

35. Trotsky wasn't a whole lot less murderous than Stalin

It was Trotsky who began the Soviet tradition of the "bullet in the back of the head" when he formed the "blocking units" during the civil war. His idea of maintaining morale was to execute any and all Bolshevik soldiers who he and his henchmen deemed "cowardly", "beourgoisis", or "lagging in revolutionary zeal." Nice guy. May he rot in hell with Lenin, Stalin, and the whole lot of them.

[pretzel4gore]

53. i don't know....

trotsky was a thinker and a philisophical type, like lenin he understoood that brutal forces crush much innocence when loosened but i doubt trotsky (or lenin, maybe even stalin) killed for anything outside of hoping to make things better for the people they idealized, the poor and working people...the other thing here is that the USSR has been so thoroughly demonized that everything connected to it also gets thrown out....if, as you say, trotsky was such a venal horrible man why did he go on vacation while stalin, whom he knew was a brute, held the stage? maybe trotsky assumed that regardless of their differences their cause still made them allies(?)...like i say, i don't know, but i see what america has become in just a few years, and americans haven't gone through a fraction of what the russians did.....so maybe have pity on trotsky, lenin, even stalin (stalin's grandfather was sold like a cow for gods sake)...

[Menshevik]

65. Stalin sent millions of people to gulags

he doesn't deserve any pity

[DemocratSinceBirth]

69. Should I Have Pity On Stalin For Having His Goons Put A Pick Axe Through

Trotsky's brain?

[American Tragedy]

80. What a BULLSHIT argument. I can't believe you are defending these people

So the early Soviet communists, many of whom were affluent members of the university class, were responsible for the deaths of millions of people, most of them poor and working people; but, as their propaganda clearly states, it was just in order to make things better for them. They butchered for The People!

That sounds about as credible and meaningful as Japan's stated aim to save China and the rest of Southeast Asia from Western cultural imperialism when they invaded Manchuria. Or America's liberation of Iraq. Can't they see that they're being killed for their own good?

Many of the most evil men and women on Earth were 'thinkers' and 'philosophical types'. Many were brilliant and charming and attractive, and said and did universally admirable things, and you naively allow that to cloud your judgment. Yet the hard facts of their cruelty and fraud remain.

Historically, individuals and organizations have always been able to come up with some moral rationale for their own actions, both for themselves and for the judgment of the world. This applies to Bush, Trotsky, Stalin, Khrushchev, LBJ, Nixon, Hitler, Raygun, etc.

And you're right, those Russians did go through hell and it may be considered a viable explanation (not excuse) for their behavior and ideology. You could say the exact same of Adolf Hitler's early life. But most human beings who endure terrible experiences do not emerge as tyrants and killers, and though we are obligated to study history and understand, we should never excuse or glorify those who do.

Finally, did it ever occur to you that Trotsky was just plain scared? I would have been.

[sergei kirov]

73. soviet

The word soviet is defined as an organ of power in the USSR or as an opinion given to someone. It comes from the verb sovetovat' which means to advise.

[T Town Jake]

90. That's more of a tribute to the resilience of the Russian people...

...not the awful Soviet system they endured for 70 years.

[tsuki]

34. Afghanistan.

[Lefty48197]

36. It was Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II, and the Polish people

They worked long and hard. They spent lots of time in prison, and under government surveillance. They never gave up hope, and eventually, they won their freedom. At about the same time, Hungary and Czechslovakia were gaining freedoms too. Those countries turned out to be the foundation that held up the USSR, whose demise should have been predictable (in hindsight).

[Donna Zen]

40. Ding ding ding!

Lech Walesa with the help of US organized labor

A Polish pope

And....Glasnost (I agree with you but would like to add this) Once people traveled they brought back ideas and the White Album.

Political change must begin within the hearts and minds of the people.

Yes, the arms race, the economy, and the environment (Chernobyl) are factors driving the discontent, but the big 3 offered the alternative.

[Hobarticus]

39. Gorbachev admitted to Reagan that Vietnam bankrupted the USSR...

Which is surprising, given that you'd think Afghanistan would've been the key factor.

Reagan just happened to be in charge at the moment. Dumb luck for a dumb mean bastard.

[jmatthan]

41. The two words miissing in all the replies so far

Nothing to do with Reagan or the Arms Race. It was the concern for Gorbachov's concern for his fellow men and women.

Perestroika and Glasnost


http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/perest.html

Perestroika

From modest beginnings at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in 1986, perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev's program of economic, political, and social restructuring, became the unintended catalyst for dismantling what had taken nearly three-quarters of a century to erect: the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist totalitarian state. More.....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost

Glasnost

Glasnost (Russian: гла́сность) was one of Mikhail Gorbachev's policies introduced to the Soviet Union in 1985. The term is a Russian word for "publicity", "openness". Gorbachev's goal in undertaking glasnost was in part to pressure conservatives within the party who opposed his policies of economic restructuring, or perestroika. More....

Jacob Matthan
Oulu, Finland

[Menshevik]

42. eh?

Several replies mentioned glasnost and perestroika

[stepnw1f]

45. Thank You Homies!!!

If there be any good books out there to read for myself on this subject please let me know.:toast: :thumbsup:

[T Town Jake]

89. Odd...I've seen those two words all over the place in this thread...

...inaccurate as they are as a descriptive of what actually brought the Soviet system down.

In any event, I would like to ask you: have the Russians returned the land they "annexed" after the unprovoked 1940 invasion of your country (Finland) yet? Just curious...

[liberalpragmatist]

44. Economic Stagnation + Arrogance + Military Drain

The country was suffering from intense social discontent, particularly among youth. THis was backdrop to economic stagnation and inefficiency at home. Although virtually everyone was fed and had a job, people wanted more understandably.

In international affairs, Moscow was at a low ebb. Even under Reagan, the US was seen by many in the world as a more sympathetic world power. The soviets claimed the support of the world but grew despised, especially after the Afghan War.

That war drained resources and was a morale-crusher.

Finally, Gorbachev came to the seen. He attempted to save the USSR by opening up economically and rethinking Communist ideology. He remained a Communist but believed the system had to be rethought. He also thought it could be done within a democratic framework. However, what happened was that the system couldn't be fixed and the country collapsed.

Unlike much of this board, I do give Reagan some credit, but it's not where most Conservatives claim. It's possible that Reagan's intense military spending kept the Soviets from competing. But I think far more important were the arms agreements of the late 1980s, which Reagan did over the howls of protest of Conservative Hawks. Reagan continued to have an element of liberal idealism in him, believing that an arms agreement could end ALL nuclear weaponry.

Not that I would have voted for Reagan. It's just that I do think he played some part - just not the part that Conservatives generally give him credit for.

And I do think Gorby was FAR more consequential. Had Gorbachev not come to power, the USSR would have still collapsed, but perhaps not as (relatively) peacefully as it did and probably much later.

[frustrated_lefty]

46. Economic collapse e/m

[LimpingLib]

48. Spending the nations work on military adventures, armaments ,etc.

Why what our nation is doing.

$400 billion "defence" budget , $50 billion homeland "security" budget , $100 billion plus on additional yearly war spending , $100 billion plus on CIA / FBI / federal prisons (out of taxpayrs pockets, the money made on selling drugs adds a lot more).

By the time subtract from our revenue stream through corperate welfare , subsidies, loopholes , etcwe notice where all our spending is going towards.

We have a poor and middle class funding this crap till we have a massive underpeforming economy (amazing considering the advances we have made , we should be a utopia by now)combined with unsustainable government and consumer debt and ..well.... history will be made.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

50. Their system was ultimately unsustainable

largely because the Soviet Union was made up of 150 nationalities, many of whom had once been independent and did NOT want to be under Russian domination. It was kept in place through brutal suppression of what was called "bourgeois nationalism" (wanting to be Latvian or Armenian instead of "Soviet"), and when Gorbachev finally loosened things up, first the Baltic republics and then the others took advantage of it to launch mostly peaceful revolutions.

[LisaL]

54. That's what I think too. It was made up of different republics,

consisting of people apparently hating each other. It fell apart without a dictator. Kind of like Iraq is most likely going to have a civil war without Saddam.

[robbedvoter]

51. Hollywood. Coca Cola. Jeans. Bread. the Internet

Same stuff that would have taked care of Saddam - sans the killings.

[LisaL]

55. Almost nobody in the Soviet Union even had computers

and internet at the time it fell apart. As for bread, I am sorry, bread?
WTF does that mean?
And if coca-cola, jeans and Hollywood could destroy an empire, US would be gone a long time ago.

[robbedvoter]

60. Bread= long lines for food. You miss my point.

The Coca Cola, jeans and Hollywood made the west attractive and spurred people to change their f*ed up world.
True that the internet plays a more important role now.
In the past, one computer generate a million xeroxes.
US empire is not in danger from Coca Cola. But if the Ukraine election gets overturned, that's a whiff of dangerous temptation for us...

[UpsideDownFlag]

56. the war in afghanistan, combined with the arms race. they ran out of cash

and it will happen to us, too.

[LimpingLib]

57. Dont worry..Rome fell and not only did human life continue BUT

it was a fuck load better.Turtle Island (North America) will still function and so will the inhabitants.

One thing that our historians bias is that empires are somehow the be all and end all. Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.Im not one.

[PurityOfEssence]

58. Socialism is premised upon the perfectability of mankind, and man sucks

Any takers?

[LimpingLib]

59. The Soviet , Chinese, North Korean example?

If endless wars ,foreign military aid , murdering populations , lack of any civil rights whatsoever , etc. is what socalism is then Im sure we admit man is even less perfect than we all thought.

[robbedvoter]

61. Totalitarian regimes - from left or right - are just as crappy

It is irrelevant if they start wars or arrest you without a warrant in the name of God or Marx.
Democracy is good enough for this imperfect human being.

[LisaL]

62. I would like to live in a democracy as well.

:eyes:

[Selatius]

63. The USSR was doomed because of Stalin's policies

This is just my opinion, but I think the USSR's days were numbered when Stalin instituted his "command economy" in the 1930s. It predated the Cold War itself, and it crippled the USSR.

Basically, the means of production was taken out of the control of the locals and placed in the hands of the Kremlin. As a result, the system no longer was held liable to market forces, and there was no more market discipline to encourage efficiency. This meant that it was nearly always sluggish when it came to the people's needs when compared to less controlled economies.

The Kremlin dictated what was produced and how much was produced, not the people themselves. Decisions were often made in spite of the situation on the ground, and many were made with political calculations in mind, not necessarily what was needed and necessary to ensure a healthy economy. As a result, any spending on the civilian markets was all but wasted by the sheer inefficiency of the system or the incompetence of the policymakers as well as corruption.

In order to wage war, one needs a strong economic base to support a large, powerful military force. The USSR's situation was this towards the end of the Cold War: The economy was stagnating under Stalin's grossly inefficient command economy, and in order to compensate in the arms race with the US, they had to devote more of their GDP to defense than the US ever did just to maintain parity because their economy's growth was being stunted.

Stalin was strong enough and forceful enough to make the command economy work, but later leaders were never able to command as much absolute power as he once did. The economy only worked because Stalin beat it into working. When he died, the order he maintained went with it. No one could have made the command economy sing unless they were willing to be as brutal as he once was.

Gorbachev tried to devolve control of the economy back towards the people, trying to put the means of production more in the hands of the people (perestroika). He knew that the USSR could not go down this road forever; it was simply unsustainable. Changes had to be made if the nation would be able to maintain its position in the world. Stuctural reforms were needed, and he tried to make them.

It was Gorbachev who tried to freeze the development of more medium range nuclear ballistic missiles, and it was Gorbachev who tried to cut back military spending (unsuccessfully) and throw the revenue back into the civilian sector. He had to fight the conservative hardliners and the generals who would not hear it. They used Reagan's military buildup as an excuse to resist.

Perestroika, coupled with Glasnost, reawakened nationalism in many people in the USSR. Where Gorbachev tried to give an inch, the people tried to take a mile. No system be it corporatism under Hitler or authoritarian socialism under Stalin will long endure because it will always be associated with the tyrants and therefore rejected. Nations such as Poland, East Germany, the Ukraine, and many others immediately began agitating for more freedom and independence from Kremlin control and eventually broke away.

The end had come for the USSR. The hardliners, realizing Gorbachev had lost control, briefly overthrew him, and they were then quickly overthrown by Yeltsin. The Soviet Union officially disappeared that same year on Dec. 26, 1991. The US was the last man standing.

[LynnTheDem]

64. In a word; over-reach.

Like the US is currently doing.

[AP]

66. Because socialism doesn't create a good incentive for progress.

And progress is what cultural, political, and economic wealth is founded upon. Without the strength born of wealth, they were doomed.

[Lexingtonian]

68. Jimmy Carter, Helmut Schmidt, and Josef Stalin

Stalin took the country from an agrarian society to an industrial one, but there was so much detritus and overemphasis on creating military hardware that the economy was grossly out of whack at producing what was needed even at the best of times. His successors failed to improve anything and made up for domestic economic/managerial failure by, well, tribute payments from the Eastern European countries they occupied.

It worked well enough that Brezhnev laid off their space programs and used the materials and technology to close the ICBM gap the Americans created during the late '60s. The Soviet economy and internal organization created/defined by Stalin really left the Soviet state with no role but to wage war against the West.

Intercontinental nuclear war was so much of a lose-lose proposition by the mid-'70s that both sides quietly gave up on it. But there was still a way for Soviet designs on western Europe to work- a kind of nuclear blitzkrieg on the Continent while using the ICBMs to threaten enough destruction to keep the US out. So the USSR built up their SS-7 and SS-20 short and medium range nuclear rocket corps. NATO really didn't want to arm up its half of the Continent too much and so Carter and Schmidt got together in 1977 and figured out the minimal deterrent: 100-some mobile Pershing II missiles stationed along the Rhein to comprehensively nuke out the ground forces and bases that such an attack had to begin from within 5-10 minutes of detection of attack, far too quickly for the Russians to play nuclear blackmail politics.

Once the mobile Pershing IIs were deployed (1979) the Soviet military really had no ideas of what to do or try next. They hated the Pershing IIs terribly but knew it neutralized all their remaining viable options against NATO. The Kremlin spent 1977-1980 ginning up the anti-nuclear power movement in West Germany mostly, via a lot of Fifth Columnists, and then trying to convert these environmental activists to block more American nuclear weaponry deployment (the Pershings). Didn't really work, but the Green Parties of northern Europe are something of a spinoff.

Afghanistan then became the next target, because Something Had To Be Done in the way of imperial expansion with Europe frustratingly off the table. It wasn't a good target, but they thought it was an easy one. Well, Jimmy Carter signed the executive order telling the CIA to turn the country into hell for the Russians a few days before leaving office.

Reagan found himself stuck with a Soviet Union that was grossly dysfunctional, that had no plans or ideas left, that had only geriatric rulers, and was stuck fighting a war gone bad in a country that was economically and strategically worthless. All he and 'Herb' Bush really had to do was wait for a few more of the old fellows who held the scheme together to die. Moron that Reagan was, he scared a few of these alcohol-induced brain rotted guys enough one time in 1983 with stupid remarks and infortuitous miscellaneous things coinciding that the Kremlin geezers almost reached for the Red Button. (Sounds like Republicans today, come to think of it.) Then he got Gorbachev and Reykjavik, and got in one bluff (Star Wars) that may have prolonged rather than shortened the Russian game.

You don't credit the rooster (Reagan) for the dawn. No matter the crowing.

[From the south]

76. Um.... Pershing 2's were deployed starting in 1984

http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/artifacts/RM-pershing2.htm

[rfkrfk]

70. The second generation figures it out.

If you're not part of the elite,
you live in a one-room-flat
with nineteen others.

[Pepperbelly]

71. UFOs and the Beatles. nt

[sergei kirov]

72. multiple reasons for fall and nothing to do with Reagan

The fall of the USSR would be better suited for a major paper than a short reply but here goes.
1. Gorbachev's (henceforth referred to as MSG) unwillingness to use force and the army against the people.
2. The stagnation of the economy and the failure to raise living standards from the Breshnev period. Unfortunately the destruction of the USSR has raised living standards for only a portion of the population and worsened living standards for many.
3. The ethnic problem: MSG along with many leading Communist party members of his era actually believed the propaganda of the USSR that the various nationalities were living happily together. When many groups realized that the army would not be used to brutality crush them strong popular movements sprung up for ethnic independence.
4. The weight of supporting a near first world military with a third world economy.
5. The inability of a more "liberal" Communist party to come to terms with their past and to create a unifying ideology.
6. The extreme difficulty of allowing political freedoms in a country that had been built on absolute rule and is now unfortunately rapidly heading back to that point.
7. The citizens of the USSR had lost all confidence in their government and official news sources to the point that even accurate reporting was considered propaganda or worse. (Those of us who hate Fox news keep the faith eventually reality and the news will be so dynamically opposed that it will be exposed for the propaganda that it is.)

[JPJones]

75. People don't enjoy living under the iron boot of tyranny

except in our country.

[noonwitch]

78. The Soviet Army would not fire on protesters anymore

When the old-liners kidnapped Gorby and Yeltsin holed up in the parliament building, the army was no longer interested in maintaining the old guard and shooting at the people who gathered to support Yeltsin and Gorby. They also hadn't been paid in quite a while.

Reagan, like all cold war presidents, played a part, but ultimately it was the russian people that threw off the USSR.

[Zynx]

79. Economic situation is unsalvagable after the 1970's.

Essentially by the 1980's, the USSR has two options:

1. Eventually collapse.

2. Start war with NATO and see what happens.

The cultural infiltration argument ignores the China parallel. China has accepted Western goods without falling apart in the slightest, and the Communist Party and the military still run that country, even if it is much more fascist (by definition) than Communist. Chinese watch American movies and wear American clothes, but the nation isn't going anywhere.

Had the Soviet Union reformed its society to fix the demographic issue and reformed its economy along the general lines of what Deng did in China, or what Malenkov was suggesting in the USSR, the USSR would still be around as a solid entity today, even if it probably wouldn't be that much of an enemy, or that Communist.

[KnowerOfLogic]

81. Economic implosion- do not believe the "Reagan won the Cold

War" crap. Communism + totalitarianism was bound to fail sooner or later.

[Yupster]

83. It was an economic failure

which meant the USSR was unsusatainable in the long term

Reagan deserves credit for increasing the arms race which pushed their economy beyond its limits.

Decisive or not? Who knows?

Imortant or not? Who knows.

I was in Germany at the time and I remember how much the Germans hated Reagan. Cute little buttions that said "Nuklear - nein danke"

[AngryAmish]

85. It was demographics and technology

Demographics - low birth rate meant mothers freaked when their only sons were going off to war in Afghanistan. Russian widows/mothers who could not find out about their boys in Afghanistan were one of the leading forces that lead to Perostroyka. A nation of only children tend to be very risk averse.

Technology - VOA and videos of Dallas (for example) gave the folks a chance to see what color the grass was in the west.

[T Town Jake]

86. The "Primary Reason" was the internal contradictions...

...of the Communist System itself. Communism is largely a Ponzi scheme when it comes to economics; and it tends to lend itself to the most intolerant "leader" types when put into practice on the social level, like it's evil twin Fascism.
Classic Marxian doctrine postulated an eventual "withering away of the State"; communism as practiced in Russia circa 1917-1991 was predicated on "the State" remaining all-powerful forever.
But what really ruined, in the long run, the Soviet Union was a little-heralded event that took place right here in the United States in 1971: when the Nixon administration removed the U.S. from the Gold Standard and allowed the dollar to "float," all other world-wide currencies had to "float" as well. This doomed the long-term valuation of the Ruble. And that devaluation is what ultimately, twenty years hence, led to the collapse of the communist system in Russia - not all this "Gorbachev" worship you hear here or "Reagan" praising that the freepers would treat you to if you asked the same question over there. It was bigger than one person, or one generation. Harry Truman deserves a fair share of the credit as do many of his successors, Democratic and Repuke, but, in the end, it was Tricky Dick who struck the deepest, and ultimately fatal, blow, believe it or not. And the irony is, it's doubtful either he or anyone else realized it at the time.

[FullCountNotRecount]

91. The secret funding of student movements in the 1960s

rebellious youth rebelled against their parents and communism. Reagan had nothing to do with that. Prague Spring helped as did Hungarian uprisings earlier. The inspiration of American Vietnam protestors emboldened eastern Europe youth (and they liked our jeans, too).