NationStates Jolt Archive

I am writing a major essay on the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was wondering what you people say the main factors that led it's collapse are? It would be nice to see some other opinions in order to get some ideas.

Well, an extremely high defense budget probably had something to do with it.

They spent too much on the military.

And communism really doesn't work well with people, because we're too damn corrupt.

It collapsed when the USSR thrusted it's erect penis into a large elongated carrot, attached to a piece of fruit which was balanced on a a large elongated carrot attached to a piece of fruit...

read michael moore's "stupid white men" he explains how the american government cheated the soviet union into bankcruptcy.

There were a lot of factors, most of them economic. One that no one has mentioned yet is that the various 'Republics' in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were composed of diverse ethnic and linguistic groups, not all of whom got along with each other. Then there was the rampant corruption and in-fighting... But I think that it's generally agreed that the main issue was that the USSR ran out of money and food.

I am writing a major essay on the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was wondering what you people say the main factors that led it's collapse are? It would be nice to see some other opinions in order to get some ideas.
1. Internal contradictions

2. Insupportable arms race with the US ( particularly after the "Star Wars" initiative ).

3. Afghanistan and the expenses attendant thereto.

4. Expense of supporting Cuba and other "satellite states."

5. Expense and other burdens of supporting "wars of national liberation."

6. Ineffective process for selection of national leadership.

7. Insistence on justifying everything as somehow supporting or arising out of "the revolution" and socialism.

8. Ineffective processes for national renewal.

9. Supression of ideas not conforming to ideology.

10. Lack of freedom of thought, speech, and religion.