The Causes of the Soviet Union's Collapse
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union a great deal of debate has ensued as to what caused the Soviet empire's demise both within the former Soviet Union and amongst scholars worldwide. Various theories have been published amongst scholars attempting to explain and pinpoint the flaws in the Soviet system and the forces that drove the Soviet Union to a brisk and catastrophic collapse. Economic weakness is commonly argued to be the cause of the collapse but others argue that political decisions made by Gorbachev and his supporters should bear most of the blame for the collapse. Another subset of scholars argue that the diverse ethnic composition of the Soviet empire lead to divided loyalties amongst the Soviet satellite states and created fatal fault lines within the empire that Soviet leaders simply underestimated. Others have put forth the theory that the moral consensus amongst the elite class favouring the communist system broke down and lead to a complete Soviet Collapse. The collapse of the Soviet empire is one the most dramatic and consequential historical events to transpire in the last 30 years. Understanding the collapse of the Soviet Union can contribute to our understanding of how the complex interplay between empire, economics, politics, ethnicity, morality can shape and drive historical events.
The most widely known theory for the Soviet empire's demise claims that the economic collapse experienced by the Soviet Union was the central cause of the Soviet empire's collapse. Alexander Dallin and his wife and co-author Gail W. Lapidus are two prominent proponents of this theory. Dallin was born in Russia in 1924 and eventually settled in the United States after his fami...
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The overall collapse of the Communist regime came rather quickly, but there were underlying causes of the collapse that were apparent during the preceding decades. On the surface, the 1970s looked good for the Soviet Union. A lot of certain aspects were still going the Soviet Unions way. However, in 1975, the Soviet Union’s power peaked. In 1975, the Soviet Union’s power began to dwindle and there were six underlying causes of the collapse that can be dated back to that year. In this essay I will discuss these six causes and how they helped bring about the actual collapse of the Soviet regime.
The cold war was failed by the Soviet Union for many reasons, including the sudden collapse of communism (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) This sudden collapse of communism was brought on ultimately by internal factors. The soviet unions president Gorbachev’s reforms: glasnost (openness) and perestroika (political reconstructering) ultimately caused the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Gorbachev’s basics for glasnost were the promotion of principles of freedom to criticize; the loosening of controls on media and publishing; and the freedom of worship. His essentials of perestroika were, a new legislature; creation of an executive presidency; ending of the ‘leading role’ of the communist party; allowing state enterprises to sell part of their product on the open market; lastly, allowing foreign companies to own Soviet enterprises (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Gorbachev believed his reforms would benefit his country, but the Soviet Union was ultimately held together by the soviet tradition he was trying to change. The Soviet Union was none the less held together by “…powerful central institutions, pressure for ideological conformity, and the threat of force.
The end of the Cold War was one of the most unexpected and important events in geopolitics in the 20th century. The end of the Cold War can be defined as the end of the bipolar power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had existed since the end of the World War II. The conclusion of the Cold War can be attributed to Gorbachev’s series of liberalizations in the 1980s, which exposed the underlying economic problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc states that had developed in the 1960s and 70s and prevented the USSR from being able to compete with the US as a superpower. Nevertheless, Reagan’s policies of a renewed offensive against communism, Gorbachev’s rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine and the many nationalities
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The Soviet Union, which was once a world superpower in the 19th century, saw itself in chaos going into the 20th century. These chaoses were marked by the new ideas brought in by the new leaders who had eventually emerged into power. Almost every aspect of the Soviet Union crumbled during this period, both politically and socially, as well as the economy. There were underlying reasons for the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eventually Eastern Europe. The economy is the most significant aspect of every government.
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