Title states all. It can be multiple reasons or just a few. I've twiddled to down mainly to 3 reasons, "roughly" that is.

The Stalin personality cult that would subjugate various Soviet leaders to being wild conspiracy theorists and untrustworthy of themselves, their inner groups, intelligence, other leaders of the USSR, etc.

The inability for the Soviet Union to give more independence or political freedom to it's satellite states, and freaking the fuck out when states weren't following the strict set of guidelines from Moscow, (also party leadership changing the internal politics and Moscow relationship of it's satellite states every time a Soviet Leader died/changed their mind on how to operate it's states, Belarus comes to mind.)

Finally, the economy, and the Soviets too fraught with conspiracy to adopt to the global economy when the world started to surpass them on many economic fronts, along with a bloated military budget.

These are my reasons, I akin this degradation like a large column of marble representing USSR and the issues that toiled the USSR like many hammers and chisels, some are bigger than others but ultimately no one hammer or chisel brought an end to the first great socialist experiment. Thoughts?

-7DeadlyFetishes

  • markersmarx [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I think there were several underlining economic issues that causes the Collapse:

    • Lack of foreign currency reserves, which were need to buy raw material. I read somewhere that in exchange for letting Poland initiate reforms, the USSR got foreign currency aid. Once the eastern bloc started to fall, it became harder to access foreign markets and maintain foreign currency reserves for trading
    • Another issue was the informal economy that existed between state companies in the USSR. Since the government frankly failed at properly allocation resources , state companies would trade certain resources to get the other resources/items they need to fulfill their manufacturing quotas. This lead to mining companies requesting extra stuff like leather or rubber that they didn't really need, but could exchange for stuff like wheels or trucks that they need. As you might infer, this lead to chronic material and good shortages.
    • Fraud. Simple many individuals in the party were corrupt. The move to a open economy allow these people to cash in their ill gotten gains. See Soviet Union Cotton Scandel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inomjon_Usmonxo%CA%BBjayev Prior to dissolution, many criminal party members were just hording their wealth in gold or other precious objects. There's problem many there reasons but these are just a few major one.
    • _else [she/her,they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      yeah, if you don't actually make people equal, you get people out to get theirs. funny how that works. you can't half-ass being the good guy, even if that's closer than most governments have ever gotten.