I suppose that depends on what you think you know about the collapse, but it is a catchy title nonetheless of a very interesting piece from Foreign Policy that I thought some of you might be interested in.
Essentially, the author argues that the Soviet Union did not fall because of Western pressure or internal economic and/or political collapse. He points out that Reagan's efforts in the third world were peripheral at best, the Kremlin knew that Star Wars type technology was decades away from being operational, the war in Afghanistan was not particularly costly, the Soviet system - while unsustainable in the long run - was far away from a critical economic collapse and was actually growing, and decades of repression had silenced all the regime's enemies. According to the author, all of the reasons we in the West usually attribute to the fall are wrong. In fact, in the early 80's, the communist regime was the strongest it had ever been in Russia and oversaw "the realization of all major Soviet military and diplomatic desiderata,". "We tend to forget," historian Adam Ulam would note later, "that in 1985, no government of a major state appeared to be as firmly in power, its policies as clearly set in their course, as that of the USSR."
So what did cause the collapse of Soviet Russia? Conscience and a false sense of security. When Gorbachev and his supporters came to power, they were genuinely disgusted by the stagnation, corruption, and repression that had come to characterize the country. The regime was in such a strong position in Russia that he believed he could make serious reforms in an orderly way. However, the limited freedoms that his perestroika instituted opened the floodgates for rights activists at all levels to undermine the regime and the system, and Gorbachev did not have it in him to silence them in the traditional Soviet manner.
What do you guys think about the author's conclusion? It is quite heartening to think that even in the largest police state in the world, a leader emerged who was a good enough human being to put personal power aside for the betterment of his nation. At the end of the day, a regime that had achieved total and complete, even Orwellian, control over society was taken down from the inside. Big Brother could not silence the human spirit.LIKE VIRTUALLY ALL modern revolutions, the latest Russian one was started by a hesitant liberalization "from above" -- and its rationale extended well beyond the necessity to correct the economy or make the international environment more benign. The core of Gorbachev's enterprise was undeniably idealistic: He wanted to build a more moral Soviet Union.
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