Firstly, USSR had a weak economy that was not practical. The USSR government had too much control over factories, farms, taking off profits of the locals, causing a low standard of living and a low salary. Also, the workforce was unmotivated with low productivity due to lack of opportunities for career development.Furthermore, USSR had to support E.Europe my maintaining it military in E,Europe to ensure communism remains. Hence, since USSR could only trade with E.Europe, ( low consumer goods , lack of resources )it can’t compete the global economy.

Secondly , there was opportunity to communism in E.Europe. The E.Europe was causing problems and became more rebellious, as they despised communism and Wanted to strive for freedom, ultimately leading to opposition, brining trouble to USSR.

Thirdly, based on the Brezhnev’s doctrine, all E.Europe countries must be communist. Hence the USSR government had too much spend resources and money in order to maintain all the communist countries, causing a decline of precious resources such as arms and food, drained resources, when looking over all their satellite states.

Lastly, due to the ageing leadership where the average age of political leaders are 60 years old, they were conservative, hardline and unwilling to change. The USSR leaders did not choose to remain relevant especially when the E.Europe had become more demanding and challenging to deal with. Hence, this causes the USSR leaders to be unable to plan effectively coupled with slow decision making, causing a lack of efficiency when responding to crisis.

-Gorbachev's reforms:

Glasnost (Gorbachev opens up freedom of speech, criticism to C+, decrease in censorship, allow formation of opp. parties) -> encourages public to lose trust in C+ and USSR

-USSR'S decline:

1 Weakening economy

2 Poor standard of living in USSR

3 Burdens of having to support other E.Eur countries

4 Brezhnev's Doctrine

5 Aging C+ leadership

Reason why USSR/ Soviets collapsed:

• Started with Lithuania (one of the soviet republics out of the 15) demanded for its independence from the USSR but Gorbachev rejected

• BUT… by March 1990 Lithuania declared its independence

• When Gorbachev wanted USSR to continue to exist, including the US and the West -> a breakup would lead to instability

• HOWEVER… Soviet people did not want communist party to rule USSR

  -> the communist party in USSR was no longer relevant

  -> party was losing power and influence on the people

• Opposition leader, Boris Yeltsin was elected as the president of Russia (biggest republic)

• Yeltsin suspended the communist party

• Leaders of 3 soviet republics signed the belavezha accords which dissolved USSR

• 21 Dec 1991 all representatives of republics except Georgia signed a protocol to dissolve USSR

• 25 Dec 1991, Gorbachev resigned as the President of the USSR

• USSR COLLAPSED!

Soviet Union collapsed because:

1. USSR’s weak economy

   -> government had a lot of control over factories and farms, giving them the final say in what they do and how they spend the money/earn the money

   -> as the soviet economy grew and expanded, the government struggled to cope with increasing demands causing them to crack under the pressure

   -> gov. made poor decisions as they were stressed

   -> citizens no longer trusted them as they were facing economic crisis because of the government’s poor decision making

2. Poor standard of living in USSR

   -> money was prioritised for industry and military spending over the well-being of the citizens

   -> welfare of citizens were neglected, resulting in hatred towards the government as they wished to have a higher standard of living (eg. have cars, telephones, televisions) like USA, jealous of other countries’ high standard of living

• Gorbachev’s reforms - by allowing the formation of opposition parties, this allows more people to go against communism and they will not support the communist government. This means that they will eventually overthrow the communist government/vote against the communist government. The lack of support for communism will result in the USSR’s collapse. Allowing openness in USSR can show the people that the conditions in USSR are not good, which can also make them realise that communism is not good. This makes them not support communism and push for democracy.

• Allowing Eastern Europe to choose their own governments - by allowing E.Europe to choose their government by elections, this allowed countries to choose democracy over the forced communism rule, and breaking free from the USSR’s control. This action of breaking away from the USSR by other countries influenced the Republics of USSR to also break away from USSR. Since the various Republics of USSR are choosing democracy over communism and are breaking away from the USSR, there will no longer be a USSR, thus causing the fall of USSR

- Zi Le

Financial burdens from fighting in proxy wars and supporting allies through the form of money, technical equipment, advisors, food and medics, supplies -> increase freshly during war in Afghanistan 1979 -> tied down by Afghan fighters for 10 years -> USSR invested too much in military power such as nuclear weapon programme

US influence let Soviet people realise their poor standard of living -> cars, telephones, tv, washing machines -> against government way of prioritising industry and military spending over consumer goods -> this also took away education, research and development in universities

Worker wages not increasing -> compared to other non communist countries, soviet life was shit

Undeluluing the work force

Realised system had a lot of corruption -> bribes, personal connections -> wages tightly controlled -> limited incentives and people who complain get arrested by secret police..

GIMMIE IMPROVEMENTS 😡😡😡

Cuz economy die die, people angry angry, USSR die die

Clara

Soviet Union collapsed because of USSRs decline and Gorbachevs reforms

• USSR had a weak economy, not practical, too much gov control over the factories, farms

• The people in USSr has poor standards of living, not enough goods, inflation, low salary, people even came in drunk as a sign of retaliation

• USSR had many burdens, needed to support Eastern Europe in Cold War, maintain military power to still control Eastern Europe and prevent it from becoming democratic, traded with eastern empire, barter trade, not useful at all, can't compete in global economy,growing opposition in USSR

• Brezher's Doctrine, all European countries must be communist, maintained by government, there was uprising in Eastern Europe

• Ageing leadership in the soviet government, out of date, unwilling to change, stuck to old methods of governing, although society is becoming more demanding

• Gorbachevs reforms did more harm than good to USSR

• Glasnost: critics of soviet government allowed, less censorship, when people knew about the horrible past of Stalin and other evil deeds done by the government, became angry, started to form opposition parties, more resentful, lost confidence in the government, all wanted communism to end , put an end to the sufferin

• Perestroika: Gorbachev allowed private ownership of business, encouraging people to be creative, productive at work, but failed as the economy can’t improve if people don’t change, unemployment rates were high, standard of living decreased, shortage in goods, more people getting mad at government, rise in opposition parties

• Foreign policies: decrease in defence and arms spending after realising USSR was not on par to US, wanted to establish better relations with US, the realistic military exercise scared USSR, saw the need to be friendly with US, arms reduction, less tension, less CW tensions

• De Ideologisation: USSR no longer wanted to spread communism to other countries, do away with ideological competitions, essentially get rid of communism and democracy competitions, end arms race, no more proxy wars, did not get involved with E Europe anymore, communism in E Europe collapsed

  
  

Firstly, the USSR had a weak economy. Decades of central planning had led to inefficiency, stagnation, and shortages. The government spent excessively on the arms race and maintaining control over Eastern Europe, which placed a huge burden on the economy.

Secondly, there was growing political unrest and a desire for independence among the Soviet republics and satellite states. Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) unintentionally gave people the freedom to criticise the government and demand change, weakening central control.

Lastly, there was a shift away from centralised Moscow control, especially after Boris Yeltsin was elected President of Russia in 1991. Yeltsin made it clear that he saw no future for the USSR. As more republics declared independence, the Soviet Union disintegrated. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe was not the final blow, it was the internal rejection of union within the USSR that ultimately led to its fall.

Soviet Union collapsed mainly due to the changes Gorbachev introduced

1. Glasnost

   • Gorbachev allowed for freedom of speech

   • Decreased censorship, allowing the USSR’s past to be exposed on the media -> led to displeasure of people against the USSR and their ways

   • Allowed people to form opposition parties -> division in the government

   • 
     

   • People realised that USSR was backward, not as advanced as some other countries (eg.USA)
     -> people grew more critical and resentful of the Soviet government

   • Increase in uprising of people

2. Perestroika: “Restructuring”

• political & economic system in ussr

• Allowed private businesses/ ownership of business -> communism not so strict

3. Foreign policies

• decrease in defence/ arms spending

• Better relations with USA

• Reduction of arms

4. De-ideologisation

• ussr no longer wanted to spread communism to other countries

• End of arms race

• No more proxy wars in other countries

• Didn’t intervene in E.eur anymore

  • e.eur broke away from ussr

5. Collapse of communism in ussr

• elections could be held, people could vote

• Opposition parties protested against communist parties

1. They had a weak economy

• The command economy was not practical and was flawed

• There was also too much government over factories and farms etc.

• The Government decided how resources were used (fixed production quotas))

• Citizens were not allowed to start/own businesses

• Hence, the USSR’s economy stagnated

• The Soviet government did not make good decisions regarding the economy due to the lack of  information —>This lead to low productivity and wasted resources. (the people would falsify targets so that they would not be questioned by the government AND produced large quantities but poor quality goods

• So, the USSR had less funds to support its military programmes. The soviet military was no match for the US military.

• There was rising dissent against the government and the government loss the faith/trust of the people.

• Unhappy people (due to low wages/lack of incentives) threatened the governments authority.

1. Poor standard of living

• In USSR, production of consumer goods like clothing, food was low priority (arms race with US during the do,d war worsened the situation)

• 16% of its GNP spent on military

• There was a severe shortage of food and basic necessities (worsening the lives of the Soviet people)

• The people lost faith in the girls nest and did not be,unevenly in the communist way of life

• Hence, the USSR government saw the need to revamp the economy and improve the people’s lives

• The USSR government was under threat and might topple due to dissent (paging the way to ending the cold war)

etc.