The real fall of Soviet Union started in 1989, when all the allies of USSR (Warsaw Pact members)

started

to come out of communist form of government and peaceful revolutions sparkled all across Eastern

Europe. Later, On Christmas Day 1991, Soviet Flag flew over Kremlin in Moscow for last time ending 69

years of world's largest Empire comprising 15 Nations.

Some of Notable Reasons for Soviet Collapse are:

Mikhail Gorbachev's Dual Policies: Gorbachev introduced two sets of policies that he hoped would help

the USSR become a more prosperous, productive nation.

1. Perestroika: It refers to economic reforms enacted by Gorbachev in 1987, in an attempt to reverse the

Soviet Union's sliding economy. Some free market elements were added, but not enough to bring about

reform. The free-market policies were enough to result in failed businesses, but shortages became

common as price controls were kept in place. With price ceilings limiting profits, the incentive to produce

sufficient quantities was removed.

2. Glasnost: With the Soviet public becoming more dissatisfied with their secretive government,

Gorbachev attempted to compensate by committing to openness and transparency with the media.

However, this backfired as the public learned of long-standing political cover ups in leadership, social and

health and the true extent of national economic problems.

3. Economic Stagnation: Size of Soviet Union was far larger than present day continents like N.America,

S. America and Europe. It has reached to a size that it became very cumbersome to continue state

planning. The massive and intricate Soviet economy became too large to manage by state planners, who

were unwilling to give more autonomy at mid-managerial level and localized level. This resulted in failure

of economic policies which failed to respond timely to continuous changes and provide scope for

innovation.
4. Lack of Decentralization: Soviet Union did allowed individual republics more autonomy but it still

withheld tax revenues. This lacked republics to exercise their Autonomy.

Lack of Proper Economic Incentives: State Planned Economic system enjoyed benefits for tax revenue and

Industrialization but lacked in providing sufficient incentives to encourage innovation and productivity.

5. Nationalism (Local): Some political blunders have resulted in decline of public perception on Soviet

Union and it resulted in growing Nationalism in Republics such as Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and

Lithuania.

6. Ethnic Differences: Russia was clearly the favored and dominant state, while others were oppressed.

Russians viewed themselves as superior. As a result, non-Russians were quick to separate from the Soviet

Union when it entered troubled waters. Friendlier relationship with USA mainly in 1980's under the

leadership of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev resulted in lack of motivation among public to

strengthen themselves against American Threat.

Added to these Excessive Military Focus to keep pace with USA has resulted into grater diversion of

public revenue towards Military Production rather than Development Schemes.

USSR was grossly inefficient system in its core so any negative external factor (e.g. low oil prices) just

speeds up inevitable collapse of the system. Whole soviet ideology was built on top of obsession with

economic equality. Such ideologies kill any motivation of individuals to work efficiently. Soviets worked

really hard killing any individualism and replacing it with collectivism. So as a result interests of the

state was of higher importance than interests of individuals (completely forgetting that it’s individuals

who keep economy going).

As a result of all of that, soviet people were poorer than US people. You may argue it with many numbers

but just one single fact of existence of exit visa inevitably proves I’m absolutely right.
There is no reason to cease one of most fundamental human rights (freedom of movement) by

introducing exit visa except preventing soviet citizens to see that capitalism is better for ordinary people.

By depriving people from freedom of movement, soviet state considered its own people as slaves. As

you may see, it’s obvious why this system couldn’t last forever (i.e. economic inefficiency comes from the

core of soviet communist ideology). China was smarter than USSR, they avoided its own collapse by

gradually adopting capitalism. Collapse of USSR was not a local event. Whole world shifted towards

economic liberalization. For example, Sweden experienced economic liberalization in 90s.

References:

Blumenstock, J., Toomet, O., Ahas, R., & Saluveer, E. (2015). Neighborhood and network segregation:

Ethnic homophily in a silently separate society. Proc. NetMob.

Paul-Hus, A., Bouvier, R. L., Ni, C., Sugimoto, C. R., Pislyakov, V., & Larivière, V. (2015). Forty years of

gender disparities in Russian science: a historical bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics, 102(2),

1541-1553.

Slade, G., & Light, M. (2015). Crime and criminal justice after communism: Why study the post-Soviet

region?.