The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was instituted in 1917 and later succeeded the Russian empire in 1921. The USSR did not last long; it collapsed in the year 1991. There were political, economical, and cultural reasons that led to the collapse of the USSR.
The political set up of the USSR was based on a philosophy of socialism; it eventually became a communism state. This state had a centralized political and economic system. The political leadership had total control over all matters taking place in the state, whether economical, social, or cultural.
USSR ended up becoming a dictatorial state. This led to internal resistances within the USSR. The assimilation policy put in place by the political leadership failed. More than half of the USSR citizens were of non-Russian ethnic groups. They were opposed to this policy. These resulted to resistance, which weakened the government leading to its collapse.
The economy of USSR crumbled. This facilitated the fall of the USSR. There was very poor economic planning. Most of the government’s funds were used for armament, leading to other important functions that needed funding unattended to. This resulted due to cold war between the USSR and the USA.
People of the USSR started experiencing poverty, shortage of basic needs such as education, health services. This resulted to resistances that involved people refusing to work, further weakening the economy. The USSR’s economy reached a point where the amount of income generated by the government could not support major functions in the government leading to its collapse.
By late 20th century, so many people had acquired university education. There was a good number of well-learned people in the USSR. This people were exposed to the knowledge from the outside the USSR. This made them to start fighting for liberalization, democracy, and human rights. They also were against the government policy of assimilation; they wanted their government to embrace diversity. This led to revolts all over the states that made up the USSR.
A more liberal leader, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. He embraced liberalization and democratization. This is what led to the splitting of the USSR into different states.
The freedom of speech given to people gave them a platform to fight for their rights, criticize the leader for failed economic plan, and hold rallies that preached democracy. The economic changes, which decentralized the economic system, allowed people to see the negatives of communism leading to its failure. This leader came into power when communism was losing favor in the east.
He did not put in measures to counter that. This leader also came into talks with the USA to rescue his country’s economy by ending the cold war. The measures put in place to end the cold war further weakened USSR. By the time, Mikhail Gorbachev had put in place the measures he believed were the best for his country’s future. The level of liberalization and democratization witnessed could not allow for the continued existence of the USSR.
Even though the USA played a role in the failure and eventual collapse of the USSR, the effect of USA could have been negligible had Soviet Union put in place measures that could have guaranteed the survival of the union in to the future. The union was involved in power struggles with the United States instead of building the economy.
Once its economy crumbled, its collapse was inevitable. The leadership in the Soviet Union did not involve the citizens in its functioning. This made USSR citizens to feel as if they were subjects in their own country resulting to uprisings, which facilitated the collapse of the union. Those people who were in leadership made communism to fail as most people viewed it as dictatorship. This led to the collapse of communism as it had lost favor among people in the east.