Soviet Russia

After expending millions of lives and a massive sum of money during World War II and then further devoting more time to the space race with the United States, the Soviet Union had become fiscally unbalanced to say the least. The treasury of the country ran low and currency was inflated. Workers were not happy and families starved due to high food prices and low wages. After taking office in 1985,

The greatest impact on the Soviet’s downfall would be the heated competition between the U.S. During the Cold War, America and the Soviet Union built tons of nuclear weapons capable of mass genocide. Building these weapons strengthens the country, but the major downside to doing this is that it costs a lot of money. Each missile built costs a fortune, setting a limit to the weapons built. The Soviet misjudged the weapons built, and that was a major contribution to the Soviets economic plunder.

The major strength of the Soviet economy was its vast supply of oil and gas. The Soviet economy in its final decades was heavily dependent on vast natural resources, mainly oil and gas.

Countries that relied on the Soviet Union for economic help lost everything when they became independent (Langley 83). The new governments had to control the people and make money for the country (Langley 84). Civil wars and other violent conflicts became the result of reform not happening quickly (Langley 84). Many blamed this on people of different ethnic or religion (Langley 84). Many people also feared the United States taking over because it now had no major rival (Langley

Russia has been around since 800 b.c. and has seen the rise and fall of many bad leaders as well as the rise and fall of many different good political leaders (“A brief history of Russia”, 2005). Since the Soviet era, Russia has had an extraordinary outburst of social and cultural change (“A brief history of Russia”, 2005). Russia developed radical styles of constructivism, futurism, and supremacism during this time. In 1924, there was a struggle for power in the Communism party after Lenin’s death (“A brief history of Russia”, 2005). During the latter half of the decade, a victor emerged and that was Stalin. He immediately dictated the way agricultural lands were collectivized, creating large, state-run farms. Industrial development was pushed along at breakneck speed, and production was almost entirely diverted from consumer products to capital equipment. Stalin repressed religion, closing churches, destroying them and converting

By the mid 1980’s, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics also known as the Soviet Union, or the USSR was weakening under pressure from many different sources. These sources collimated in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, and ultimately, the fall of the Soviet Union itself in 1991. With these events, the USSR saw its division into the Russian Federation, and the 13 independent republics that we see today. This time period was one of uncertainty, and the result was one that even the best intelligence agencies in the West would not predict. Ultimately, the fall of the Soviet Union, as sudden as it was, should have been predicted by the West and sent shockwaves around the world. The aftershocks of this collapse are still present to this day, more than twenty years later. Though the question of what caused the Soviet Union’s collapse is simple in and of itself, its answer is far more complex and requires books to fully discuss. The aim of this paper however is to surmise the largest causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as to see how they were interrelated as well as how they interacted with each other. The causes to be discussed are as diverse as they are deep, ranging from faltering economies, to social unrest, and from increases in defense spending in relation to the West and the war in Afghanistan, to political pressure from unlikely actors.

The economic crisis and the Arms Race were the major reasons of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall had a big impact on today’s politics. The Soviet Union was formed in 1922. It consisted of 15 Soviet Republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan). The main ideologies were communism and Socialism. One of the most prominent leaders of the Union was Joseph Stalin. The Soviet Union was one of the leading empires in the world at that period of time. The Communism is the ideology that replaces private property with public ownership and individual needs are replaced by collective one. It is the advanced form of Socialism.

Over the past eighteen months Russia has continued to dismiss the outrage over its deliberate violation of international law when it invaded and annexed the Crimea region in Ukraine.

In a time past World War II, but not quite reached the Cold War, western leaders saw great growth and potential in eastern countries economies. In early years, this was Soviet Russia. Russia, like many of these eastern countries, was poor at the time but growing at an alarming rate. This was achieved by not consuming resources as much. Although this worked for short-term goals, this fell flat for the future since it did not expand on inputs. Inputs like labor education, labor force, and capital stock. Despite the Soviet empire being terrifying, it was limited. It was predicted by Calvin B. Hoover that the Soviet economy would outgrow the United States economy by the 1970’s. Because of the economy’s limits, this never occurred. However, no increase in inputs was not the only issue. The fact that the soviets also did not fully industrialize and improve technology to accompany their

Originally a totalitarian state, Russia’s social heritage where instituted in the near complete control of its people and organizations. From this control arose the Communist Party of Soviet Union in the early 1920s (Glenn E. Curtis, 1996). Incorporated in this party where the wealthy, powerful, and influential. Advancement in the Soviet society where largely determined by the parties’ ideology. Those who followed these ideologies substantially increased their chances to flourish within the social structure. Those who did not follow the CPSU found it difficult at best to endure with any success. This created an exceedingly fragmented and fundamentally broken societal construct.

entirely new state, and indeed to a new era in the history of mankind, we must

In 1991, the great social experiment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved. The empire spanning almost five centuries, from the remnants of the Golden Horde to Stalin's "new Russia" (Hoskins, 1997) from Poland to the Pacific disappeared, leaving a political-sociological void that is only now moving towards resolution. Still the largest nation in the world (Shultz, 2000), Russia spans two continents, multiple time zones, and a land area that diminishes that of the United States. Although it no longer demonstrates the breadth of cultural conglomeration existing in the era of Soviet existence, the Russian Federation provides for an interesting cultural examination, and will be the basis of this paper.

Russia stands as one of the world’s superpowers. The same ideals and strength of a people that spawned the Russian Revolution continue to persist nearly a hundred years later and have served in turning the once underdog into a world leader as the second half of the 21st century approached.

Russian political history is filled with drama: bloodshed, revolutions, political transitions and more. This country, which has transformed its self into a superpower, has caught the attention of the world in the 20th century and now the millennium. What is most interesting is throughout Russian history—the Tsars, the Russian Revolution, the Soviet experiment of communism, and the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—Russia has flirted with democracy, but time and time again it returns to the familiar, authoritarian regime. Russia’s inability to shake the shackles of autocracy can be directly linked to the morals, culture and history of the country. In short, deep-rooted culture and history strongly influence the structure of government in a country.

The History of the Soviet Union begins with the end of the Tsardom of Russia, for hundreds of years