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I'd love to understand the fall of the Soviet Union better, it still seems so sudden and mysterious to me. Like the whole society just decided all at once that

I'd love to understand the fall of the Soviet Union better, it still seems so sudden and mysterious to me. Like the whole society just decided all at once that they were done. Does anyone have any good books on the subject?

chewz 9y ago
Try Timothy Garton Ash - The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague - https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Lantern-Revolution-Witnessed-Budapest-ebook/dp/B004089I5Q/ https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Lantern-Revolution-Witnessed-Bu... - The Polish Revolution https://www.amazon.com/Polish-Revolution-Timothy-Garton-Ash/ https://www.amazon.com/Polish-Revolution-Timothy-Garton-Ash/ But Ash is controversial author with strong opinions not a historian. Also Victor Sebestyen Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-1989-Fall-Soviet-Empire-ebook/dp/B002U3CB84 https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-1989-Fall-Soviet-Empire-eb...
nine_k 9y ago
According to Yegor Gaidar (look him up), USSR basically ran out of resources, including food supply, around 1985. However much army do you have does not matter if you can't feed it. The problem was not only very high military spending (thanks Mr. Reagan, you won the Cold War), but also very low efficiency of industry and agriculture. Having lived in the late USSR, I can attest that the scale of waste was enormous. It was not only because of the inadequate planning, but mostly because the population did not care. Without the feedback loop which a market provides, the only reasonable action for a worker was to steal; the fact that 10x more resources are wasted as a result was totally inconsequential: getting fired was hard, and unemployment was seriously negative.