The Soviet Union’s Fall: A Story of Internal and External Forces

When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, it marked a significant shift in global politics. It might have seemed like it happened overnight, but it was really the result of years of problems from both inside and outside. Five key factors converged to make it impossible for the communist state: Western embargoes that prevented it from acquiring new technology, trade issues with other countries, massive military spending, constant surveillance by foreign powers, and an economy that was overly centralized and lacked effective communication. All these things combined to create a situation that the Soviet system couldn’t handle.

Western countries, primarily through groups like the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom), imposed numerous restrictions on what the Soviet Union could obtain. This made it highly challenging for them to keep up with the technology. During the Cold War, the United States and its allies consistently blocked the export of computers, semiconductors, and telecommunications equipment to the Soviet Union and its allies. The Soviet Union was always trying to figure out how to create its own versions of these things or copy what the West was doing. However, it only widened the gap between them, becoming increasingly pronounced by the 1980s. While the West was advancing with computers and automation, Soviet factories continued to use outdated equipment and traditional production methods. This tech problem wasn’t just a concern for the military; it also impacted civilian industries, hindering their progress and ability to keep pace with the rapidly changing global economy.

Adding to the tech embargo, there were bigger trade hiccups that really limited the Soviet Union’s access to global markets and resources. Western countries often used trade as a diplomatic tool, putting sanctions and restrictions on the Soviet Union in response to its actions. The grain embargo after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 is a perfect example of how trade could be used as a weapon, forcing the USSR to find new suppliers at a higher cost. These disruptions prevented the Soviet economy from integrating into the global trading system and accessing the capital, goods, and expertise it needed to support its struggling economy. Since they couldn’t generate a significant amount of hard currency from selling goods made in the Soviet Union, they remained too reliant on energy exports, which made them vulnerable to fluctuations in oil prices. This vulnerability became really clear when oil prices dropped in the mid-1980s.

Perhaps the most significant strain on Soviet resources was the substantial military expenditure. By the 1980s, military spending accounted for approximately 25–40% of the Soviet GDP, although the exact figures are difficult to determine due to the secrecy of Soviet accounting. This massive amount of money was significantly more than what Western countries were spending, diverting necessary resources away from essential items such as consumer goods, infrastructure, and technological upgrades. The arms race with the United States, particularly in trying to match Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative and maintain a strong military presence in Europe, placed an unsustainable burden on them. Every ruble spent on tanks, missiles, and submarines was a ruble that couldn’t go into things like consumer goods, building things, or making tech better. The military-industrial complex became a significant drain on the Soviet economy, continually requiring more resources even as the economy that supported it weakened. The Soviet Union ultimately militarized itself into bankruptcy, unable to sustain both a superpower military presence and a functioning civilian economy.

The ever-present worry about foreign spies put a significant strain on Soviet life, contributing to the pervasive paranoia. Western intelligence agencies, especially the CIA and British MI6, were constantly trying to sneak into Soviet institutions, find agents, get their hands on secret info, and sabotage critical infrastructure. The need to monitor everyone for counterintelligence was a significant drain on resources. Besides the money, espionage created a pervasive sense of suspicion and fear that permeated Soviet society. The need for security clearances, surveillance, and loyalty checks made it difficult to make decisions and slow down the implementation of new ideas. Scientists and engineers were always being watched, and the fear of seeming too Western or too innovative could be a career-killer. This paranoid atmosphere made the Soviet Union feel isolated, making it challenging to take advantage of international scientific teamwork or the free flow of ideas that fueled innovation in the West.

Finally, the Soviet system’s biggest problem was that central planning couldn’t keep up with the pace of things. Gosplan, the state planning agency, was trying to manage an economy with millions of products spread across eleven time zones, all while dealing with information systems that moved at a snail’s pace. Economic data had to travel through layers of bureaucracy — from factory floors to regional offices, to ministry departments, and ultimately to Moscow — which meant delays, distortions, and often misinformation. By the time production reports, supply shortages, or quality issues reached decision-makers in the capital, the information was usually weeks or months old and inaccurate, because lower officials had a vested interest in making things appear better than they were. This information lag meant that central planners were constantly making decisions based on outdated or inaccurate data. As a result, they were unable to react to the rapidly changing world around them. When a factory in Ukraine ran out of steel, when consumer demand shifted, or when crops failed in Kazakhstan, the time it took for this information to reach Moscow, be processed through the planning bureaucracy, and result in corrective action meant that shortages persisted and worsened. The Soviet system’s inability to match this information processing speed left it constantly reacting rather than responding, always trying to fix yesterday’s problems with tomorrow’s solutions. At the same time, today’s crises piled up unnoticed until they became huge problems. And remember, this was before the internet!

All these factors combined to create a system under immense pressure. The technology embargo and trade disruptions isolated the Soviet economy at a time when global integration was becoming increasingly important for economic growth. Military spending drained resources that could have been used to tackle systemic problems. Foreign espionage required costly defensive measures and reinforced a paranoid, closed culture. Meanwhile, the centralized planning system lacked accurate information at a sufficiently quick speed to respond to issues as they arose. By the time Mikhail Gorbachev introduced reforms in the mid-1980s, these pressures had weakened the Soviet system.