Almost the entire reason for the “fall” (dissolution and semi-reconstitution) of the Soviet Union was internal attempts to solve questions that arose from internal dynamics (namely, how to go from a raw materials and low end manufacturing giant to a society with high quality consumer goods), fully in line with the original Soviet ideology (anti-imperialism, modernisation), with the USSR largely having fulfilled these original goals. It also made total sense that the non-productive non-great-Russian republics would break off for national liberation while Russia, Ukraine and Belarus broke off and formed an implicitly Russian union for economics. America and the West had almost no impact on these dynamics, other than perhaps the idea that the USSR/Russia could save money and redivert resources by not needing a huge army. What other dynamics caused the “fall”?
It fell because Gorbachev's attempted reforms killed the patient.Why the reforms? Because the ruling ideology was in jeopardy from the empty shelves.Why the empty shelves? Because the balance of payments crisis that grew bigger and bigger through the 80s oil slump.But wait pre Soviet Russia was among the biggest grain exporters and became one again after. It shouldn't be so reliant on oil nor imported food it had to pay for somehow. So what killed yields in the soviet times?Collectivization.
