Collapse Of The Soviet Union Essay

The demise of the Soviet Union would seem to be a victory for the Soviet West because they had lived under the communist rule for so long they did know realize how different their lives were than their eastern counterparts. When The East was eventually allowed to cross the boarders into the West, many people realized that their visitors, who were all doing well off financially, had a better standard of living than they had. While one would think this was a victory for the West, it was not a victory for the West but actually a failure to the Soviet Union. The Soviets knew they had problems within their government, such as their severely decreasing economic ability to provide to their citizens, but on one predicted that their problems would lead to the soviet’s collapse. This collapse could not be seen as a victory for the West for various reasons that included unemployment, lack of currency, and inflation. Unemployment rates skyrocketed since all of their employment opportunities were owned and operated by the Soviet Government and the Soviet currency had been rendered useless; therefore, the now the vast majority of people free from communism were living in extreme poverty. This poverty was much worse than the lives they had been accustomed to under soviet rule. While it is true that the West was not doing as well as those around them, they were being taken care of in a way that most had grown accustomed to. …show more content…
Several leaders who contributed to the fall were leaders such as: Nikita Khrushchev who eliminated most of Joseph Stalin’s policies once elected into office; Will Brandt who tried to bring reconciliation to people living in East and West Berlin; Alexander Dubcek who lessened the censorship rules in order to make the country more humanized; Leonid Brezhnev who informed the East that they were not free and must abide