Top 5 mistakes the Soviet Union made.

What were the top 5 mistakes that you felt the Soviet Union made that led to its collapse.
1. The Sino-Soviet split
2. Perestroika & Glasnost
3. Khrushchev's virgin lands campaign
4. Stalin allowing republics to declare their independence from the Soviet Union if desired.
5. The Soviet-Afghan War

Definitely agree on the Afghan war and virgin lands. Doubt #4 had any real effect on what went on in 1991. If this document had any power, the Baltics would have tried to use it earlier.

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I'd have to add the fact that Stalin didn't have Khrushchev executed before he died Or had a successor groomed.

Was Kruschev really bad enough to warrant his ascent to power being one of the worst mistakes in Soviet history?

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Was Kruschev really bad enough to warrant his ascent to power being one of the worst mistakes in Soviet history?

I don't think so. He is more of a symbol for the Soviet failure. But some of his actions weren't that bad, agricultural reform, minimum wage, the introduction of regional economical soviets, Warsaw Pact, start of the space race.
The real mistake was not to spread Marxist doctrine fast enough throughout the world and maybe bureaucracy and the nomenklatura.

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4. Stalin allowing republics to declare their independence from the Soviet Union if desired.

That brings up an interesting question from my perspective... Lenin tells us that the point of giving their nations their independence, including their freedom to succeed, is so that nations can be drawn closer together. Does that mean at some point it becomes appropriate to take this right away, as nations are drawn closer together? If it does, when is that point?

I was expecting you guys to make your own lists. I feel that allowing Soviet states to declare their independence heightens nationalism and produces an anti-government feeling when their people aren't the majority of people running the government.

I'll make one up.

1. Glasnost.
2. Perestroika.
3. The Gen Sec. alone having too much power (which is what allowed the above to be implemented).
4. Corruption being permitted to get out of hand during the Brezhnev era.
5. Stalin permitting the Allies to control part of Berlin after Western Germany unified under one banner (which I'm not sure he could have prevented).

Fellow Comrade wrote:

1. Glasnost.
2. Perestroika.
3. The Gen Sec. alone having too much power (which is what allowed the above to be implemented).

4. Not having the Comintern take a harder stance on fascism earlier.
5. The Soviet-Afghan war

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The Soviet-Afghan War.

Why is this a mistake? The mistake was leaving before the the Afghans could manage the domestic situation themselves.

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Why is this a mistake? The mistake was leaving before the the Afghans could manage the domestic situation themselves.

The USSR wasn't planning to invade Afghanistan, but Afghanistan insisted on Soviet support. Thus the rise of the Mujajideen and funding from Pakistan and other countries. As long as there was a Soviet presence there will also be a well funded Mujajideen.

That's true, however, you could be sure that the Mujajideen would have eventually got foreign support with or without Soviet help. It's possible the Soviets could have provided effective aid to the afghans without directly intervening militarily, but that's hard to judge.

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I was expecting you guys to make your own lists. I feel that allowing Soviet states to declare their independence heightens nationalism and produces an anti-government feeling when their people aren't the majority of people running the government.

I think it grew out of the political and economic policies implemented after Stalin's death. I don't know if they really restored capitalism, but there's a definite shift there. I also think that part of the reason capitalism is restored so easily has to do with the traditional Leninist political structure, which lead to the change in policies. I don't know that it's really just as simple as giving the General Secretary less power, but we need to work on improving the structure.

So I can't really give you a list of points; one thing leads to another.

#1 - Not killing Solzhenitsyn themselves.
#2 - Socialist realism as a destroyer of the avant garde.
#3 - 1960s Economic Reforms.
#4 - Stalin's general Thermidor.
#5 - A weak Comintern.

To those of you saying "glastnost" c'mon! Silly and draconian censorship of the arts and music could have only facilitated faster collapse of the USSR.

1. The Sino-Soviet split
2. Glasnost
3. Perestroika
4. De-Stalinization
5. Inability to react to economic stagnation during the 70s.

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To those of you saying "glastnost" c'mon! Silly and draconian censorship of the arts and music could have only facilitated faster collapse of the USSR.

Glasnost was much more than a loosening of censorship laws IIRC. If that was all it was, this thread probably wouldn't be asking for the top five mistakes that led to the collapse, it would simply be asking for mistakes.

1. Sino-Soviet split.
2. Perestroika.
3. Glasnost.
4. De-Stalinization.
5. Failing the coup against Gorbachev.

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4. De-Stalinization.

I have to disagree with this. Stalin's institutional distortions to real Soviet power needed to be ended. The problem was the way Kruschev and his clique used De-Stalinisation as an excuse to push through economic-liberalisation from which it never recovered.

My List:

1. Sino-Soviet Split (although neither side is innocent here)
2. Perestroika
3. Disinvolvement of the grass-roots and the elimination of Democracy under Stalin
4. Continuing the "Respectable" foreign policy post WW2 (especially after it gained nuclear defences, they didn't have an all out capitalist invasion to worry about anymore).
5. Self-Finance model of economic planning (which is in reality just a psuedo-planned economy), which didn't conquer any of the problems of market forces yet suffered from the faults of bureaucracy and inefficiency. By far one of the most important, yet most underlooked causes of the gradual economic stagnation.

No particular order. (If I could add a sixth it would probably be Afgahnistan)