Why Did The Soviet Union Collapse Essay

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“It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.” Vladimir Lenin said this, he was the founder of the Soviet Union, a command economy that collapsed in 1991. This quote summarizes the type of control that he believed was required to create a utopian country. In a command economy, the government makes all decisions on jobs, land, and production, which leads to many social and political ramifications. This fact, along with a multitude of other factors, led to the Soviet Union’s collapse. In general, there is scarcely a command economy in history that has had success, this due to the fact that the negatives of a centrally controlled economy far outweigh the positives. The elements that led to the failure of the Soviet Union are expansive. They will be discussed in further detail below. The basic ideology of the centrally planned economy is that the government makes all of the decisions for the country. The capital and national resources are property of the government and there is no chance of owning private property. In this type of economy, the government decides where resources are distributed, the prices of the products, and the wages that workers will earn. In addition, the…show more content…
10 Possible Reasons”). For example, when Joseph Stalin was in power he mainly focused on building up the military forces and completely disregarded agriculture as a crucial area. This led to massive food shortages that caused starvation rates to rise and many families to die. Due to this seeming blindness to the quality of citizen lives, the Soviet Union would not have long before it’s eventual decline and collapse. In addition, the set prices of goods and wages shut the Soviet Union out of national trade, because they made only enough goods for their own county. In turn, this led to shortages in all areas of

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