If Reagan had ignored Soviet Union, would it have collapsed anyway?

Question

if so, when?

lots of good, thought provoking answers. i think everyone can agree that the communist system had it's flaws with production, quality, wages, etc. this , in itself, was a major problem.

i havent seen mention of the polish solidarity movement of 1980 in any answers. this was very important. the russians could not defeat it. this gave sattelite states good reason to believe that the central authority could be sucessfully challenged. it was only a matter of time before east germany, chechoslovokia , et al, would try similar actions.

the war with afganistan (1979-87?) was more of a drain on the military and treasury than any matching western military expenditures.

i am going to put this to a vote. i have seen many answers that i agree with. i hate to ask a ? then choose an answer that agrees with my preconceived notions. i hope that this can be discussed further in future questions.

Answer 1

doubtful...reagan displayed how to do it right...clinton, ignoring al qaeda for eight years displayed how to do it wrong.

Answer 2

The historical consensus is that Reagan sped up the process by about ten minutes or so. In reality, Gorbachev ended communism on his own, and if he had not, someone else (Soviet) would have.

And as an aside to one of the previous answerers, Clinton did not ignore Al Qaeda for eight years. His administration was actively trying to assassinate Bin Laden, and his outgoing administration officials told the incoming Bush officials that they would spend most of their time dealing with Bin Laden and they might perhaps want to continue the Clinton administration's assassination and containment efforts. Of course, the Bush administration dropped the whole thing, and we all know what happened next.

You really should get your news from ANY source other than Fox. Fox is the only place where you'll here these ridiculous lies and distortions expressed as truths.

Answer 3

Yes , the entire Russian economy was in complete chaos and people spent hours in line each day waiting for food rations .
Those in the black market made millions in jewels ,paintings ,gold ,silver ,and human slavery which they traded with the west .
Russia was looted by capitalists as people became desperate and did anything to survive . Including selling their own children . Russia collapsed on its own and not from any actions by Reagan .

AS Russia struggled the economic noose was tightened and finally Russia gave in . It could not afford the energy needed to grow and the trade needed .
See you must exploit someone some place to get ahead .
I wish they had some fight in them instead of going down so easy . Poor fools allowed to drink themselves into a state of alcoholics who had no drive left .

Answer 4

Reagan backed off that silly cold-war rhetoric (and Magaret Thatcher lobbied for him to do so), the US provided grain exports and aid to the USSR under Reagan, and this allowed Gorbachev and reformers within the Soviet Union to implement changes despite the cries of communist cold-warrior hard-liners. And part of the reason Gorbachev and others wanted reform is because the economy in the USSR was in ruins and people were waiting in huge lines for hours to buy things like a role of toilet paper before there was no toilet paper.

The silly argument that it had anything much to do with an arms race belies a fundamental and deliberately promoted misconception about the fundamental economic underpinnings of the Soviet Union. Russia was always a much poorer country, and that's why Eisenhower didn't buy into that cold-war hysteria when it was initially being pimped by Democratic Party cold-warriors like Scoop Jackson (Ike had been to Russia, he had seen what the second world war had done to the place). The Cuban missile crisis was a desperate attempt by Kruschev to gain a tactical advantage in order to gain concessions in Berlin and to get the US to withdraw missile bases from Turkey because there was never a way the USSR could have sustained a war with the US. Never. They couldn't have kept tires on their vehicles because they didn't have the industry to support a prolonged conflict with the US. It's a fact. You can read everything that has been declassified in terms of Politburo records and find out. Each succeeding American President had to find this out because, as Eisenhower had warnded, a military industrial complex (industrialists with military contracts contributing to political campagians) was hyping cold war hysteria.

Answer 5

The Soviet Union was in economic turmoil but would have survived for a while longer. An arms race put a bigger drain on their economy then they could handle. It drove them into collapse sooner than if they didn't have to compete technologically with the USA.

Answer 6

There were predictions in state department circles in the early 70's that the Soviet Union had about 20 years of life left. They were just about right.

Answer 7

Probably Eventually. He did speed it up though. It started years before and was assited by Carter aligning his Humanity ideals with the Pope's that pressured social reforms within the USSR. But The USSR's economy was weak and couldn't compete with ours, so Reagan wanted the 600 ship Navy and invested heavily in defense and the USSR could not keep pace with us. So Reagan put the last nail in their coffin.

Answer 8

since the inception of the ussr/soviet union in 1919, the whole economic structure has been warfare & defense of their war platform. a country that engages in total production of war without making money in other facets (something america is & was capable of doing nicely), all money coming in had it all going out in one direction. Communism my foot! the soviets just hated to admit that in order to survive, a govt, all govts, had to turn a profit somewhere down the road. profit? that's smells like capitalism & boy did they hate to admit it, so they blindly went about their way, sowing their seeds of their own destruction. now let's rush up to ronald reagan & the latter part of the 20th century. if ignored, the soviets would've fallen but probably not for another 10-15 years. look at china. smart country who nicely learned the econimics of ruling & it's survival. give the so-called communism lip service but quietly turn a country & it's resources into products/produce & production. after the take-over of hong kong, and after seeing the money to be made, and even with other countries pulling out after china's take-over, america wisely stayed & we are making money. it's a big world. there are more ways to make money than there are people in it and ways to 'save face' and rule at the same time. you are as strong as the people within your country. china knows this, cuba has failed to recognize this & the good 'ol soviets failed as well. by the way, they were never a threat to anyone but themselves. i kind of miss the action as while they were our political opponents, they fought us with certain rules & respect in tact. can't say that for the current bastards.

Answer 9

Yes, communism is doomed to fail. Koalatcomic, did you know that Regan funded and armed al qaeda in his effort to bring down the USSR? Sort of unleashed a lion, don't ya think?

Answer 10

Yes, the USSR collapsed under its own weight. The notion that Reagan brought them down is absurd, as is most of the worship that cons lavish on him.

Answer 11

Probably,, the collapse was from within. Hard to know when...a good deal of the collapse was from overspending on the military budget. Whether that was because of spending here or because they wanted top dog status is difficult to project...