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this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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I do genuinely want to read a Marxist analysis of how the Soviet Union fell and the Soviet project ended up fizzling out. Im open to "well the CIA did it" but its a little trite and I suspect there's much more to it than the evil Americans merely tricked everyone. Or Gorbachev was uniquely evil, cause maybe he was or wasnt but no one person can destroy a system.
Ive read a bunch of partial analysis, but never like a book just about the 80s to 90s USSR - and not some imperialist bourgeois criticism either, like an honest Marxist analysis.
The CIA did not do it. The reactionaries in the USSR did it. Kruschev was the beginning of the end. He and his faction wanted to accumulate wealth, so over the decades following his election they progressively built up the mechanisms for wealth accumulation. This is called liberalization, and it's where the technical definition of Revisionism comes from - making socialism compatible with liberalism. As this process proceeded, the economy stalled out, the inequality got bad, the repression took on an elective component instead of the necessity post revolution and pre world war. Eventually the contradictions sharpened to crisis and the liberals were firmly in charge of most important levers. They dissolved the union and became the new oligarchs.
Another CPC documentary on the topic: The USSR: The Fall of a Party, The Fall of a State
I hear the chinese have a few good ones but idk if there are good translations
Historical Nihilism and the Fall of the USSR
Thanks comrade!
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Gorbachev wrote his own memoirs about it, which is nice as a primary source. But I dont exactly trust his own reasoning lol