Uploaded March 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

---

OFFICIAL DISCORD SERVER: discord.gg/R3j9rKczRm

Collapse of the Soviet Union is considered by many people to be the most tragic event in the modern history of Russia. Some think that it fell apart simply because of the incapable rulers (like one Mikhail Gorbachev) and some evil masterplans of the Western World. But I believe that there were many reasons for the collapse of the USSR, and the problems have been accumulating like a snowball for more than 20 years. Today I'll try to list all the reasons for the fall of the Soviet Union in just one short video.

00:00 - Introduction
01:23 - Stagnation
03:18 - Gorbachev
04:51 - Oil dependence
06:33 - Problems with food
07:59 - Customer goods
09:31 - Deficit
11:03 - Military spending
12:29 - High-tech industries
14:54 - Dissidents
16:29 - People's frustration



The breakup of the Soviet Union was swift and sudden. On December 8, 1991, Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk, and Stanislav Shushkevich signed an agreement on the disintegration of the USSR and the creation of the CIS. At the end of 1991, a powerful, seemingly indestructible superpower came apart at the seams, and the Soviet Union collapsed like a colossus on clay feet. One of the most controversial figures in Soviet and Russian history to this day is Mikhail Gorbachev. He was the first ruler in the history of the USSR to resign on his own. And this is a man who many blame for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
On the one hand we see a man who really believed in the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, on the other hand - a reformer who tried to democratize the Soviet system. Because of this Gorbachev, for example, all attributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, although he, unlike his opponents, did everything to prevent this from happening.


Hey there. Somehow you found my video and decided to watch it. So let me introduce myself. I'm Sergei and I'm from Russia. My channel is about my native country. I want to tell English-speaking viewers about the real Russia, about its past and present. Unfortunately, you can find a lot of propaganda about Russia on the Internet, both from the Russian media and from the Western ones. I want to tell you about Russia, as it really is, the country in which I was born, grew up, and lived all my life.

If you'd like to support the channel:
💵 Patreon (early access to videos) - patreon.com/setarko
🪙 BTC - bc1qh8szz62crxu9ylg2jx9dz3t6vzzjdw2rheft2m
🪙 ETH - 0x19F11A86adf1ec4DDebEC0f27982805B1d1aba67
🪙 USDT (TRC20) - TYG76yndvrDD8WM9TtkBGauT7682esKZfu
🪙 Other crypto - nowpayments.io/donation/setarko

Links:
Discord - discord.gg/R3j9rKczRm
Twitter - twitter.com/SetarkoYT


Some sources (Well, it's actually just a list of references. Helpful only for people who actually know Russian but for some reason people still always request them):
Food shortages and grain import -
https://elar.urfu.ru/bitstream/10995/4992/2/dais-14-10-2009.pdf
http://gaidar-arc.ru/file/bulletin-1/DEFAULT/org.stretto.plugins.bulletin.core.Article/file/4180
Булатов Д. Еще раз о продовольственном импорте // Коммунист. — 1989. — № 6. — С. 20–21.
Мымрикова Н. Внешнеэкономические связи АПК // АПК. Экономика. Управление. — 1991. — № 10. — С. 18–26.
Назарбеков К.К. Советский импорт зерна. Направления и проблемы // Вестник сельскохозяйственной науки. — 1990. — № 1. — С. 71–76.
Allen, G. (1987). USSR grain imports: past and future. Food Policy, 12(2), 90–93. doi:10.1016/0306-9192(87)90025-x
Some info about military budgets of USSR -
The Economic Impact of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan (U). Defense Intelligence Agency, April 1983. L. 3.
The Cost of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan. Office of Soviet Analyses, Feb. 1987. L. 13.
Народное хозяйство СССР в 1990 г. Статистический ежегодник. М.: Финансы и статистика, 1991. С. 5.
Oil dependence -
Дьяконова И.А. Нефть и уголь в энергетике царской России в международных сопоставлениях. М., 1999. С. 155.
Славкина М.В. Триумф и трагедия. Развитие нефтегазового комплекса СССР в 1960-1980е годы. М., 2002. С. 113-131.


Free Stock Footage provided by mixkit.co, videvo.net and videezy.com.