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They could have survived if they didn’t go expansionist and capture territory. Their message was simple enough that an idiot could buy into it as we see today. They infiltrated all the right institutions. What killed the Soviet Union was their financial foray into military might. The pen is mightier then the sword, but they focused on the sword.

They could never have survived; the economic strain always breaks these states. Long before the USSR collapsed, those that escaped described issues with productivity that are inevitable when private property and economic advancement are restricted or forbidden. It is a basic flaw that rears its head in Cuba and Venezuela today; the old adage “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us” still applies.

The companies and people in the US that move from one state to another to escape larcenous taxes would stop working altogether if there weren’t more business- and taxpayer-friendly states.

>>What killed the Soviet Union was their financial foray into military might.

Yep.

But I wonder if that whole "we'll support Germany if the Russians are winning; and Russia if Germany is winning" strategy from the NyLon empire -- who were financing and goading both sides back circa 1933... might've contributed to such a state of insecurity?

As I recall, that was the gist of some of the documents included in the "secret treaties" presentation making the rounds back circa 2004 at the Nixon Library -- where this reference was on display:

Would Russia have made their "financial foray into military might." - if...

"I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.

On his stated opposition to the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese at the end of World War II, as quoted in Newsweek (11 November 1963), p. 107"
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower

...it hadn't been goaded into doing so?