Look, it's simple, the news media LOST the Coldwar.
It's simple. If you're going to lie, lie big. Goebbels had it right.
This is absolute bull! After our setback in Vietnam, the Soviet Union engaged in one of its most expansionist programs since the end of WWII...invading 10 countries from 1974 to 1979 (AEI statistic). From N. Africa to the Mid-East (Afghanistan) to Central and S. America, the Soviets hand their hands in everyone's pie.
While I will concede that Communism, in general, doesn't bode well for a growing and prosperous economy, the Soviets didn't simply rely on "their" economic system to support their government. This is important as this is something liberals seem to ignore in their attempts to diminish Reagan's accomplishment by claiming the USSR was bound for failure. The Soviets used their expansionism to set up proxy governments that in turn, would be in debt/provide booty and rewards, to the Soviet Union.
The only thing that stopped them from succeeding and collecting on those debts, was Reagan's aggressive interventionism. If the Soviets had succeeded in setting up these proxy governments, unhindered, they would have had new trading partners that would've coalesced to form an economic bloc (similar, but larger than the Tripartite Pact prior WWII) that would've supported each other, and essentially, paid tribute to the Soviet Union. Fortunately, from Grenada to N. Africa to Nicaragua, Afghanistan, etc., Reagan met the Soviets head on with support for insurgents of his own.
Instead of following in the foot-steps of others, including Republicans, Reagan declared containment and Detente a failure...afterall, the Soviet's Bryzhnev Doctrine had seen the Soviet's engaging in their most aggressive expansionism since the end of WWII. Unlike US policy that was usually reactive...and often resulted in direct US confrontation with enemy combatants, Reagan supported counter-insurgency programs to aid pro-democratic forces before the Soviets could ever get a foothold, ala Grenada and Central America.
While the "closed" economic system of Communism is doomed to failure, the Soviets had "opened-up" their system through expansionism and allies who would've helped support the survival of the Soviet Union for some time to come. The Soviet system collapsed becasue they were forced at every turn to expend more resources and men because Reagan confronted them at every oppurtunity.
Afghanistan literally became the Soviet's Vietnam, as they lost valuable soldiers and resources in that war. Reagan made them spend more because he built up our military, forcing them to do the compete or fail. If not for this intervention throughout the world, the Soviets would have spent much less and established new trading partners that would've helped the Soviet Union recover and further prosper. Sorry...more liberal revisionism and lies don't make it true.
In his book "The Twilight Struggle," (1987), former JFK speechwriter William Attwood assured his readers that the Soviet Union was not about to "cry uncle" under pressure from Reagan.
This was typical of what liberals were saying about the Soviet Union and the Cold War during the Reagan Admistration. None of the "people in the know" believed the Soviet Union was about to collapse.