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Can we say “foreign aid”?

Look the reality is the KGB had begun planning a major crackdown before Ronald Reagan was even elected. So called “glasnost’” and “perestroika” were the first steps to that crackdown. That has been confirmed by Bukovsky, who had access to all the Soviet archives (now resealed) when Bukovsky put the communist party on trial.

Economic indicators in the USSR were flat from the late 1960’s. Not a big surprise in a country where only one in ten people actually works, where work is viewed as a punishment and alcoholism was rampant due to CPSU policies in the 1970’s.

Communism did not collapse because of Reagan, or his policies. The one thing that he may have done to hasten the demise was the “evil empire” speech. Getting major play in the Soviet press, this had an opposite effect. People began to wonder why they were afraid.

With no Solidarnosc, there would not have been a collapse of the Eastern bloc. WIthout a Yeltsin, the coup may have succeeded. At least in the short term.

Personally, I think the USSR was doomed in any event. The collapse of the Eastern bloc just hastened the demise.

"The peoples behind the Iron Curtain yearned to be free, to speak their minds, to publish their thoughts, and most of all, to think for themselves. While a few dissidents had the courage to express those yearnings openly, most were simply afraid. We dissidents were certain, however, that freedom would be seized by the masses at the first opportunity because we understood that fear and a deep desire for liberty are not mutually exclusive. Fortunately there were a few leaders in the West who could look beyond the facade of Soviet power to see the fundamental weakness of a state that denied its citizens freedom. Western policies of accommodation, regardless of their intent, were effectively propping up the Soviet’s tiring arms. Had that accommodation continued, the USSR might have survived for decades longer. By adopting a policy of confrontation instead, an enervated Soviet regime was further burdened. ...Beset on the inside by dissidents demanding the regime live up to its international commitments and pressed on the outside by leaders willing to link their diplomacy to internal Soviet changes, Soviet leaders were forced to lower their arms. The spark of freedom that was unleashed spread like a brushfire to burn down an empire." - Natan Sharansky