what accounts for the speed at which the USSR collapsed?

How did such significant political and economic change happen so quickly?

Curtis Edward Clark2010-02-26T09:43:23Z

Favorite Answer

Gorbachev instituted "peroistroika" and "glasnost". Glasnost was "openness" and it allowed the Russians almost unlimited free speech for the first time in 75 years. Peroistroika was political liberalization.

Add to that the idea that the Russians knew they could not defensively keep up, economically, with Reagan's "Strategic Defense Initiative" (the press called it Star Wars), they gave up.

01

DeSaxe2010-02-26T17:18:49Z

The Czar probably asked the same question just before he and his family were shot.

I imagine that Luis XIV had similar thoughts.

In an internal revolution when a government loses control the mob is let loose and a quasi feeding frenzy seems to occur, there appears to be no boundaries until a new authority takes control and start placing new boundaries and rules to control the masses.

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Anonymous2010-02-27T20:27:59Z

traitors, and his name is Mikhail Gorbachev

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