The struggle to save the Soviet economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapse of the USSR

Abstract

Chris Miller tackles one of the great puzzles of the twentieth century: what caused the collapse of the Soviet Union? Using hitherto untapped archival resources, he emphasizes the role of industrial and agricultural bureaucracies in blocking Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, and the significance of China as a model inspiring reform. This book represents an important and fresh contribution to the debate. It is widely acknowledged that by the 1980s, the Soviet economy had entered a period of stagnation and was unable to generate the rate of growth the leadership required in order to improve the country's military capacity and living standards. However, the puzzle lies in explaining how exactly the country went from stagnation (which could presumably have continued indefinitely) to regime collapse—within five years. The mainstream explanation, laid out for example in Michael Ellman and Vladimir Kontorovich's The destruction of the Soviet economic system (M. E. Sharpe, 1998), is that it was Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms that destabilized the system.