Which leader of the USSR is most responsible for its downfall?

Krushchev please go back to Hell.

Bad post

Yeah no. The quality of life in the West was better but pretty much only because of America. Europe was completely ravaged on both sides and both places were complete hellholes where people only survived because of mass food handouts.
The West pulled far ahead in the 60s because the US had actually rebuilt Europe to a degree and countries were starting to get back on their feet, especially France as they had ended up the least devastated of any European country except maybe Britain. Much of the damage done to England was done to her cities and peoples, but the industry was far less touched than it could have been.

Reagan and George Bush

De facto it wasn't a collapse, but a semi-nationalist (separatist) coup within, when the leaders of RSFSR, USSR and BSSR had decided to take over the actual government.

Gorbachev was a victim of the collapse; Yeltsin and Kravchuk are the destroyers.

Anyone the living in the eastern side wanted to visit the West at least once. It was always a big event because they would bring back various souvenirs. Two different worlds. That's socialism for you.

The only democratic referendum held in the USSR's history overwhelmingly supported its continuation until the August coup happened.

Just like the democratic referendum for whether Poland should be free or become a Soviet puppet state, right?

def brezhnev

The USSR's referendum was held under Gorbachev's glasnost, the USSR was not a dictatorship by that point, in fact, the most contradictory thing is that of the union republics, the one that wanted to get out the most (that didn't boycott the referendum) was Russia.

What was the policy that Stalin passed that stated any individual idling for more than 20 minutes should be shot or be in jail? Continue trying to convert us commie.

Would that be because of the fact that at that point Russia was propping up its satellites with funding while seriously struggling with its own economy?
I am not exactly an expert on this subject, but it seems like the Baltic countries had become quite dependent on Russian support and by then Russia had little support left to give, its economy being ravaged by the Afghanistan War and the general failure to significantly improve the economy as the West had done?

Its probably something like that, while Russia was the USSR's most developed republic, the communist idea of equal development often meant a lot of Russian economic production was used to develop the peripheral republics in the union. IIRC the republics that wanted out the last were the poorest ones in central asia. Keep in mind though that the Baltic states had declared unilateral independence and boycotted the referendum, as did Armenia and Georgia.

While I have none to no knowledge(sic? sorry english is not my main language) it is common knowledge that USSR drained all the industrial input it could take from Poland, mostly from coal mines, as far as "helping" its satellite states goes.

>it is common knowledge
I should have stated that it is common knowledge in Poland

Anyone who doesn't say Gorbachev doesn't understand history.

>why didn't that guy just rearrange the deck chairs
>the Titanic is a big ship, it should have worked itself out

I'm not sure if I understand your metaphor, but Gorbachev wasn't some guy rearranging deck chairs - he was the captain who rammed right into an iceberg. The USSR was economically stagnant and was losing the cold war, but it wasn't in any danger of collapse before Perestroika and Glasnost.

Well, the phrase "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" is a common metaphor for making inconsequential changes in an effort to prevent an inevitable event.

Soviet Socialism became untenable long before Gorbachev came to power. It could have ended in a less destructive way, but it certainly could have been worse. Imagine if the USSR clamps down on the satellite states instead of dropping the leash, and you get former SSRs declaring independence with nuclear weapons.

Yeah "equal development" largely applied to the USSR itself, in many ways the Warsaw Pact members were treated like colonies. In fact, part of the reason Gorbachev let them go is that they weren't an useful economic asset to have anymore, and occupying them had become too costly. Remember that unlike, say, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Poland and East Germany and so on were nominally independent states, rather than members of the USSR.

Khrushchev killed Stalin
he led the coup and reforms that doomed ussr to failure

Kruschev took power with the coup and started with the revisionist reforms, Stalin would send him personaly to the gulags if he were alive at the time.

youtube.com/watch?v=Itvdi-A-wkM&list=FLxgJ0vK112MRHzFqHgPKAhw&index=1

In October 1987, Gorbachev mounted an anti-corruption campain to clear-out the old Brezhnevite guard and forced Aliyev to resign from the Politburo, ostensibly for health reasons. Aliyev was forced to resign from this position in 1987 amidst allegations of corruption made against him by Mikhail Gorbachev.

Forced into early retirement by Gorbachev, Aliyev focused his resources on returning to power and avenging Gorbachev for his retirement. Aliyev plotted against Gorbachev by orchestrating the ethnic conflict that would lead to cessation of Azerbaijan from USSR and dissolution of the USSR. The first pogroms against Armenians in Azerbaijan were instigated by the local mafia, which was controlled by Aliyev, in order to create an international crisis that would be detrimental to Gorbachev regardless of the outcome.

IT WAS ME, BERIA!

>Stalin is the only Soviet leader I know so I'll talk about him even in the timeframe when he was already dead

Probably Khrushchev. Folks are less likely to revolt if they've got food, and Krushchevs agricultural reforms put food production on a decline.

Gorby schweine

recommend me resources

> Stalin would send him personaly to the gulags
Stalin had an opportunity. It isn't like there was no Khrushchev in his time, lmao.

Stalin would send Stalin to the gulags if somehow that was possible to do.

books.google.com/books?id=5ehhBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA69

mailstar.net/death-of-stalin.html

marxists.org/subject/stalinism/origins-future/ch4-2a.htm

youtube.com/watch?v=EZZAoSyGnRI

amazon.com/Khrushchev-Ubil-Stalina-Dvazhdy-killed/dp/5699427147

nybooks.com/articles/1989/06/01/the-gorbachev-prospect/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heydar_Aliyev

the nationalists wouldn't rise without glasnost.

the USSR drained no one. on the contrary shitholes like poland were a money drain to them, and again they are a money drain to the EU (they get the most investments) and that doesn't count the fact that many polacks work and reside in western europe, and send home some good money while enjoying free healthcare.

I'd probably pick Brezhnev honestly. The Brezhnev years consisted of political and economic stagnation and were when the grand quagmire that was Afghanistan started. He left a system that Gorbachev could not save no matter what he tried. Although as said earlier in the thread I think at least part of the USSR could have remained together if not for the coup attempt by the hardliners.