[hakka-nyu-su]

"Collapse" is a bit too passive to describe what happened to the USSR. Gorbachev was a pro-American advocate of Social Democracy (aka the Denmark-style state that Bernie likes).

He thought that Russia would become prosperous by adopting capitalism. Instead, GDP shrank by 50% and Russia went from a global superpower to being encircled in its own backyard.

[free_rms]

Sure, but the fruit was pretty rotten at that point after 18 years of Brezhnev. Maybe if Gorbachev had followed Kruschev, it could've been done without a chaotic mass selloff to gangsters.

[vkou]

The fruit was rotten under Kruschev too, the difference between him and Brezhnwv is that his administration picked a lot of low-hanging fruit that the public approved of (Apartments, and a relaxation of absolutely insane Stalinist repression.)

The economy didn't work well under either of them, but Kruschev is credited for leaving things much better than he found them.

[free_rms]

China did manage such a turnaround, though. Of course, they had the contemporaneous USSR collapse to point to as well as maoism in living memory, so that probably made it more politically possible.

[sukilot]

GDP dropped 50% when honestly reporting facts stopped becoming a criminal offense.

Gorbachev liked social democracy, but the Communist Party warlords like Putin didn't disappear in the revolution, they hung back and then took over again.

[starfallg]

Which resulted in the wholesale appropriation of state assets by the oligarchs.