Reply #11: oh lord. if you think a country as powerful as the USSR fell

[WMliberal]

in only 8 years...

I have a shiny new history degree and have lots of knowledge and papers written on post-WWII Europe. Here's my take:

In the 1950's and early 60's, Russia was on the rise. Their economy was booming and standards of living were improving at roughly the same rate as here in the U.S. Furthermore, the oil fields in the Caucasus and Siberia were beginning to produce and providing LOTS of cash. With this newfound wealth in the treasury, the Soviets had several options on how to spend it.
1. Reinvest in industrial machinery. Their heavy machinery was mostly a generation old, as ours was. This is what most U.S. manufacturers did.
2. More healthcare all around, better housing for all, better food rationing, public works, etc.
3. (what they ended up doing) Neither of the above. Spend money on imports to replace inferior products made domestically.

Doing number 3 was a solution to none of their potential long term problems. Machinery and methods that were becoming outdated further deteriorated. The treasury became more and more depleted as the amount of products needing substitutes imported increased.
With even less money, they were less and less able to provide a decent standard of living, let alone improve it. This fanned into the fires created by black markets and samizdat. Perestroika and Glasnot helped make a nonviolent end to the Eastern bloc possible.