Why did Communism collapse in E. Europe and the USSR?
With protest after protest and rebellion after rebellion, the Soviet Union was slowly loosing its grip of Eastern Europe. Communism ceased working efficiently as workers had no inducement to work, as a doctor would have the same wages as a cleaner. People were driven into alcoholism and ended up going to work with hangovers. With this lack of incentive the economy slowly began to collapse. The USSR also found themselves in another more serious problem as not only was the economy collapsing but they had no ideas on how to solve this problem. It had become stagnant. More and more money was spent on a pointless, impossible to win arms race then necessary household equipment, which could be commonly found in any house in the Western States. The USSR had also created their own Vietnam in Afghanistan, where huge amounts of resources and money was being used up and many men killed. This all changed with the coming of the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1985 who tired to solve each of these problems.