Predictions of Soviet collapse
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There were people who '''predicted the [[History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)#Yeltsin and the dissolution of the USSR|December 1991 collapse]] of the [[Soviet Union]]''' before [[Berlin Wall#The Fall, 1989|the fall of the]] [[Berlin Wall]] in [[1989#November|November 1989]].
Authors often credited with having predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union include [[Andrei Amalrik]] in ''[[Andrei Amalrik#Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?|Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?]]'' (1970), [[France|French]] academic [[Emmanuel Todd]] in ''[[Emmanuel Todd#Prediction of the collapse of the USSR|La chute finale: Essais sur la décomposition de la sphère Soviétique]] (The Final Fall: An essay on the decomposition of the Soviet sphere)'' (1976), and French historian [[Helene Carrere d'Encausse]].<ref>
{{cite book
| author = [[Flora Lewis]]
| year =1987
| title = Europe: A Tapestry of Nations
| publisher =Simon and Schuster
| location =USA
| pages = 364
| id =ISBN 0-671-44018-7
}}</ref> Additionally, [[Walter Laqueur]] notes that "Various articles that appeared in professional journals such as ''[[Problems of Communism (journal)|Problems of Communism]]'' and ''Survey'' dealt with the decay and the possible downfall of the Soviet regime."<ref name="dream">{{cite book
| last =Laqueur
| first =Walter
| authorlink = Walter Laqueur
| coauthors =
| year =1996
| title =The Dream that Failed : Reflections on the Soviet Union
| publisher =Oxford University Press
| location =USA
| pages = 187-191
| id =ISBN 0-19-510282-7
}}</ref>
In the [[United States]], especially among [[American conservatism|conservatives]],<ref name="knopf">{{cite web
| last = Knopf
| first = Jeffrey W.
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| year = August 2004
| url = http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2004/aug/knopfAUG04.asp
| title = Did Reagan Win the Cold War?
| format = HTML
| work = Strategic Insights, Volume III, Issue 8
| publisher = Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School
| accessdate = 2006-04-19
| accessyear =
}}</ref> <ref name="Owens">{{cite web
| last = Owens
| first = Mackubin Thomas
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| year = June 05, 2004
| url = http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens200406051832.asp
| title = The Reagan of History: Reflections on the death of Ronald Reagan.
| format = HTML
| work =
| publisher = National Review Online
| accessdate = April 20
| accessyear = 2006
}}</ref> the politician most credited with predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union is [[President of the United States|President]] [[Ronald Reagan]].
Many of the predictions made before 1980 about the fall of the Soviet Union were considered by those who uttered them as a somewhat remote possibility rather than a probability. However, for some (such as Amalrik and Todd) the idea was much more than a passing thought.<ref name="dream" />
==Conventional wisdom discounted a collapse==
===U.S. analysts===
Predictions of the Soviet Union's impending demise were discounted by many, if not most, [[Western world|Western]] academic specialists,<ref name="melt">{{cite news
| first=Ian
| last=Cummins
| author=
| url=
| title=The Great MeltDown
| work=
| publisher=The Australian
| pages=
| page=
| date=[[23 December]] [[1995]]
| accessdate=
}}</ref> and had little impact on mainstream [[Kremlinology|Sovietology]].<ref name="post">{{cite news
| first=Jonas
| last=Bernstein
| author=
| url=
| title=Postmortem is also warning on optimism over Russia
| work=
| publisher=The Washington Times
| pages=
| page=B8
| date=[[22 January]] [[1995]]
| accessdate=
}} (Review of ''The Dream That Failed: Reflections on the Soviet Union'')</ref> For example, Amalrik's book "was welcomed as a piece of brilliant literature in the West" but "virtually no one tended to take it at face value as a piece of political prediction." Up to about 1980 the strength of the Soviet Union was widely overrated by critics and [[Marxist revisionism|revisionists]] alike. <ref name="dream" />
In 1983, [[Princeton University]] professor [[Stephen F. Cohen|Stephen Cohen]] described the [[Politics of the Soviet Union|Soviet system]] as remarkably stable.
In a symposium launched to review [[Michel Garder]]'s French book: ''L'Agonie du Regime en Russie Sovietique'' (''The Death Struggle of the Regime in Soviet Russia''), which also predicted the collapse of the USSR, [[Yale University|Yale]] Professor Frederick C. Barghoorn dismissed Garders book as "the latest in a long line of apocalyptic predictions of the collapse of communism." He warns that "great revolutions are most infrequent and that successful [[political system]]s are tenacious and adaptive." In addition, the reviewer of the book, Michael Tatu, disapproved of the "apocalyptic character" of such a forecast and is almost apologetic for treating it seriously.<ref name="lyons">{{cite book
| last =Lyons
| first =Eugene
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| year =1967
| title =[http://www.ca-politicaltransitions.com/Classes/PoliticalIdeas/Socialism/WorkersParadiseIndex.html Workers' Paradise Lost]
| publisher =Paperback Library
| location =New York
| id =
}} ''(Full book [http://www.ca-politicaltransitions.com/Classes/PoliticalIdeas/Socialism/WorkersParadiseIndex.html online])'' </ref>
Even as late as 1991, a leading American Sovietologist, Professor [[Jerry F. Hough]], wrote that "the belief that the Soviet Union may disintegrate as a country contradicts all we know about [[revolution]] and [[regional integration|national integration]] throughout the world". <ref name="melt" />
[[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] studies showed that the Soviet [[measures of national income and output#Gross National Product|gross national product]] was at 55 percent to 60 percent of that of the United States and growing; Soviet [[Military budget|defense spending]] was put at 6 percent to 15 percent of GNP.<ref name="post" />
Later [[Political science|analysis]] were less optimistic. In the 1980s and early 1990s the old inflated figures about [[Economy of the Soviet Union|Soviet economic]] performance continued to be used by most Soviet analysts.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a 1993 issue of ''[[The Economist]]'' quoted GNP figures that were significantly lower than World Bank Atlas figures a year before. But if the figures were accurate, the [[Russia]]n [[Economy of Russia#Gross Domestic Product|gross domestic product]] would have been about as big as [[South Africa]]'s, the [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]] not larger than [[Kenya]]'s. If correct, the figures would indicate that the [[Economy of Russia|Russian]] and [[Economy of Ukraine|Ukrainian economies]] had shrunk to less than 10 percent of what they had been the year before, which is impossible{{Fact|date=November 2007}}. Russia's GDP had shrunk from 50% of the [[Economy of the United States|U.S. GDP]] to around 5% GDP. This showed that the [[Federal government of the United States|U.S. government]] (as most other countries) had enormously overrated Soviet economic performance.<ref name="dream" />
===Soviet analysts===
From the onset of the Russian Revolution, [[Vladimir Lenin]] and most of his party believed that the fate of the [[Soviet state]] hinged on the success of communism in Western Europe, [[German Revolution|specifically Germany]]. Otherwise, according to Lenin, Russia was destined to be full of "red flags everywhere, but no real socialism." This is because [[Marxism]] was the ideology of an "industrial republic" (that phrase is the literal translation of "communism" in several languages), and Russia was too agricultural and backwards to support a [[socialism|socialist]] economy by itself. Ironically, this internationalist view was even shared by [[Joseph Stalin]], who would later reject it in favor of "[[socialism in one country]]," and claim that socialism had been successfully established in Russia without the help of an advanced country.
Long after Stalin had proscribed it, many communists subscribed to the illegal view held by [[Leon Trotsky]] that the USSR was stuck in transition between [[socialism]] and [[capitalism]]. Trotsky neither accepted Stalin's revisions nor forsook the USSR, but repeatedly argued the existence of two possibilities: either a worldwide communist revolution would end [[Stalinism]] in Russia, or the isolated Soviet state would be unable to challenge the entire capitalist world and itself revert to capitalism.
Later Soviet reaction to the western predictions of the collapse of the Soviet Union was skeptical. [[Soviet dissidents|Soviet dissident]] [[Natan Sharansky]] explained that "in 1984 [[KGB]] officials, on coming to me in prison" when Amalrik's prediction was mentioned "laughed at this prediction. Amalrik is long dead, they said, but we are still very much present."<ref>{{cite news
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| title=Press conference with Natan Sharansky, Israel's minister for trade and industry
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| publisher=Official Kremlin International News Broadcast
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| date=[[29 January]] [[1996]]
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==Predictions of Soviet collapse==
Other analysts, organizations and politicians who predicted the Soviet Union's collapse included:
===Post World War I===
Several economists reacted to the rise of [[Bolshevism]] with predictions that it must fail. In the 1920s, [[Nikolaas G. Pierson]], [[Georg Halm]], and [[Ludwig von Mises]] each arrived at the conclusion that the Soviet system of central planning could not match the performance of Western Capitalism. Pierson, Halm, and Mises each explained why central planning is too slow to adapt to the pace of change in modern industrialized economies. Mises focused specifically on the Soviet Union and Marxism in his 1922 book "Socialism, an Economic and Sociological Analysis". In the 1930s two economists at the [[London School of Economics]] ([[Lionel Robbins]] and [[Friedrich Hayek]]) advanced and extended the aforementioned critique of socialism against pro-Soviet economists like [[Maurice Dobb]] and [[Otto Neurath]].
===World War II===
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In June 1941 the [[Wehrmacht|German armies]] [[Eastern Front (World War II)|invaded Soviet controlled territories]] and the [[Red Army]] surrendered and retreated. On signing the order to commence [[Operation Barbarossa]], [[Adolf Hitler]] reportedly said to his generals, "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."<ref name="undeclared">{{cite book
| last = Gleason
| first = S. Everett
| coauthors = William L. Langer
| year = 1953
| title = The Undeclared War, 1940-1941
| pages = pp. 533, 545
}}</ref> Military observers around the world watched closely. It appears that most of them expected [[Nazi Germany]] would win and destroy the Soviet system and establish its [[New Order (political system)|New Order]] in Europe. <ref name="undeclared" /> Very few American experts thought the Soviets would survive.<ref name="herring">{{cite book
| last = Herring Jr.
| first = George C.
| year = 1973
| title = Aid to Russia, 1941-1946: Strategy, diplomacy, the origins of the cold war
| publisher = Columbia University Press
| location = New York
| id = ISBN 0-231-03336-2
| pages = pp. 41, 47
}}</ref> [[United Kingdom|British]] analysts also shared this view. Negative predictions had an important impact on [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], who decided to supply munitions to the Soviets through [[Lend-Lease]], and also to pressure [[Empire of Japan|Japan]] not to attack while the USSR was so vulnerable. The Red Army [[Battle of Moscow|held the line]] at the outskirts of [[Moscow]] and predictions changed to "uncertain." <ref name="herring" />
===Early Cold War===
====George Orwell====
Author of "[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]" [[George Orwell]] wrote in 1946 that "''the Russian regime will either democratize itself or it will perish''". He was regarded by US historian [[Robert Conquest]] as one of first people who made such prediction. According to a Conquest article published in 1969, "In time, the Communist world is faced with a fundamental crisis. We can not say for certain that it will democratize itself. But every indication is that it will, as Orwell said, either democratize itself or perish... We must also, though, be prepared to cope with cataclysmic changes, for the death throes of the more backward apparatus may be destructive and dangerous" <ref name="Dragons"> [[Robert Conquest]] ''The Dragons of Expectation. Reality and Delusion in the Course of History.'', W.W. Norton and Company (2004), ISBN 0-393-05933-2, page 217; citation from New York Times Magazine, August 18, 1969 </ref>
====George Kennan====
American [[Foreign relations of the United States|diplomat]] [[George F. Kennan]] proposed his famous [[containment]] theory in 1946-47, arguing that, if the USSR were not allowed to expand, it would soon collapse. In the [[George F. Kennan#"X"|"X"]] telegram he wrote:
{{quote|[T]he main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies... Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world [[Image:Kennan.jpeg|thumb|100px|[[George F. Kennan]]]] is something that can be constrained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvres of Soviet policy.<ref name="kennan-x">{{cite journal
| last = Kennan
| first = George
| authorlink = George F. Kennan
| coauthors =
| year = 1947
| month = July
| title = The Sources of Soviet conduct
| journal = Foreign Affairs
| volume =
| issue = XXV
| pages = 566–582
| id =
| url =
| accessdate =
}}</ref>}}
The United States would have to undertake this containment alone and [[unilateralism|unilaterally]], but if it could do so without undermining its own economic health and political stability, the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet party]] structure would undergo a period of immense strain eventually resulting in "either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power."<ref name="kennan-x" />
Kennan later regretted the manner in which his theory was received and implemented, but it nevertheless became a core element of American strategy, which consisted of building a series of [[military alliance]]s around the USSR.<ref name="kennan-m">{{cite book
| last = Kennan
| first = George
| authorlink = George F. Kennan
| coauthors =
| year = 1967
| title = Memoirs: 1925-1950
| publisher =
| location =
| id =
| pages = 354-367
}}</ref>
====Zbigniew Brzezinski====
[[Image:Brzezinski as nsa.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Zbigniew Brzezinski]]]]
[[Zbigniew Brzezinski]], [[National Security Advisor (United States)|National Security Advisor]] to [[Jimmy Carter]], predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union on several occasions. In a 2006 interview, Brzezinski stated that in his 1950 [[Master's degree|master's]] [[thesis]] (which has not been published) he argued that "the Soviet Union was pretending to be a [[Unitary state|single state]] but in fact it was a [[federation|multinational]] [[Soviet Empire|empire]] in the [[Nationalism#20th century|age of nationalism]]. So the Soviet Union would break up."<ref name="zb-masters">{{cite web
| last = Brzezinski
| first = Zbigniew
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| date = [[March 20]], [[2006]]
| url = http://english.people.com.cn/200603/20/eng20060320_251953.html
| title = "Agenda for constructive American-Chinese dialogue huge": Brzezinski
| format = HTML
| work =
| publisher = People's Daily Online
| accessdate = 2006-04-19
| accessyear =
}}</ref>
As an academic at [[Columbia University]], Brzezinski wrote [[Zbigniew Brzezinski#Bibliography|numerous books and articles]] that "took seriously the option of Collapse", including ''Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics'' (1969) and ''Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era'' (1970).<ref name="melberg">{{cite web
| last = Melberg
| first = Hans O.
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| year = 1996
| url = http://www.geocities.com/hmelberg/papers/960409.htm
| title = Organic explanations
| format = HTML
| work =
| publisher =
| accessdate = 2006-04-19
| accessyear =
}}</ref>
''Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics'' contained fourteen articles dealing with the future of the Soviet Union. Six of them, by Brzezinski himself, [[Robert Conquest]], Merle Fainsod, [[Eugene Lyons]], Giorgio Galli, and [[Isaac Don Levine]], considered "collapse as a serious possibility although not immediately." <ref name="b">{{cite journal
| first =Seymour Martin
| last =Lipset
| authorlink =
| coauthors =Gyorgy Bence
| year = 1994
| month =April
| title =Anticipations of the failure of communism
| journal =Theory and Society
| volume =23
| issue =2
| pages =169–210
| id =ISSN 0304-2421 (Paper) 1573-7853 (Online)
| url =http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/80804.html
| doi =10.1007/BF00993814
}}</ref>
On the other hand, in 1976 Brzezinski predicted that the [[politics of the Soviet Union]] would be practically unchanged for several more generations to come:
:"A central question, however, is whether such [[social change]] <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[modernization]]<nowiki>]</nowiki> is capable of altering, or has in fact already altered in a significant fashion, the underlying character of Soviet politics. That character, as I have argued, has been shaped largely by political traditions derived from the specifics of [[History of Russia|Russian]] / [[History of the Soviet Union|Soviet history]], and it is deeply embedded in the operational style and institutions of the existing Soviet system. The ability of that system to resist [[History of the Soviet Union (1953-1985)#De-Stalinization and the Khrushchev era|de-Stalinization]] seems to indicate a considerable degree of resilience on the part of the dominant mode of politics in the Soviet context. It suggests, at the very least, that [[political change]]s are produced very slowly through social change, and that one must wait for at least several generations before social change begins to be significantly reflected in the political sphere."<ref name="dynamics">{{cite book
| last = Brzezinski
| first = Zbigniew
| authorlink = Zbigniew Brzezinski
| coauthors =
| editor = Paul Cocks, Robert V. Daniels and Nancy Whittier Heer.
| chapter = Soviet Politics: From the Future to the Past?
| title = The Dynamics of Soviet Politics
| origyear = 1976
| publisher = Harvard University Press
| location = Cambridge
| pages = 337-51
}}</ref>
In 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the [[Revolutions of 1989|collapse of Soviet power]] throughout [[Eastern Europe]], Brzezinski published ''The Grand Failure: The Birth and Decay of Communism in the [[20th century|Twentieth Century]]''. In that work he wrote:
:"[[Marxism-Leninism]] is an alien doctrine imposed on the region by an imperial power whose rule is culturally repugnant to the dominated peoples. As a result, a process of organic rejection of communism by Eastern European societies – a phenomenon similar to the [[Human anatomy|human body]]'s [[Transplant rejection|rejection]] of a [[Organ transplant|transplanted organ]] – is underway."<ref name="failure">{{cite book
| last = Brzezinski
| first = Zbigniew
| authorlink = Zbigniew Brzezinski
| coauthors =
| year = 1989
| title = The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century
| publisher = Charles Schribner's Sons
| location = New York
| id = ISBN 0-02-030730-6
| pages = 105 and 242-255
}}</ref>
Brzezinski went on to explain that communism "failed to take into account the basic human craving for [[individualism|individual]] [[Freedom (philosophy)|freedom]]." He argued there were five possibilities for USSR:
#Successful pluralization,
#Protracted crisis,
#Renewed [[Brezhnev stagnation|stagnation]],
#[[Coup d'état|Coup]] ([[KGB]], [[Military of the Soviet Union|Military]]), and
#The explicit collapse of the [[Communist state|Communist regime]].
Option #5 in fact took place three years later, but at the time he wrote that collapse was "at this stage a much more remote possibility" than alternative #3: renewed stagnation. He also predicted chances of some form of communism existing in Soviet in 2017 was a little more than 50%. Finally when the end does come in a few more decades, Brzezinski wrote, it would be "most likely turbulent."<ref name="failure" />
====Charles de Gaulle====
"Only a handful of thinkers, ranging from [[Charles de Gaulle]] to the Soviet dissident [[Andrei Amalrik]], foretold the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, and even they saw it as likely to happen as a result of [[Sino-Russian relations#Soviet Union, Republic of China, People's Republic of China|disastrous wars]] with [[People's Republic of China|China]] or pressures from the [[Islam in the Soviet Union|Islamic]] [[Republics of the Soviet Union#Sorted by region|Soviet states]] of [[Central Asia]]."<ref name="fromkin"> {{cite journal
| first =David
| last =Fromkin
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| year =1999
| month =November 9
| title =Communists lost their faith, and failed to convert to democracy
| journal =[[The Plain Dealer (newspaper)|Plain Dealer]] (Cleveland, Ohio)
| volume =
| issue =
| pages =9B
| id =
| url =http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/78948.html
}} </ref>
On [[23 November]] [[1959]], in a speech in [[Strasbourg]], de Gaulle announced his vision for Europe: ''[[Charles de Gaulle#1958—1962: Founding of the Fifth Republic|Oui, c'est l'Europe, depuis l'Atlantique jusqu'à l'Oural, c'est tout l'Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde.]]'' ("Yes, it is Europe, from the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] to the [[Ural Mountains|Urals]], it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the destiny of the world.")<ref name="cdg-eau">{{cite web
| last =
| first =
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| year =
| url = http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=375
| title = Sur l'Europe
| format = HTML
| work = Citations
| publisher = Charles-de-Gaulle.org
| accessdate = 2006-04-19
| accessyear =
}}</ref> This phrase has been interpreted in various ways—on the one hand, as offering [[détente]] to the USSR,<ref name="cdg-detente">{{cite web
| last =
| first =
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| year =
| url = http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=375
| title = 1962-1968 : the consolidation of the regime
| format = HTML
| work = Biography
| publisher = Charles-de-Gaulle.org
| accessdate = 2006-04-19
| accessyear =
}}</ref> on the other, as predicting the collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe.<ref name="brz-cdg-collapse">{{cite news
| first=Zbigniew
| last=Brzezinski
| title=The West Adrift: Vision In Search of A Strategy
| publisher=Washington Post
| pages=C1
| date=[[March 1]], [[1992]]
| accessdate=2006-04-19
}}</ref><ref name="cdg-collapse">{{cite news
| author=Valerio Castronovo
| title=Russia Is Close, But the Kremlin Is Not
| publisher=Il Sole 24 Ore
| date=[[29 June]], [[2002]]
| accessdate=2006-04-19
}}</ref>
====Konrad Adenauer====
[[Konrad Adenauer]] has been cited predicting the [[German reunification|reunification of Germany]]<ref name="dream" /> as early as the 1950s,<ref name="greenberg">{{cite news
| first=Paul
| last=Greenberg
| title=The forgotten giant
| publisher=[[Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]]
| page=J4
| date=[[November 28]], [[1999]]
| accessdate=2006-04-21
}}</ref> but according to Hans-Peter Schwarz, in the last few years of Adenauer's life he repeatedly said that Soviet power would last a long time.<ref name="schwarz">{{cite book
| last = Schwarz
| first = Hans-Peter
| title = Konrad Adenauer: A German Politician and Statesman in a Period of War, Revolution and Reconstruction : The Statesman : 1952-1967, Volume 2
| origyear = 1995
| publisher = Berghahn Books
| pages = 795
| id = ISBN 1-57181-960-6
}}</ref>
In 1966, at the [[Christian Democratic Union (Germany)|Christian Democrats]]' [[party conference]], Adenauer stated his hopes that some day the Soviets might allow the reunification of Germany. Some analysts say it might be considered a prediction:
:"I have not given up hope. One day Soviet Russia will recognize that the division of Germany, and with it the division of Europe, is not to its advantage. We must be watchful for when the moment comes... we must not let it go unexploited."<ref name="greenberg" />
====Whittaker Chambers====
In a posthumously published 1964 book entitled ''Cold Friday'', Communist [[Defection|defector]] [[Whittaker Chambers]] predicted an eventual Soviet collapse beginning with a "[[satellite state|satellite]] revolution" in Eastern Europe. This revolution would then result in the transformation of the Soviet [[dictatorship]].<ref name="sempa">{{cite news
| first=Francis P.
| last=Sempa
| url=http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2001_07-09/sempa_chambers/sempa_chambers.html
| title=Whittaker Chambers: A Centenary Reflection
| publisher=[[American Diplomacy]]
| date=[[July 9]], [[2001]]
| accessdate=2006-05-02
}}</ref>
====Michel Garder====
[[Michel Garder]] was a French author who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union in the book ''L'Agonie du Regime en Russie Sovietique'' (''[[Michel Garder#The Death Struggle of the Regime in Soviet Russia|The Death Struggle of the Regime in Soviet Russia]]'') (1965). He set the date of the collapse for 1970.<ref name="lyons" />
===Détente===
====RAND corporation====
In 1968 Egon Neuberger, of the [[RAND|RAND Corporation]], predicted that "[t]he [[central economy|centrally planned economy]] eventually would meet its demise, because of its demonstrably growing ineffectiveness as a system for managing a modernizing economy in a rapidly changing world."<ref>Cahn, Anne H. (September, 1998). ''Killing Detente: The Right Attacks the CIA'', Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01791-0<br>*Egon Neuberger, "The Legacies of Central Planning," RM 5530-PR, [[RAND Corporation|Rand]], June 1968, quoted in Gertrude E. Schroeder, "Reflections on Economic Sovietology," ''Post-Soviet Affairs'' 11 (July–September 1995): 197–234.</ref>
====Robert Conquest====
In the book ''Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics'', which was a collection of authors edited by [[Zbigniew Brzezinski]], [[Robert Conquest]] in his section, ''"Immobilism and decay"'', saw "the USSR as a country where the political system is radically and dangerously inappropriate to its social and economic dynamics. This is a formula for change - change which may be sudden and catastrophic."<ref name="b" />
Conquest also predicted the fall in his book, ''The Nation Killers: The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities'' (1970).{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
====Sun Myung Moon====
[[Image:Sun-Myung-Moon-Prayer.jpg|thumb|[[Sun Myung Moon]]]]
[[Sun Myung Moon]], founder of the [[Unification Church]] repeatedly predicted that Communism was inherently flawed and would inevitably collapse sometime in the late 80's. In a speech to followers in Paris in April 1972, he stated:
"Communism, begun in 1917, could maintain itself approximately 60 years and reach its peak. So 1978 is the borderline and afterward communism will decline; in the 70th year it will be altogether ruined. This is true. Therefore now is the time for people who are studying communism to abandon it."[http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/ward/ward%2D000000.htm]
====Andrei Amalrik====
Prominent dissident [[Andrei Amalrik]] wrote in his book ''[[Andrei Amalrik#Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?|Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?]]'':
:There is another powerful factor which works against the chance of any kind of peaceful reconstruction and which is equally negative for all levels of society: this is the extreme isolation in which the regime has placed both society and itself. This isolation has not only separated the regime from society, and all sectors of society from each other, but also put the country in extreme isolation from the rest of the world. This isolation has created for all—from the bureaucratic elite to the lowest social levels—an almost surrealistic picture of the world and of their place in it. Yet the longer this state of affairs helps to perpetuate the status quo, the more rapid and decisive will be its collapse when confrontation with reality becomes inevitable.
Amalrik predicted the collapse of the regime would occur between 1980 and 1985.<ref>Cahn, Anne H. (September, 1998). ''Killing Detente: The Right Attacks the CIA'', Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01791-0<br>*[[Andrei Amalrik]], ''[[Andrei Amalrik#Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?|Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?]]'' (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 33. ISBN 0-06-090732-0</ref> The year in the title was after the [[Nineteen Eighty-Four|novel of the same name]].
====Marian Kamil Dziewanowski====
Historian [[Marian Kamil Dziewanowski]] "gave a lecture titled 'Death of the Soviet Regime' at the Russian Research Center at [[Harvard University]]. The same lecture was delivered at [[Cambridge University]] in [[England]] in 1971 and 1979. The text of the lecture (titled 'Death of the Soviet Regime: a Study in American Sovietology, by a Historian') was published in ''Studies in Soviet Thought''. In 1980, he "updated this study and delivered it as a paper at the International Slavic Congress at [[Garmisch-Partenkirchen|Garmish]]; titled 'The Future of Soviet Russia,' it was published in ''Coexistence: An International Journal'' (Glasgow 1982)."<ref> {{cite journal
| first =M.K.
| last =Dziewanowski
| authorlink =[[Marian Kamil Dziewanowski]]
| coauthors =
| year =1999
| month =January
| title =Letters
| journal = The Sarmatian Review
| volume =19
| issue =1
| pages =
| id =
| url =http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/199/letters.html
}}</ref>
====Emmanuel Todd====
[[Emmanuel Todd]] attracted attention in 1976 when he predicted the fall of the [[Soviet Union]], based on indicators such as increasing [[infant mortality]] rates: ''[[Emmanuel Todd#Prediction of the collapse of the USSR|La chute final: Essais sur la décomposition de la sphère Soviétique]]'' (The Final Fall: an Essay on the Disintegration of the Soviet Sphere).
====Bernard Levin====
[[Bernard Levin]] drew attention in 1992 to his prophetic article originally published in ''[[The Times]]'' in [[1977#September|September 1977]], in which an uncannily accurate prediction of the appearance of new faces in the [[Politburo]] was made, resulting in radical but peaceful political change.<ref name="dream" /> <ref name="blevin">{{cite journal
| author = Bernard Levin
| year = 1993
| month = Spring
| title = One who got it right
| journal = [[The National Interest]]
| pages = 64–65
| url = http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_n31/ai_13991692
| accessdate = 2006-04-21
}}</ref>
====Daniel Patrick Moynihan====
[[Image:DanielPatrickMoynihan.jpg|thumb|100px|right|Daniel Patrick Moynihan]]
[[United States Senate|Senator]] [[Daniel Patrick Moynihan]] in a series of articles and interviews from 1975 onward discussed the possibility, indeed likelihood, of the breakup of the Soviet Empire. But Moynihan also expressed the view that [[liberal democracy]], too, faced an uncertain future. <ref name="dream" /> He argued in [[1975#January|January 1975]] that the Soviet Union was so weak economically, and so divided ethnically, that it could not long survive. However he said it "might have considerable time left before ethnicity breaks it up." By 1984 he argued "the Soviet idea is spent.
History is moving away from it at astounding speed."<ref name="Moynihan">{{cite news
| first=Daniel Patrick
| last=Moynihan
| title=The Peace Dividend
| publisher=[[New York Review of Books]]
| date=[[28 June]] [[1990]]
| accessdate=
}}</ref> Some of his essays were published as ''Secrecy: The American Experience'' in 1999.
====Samizdat====
Various essays published in [[samizdat]] in the early 1970s were on similar lines, some quite specifically predicting the end of the Soviet Union. <ref name="dream" /><ref name="samizdat">S. Zorin and N. Alekseev, Vremya ne zhdzt (Frankfurt, 1970); Alexander Petrov-Agatov (manuscript), excerpts in Cornelia Gerstenmaier, Die Stimme der Stummen (Stuttgart, 1971), 156-67.</ref>
[[Image:Wydawnictwa podziemne.jpg|thumb|100px|Polish samizdat papers]]
===Late Cold War===
====Raymond Aron====
[[David Fromkin]] wrote of [[Raymond Aron]]'s prediction,
:"I know of only one person who came close to getting it right: Raymond Aron, the French philosopher and [[liberalism|liberal]] [[Anti-communism|anti-Communist]]. In a talk on the Soviet threat that I heard him give in the 1980s at the [[International Institute for Strategic Studies]] in [[London]], he reminded the audience of [[Niccolò Machiavelli|Machiavelli]]'s observation in ''[[The Prince]]'' that 'all armed prophets have conquered and all unarmed ones failed.'
{{cquote|But what happens, Aron asked, if the prophet, having conquered and then ruled by force of arms, loses faith in his own prophecy? In the answer to that question, Aron suggested, lay the key to understanding the future of the Soviet Union. <ref name="fromkin" />}}
====Ravi Batra====
The economist [[Ravi Batra]] predicted the collapse of the USSR. {{Fact|date=February 2007}}
====Ronald Reagan====
On [[March 3]], [[1983]], [[President of the United States|United States President]] [[Ronald Reagan]] told the [[National Association of Evangelicals]] in [[Orlando, Florida|Orlando]], [[Florida]]: "I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last — last pages even now are being written."<ref name="evilempire">{{cite web
| last = Reagan
| first = Ronald
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| date = [[March 8]], [[1983]]
| url = http://www.reagansheritage.org/reagan/html/reagan03_08_83.shtml
| title = Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando Florida
| format = HTML
| work =
| publisher =
| accessdate = 2008-05-30
| accessyear =
}}</ref>
[[Image:Official Portrait of President Reagan 1981.jpg|thumb|100px|Ronald Reagan]]
Reagan's fullest analysis came in his [[1982#June|June 1982]] address to the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|British Parliament]], which received worldwide attention.
:It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens. It also is in deep economic difficulty. The rate of growth in the national product has been steadily declining since the fifties and is less than half of what it was then. The dimensions of this failure are astounding: A country which employs one-fifth of its population in agriculture is unable to feed its own people. Were it not for the private sector, the tiny private sector tolerated in Soviet agriculture, the country might be on the brink of famine. …Overcentralized, with little or no incentives, year after year the Soviet system pours its best resource into the making of instruments of destruction. The constant shrinkage of economic growth combined with the growth of military production is putting a heavy strain on the Soviet people. What we see here is a political structure that no longer corresponds to its economic base, a society where productive forces are hampered by political ones. …In the Communist world as well, man's instinctive desire for freedom and self-determination surfaces again and again. To be sure, there are grim reminders of how brutally the police state attempts to snuff out this quest for [[self-governance|self-rule]] – 1953 in [[East Germany]], 1956 in [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]], 1968 in [[Czechoslovakia]], 1981 in [[Poland]]. But the struggle continues in [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]]. And we know that there are even those who strive and suffer for freedom within the confines of the Soviet Union itself. …What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term – the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the [[ash heap of history]] as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people. And that's why we must continue our efforts to strengthen [[NATO]] even as we move forward with our Zero-Option initiative in the negotiations on intermediate-range forces and our proposal for a one-third reduction in [[Strategic bombing|strategic]] [[ballistic missile]] [[warhead]]s."<ref name="reagan-brit">{{cite web
| last = Reagan
| first = Ronald
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| date = [[June 8]], [[1982]]
| url = http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/reagan-parliament.htm
| title = Ronald Reagan Address to British Parliament
| format = HTML
| work =
| publisher =
| accessdate = 2006-04-19
| accessyear =
}}</ref>
Analyst Jeffrey W. Knopf has explained why Reagan went beyond everyone else:
:"Reagan stands out in part because he believed the Soviet Union could be defeated. For most of the Cold War, [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] and [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] administrations alike had assumed the Soviet Union would prove durable for the foreseeable future. The bipartisan policy of containment aimed to keep the Soviet Union in check while trying to avoid [[Nuclear warfare|nuclear war]]; it did not seek to force the dissolution of the Soviet empire. Ronald Reagan, in contrast, believed that the [[Economy of the Soviet Union|Soviet economy]] was so weak that increased pressure could bring the Soviet Union to the brink of failure. He therefore periodically expressed confidence that the forces of democracy 'will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history'."<ref name="knopf" />
==Why were Sovietologists wrong?==
According to Kevin Brennan:
:"[[Kremlinology|Sovietology]] failed because it operated in an environment that encouraged failure. Sovietologists of all political stripes were given strong incentives to ignore certain facts and focus their interest in other areas. I don't mean to suggest that there was a giant conspiracy at work; there wasn't. It was just that there were no careers to be had in questioning the conventional wisdom...
:..There were other kinds of institutional biases as well, such as those that led to the..."[[Team B]]" Report."<ref name="kevin">{{cite web
| last = Brennan
| first = Kevin
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| year = 2004
| url = http://www.la-mancha.net/?p=159
| title = Tilting at Windmills: On The Failure of Sovietology
| format = HTML
| work = www.la-mancha.net
| publisher =
| accessdate = 2006-04-21
| accessyear =
}}</ref>
[[Seymour Martin Lipset]] and [[György Bence]] write:
:"Given these judgments of the Soviet future made by political leaders and journalists, the question is why were they right and so many of our Sovietological colleagues wrong. The answer again in part must be ideological. Reagan and Levin came from rightist backgrounds, and Moynihan, much like the leaders of the [[AFL-CIO]], from a [[left-wing politics|leftist]] anti-[[Stalinism|Stalinist]] [[Social democracy|social-democratic]] milieu, environments that disposed participants to believe the worst. Most of the Sovietologists, on the other hand, were left-liberal in their politics, an orientation that undermined their capacity to accept the view that economic statism, planning, socialist incentives, would not work. They were also for the most part ignorant of, or ignored, the basic [[Marxism|Marxist]] formulation that it is impossible to build socialism in impoverished societies."
:Brzezinski's 1969 collection, ''Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics'' demonstrates this point, of "the fourteen contributors...Two-thirds (four out of six) of those who foresaw a serious possibility of breakdown were, like [[Bernard Levin|Levin]], [[Daniel Patrick Moynihan|Moynihan]], and [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]], nonacademics. Three quarters (six out of eight) of those who could not look beyond system continuity were scholars. <ref name="b" />
==See also==
* [[History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991)]]
* [[Economy of the Soviet Union]]
==Further reading==
<!--PLEASE NOTE: When citing a reference, please use the proper citation template. See: [[Category:Citation templates]] -->
*{{cite journal
| first =M. K.
| last =Dziewanowski
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| year =1972
| month =December
| title = Death of the Soviet regime: A study in American sovietology by a historian
| journal =Studies in East European Thought
| volume =12
| issue =4
| pages =367–379
| id =ISSN 0925-9392 (Paper) 1573-0948 (Online)
| url =
}} Publisher: Springer Netherlands
*{{cite book
| last = Lanqueur
| first = Walter
| authorlink = Walter Laqueur
| title = The Dream That Failed: Reflections on the Soviet Union
| publisher = Oxford University Press
| id = ISBN 0-19-510282-7
}}
*{{cite journal
| first =Seymour Martin
| last =Lipset
| authorlink =
| coauthors =Gyorgy Bence
| year = 1994
| month =April
| title =Anticipations of the failure of communism
| journal =Theory and Society
| volume =23
| issue =2
| pages =169–210
| id =ISSN 0304-2421 (Paper) 1573-7853 (Online)
| url =http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/80804.html
| doi =10.1007/BF00993814
}}
*{{cite journal
| first =Peter
| last =Rutland
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| year =Spring
| month =1993
| title =Sovietology: Notes for a Post-Morterm
| journal = The National Interest
| volume =
| issue =31
| pages =109+
| id =
| url =
}}
*{{cite journal
| first =Dmitry
| last =Orlov
| authorlink =
| coauthors =
| year =2005
| month =June 1
| title =Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century
| journal =www.fromthewilderness.com
| volume =
| issue =
| pages =
| id =
| url = http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060105_soviet_lessons.shtml
}}
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Cold War]]
[[Category:Prediction]]
[[Category:Soviet Union]]
[[ru:Распад СССР]]