This is of course, going to be subjective, there is no -objective- quantifiable answer as to what was the single largest cause of Soviet collapse. But I will argue that yes, the biggest factor was Mikhail Gorbachev, followed by the personage of Boris Yeltsin as the next biggest factor.
So now let’s look at some of the commonly cited reasons as to why the USSR collapsed. I will explain why they were -not- the principal factor behind it. It was not, as crude Marxist-esque argument have it, a historical inevitability.
It should be noted that while there are studies showing declining life expectations and other indicators for standard of living in the late Soviet era [6], the Soviet economy measured in GNP was still growing at around 2%/year between 1981-85. [8] The Soviet per capita income was well above world average, and had a system of state provided healthcare, housing and jobs which guaranteed the delivery of at least some level of social services to maintain living standards. [5]
The Soviet economy, as problematic as it was, was chugging along before Gorbachev’s reforms destabilized it. While there were certainly shortages,the images of dire shortages of the early 1990s broadcast on TV was really the problem of hoarding amidst the crisis of an economy in rapid transition rather than indicator that the Soviet economy of 1985 was heading towards collapse. [3]
Moreover, an economic crisis could not and does not cause even a medium sized country to collapse. The United States for example, did not collapse during the great depression. Zimbabwe did not collapse amidst hyperinflation, Cuba did not collapse despite losing Soviet subsidies at the end of the 1980s. More tellingly, Russia, which suffered economic crisis, hardship and privation worse than anything in the late Soviet era, did not collapse in the 1990s. The Russian economy contracted by as much as 40% between 1990 and 1997 which was far worse than anything in the USSR since Stalin, but not only did the country stay together, but Yeltsin remained in power until the end of the decade.
Then it should be concluded, that the Soviet economy, while certainly falling far behind that the United States, was not the main factor behind collapse, which leads us to:
2) The USSR fell to a nationalist revolt in the Republics and a Democratic revolt in Russia against dictatorial rule from Moscow: Greatly exaggerated, separatism was a serious problem in a few of the Soviet Republics: namely the Baltics, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova. But all those Republics combined composed 1-2% of the Union’s territory and population. Even if all of those Republics left, the USSR would still have had vast majority of its pre-1985 territory and population. [3]
Popular *support* for the USSR should also not be underestimated. In March 1991, the Soviet government took the unprecedented steps of organizing a real Union-wide referendum on whether to keep the USSR together under the New Union Treaty, which would have transformed the USSR into a Confederation rather than an effective unitary state ruled from Moscow. Some US officials including observers from the Helsinki commission were given access to monitor the voting process itself. While it was boycotted in the Republics named above: over 80% of the total Soviet population voted in the referendum, and a resounding 77.85% voted to keep the Soviet Union together under. If the USSR really was a “prisonhouse of nations”, then it is quite amazing that almost 80% of the prisoners voted to keep the prison in a referendum which was, while flawed, still owed its result more to voter moods than to irregularities.
While it’s true that Ukraine voted for independence after the August Coup 8 month later, it should be noted that the wording of the referendum using the word “independence” was actually ambiguous because words like “sovereignty” and “independence” had being used by late Soviet politicians in so many different context for so many different things it’s possible that many simply didn’t really know what they were voting for. In any case, it occured after the August coup had discredited the Soviet government, an event which was hardly inevitable. [3]
It’s also true that the people did take to the streets to protest against the August Coup, the actual number of people who participated as percentage of even the population of pro-Yeltsin Moscow was tiny. Most people simply continued to live their lives as normal and waited to see which way the horse jumped in what they saw as a power struggle between elites.
Even when it came to Socialism as an economic system, the people were hardly unified in their desire to run towards western capitalism. In one survey conducted in March 1991: only 38% of respondents declared that Socialism has failed and that they want to move to be more like “modern nations”, while 47% answered some variant of desiring to continue to build some kind of socialism. The remaining participants said it was “difficult to say”. In other surveys a far higher proportion of respondents said they preferred the “Socialist choice”. Participants also showed an overwhelming desire to have some kind of “Sweden” model which “combines best of Socialism and Capitalism. [1]
There were real benefits of the Soviet Union for the average Soviet citizen: an integrated economic zone in which goods and peoples moved freely, a common currency, a common language (60% of even non-Russians spoke Russian fluently), pride in the shared history of WWII, pride in the Soviet armed forces, the list goes on. Even when it came to the economic system the popular aspects of it such as job guarantees and the inertia of status quo was enough to win it at least a plurality of support from the Soviet people.
When Yeltsin dissolved the USSR at Belavezha, he immediately announced that it was to be replaced with the Commonwealth of independent states, which at the time was interpreted to mean something resembling Gorbachev’s New Union state with a common armed forces and foreign policy. And as late as November 1991 Yeltsin had continued to assure people that the Union was going to continue. Just a year after December 1991, surveys show over ⅔ of the same Muscovites who took to the streets the previous August said they “regretted” the collapse of the USSR as a state. [3]
In other words, the Soviet Union was dissolved by Yeltsin against popular well, the vast majority of the Soviet population, repeating a pattern seen over and over again in both Russian and revolutionary history in general, simply sat on the sidelines and watched as life-changing events took place beyond their control.
Which leads us to
3) Communism suffers from inherit ideological defects and disillusionment from the Soviet state ideology made collapse inevitable:
First of all, there is a difference between Communism and the Soviet state, you could have the latter without the former.
Second of all, as I showed in 2), it’s simply not true that the majority of the Soviet people wanted to dissolve their state, or even to abandon Socialism as it existed in 1985.
Lastly and most importantly, ideology and ideas can be reformed and changed. The United States after all was founded on slavery and racial supremacy of whites over Africans and Native Americans, and yet over time it reformed itself into something wholly different and more egalitarian. America had its ideology of ruthless Laissez-Faire capitalism in the 19th century, but that changed when president Franklin Roosevelt led the Perestroika of American capitalism in the 1930s. As another example, in 1980s-1990s China the Communist Party created the world’s largest capitalism society while calling it “Socialist”.
What constitutes “Socialism” and “Communism” is flexible. There is no reason why the Soviet ideology couldn’t have changed over time to become something more appealing, as it actually did in many ways during the late 1980s.