Taking any one ‘Empire’, explain why you think it collapsedThe Soviet Union
...that capitalist systems work by having a central core of developed economies as the exploiter, middle economies both exploited and acting as exploiters and a third outside level, mainly the third world, which is exploited by the core developed countries. This theory would make both the USA and the Soviet Union core countries able to exploit other countries for their own creation of wealth. The suggested (Webber, 1996) problem for the USSR was that it could not exploit all the satellite states of the Soviet Union in the same way as the USA could exploit the countries of the Third World. This meant that the arms race of the Cold War was relatively far more costly to the Soviet Union than it was to the USA, particularly when we realise that the arms race started after WWII when the Soviet economy was crippled but that of the USA was booming. The economic failings of the Soviet Union were to be its downfall as it opened to door for the Soviet leadership to question whether Communism was a viable economic alternative to participation and integration with the capitalist world around it. These economic failings were seem as the main weakness of the Soviet Union by Gorbachev when he was appointed Soviet leader in 1985. As pluralists would argue the reforms he then attempted were perhaps from ideas that had began to permeate the Soviet Union via international organisations, and international law and norms. This can particularly be seen in the divide that existed between East and West Berlin when people of the Soviet Union could see exactly the difference in lifestyle between themselves and people living in a free capitalist state. Urwin (1996) tells us that the internal liberalisation needed to affect these economic changes led to a more open debate on the future of the USSR and led to independence movements developing in other member countries of the Soviet Union. It was becoming apparent that Communist supremacy and economic reform were incompatible. The loss of Communist supremacy in exchange for economic change is argued by the Marxist-Leninists as part of the ‘traitor-thesis’ which implies that Communism was on track for future success until it was betrayed by weaker people after the death of Stalin. This theory could perhaps be true but the Soviet economy was nowhere near the level of the USA’s even during Stalin’s leadership. It may not perhaps be an inherent flaw in Communism that is to blame for the failures of the Soviet Union, it could just be that the USA had such huge advantages due to the way its economy developed historically. It has been suggested (Cox et al, 2001) that the USA was, and is, geographically isolated, as a Republic was seen as less of a threat to the old monarchies of Western Europe in the late 19th century, and until the 1920’s did not have any real military power. The nature of the USA itself allowed it to flourish as a state, perhaps just to these reasons the Soviet Union and Communism itself were unfortunate in having such a strong and powerful...