I figured I’d ask here since you comrades know history and are on talking terms with reality, unlike a lot of stuff that is available to read online. I am really looking for a short answer, although I know there were many factors playing out over a long long time. Just the bullet points, if you please.
Edit: Thank you for these awesome answers, a lot of exactly what I was looking for and a lot of new directions to explore. Y’all really are the dope-ass bear B-)
socialism betrayed is a very good book. I’m not going to try to summarize it at all, but one point that the book makes was the growth of the grey/black market outside of the legal soviet economy. starting in the 60s (maybe the 50s? I don’t remember), the grey/black market really took off and was ultimately larger than the legal economy. Soviet leadership failed to address the needs served by the black market economy with the legal economy, creating a class of people who were incentivized to work outside of the legal economy and thus helped support material conditions for people who weren’t aligned with soviet leadership/the CCCP. this isn’t as glamorous as other potential factors (cold war, afghanistan, great man theory of soviet leadership) but when I read socialism betrayed this point stood out to me as highly significant.