The causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a great debate developed on what caused the collapse of the Soviet empire both within the former Soviet Union and among scholars around the world. Various theories have been published among scholars in an attempt to explain and pinpoint the flaws of the Soviet system and the forces that led the Soviet Union to a rapid and catastrophic collapse. Economic weakness is commonly believed to be the cause of the collapse, but others argue that political decisions made by Gorbachev and his supporters should bear most of the blame for the collapse. Another subgroup of scholars argues that the diverse ethnic composition of the Soviet empire led to divided loyalties among Soviet satellite states and created fatal fault lines within the empire that Soviet leaders simply underestimated. Others have put forward the theory that the moral consensus among the elite class in favor of the communist system collapsed and led to complete Soviet collapse. The collapse of the Soviet empire is one of the most dramatic and consequential historical events to have occurred in the last 30 years. Understanding the collapse of the Soviet Union can help understand how the complex interaction between empire, economics, politics, ethnicity, and morality can shape and drive historical events. The best-known theory on the end of the Soviet empire holds that the economic collapse suffered by the Soviet Union was the main cause of the collapse of the Soviet empire. Alexander Dallin and his wife and co-author Gail W. Lapidus are two prominent proponents of this theory. Dallin was born in Russia in 1924 and later settled in the United States after his family...... half of the paper ......BibliographyAron, Leon. “Everything you know about the collapse of the Soviet Union is wrong.” Foreign policy, no. 187 (2011): 64-70. http://search.proquest.com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/docview/875231669/fulltextPDF?accountid=15115 (accessed June 4, 2014).Birgerson, Susanne Michelle. "Empires and the Case of the Soviet Union". After the breakup of a multiethnic empire: Russia, successor states, and Eurasian security. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2002. 16-44. Dallin, Alexander, and Gail W. Lapidus. The Soviet system: from crisis to collapse. Revised edition ed. Colorado: Westview Press, 1995. Suraska, Wisla. How the Soviet Union Disappeared: An Essay on the Causes of the Dissolution. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998. Sternthal, Susanne. Gorbachev's reforms: de-Stalinization through demilitarization. Westport: Praeger Publisher, 1997.