The soviet union wasn’t an empire. It was large, sure, but didn’t practice imperialism, it wasn’t exporting capital as a means of profiting off of global south labor or anything. It was anti-imperialist.
Either way, the decline of the USSR was multi-faceted. From corn-cob man declaring that class struggle was over and demonizing their past experience, to liberal reforms under Gorbachev undermining the socialist system, to having to dedicate huge portions of their productive capacity simply to not get invaded and destroyed by the US Empire, none of this was due to “communist party hardliners.” Instead, as the world’s first real socialist state, it ran into problems and struggles that nobody else had before, they were charting new ground with every step.
The soviet union wasn’t an empire. It was large, sure, but didn’t practice imperialism, it wasn’t exporting capital as a means of profiting off of global south labor or anything. It was anti-imperialist.
Either way, the decline of the USSR was multi-faceted. From corn-cob man declaring that class struggle was over and demonizing their past experience, to liberal reforms under Gorbachev undermining the socialist system, to having to dedicate huge portions of their productive capacity simply to not get invaded and destroyed by the US Empire, none of this was due to “communist party hardliners.” Instead, as the world’s first real socialist state, it ran into problems and struggles that nobody else had before, they were charting new ground with every step.
Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union goes over some of this.