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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Discuss the main factors leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  • UPSC 2002
  • Disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Rise of the Unipolar World

The collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 was not a sudden event but the culmination of decades of accumulating structural weakness finally detonated by the reforms of the 1980s.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • Structural Economic Stagnation
  • The Arms Race and Cold War Overstretch
  • The Afghan War as a Bleeding Wound
  • Ideological Exhaustion and the Legitimacy Crisis
  • The Nationalities Problem
  • Gorbachev's Reforms as Catalyst
  • …and 2 more sections, with a conclusion

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