During the 1970s and 1980s the Soviet Union was recognized throughout the world as a strong political power, although the Soviet Union was not what it seemed. When Mikhail Gorbachev (see Figure 1) was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on March 11, 1985, no one could have predicted that within 6 years the Soviet Union would collapse into fifteen separate states. He attempted to transform the Soviet system into a democracy, which quickly failed (Grachev, 1995). The main reasons for the fall of the USSR are economic issues, political issues, psychological factors and competition with the West, the main issue is economic factors. The USSR's economy eventually stalled, without any improvement, and the nation became desperate. Economic factors are linked to political factors. Things like dishonesty, propaganda and secrecy also played a major role in the collapse of the USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev had a vision for the USSR. He often referred to two words: opening and restructuring (Gill, 1994). Gorbachev fought long and hard to maintain some form of union. He preferred a federation, but was flexible enough to be ready, if necessary, to settle for a confederal union of independent states (Grachev, 1995). The new emergence of strong local governments posed a threat to the country's unity, although Gorbachev still fought hard to maintain the union. In 1991 Gorbachev (after much persuasion) formed an alliance with conservatives who wanted to keep the country as a united whole (Grachev, 1995). Soon after its formation, it became obvious that the price of the alliance would be the abandonment of an improvement for the Soviet Union. The reform was… middle of paper… seemed reasonable and solid” (Grachev, 1995, 33). The second reason was more subconscious and reflected his confusion, uncertainty and anxiety towards what was happening to his nation. Politically the USSR had many problems. Starting with the fact that none of the people in power seemed to agree on anything. Works Cited Gill, G., 1994. The Collapse of a One-Party System: The Disintegration of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Cambridge, New York: Press Syndicate.Grachev, A., 1995. Last Days: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Boulder, Colorado: West View Press. Webber, Mark., 1992. “The Third World and the Dissolution of the USSR.” Third World Quarterly 13:4, 691-713http://www.culture-of-peace.info/latsis/page6.htmlhttp://environment.about.com/od/chernobyl/p/chernobyl.htmhttp://sfr -21.org/collapse.html