This was a supremely depressing book. Zubok’s Collapse gives us a play-by-play account of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which we know to be one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century.
The Soviet system was in a state of pervasive rot headed into the Gorbachev era. The outward signs were not horrible — economic stagnation and some inability to keep up in certain sectors of the economy. But ultimately, by the time Gorbachev took the reins, the country was incapable of recovering from this position.
Collapse makes the argument that Gorbachev was one of the worst possible people to lead the country by this point. It is stunning how remarkably incompetent he was in his domestic affairs. Listening to all 22 hours of the audiobook is like watching a train crash in slow motion. We know, with perfect hindsight, what the final outcome of these events are. We know we are headed for disaster. It’s incredible that late Soviet leaders could not anticipate this either.
It is a testament to the bureaucracy in Chinese socialism, that no Gorbachev-like has taken power. But it cannot all be Gorbachev’s fault. People in power were equally as incompetent. The 1991 coup attempt is enough evidence of this — they seized power without any plans and let it go just as fast.
Modern Russia and its ailments have their symptoms almost entirely in the collapse. Russia’s collapse in health and economic outcomes in the 1990s are tied to expectations of Western economic aid that never came. Ethnic conflict is perhaps owed to how hasty the partition of the union occurred. Oligarchs seized unprecedented amounts of power because the late union left a power vacuum and because Yeltsin sold the early federation out. Putin is a symptom, not a cause of further problems.
The final note Zubok leaves us on is its most prescient one. It was remarkably easy for Western leaders of the day to not properly understand the long-term implications of the Soviet collapse. It was also easy for Soviet leaders to not be able to introspect properly on the same implications. We see a mirror of the past now: our leaders are leading us to collapse with the same circumstances of the Soviet collapse.
5/5
Written 1 November 2025
Adapted from my review on Goodreads.
Notes
- core thesis — internal factors caused the end of the USSR
- Gorbachev is truly fucking incompetent — decided to push through massive reforms at a time of stagnation in the Soviet Union. if the reforms go badly (they did) there’s no way out
- China faced a similar issue (market and political liberalisation). Deng was not perfect but he preserved Chinese socialism
- 12 hours+ of “day 1345 of Gorbachev making a political miscalculation”