the End of the Cold War - economic factors

Economy 

In the 1950s, Khrushchev made a comment that the USSR would 'bury' the USA economically. Eight years later (1967) it was predicated that Soviet industrial production would increase by 50%. Propoganda magazine Novosti depicted the Russia as an increasingly dominant economic superpower.

However, by the 1970s the USSR economy was stagnating. Why?

• Centralised economy 
• Inadequate infrastructure/technology
• Empire as a drain on resources 
• Moral bankruptcy 

EG - annual growth rate for industrial production: 5.25% in 1967, 2% in 1980

Annual growth rate for agricultural production/output: 3.7% in 1970, 0.8% in 1980

Average annual increase in national income 1976-90 1.1%

Oil/gas crisis

USSR - oil is 54% of Soviet exports in 1984. Gas exports increased from 9.5 million cubic metres to 156 million cubic metres from 1970-1980. However, global crisis in real oil and gas prices ---- 

Had fallen 90% in 1981-82 and 50% in 1988

Technological backwardness 

Embargo on technology imposed by the West in 1950 - hadn't been lifted during detente. 

1974, US ban sales of advanced computers to the Soviet Union.

Features of Soviet system discouraged technological process - in order to retain absolute contro - the…