COLD WAR CONJECTURE (THIS IS AN IDEA DUMP TO BE CLEANED UP LATER)

The USSR collapsed because of constant psychological warfare (overflight) and military pressure in the form of guerrilla warfare inside and on their borders. The US Ruling Class controlled Soviet airspace. All through the Cold War, the US violated Soviet airspace with Bombers cloaked as reconnaissance planes. The Canberra, U2, Blackbirds, and AURORA. All of them flew into Soviet airspace. The US has planes flying today doing it. The Russians do not control their airspace. The US can overfly the Russia with their space planes. In the 1952 while the Korean War was raging there was a "UFO flap." UFOs were sighted over Washington DC. It was in all the newspapers. UFOs in the form of modified to high altitude specifications Canberra bombers were also flying at this time over the USSR. The US was threatening the USSR with nuclear annihilation. The Soviet jets could not intercept the Canberra. Many pilots were killed when their planes stalled out in the climb to intercept the Canberra.  

I conjecture. This constant pressure during the 50s led to Nikita Khrushchev assassinating Stalin and then repudiating Stalin in his famous speech. Khrushchev also brain drained the Soviet Union. He released German scientists who had been captured after the war [1]. Many of them migrated to the USA. This decision set back the Soviet Military Industrial complex. All during the Cold War, the US Ruling Class maintained a first strike capability the Soviets could not match. The US whose ruling class had wholeheartedly supported Hitler's rise to power before the war, made a separate peace with the Nazi's at the end of the war. As a result of that peace the US inherited the Gehlen Org which had a network of spies and partisan stay behinds to wage guerrilla warfare inside the Warsaw Pact and USSR. One of these stay behinds was Gorbachev. The US conquered the USSR using psychological and unconventional warfare.

This idea that Cold War was won because the USSR was forced to "choose guns over butter" alone is just not true. The Soviet system worked. It worked too good to the chagrin of Western plutocrats. They had tried to strangle the Soviet Union in the cradle by invading in 1918. The war lasted two years. A failure it ended in 1920. The failure led to the collapse of The Treaty of Versailles. The Western Powers rearmed Germany and set her loose on the USSR.

Then after WW2 the US initiated the Cold War against a severely weakened Soviet Union. 

TBC   

During the 1950's the Soviets were fighting an insurgency in Ukraine and dealing with a psychological warfare campaign in their skies that made them fear an American surprise attack. This prodded Khrushchev lead a coup against Stalin, brain drain the country and denounce Stalin in his famous speech.    

   

SOURCES:

1. Operation Osoaviakhim

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Osoaviakhim

2. Putin vows to perfect mystery rocket after engine blast

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50514306