In fact, Stalin had changed the nature of USSR economy from being socialist to pseudo-capitalist, a reversal of Lenin's objectives. Thus, Stalinism in the Soviet Union had destroyed the nationalistic objective that Lenin had originally created for the Russian people and the Soviet allies.
Nikita Khrushchev's leadership after the rule of the Stalin government included the abolishment of the Soviet Union. Russia gradually assumed a capitalist economy, although the immediate reform that Khruschev implemented was the destruction of Stalin's Communist regime and its institutions. His administration focused on the abolishment of any trace of Stalin's authoritarian rule in the Soviet Union right after World War II. Russian morale at this time was at its lowest, what with the fall of the 'socialist experiment' and prevalence of poverty and hunger in the country. After replacing Khruschnev, Leonid Brezhnev had only continued what his predecessor had started, and this was to abolish the tainted image of socialism in Russian society.
Upon reflection on the factors that led to the fall of socialism in the Soviet Union, it became evident that socialism did not fail in Eastern Europe. Rather, it...
Civil society was neglected, especially the farmers, who, without capital to improve agricultural production, lead to Russians' further descent to poverty and famine. Thus, given these conditions, it was inevitable that Russian society and economy collapsed. Unfortunately, Western nations such as the United States and Britain used the fall of Russian society and economy as basis in illustrating the weakness of the socialist economic order.
Influenced by the belief that indeed, socialism was a weak economic system, Mikhail Gorbachev implemented the "glasnost-perestroika" policy, which opened the doors of Russian economy to foreign trade and commercialization. Russia became an open economy in the international market, and gradually developed to become a capitalist economy. This change gave new opportunities for Russians to actively participate in the economy, though nationalism weakened as globalization penetrated the country's social systems and institutions.
