Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was an agent of the feared KGB before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and since 2000 has been the President of the Russian Federation. In a 25 April 2005 speech, Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union, “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” and referring to seperatist movements in places like Chechnya, said, “The epidemic of collapse has spilled over to Russia itself.” More recently, Russian aggression has led to concerns about the Cold War renewed. Putin has restricted the media and civil liberties while generally praising the old Soviet Union, even, in December 2000, restored the old Soviet anthem as Russia’s national anthem (albeit with new words). Putin is cut of the mold of so many post-collapse leaders from history, like Theodoric the Great—he harkens back to the fallen empire in title, mode and outlook, but it is not a past he is able to restore, only mimic.

Two superpowers emerged out of World War II, once the violent transition from the coal-based colonial empires to the oil-based neocolonial empires was complete. Both positioned themselves as the champions of a particular utopian vision (free market capitalism or communism), and both created “satellites” based on ideological loyalty. Since then, one of these empires has collapsed. This provides a unique example of contemporary collapse, but it also further illustrates the broad outline of the 20th century as the first century of collapse. Many theories have been offered to explain the fall of the Soviet Union, but most such explanations come up short. This no doubt owes to the very ideological nature of the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, and thus the desire to see in the Soviet Union’s fall some vindication of the ideology the United States championed. Unfortunately, the facts do not support such a comforting notion; instead, they point to the conclusion that the Soviet Union collapsed simply because of energy and complexity.

Particularly as candidates in the United States begin posturing for the 2008 presidential election, much has been made on the right of the hagiography of Ronald Reagan and his role in bringing down the Soviet Union. Conservative mythology maintains that Reagan cleverly maneuvered the Soviets into bankrupting themselves with superior military spending. The stealth bomber, for example, was expensive, but not nearly as expensive as the advaced radar stations the Soviets would need to deploy all along their vast borders to detect such an aircraft. This would have made for a good plan, had the Soviets taken the bait. But it’s a matter of historical record that they didn’t.

As CIA analysts discovered in 1983, Soviet military spending had leveled off in 1975 to a growth rate of 1.3 percent, with spending for weapons procurements virtually flat. It remained that way for a decade. According to later CIA estimates, Soviet military spending rose in 1985 as a result of decisions taken earlier, and grew at a rate of 4.3 percent per year through 1987. Spending for procurements of offensive strategic weapons, however, increased by only 1.4 percent a year in that period. In 1988 Gorbachev began a round of budget cuts, bringing the defense budget back down to its 1980 level. In other words, while the U.S. military budget was growing at an average of 8 percent per year, the Soviets did not attempt to keep up, and their military spending did not rise even as might have been expected given the war they were fighting in Afghanistan. (Fitzgerald, 2000, pp. 474-475)

Likewise, Pope John Paul II has often been credited with bringing down the Soviet Union due to his leading role in the Solidarity worker’s movement in Poland. The Soviet Union was found to ultimately be behind the failed 1981 assassination attempt, precisely because of his role in Solidarity. Timothy Garton Ash expressed it as, “Without the Pope, no Solidarity. Without Solidarity, no Gorbachev. Without Gorbachev, no fall of Communism,” and Gorbachev himself said of his glastnost policies, “It would have been impossible without the Pope.” Even though John Paul II played a more direct role in the fall of the Soviet Union than Reagan could claim, this answer is still insufficient. Other groups like Solidarity had existed in the Soviet Union before; why had they not succeeded? The strength of groups like Solidarity remained more or less constant throughout the history of the Soviet Union; what was it that weakened the Soviet Union so that such groups could prevail?

The nature of Communism as an ideology sped the Soviet Union slightly faster down the track of diminishing marginal returns on complexity. Most historians now can clearly identify government mismanagement as a primary reason for the USSR’s difficulties producing sufficient food, but too many have mistaken this as a symptom of communism itself, rather than a question of complexity beyond the point of diminishing returns. At the same time, Russia suffered from failing soil fertility from their long agricultural history. Despite the rise of capitalism, cropped area has continued a steady decline since 1977, due to soil depletion and erosion, resulting in longer fallow periods, and more fields requiring fallowing.¹

Throughout its history, the USSR, like the United States, pinned its power to petroleum.

Exploration commenced in the 1840s in the vicinity of Baku on the Caspian, but lapsed during the early years of Communism, until it was revitalised after the Second World War. In fact, the Soviet explorers proved to be highly efficient, being able to apply scientific methods, free of commercial constraints. Boreholes were drilled for geological information, and Russian explorers pioneered the geochemical breakthrough that identified the source rocks and generating belts. Accordingly, discovery at least in sub-Arctic Russia peaked around 1960, with the corresponding peak of production following in 1987. Exactly how much was found is hard to know, because the Soviet classification of reserves ignored commercial constraints. Decline curve analysis shows that the reported reserves of most Russian fields have to be reduced by about 30% to obtain realistic estimates.

Production crashed on the fall of the Soviets, but later rebounded to around 8.2 Mb/d in 2003 in part making good the production that would have already been secured but for the dislocations accompanying the fall of the Soviet regime. Accordingly, there may be a second peak around 2010 perhaps at about 10 Mb/d, although Russian officials now speak of minimal increases. Consumption stands at about 2.5 Mb/d yielding exports of 5.7 Mb/d. On balance it seems likely that Russia can hold close to the present level of exports only to around 2010 before decline sets in. ²

Russian oil production, 1930-2050

The 1970’s oil crisis was largely the result of the peaking of North America’s oil supply, an event that the United States’ ideological stance on free market capitalism proved better able to manage, since the U.S. could begin simply importing its oil from regions that had not yet peaked, initially following a “twin pillar policy” of dependence on Saudi Arabia and Iran. The CIA removal of Mohammad Mossadegh eventually led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and subsequent collapse of the twin pillar policy, leaving the United States solely dependent on Saudi Arabia. The Soviet Union, however, did not begin to peak until much later, but once it did peak, the centralized nature of communism gave the Soviet Union few alternatives to supplement their supply.

[Stephen Kotkin] begins with the oil crisis of the early 1970’s. As a major oil producer, Kotkin argues, the Soviet Union was protected from the crisis. It was not forced, as the West was, to reform its industrial economy, which thus became as old and decrepit as the Soviet leadership. Things changed only in the 1980’s, when the decline in Soviet oil production and in world oil prices exposed the extent of the economic crisis to reformist leaders like Mikhail S. Gorbachev.³

Widespread hunger and economic failure followed the Soviet Union’s experience of peak oil, ultimately empowering groups like Solidarity and reformers like Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Soviet Union experienced peak oil first hand—a 43% decline in domestic oil production between 1987 and 1996. This crisis caused Soviet society to fall into devastating economic impoverishment. Can this be proven? Yes. Here is the quick story: The oil decline in the Soviet Union preceded the GDP decline. A statistical test, Granger causality, shows this. Oil decline did not follow the GDP decline, it was ahead of it, and therefore it caused it.⁴

The Soviet Union’s ideology played some role in its demise, as it limited the possible responses the Soviet Union could take to its peaking oil production, eventually forcing it to accept more capitalistic policies to get the oil—and ultimately, food—the country needed. The roles played by individuals like Reagan, Pope John Paul II or even Mikhail Gorbachev himself have been systematically exaggerated. The collapse of the Soviet Union is at once simpler and more sobering than that. Like all other empires, the ultimate cause of the Soviet Union’s collapse was as simple as complexity beyond the point of diminishing returns, a function of energy available. That is sobering not only because it denies our ideological triumph of free market democracy, but it also forbodes that such a system will be equally ill-adapted to the eventual global peaking of oil, where the free market strategy reaches its limits.

Works Cited

• Fitzgerald, Frances, 2000. Way Out There in the Blue. Simon & Schuster.