What caused the Soviet Union to fail

What caused the Soviet Union to fail ? Nazis invasion murdering 27 million and destroying the economy ; followed by U.S. threatening nuclear attack forcing Soviets to spend too much on military and to have an authoritarian government. It was not the failure of socialist economic system which built the Soviet Union into a modern industrial economy twice , the second time after the Nazis invasion . @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ "What does "history" really show? Just take the case of the Soviet Union. The soviets tried to build socialism but were attacked by the western capitalist powers from day one. They had to take short cuts to industrialize and fend off the Nazi attack, and then the Nazi successor state as US imperialism took up the anti-communist crusade. China has a similar history. All parties in this conflict were societies still under the rule of the law of value, the reigning economic force in commodity producing economies. Socialism did not thrive (nor could it have thrived) in the primitive backward conditions it developed under in the 20th century. If socialist central planning were to replace the social anarchy of capitalism in the advanced capitalist states of the west (including Japan) where production could be based on need not profit (thus overcoming the law of value) we would be able to reign in our four apocalyptic horsemen and literally save the planet. This is what "history" really suggests and Gray's attack on ZZ on this issue is unjustified. -Thomas Riggins