Abstract
The main issue is indeed to know whether the system of the Soviet Union could have been reformed in order to last longer. Some reforms could have been conceivable but they were so deep, so huge that it would have led to a complete transformation of the whole system with, for example, redefining the separation between the state and the party bureaucracy. We can say that the collapse of the Soviet Union can be explained by both structural and circumstantial causes. If the structural causes were inescapable in the long run, the mainly avoidable circumstantial causes precipitated the collapse of the USSR.
