Rest assured that last remark is very incorrect. The collapse of the USSR was due to changes within its own system combined with a cascade of external geopolitical events.
First, let us look at the Soviet system and how it was different from the Democratic-Capitalist model in the United States. For one, the USSR had a command economy. These were economies that were planned based on orders sent from a centralized agency or sector within the government. In other words, the economy is planned by the government, unlike the American system which is considered “free” market.
A second feature of the USSR is their Single-Party Rule. Within the Soviet Union, there was only the communist party which removed political opponents. In order to achieve this, it established the third aspect of the Soviet system: extensive internal security network. This included police, military and secret police, all of whom were charged with ensuring the population was compliant and obedient to Soviet Rule.
So how come it all collapsed? Well America had an obvious role. In the 1980s the new right movement was met with great victory when Ronald Reagan was elected president. Due to a notable lack of funds, the USSR had begun scaling back its nuclear arms, along with the US. However, when Reagan came to power, he wished to revitalize the Cold War and succeeded. Reagan began pushing the Soviets back into an arms race typical of the 1950s and 60s.
The Soviet Union also experienced a change in leadership. When Mikhail Gorbachev came into power, he instituted two new programs. Glasnost, which allowed for greater media freedom and less internal security, freed up the press to begin making accusations against the state and demanding reform. Perestroika, the second program, set out to be the first of several programs that would restructure the Soviet economy so it could begin growing financially. However, the economy began to flounder during this restructuring and, in combination with geo-political pressure from the United States and internal journalistic criticisms, the Soviet Union began to collapse.
The Soviet satellite nations (ie-Yugoslavia, Latvia, etc) began to revolt and Gorbachev announced that the Red Army would no longer support communist regimes in those countries and withdrew them back into Russia. This is considered the death knell for the Soviet Union since it lead to the destruction of the Berlin Wall, often viewed as the defining moment that the USSR died.
