The Fall of the Communism as seen by a student of Tatar history

From Nationalism and the Drive for Sovereignty in Tatarstan by Sergei Kondrashov:

The initial alliance between the Gorbachev leadership and the intelligentsia paved the way for an important feature of the Gorbachev period--a prominent role in society for the intelligentsia in general and its democratic wing in particular. The main weapon that secured this position for the democratic intellectuals was their criticism of the vices and ulcers of Soviet society from the moral high ground. The Victorious Analysis focused on two overarching problems. Firstly, it subjected to thorough examination all the alleged achievements of the seventy years of the Soviet state. Secondly, it left no stone unturned in assessing the costs related to these achievements. 

Ultimately, the Analysis arrived at the final verdict that the seventy years of the Soviet system were wasted years in the history of the peoples of the USSR. Absolutely nothing had been achieved that one might be proud of while the costs--human, social, economic, and cultural--had been horrendous. People learned that the industrialization effort had created an outmoded, extremely wasteful and polluting industry that was as good as a heap of scrap metal; that their living standards were comparable with an underdeveloped country of the Third Word; that the great Soviet science had been able to produce nothing but a stockpile of outdated military hardware; and that the aggressive West was not that aggressive after all. Furthermore, the Soviets learned that their friends in the Third World were nothing but parasitic dictatorial regimes, and that their allies did not just dislike the Soviets, but despised them. And the final conclusion was: the sooner the Soviet system in all its totality was disoposed of, the better it would be for the country.