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In part, yes, but the main reason was severely mismanaged economy, specifically — super unproductive agro. They had to buy food (grain), selling oil. And then oil prices went down.

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There's some theories that the US poisoned some of the crop fields in the 60s and 70s especially in the Ukraine resulting in inadequate yields, exacerbating the budgetary issues already present from space race / arms race spending.

I'm sure they have such conspirancid paranoia in north korea right now. They are expressions of unvented frustration in unreformable systems. It can not be the ruler or the ideology, and it can not be that the combination is unable to deal with a world that regularly throws you a stick for the legs if you think you have a good run.

Pests evolve and the soil becomes less fertile .Industrial Agriculture is not the same every year. it just looks loke that for a layman.

That's the type of ridiculous conspiracy theory that Communists frequently invented to excuse their own failures. The US had no capability for spreading enough poison in the USSR to significantly reduce crop yields. Like seriously, was the CIA supposed to be flying stealth crop duster airplanes over Ukraine and dropping Agent Orange everywhere? Makes no sense at all.

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