Why did Soviet Union break up? What exactly went wrong?
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In short: Gorbachev.
Gorbachev gets elected in 1985 and, unlike his predecessors, he seems to actually want to improve the soviet economy and the lives of the citizens. He actually gives a speech in 1985 where he admits that the economy was not growing very fast, and he creates a few initiatives: withdraw from foreign conflicts (pulling troops out of Afghanistan and allowing the Berlin Wall to come down, for example), “glasnost” (“openness”, basically freedom of expression for the people) and “perestroika” (“restructuring”, decentralizing industry to follow a more western-style model).
Chernobyl happens in 1986. Because of Glasnost the citizens really get to see the ineffectualness and incompetence of soviet leadership in full display, and the expense of the disaster puts a serious strain on the economy.
In 1989 Boris Yeltsin visits the US and has a famously “eye-opening” visit to a supermarket in Clear Lake where he sees first-hand how much better American communities are doing than Soviet ones. He comes back as a major proponent for glasnost, perestroika and other reforms.
In 1990 Gorbachev visits the US, signs some treaties, and also sees more US industries, especially computer industries.
So now you have this perfect storm: There’s no more “common enemy” to fight abroad because of military pullbacks, and there’s a sense that the USSR is weaker (or, at least projecting less strength) which is a problem when your “empire” is held together by the threat of military force. The people have a new right to speak freely and protest (which they use, at length), and people are seeing on TV how much better the rest of the world is doing than they are. Leadership admits things aren’t going well and vow to make improvements, but it’s not at all clear that these are the right people for the job because they certainly aren’t freely-elected.
At some point the satellite nations decided to go, and the USSR was powerless to stop it.
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