What Soviet Threat?

I recall in the late seventies I warned that the Soviet Union could collapse under the weight of its own debt.

I was told that the Soviets could require the workforce to work whatever hours necessary for whatever pay was available, they could be taxed at whatever rate necessary to support their military complex and that no free nation could compete. They could not "collapse". Today you will note that most of your incoming freshmen regard the Soviet Union, If they have even heard the term, as something of an anachronism. A state government something like the CSA, as remote in their thinking as the Civil War.