I remember a long time ago when I first came on this board there was a woman who posted who had lived in the Soviet Union. She was an academic. She gave a very in-depth analysis of the Soviet Union (I mean, really, really, REALLY in-depth - huge long posts) from about 1940 until it collapsed. It amused her to think that people thought Raygun was responsible for bringing down the Soviet Union.
As its most basic (and believe me this is super basic compared to her posts), it went something like this:
1) The Soviet Union started failing in the 1930s.
2) They predicted in the 1940s that either by the late 1970s or mid 1980s the system would implode because it was unsustainable
3) It had nothing to do with Ronnie Raygun -it's all about timing..