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You keep saying that the Soviet Union had to abandon communism. I agree. Communism doesn't work. Do you know who really believed in communism? Gorbachev, lord of the blunderers. His reforms sought to create a democratic socialist state, to go back to this idealistic vision of what Lenin wanted, what communism was supposed to be. He and his reforms were totally detached from reality.
A bare minimum of what's needed in a reformer of the USSR is someone who can admit the need for a market-based system while retaining political stability and not inviting looters to rob the country. That's not such a big ask. By proper market reforms I simply mean things like 'let state-owned firms reinvest their profits while preventing executives from siphoning off all profits for personal gains'. This is basic stuff that Gorbachev didn't manage to do. A little bit of anti-corruption and party discipline work would've gone a long way!
The Soviet Union routinely imported technology from the West and America specifically, all throughout its history. And they routinely created technology of their own. The USSR was not a third world nation like you seem to think, it was an urbanized and industrialized economy. They did not need to get rich with export-led industrialization like China, they were in a far better position than China in the 1980s but completely dropped the ball.
Gorbachev himself imported huge amounts of high-tech goods from the West, causing significant balance of trade problems and debt as he tried to modernize Soviet industry. The problem was never a shortage of technology but a lack of proper market reform.
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