COULD THE SOVIET UNION HAVE SURVIVED? We ask four historians whether the demise of one of the 20th century's superpowers was as inevitable as it now seems.

The article present views of historians such as Rodric Braithwaite, James Rodgers and Richard Millington, on the survival of the Soviet Union, one of the 20th century's superpowers. Topics include influence of seductive ideology of Soviet Union across the world; former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev called traitor by Russians; and in 2006, Gorbachev pinpointed Chernobyl nuclear power and the resulting media fallout as the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.