More importantly, Soviet policies were just bad. Collectivized agriculture stymied production and led to famine, suppression of dissent and traditional cultures made people angry, and no one likes suffering the humiliation of driving a Yugo. But why the Cold War ended when it did is one of the most interesting questions of the 20th century. It probably wasn't Ronald Reagan bankrupting the Soviets, despite what some politicians believe. The USSR had more satellite states that it needed to spend more to prop up than the US had to invest in its allies. And the Soviet system could never keep up with economic growth in the West. But probably the individual most responsible for the end of the Cold War was Mikhail Baryshnikov.