Commentary Vladimir Putin believes that the greatest tragedy in the post-World War II era was the collapse of the former Soviet Union 30 years ago. Putin blames the collapse of the Soviet Union on the United States and its western alliance, but he’s wrong. In the end, the communist government, after 75 years of existence, collapsed as a result of its failed socialistic economic system and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev’s unwillingness to murder and purge hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of its citizens, in the same way Joseph Stalin did to consolidate and hold power before and after the Second World War. Those of us that recognize the brutality of the Soviet Union and the danger of communism understand that over 60 million victims were murdered as Vladimir Lenin and later Stalin crushed dissent to build what they described as a bright, beautiful socialist future. The brutal road to the eventual …