Who came closest to predicting USSR's lifespan?

Journalist Bernard Levin, in the Independent Newspaper about October 1977, predicted that it might fall on the bicentenary of the fall of the Bastille, ie 14 July, 1989.

I recall writing to him to congratulate him on his accuracy.
 
Journalist Bernard Levin, in the Independent Newspaper about October 1977, predicted that it might fall on the bicentenary of the fall of the Bastille, ie 14 July, 1989.

I recall writing to him to congratulate him on his accuracy.
What reasons did he indicate?
 
What reasons did he indicate?

It's been a long time, but he reckoned that nobody really took the ideology seriously any more, and that before too much longer a lot of people, who had been keeping their opinions to themselves even in private, would wake up to the fact that they were the majority now.
 
It's been a long time, but he reckoned that nobody really took the ideology seriously any more, and that before too much longer a lot of people, who had been keeping their opinions to themselves even in private, would wake up to the fact that they were the majority now.
It really looks like the second half of the 70's and the beginning of the 80's. But it seems to me that this is a consequence of the stagnation process, and not a direct reason. The best thing about possible reasons was written by Lev Trotsky.
 
I remember being on holiday in Switzerland in 1988 and some smartarse was wittering on about the USSR breaking up within the next year . I just laughed at him , carried on drinking and the group made their own , seemingly equally daft , predictions.
California would be nuked; Man would travel to Mars ; Flying cars etc .....funnily enough the guy was right - though my prediction about British politics turned out to be equally correct , everyone thought I had lost it by that stage :)
 
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