But seriously, why did they collapse?

>they were poor
Bro, 90% of the world was poor. They weren't doing that bad globally and calorie intake was similar to the West. Not being rich is not a logical reason for collapse.

>the enslaved people wanted freedom blabla
You can want freedom as much as you want, but even millions are powerless against a few thousand with machine guns, tanks and grenades. If they really wanted to they obviously could have kept the whole thing going.

Remember, when they downed a civil aircraft and nobody in the West said a single word? That's true power. But they surrendered in the cold war for some reason despite doing alright and nobody knows why.