Latest PoD to save Soviet Union

[Ridwan Asher]

What would have been the latest chance to prevent Soviet Union from its OTL dramatic dissolution ? Doesn't have to be all intact, but at least retain most of the SSRs or with land area 20.000.000 km2 at minimal....

[Telemond's_Lamb_Chop]

What would have been the latest chance to prevent Soviet Union from its OTL dramatic dissolution ? Doesn't have to be all intact, but at least retain most of the SSRs....


What makes you think it has gone for good?

[clendor]

No Gorbachov (am I spelling his name right?) can make USSR live a few more years, but not a lot more. When USSR will fall, it will be more painfull than OTL.
Just for you to undersstand how great was the tree-falling, I can tell you a story of a friend of mine.
His parents got married in 1900 and something, and they were given a lot of money. Enough to have a very expensive trip outside the contrey. They delayed it for a couple of months, so when USSR collapsed, they could buy only a small TV with the money...

[Ridwan Asher]

No Gorbachov (am I spelling his name right?) can make USSR live a few more years, but not a lot more. When USSR will fall, it will be more painfull than OTL.
Just for you to undersstand how great was the tree-falling, I can tell you a story of a friend of mine.
His parents got married in 1900 and something, and they were given a lot of money. Enough to have a very expensive trip outside the contrey. They delayed it for a couple of months, so when USSR collapsed, they could buy only a small TV with the money...

Meh, I'm only postulasting surviving Soviet Union here, not so much Communism. But I'm certainly aware that Gorbachev was in every way responsible, however I have yet to confirm the exact point of no return...

[archaeogeek]

What makes you think it has gone for good?

I don't think the Lenin mummy is waiting to be woken up so it can rampage against tourists :p

[Eurofed]

What would have been the latest chance to prevent Soviet Union from its OTL dramatic dissolution ? Doesn't have to be all intact, but at least retain most of the SSRs or with land area 20.000.000 km2 at minimal....

The failed August 1991 coup. That needs to be prevented. It starts an event chain that makes the dissolution of the USSR inevitable.

[Ridwan Asher]

The failed August 1991 coup. That needs to be prevented. It starts an event chain that makes the dissolution of the USSR inevitable.

Wasn't by that time the condition to unrepairable ? With serious economic crisis and all. Also, actual attempt to delegate more autonomy for the SSRs by Gorbachev previously will mean successful coup will entice serious backlash won't it ?

[Urban fox]

Meh, any POD up to December 1991, even after after the coup if Yeltsin drinks himself to death the day before and the plotters showed a little more backbone & compusure.

The first time they were seen on TV in all their sweating, pastey-faced and trembling *ahem* glory they were done for. Condemmed to failure by a tsunami of outright mockery, even from the old Stalinist hardliners who still lurked about. Honestly these guys were worse than Al Haig during his ''I'm in control at the White House'' moment just after Reagan got shot.

The fall of the U.S.S.R was in fact a very unlikely outcome, so saving it is quite easy at almost any POD. Keeping the likes of the Baltic States is akwards and the Caucasus is a powder-keg of intra-ethnic feuds the Trars and later the Soviets had managed to keep supressed quite well...

[FBH991]

Well, how do you want to save it? Do you want it just to stumble on for a few more years? Or do you want to actually fix the massive structural issues that destroyed it?

I don't know about the last, but the best way would be for Kruschov to be able to push through his reforms and tame the soviet military.

[Ridwan Asher]

Well, how do you want to save it? Do you want it just to stumble on for a few more years? Or do you want to actually fix the massive structural issues that destroyed it?

I don't know about the last, but the best way would be for Kruschov to be able to push through his reforms and tame the soviet military.

I certainly want it to survive to present day, though doesn't have to be intact but at least retain overwhelming majority of its former territory.

[MacCaulay]

I read an scholarly bunch of alt.hist essays that posited right-wing Soviet generals basically treating the democratic uprising like the Chinese did in Tienanmen Square, and cracking down. It wouldn't probably keep the Warsaw Pact around, but the USSR would probably stay together.

The guy who wrote it was a Russian history major, and he opined the USSR might end up more on a Chinese course, and more like it is today, except in 1991 instead of waiting until the late-90s to slip into that state.



I don't think the Lenin mummy is waiting to be woken up so it can rampage against tourists :p
http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/64785982/966213

[Johnrankins]

Keep the price of oil from collapsing. High oil prices is what caused the USSR to last as long as it did. By the 80s it was totally dependent on high oil prices. Its industry was obsolete, it had a hard time feeding itself and its labor force dispirited and lazy. With high oil prices it could import enough to keep things on an even keel. Once the price collapsed the country was doomed.

[FBH991]

I certainly want it to survive to present day, though doesn't have to be intact but at least retain overwhelming majority of its former territory.

Well, what killed the USSR more than anything was uncontrolled military spending. I mean look at them. They ended up with 3 different types of main battle tanks in production at once etc.

So if you really want a present day USSR, then you'll need to somehow reign in that spending

[Mr Qwerty]

His parents got married in 1900 and something, and they were given a lot of money. Enough to have a very expensive trip outside the contrey. They delayed it for a couple of months, so when USSR collapsed, they could buy only a small TV with the money...

That's an awfully long honeymoon. Ninety years? :p:D

[Ridwan Asher]

Meh, any POD up to December 1991, even after after the coup if Yeltsin drinks himself to death the day before and the plotters showed a little more backbone & compusure.

The first time they were seen on TV in all their sweating, pastey-faced and trembling *ahem* glory they were done for. Condemmed to failure by a tsunami of outright mockery, even from the old Stalinist hardliners who still lurked about. Honestly these guys were worse than Al Haig during his ''I'm in control at the White House'' moment just after Reagan got shot.

The fall of the U.S.S.R was in fact a very unlikely outcome, so saving it is quite easy at almost any POD. Keeping the likes of the Baltic States is akwards and the Caucasus is a powder-keg of intra-ethnic feuds the Trars and later the Soviets had managed to keep supressed quite well...

Well knowing your opinion regarding the matter I'd be interested to see how would you address two points below :

Keep the price of oil from collapsing. High oil prices is what caused the USSR to last as long as it did. By the 80s it was totally dependent on high oil prices. Its industry was obsolete, it had a hard time feeding itself and its labor force dispirited and lazy. With high oil prices it could import enough to keep things on an even keel. Once the price collapsed the country was doomed.

Well, what killed the USSR more than anything was uncontrolled military spending. I mean look at them. They ended up with 3 different types of main battle tanks in production at once etc.

So if you really want a present day USSR, then you'll need to somehow reign in that spending

I'm no expert in Soviet history, especially in regard of its military spending and its dependance on oil revenue. I tend to be optimistic that a surviving Soviet Union can at least deal with overt military spending immediately though....

I read an scholarly bunch of alt.hist essays that posited right-wing Soviet generals basically treating the democratic uprising like the Chinese did in Tienanmen Square, and cracking down. It wouldn't probably keep the Warsaw Pact around, but the USSR would probably stay together.

The guy who wrote it was a Russian history major, and he opined the USSR might end up more on a Chinese course, and more like it is today, except in 1991 instead of waiting until the late-90s to slip into that state.

My main of curiosity is how much the later global politics will diverge from OTL with a still(at least largely) intact Soviet Union. And since I count the possibility of some parts splitting away, I wonder which parts are the most likely to secceed with its exact rate of probability seceeding, and the effects of the said part seceeding to the broader picture.

[FBH991]

I'm no expert in Soviet history, especially in regard of its military spending and its dependance on oil revenue. I tend to be optimistic that a surviving Soviet Union can at least deal with overt military spending immediately though....

Well they didn't OTL, and that was the primary component of the USSR's downfall. Have you ever watched the Movie Pentagon wars? Imagine that but writ large and everyone calling everyone else Comrade, to the point where all the bloated and inefficient military projects bought down the state.

So if you want the USSR to do more than stagger on for a few more years before collapsing, you need to do something radical, like Kruschov was trying too.

[Urban fox]

Well, what killed the USSR more than anything was uncontrolled military spending. I mean look at them. They ended up with 3 different types of main battle tanks in production at once etc. The U.S.S.R had built-up such a massive amount of arms by 1991 that cutting new equipment procurement, R & D funding and prestige projects would enable a hardline (or otherwise) government to maintain a much more effective military than OTL’s post collapse ones.

Keep the price of oil from collapsing. High oil prices is what caused the USSR to last as long as it did. By the 80s it was totally dependent on high oil prices. Its industry was obsolete, it had a hard time feeding itself and its labor force dispirited and lazy. With high oil prices it could import enough to keep things on an even keel. Once the price collapsed the country was doomed.It didnt really. The high oil prices wernt vital to the running of the economy though it certainly didn’t hurt, but most hard currency was simply squandered on luxury items or lost due to corruption. High oil prices may even have been a net-loss in some respects, as the Soviet elite might have contemplated reform earlier if their oil funded luxuries became more scarce.

Most of the imported grain for the U.S.S.R was used for animal feed. Western agitprop about Soviets needing to import Westren grain or face famine were not even distortions but simply outright lies.

The Soviet Union was very much self-sufficient in terms of food grown but bad distribution networks, storage and general inefficiency meant that for example a third of all potatoes grown spoiled before ever reaching the stores.

The problems with running a planned economy meant there were sudden gluts then shortages of staple foods. This unpredictability of supply would lead to people to ''stockpiling'' food by buying large amounts food when stores were well-stocked leading to shortages down the line (it’s rather like a form of panic buying). This meant inconveniences like hours-long lines at stores. A major pain in the arse, that the Soviet population grumbled about constantly. Still at no stage in the post-Stalin U.S.S.R was there any danger of actual starvation…

[FBH991]

The U.S.S.R had built-up such a massive amount of arms by 1991 that cutting new equipment procurement, R & D funding and prestige projects would enable a hardline (or otherwise) government to maintain a much more effective military than OTL’s post collapse ones.


Well yeah, the problem was that by 1991 the writing was on the wall and the Soviet Union as an entity had lost all legitimacy with its people. If all you want is a Russia with a better military you could have Yeltsin not be quite so crazy and not invite so many free market fundamentalists in to run Russia's economic policy, thus leaving it all the stronger.

[Urban fox]

Well yeah, the problem was that by 1991 the writing was on the wall and the Soviet Union as an entity had lost all legitimacy with its people. If all you want is a Russia with a better military you could have Yeltsin not be quite so crazy and not invite so many free market fundamentalists in to run Russia's economic policy, thus leaving it all the stronger.

Not true, even if the Soviet population were sick of the CPSU most people in the U.S.S.R still wanted to retain the Union, and desired something alone the lines of a social-democratic government and voted accordingly this outcome was prevented by the August Coups and Yeltsin’s cynical power-grabbing in the following months.

If Gorbachev wasn’t as weak-willed & indecisive he could’ve ended Yeltsin’s career the moment he stepped out of line, by having him investigated on corruption charges (whatever the public backlash). Because Yeltsin really was crooked even by late Soviet standards in addition to being a hopeless alcoholic.

Yeltsin was the worst thing to happn to Russia since the Nazi invasion. The fall of the U.S.S,R also pretty much fucked up Central Asia and the Caucasus beyond description. A surviving U.S.S.R would’ve prevented the likes of Turkmenbashi from coming to power, the war between Armenia & Azerbaijan and the clusterfuck in Chechnya. Ukraine & Belarus would also have been better off and the Baltic States wouldn’t be semi-apartheid states who blight the EU by association and openly celebrate their nation’s slimy WW2 SS collaborators whilst at the same time persecuting Jewish partisans & Red Army veterans for (get this) war crimes.

[maverick]

better off and the Baltic States wouldn’t be semi-apartheid states who blight the EU by association and openly celebrate their nation’s slimy WW2 SS collaborators whilst at the same time persecuting Jewish partisans & Red Army veterans for (get this) war crimes.

Apartheid Baltic states that glorify their Nazi past? :rolleyes:

Would you like to explain yourself?

[Ridwan Asher]

.... and the Baltic States wouldn’t be semi-apartheid states who blight the EU by association and openly celebrate their nation’s slimy WW2 SS collaborators whilst at the same time persecuting Jewish partisans & Red Army veterans for (get this) war crimes.

Now, this is uncalled for, and will only dillute main points of your argument.

[Semmi]

better off and the Baltic States wouldn’t be semi-apartheid states who blight the EU by association and openly celebrate their nation’s slimy WW2 SS collaborators whilst at the same time persecuting Jewish partisans & Red Army veterans for (get this) war crimes.

"We will beat the Russians now and we will beat the Germans after that"

The soldiers serving in the Baltic Legions were more or less forced to join or be sent off to concentration camps. Their allegiance was with their homelands, not the Waffen-SS or Nazi Germany. Calling them collaborators is almost as incorrect as your statement.

[RGB]

Apartheid Baltic states that glorify their Nazi past? :rolleyes:

Would you like to explain yourself?

What would you want to know that isn't covered by Wiki?

What he said is merely a soundbite one's very used to when listening to politicians of the new ethnic democracies and those of the Evil Empire.

[Cook]

What would you want to know that isn't covered by Wiki?



How about a source that has some actual credibility for a start.

[RGB]

How about a source that has some actual credibility for a start.

There's newspaper clippings in the references section. All you have to do is follow them. Wiki's as good a place as any for maverick to start the research, if that's what he really wants to do.

[maverick]

I'm here to determine whether or not this warrants a kicking or some other form of disciplinary action.

[RGB]

I'm here to determine whether or not this warrants a kicking, genius.

Hence the helpful wiki reference.

[Barry Bull]

I read an scholarly bunch of alt.hist essays that posited right-wing Soviet generals basically treating the democratic uprising like the Chinese did in Tienanmen Square, and cracking down. It wouldn't probably keep the Warsaw Pact around, but the USSR would probably stay together.

The guy who wrote it was a Russian history major, and he opined the USSR might end up more on a Chinese course, and more like it is today, except in 1991 instead of waiting until the late-90s to slip into that state.


There is a difference between your scenario and what happened on 4/6/1989. The PLA was ordered to clear the Square with (lethal) force by the PRC Central Government and there are evidences (both pre- and post- 4/6) that at least part of the PLA are reluctant to do so. There were a front page declaration signed by about one hundred retired senior PLA officers that the PLA should not be used to deal with demostrations. However, the PLA (using elements posted outside Beijing) did deal with the protesters, as most of the officers felt duty bound to follow orders from the still legitmate government.

In your scenario, who have the authority in the then chaotic USSR to order the Red Army to move? Would the Red Army listen to the 1991 coup leaders? Or would the Soviet Generals moved without clear order from above?

[FBH991]

There is a difference between your scenario and what happened on 4/6/1989. The PLA was ordered to clear the Square with (lethal) force by the PRC Central Government and there are evidences (both pre- and post- 4/6) that at least part of the PLA are reluctant to do so. There were a front page declaration signed by about one hundred retired senior PLA officers that the PLA should not be used to deal with demostrations. However, the PLA (using elements posted outside Beijing) did deal with the protesters, as most of the officers felt duty bound to follow orders from the still legitmate government.

In your scenario, who have the authority in the then chaotic USSR to order the Red Army to move? Would the Red Army listen to the 1991 coup leaders? Or would the Soviet Generals moved without clear order from above?

There's also the problem that unlike China, which was by that point coming into a period of growth, Russia killing its demonstrators can't really be backed up by solving its economic problems. I mean, it seems like a military slaughter like that could make things worse, not prop the USSR up.

[Cook]

For my money you’d have to go back prior to Brezhnev, to when Khrushchev was Premier.

[Simon_1969]

For my money you’d have to go back prior to Brezhnev, to when Khrushchev was Premier.


I just read "Red Plenty" by Francis Spufford which is an historical novel based around Soviet Economic policy of the 1960s (a strange idea in itself). Excellent book - about efforts by Soviet economists to change to a(theoretically) more efficient system of economic planning and the incapacity of the system to do so.

If that change had occured, and if it had worked, then a more economically successful USSR would have survived longer, particularly as so much of the State's legitimacy was based around the supposed economic superiority state planning.

[TxCoatl1970]

For the Soviet Union to continue after 1990, you have to bypass the Brezhnev years of corruption and malaise from which the revolving door of successors in the 80's did nothing to arrest. Chernenko and Andropov inherited an economic death spiral that they hadn't the foggiest idea what to do about it. Invading Afghanistan didn't help.
Gosplan and Comecon created an economic Potemkin village based on Soviet fiat and compulsion that made zero economic sense that wasted tremendous amounts of resources.
They needed a program of economic liberalization a la the Deng Xiaopeng years of the PRC to find what worked, send Soviets abroad in droves to find and learn what works, give folks the chance and choice to try what works and get it down to a science, privatizing large sectors of the economy by degrees to make them competitive in the global market and bin command economy socialism as the guiding ideology. It wouldn't have hurt to have adopted patent laws to protect intellectual property and developed a consistent tax code, all of which they were capable of doing, just not all at once. If they had taken steps to deal with economic reality by 1975 through 2000, the economic growth would have been staggering. Dumping a lot of white-elephant defense projects would have freed up lots of resources that could've vastly improved their competitiveness in other areas.

[Urban fox]

Apartheid Baltic states that glorify their Nazi past? :rolleyes:

Would you like to explain yourself?

Well, the massive amounts of official and unofficial disclamation against Ethnic Russians in Estonia & Latvia, the general nastiness and pettiness of their nationalist government engage in. Whilst complaining about how ev0l Russia is bullying them. Is well known, and frankly if a much more reputable country like Turkey cant join the EU neither should be Balts (aside from Lithuania) whose record on human rights etc is far more questionable.

The stuff about the SS is true also, memorials to them have been built whilst Red Army memorials get pulled down or ‘’moved’’. There has been major controversy over this and the Estonian & Latvian goverments seem to tacitly encourage it. I don’t know if SS veterans get a state pension yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre has expressed concerns about this glorification of the Nazi past to the Baltic goverments, several times to no avail.

The point about the Balt government being more concerned with prosecuting old NKVD/Red Army or Soviet Partisans is also true. Lets face it Baltic goverments haven’t much concerned themselves with SS/Forest Brother war crimes.

[brokenman]

The SU needs a winning war.

[Glass Onion]

The last possible moment to save a Soviet Union would be preventing the coup. If you do that, while some parts of the Union will undoubtedly leave, the new Union Treaty will probably be begrudgingly signed, and a USSR will probably hang on for another year or so at least, depending on how the conflict between Yeltsin and Gorbachev is ultimately resolved. It will be different from the USSR that existed previously though. Once the coup happened, any chance of that treaty being signed went out the window. To simplify matters somewhat, none of the SSR's were willing to remain part of the USSR past that point-not even Russia itself. So if you prevent the coup, you've saved a USSR, but it will be functionally different from the USSR that had existed previously that arguably such an action would not suffice to save The USSR.

[WarBastard]

Maybe the Virgin Lands program goes better?

[TyranicusMaximus]

-snip-

Ehem. They'd have to be pretty ignorant of their own history to do all that. After all:

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=132349
So here's the problem:

Estonia's population 1939: 1,136,400
Estonia's number of population lost due to conscription, execution or deportation: 59,732, of them deported during the June deportation 5978, plus arrested during a parallel June crackdown 3178, and put into Soviet penitentiary system prior to June 1941 - around 1500 arrestees max. The rest which would constitute over 40 thousand, were lost due to forcible conscription or the USSR forcibly evacuating them after the onset of war. That is a large number of repressed for such a small republic, but it's not overwhelmingly large.

To compare, 80000 people fled from Estonia by sea to Finland and Sweden, becoming war refugees and later, expatriates. 25,000 Estonians reached Sweden and a further 42,000 Germany. During the war about 8 000 Estonian Swedes and their family members had emigrated to Sweden. The USSR in 1945 found the population of Estonia, which it left as over a million strong nation, being around 850 thousand. In essence, more people were lost in Estonia in wartime due to flight and war than due to Soviet repressive activities.

The USSR deported Estonians in 1949 as well, around 20,000.

In total, the USSR deported 32 540 Estonians in 1940-1953. (Deportee data from P.Polyan, "Not of their own will", it's basically archival data on deportees). That is around 2,8% of the Republic's total population. In total, among the deportees around 4594 maximally died (most of them from the first deportation, because they suffered high wartime death rates, up to 60%, in the second 20,000 strong deportation less people died).

It re-settled Estonia with Russians as well, due to a large population loss, but deporting 2,8% of the population, and of those, a 0,4% of population died, doesn't sound as total destruction.

Comparing that to the actions of the Germans against subhumans - say, Belorus - is completely out of proportion: 2,230,000 dead in mere 3 years of occupation. Even seeing as population is higher than Estonia, one could see that the Republic's population even scaled down to Estonia's would result in between 250,000 and 300,000 dead only in Estonia, were the USSR even comparably, remotely intent on destroying the Estonian nationality physically.

Of course, one can select a greater territory, but Poland, Russia and Yugoslavia - the nations where Slavic subhumans and Jews were slated for mass destruction, would also yield rates of six-to-10% of population dead only, the number of those transferred, deported to slavery or otherwise moved would be outside of that scope (but it was also pretty high).

In essence, it's hard to honestly say that the Germans' actions were not unusual and unparalleled in the regard of ethnic cleansing.

Also, Finland had 3,5 million humans in 1939 - thrice Estonia's population, and close to the population of Leningrad in the same time. Considering what Germans did to Leningrad, you could see how they basically had no qualms about exterminating entire cities. In fact, I have not seen anything remotely comparable to the German plans for Leningrad and Moscow, comparable in the terms of complete annihilation slated for multi-million megapolis cities. Perhaps the Pnom Penh terror comes close. And even that's a singular case. That was like the ancient siege where the entire population of a city could be destroyed physically. The age of WMDs brought the ability to plan about destruction of cities, but so far WMD use has also been very constrained.

There's a large difference between resettling half-a-million Russians into a territory to "assimilate" the local population without destroying the locals physically, and simply killing the local population. It's a difference of a kind in my view. Deportations have existed before the USSR, and prior to; deportations were a more common policy for less advanced multi-ethnic nations; decapitation strikes against "suspected resistance" where you deport thousands of people you think are possible enemies was also done by many nations, including the West even though it was very advanced; but total physical destruction was Germany's high mark.

[truth is life]

Well they didn't OTL, and that was the primary component of the USSR's downfall. Have you ever watched the Movie Pentagon wars? Imagine that but writ large and everyone calling everyone else Comrade, to the point where all the bloated and inefficient military projects bought down the state.

So if you want the USSR to do more than stagger on for a few more years before collapsing, you need to do something radical, like Kruschov was trying too.

Wasn't something like a quarter of their GDP going to their military by the late '80s? I mean, that's just insane.

[DrakonFin]

The stuff about the SS is true also, memorials to them have been built whilst Red Army memorials get pulled down or ‘’moved’’. There has been major controversy over this and the Estonian & Latvian goverments seem to tacitly encourage it.

If your house is invaded by a serial rapist who then proceeds to torture you, you would welcome any help that came through the door - never mind if that help turns out to be a serial killer instead. The German rule was more lenient to the Estonians than the Soviet rule, and if there was no Soviet occupation in the first place, there would have been very little volunteers, SS or anythying else, from that country. Think, say, Sweden.

You do know that the Balts would have much liked to form their own national units/armies to fight against the USSR with the Germans, but the German leadership just shunted the Balt volunteers (and conscripted "volunteers") into SS units against their own wishes?

I'm just saying that the idea that the Balts are "glorifying the SS" or " glorifying the Nazi past" is not so simple and straight-forward as some seem to think.

[TyranicusMaximus]

If your house is invaded by a serial rapist who then proceeds to torture you, you would welcome any help that came through the door - never mind if that help turns out to be a serial killer instead. The German rule was more lenient to the Estonians than the Soviet rule, and if there was no Soviet occupation in the first place, there would have been very little volunteers, SS or anythying else, from that country. Think, say, Sweden.

You do know that the Balts would have much liked to form their own national units/armies to fight against the USSR with the Germans, but the German leadership just shunted the Balt volunteers (and conscripted "volunteers") into SS units against their own wishes?

I'm just saying that the idea that the Balts are "glorifying the SS" or " glorifying the Nazi past" is not so simple and straight-forward as some seem to think.

No offense, but did you read what I posted above?

Now, I don't know much about the situation in the Baltic, and what I've heard about treatment of Russians is disgusting.

I'll give that area the benefit of a doubt, and give the possibility that this glorification is more like "giving respect" to your ancestors who possibly (hopefully) took little or no part in atrocities against the USSR.

[TyranicusMaximus]

"We will beat the Russians now and we will beat the Germans after that"

The soldiers serving in the Baltic Legions were more or less forced to join or be sent off to concentration camps. Their allegiance was with their homelands, not the Waffen-SS or Nazi Germany. Calling them collaborators is almost as incorrect as your statement.

Is this true?

I'd love to hear more about it because I've heard little than people shouting at each other.

[Asnys]

Well they didn't OTL, and that was the primary component of the USSR's downfall. Have you ever watched the Movie Pentagon wars? Imagine that but writ large and everyone calling everyone else Comrade, to the point where all the bloated and inefficient military projects bought down the state.

So if you want the USSR to do more than stagger on for a few more years before collapsing, you need to do something radical, like Kruschov was trying too.

The problems went deeper then just military overspending, and shunting that into investment wouldn't have done much more than delay the inevitable. It's hard to get reliable productivity statistics, given that the prices were basically made up, but my understanding is that the Russian economy was already over-capitalized; that the productivity of new investments had plummeted to near zero; and that just shifting production around wasn't going to fix anything long-term. Moving military spending into consumer goods might have helped, by giving the regime a longer lease on life, but more fundamental reforms were needed.

[Cook]

The stuff about the SS is true also, memorials to them have been built whilst Red Army memorials...

If your house is invaded by a serial rapist who then proceeds to torture you...

Now, I don't know much about the situation in the Baltic, and what I've heard about treatment of Russians is disgusting...

All massively not relevant to the thread.

If you want to have a spitting contest send each other private messages so that you don’t piss off the rest of us and clutter up the thread.

[imperialaquila]

Why has no one mentioned avoiding the Afghan war yet? That ruined the Soviets just as much or more than Vietnam ruined the US. Avoid that, and the USSR would probably go on for longer.

Granted, that probably doesn't solve the structural problems the SU faced, but it's a start.

[Cook]

Why has no one mentioned avoiding the Afghan war yet? That ruined the Soviets just as much or more than Vietnam ruined the US.

Well for my part because I believe the rot had well and truly set in by then. That Afghanistan is seen by many as the straw that broke the camel’s back is reasonable proof of that.

With or without the Afghan War the Soviet Union would not have survived. They may have limped on a bit longer but not have survived.

You need to go back to before Leonid Brezhnev took over to save the Soviet Union. The Soviets intervened in Afghanistan on the basis of the Brezhnev Doctrine, an alternative government would possibly have been more flexible and in their response.

[Gridley]

With or without the Afghan War the Soviet Union would not have survived. They may have limped on a bit longer but not have survived.


Agreed. And it is worth noting that the Vietnam 'war' didn't ruin the US. Vietnam was a symptom, not a cause, and the US was much stronger and better off during the '80s and early '90s than it was during US involvement in Vietnam.

[Snake Featherston]

The simplest POD to save the USSR is to prevent a German invasion of the Soviet Union until June of 1942, when Soviet troops would have been at their peak of preparation for such an attack, and German troops would have been attacking into the teeth of a Soviet military rather more efficient and better-armed than OTL (for instance starting the war with rather more T-34s and KV-1s as opposed to mainly obsolete weaponry in OTL 1941).

A shorter, less costly defeat of the Nazis would dramatically enhance the prestige of communism by comparison to liberal democracy. Assuming, too, that the USSR's victories in Europe do not have significant butterflies on events in Asia/Pacific, the Soviets would be able to wheel around and curbstomp Imperial Japan as per OTL, leading perhaps in early 1944 to large-scale battles pitting Imperial Japanese troops against an alternate USSR with millions of Soviets who died IOTL.

Instead of focusing on Kursk/Bagration as the crowning moments of Allies v. Axis troops the ATL might study Kwangtung Army v. Soviet army battles across China itself.

[Dan1988]

No Gorbachov (am I spelling his name right?)

Yeah, you are not only spelling his name right, you are also spelling it as it meant to be pronounced in Russian - which is a good thing.

Apart from that, I'm not sure about a no Gorbachov thing, but more likely no Brezhnev. Failing that, then maybe give the New Union Treaty time to work out. At least with the condition that they choose a better name (though the initial choice of "Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics" was actually a very clever idea, IMO).

[Shevek23]

Damn, my browser crashed! Lost a whole post. Let's see if a second draft from memory is any better, hopefully shorter:o.
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The OP does not specify that the surviving Russian union actually be the USSR or in any way retain Communism in any form. Nevertheless I argue that it would pretty much have to. If you take away the ideological Bolshevik legacy of an internationalist socialist regime with a mission to blaze a new trail economically and socially, what alternative reason other than naked Great Russian imperialism would there be for this vast multinational union to exist?

In the previous version of this post, I granted a lot of reasons to admit that both strands of this Leninist ideology--a new and superior socioeconomic order and the universal fraternity of all working people--were honored more in the breach than the observance in the USSR. Still I think they were effective factors holding the Soviet Union together, as much in the hope of someday and gradually making good on these grand promises as in actual progress achieved toward the goal. Toss out the CPSU and you toss out the Soviet Union itself, and then what alternative organizing principle can hold the territory together?

Because Soviet economic progress did slow, and then stagnate and even in some respects reverse in the 1970s and '80s, the regime had to rely on propaganda in several layers. First of all, deny their people contact with Westerners or direct experience of the West that might gainsay claims they were doing well relatively--this became harder and harder as the USSR strived for more of a role in the larger world, meaning more and more Soviet citizens would have knowledge and even contact of realities in the West. Second, put ideological spin on what disturbing knowledge did leak through. I won't attempt to recraft what I wrote on that subject before. Bottom line--there were grains of truth in Communist criticisms of Western society, and it was a fact that Russia had started out from a much lower point and was devastated by two world wars, so when Communists urged fellow citizens (and themselves) to bear that in mind and measure Soviet success by their own rate of progress rather than by direct comparison with the wealth Western Europeans and Americans might seem to enjoy, that had some resonance. But a lot less when, in the later Brezhnev years and after, that rate of progress visibly slowed while lots of chickens--notably environmental crises--came home to roost.

Under those conditions, Gorbachev's decisions favoring glasnost were very risky; he could dare to undertake to tolerate greater "transparency" only because he could argue that it was necessary to achieve economic and social reform, and by the late 1980s no one in the regime could make a strong credible argument to gainsay him. Unfortunately for him, effective reforms in production, distribution, and social justice were slow in coming (if any progress was being made at all, it wasn't dramatically visible) whereas opening the floodgates of greater freedom of travel, freedom of speech, and as Yakov Smirnov put it (from his status as a refugee immigrant comedian in the USA in the 1980s) "freedom after you speak", unleashed a lot of harsh criticism and unflattering comparisons with the West that too many Soviet citizens knew were basically accurate. This is what doomed Communism in Russia.

So--given the economic mess the Soviet system was in by say 1985, the regime of the Party was on its last legs. But no Party, no Soviet Union. No Soviet Union, and the only other way a single regime with its capital in Moscow could retain control of all, or even most, of the former Soviet territory would be by naked imperialism--under what banner, exactly? Great Russian nationalism, quite ruthlessly grinding down Ukrainians, Belarussians, Moldovians, Central Asians of various nationalities, etc? The Orthodox Church? (Again, largely a Great Russian thing, and hardly in a position in 1990 to rule even there--even some kind of ecumenical union of eastern churches could not reach many of the former Soviet citizens.) What?

----

This is why my own modest proposal is, the USSR (or any union of that territory) could only survive if the Communists had somehow or other made their system more of an economic success. Most suggestions I have seen toward that end on this site, in just about any thread, run along the lines of moderating or abandoning state-centralized socialism. But if they did that, even if they could, it would again hardly be a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, now would it. More to the point, abandoning the ideological commitment to a post-capitalist economy that does deliver the goods on the basis of a fair, egalitarian distribution of the collective product of society to everyone again undermines the commitment to Leninism itself, and thus to the premise on which the Union was united. Mind, I don't deny that if the Central Committee turned into a bunch of capitalist entrepreneurs overnight and they delivered the goods to the Soviet peoples, creating ample work opportunities with decent pay that allowed them to buy actual goods in actual markets, they could still go on pretending to be more or less Marxist-Leninist and no one would want to argue with them much. Still I think that's at least as ASB, if not more so, than imagining they could make the socialist command economy work well. The reality of reforms in a capitalist direction would surely IMHO be that a few would profit, many would lose, probably the overall economic output and share of that available to the regime would fall, and Soviet society, bereft of a key legitimizing link, would fly apart in some fashion.

So--I propose that in order to preserve this vast state, probably some POD is needed to make a Marxist-Leninist command economy work better for its people, the way Lenin promised it would. I agree with Cook that you have to go back at least to the time of Khrushchev if not before, and turn left instead of right at Albuquerque or some such thing. And this is not easy--the Soviet Communists were not complete idiots after all, and if they did not take this or that path it was probably because there were reasons why it would have been risky or difficult.

In the 1970s, the Brezhnev economy looked sound enough from the Soviet point of view. Progress, in the sense of more goods of somewhat better quality becoming more available to more citizens, was still happening. Progress as the regime chose to measure it, in terms of vast, grandiose, new enterprises being built and starting to operate, also appeared to be going along swimmingly.

But I've seen it argued--by people other than mere dogmatic naysayers of the possibility of any kind of progressive socialism, who of course always chime in in abundance--that actually long before then, the USSR was already on a doomed path. One person whom I take seriously is Stephen Kotkin, whose Magnetic Mountain was a major text in a course on Soviet society I took about seven years ago. Looking at the list of his publications I don't immediately recognize the one I was reading (extracurricularly) back then; possibly it was Political Corruption in Transition: A Sceptic's Handbook (Central European University Press, 2002). Anyway he argued that if were not for the use-value and then market-value in the West of the various Soviet oil fields, the regime would have surely hit a fatal crisis by the mid-1960s at the latest. I'm not sure I believe it was that bad, though honestly reading other materials on the on-the-ground nature of Soviet society from the Stalin years right up to 1990 I can't dismiss the argument and coming from Kotkin I take it pretty seriously.

(I really should also get around to reading a number of books he has published since I took that class).

So if people like Kotkin are right, they took their wrong turning--if a right one was ever available to them--long ago indeed, and getting out of the corner they were in would have required fancy footwork if anything could work at all.

As I've indicated, I am partial to alternatives that would take them farther leftward, or at any rate in some untried direction, rather than suggestions that they simply should have given up on socialism and done what people like Trotsky and George Orwell accused them of doing--cynically re-inventing capitalism on a harsher basis. I doubt that if the Bolsheviks had ever made that cynical decision and implemented it successfully, they'd have found much of a welcome on the global capitalist markets, nor would doing it successfully be much easier than trying to make socialism work on its own terms.

But to try and propose a specific POD I'd have to propose a specific socialist reform, one with better prospects of success than any of the dozens various Soviet leaders did try to implement at various times, and do it from my ignorance in this armchair whereas they were fighting for their lives in the real world with vast resources available to them to try and flesh out the nuts and bolts.

Just pulling a POD wildly out of the air--Stalin dies in mid-1945, if you like the same day and same way as FDR. This is hardly a surefire guarantee that things would shake down in the post-Stalinist regime so as to favor new thinking that is both idealistic and focused on success, but it just might. In terms of the Soviet regime's own yardsticks and apparent success as a world power, Stalin did not do so badly over the next (last) 9 years of his life, and to my surprise in a class on Stalin I found that he was not quite the ignoramus on Marxist theory I had been taking him for. He had a seriously distorted and not particularly humane view of what socialism and communism entailed, but on his own terms he was quite a serious Leninist. His successors might well have dropped the ball in a number of ways--when Stalin did die OTL, in 1954, police chief Lavrenti Beria let it be known he thought the whole Communist Party structure was obsolete and irrelevant and should be jettisoned, and the current bosses should simply rule in a state dictatorship based on the Soviet government ministries, with no pretense of being Communists. I believe it was as much for this heresy as because he was a deadly threat that a troika of conspirators (Molotov, Malenkov, and Khruschchev) ousted him and had him killed after a summary show trial. Others, without so openly discarding the premise on which they supposedly ruled, might have muddled along cynically and failed to keep Soviet society together; others may have gone down misguided left-wing paths and led to ruin that way. One could do far worse than OTL, after all!

But if I want a hope they might do better, this I suspect is possibly the latest POD.

It is not inconceivable to me that Khruschchev might have found some correct bearing in the early Sixties, somehow weathered the crisis of confidence he brought on himself with the Cuban missile crisis, and sobered by that experience grown into a truly first-rate global statesman, steering the Soviet and Warsaw-bloc economies into a more sustainable system while earning respect abroad. Maybe; I like the man enough to wish so. But while he was hardly overshadowed in intellect or vision by any of his Kremlin contemporaries he was hardly infallible either; his faults were legion.

That, I agree with Cook, was the last gasp. Without effective and deep reform of some kind--I say, on a more socialist basis--by the mid-60s, the stagnation and collapse of the Communist party regime, and with it the USSR as a whole and the prospect of holding that territory under any pretext was foredoomed. Perhaps the crises of 1990 might have been averted for a while, but the alternative to it collapsing as ignomiously as it did OTL would have been the scenario Western hardliners always assumed would be the endgame--last-ditch Soviet hardliners would refuse to see the writing on the wall, crack down Stalin-style, and given the limited and failing prospects of the economic side of the regime, which this clampdown could only worsen, the upshot would be the regime falling with a bang rather than a whimper--very likely, the bang of a global nuclear war.:eek:

[Dan1988]

Shevek, an interesting analysis. So, basically, the whole system of People's Commissars and the like would be retained? Interesting.

However, reforming the command economy is easier than it sounds, as there would be people (outside the USSR) would would much rather see capitalist-style reforms and the like. Something like the New Economic Policy, Titoism, or a mix of both could theoretically work within a command economy, whilst it might encounter some criticism from outsiders who believe it doesn't go far enough. Still, though, fundamental reform on a socialist basis like this is possible. I'd go even farther and go for structural reform - yes, retain the whole People's Commissars system, but I'd think that Gorbachov was on the right track with the New Union Treaty and I wouldn't be surprised if something like the federal system the New Union Treaty - along with the Congress of People's Deputies - comes about as a major structural reform to the system.

Maoism, as a version of Leninism, could probably also be viewed in the light of your analysis, Shevek, and I think should be explored for ideas which could be implemented within the Soviet Union in your TL, with your Djugashvili/Stalin-dies-early POD.

[Joseph Solis in Australia]

If we have a POD of 1953 after Stalin's death, have Beria successfully take the post and purge Malenkov, Molotov, and Khrushchev. Then Beria will pull a Deng by liberalizing the economy though by abandoning partly the central planning and embrace the market economy. Beria withdraws Soviet troops in Germany and Eastern Europe and Finlandize Germany and let Eastern Europe to have elections and embrace capitalism. Let the Baltics go and restore their independence.

[Shevek23]

If we have a POD of 1953 after Stalin's death, have Beria successfully take the post and purge Malenkov, Molotov, and Khrushchev. Then Beria will pull a Deng by liberalizing the economy though by abandoning partly the central planning and embrace the market economy. Beria withdraws Soviet troops in Germany and Eastern Europe and Finlandize Germany and let Eastern Europe to have elections and embrace capitalism. Let the Baltics go and restore their independence.

And then the former USSR, whether it retains the name or not, is basically a tinpot dictatorship that exists solely for the glory of its Leader. Well, OK, such regimes do exist and persist sometimes for generations. But I don't think such a parody of the Soviet Union as the Beria you propose would impose (and yes, that does sound like Beria all right) would be even as durable as the nominally Leninist one of OTL. Let the Baltics go and what is to stop Ukraine from thinking they can go too? And without any Leninist ideology of a better future for all, why shouldn't they seek to escape the shadow of Great Russia?

Under those circumstances, Beria could stay in power as long as grateful Western powers shore him up. If he is compliant enough with their demands--that might be quite a while, though Russia would be in a sorry state when he finally kicks.

Or he could get the notion that he is the supreme ruler of Russia in his own right, and hijinks ensue. Again we face the prospect of possible nuclear war, as one thing people like Beria can control is special weapons projects. OTL Beria was in charge of the nuclear weapons program and would know all about it.

But would people like Andrei Sakharov deliver the goods just for the personal glory of Lavrenti Beria? OTL Sakharov eventually became the patron saint of Soviet dissidents, but he delivered the H-bomb first--because he thought the government he delivered it to had some legitimacy.

If you think Beria was going to deliver a fine civil society along with your order of capitalism, you don't know your Beria...

He wouldn't put up with dissidence from the likes of his tame scientists for an instant. They'd deliver, or die. But the thing is--dying is an option. It's entirely possible that men like Sakharov and Sergei Korolov would sooner go to their graves with their best engineering ideas locked in their heads, unhinted at, rather than hand over yet more dictatorship tools to some egocentric clown. For the Soviet people, the balance of power, and the future of humanity, sure they'd take a chance that someone like Khruschschev might not blow it. For Beria and his cronies, not so much maybe.

So no matter how you slice it, Russia slips.

Well, maybe the Russians could have turned up someone who could turn his back on the legacy that legitimated their whole system but not be someone as vicious as Beria; maybe that person could turn Russia around into a capitalist powerhouse.

I doubt it. I can't prove it. But where was this paragon when OTL Russia needed him then, in 1991?