AHC: Maintain the Soviet Union to Present Day

As the tin says, the challenge is to maintain the Soviet Union to the present day. However, I am going to put forward some bits to make things more interesting.


-Firstly, it need not continue in the state it was specifically. A more looser Federation, something akin to the European Union, is perfectly acceptable.
-It must be Left Wing, but it doesn't have to be Hardline Communist or Socialist.
-Keeping members of the Warsaw pact within its sphere of influence is completely optional.
-Consider this one a bonus challenge, have the Soviets be more reconciliatory (or at least not as confrontational) towards the West.

Give it a Deng Xiaoping after Kruschev. The ussr needs someone with the courage to enact economic reforms.

Rainbow Sparkle said:

As the tin says, the challenge is to maintain the Soviet Union to the present day. However, I am going to put forward some bits to make things more interesting.


-Firstly, it need not continue in the state it was specifically. A more looser Federation, something akin to the European Union, is perfectly acceptable.

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Don't the CIS and CTSO already fit the bill here? Anyway, I have written a TL on the subject where Brezhnev kicks the bucket while his successor gets killed in the historic 1969 assassination attempt on Brezhnev. As a result, Kosygin comes to power and pulls a Deng Xiaoping. See here.

-It must be Left Wing, but it doesn't have to be Hardline Communist or Socialist.

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Check.

-Keeping members of the Warsaw pact within its sphere of influence is completely optional.

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Done.

-Consider this one a bonus challenge, have the Soviets be more reconciliatory (or at least not as confrontational) towards the West.

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Did that too, eventually.

Rainbow Sparkle said:

As the tin says, the challenge is to maintain the Soviet Union to the present day. However, I am going to put forward some bits to make things more interesting.


-Firstly, it need not continue in the state it was specifically. A more looser Federation, something akin to the European Union, is perfectly acceptable.
-It must be Left Wing, but it doesn't have to be Hardline Communist or Socialist.
-Keeping members of the Warsaw pact within its sphere of influence is completely optional.
-Consider this one a bonus challenge, have the Soviets be more reconciliatory (or at least not as confrontational) towards the West.

Click to expand...

I found a good POD recently - Apparently when that quite mental German Boy (Mathias Rust) flew his Cessna into Red Square Gobechev used the failure of the military to shoot him down as an excuse to dismiss many of the Military Hard Liners.

This left him free to enact many of the reforms that led to the eventual end of the Soviet Union in a more or less controlled fashion.

Instead have his plane shot down by an interceptor and the lad killed (sorry mate) and this incident blows up souring relationships between the East and West - and weakening Gorbechevs position while reinforcing the hardliners.

Cryhavoc101 said:

I found a good POD recently - Apparently when that quite mental German Boy (Mathias Rust) flew his Cessna into Red Square Gobechev used the failure of the military to shoot him down as an excuse to dismiss many of the Military Hard Liners.

This left him free to enact many of the reforms that led to the eventual end of the Soviet Union in a more or less controlled fashion.

Instead have his plane shot down by an interceptor and the lad killed (sorry mate) and this incident blows up souring relationships between the East and West - and weakening Gorbechevs position while reinforcing the hardliners.

Click to expand...

On the opposite side of the spectrum, weakening the hardliners can also be better for the survival chances of the USSR.

In 1990-1991, there were referendum taken in most of the SSRs on essentially making a new constitution for a federal union. The vast majority of soviet citizens were in favor of reform rather than secession. The only SSRs that might not have wanted to continue with the soviet union would have been the baltics (surprise! ...not), uzbekistan, and maybe georgia.

However the hardliner attempted coup destabilized everything to the point where every republic left the union until even Russia, the last one left, seceded.

If the coup and its effects are prevented, then they reform into the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics, with greater economic and political liberalism.

BMN said:

On the opposite side of the spectrum, weakening the hardliners can also be better for the survival chances of the USSR.

In 1990-1991, there were referendum taken in most of the SSRs on essentially making a new constitution for a federal union. The vast majority of soviet citizens were in favor of reform rather than secession. The only SSRs that might not have wanted to continue with the soviet union would have been the baltics (surprise! ...not), uzbekistan, and maybe georgia.

However the hardliner attempted coup destabilized everything to the point where every republic left the union until even Russia, the last one left, seceded.

If the coup and its effects are prevented, then they reform into the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics, with greater economic and political liberalism.

Click to expand...

Indeed, as Gorbachev wasn't a chowderhead when it came to fiscal policy when compared to Yeltsin. He favored the Nordic model, which would probably be viable in the USSR, especially if they got some Norwegian economic advisers to help them diversify their export-driven economy. You'd also see a stronger legislature and constitution because no Yeltsin= no 1993 coup.

BMN said:

The only SSRs that might not have wanted to continue with the soviet union would have been the baltics (surprise! ...not), uzbekistan, and maybe georgia.

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Actually, it was the Baltics, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia.

Maybe after Stalin's death in '53, and Georgi Malenkov and Nikita Khrushchev initially in power, there could be a real thaw in relations. Such that the U.S. and Soviet Union don't so readily prop up dictatorships and arm rebel movements.

I kind of remember a thread asking about a third economic system to be centered in the third world. I think this could be fascinating if you can pull it off.

So, maybe enough of a thaw to allow Khrushchev to succeed as a reformer.

ISOT this forum to 1989.

Bam, done.

BMN said:

On the opposite side of the spectrum, weakening the hardliners can also be better for the survival chances of the USSR.

In 1990-1991, there were referendum taken in most of the SSRs on essentially making a new constitution for a federal union. The vast majority of soviet citizens were in favor of reform rather than secession. The only SSRs that might not have wanted to continue with the soviet union would have been the baltics (surprise! ...not), uzbekistan, and maybe georgia.

However the hardliner attempted coup destabilized everything to the point where every republic left the union until even Russia, the last one left, seceded.

If the coup and its effects are prevented, then they reform into the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics, with greater economic and political liberalism.

Click to expand...

Can you point me to information on the coup, and anything else related to it? I've been considering doing a timeline of late in an attempt to get some creative juices going and I think I could pull at least something simple off with this.

Rainbow Sparkle said:

Can you point me to information on the coup, and anything else related to it? I've been considering doing a timeline of late in an attempt to get some creative juices going and I think I could pull at least something simple off with this.

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the quick wikipedia article on the new USSR

a very good TL from althist.wikia on the subject

Onkel Willie said:

Don't the CIS and CTSO already fit the bill here?

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Not really.

Onkel Willie said:

-It must be Left Wing, but it doesn't have to be Hardline Communist or Socialist.
Check.

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Are you calling Putin's Russia 'left wing'?

Onkel Willie said:

-Keeping members of the Warsaw pact within its sphere of influence is completely optional.
Done.

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Name one.

Onkel Willie said:

-Consider this one a bonus challenge, have the Soviets be more reconciliatory (or at least not as confrontational) towards the West.
Did that too, eventually.

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Crimea?

it rather is in many ways.. or returning ...

however ...
your best bet is to start earlier.. Kruschev more determined to de stalinze and set the path to a more balanced long term system.. who knows he bumps his head..

unfortunatly i think the only real way... is under gorbachev... and would require everything to go perfect and start quickly..

New union treaty that protected ethnic rights .. massive apologies from the Kremlin to the republics and real Representative soviets .. communism would have to transmute into socialism...

top all of that with a plea from Gorbachev to the west ( he had a great relationship with Regan) to help financially and economically to transform the soviet economy as painlessly as possible.. odds of this working 70% odds of this working with some of the republics remaining.. 100%

problem is the nation was held together through fear .. you have to change that and have the nation held together by love for the nation.. ( not just the russians with this feeling..)

no matter what union.. Russia is the Giant in the Room.. you need Belarus, Ukraine and maybe the Baltics to balance Moscow in a true duma that is representative of the diverse population that was the Soviet Union. It is possible.. even as ugly as the history was.. the nation was still moderately young and showed signs of growing and changing... just very slowly .. it needed to adapt and adapt fast as the west was outpacing it at a very alarming pace.

Its either that .. or the coupe works .. and the door is shut and walled off and repression makes a serious comeback

Onkel Willie said:

Don't the CIS and CTSO already fit the bill here? Anyway, I have written a TL on the subject where Brezhnev kicks the bucket while his successor gets killed in the historic 1969 assassination attempt on Brezhnev. As a result, Kosygin comes to power and pulls a Deng Xiaoping. See here.

Click to expand...

Will check out. For now, couldn't you just have Brezhnev killed in the 1969 assassination attempt, leaving Kosgyin de facto leader of the Soviet Union for the 1970's?

JoeyB2198 said:

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I think Onkel was referring to his own linked TL.

Onkel Willie's Year of the Three Secretaries and "Mother Russia Will Never Surrender" fits in.

His Timeline "Soviet Union Reborn" is about the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics. Unfortunately, Onkel only posted until 2001. Or maybe a similar one to "Soviet Union Reborn" : Soviet Union-New Union.

As BMN says, the easiest one is the 1991 referendums ending in a leaner, politically reformed USSR (which for our purposes is still called the USSR). Then you just need to keep it around. Best way for that, it doesn't have the same economic horrors as in OTL's 1990s - it'll still have economic problems but if they're not as bad, there's less strife and (as the OP requested) people voting in socialists and voting out free-market guys. And Gorby staying in, with the USSR having a stronger hand, is likely to net you that.

By the time Sovs start going "maybe we should free up markets again", the 2007-8 megacrash is coming down the tracks and will leave the socialists & communists feeling very smug.

Now, I'm sure the Soviets will have economic cycles, just of a different type?

I miss the Soviets, because they provided a counterweight. Now you have many Western conservatives telling oppressed groups in their countries, basically, "if you think it's bad now, just think how you'd fare under the Taliban!".

Could we possibly have an alternative to Khruschev show up, or at least Nikolai Bukharin win out?

BBadolato said:

Could we possibly have an alternative to Khruschev show up, or at least Nikolai Bukharin win out?

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Khrushchev had several competitors including: Molotov, Bulganin, Kaganovich, and Malenkov. Any one of them could have defeated him, or the Anti-Party Group could have driven him out in 1958.

Bukharin isn't really a viable alternative to Stalin. He was far too theoretical and right-wing for most Bolsheviks, and he wasn't as prominent in Lenin's circle as Stalin, Trotsky, or Zinoviev.