Deleted member 40957
On January 22nd 1969, a Red Army deserter who resented the invasion of Czechoslovakia attempted to shoot Brezhnev during a parade for cosmonauts. If he'd been successful, I'd assume Kosygin or Suslov would be next in line for the Soviet leadership.
Kosygin would obviously be an interesting reformer - would he take the USSR down the "state capitalist" route of China? I've heard this criticized quite plausibly, though, because the USSR won't be able to trade with the West quite as easily and doesn't have nearly as large a workforce. However, it did have much more advanced industry and a more skilled workforce.
Another possibility could be market socialism as practiced in Yugoslavia (competing enterprises managed by their workers), but I think that might be a little too pluralistic and democratic for use in the Soviet Union. Not to mention the embarrassment of adapting a Titoist policy after all these years of criticizing it... Any other economic models he could have followed?
Suslov would kill detente, and if he rises due to a high-profile act of domestic insurrection the Eastern Bloc could be a nasty place indeed. While I doubt he'd entirely restore Stalinist terror, he'd get closer to it than any post-Stalin leader in OTL.
Kosygin would obviously be an interesting reformer - would he take the USSR down the "state capitalist" route of China? I've heard this criticized quite plausibly, though, because the USSR won't be able to trade with the West quite as easily and doesn't have nearly as large a workforce. However, it did have much more advanced industry and a more skilled workforce.
Another possibility could be market socialism as practiced in Yugoslavia (competing enterprises managed by their workers), but I think that might be a little too pluralistic and democratic for use in the Soviet Union. Not to mention the embarrassment of adapting a Titoist policy after all these years of criticizing it... Any other economic models he could have followed?
Suslov would kill detente, and if he rises due to a high-profile act of domestic insurrection the Eastern Bloc could be a nasty place indeed. While I doubt he'd entirely restore Stalinist terror, he'd get closer to it than any post-Stalin leader in OTL.