Al Grito de Guerra: the Second Mexican Revolution
- Thread starter Roberto El Rey
- Start date
Considering I just came off a Kaiserreich run as Mexico playing as Villa...
...I now must wonder how this will play out...
Good stuff! A comedy of errors ends in death with the "help" of some troublemakers...
It would be nice to know what happened in Moscow after the last we saw of Gorbachev. Unless the USSR completely collapses as otl I don't see them fully droping Cuba. Is their source of sugar and an escencial asset to pressure USA. If they drop Cuba they lose the capacity to chek on USA. IF they drop Korea they only lost a buffer state for the smaller of their frontiers.
I read back in the canon, and while the actual TL post does not make it clear, author commentary in other posts does imply Cuba will be put on short rations. However
These are solid points. It may be that Bush, seeing trouble brewing on the Rio Grande, decides to capitalize on restraint Gorbachev is showing and takes conciliatory steps to encourage that tendency. The ask, implied, communicated through back channels, or even openly if diplomatically uttered publicly, is that the Soviets back away precisely from "pressuring" the USA, with a quid pro quo that in return benefits the Soviets get from a special relationship with Cuba can be met by favorable US policies. Sugar for instance; I suppose the US can offer via various incentive schemes and relaxing trade policy to match any sugar losses the Soviets would suffer from alienating Havana.
I would think the realistic thing for Gorbachev to do in response is to waffle and compromise. Havana suffers a cutback in the level of support they have from the USSR, and Gorbachev signals a distance from Castroite adventurism...But he also insists as the price of this, perhaps foregoing some material incentives the US would prefer to offer, that the USA not mistake this for a free hand in trying to bring Castro down, and that the USA tolerate without complaint the USSR sustaining some aid for Cuba on a measurably lower scale. The austerity is presented to Castro as being frugality the Soviet situation requires and in no way admitted to be a deal with the Yankee devil.
So that would explain some serious belt tightening in Havana and be consistent with what we have been told so far, but that does not rule out Cuba still being under implicit Soviet protection. Some of the neoliberal measures Castro took OTL such as promoting tourism in Cuba might still be in order; certainly no matter how the Kremlin tried to pretty it up, and despite proclaiming a break with Moscow is not in Castro's interest, there will be some bitterness in Cuba anyway.
The upshot would be that Cuba has a reduced aid package coming from the USSR, and is more of a loose cannon than before, on a tight budget, but better off than OTL because some Soviet support continues and a strained but still special relationship with the USSR remains.
It would be possible for Gorbachev to cut them off completely as OTL, but the Soviet Union would pay a prestige price for that, especially if the USA then invaded and forced a regime change--which I believe the author has ruled out, wisely since that would turn into the queen of all quagmires if we did that. But Gorbachev slamming the door on Castro completely would leave that possibility open at least theoretically, and that would torpedo Soviet claims to stand for progress in any meaningful sense.
The difference between the Soviet Union surviving and it collapsing boils down to significant numbers of Soviet citizens continuing to have some hope in an ultimate vindication of the Leninist concept of Communism being justified. Take that away and we can expect the Russians to pull the plug on it, just as OTL. Therefore there are some ideological limits on what a nominally Soviet regime in Moscow can do--leaving the Cubans to struggle economically is one thing; throwing them to the Yankee wolf is quite another. We can square the circle if Gorbachev holds out for some effectively binding commitment from Uncle Sam that Cuba is off limits for US intervention, then the Russians can credit themselves for doing something to preserve revolutionary advances.
These are solid points. It may be that Bush, seeing trouble brewing on the Rio Grande, decides to capitalize on restraint Gorbachev is showing and takes conciliatory steps to encourage that tendency. The ask, implied, communicated through back channels, or even openly if diplomatically uttered publicly, is that the Soviets back away precisely from "pressuring" the USA, with a quid pro quo that in return benefits the Soviets get from a special relationship with Cuba can be met by favorable US policies. Sugar for instance; I suppose the US can offer via various incentive schemes and relaxing trade policy to match any sugar losses the Soviets would suffer from alienating Havana.
I would think the realistic thing for Gorbachev to do in response is to waffle and compromise. Havana suffers a cutback in the level of support they have from the USSR, and Gorbachev signals a distance from Castroite adventurism...But he also insists as the price of this, perhaps foregoing some material incentives the US would prefer to offer, that the USA not mistake this for a free hand in trying to bring Castro down, and that the USA tolerate without complaint the USSR sustaining some aid for Cuba on a measurably lower scale. The austerity is presented to Castro as being frugality the Soviet situation requires and in no way admitted to be a deal with the Yankee devil.
So that would explain some serious belt tightening in Havana and be consistent with what we have been told so far, but that does not rule out Cuba still being under implicit Soviet protection. Some of the neoliberal measures Castro took OTL such as promoting tourism in Cuba might still be in order; certainly no matter how the Kremlin tried to pretty it up, and despite proclaiming a break with Moscow is not in Castro's interest, there will be some bitterness in Cuba anyway.
The upshot would be that Cuba has a reduced aid package coming from the USSR, and is more of a loose cannon than before, on a tight budget, but better off than OTL because some Soviet support continues and a strained but still special relationship with the USSR remains.
It would be possible for Gorbachev to cut them off completely as OTL, but the Soviet Union would pay a prestige price for that, especially if the USA then invaded and forced a regime change--which I believe the author has ruled out, wisely since that would turn into the queen of all quagmires if we did that. But Gorbachev slamming the door on Castro completely would leave that possibility open at least theoretically, and that would torpedo Soviet claims to stand for progress in any meaningful sense.
The difference between the Soviet Union surviving and it collapsing boils down to significant numbers of Soviet citizens continuing to have some hope in an ultimate vindication of the Leninist concept of Communism being justified. Take that away and we can expect the Russians to pull the plug on it, just as OTL. Therefore there are some ideological limits on what a nominally Soviet regime in Moscow can do--leaving the Cubans to struggle economically is one thing; throwing them to the Yankee wolf is quite another. We can square the circle if Gorbachev holds out for some effectively binding commitment from Uncle Sam that Cuba is off limits for US intervention, then the Russians can credit themselves for doing something to preserve revolutionary advances.
I agree that is likely that the russians reduce the levels of aid and probable give Cuba a cue about not getting too deep into Mexico. Cuba will likely experience difficulties and limited reforms like in otl, but with a surviving and reforming (although strugling) Soviet Union (or Union of Sovereing States, whatever) they could go for otl post Fidel reforms earlier. If the SU/USS keeps most of its territory and creates a sucesor for the COMECON (the old satellites would get finlandified, they may be allowed to go democratic and retire from the WarPac but wont be able to join either the european community or NATO, they may be able to avoid a neoCOMECON but will likely form their own neutral economical and security union, keep some economical ties to the SU while getting as close to the euros as they are allowed). What I mean is that we wont see the complete retirement of Russia from their spheres of interests as we saw in otl. They would probable try to compromise salvage what the can and refrain from escalation and confrontation with the west but will keep Cuba as a garantee to keep USA in cheek in areas like the middle east or eastern europe. "Don't put nukes in Turkey or I will do the same in Cuba" kinda thing.
This all depends of how good things are going for Gorbachev but without collapse and Yelstin I see at worst: all of the european satellites going for the European Union but being absolutly banned from joining NATO or allowing NATO troops into their territories, the baltics and maybe georgia and moldova going independent but suffering all kinds of conditionigs that seriously mutilates their independence and leaves them with no chance to get into NATO or the euros. For example: georgia and moldavia couldo lost their minorities territories or if they are allowed to keep them Russia could use them agaist them influencing their domestic and external policies. The same goes for the baltics, Latvia and Estonia would be forced to give citizenship to their russian minorities and and Lituania would be forced to give up a small land brdge of territory between Kaliningrad and Belarus, cutting the baltics from Poland and the rest of Europe.
We may see the most friendly detente in all of the cold war history, but without collapse I dont see the chumy Yelstonian Russia. This will be at worst a tactical retreat or a negotiated consetion.
Now going back to Mexico, why would western europe and Latin America back Bartlett after the failure of the negotiations? He is still a well know dictator notorious for his represive government. In the early 90's with dictatorship and repression going away in most of Latin America I don't see the region or western european countries like France buying into his version of the story, even if the zapatistas don't have a platform of comunication like his. What governments in the region would support him? I can only see Colombia and some central americans ones.
I think even before the POD, that ship had sailed already. With the development of the final Berlin Wall crisis, whose proximate cause was some DDR government flack overstating how far the regime had decided to relax crossing restrictions, if the DDR and Soviet response were not to crack down hard and violently, creating a severe rupture with the West and quite possibly triggering general nuclear war (surely some West Berliners and even NATO three power troops or officials, quite probably American, would get caught in the general crossfire--even if none intervened to prevent the reactionary crackdown), then the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe is effectively broken at that point; the former "satellite" peoples escaping the net is a done deal. Oh, at any later date, in the limited time window before the sand rapidly runs out of that hourglass completely, the Kremlin could double down on reaction and perhaps prevent some, or acting rapidly and firmly enough, all of the Warsaw Pact nations from withdrawing, and impose some version of their nominally "socialist worker/peasant" party ruled states continuing--via sullen terror. Legitimacy, poor as it was before, would be far worse. The cost to the USSR would be high, and the risk of general war quite dangerous.
But barring the chance of the Soviet leadership taking a sharp hardline turn, which would surely involve dumping Gorbachev from power and quite possibly meaning his swift execution, and would have really dire repercussions both internal to however much of the Soviet system they manage to keep a grip on and their relations and standing with powers outside it, Gorbachev has zero power to insist on anything west of Soviet borders. The chain reaction already proceeding well before the POD and greatly accelerated by the Berlin crisis unlikely to be butterflied by the POD is too sweeping.
I think the author has quite decisively precluded any chance of a hardline Soviet reaction, we have to deal in terms of a Soviet system under Gorbachev seeking to normalize relations and maintain world peace, or that regime collapsing with some post-Soviet outcomes as OTL.
Gorbachev can make appeals; he can ask that pretty please either the Western powers or the seceding Central European states cut a deal of restraint. He can try to offer positive inducements, though his pockets are pretty empty. To get anything barring the surge of NATO alliance right to Soviet borders, one or the other of these outside groups must agree to it in their own perceived self interest. It seems highly unlikely to me any of the seceded former WP nations will listen to Gorbachev, so it boils down to cutting a deal with the West, and it has to be seen as in the Western powers' various interests, domestically, to agree to a regime of self-restraint in this. Now, certainly keeping the Soviet Union sweet is a consideration, and certainly a fair minded person can see that the Russians might react badly to NATO swooping in to offer protection as full members to the former WP peoples. (Vice versa, in fair mindedness, asking these peoples to trust to soft words and paper promises of their security should the Bear later get into a more surly mood is a bit much too--but their protests might be ignored by the western great powers if these figured a deal was good for them).
Just as I think Gorbachev cannot leave Cuba totally open to Washington's whims, neither can the Western powers fail to insist on some attempt at guarantee of security of the newly self-liberated eastern bloc nations.
The best deal Gorbachev can hope to get is some agreement that these nations will not be heavily armed against Russia, in return for serious pledges on his part, probably requiring a written treaty later Russian regimes can be held to, guaranteeing their security and stipulating they have a certain degree of right of self-defense, and of forming alliances to check Russian aggression. Perhaps with skill he can make that language double-edged, and the agreement also forbids the Western powers from offering to formally ally with them--but it will be unacceptable to categorically forbid those powers from responding to a credible threat to their integrity coming from the east either.
There is some question what this process of disintegrating Soviet power outside Soviet boundaries means to those boundaries too. Certainly the Baltic states, Lithuania anyway, have no prospect of being willing participants in the Soviet system. The next most problematic for Moscow are Ukraine and perhaps the Caucasian republics are equally fractious. I would not be at all sure Belarus is strongly secessionist, and the Central Asian 'Stans have no significant independence movement to speak of at all--they were expelled from the Russian system under Yeltsin, entirely against their will.
I would hope Gorbachev can manage to negotiate an acceptable deal for Ukraine it would be wise to extend to other more fractious republics as well, whereby they stay under the Soviet flag and have reasonable voice and say in all-Union affairs, and enjoy substantial autonomy. Even this is hopeless in the Baltics. Either the Soviets insist on holding them in by main force, which of course casts a dark shadow over all more conciliatory deals elsewhere, or something like what you propose for Central Europe would instead apply to the Baltics--in advance of their successful secession, Gorbachev is in a position to impose conditions there, unlike in the nominally independent WP 'allies.' So a demilitarized deal, perhaps even granting these newly independent republics may form a mutual defense federation including Finland itself, but with the Soviets retaining effective means to protest to arming beyond certain levels or formal alliance with the west, might emerge there. Certainly the Soviets must insist that their access to the west via the Baltic not be impeded.
And it is quite possible that the situation there just spins out of control and Gorbachev must just eat the in your face threat of a bunch of Baltic republics perfectly free to make whatever alliances they might please to.
Within the Soviet bounds, whatever they might be, surviving USSR versus some new sort of commonwealth are not interchangeable outcomes! For the Soviet Union to survive, the Communist Party must continue to insist on supremacy there. They might be able to grant concessions, and liberalize the internal organization of the Party itself somewhat, but the entire premise of the Soviet state is that the Bolshevik revolution was necessary and in the best interests of the Soviet peoples. If the various Soviet peoples reject that, the USSR can exist only by main force. Going over to some other premises than the eventual triumph of Communism, disintegration along the same lines we saw OTL seems nearly inevitable to me. A less bigoted Russian leadership that that under Yeltsin OTL could probably retain control of Central Asia with ease, though if they proceed to express the contempt Yeltsin did, Central Asian separatism might indeed develop in response and become too strong for the Russians to check. A fair minded confederation giving the Central Asians moderate respect might persist to the present day and beyond. But what are the odds of that? Yeltsin and his gang were pretty representative of the type of leadership Russia could expect, outside of or within the Communist Party. Communists, pretending to that name however hypocritically, still had some lip service to pay to anti-racism and internationalism; without Communist values being observed however superficially, I think disintegration of the Soviet empire is pretty much inevitable.
Vice versa I do think at least vaguely that some kind of Communist muddling through was possible, though Gorbachev's actions did tend to undermine that. Ironically without his standing as a Communist to prop him up Gorbachev had no leg to stand on as Russian leader.
To speak of a post-Soviet Russia is to declare a situation largely as OTL then. It makes a big difference which way it works out there.
Whilst I'm not entirely too familiar with the entire process going on at the time, from what I can tell from this Wikipedia article, it appeared as though Ukraine had opted to remain "on the terms of Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine", which would've meant that a continuing/reformed USSR would consist of Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine - though this brings into question what would occur with some of the events which happened OTL, such as the Transnistria War (with the Gagauz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and the area of Pridnestrovie, wanting to rejoin the USSR), the wars involving Georgia (referring to Abkhazia and South Ossetia), the Nagorno-Karabakh War (as Armenia rejected the New Union Treaty, like Georgia, so Artsakh becomes a sticky issue), and everything involving Chechnya and, to a much lesser extent, Tatarstan.
That they do, and the entire world is stunned at the bite's veracity.
I wasn't planning to do an update about them, but a certain set of Mexican-born journalists will start to become very important to the story very soon.
It most likely will! In fact, I used Grozny as a model for describing the Battle of San Cristóbal—on @RamscoopRaider's suggestion, of course.
Fixed, thanks for pointing that out!
Back?? It never left!
My summer just turned out to be a lot busier than I expected, and this update took longer to research than usual. Rest assured, I'm still working on this project most days of the week!Awesome! I'm really glad you're enjoying the story.
When I said "western leaders" I had the U.S. and Canada in mind rather than Europe. That said, it's definitely a stretch to say that most leaders support Bartlett—I'll fix that.
Bush's support of Bartlett is really more tacit than vocal, because as you said, he doesn't want to be seen as standing up for an unpopular dictator at election time. However, he's seeing an even stronger primary challenge than OTL from Pat Buchanan, and he really doesn't want to take the side of the Zapatistas because that would further anger the conservative base. So rather than publicly disputing Bartlett's narrative, he condemns the Palenque attacks themselves and expresses hope that a peaceful solution can still be found despite the failure of the peace negotiations.
John Turner has also refrained from sticking up for the Zapatistas mainly because former Ambassador Raymond Chrétien, was killed in the attacks. Though he is personally deeply suspicious of Bartlett, to accuse him of engineering the death of a Canadian citizen would be a heavy charge to lay, especially because there is no evidence to back it up. He isn't actively thrilled about Bartlett's military campaign, but he can't do much to affect what goes on in Mexico anyway so he decides not to make a show of condemning President Bartlett.
In addition to Turner and Bush, Bartlett has the support of Colombia as you suggested, as well as by the Guatemalans (who are wary of the Zapatistas' threat to their border security and want to see them dealt with), Honduras, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic. Certainly not "most" governments as I initially claimed, but enough to ensure that Bartlett isn't seen as a rogue actor.
Well, I was going to wait until the next update, but alright, I'll spill the beans. Here's what has happened in Moscow since August of 1991:
Gorbachev worked with Yeltsin to arrest the Gang of Eight. The August Coup was nipped in the bud and the New Union Treaty was signed on schedule, converting the USSR into the Union of Sovereign States with Gorbachev as President of the Union and Yeltsin as President of the Russian Federative Republic. However, the Communist Party still collapses and Gorbachev realizes that if he wants to be re-elected President in 1995, Yeltsin's support will be crucial. Thus he is forced to concede on many matters to Yeltsin, who is no warmer than OTL to the idea of giving away free oil to the Cubans. So the Special Period still happens, although it's a bit less severe than OTL because Gorbachev doesn't cut them off completely.
In addition, Gorbachev and Bush strike an agreement similar to the one proposed here:
As @Shevek23 hypothesizes, the agreement still leads to some bitterness in Cuba, which will prompt Castro to renew his efforts at encouraging instability in Mexico, partly out of spite and partly because he realizes that the only way to extricate the country from depression is if a friendly regime comes to power in a nearby country.
As for what happens to the Eastern Bloc as a whole, I'd rather leave most of that up to the readers' imagination, as I fear it would cloud the focus of the timeline to spend too much time on affairs outside of Mexico. Still, the predictions made by @Damian0358, @EnvarKadri and other posters sound like they would fit well within the fabric of the storyline!
I really hope this doesn't have anything to do with an upcoming massacre. I remember that in our TL hundred of thousands of Mexicans came out in support of the Zapatistas. I doubt such a thing would go unopposed especially by Manuel Bartlett.
Cool. I guess I overestimated russian strength but now everything makes sense. The only caveat I still have is Chávez still attemping his rebellion without the Caracazo. I don't think he could even start without the whole secuence of events.That they do, and the entire world is stunned at the bite's veracity.
I wasn't planning to do an update about them, but a certain set of Mexican-born journalists will start to become very important to the story very soon.
It most likely will! In fact, I used Grozny as a model for describing the Battle of San Cristóbal—on @RamscoopRaider's suggestion, of course.
Fixed, thanks for pointing that out!
Back?? It never left!
Awesome! I'm really glad you're enjoying the story.
When I said "western leaders" I had the U.S. and Canada in mind rather than Europe. That said, it's definitely a stretch to say that most leaders support Bartlett—I'll fix that.
Bush's support of Bartlett is really more tacit than vocal, because as you said, he doesn't want to be seen as standing up for an unpopular dictator at election time. However, he's seeing an even stronger primary challenge than OTL from Pat Buchanan, and he really doesn't want to take the side of the Zapatistas because that would further anger the conservative base. So rather than publicly disputing Bartlett's narrative, he condemns the Palenque attacks themselves and expresses hope that a peaceful solution can still be found despite the failure of the peace negotiations.
John Turner has also refrained from sticking up for the Zapatistas mainly because former Ambassador Raymond Chrétien, was killed in the attacks. Though he is personally deeply suspicious of Bartlett, to accuse him of engineering the death of a Canadian citizen would be a heavy charge to lay, especially because there is no evidence to back it up. He isn't actively thrilled about Bartlett's military campaign, but he can't do much to affect what goes on in Mexico anyway so he decides not to make a show of condemning President Bartlett.
In addition to Turner and Bush, Bartlett has the support of Colombia as you suggested, as well as by the Guatemalans (who are wary of the Zapatistas' threat to their border security and want to see them dealt with), Honduras, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic. Certainly not "most" governments as I initially claimed, but enough to ensure that Bartlett isn't seen as a rogue actor.
Well, I was going to wait until the next update, but alright, I'll spill the beans. Here's what has happened in Moscow since August of 1991:
Gorbachev worked with Yeltsin to arrest the Gang of Eight. The August Coup was nipped in the bud and the New Union Treaty was signed on schedule, converting the USSR into the Union of Sovereign States with Gorbachev as President of the Union and Yeltsin as President of the Russian Federative Republic. However, the Communist Party still collapses and Gorbachev realizes that if he wants to be re-elected President in 1995, Yeltsin's support will be crucial. Thus he is forced to concede on many matters to Yeltsin, who is no warmer than OTL to the idea of giving away free oil to the Cubans. So the Special Period still happens, although it's a bit less severe than OTL because Gorbachev doesn't cut them off completely.
In addition, Gorbachev and Bush strike an agreement similar to the one proposed here:
As @Shevek23 hypothesizes, the agreement still leads to some bitterness in Cuba, which will prompt Castro to renew his efforts at encouraging instability in Mexico, partly out of spite and partly because he realizes that the only way to extricate the country from depression is if a friendly regime comes to power in a nearby country.
As for what happens to the Eastern Bloc as a whole, I'd rather leave most of that up to the readers' imagination, as I fear it would cloud the focus of the timeline to spend too much time on affairs outside of Mexico. Still, the predictions made by @Damian0358, @EnvarKadri and other posters sound like they would fit well within the fabric of the storyline!
In otl the president popularity was abismal not only because his austerity plan. Austerity skyrocked poverty so thousands of people started to looting bussinesses for food all over the country, but specially in Caracas. The police was overwhelmed by the number of looters so instead of repressing them they managed the looting to avoid cassualties. In response, the president called the army to do what the police couldn't. The death toll was betweem 300 and and more than 2000 (most of the disappeared). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracazo
Chávez only revolted 3 years after the start of the Caracazo so he clearly was pacient enough to wait for his chance. In otl after calling Andres Pérez government a "mourderous regime" and revolt agaist him and fail and still enjoy a good amount of popularity among the population because it was a murderous regime that called the army to murder rioters and demostrators in the streets and most of them dissapearance! Without all of that he wouldn't even get the support of his own brigade!
Good call! To add a few more comments though, on this topic, with the Union of Sovereign States (or Sovereign Union, as I'd imagine people would also call it) being formed, with the point mentioned on Gorbachev conceding on many matters to Yeltsin, I wonder in what ways they'll follow in the footsteps of OTL Russia during the 90s, such as market-oriented reforms, economic depression, the rise of the oligarchs, and so forth; alongside more general things seen in the ex-Soviet states, such as corruption scandals and lessening media freedoms. Though I may be pondering this just because of the cultural development and influence that period had OTL - butterflies be damned, the movie Brat will live on!
It's 1992. I'd have to check but I believe OTL long before Gorbachev was overthrown the Eastern Bloc nations not actually in the USSR were gone already.
I did a quick Google search, without even going into the article at the National Museum of American History, here is the tagline Google turns up:
Loss of the WP is a done deal. I have to look up Romania specifically, its dictator the spelling of whose name I can never memorize held on without Soviet help for a little bit, but he went down violently pretty soon. I suppose his was the last WP regime pretending to be Leninist, unless Bulgaria drifted a while. But the useful parts of the WP are long gone with the door slamming behind them.
As an ATL I suppose in theory anything could happen instead, but barring use of stringent force there wasn't anything a reforming Soviet leader could do to hold them. I see nothing that would slow down this process.
I find it implausible Gorbachev personally manages to stay on top of a non-Soviet USS; his star rose and fell with the Communist Party, albeit he did try to get himself an exit strategy...at any rate, he reformed the form of the Soviet state to be much more in line with run of the mill Western republics, and set himself up as an American-style chief executive--Soviet government, after Stalin and on paper even under Stalin, was "collegial;" with various executive functions portioned out to separate ministries in theory lacking a single Chief, instead conferring in the Politburo. They had under Stalin a figure who on paper might be likened to a weaker version of the US or French style (5th Republic anyway) President, but his role was pretty much ceremonial, more like the Presidents in a weak Presidency republic like Germany or French 4th Republic, there to symbolize the unity and vague values of the nation. I am forgetting his name in the mid-30s but citizens would write him letters as head of government and state, and a nickname was something like "The Worker's Elder" or "Grandfather;" he was a quite elderly Bolshevik of peasant background. And under Stalin had zero independent power. After Stalin, the Party was very careful not to allow another single all-powerful figure to build a "cult of personality" around himself, and took the division of power in the Politburo quite seriously. Anyway, supreme power did not rest in the Soviet state nearly so much as in the Communist Party; the place to watch out for concentration of power was in Party leadership, and I am actually forgetting if in fact the "Politburo" was technically a CP thing and not formally Soviet state at all.
So Gorby OTL threw all that careful spreading of power out the window and made himself a real President of the Soviet Union; his holding it OTL was entirely a matter of his also having the top Party position, but on paper now he held power as the theoretically somehow elected (probably indirectly via the Supreme Soviet, I don't think he ever stood for a popular election save to that body, and that would have been under the Party regime that guaranteed 99 percent turnout and 98 percent unanimous support for the Party candidate--so he never had to run in a truly competitive popular election, just convince CP power brokers he was the guy to promote and back).
He might in fact have been edging toward eventual abolition of the USSR under that name and a break from Party rule, but I have never heard that and I doubt it. Not-USSR would be a poor environment for him to thrive in though I suppose here it is explained as his basically taking a deal from Yeltsin.
I hope an ATL difference is that the USS includes the Central Asian republics and these coordinate closely with Russia under the USS banner, because their being tossed out was not a great development. Their leadership OTL was generally the same old former Party apparatchiks who were appointed in the Soviet system, only turned loose several of them went quite wacky and started doing some pretty state-terroristic stuff. I can hope that these extremes are checked though it is the same guys probably running each. The Russians shot themselves in the foot a number of ways by tossing the 'Stans out; including cutting themselves off from their major developed rocket base--of course Russia has kept access to Baikonur but it is conditional. More generally, a lot of Soviet era infrastructure was premised on the USSR continuing indefinitely and the sudden appearance of international border and diverse interests was awkward on both sides of the new borders. Not to mention the general chaos symbolized by the Chechen War! So I am hoping the USS retains more former-Soviet unity.
Though I fear that is as implausible as Gorbachev flying solo without Communist Party backup...the Soviet identity was interwoven with Communism and without that internationalist ideology nationalistic splitting seems liable to gain quite a head of steam; OTL where it was already in place those places were lost immediately, and while Central Asia lacks a developed independence movement as of 1991, I fear a more hands-off and ramshackle USS will be the environment where one belatedly grows, unless Gorby is quite brilliant at pulling off win-win miracles of cooperation. If he were that good I don't see why the USSR would cease to be in the first place, except as part of the hat trick of burying the old Party.
At any rate, another thing I think we can hope for is that the OTL US fostered "shock treatment" is replaced by something more diplomatically restrained. Perhaps the implosion of former Soviet economic organization, such as it was, to replace it with essentially a Mafia/kleptocratic crony capitalism must be the outcome of pulling the plug on the Party, but perhaps a less dysfunctional reorganization, albeit surely on strongly capitalist lines, can be managed in the ATL circumstances.
I won't mention...well I won't mention it!
Anyway west of wherever the USS boundary is, barring the enclave of Kaliningrad carved out of former East Prussia, Russian power is probably zilch and prestige is less. Gorby and Yeltsin would do well to hang on to larger bits of the former USSR, they haven't a prayer of influence outside it. Gorbachev presumably is concentrating on the USS gaining prestige over time in the greater global system as a cooperative player in more normal international relations, and I can hope this might mean a less criminal domestic situation.
Though, while from my point of view they are clearly throwing Cuba under the bus, I bet they can anyway salvage a stronger special relationship with Vietnam--and that need not stand in the way of the USA improving relations with Vietnam as OTL. The question would be, is it cost effective for them to maintain that special tie?
Joe Haldeman got a lot wrong in his Worlds SF stories, but he called 'Nam improving relations with the USA! (Haldeman is a Vietnam War veteran).
Anyway author intent here seems to be to close the book on news from the Eastern hemisphere to concentrate on Mexico itself--Russians out, but Cubans still messing around there. So it is all in the New World dysfunctional family, no Old World actors need apply. Monroe Doctrine, check!
I can't wait for the 1992 elections. It will be a wild ride.
That's just two posts down the line, and the next one should be coming soon!