A much worse collapse of the USSR?

It always seems really fortunate to me that the USSR collapsed so peacefully, given the way that these things normally happen you would expect wars, terrorism, dictatorship. But the collapse of a global superpower had none of these things (more or less).

So how could it be made to have those things? Is it possible? Is it viable? And what's the maximal extent to which this could happen?
 
That's because it wasn't really a collapse, at least in my opinion. The leadership just realized that there were rebellions in the SSRs, and Gorbachov realized that the socialist economy doesn't work, so they just signed a paper, dissolving the union.
 
It always seems really fortunate to me that the USSR collapsed so peacefully, given the way that these things normally happen you would expect wars, terrorism, dictatorship. But the collapse of a global superpower had none of these things (more or less).

So how could it be made to have those things? Is it possible? Is it viable? And what's the maximal extent to which this could happen?

The collapse of the USSR did entail wars (Karabakh, Georgian breakaways and civil war, Tajikistan civil war, Transnistria, Chechnya, with attendant ethnic cleansing all around the board), terrorism (wasn't their like, a bombing in Moscow or something the other day? To be fair, domestic terrorism had long been present in the USSR to some extent, but not on the same scale at all), and dictatorships (more ex-SSRs are dictatorships than aren't).

That's besides the flourishing black-market arms trade and the third of Russians falling below the poverty line and the severe food shortages in Central Asia and the general societal collapse, of course.

Things probably could have been worse, had a hardline regime actually tried to violently crack down throughout the Union and then gone under, leaving general war and stray nukes, but the collapse as it happened was a complete disaster for more-or-less everybody involved.
 
That's because it wasn't really a collapse, at least in my opinion. The leadership just realized that there were rebellions in the SSRs, and Gorbachov realized that the socialist economy doesn't work, so they just signed a paper, dissolving the union.

1) Gorby realised that the Soviet system as then maintained was stagnant. The idea that he wanted to get rid of socialism is misconceived. He probably wanted the USSR to end up somewhere to the left of then-Sweden. Yeltsin was the one who defenestrated socialism, and that worked well.

2) There were "rebellions" (mass protests) in some SSRs and bits of SSRs (Baltics and Georgia, mainly; Moldova across the Dniestr to a lesser extent; western Ukraine, but when weren't they protesting? Protests in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Central Asia were not so much against the Union as against the presence of rival ethnic groups on Our Streets I Tell You Our Streets), but also in the RSFSR, in Moscow and Leningrad. Kiev, by contrast, was eerily quiet.

3) Gorby didn't dissolve the Union. That was agreed by the leaderships of Russia (Yeltsin), Belarus, and Ukraine.

To be fair, though, it's true that most of the poverty, ethnic cleansing, and war only happened after the paper had already been signed.
 
Back in the late 1980s the unrest in the USSR was pretty obvious. I was expecting a 'stan alliance of the formerly-Islamic SSRs vs. Russia, with foreign backing on both sides, plus China biting off as much as it could off to the east. I thought we'd have Americans and Russians fighting Chinese and Russians and Muslims and Russians.

Instead, it all fell apart fairly peacably. The ongoing war with the Chechens and the saber-rattling with Ukraine are a lot better than some of the alternatives.
 

Warsie

Banned
So how could it be made to have those things? Is it possible? Is it viable? And what's the maximal extent to which this could happen?

The Soviet Union never broke up the Central Asian SSR into the individual republics you see now, and the Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic wasnt broken into the Georgian, Armenian Azerbaijiani etc republics. Also, the caucauses regions like Chechnya-Ingustia and Ossetians etc ended up being 'joined' to the transcaucasian SSR.

When dissolution happens, they do some serious Balkan shit. fighting over Nagorno-Kabarach ain't SHIT compared to this.

Also, I guess the Kurds side with the Soviet Union during the Turkish war of independence making the dissolution of the Kurdish SSR destabilizing the region....depending on if the kurds in what became Iran and Iraq joined the Soviet kurds earlier on or if they got partitioned. If it was a partitioning, well destabilization of the kurds in other countries makes things more fun.

EDIT: Ukraine and Kazakstan don't give their nuclear weapons to Russia. 'Great Russian' Slavic Union forms and tries pushing NAtional Bolsevikism. They try invading Belarus and Ukraine. Ukraine uses nuclear weapons on the Dnieper to keep the Russians from invading further.

EDIT 2: Tatarstan declares independence, and other non-russian nationalities in Russia proper agitate for that. Or the Circassians werent cleansed from that area and are still there, meaning another ethnic group to get into shit with.

Yeah, the fall of the USSR was PRETTY damn clean compared to what it could have been.
 
Also, I guess the Kurds side with the Soviet Union during the Turkish war of independence making the dissolution of the Kurdish SSR destabilizing the region....depending on if the kurds in what became Iran and Iraq joined the Soviet kurds earlier on or if they got partitioned. If it was a partitioning, well destabilization of the kurds in other countries makes things more fun.

I don't follow. The Kurds did not have enough of an organised leadership to really be meaningfully on anyone's side; the Soviets and Turks were allies.

Or the Circassians werent cleansed from that area and are still there, meaning another ethnic group to get into shit with.

Despite several brutal cleansings, the Circassians are still there. Part of them go by the name of Chechnyans these days.


Back in the late 1980s the unrest in the USSR was pretty obvious. I was expecting a 'stan alliance of the formerly-Islamic SSRs vs. Russia, with foreign backing on both sides, plus China biting off as much as it could off to the east. I thought we'd have Americans and Russians fighting Chinese and Russians and Muslims and Russians.

Nah. The Central Asian republics were not a monolith, of course, but to a large extent they were more Sovietised than Russia and remain so to this day. Tajikistan did see Russian-backed (and often Russian-speaking) Tajiks up against a rebellion inspired partly by Islam, but Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan remain under the rule of Soviet-era apparatchiks.
 
Agree with IBC, I should also add that things went about as bad for the U.S.S.R as they could in the 1980's barring WW3 or ASBs. Unless Yeltsin somehow ousts Gorby and becomes General Secretary of the CPSU, his reasons for turning on the party. after all were naked greed & ambition, which would’ve been foiled by retaining a federal system.

Russia is still screwed up by the near-fatal effects of Yeltsin misrule. Ditto the other SSR's under the rule their respective tyrants & crooks who started (and still are) robbing their own treasury as soon as they got into power.:mad:

In fact I’d go so far as to say the effects of the Union’s collapse on the former SSR's, were far more dire and long-lasting than that of the Russian Civil War.
 

loughery111

Banned
The absolute worst outcome probably involves Gorby never coming to power or eating a bullet early on. If the Soviets get some hardliner back in power, one who refuses to acknowledge the need for reform and tries to hang onto the SSR's and Warsaw Pact through brutal force, the ensuing low-grade conflict will eventually blow up into civil war between and within the SSR's themselves, and NATO intervention in the former WP countries is a likelihood. Most of the SSR's wanted to stay united as long as it was clear that reforms were being undertaken, but none would have been willing to stay in without reforms on the horizon. The resultant war would have been very, very bloody and might have even gone nuclear with all the weapons lying scattered, and poorly secured, across the country.

In short, Yeltsin was an idiot because he wanted to throw out the entire system, but keeping the whole thing would have had an even worse outcome in the end. Gorbachev had about the right idea; let go of the parts of the Union that wanted out, negotiate a federal structure with the rest, and reform the economy into Sweden writ-large over the ensuing decade. You can't challenge the US and NATO on its own terms, but you can vastly improve the lives of the average Soviet citizen and neutralize Eastern Europe as a buffer.
 

GundamZero

Banned
The absolute worst outcome probably involves Gorby never coming to power or eating a bullet early on. If the Soviets get some hardliner back in power, one who refuses to acknowledge the need for reform and tries to hang onto the SSR's and Warsaw Pact through brutal force, the ensuing low-grade conflict will eventually blow up into civil war between and within the SSR's themselves, and NATO intervention in the former WP countries is a likelihood. Most of the SSR's wanted to stay united as long as it was clear that reforms were being undertaken, but none would have been willing to stay in without reforms on the horizon. The resultant war would have been very, very bloody and might have even gone nuclear with all the weapons lying scattered, and poorly secured, across the country.

In short, Yeltsin was an idiot because he wanted to throw out the entire system, but keeping the whole thing would have had an even worse outcome in the end. Gorbachev had about the right idea; let go of the parts of the Union that wanted out, negotiate a federal structure with the rest, and reform the economy into Sweden writ-large over the ensuing decade. You can't challenge the US and NATO on its own terms, but you can vastly improve the lives of the average Soviet citizen and neutralize Eastern Europe as a buffer.

Seeing how long NK lasted, I wouldn't be surprised if USSR lasted a long time with brute force. Russia probably want to recover those lands.
 

loughery111

Banned
Seeing how long NK lasted, I wouldn't be surprised if USSR lasted a long time with brute force. Russia probably want to recover those lands.

It's too big, its borders too porous, its populace too educated. The DPRK barely clings to existence by practicing Oceania-lite restriction of knowledge and information and extreme propaganda measures. It's an army with a state attached. The USSR cannot even do this in the majority-Russian areas of the country, let alone the periphery. To be frank, if they try it they're going to bankrupt the economy of the Russian SSR, and the game's up when when their queen falls.
 

GundamZero

Banned
It's too big, its borders too porous, its populace too educated. The DPRK barely clings to existence by practicing Oceania-lite restriction of knowledge and information and extreme propaganda measures. It's an army with a state attached. The USSR cannot even do this in the majority-Russian areas of the country, let alone the periphery. To be frank, if they try it they're going to bankrupt the economy of the Russian SSR, and the game's up when when their queen falls.

NK has been starving since its foundation. The same was Iraq and many African countries. Rome is no exception. USSR was a political question not a military one.
 

Eurofed

Banned
NK has been starving since its foundation. The same was Iraq and many African countries. Rome is no exception. USSR was a political question not a military one.

DPRK has been surviving these last few decades because PRC subsidizes it, otherwise it would have collapsed long ago. Who was going to subsidize hardline USSR ?
 

Eurofed

Banned
The absolute worst outcome probably involves Gorby never coming to power or eating a bullet early on. If the Soviets get some hardliner back in power, one who refuses to acknowledge the need for reform and tries to hang onto the SSR's and Warsaw Pact through brutal force, the ensuing low-grade conflict will eventually blow up into civil war between and within the SSR's themselves, and NATO intervention in the former WP countries is a likelihood. Most of the SSR's wanted to stay united as long as it was clear that reforms were being undertaken, but none would have been willing to stay in without reforms on the horizon. The resultant war would have been very, very bloody and might have even gone nuclear with all the weapons lying scattered, and poorly secured, across the country.

This is not the worst outcome. Since they would have a big military with a bankrupt economy, the absolute worst outcome is if they try to export their troubles by seizing Western Europe for plunder or the Middle East to grab the oil revenue.
 

loughery111

Banned
This is not the worst outcome. Since they would have a big military with a bankrupt economy, the absolute worst outcome is if they try to export their troubles by seizing Western Europe for plunder or the Middle East to grab the oil revenue.

Ok, that's a point. Scarily enough. Thank God NATO would have conventional military superiority in Western Europe if they tried it... on the other hand there's the whole "nuclear" thing...
 
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