AH Challange: Quickest possible collapse of the USSR

When is the earliest point after 1945 that the Soviet Union could collapse? How might this happen without a nuclear war or some other global conflict?
 
What about JFK taking a harder line during the Cuban Missile Crisis, forcing Khruschev to back down with no concessions, private or otherwise from the Americans, followed by a major internal power struggle between Communist hard-liners and Khruschev's clique (probably supported by JFK)?

An additional way would be for the Soviets to try for all of Western Europe, prior to 1949, and having the United States use atomic weapons to win the war.

Finally, what about, during 1948, if Stalin had called Truman's bluff regarding using atomic weapons to force a Soviet withdrawal from northern Iran, and Truman had followed through by actually dropping the bomb? IMHO, Truman had the stones to do it, once he said he was going to.
 
When is the earliest point after 1945 that the Soviet Union could collapse? How might this happen without a nuclear war or some other global conflict?

Tsouras had them develop a nasty internal quarrel with the chinese in the mid 60's that was devastating... i could see that turning really ulgy and perhaps destroying both governments without it being a "world war"
 

Makty

Banned
If Beria had a backbone?
In fact the odd thing about the Soviet Union was there were so many powerful individuals who simply went down without fight when there could had been at minimal 10 civil wars in the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1990.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Perhaps if the 1968 protest/reformist movements in the Eastern Bloc pick up enough steam to really start destabilizing things. Maybe have the Soviets not intervene at all, or perhaps put it off until its too late.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
If Beria had a backbone?
In fact the odd thing about the Soviet Union was there were so many powerful individuals who simply went down without fight when there could had been at minimal 10 civil wars in the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1990.

Not really. Most of those powerful individuals were Party strongmen or (in Beria and Andropov's case) heads of the secret police; almost none were military leaders. In fact, the military was largely apolitical--at least, as much as possible in a place like the USSR.

Therefore, the possibility of an actual civil war (rather than various cliques struggling for control of the Party) were extremely unlikely.
 
I apologize if this idea is really somewhat ASB in that it involves the attainability of natural resources and their prices, but from what I've read, what really kept the USSR going in the seventies was the USSR's oil rush combined with the enormous increase in oil prices in the time period. It was the oil money which allowed for a truly massive buildup ect. So, if you somehow avoid the massive increase in oil prices in the seventies, or have the prices come back down faster, the USSR is in serious trouble if it attempts the same sorts of policies. My ASB kind of idea is perhaps you could somehow arrange it so the oil found in the time period is somehow unattainable, either through tech differences or what have you. (That's probably an impossibility I'll admit.) But it might be possible to avoid the dramatic rise in oil prices in the seventies somehow. Not sure exactly how that would be done though. Nevertheless, if my sources are correct, if you keep oil cheap, the USSR is going to be destablized about a decade ahead of schedule, however whether that would lead to an outright collapse is another question entirely.
 
Maybe if the USSR tries to invade Afghanistan earlier than 1979. That was supposedly one of the major downfalls they had during the 80's.
 
Can we go as early as Stalin dying without a clear successor and heavy infighting essentially demolishing the party? After a few years of neglect, people in non-Russia start to complain &c. while America not-so-silently supports this?
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Can we go as early as Stalin dying without a clear successor and heavy infighting essentially demolishing the party? After a few years of neglect, people in non-Russia start to complain &c. while America not-so-silently supports this?

That happened IOTL. The Party made it through okay and the Soviet Union survived it.
 
But it might be possible to avoid the dramatic rise in oil prices in the seventies somehow. Not sure exactly how that would be done though. Nevertheless, if my sources are correct, if you keep oil cheap, the USSR is going to be destablized about a decade ahead of schedule, however whether that would lead to an outright collapse is another question entirely.
Without the rise of oil prices in seventies USSR may not be destabilised, since that made big blow was fall of prices later.
 
Can we go as early as Stalin dying without a clear successor and heavy infighting essentially demolishing the party? After a few years of neglect, people in non-Russia start to complain &c. while America not-so-silently supports this?

Why assume the Union ends? The break up of the USSR was due mostly to the power-grabbing cynicism of Yeltsin and the leaders of the biggest SSR’s.

The USA's effect on domestic Soviet power struggles was negligible dont kind yourself on that. It's 50/5o on if the Union could retain all the SSR’s after the CPSU is out of power.

In Georgia and the Baltic States there would be unrest, but the likes of Ukraine, Belarus’ and Central Asia are more likely to remain as part of the Union than not.

In spite of how nationalists in the former SSR’s tried to portray it the real reason the USSR fell was Yeltin cutting deals with the other SSR bosses to pretty much seize power for themselves. Yeltsin knew the only thing standing between him and total power in Russia was the continued existence of the USSR. If Gorby had had a pair of stones he’d have nipped Yeltsin in the bud…But of course Gorby was a spineless moral coward, So today practically all of the former Soviets Republics being screwed up banna-republic style dictatorships. Even more repressive and shitty than the USSR under Breznev.:(
 
They did just fight a war that killed a lot of the population, a lot was destroyed and then they need a lot of limited resources controlling Eastern Europe.

I suspect it could expirience a imperial overreach situation, unable to afford both guns and butter. I asked about it earlier but didn't get any good answers IIRC. While this might be a to early PoD, Soviet trying to take Finland and Norway, somehow getting dragged into Yugoslavia and Greece comes to mind. As does a more sucessful resistance.
 
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