AH Challenge: Soviet Union Remains

How do you get the Soviet Union to last up to 2009 in a non-ASB way?

Avoid the Brezhnev stagnation?

Soviets don't get nearly the demographic and economic hit they did OTL in WW2?

Better economic growth starting in the '20s?
 
Define Soviet Union? That is to say, would a slow devolution of power to the people so that the 'Soviet Union' has a political system similar to, say, France's, still count as a Soviet State?
 
Alikchi said:
Define Soviet Union? That is to say, would a slow devolution of power to the people so that the 'Soviet Union' has a political system similar to, say, France's, still count as a Soviet State?
At the minimum, a state encompassing the pre-1939 borders of the OTL USSR (that is, Central Asia, Ukraine, and Belarus as well as Russia) and calling itself a federal state of republics (that is, not Russia). It must have evolved from the OTL USSR (so the POD must be after 1917) Bonus points if it still calls itself socialist and soviet, bigger bonus if it actually still IS socialist (and even bigger bonus points if it's still soviet). Also, some bonus points if it holds onto the post-1945 acquisitions.

So to answer your question, if the 'USSR' was effectively equivalent to pre-1939 USSR, called itself 'The United States of Northern Eurasia', had a political system similar to Switzerland, and was the legal successor of OTL USSR, yes it would count as a continuation. Technically. But I'm more interested in TLs that lead to it still being (nominally, at least), the USSR, even if it becomes highly federal and democratic, and even more interested in TLs that have it remain at least somewhat authoritarian.
 
Well, I'd say the best bet would be to have it comprising only Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and PART of the Ukraine (IE having an independent Ukraine), that way you get rid of the major nationalistic problems.

Apart from that develop a more Social Democratic economic system and initiating reforms to allow for more social and political freedoms.

To go more into the economy, I'd say have it reform so that the government still controls vital industries, but allows for regulated private industry as well, overall having the government controlling somewhere between 40-50% of the economy.
Further more move away from an industrial economy and more towards a post-industrial economy, diversifying the economy overall.

Now, by the modern day I think they'd likely drop the 'Soviet' part from the name, maybe becoming the 'Federative Union of Socialist Republics.
 
Well, I'd say the best bet would be to have it comprising only Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and PART of the Ukraine (IE having an independent Ukraine), that way you get rid of the major nationalistic problems.

Those nationalist problems have been rather exagerrated by the historiography of the victorious. If the more fundamental problems that led to the failure of the effort to reform here referred to, then retention of all Ukraine and Central Asia without trouble is perfectly plausible. The baltics are an interesting question.

So, what were the problems that faced Gorbachjov's efforts? Two biggies: he was trying to drastically a system that was so stagnant that tweaking it caused it to disintegrate, and his plans were outrun and undercut by the new politics unleashed by Glasnost (Yeltsin played a major role in the dissolution, strange as it might seem).

The solution, it seems to me, is an earlier, more moderate change which allows the USSR a more flexible and competative economy, but with *Glasnost not happening or not happening until later. Echoes of China, here. Not having WW2 would help a lot. Besides seeing off teh genocidal horrors that befell the Soviet peoples, it gives you the possibility of excluding the Baltics and the most nationalistic bits of the Ukraine, and IIRC puts the Russians in a better demographic position in various places. Not only this, but you probably don't get a "Cold War" dynamic in the same sense, so no having to hold down eastern European vassal states, or rather, failing to, and less money being sunk into the nuclear race or Afghanistan.

So, no WW2. Post-Stalin leadership succesfully implements something Perestoika-ish much earlier on, while maintaining totalitarianism and the power of the Soviet state. Done and dusted, pretty much. EdT does something like this in "A Greater Britain" with Bulganin and Kosygin.
 
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