BigBlueBox
Banned
The USSR was probably the most unique and complicated federation to ever exist (assuming we don’t count the HRE as a federation). It had 16 Union Republics, one of which, the Russian SFSR, was a federation within a federation that had multiple levels of autonomy for each subject region. Given the vast expanse and ethnic diversity of the Russian Empire and the USSR, there are multiple different ways a federal system could have been implemented, and the turmoil between 1917 and 1921 demonstrates that were many different groups that could have came to power and implemented their own federal system. What are some hypothetical models you can imagine? Here’s some of mine:
- Whoever is in charge decides that establishing clear ethnonational boundaries in Central Asia is impossible and draws the borders based on geographical boundaries and metropolitan areas. Instead of the -stans of OTL we see the “Ferghana Valley Republic”, “Surxandaro Republic”, “Free City of Samarkand”, etc.
- The rulers think that drawing national boundaries in the North Caucasus and just lump them together into one unit. This is somewhat OTL with the Mountain A.S.S.R.
- The rulers decide to atomize the South Caucasus. South Ossetia is removed from Georgia and is potentially merged with North Ossetia. Abkhazia is also separated. The Artsakh disputed is solved by making Artsakh an independent unit.
- The rulers decide that even the parts of Russia inhabited only by ethnic Russians are still to large and spread too far apart to be administered effectively from Moscow so they turn the varioys regions of Russia (north, northwest, central, West Siberian, East Siberian, Far East, etc) into genuine federal units with their own constitutional rights.
- The rulers just take all the existing governates and turn them into co-equal federal states without regard to ethnic composition.
- A monarchist Russia gives the Grand Duchy of Finland genuine autonomy, revives the Kingdom of Poland, establishes a “Duchy of Livonia”, “Duchy of Lithuania”, etc. This probably requires a speedy Russian victory in WWI.