Anastas Mikoyan: A Deng Xiaoping of the USSR?

Could Anastas Mikoyan have saved the Soviet Union?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 53.8%
  • No

    Votes: 24 46.2%

  • Total voters
    52
Anastas Mikoyan is a fascinating figure. His career was perhaps one of the most colorful in Soviet history.

His accomplishments are consequential and varied, from defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis to writing a popular cookbook.

In his career, he proved to be among the most humane Soviet politicians, advocating for economic reforms, détente, and soft power on the international stage.

He was among the few Soviet figures to actually argue with Stalin.

And despite Soviet Russia being largely pro-Russian, he remained proud of his Armenian heritage.

Of course, Mikoyan was far from a saint. He himself had tons of blood on his hands, having helped purge Armenia during the 1930s (although he did this with great reluctance). He was also guilty of the Katyn Massacre. He also may have had a hand in the Slansky Trial, an anti-Semitic purge of Communist Czechoslovakia.

What would Soviet Russia be like if he had managed to gain the top job? Would it have been able to reform the USSR into something sustainable, or would Mikoyan have just pushed off the inevitable.
 
I think people forgot China was worse that latinamerica and Africa at times during the commie era and that URSS already was an advance state even post both wars, chinese reforms works as they've enough poors and long term chinese even dropped comunist and become ethno-nationalist who use communist as excuse. So is hard to see how URSS would reform specially as would just become a new russia instead
 
What would the reform look like?

I imagine his reforms would include stronger leniency toward dissidents and writers (though not outright reform) and a stronger emphasis on consumer goods and light industry.

And a stronger period of détente could mean less expense on the military.
 
I think people forgot China was worse that latinamerica and Africa at times during the commie era and that URSS already was an advance state even post both wars, chinese reforms works as they've enough poors and long term chinese even dropped comunist and become ethno-nationalist who use communist as excuse. So is hard to see how URSS would reform specially as would just become a new russia instead

So an already industrialized USSR is impossible to reform?
 
So an already industrialized USSR is impossible to reform?
Yeah as other sectors(the one are more radical and did belive a lot on their own marxist-lenist) would cry foul and try to change, other exhausted the bad economy rebel, plus china level of growth was only possible thanks to such low salaries not other nations could compete to. You can't ask the average soviet citizens, already overexhausted and with litte PPP To do more for even less
 
Yeah as other sectors(the one are more radical and did belive a lot on their own marxist-lenist) would cry foul and try to change, other exhausted the bad economy rebel, plus china level of growth was only possible thanks to such low salaries not other nations could compete to. You can't ask the average soviet citizens, already overexhausted and with litte PPP To do more for even less

I'm not saying Mikoyan would push globalization-style capitalism, but he could reform the Soviet Union to at least provide enough food in the store?
 
I read his wiki really quickly and he sounds like your proto-typical Soviet political flip-flopper. How do you go from supporting Stalin in the post-Lenin years (which included the Great Purge mind you) to suddenly backing de-Stalinization immediately after he had fallen out of favor with him. I doubt he's the saint you describe him to be.
 
I read his wiki really quickly and he sounds like your proto-typical Soviet political flip-flopper. How do you go from supporting Stalin in the post-Lenin years (which included the Great Purge mind you) to suddenly backing de-Stalinization immediately after he had fallen out of favor with him. I doubt he's the saint you describe him to be.

If you look above, I mention he does have blood on his hands.

My point is, he was incredibly competent in multiple aspects of Soviet life and sought to improve Soviet citizens access to consumer goods. My question is, would his brand of competence be enough to turn the Soviet Union around?
 
If you look above, I mention he does have blood on his hands.

My point is, he was incredibly competent in multiple aspects of Soviet life and sought to improve Soviet citizens access to consumer goods. My question is, would his brand of competence be enough to turn the Soviet Union around?
Could be, the thing he have to start it early, maybe he remplacing brezvej or krucshev itself.
 
I do not want to read too much into his Armenian heritage, but depending on when Mikoyan comes to power, might he push harder to extend the borders of the Armenian SSR (as well as the Georgian SSR) at the expense of Turkey?

CBF92C2B-A041-4548-989C-D9E474E4B1A9.jpeg

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_territorial_claims_against_Turkey
 
Foreign policy and corresponding reductions in defense expenditures are where we will likely see the most dividends from an Anastas Mikoyan leadership. Detente would also mean an easier time trading with the west, primarily for grain and machinery. Mikoyan had little enthusiasm for the Cold War and seemed to realize that the Soviet Union couldn't beat the US in head to head confrontation. That's not to say that he didn't support foreign communist movements though, so it would be a balancing act with his desire for coexistence. There's a possibility that American Cold Warriors will seek to bring the fight to the Soviet Union regardless. Overall he's probably a net win for the Soviet Union here. Mikoyan's specialty was foreign policy and he was right basically every time he told Khrushchev "Don't do the thing" (and then Khrushchev goes and does the thing).

And the Soviets spent a lot on defense so....

His economic policy would probably be 'Let Kosygin do whatever he wants'. That's not to say Mikoyan has no economic experience and ideas of his own, however Kosygin was the party's economics planning wonk and the focus on consumer goods production would align them together. At the very least Mikoyan did have a genuine interest in making modern novelties avaliable to the Soviet people, such as ice cream.

The problem is that while reforms are well and good, it is very easy to do a lot of harm to the economic system in the process. So it's hard to say how this goes. Khrushchev had nothing but continual policy failures and was ousted for it. Kosygin had plenty of setbacks and was technically not really ousted but probably only cause he literally died. Although while Khrushchev's reforms were flawed, I'm not sure how much of Kosygin's setbacks were because the policies were actually mistaken or if he was simply saddled with unrealistically high expectations, an inherently ideological inefficient economic system and inane bureaucracy, and then had his policies reversed and replaced every few years due to not meeting the optimistically high target goals before getting a chance to see what the long term effects of his policies would be. That said, Kosygin did fail to prevent the era of stagnation and was unable to translate the Soviet Union's economic growth into higher standards of living for the average citizen.

If he lets Kosygin be his economics pointman, the question for Mikoyan is how well he can play the political game and shift blame to stay in power long enough to guarantee a good successor. And this is the Soviet system so there will be attempts to by the party to oust him over failed policies. Mikoyan had a reputation as a political survivor but he did end up ousted historically.
 
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Compare his Budapest report on 56 to his shooting Soviet strikers in the early 60s.

Zhou Enlai is a better comparison.
 
Foreign policy and corresponding reductions in defense expenditures are where we will likely see the most dividends from an Anastas Mikoyan leadership. Detente would also mean an easier time trading with the west, primarily for grain and machinery. Mikoyan had little enthusiasm for the Cold War and seemed to realize that the Soviet Union couldn't beat the US in head to head confrontation. That's not to say that he didn't support foreign communist movements though, so it would be a balancing act with his desire for coexistence. There's a possibility that American Cold Warriors will seek to bring the fight to the Soviet Union regardless. Overall he's probably a net win for the Soviet Union here. Mikoyan's specialty was foreign policy and he was right basically every time he told Khrushchev "Don't do the thing" (and then Khrushchev goes and does the thing).

And the Soviets spent a lot on defense so....

His economic policy would probably be 'Let Kosygin do whatever he wants'. That's not to say Mikoyan has no economic experience and ideas of his own, however Kosygin was the party's economics planning wonk and the focus on consumer goods production would align them together. At the very least Mikoyan did have a genuine interest in making modern novelties avaliable to the Soviet people, such as ice cream.

The problem is that while reforms are well and good, it is very easy to do a lot of harm to the economic system in the process. So it's hard to say how this goes. Khrushchev had nothing but continual policy failures and was ousted for it. Kosygin had plenty of setbacks and was technically not really ousted but probably only cause he literally died. Although while Khrushchev's reforms were flawed, I'm not sure how much of Kosygin's setbacks were because the policies were actually mistaken or if he was simply saddled with unrealistically high expectations, an inherently ideological inefficient economic system and inane bureaucracy, and then had his policies reversed and replaced every few years due to not meeting the optimistically high target goals before getting a chance to see what the long term effects of his policies would be. That said, Kosygin did fail to prevent the era of stagnation and was unable to translate the Soviet Union's economic growth into higher standards of living for the average citizen.

If he lets Kosygin be his economics pointman, the question for Mikoyan is how well he can play the political game and shift blame to stay in power long enough to guarantee a good successor. And this is the Soviet system so there will be attempts to by the party to oust him over failed policies. Mikoyan had a reputation as a political survivor but he did end up ousted historically.

In other words...

While Mikoyan was a brilliant diplomat, his love for ice cream doesn't change the fact that the Soviet economic system is still a rusting mess, and he could easily damage it while trying to fix it?
 
It’s actually really easy to reform the economy of the Soviet Union.

The hard part is stopping the workers councils from liquidating the party.
 
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