We have occasionally discussed scenarios in which the Soviet Union economically liberalizes while staying authoritarian - essentially doing what China managed to do. It has produced some interesting discussions, but here is what I’m particularly interested in:
Assume that the Soviets pull this off and transition to a mostly market economy while still retaining the full borders of the USSR, and maintaining an officially communist ideology, even if its no more believed by anyome than that the PRC really are still commies. We’ll assume that this happens more or less on the same time frame as China OTL: very late 70s onward, and they start trading heavily with all the west in the 90s. They’ll still hrow heir weight around here and here, but they can’t really export communism and don’t want to screw up globsl trade any more than the capitalists do.
How does the change the dynamics of the Cold War? The soviets have basically abandoned communism even if they won't admit it, they’re trading heavily with the Americans and getting rich, and war is mostly unthinkable since it would ruin their economy...
Does the world still think the Cold War is going on? Or does the US shrug and decide “Eh, close enough?”
Assume that the Soviets pull this off and transition to a mostly market economy while still retaining the full borders of the USSR, and maintaining an officially communist ideology, even if its no more believed by anyome than that the PRC really are still commies. We’ll assume that this happens more or less on the same time frame as China OTL: very late 70s onward, and they start trading heavily with all the west in the 90s. They’ll still hrow heir weight around here and here, but they can’t really export communism and don’t want to screw up globsl trade any more than the capitalists do.
How does the change the dynamics of the Cold War? The soviets have basically abandoned communism even if they won't admit it, they’re trading heavily with the Americans and getting rich, and war is mostly unthinkable since it would ruin their economy...
Does the world still think the Cold War is going on? Or does the US shrug and decide “Eh, close enough?”