consequences of a Mikoyan premiership?

[Sir Coloniser]

what if Anastas Mikoyan became premier of the soviet union?
would he reform the USSR into semi capitalism?
would the soviets avoid collapse?
what would armenia be like?
how would this alternate USSR and world develop?

 

[ahmedali]

It is reformist from what I have read, but whether it will be implemented effectively, I do not know

I think the Soviet Union will still collapse, but the Russian Federation may retain more space

(Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Belarus, but the Baltics, the Caucasus, and the rest of Central Asia may become independent)

I think Armenia will be bigger and include Karabakh and Nakhchivan
(he's armenian)

This may include an exchange of the Armenian and Azeri populations, and paradoxically, it will mean that there is no Karabakh war

This means much better relations with Azerbaijan, which could mean Azerbaijan's recognition of the Armenian Genocide

And the Armenian economy is better thanks to Azeri investments and a weaker blockade of their economy

(It may make plans for détente and normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations succeed)


Although it is very difficult to persuade Turkey to recognize the Armenian genocide unless it forces Turkey to do so

Such as joining the axis and losing and forcing the Turkish government formed by the allies to recognize the genocide

 

[David T]

Mikoyan was clealy the most anti-Stalinist member of the Presidium in 1956 [1] and the one most reluctant to intervene in Hungary. If he had held real power that could certainly have made a difference. *But* the Premiership was not the position of real power in the USSR (unless the man who held it like Lenin and Stalin and Khrushchev was also recognized leader of the Party). This is proven by the fact that Rykov was allowed to stay on as Premier until December 1930, long after the defeat of the "RIghtists" and Bulganin was allowed to remain as Premier for several months after the defeat of the "Anti-Party Group."

But Mikoyan was even less likely to be First Secretary than to be Premier. He simply lacked the flair for ruthless clawing-to-the-top that Khrushchev had. His instinct was more for survival--under Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev alike. (And sometimes that survival was very tenous indeed--a lot of questions were asked aboot how he had managed to avoid the fate of the 26 Baku Commissars in 1918. As Stalin once pointedly told him, " That story of the shooting of the twenty-six Baku Commissars and how only one of them, you, managed to stay alive -- it's all pretty vague and confused. And you've never wanted us to try to clear it up, have you, Anastas Ivanovich?" https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-mikoyan-killed-in-1918.484906/#post-20297802) As the saying goes, he spanned the years "from Ilych [Lenin] to Ilych [Brezhnev}" and really that was enough for him.

{1] Rememver that Khrushchev's *open* speech at the 20th Congress conrinaed only on reference to Stalin, and not a hostile one. By contrast, Mikoyan "called for a revision of Economic Problems of Socialism , and described ' a well - known dictum of Stalin's ' as ' hardly helpful , hardly correct ' . He referred not very indirectly to Lenin's Testament and dropped other anti-Stalinist hints , such as one to the effect that histories of the Transcaucasian Party organisation falsified the facts . Above all , he spoke of ' Comrade Kossior and ' Comrade Antonov - Ovseenko ' , ' wrongly declared enemies of the people ' ." Robert Conquest, *Power and Policy in the USSR,* p. 281. It was only after this spur that Khrushchev delivered his famous "secret speech."