DBWI: No Union of Sovereign States

CaliGuy

Banned
What would said hardliner coup result in? Nuclear civil war? Hardliners taking over? Something else?
Bleeding on an unimaginable scale as ethnic tensions tear apart the Soviet Union (after this hardliner coup fails, that is). :( Indeed, the Donbass, Crimea, and northern Kazakhstan are going to especially look bloody after all of this is done! :(
 
OOC: Jesus H. Christ was last page a whole bunch of posters going OOC

IC: Yeah, a hardline coup might just cut it. Someone other than Gorby at the helm might have wrecked things, too - Gorby was noted for his ability to handle ethnic strife within the old USSR. I find it hard to believe that a Russian nationalist like Yeltsin, for example, would have been able to lead the Sovereign Union without turning it into a bunch of warring states. Then again, had a hardliner like Grishin come to power after Chernenko instead of Gorby we might still have a Soviet Union instead of a Sovereign Union.
 
Indeed, the Donbass, Crimea, and northern Kazakhstan are going to especially look bloody after all of this is done! :(
I wouldn't be surprised if they are irradiated as well due to the large nuclear arsenal of the USSR being unleashed in such a civil war.
 

iVC

Donor
So, what PODs would have prevented the USS from rising?

The main and unexpectable POD was the Belavezha accords itself. The decision to disband USSR completely was made impromptu, in the middle of talkings between The Big Three leaders (Russia/Ukraine/Belarus).

Nov 14. Leaders of seven SSRs (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgizia, Tajik, Turkmenia, Uzbek respectably) and Mikhail Gorbachev made a joint statement about USS creation. The signing of USS treaty was planned on Dec 9 1991.

Howewer, at the Dec 1st Ukraine launched their own independence referendum, which brought results different from summer 1991's one: ukraininan people supported the independence now.

Dec 5th Yeltsin meets Gorbachev and discusses future of the USS treaty in case of Ukraine pulling out.

Dec 7th the Big Three leaders meets up in the Belavezha to find the way out. Shuskevich later wrought that no one was thinking about actually dissolve the USSR, point of meeting was just to find the common ground for continuing the treaty process. The decision to disband USSR were made suddenly after various variants were worked through - and it was quite a spur-of-the-moment decision: do not try to reforge the old USSR but disband it completely and try to create sometning new from the bunch of totally sovereign states.

I completely forgot it was DBWI thread.
 
Last edited:

iVC

Donor
OOC: This is a DBWI, folks!

So I think it's quite obviously that pragmatism had won and the Big Three actually decided not to ruin the entire thing just to have a chance to start from scratch.
Economical advisors were mad about perspective of flaming the border tax wars and severing the industrial ties between various industries located all across the USSR, so leadership followed their advice and maintained as much unification and integration as possible.

If the hotheads had won, I thought the entire bunch of post-soviet economic areas would be simply lying in ruins for some very long time.
 

iVC

Donor
I wish to rephrase the original question: would it be possible that USS was not only successfully created, but disbanded shortly thereafter due to various reasons thus became failed state?
 
Top