Earlier Soviet Union Collapse?

WI the Soviet Union collapses earlier than it did in OTL? For example, perhaps Stalin and Trotsky never rise to prominence. After Lenin dies, there are no highly-powered figureheads to run the country and after a succession of negligible autocrats it falls to another revolution. Of course, that's just one, relatively badly thought out idea.

What are some more possible moments for the Soviet Union to collapse, excluding a Nazi take over of Russia? Bonus points to those that come up with the earliest date and the most interesting collapse.
 
1923.

Poland, having reached Ukraine and attempting to break the power of the Soviet Union has already established friendly governments in Latvia and Ukraine, with a third for the Belorussians established in Minsk.

The War has gone very, very poorly for the Soviets, who had expected to include Poland in their empire, now find that their neighbors (Japan, Turkey, and Finland) are trying to grab a piece of the empire.

Under this stress, and the Allied Intervention, the Soviet Union came close to breaking. But the death of Lenin proved to be the death knell of the pre-born country. Perhaps in the distant future, the Soviets would rise again. But with Trotsky being alienated from his own followers, the Reds would have no real means to fight on. Without many other choices, a new Russia was created, and the Soviets would disappear, a blip in the history books.
 
The Soviet and their satellites would have fallen at any time if they doesn't strike down a large scale protest. They had one with roughly 10 years interwal after WWII. So any one of those would would lead to the fall.
 
No 1970's oil crisis. The Soviet Union collapses in early 1980's, or at least sues for peace in the nuclear arms race.
 
How about a much tighter space race?

That could do it... I suppose you mean, for instance, the US having similar difficulties with the Saturn V to what the Soviets had with the N-1- that way, it's a much more even bet which one of them will get there first. Alternatively, maybe the Soviet effort being better funded, or better directed, so that the N-1 doesn't run into such difficulties, or something more reliable is focused on instead.

So that way, the Moon race is a lot closer that OTL. I assume your thinking is that the extra effort needed on the part of the Soviets to pull this off will excessively strain their economy, and so that will collapse sooner.

On the other hand, it's conceivable that the Soviets might just cut back on conventional military spending to compensate. By the 60s, they had a credible nuclear deterrent, which was only going to get bigger.
 
That could do it... I suppose you mean, for instance, the US having similar difficulties with the Saturn V to what the Soviets had with the N-1- that way, it's a much more even bet which one of them will get there first. Alternatively, maybe the Soviet effort being better funded, or better directed, so that the N-1 doesn't run into such difficulties, or something more reliable is focused on instead.

That's more along the lines of what I was thinking of. The Russians are actually able to keep up with the Americans, so NASA keeps upping the ante. First, moon landings, then a space station, then a space shuttle, then a bigger space station, then a moon base, then a Mars colony and so on...
 
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The Soviet economy stopped growing at some point between 1974 and 1977 and began to shrink. Anytime after that it was ripe for a fall.
 
The Soviet economy stopped growing at some point between 1974 and 1977 and began to shrink. Anytime after that it was ripe for a fall.

Hell no, the Soviet economy did pretty well out of the oil crises. The Soviet Economy was growing - although more slowly - up to the mid-80s [makes use of history essay about collapse of the Soviet Union]

"
Great controversy erupted in 1987, when the economists G. Khanin and V. Selyunin argued that figures for economic performance and growth, both in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, had often been inflated by local and regional officials. Soviet income had not, as the official figures suggested, multiplied by 84.4 times since 1928, but only by 6.6 times. Although both sets of figures suggested that average annual growth in the economy had been slowing from 1971, Khanin and Selyunin’s figures suggested that, by 1987, growth both in the economy and in productivity had practically halted."

Source: Khanin, G. I., Dinamika ekonomicheskogo razvitya SSSR, Novosibirsk, Nauka, 1991, in Sakwa, R., The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991, Routledge, 1999, p. 426.
 
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