fall of communism: satellite states go democratic, SSRs don't?

Practically every former communist soviet satellite state that was not part of the Soviet Union experienced revolutions either peaceful as in Poland and Mongolia, or violent as in Romania. Mongolia, a Communist satellite state that was not part of the Soviet Union experienced a democratic revolution and is today a democracy despite not having a tradition of democracy in pre-communist times. However save for the Baltic States, none of the former SSRs are genuine democracies, instead the local communist party leaders simy declared independence, abandoned communism and stayed in power.
Therefore if lets say there hadn't been a Soviet Union in 1991, but merely an RFSFR surrounded by satellite states, there would have been real democratisation in those Central Asian republics as well as Belarus.
And assuming that Gorbachev is the head of the RFSFR, what would have happened to Russia?
 
you run into a few problems that exist in nations like Belarus and russia..

70 years of being IN and APART of the SOVIET UNION...

thats 70 years of benefits and a culture and way of life that even if not perfect ( or very far from) is hard to erase .. also they saw the shock therapy taking place in other places and it scared the hell out of the local populations who simply wanted stability and managed growth.

In russia you had the Oligarchs and mafia take over.

Belarus was also suffering from the same issues ...

You will need honest western assistance for anything like real western democracy/capitalism to really take root.

In russia - avoid yeltsin .. he sold the nation out and compounded the issues a gazillion fold. You need a reformer and someone with a clue, surrounded by people with a clue who have integrity.

We are talking 70 years a civil war, WW2 .. national bankruptcy.. PEOPLE were hungry and wanted western life style.. what they got.. was parts of western life style and chaos .. this is why Putin is so popular..
 
also note: Belarus

issue number 1.. identity management.. in the case of Belarus its a tricky question. they have an identity but it is a three way share of things between Poland, Russia, and Greater Lithuania ..
bare in mind that most didnt want the Soviet Union to vanish, they wanted it restructured and more viable.

issue number 2.. their only real trading partner is well.. uh.. yeah.. Russia and Ukraine ...
Issue number 3.. referring to my last post. just cutting everyone's pension, and changing all of the rules and ways things are done over night can lead to one not being in power for very long.

couple that with needing change to take place and unsure how to make that happen. Democracy does exist here in is own way.. capitalism exists here.. in its own way.. bureaucratic, overly complex regulation, lots of disincentives exist as well. They are figuring things out in ways that best make sense to them.

Also say Gorbachev remains in power..
do you get a Soviet Union 3.0 with a new charter? then you have no real independent SSR's besides the Baltic states

The best thing that could have happened to Russia, post Soviet Union was Putin the first time.. THEN if he pulls a George Washington and leaves things behind gracefully and in competent hands. he would be remembered as one of the greatest leaders in a long time for Russia having put it on a path to democracy, western inclusion and real reforms.
 
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I'm a little confused about the scenario you're proposing as it doesn't seem to match the thread title.

Just to be clear, you're suggesting that some time in the past, the SSRs were politically separated from the Soviet Union as Russian-dominated but nominally independent states.

If that's what you're asking about, I think it's intriguing. It would matter when this happened- right at the start of the Russian Revolution, or maybe after WWII, for example (for one thing, that would determine if there's a Kaliningrad or not).

But not knowing that, one question comes to mind for 1989: were the ASSRs of Russia "promoted" to republic status? Either way, are they in a better place to rebel ITTL? My instinct says mostly no, but Chechnya, Tuva, and Dagestan might pull it off if they had more independent structures at the outset.
 
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