Gorbachev dies pre 1985?
- Thread starter GI Jim
- Start date
The USSR and the Eastern Bloc still collapse, but later. The Berlin Wall still comes down, but later. The US and Russia sign new arms reduction treaties, but later.
Basically, the USSR was already on the path towards collapse by 1973. It was only a matter of time. The difference here is how that plays out politically in Russia from 1985 onwards.
Basically, the USSR was already on the path towards collapse by 1973. It was only a matter of time. The difference here is how that plays out politically in Russia from 1985 onwards.
The long-term economic (and social) fundamentals are pretty grim by 1985, obviously. Nothing can change that.
But a lot depends on just who gets chosen as General Secretary in Gorbachev's place. There was nothing inevitable or pre-determined about 1989, after all. A Soviet Union and even a Warsaw Pact surviving intact well into the 1990's is hardly impossible.
The two leading rivals for the top job in 1985 are arguably Viktor Grishin and Grigory Romanov. Both of course were leading (permanent) members of the Politburo in 1984-85.
Romanov (then 62 yrs old), a very close Andropov ally, represents the pro-Gorbachev reformist faction cultivated by Andropov. He is not as charismatic or respected as Gorbachev was, however,
Grishin (then 71 yrs old) represents a more statist stance; his position had weakened thanks to his own mistakes in 1985; he declined to contend for the post when Chernenko died. But if Gorby is dead, the field is more wide open. Grishin might well fight for it.
My gut says that Romanov gets the nod, though after a real scrum; he was not as strong or obvious a frontrunner as Gorbachev had been. If he does, you likely see a more modest reform effort made, some Perestroika but no Glasnost, and he would have had less cachet and maneuvering room than Gorbachev did in any event; an effort at an arms treaty and dialing down of tensions is still made, and the INF Treaty in some form probably still happens in 1987-88.
Grishin, on the other hand, would have represented something closer to a repeat of Chernenko, albeit perhaps with a modest effort at some sort of detente with Reagan. More of the same, with a little more zip.
But as for the USSR's *other* external problems, of course, neither Romanov nor Grishin could have had a ready answer to either Poland or Afghanistan. Withdrawal from the latter can be delayed a little, but can't be sustained for much longer. That's bad enough; but Poland was the key to the entire East Bloc by that point. Still, if Romanov or Grishin is willing to send a clear signal to Honecker and his comrades that Moscow is willing to back them up in shooting whoever needs to be shot, the rickety East Bloc edifice could stumble along into at least the early 1990's. But the increasingly obvious inability of the Soviet military-industrial complex to compete with western technological advances, especially after the Reagan buildup, will continue to build pressure for more radical reform, and it could well be that neither would remain in power by 1990.
Of course, one other butterfly is that if the USSR and Warsaw Pact remain intact in 1992, the whole Gulf War could look quite different, or not happen at all (Moscow being in a stronger position to exercise a veto over Saddam); and Bill Clinton would have a tougher time getting elected in what would still be a Cold War world.
But a lot depends on just who gets chosen as General Secretary in Gorbachev's place. There was nothing inevitable or pre-determined about 1989, after all. A Soviet Union and even a Warsaw Pact surviving intact well into the 1990's is hardly impossible.
The two leading rivals for the top job in 1985 are arguably Viktor Grishin and Grigory Romanov. Both of course were leading (permanent) members of the Politburo in 1984-85.
Romanov (then 62 yrs old), a very close Andropov ally, represents the pro-Gorbachev reformist faction cultivated by Andropov. He is not as charismatic or respected as Gorbachev was, however,
Grishin (then 71 yrs old) represents a more statist stance; his position had weakened thanks to his own mistakes in 1985; he declined to contend for the post when Chernenko died. But if Gorby is dead, the field is more wide open. Grishin might well fight for it.
My gut says that Romanov gets the nod, though after a real scrum; he was not as strong or obvious a frontrunner as Gorbachev had been. If he does, you likely see a more modest reform effort made, some Perestroika but no Glasnost, and he would have had less cachet and maneuvering room than Gorbachev did in any event; an effort at an arms treaty and dialing down of tensions is still made, and the INF Treaty in some form probably still happens in 1987-88.
Grishin, on the other hand, would have represented something closer to a repeat of Chernenko, albeit perhaps with a modest effort at some sort of detente with Reagan. More of the same, with a little more zip.
But as for the USSR's *other* external problems, of course, neither Romanov nor Grishin could have had a ready answer to either Poland or Afghanistan. Withdrawal from the latter can be delayed a little, but can't be sustained for much longer. That's bad enough; but Poland was the key to the entire East Bloc by that point. Still, if Romanov or Grishin is willing to send a clear signal to Honecker and his comrades that Moscow is willing to back them up in shooting whoever needs to be shot, the rickety East Bloc edifice could stumble along into at least the early 1990's. But the increasingly obvious inability of the Soviet military-industrial complex to compete with western technological advances, especially after the Reagan buildup, will continue to build pressure for more radical reform, and it could well be that neither would remain in power by 1990.
Of course, one other butterfly is that if the USSR and Warsaw Pact remain intact in 1992, the whole Gulf War could look quite different, or not happen at all (Moscow being in a stronger position to exercise a veto over Saddam); and Bill Clinton would have a tougher time getting elected in what would still be a Cold War world.
GI Jim
Banned
I see your point, and agree with you on the arms treaties. However, the economic situation of the eastern bloc albeit bad and deteriorating, in my mind does not neccaserily imply the fall of the berlin wall and certainly not the USSR itself entirely. My argument for this would be nations such as Cuba or North Korea, countries that did not reform their political systems after the USSR fell despite intense economic and humanitarian pressure. Evidently, the eastern bloc if it continued to deteriorate would have faced serious and grave economic issues with shortage of goods around the nation. However, in terms of pure survival, I think it could of survived without reform perhaps longer than is commonly accepted.
I agree with your isolation of the two main successors to Chernenko. I think Grishin again as you said will have had little chance due to the whole hospital bed debacle, so Romanov would indeed have succeeded. I think that in terms of the eastern bloc, the main reason it collapsed was not due to some inevitable force of history but purely that the reason it had existed since at the latest 1956, was the threat of Soviet military force. Once that was gone, public pressure became an existential threat.
In terms of foreign policy, I think under any leader some form of arms control treaty would have been signed. As you say, the threat of military build up and the pressure this was causing was purely too great. In relation to the Gulf war, I think its quite a stretch to try and assume what would happen there. Would Saddam have dared to invade with strong condemnations from both world superpowers? Or as you say would Kuwait be an Iraqi province with Saddam as a key Moscow ally. I'm inclined to think Kuwait would still have had to be given up by the Iraqi's, if for no other reason than that would mean just under 50% of world oil supplies under Soviet direct control or influence.
Is Romanov a common last name in Russia? I wonder if it could be a hindrance to him getting the big chair. Obviously no relation, but I feel even the slightest cosmetic resemblance to the Tsardom would be detested by the Party.
The Eastern Block was facing a deteriorating economy because of bad policies chosen in the late 60s. It is entirely possible that the various east block states could have chosen to keep digging, but it's also quite possible for those that aren't Yugoslavia to stabilize themselves in the late 80s and early 90s. The real problem in eastern europe was that they'd borrowed too heavily in anticipation of an achieving export-fed growth, but bad economic conditions in the west meant that there was no export market for the increased eastern production. So instead the eastern block experienced a period of debt-fueled consumption, then suffered through a long period of austerity to pay off their debts. And just as those austerity programs were starting to pay off, the Soviet Union implodes and takes the satellite states with it.
Also, the often contradictory and always too-rapid changes ordered by Moscow under Gorbachev took a political and economic toll on the satellites during a period when austerity had brought Party credibility across the region to a low point.
So without Gorbachev, and if instead a more slow-and-steady reformer held power (which I think must be the case - things were bad enough that almost everyone with any power in the USSR was a "reformist", though of course, they might have contradictory ideas for how to reform things), I suspect that most of the Eastern Block would have stabilized and returned to reasonable levels of growth. I am fairly sure that the USSR would need to intervene in at least Yugoslavia, perhaps also a couple other states (ironically, the main voice for intervention is likely to come from the US, which wants a stable Europe and to not have to intervene in any of these areas itself). Though I suspect a "Poland" solution, where the Soviets make clear their support for the regime in a state and let the army and secret services of that state crack down would be sufficient for most crises.
Of course, as the choices of the 60s illustrate, the satellites, and indeed the Soviet Union itself are very vulnerable to poor choices, so getting through the initial crisis isn't the end of things by any means.
You must remember, the USSR was VERY prickly about states who tried to upset the officially agreed borders, since that would endanger their own territorial gains after WW2. Also, the Soviets really didn't like Saddam, and only massively backed him because they wanted to see the Iranians spread Islamic revolution even less.
Further, in OTL, Saddam never consulted the Soviets about Kuwait. This led to some shock and consternation among the Soviet diplomatic community as he suddenly invades the country and expects them to back him. This was a big factor in why the Soviets instead backed the US intervention.
On the other hand, the Soviets were also allied with Iraq, and the Soviets were pretty faithful to their allies, so I don't see them joining in on Desert Storm. More likely, a less sickly Soviet Union condemns the Iraqi invasion, give their sanction in the UN for a force to liberate Kuwait and work frantically to persuade Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait before the hammer falls. Most likely, Saddam would not back down, the US-led coalition invades, but this time the Soviets are there making clear that if the US makes any serious incursions into Iraq itself, they will defend their ally.
So not too much change from OTL. But things could change very radically in the post-war period. It is easy to imagine Iraq being backed into being a full Soviet satellite by the US, which could lead to a much more Socialist Iraq developing by the end of the 90s.
Also, the continuance of the Soviets as a major power will mean that there is another possible protector for the states of the Persian Gulf, and though I imagine the US will have a heavy advantage, the Gulf monarchies may still flirt with the Soviets to extract concessions from the Americans.
I doubt this. Remember that the US never completed the Reagan build-up, even when they thought the Soviets were still an enemy that required a large US military to manage. There's no doubt that the US could choose to bear much heavier military costs, but the breathtaking amounts of cash required to get a decisive advantage over the Soviets would require sacrifices that I don't see being made if the Soviets don't force them to be made. (The Reagan build up was debt funded, even at one of the coldest points in the cold war, political forces pushing the US to cut taxes were stronger than the forces pushing them to gain a long-term military advantage.) And the Soviets, having no illusions about US military capability or their heavily strained resources, are extremely unlikely to push the US too hard. As for Western technological advancements, while during the 80s the US was perhaps gaining on the Soviets, between 1945 and 1980, the Soviets had been gaining on the US and quickly. Was this Western advantage sustainable? One can argue that one both ways. But what is for sure is that the relative advantage that the US held over Stalin's Soviet Union or Khrushchev's Soviet Union would never again be achieved. And as you may note, the US didn't win the Cold War when Stalin was in power or when Khrushchev was in power.
On balance, I see the cold war as continuing much as it had - the Soviets constantly gaining in capacity to compete in more theatres (so for example, a surviving Soviet Union would likely have more aircraft carriers, allowing it more options in 3rd world interventions), but the US maintaining a large advantage over the Soviets (so if the Soviet aircraft carriers ended up fighting the US carriers, it would be a glorified suicide for the Soviets), but no more than absolutely necessary.
The real issue, I think, is that neither side actually has any interest in going all-out. The Soviet Union never wanted to conquer the US and the US never wanted to conquer the Soviets.
Not that the cold war was remotely safe, it encouraged a very dangerous sort of paranoia that could have exploded very easily. But the difference in cost between the passive-aggressive-paranoid "defence" mindset both sides had and an actually aggressive mindset is so much that anyone who seriously suggested doubling the military budget to build a system of space lasers (for example) was not going to get a warm welcome in the halls of power.
fasquardon
Just to clarify: When I said "neither would remain in power by 1990," I was referring to Romanov and Grishin, not the communist party. In this scenario, the USSR reasonably could struggle on well into the 1990's, at least.
I don't disagree that Reagan's buildup was never completed as planned, nor that it was quite modest relative not only to 1940-45 but even to the 50's rebuild, in real dollar terms. But then, it didn't need to be. Because the Soviet economy by the 1980's was a phantom. And being a phantom the Kremlin had to devote far more of what economy it did have to defense, much more than CIA or other western intelligence agencies at the time believed. The crashing of the petrodollar market in the 80's undermined even that.
"Was this Western advantage sustainable?" I would contend that it was, but arguably even more due to increasing dysfunction within the Soviet economy itself - which was reaching a critical stage by the 1970's - than to (increasingly difficult to reverse engineer) Western technological superiority. That reckoning did not have to come in 1985; but it would come.
It is not quite clear to me from the OP when Gorbachev is supposed to vanish - does he never exist or just die at some point before Chernenko's death? I ask, because a Gorbachev still alive through much of this era would definitely shape the leadup to the succession battle.
All that said, I think Grishin probable needs Romanov to stumble in some major way in the months leading up to the succession.
Whoever gets it, of course, will find they've won a booby prize.
GI Jim
Banned
I'm assuming he comes to his end prior to 1985, how exactly I have no idea. It was more of a thought experiment than anything else. I just think that the USSR without Gorbachev had no-one else who would have reformed to such a liberalizing degree in the period. Glasnost to the vast majority of the politburo was anti-thesis to the very idea of the Soviet State, and even erstwhile "reformists" in 1985 wouldnt have considered such a measure.
I believe it to actually be suprising that the coup in 1991 occurred so late, the KGB and conservatives in the administration I think had they known of Gorby's intentions would have moved against him FAR earlier than 1991.
My point was more that the Reagan build-up, as it was envisioned, cost too much even for Reagan and certainly too much for Bush and that build-up that was done was not funded sustainably, rather the US government started to seriously take on debt.
It's not that they couldn't do the Reagan build-up - or even a larger military increase - in a sustainable fashion, it's just that there was no political will for it. That there was no political will for such military increases, let alone properly funded military increases (that is, ones funded by higher taxes) says something fundamental about the US at this time - a time when the Cold War felt very dangerous and Soviet influence seemed to be expanding at a frightening rate. Now, some of the things it says about the US are actually good - it showcased the enormous strength of its financial sector and its ability to recognize its own limits - but nonetheless, it does show that the US was running up against its own limits at this time.
So I don't think it can be said that "the US can easily outspend the USSR whatever comes", because outspending the USSR by a large margin means that sacrifices have to be made and if there is no utility in making them, I don't see them happening. (Which brings us to the second leg of that particular argument - the US doesn't get much advantage for vastly out-matching the Soviet Union - they'd vastly out-matched the Soviets for most of the cold war and it didn't have a great impact.)
So instead, I think it much more likely that the US continues to outspend the USSR by a small margin.
And having dug into Soviet military spending to some depth, I must say, I trust the CIA estimates (which are around 5-15% of Soviet GDP) much more than the reports that place Soviet spending at 20% or higher, all of which are drawn from sources which had very strong motivations to lie (such as Gorbachev, who gave an inflated view of the Soviet military sector because it was a convenient excuse for problems that were actually caused by his own policies).
Clearly not, since the US public sector debt has continued to expand faster than GDP for most of the post WW2 period.
Quite clearly, the Soviets were in an even less able to sustain their efforts, but that doesn't make the western position sustainable.
Of course, you are quite correct that the equation "Soviet dysfunction+American dysfunction=massive American advantage". But the Soviets don't have to continue the same path in the 90s. It's fairly obvious by the 80s that they needed to reform and the Soviet system had successfully re-invented itself before. It's true that they can reform poorly, if less catastrophically than under Gorbachev, but on the other hand, there are a wide range of options being discussed within the Soviet Union that would have made for largely successful reforms, if not spectacular ones.
I think you're correct that Gorbachev can't be replaced. The man was a huge optimist.
As to why the coup occurred so late, there's a few reasons for that - for one, the people launching the coup were also reformists. They just didn't agree with certain of Gorbachev's reforms (mainly the Party being ripped out of the structure of state). Further, the Party was very strongly in control of the Soviet state and Gorbachev was the head of the Party. For the KGB to rebel or the army to launch a coup was deeply counter to the character of those institutions and to their mythology. It would be like the CIA and US border guards clubbing together to overthrow a US president - it's deeply counter to the whole mythology of the US and to the way the US institutions are built. Lastly, Gorbachev was perhaps the most powerful General Secretary since Khrushchev. Some even say he was the most powerful since Stalin, though that may be overstating the case. In part because many office holders in the USSR were too old to do their jobs when Gorby came in, there was the largest "purge" since the chaos after Stalin's death ended, so most people with power in the Soviet system owed it to Gorbachev.
fasquardon
Not anytime soon though. Fracking requires some non-trivial technology advances.
But really, by 1985, the oil price was likely to go down significantly.
fasquardon
Part of the problem was that hardly any of the Soviet leadership itself had any clear idea of just how much they were spending.
Another part of the problem is that comparisons between the U.S. and Soviet economies are difficult, because gross measures like GNP and GDP are more or less useless in a command economy like that of the Soviet Union. When the CPC determines levels of production, consumption, prices, wages and currency exchange rate, the GDP is . . . well, what the CPC says it is.
To the extent that I have to work with them, however, I tend to accept a higher figure range, in the 15-20% range.
But here's the other problem: By the 1980's, the Soviets cannot just factor in the United States. In reality there were now five major economic loci in the world, and four of them were hostile to the Soviets (U.S., the EC, Japan, and China), a point Paul Kennedy was making even back in 1987. If the U.S. alone was a grave challenge for the Soviets, the prospect of competing with three more as well was even more daunting.
Honestly, though: When was the last successful reinvention of the Soviet economy?
The only ones I can think of that genuinely qualify were the shift to and then the abandonment of Lenin's N.E.P. And those both happened in the first decade of the USSR's existence, before Stalin's purges. Anything that happened after that - the wartime economy, the Khrushchev thaw - were just adjustments to the existing Stalinist command model.
I would contend that the Soviet leadership was no longer capable of any significant reinvention by this point, certainly not in the way the PRC managed under Deng. The alternatives to Gorbachev's fatal reform would be either tinkering at the margins, or some other failed attempt at reinvention, either of which could have added on some modest extension to the USSR's lifespan.
This point is very important - I can still see the Iran-Iraq war ending on schedule but the USSR could probably veto a war against Saddam. An expanded Iraq would control about 20% of the world's oil - and would likely be facing an embargo from the West.
This is very beneficial to the Soviet economy. I think Virtual History had a scenario that argued that the USSR could have used this and later détente (alongside a continued willingness to shoot whoever needs to be) to essentially hold together into the 21st century. There would still be long term issues with matching the West, but I would think they exist on an even grander scale today.....
RousseauX
Donor
No it wasn't, this is a complete myth made up by a triumphalist western narrative about the historical inevitability of western liberalism
The DPRK is still here today, as the PRC, as is Cuba: all three illustrates very different ways Communist parties have survived under arguably worse circumstances than the USSR.
had any of those 3 collapsed in the 80s-90s, you would be saying that their collapse was inevitable since the early 1970s and "it was only a matter of time" as well
And this is just about the survival of -Communist USSR-, not the survival of the USSR under a non-Communist system, which was distinctively possible right until summer 1991
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RousseauX
Donor
Or Andropov could have lives longer than he did otl
Or Andrei Gromyko who hands it off to a younger moderate reformer like Yegor Legachev a couple of years later
Afghanistan was sustainable Imo, the otl Kabul government fought off several major Mujahadeen offensives in the late 80s without direct Soviet combat unit intervention. Had aid continued from the USSR the Kabul government might have survived without the Soviets themselves needing to bleed too much to keep it afloat. What killed the PDPA was the fall of the USSR and end of aid to Kabul.
Poland OTOH, without Gorbachev why couldn't the PUWP kept a lid on solidarity? It successfully repressed Solidarity in 1981 even though it had a membership of what 1/3 of the country? It seems to me hardline-Communism had a way of dealing with that sort of dissent as long as the Soviet Union is willing to even -sort- of back Jaruzelski
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I do not understand your response if fracking cannot come in time, which I agree with the oil prices would depend on political developments which could go anywhere.
GI Jim
Banned
I think the truth lies somewhere inbetween inevitable collapse that you quite rightly say is commonly accepted nowadays, and the integral strength of the Soviet system. The Soviet economic model I don't believe was totally doomed to fail, with some reform to central planning, removing layers of bureaucracy and allowing regional individuals to formulate economic strategy rather than the centre aiding overall growth. The Soviet's also suffered from the "dutch disease" which Russia still does today, a heavy over-reliance on oil exports.
Were Saddam to invade Kuwait and not be kicked out of it, you could see high oil prices sustain the Soviet regime for many more years. They simply would have to attempt to diversify their economy however, and if that process was began by a conservative reformist in 1985 rather than "radical" Gorbachev it may have been possible.
Add a dramatic drop in political/military spending.
It was the only significant bright spark in the USSR economy but many other raw materials were available in Russia. The USSR could have tried to get overseas companies to help mine them.