How to save the Soviet Union?

The Soviet Union can still be the Soviet Union while embracing some amounts of Capitalism. Soviet means "Council" in Russian.

Originally the soviets were a grassroots effort to practice direct democracy. Russian Marxists made them a medium for organizing against the state, and between the February and October Revolutions, the Petrograd Soviet was a powerful force. The slogan Вся власть советам ("All power to the soviets" or "All power to the workers' councils") was popular in opposing the Provisional Government led by Kerensky.

The "Soviet Union" does not need to be Communist. The Soviet Union is sort of cool in the way it's like an allegory to the United States, both in name and whatnot. The US is a combination of races and ethnic groups, and so was the Soviet Union. Also, the names are sort of similar.

A "Soviet Union" can be capitalist. What makes it the "Soviet Union" is the combination of all the Republics within it, such as Kazahkstan, Ukraine, and so on. It would be cool if the USSR and USA were made even more similar.
 
The Soviet Union launches a massive invasion of Western Europe in 1978.
No nukes are used, after the USSR makes it perfectly clear that tactical nukes in Germany means escalation to strategic nukes.
Germany, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Dennmark, Sweden, Finnland, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey fall, France turns red.
 
The Soviet Union launches a massive invasion of Western Europe in 1978.
No nukes are used, after the USSR makes it perfectly clear that tactical nukes in Germany means escalation to strategic nukes.
Germany, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Dennmark, Sweden, Finnland, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey fall, France turns red.
Or NATO calls the USSR's bluff. NATO doesn't even need to resort to tactical nukes to push the USSR back to their own border.
 
The Soviet Union can still be the Soviet Union while embracing some amounts of Capitalism. Soviet means "Council" in Russian.



The "Soviet Union" does not need to be Communist. The Soviet Union is sort of cool in the way it's like an allegory to the United States, both in name and whatnot. The US is a combination of races and ethnic groups, and so was the Soviet Union. Also, the names are sort of similar.

A "Soviet Union" can be capitalist. What makes it the "Soviet Union" is the combination of all the Republics within it, such as Kazahkstan, Ukraine, and so on. It would be cool if the USSR and USA were made even more similar.

But the states that make up the US aren't based on ethnic groups, nor do they form (as in Armenia or Georgia) pre-existing nations. The inhabitants of the US come from multiple ethnic groups, yes, but they mostly came here to become Americans [1]: in spite of a certain amount of ethnic homogeneity in some states, there is no such thing as a "German State" or a "Swedish state". And, mostly [2], their inhabitants didn't become part of the US by forcible conquest. It's going to take a _lot_ of work for a Georgian, say, to be convinced that he or she is a Soviet in the way even a Texan [3] thinks they're an American.

Bruce


[1] The African-Americans are of course a special case, but I'd say they're probably the most truly American of all, putting native Americans aside.

[2] There are, of course, some people in New Mexico, California, etc. whose's families have been there since before the Mexican-American war. But not that large a chunk of the population. And the native Americans are another special case: I sometimes suspect that in the 21st century some of the bigger reservations may strike out for greater autonomy...

[3] http://www.cardcow.com/images/a-tex...ic-us-state-town-views-texas-scenic-42458.jpg
 
[A] Well, it probably could survive, more or less, till 2008 without changing it's economy too much sans the pressures of a cold war, but in fairly poor shape (see, North Korea, although probably with less mass famine).

North Korea is a small state that had the added bonus of moderatly friendly states to the north and the threat of MAD holding off its enemies in the south for 40 odd years in order to cement an introverted uber-dictatorship. The USSR would need another Stalin to even begin to even begin to compare (in the rankings of shittiest world governments:cool:)
 
North Korea is a small state that had the added bonus of moderatly friendly states to the north and the threat of MAD holding off its enemies in the south for 40 odd years in order to cement an introverted uber-dictatorship. The USSR would need another Stalin to even begin to even begin to compare (in the rankings of shittiest world governments:cool:)


I was using N. Korea as an example of how screwed economically a country can be and still avoid a change of government if it's repressive enough. I doubt the USSR could return to High Stalinism after his death, but I can also see the USSR staggering into the 21st century with a level of repression only a bit harsher than Brezhnev. As long as the Cold War continues and people remain convinced dissent is fairly lethal, things probably can keep going until the economic situation reaches the shooting-food-rioters-in-Moscow level. Of course, this is not an optimal long-term strategy.

Bruce
 
I recall, oh so long ago, some book written by a Mexico dwelling Trotsky whilst doing my history degree.

He claimed that the Soviet Union only had four futures.

Annihilation by the west and turned into a colony (Hitler)

Continued repression and marching further from the supposed Marxist-Leninist dream.(Stalin)

Socialist revival (?) under Trotsky. (of course)

Or that the state bureaucrats would maintain control, but would abandon "socialism" and privatize the state's holdings for themselves.

Ah he got one thing right there. Shame he didnt see the ice pick?!

Personally cant see the Soviet Union surviving as basically it wasnt really the Socialist Soviet Republic anyway. Just a centralized state monopoly system with a repressive and controling bureaucracy and political culture.

Basically as China is, a dictatorship, with a "nice" pretend ideology. In the end the lack of real ideology that actually meant something to people day to dfay existance, meant it was either further repression or collapse. This isnt Iran. Belief in a theology is easier to substain and unlike the Soviet Union, Iran's theocratic system does have geninue support in the countryside. As my Persian colleagues tell me. "Its all those, how do you describe them, those yokels and peasants that support the system, not the towns and cities."

Not even in the countryside, did the erm parochials support the Soviet Union. It might survive in name after 1990, but it had long died before had.
 
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Neroon

Banned
Theocracies have the advantage, that they don't have to actually deliver on their promises (salvion & glorious afterlife) in this life. Communism claimed to be a workers paradise and after word spread amongst the workers and peasants in the Warsaw Pact, that the even the underclass in the West is living better than they do, Communism was doomed sooner or later.

The USSR needed IMO some kind of Deng Xiaopheng character
+
some way of creating a national idendity for all ethnicities or better cultural assimilation of other ethnicities.
 
What POD or set of POD's (big or small) would have to happen in the Post-Stalinist era in order for the Soviet Union to avoid its stagnation, decline and eventual collapse? What would help it along with its satellites survive to the present day and become highly developed states comparable to that of Western Europe and the United States? Any reforms that were never passed and men who never became leaders that could have helped?

I can only think of a few;
  • Lysenko is discredited immediately after Stalin's death resulting in a more successful Virgin Lands program
  • Brezhnev never rises to power avoiding the stagnation that occurred under him
  • Widespread acceptance of the ideas and reforms of the Prague Spring throughout all the Eastern Bloc countries
  • No war in Afghanistan
It is easy: dispersed the "defender of White house(in russia)"Yeltsien got ready to hide in U.S embassy. If GKCHP(State commitee of state of emergency)had had enough spirit USSR would havent disintegrated
 
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