Military of a surviving Soviet Union

In a scenario where the USSR survived through a more pragmatic reformer (a Soviet "Deng Xiaoping" so to speak) taking power instead of Gorbachev, what would the Soviet military look like? What differences would there be between the military of a PRC-esque USSR and the Russian Federation? How powerful would said Soviet military be?
 
Socialism with Chinese characteristics is impossible for the Soviet Union as there is no latent pool of peasants for NEP2men to proletarianise. Kholkoz and sovkhoz workers had been proletarianised viciously in the 1930s and those who didn't leave the land expressed working class resentment through go slows.

Similarly in light and heavy industry.

Labour motivation productivity can't be forced without smashing the factory welfare system either through reenclosure (historical) or revolution (1968 sealed that fate).

Yours,
Sam R.

Yours,
Sam R.
 
In a scenario where the USSR survived through a more pragmatic reformer (a Soviet "Deng Xiaoping" so to speak) taking power instead of Gorbachev, what would the Soviet military look like? What differences would there be between the military of a PRC-esque USSR and the Russian Federation? How powerful would said Soviet military be?
Probably have at least more teeth than OTL's Russia, with new firearms like the AEK-971, tanks similar to the T-14 Armata, and air fighters like the Su-47 appearing earlier than OTL, like say in the 90's or the 2000's and would at least have more naval and air projections outside its borders compared to OTL's Russia, it's actually not that hard to speculate actually if you paid attention to Soviet political doctrine. Heck it'd be close to the US in terms of firepower and projection, provided if the USSR can pull the right moves in not only sustaining a powerful, modern military but also itself economically afloat.

And I don't necessarily think the USSR is like the PRC given how different both those countries experienced in terms of establishing their rule over time, but I do believe it's possible for the USSR to make some changes to sustain itself at least past the year 2000. That and Yuri Andropov, in spite of his hardline stances towards the Western bloc, is the closest guy you can get to being the Deng of the USSR; that or Kosygin if going for a pre-1980 POD but I digress.
 
In a scenario where the USSR survived through a more pragmatic reformer (a Soviet "Deng Xiaoping" so to speak) taking power instead of Gorbachev, what would the Soviet military look like? What differences would there be between the military of a PRC-esque USSR and the Russian Federation? How powerful would said Soviet military be?

It matters very much just how good this reformer is.

Someone who is as good as Gorbachev (so, throws alot of babies out with the bathwater) but more hard-headed about crushing potential enemies, would preside over a troubled 90s. Just keeping the country together would mean less disruptions to internal trade, so that would help keep GDP and productivity up across the Soviet Union, but it would still be easy to blunder deeper into petro dependence and oligarchy.

That said, I reckon someone more pragmatic would, on balance, have a harder time. Part of Gorbachev's problem is he was extremely pragmatic and willing to try almost anything (and did try almost everything - he actually over-reformed, putting out new reforms before his previous reforms had a chance to bed down) and Gorbachev seems to have thought that others were as detached from ideals as he was - which was quite wrong, and ended up turning many of his early allies (more idealistic) against him and too many of the pragmatists left on his side were rather lacking in morals.

And as Sam R. has mentioned, much of what worked in China will not work in the Soviet Union, the agricultural situation was very different and the Soviet Union was already a much more productive economy meaning the problems were more complex for them. Though some of what Deng did (like a strong anti-corruption campaign that was followed to its end BEFORE any reforms were started, meaning the Chinese party was purged of the worst rotten eggs before surgery was attempted on the country's economy) is applicable to the Soviet case.

Anyways. Assuming that the Soviets get a somewhat inept reformer who is just a bit better at playing the internal political game, the USSR has a hard 90s, loses several ranks in the industrial league table, but probably manages to retain more of its previous economical and technological capabilities than OTL and makes a better recovery. Military wise, they would be fairly similar to OTL's Russia in structure (most of OTL's reforms grew out of the Afghanistan experience, though if there's no Chechen conflict, there may not be as quick a change in organization). With a less violent collapse, more weapons R&D programs would survive and many of the weapons seen OTL would be introduced earlier. Though of course we'd not see Ukraine's products. Though without the Cold War the military may not be so much larger than Russia's military in OTL. Even OTL they are comfortably in second place in terms of military power. We may see more funding on the navy and other means of projecting power a distance, so the Soviets might retain the best global power projection capability after the US (though it would be a distant second).

Now, if the Soviets have a particularly able reformer, then the Soviet military might stand a good chance at retaining parity with the US, but that is much harder to do.

fasquardon
 
In your scenario I'd say they'd have cut the budget for the more expensive offensive weapons like supersonic bombers and nuclear submarines while focusing on greater quality overall. IMO to do this they would have to amend or abandon the idea that the sole point of having an army is to be able to fight a total war.

IOTL the Soviets always expected to have to fight a total war and geared their industrial sector for this purpose (it's one of the reasons their economy sucked). They were preparing for a repeat of World War II except this time on a faster time schedule and with nuclear weapons. While he's not the most reliable source (but boy is his writing entertaining), defector Viktor Suvorov notes that Soviet military equipment and training were always tied to the idea that even if they were inferior to western men and machines on a one-to-one basis, they would still prevail on the strategic and logistical side. The result of this thinking is that the Soviets loved building and stockpiling tons of weapons that were markedly less effective than their western counterparts but easier to build.

But if the USSR has undergone economic reforms and probable future military conflict is no longer conceptualized as "WWII on steroids with nukes," I think they would quickly forgo construction of the exorbitant thousands of tanks, guns, and whatever other weapons they imagined they needed to stick in the Fulda Gap. By the 1980s advances in military technology already meant that it didn’t matter how many “monkey model” T-72s or T-55s you had, they could be handled by superior NATO combined arms. IOTL the Soviets had already begun to recognize this. Most of the latest weapons the Russian Federation has are further developments of late Soviet designs; incidentally, Gorbachev justified his economic reforms as a means of reinvigorating the military tech industry and catching up with the West.

So under Soviet Deng, the tank factories would produce more T-80 tanks and their more advanced derivatives that never saw mass production IOTL, meanwhile the T-72 would probably only continue to be produced in small numbers for export and spare parts. Extra workers would be given their final paycheck and told to find new jobs.

If the Gulf War happens similarly to OTL, it would further prove that focusing on a smaller professional army armed with the best weapons is better than wasting billions on making soldiers out of all men out of high school.
 
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