PP: Soviet Liberalization

[RousseauX]

The Soviet Union had fairly bad diplomatic relations with many countries that is not the same things as being a pariah. It also could very well attract investment in a less tense diplomatic climate and had a massive internal market, which was to an extent under-exploited. In addition to a highly-educated population, world-class academic & scientific institutions and an existing indusrial base that could be modernized.

If you need investment capital then 1970s is definitely the way to go. Not only did the Soviets benefit directly from oil revenues but the other PetroStates also had a huge inflow of cash. Many of those states decided to reinvest the capital and ended up financing a lot of East-Bloc loans. If the USSR had the political will to reform then the other petro-states had huge pool of potential capital for foreign investment.

Soviet natural resources would yield an increasing benefits as Europe’s dependence of Russian oil & gas grows. As for manpower the U.S.S.R’s population was growing steadily. Particularly in the under-developed Central Asian SSR’s.

The population of the Muslim SSRs to the USSR are an entirely different kettle of Fish than China's ethnically Han population is to China.

 

[Esopo]

Im not sure that even a liberalized (but still socialist) soviet union could be able to reconcile with the west. The west was even more hostile to russia than russia was to the west. I dont see a real end of the cold war possible whitout a collapse of the soviet empire, and the disintegration of the same soviet union.

 

[RousseauX]

China liberalized only because Deng Xiaoping was in the right place in the right time after Mao died, and played all his cards right. If Deng had already been dead, we won't see the reforms he instituted. If the Gang of Four triumph over Hua Guofeng in 1978, we won't see any reforms. If Hua Guofeng triumphed over Deng afterwards, we won't see most of the reforms. If for whatever reason, Deng played his hand less well, no reforms. If Mao didn't act crazy and initiate the Cultural Revoultion, the elites might not have been so sickened that they wouldn't want reforms and enter Soviet style stagnation.

The gang of four is unlikely to win out after Mao, simply because pretty much everybody else inside the political system and most of the peasant population hated them.

 

[Killer300]

The gang of four is unlikely to win out after Mao, simply because pretty much everybody else inside the political system and most of the peasant population hated them.

That was the case with Stalin once he died, hence why Beria got kicked out. Didn't end up reforming the Soviet system though...

 

[Urban fox]

The major problem the USSR has in liberalizing its political system is that practically speaking the Soviet Union functioned as a joint block of unaccountable cliques which had often no direct common interests, but no means to hold any one of these truly accountable. The USSR developed this as the ultimate evolution of the Stalinist mixture of bureaucracy and terror, and it's this factor which is also a major obstacle in post-WWII military reform.

I think you overstate your case. For one thing they did in fact have the most fundamental goal in common the survival of the regime. For another the
collective leadership after Stalin imposed checks & balances on the various ministries as power was removed from the hands of one man, and they were obliged to compromise & work together.

Also after 1953 you can remove the ''terror'' part.

The difference is that while China also had factional infighting, by the time Deng consolidated power he set out to neuter anyone who stood in his way. Hence, the public show trials of the Gang of Four, and the rehabilitation of anyone and everyone who was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. It's also a big help that the Cultural Revolution had been an unmitigated disaster as opposed to the Soviet stagnation which still guaranteed security and a basic life to most Russians. Deng had become untouchable within the Party. By contrast, Russia had stagnated for too long and there was no appetite for a deep purge of hardliners.

Neatly forgetting that many of those same ‘’hardliners’’ supported reformist efforts so such terms are largely meaningless. In fact the people who really stood in the way of reform were Brezhnev’s closest cronies. Who were dropping dead anyway.


Anyway croncern with the stagnation had grown enougth through the 1970's that everyone at the highist level wanted see see some degree of reform. What was needed was better leadership & policies. A good way for that to happen is to have Brezhnev die a few years sooner. And butterfly Gorbachev.

If you need investment capital then 1970s is definitely the way to go. Not only did the Soviets benefit directly from oil revenues but the other PetroStates also had a huge inflow of cash. Many of those states decided to reinvest the capital and ended up financing a lot of East-Bloc loans. If the USSR had the political will to reform then the other petro-states had huge pool of potential capital for foreign investment.The population of the Muslim SSRs to the USSR are an entirely different kettle of Fish than China's ethnically Han population is to China.

The Central Asians were actually surprisingly loyal to the Union, which is ironic given Moscow’s level paranoia about their growing population & reliability. Indeed the vast bulk of people in the U.S.S.R wanted to see the Union survive and were tolerant or passively accepting of the regime itself So it wasnt like the late Soviet Union was a great bubbling well of dissent & rebellion.

 

[Killer300]

The problem is that while the cliques maybe had shared interests, that's like saying oppositional parties have similar interests. While technically true, it ignores nuances that gum up reform attempts.

With that, for this to work, the USSR, if successful, will probably screw over Communist China. Both can't successfully liberalize, only one, as in the process of liberalizing, the other will get focused on for destruction by conservatives and anti-communists in general, which locks it out.

 

[RousseauX]

The Central Asians were actually surprisingly loyal to the Union, which is ironic given Moscow’s level paranoia about their growing population & reliability. Indeed the vast bulk of people in the U.S.S.R wanted to see the Union survive and were tolerant or passively accepting of the regime itself So it wasnt like the late Soviet Union was a great bubbling well of dissent & rebellion.

The part about Moscow's attitude is the issue. Since the Soviet Union was actually a really racist place against everyone who isn't Russian or at least Slavic. The Soviet military for instance had entire units where the grunts were Central Asians and the officers were all Slavic. The Soviet leadership were indeed quite worried about the relatively declining Slavic population relative to the Muslims and talked about having to shift Russians out of the army into industry or vice-versa (since it's predicted they will only have enough for one of them).

To use Central Asia as a cheap labour force the USSR probably has to import labour into Russia/Ukraine proper, and they might simply be unwilling to do that, or at least cause severe racial tensions if they do.

 

[Killer300]

This all goes back to demographics, in some ways. If you make it where the USSR doesn't have such a massive demographic population problem from WW2, you won't see the demographic imbalance, and from that, perhaps less racism. Additionally, you would have much better industrial efficiency from less labor issues.

 

[Incognito]

The part about Moscow's attitude is the issue. Since the Soviet Union was actually a really racist place against everyone who isn't Russian or at least Slavic. The Soviet military for instance had entire units where the grunts were Central Asians and the officers were all Slavic. The Soviet leadership were indeed quite worried about the relatively declining Slavic population relative to the Muslims and talked about having to shift Russians out of the army into industry or vice-versa (since it's predicted they will only have enough for one of them).

To use Central Asia as a cheap labour force the USSR probably has to import labour into Russia/Ukraine proper, and they might simply be unwilling to do that, or at least cause severe racial tensions if they do.

Source? It is modern Russia, not U.S.S.R., where neo-Nazi gangs attack brown-skinned people.

 

[EternalCynic]

Would it have been possible for the Central Asian SSRs to "secede" from the Union to form a "Turkestan Democratic Republic" to ensure Central Asia is under a Soviet puppet regime while avoiding the demographic problems the Kremlin was worried about?

And besides it's not just the USSR itself which could have liberalized. East Germany seriously tried to create an IT research hub. Hungary was already very liberal be Soviet standards and could have further permitted foreign investment. Maybe the Polish leadership could have reacted to Solidarity by opening up the economy. And so forth. By the present day, the (former?) Soviet bloc in Central Europe would be like soft-authoritarian Singapore. The Soviet Union would be like China, a dictatorship which is content with pluralism so long as it doesn't threaten the Party's rule.

 

[RousseauX]

Source? It is modern Russia, not U.S.S.R., where neo-Nazi gangs attack brown-skinned people.

Paul Kennedy's rise and fall of the Great power's section on 1980s USSR

But yeah, modern Russia is worse

 

[Killer300]

Okay, the thread has served its main purpose already I see. Namely?

In the future, when people want to liberalize the Soviet Union, they should at least take care for the initial conditions being radically different than China, impacting how it might occur.

 

[Urban fox]

The part about Moscow's attitude is the issue. Since the Soviet Union was actually a really racist place against everyone who isn't Russian or at least Slavic. The Soviet military for instance had entire units where the grunts were Central Asians and the officers were all Slavic. The Soviet leadership were indeed quite worried about the relatively declining Slavic population relative to the Muslims and talked about having to shift Russians out of the army into industry or vice-versa (since it's predicted they will only have enough for one of them).

To use Central Asia as a cheap labour force the USSR probably has to import labour into Russia/Ukraine proper, and they might simply be unwilling to do that, or at least cause severe racial tensions if they do.

Eh? As far as racism went the U.S.S.R really wasnt that bad, or at least not worse than many European nations at the time. As for the racism against non-Slavic peoples. It was rather variable & fluid, with changes over time.

As for importing labour, modern Russia as done so on a large scale and the U.S.S.R was no stranger to moving whole populations around if need be...

This all goes back to demographics, in some ways. If you make it where the USSR doesn't have such a massive demographic population problem from WW2, you won't see the demographic imbalance, and from that, perhaps less racism. Additionally, you would have much better industrial efficiency from less labor issues.

Having massive losses in WW2 wasnt a major issue by 1980 in 1950 yes, in 1980 no. After all the U.S.S.R had rebuilt and the major losers were in Belarus, Ukraine & the Baltic States and less Russia itself.

Another thing is by that argument Germany & France should be doomed too because of their losses in WW1 & 2.

 

[RGB]

To use Central Asia as a cheap labour force the USSR probably has to import labour into Russia/Ukraine proper, and they might simply be unwilling to do that, or at least cause severe racial tensions if they do.

...and then your conception runs into the problem where Slavic/German factory workers were being imported into the 'stans to the very last.

Central Asia did not have a ready pool of qualified-enough workers to exploit, and I bet anything the layers of local governments would resist the undermining of their status quite strongly. It would be hard to move the Uzbeks to Ukraine, not primarily because the Ukrainians would be racist (as an example), but because there would be a lot of objection from among the part members using Uzbekistan as the avenue for their careers.

They would probably end up building factories in Tashkent instead, as usual, and then having to staff them with people from outside Central Asia.

 

[Killer300]

Ah, interesting.

Also, yes, those demographic issues were still causing problems today, much less in the 1980s.

With all this in mind, hopefully this thread will get someone to write a timeline that does this properly.

 

[JimTheB]

Continue the NEP, and don't try to recapture every single part of the czarist empire in one go. Foment revolution in Germany. Co-ops rather than collectives. Read your Marx properly - socialism is but a transitional stage on the way to communism, which is a process rather than a product itself. Easy when you know how, innit?

 

[Killer300]

Okay, that POD is just a tad bit far back for this thread. PODs before WW2 change history just a tad much, to say the least.