Reverse the outcome of the USSR and the PRC

So, what would be neccessary to make China collapse like the USSR did in OTL into many democratic states and have the USSR stay together and adopt reforms and open up to the west and capitalism.

What would be the result?
Would parts of eastern Europe remain Communist?
Would east asia (Laos, North Korea, Veitnam) remain communist until the present day?
Would parts of Africa remain Communist?
How would the world feel toward Communistsm in general?
What Chinese states could arise? (I could see a larger Mongolia, and independent manchuria, an independed taiwan, Independent Xinjiang, Independent Tibet, and a few other)
Where is my latte?
 
So, what would be neccessary to make China collapse like the USSR did in OTL into many democratic states
Successful Tien-An-Men, 1989.

and have the USSR stay together
Cirrosis cripple Eltsin and a Russian Communist Party is not formed.
Also, the East Germany minster does not make the "ab sofort" gaffe and the berlin wall does not crumble in 1989

Would parts of eastern Europe remain Communist?
probably

Would east asia (Laos, North Korea, Veitnam) remain communist until the present day?
Would parts of Africa remain Communist?
no

Where is my latte?
can't help you there
 
Well, for a USSR that more or less stays together, just let the New Union Treaty work its course (though with a better name than Union of Sovereign States, IMO - how about the CIS name?) and have the August Coup avoided altogether. The only exceptions to this are going to be those who decided not to participate - Moldavia, Georgia, Armenia, and the Baltic States. Having said that, there is a possibility that Georgia and Armenia could have changed their minds as the POD - in OTL, Moldavia, Georgia, and Armenia did form the CIS, so there is some precedent.
 
Well, for a USSR that more or less stays together, just let the New Union Treaty work its course (though with a better name than Union of Sovereign States, IMO - how about the CIS name?) and have the August Coup avoided altogether. The only exceptions to this are going to be those who decided not to participate - Moldavia, Georgia, Armenia, and the Baltic States. Having said that, there is a possibility that Georgia and Armenia could have changed their minds as the POD - in OTL, Moldavia, Georgia, and Armenia did form the CIS, so there is some precedent.

What of China? What different states do you think they could break up into?
 
The easy part here is keeping the USSR together. Just have Gorbechev or someone with similar policies enact those reforms in the 1970s.

The real problem is breaking up China into various pieces. You can head off the Chinese opening by having a hardline Maoist taking power after Mao dies instead of Deng. You can break off bits like Tibet or Xinjiang successfully, but that still doesn't change the fact that China is 95% Han. There aren't huge ethnic minorities with long national histories, like the Ukrainians or Baltic peoples or Georgians. The only way to divide Han China is by ideology. I could see China in four pieces: Communist remnant North China, capitalist South China, Tibet, and Turkestan. That won't be stable, especially since this kind of partition could only come about due to a very bloody collapse and civil war. Not a pleasant prospect in a nuclear-armed country.
 
The easy part here is keeping the USSR together. Just have Gorbechev or someone with similar policies enact those reforms in the 1970s.

The real problem is breaking up China into various pieces. You can head off the Chinese opening by having a hardline Maoist taking power after Mao dies instead of Deng. You can break off bits like Tibet or Xinjiang successfully, but that still doesn't change the fact that China is 95% Han. There aren't huge ethnic minorities with long national histories, like the Ukrainians or Baltic peoples or Georgians. The only way to divide Han China is by ideology. I could see China in four pieces: Communist remnant North China, capitalist South China, Tibet, and Turkestan. That won't be stable, especially since this kind of partition could only come about due to a very bloody collapse and civil war. Not a pleasant prospect in a nuclear-armed country.

what of inner mongolia? would they merge with mongolia?
 
Inner Mongolia is now 80%+ majority Han had was majority Han before the Revolution so barring some serious ethnic cleansing you can forget that.
 
Inner Mongolia is now 80%+ majority Han had was majority Han before the Revolution so barring some serious ethnic cleansing you can forget that.

Now is that dispersed about the territory or are the Mongolians concentralted on the border?
 

loughery111

Banned
The best options I can see are:

USSR:
1. No August Coup leads to the formation of the USS or whatever you want to call it, encompassing the old union except for the Baltics, Georgia, and probably Armenia and Moldova. It gradually liberalizes between 1991-2 and 1998 (none of this shock therapy crap), and adopts similar economic policies to the PRC IOTL, keeping the energy industry nationalized to allow it to target the revenues into infrastructure development much as the CCP has poured its trade surpluses back into physical infrastructure. Russia here would have a heck of an advantage because its educational establishment has been mostly functional since Stalin's death, and before in some ways.
2. Much less likely, but if the PRC goes batshit nuts after Mao kicks it (I'll get to how and the effects on China below) it is entirely possible that the US and the USSR are going to find themselves forced to cooperate in restraining it. With there being no overriding reason for the Détente period to end, it's likely that the Soviets would gradually reform over the course of the 1980's and early '90's, rather than being out-competed on every level by the West during the same period.

For China:
1. See batshit insanity above... basically Mao's wackjob of a wife and his more ridiculous supporters manage to get into power following his death, marginalizing or even purging Deng and the moderates. It seems likely that, to distract from the absolute failure that their economic policies would engender, they'd turn the OTL Sino-Vietnamese war into complete insanity, a Vietnam War for the Chinese. Chaos ensues when the Chinese economy tanks so far that even the war can't distract people, and when the southern generals (seeking to avoid some major purging for their "failure" in Vietnam) are pretty much like "screw this." I could almost envision them moving their commands back into the PRC and revolting openly. Really, really low-order probability series of events though. I'm sure someone can come up with a better POD to provoke a new Chinese civil war.
 
Why do we have to waitto the 1980's and the new union treaty? By that time things had really went downhill. A POD with reforms taking place in the 1960's,and avoiding the useless twit Brezhnev's would be much better.
 
The real problem is breaking up China into various pieces. You can head off the Chinese opening by having a hardline Maoist taking power after Mao dies instead of Deng. You can break off bits like Tibet or Xinjiang successfully, but that still doesn't change the fact that China is 95% Han. There aren't huge ethnic minorities with long national histories, like the Ukrainians or Baltic peoples or Georgians. The only way to divide Han China is by ideology. I could see China in four pieces: Communist remnant North China, capitalist South China, Tibet, and Turkestan. That won't be stable, especially since this kind of partition could only come about due to a very bloody collapse and civil war. Not a pleasant prospect in a nuclear-armed country.

Ok... So if China balkanises, who the hell is going to get that permanent seat on the UNSC?
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Ok... So if China balkanises, who the hell is going to get that permanent seat on the UNSC?

Depends on either the politics or which country keeps Beijing (probably the mandarin-majority provinces as a single country or two; maybe a GMD/CPC split between two mandarin-majority countries, one holds manchuria, the other the northern provinces)... IMO it's honestly rather hard to bring the PRC down unless it's only a part of China and if you only have a China that's China proper (even maybe minus Guangxi, Yunnan and Qinghao), you still have an enormous country and one that is now without some of its poorer regions :p
I mean I know technically they're all han but some warlords and a bit of propaganda could probably lead to situations like Austria-Germany, Portugal-Spain or disunited Scandinavia :p
 
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