Soviet Union abandons communism in the 1990s

I know, that sounds crazy right? Well remember this was attempted by Mikhail Gorbachev to turn the USSR into a modern state that had democratic values, free speech, a capitalist system (of a certain degree, it's hard to imagine them going full American-style for this), and an opening up to the world at large for trade and travel. This idea was proposed as the "Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics", and the movement was known as the "Perestroika". However, this failed in the wake of the August Coup in August 1991, and instead the USSR itself dissolved on December 26 of that year. I heard they were on the verge of succeeding until said Coup which destabilized things so much that there was no hope to keeping the USSR together. So I guess the POD here is that the August Coup was prevented or better suppressed. As such, the USSR becomes a sovereign nation like Gorbachev intended.

One of the things to consider is that the USSR consisted of "Republics", as in plural, kind of like the States of the United States. It wasn't just Russia (but they were the boss nation, no doubt), and one may be surprised to learn how diverse the USSR was with East Slavic, Northern European, Persian, Turkic, and West Asian representation (among notable minorities), and over 20 spoken languages. As a whole, the 15 Republics consisted of:
  1. Armenia
  2. Azerbaijan
  3. Belarus
  4. Estonia
  5. Georgia
  6. Kazakhstan
  7. Kyrgyzstan
  8. Latvia
  9. Lithuania
  10. Moldova
  11. Russia
  12. Tajikistan
  13. Turkmenistan
  14. Ukraine
  15. Uzbekistan
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So thinking of this sovereign nation that's now more democratic is quite a thing to consider, seeing as how you could draw very direct parallels to being this Eurasian counterpart to the United States, and indeed, that's what would happen. In keeping with that idea, I'm guessing the government would be decentralized so that each Republic governs itself but is part of a larger union with Moscow being like the USSR's Washington D.C.. While the Cold War itself may end here, I imagine some kind of international rivalry with the US would still continue that spawns from it, which would be reflected in sports and industry development. That doesn't disappear overnight.

While this all sounds rosy, I'll admit I don't imagine this being a particularly smooth process that goes without a hitch, I mean it failed in our timeline and even in a timeline where it succeeded it would struggle just by nature. You would definitely see criminal organizations form in Russia (you know, Mafiya and all) that would have a wide reach in a nation as large and varied as the USSR. Furthermore, considering just how divorced from the western world the USSR had been for decades, I don't see everyone just welcoming them in with open arms, but would still treat them with caution. Even today, Russia is "on the outs" with European culture and that's due to the USSR. Now imagine a world where the USSR still exists in this form?

Anyways, what do you think would happen in a world where the USSR continued but abandoned communism to become democratic?
 
Is this meant to be a DBWI (double blind what if)? Cause if it is, it'd be useful/helpful to know that info and put it in the thread title.
 
It seems like the biggest problem internally is that Russia straight up dominates the other Soviet Sovereign Republics in terms of population and economic power. In any kind of national assembly, it'd take a combination of the delegates of every other republic combined to vote down a Russian-backed bill by the very thinnest of margins.

OTL the Baltic nations basically packing up and doing their own thing is how the USSR started to terminally unravel. It seems very hard to envision a form of government which is sufficiently democratic that the Russians are not functionally disenfranchised, while also giving the Baltic republics and other smaller countries the political clout to think staying in is worth their while.
 

GeographyDude

Gone Fishin'
. . into a modern state that had democratic values, free speech, a capitalist system (of a certain degree, it's hard to imagine them going full American-style for this), . .
Asking the Russians to ape their former rival and adversary may be a tall order.

What if instead the Soviets become impressed by the Asia Tiger model? These are mixed systems, although very much on the capitalist side. And these countries can and do maintain authoritarian aspects, at times.

And instead of a big, wrenching all-at-once change, the Soviets do this in a series of medium steps? Slowing and stopping when they’re still somewhat authoritarian.

If they get started in ‘89 or ‘90, might even beat China to the punch. ;)

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PS I’m not saying China won’t loosen up further. As they continue to develop a bigger middle class, they probably will.
 
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Adam Ulam wrote in Understanding the Cold War: A Historian's Personal Reflections, "One must agree with the hapless [August] conspirators on one thing: there was no earthly chance that the proposed new constitution could hold the country together. It was at once vague and too specific, vague in delineating the authority of the center, but very specific in granting constituent units powers amounting to virtual independence." https://books.google.com/books?id=wgtCaPUPIlwC&pg=PA354
 
There were attempts at this, mostly by the Central Asian states aligned with Russian hardliners (the first did not want to lose all of the investment they got from USSR membership, the latter because their world was collapsing). The CIS, CSTO, Union State, Eurasian Union, all of these were attempts to further cooperation and integration amongst former Soviet Republics of economic and defense matters. And it has led basically nowhere, for a reason. The only people who want actual political map related changes are ethnic Russians stranded outside the borders of Russia after the fall of the USSR.

The Baltic states wanted no part of it, the Central Asian states & Belarus quickly became autocracies run by people who had far more to gain from being independent but geopolitically subservient than from being akin to an Oblast Governor in Russia. The other former Soviet Republics in the Caucasus quickly went about engaging in ethnic conflicts that persist today.

The incentives just aren't there. The USSR also had its form of government as a distinctly Soviet form of government, which justified the centralization of the state and the state's control over industry as a fact of life. Even if the people who run it aren't Communists of the Marxist-Leninist variety, that fact still exists.
 
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