Tienanmen Red Square...

MacCaulay

Banned
...just a thought I had. When the Chinese changed horses and cracked down hard on the protestors, the world looked away. Times were changing, but it could be said that perhaps people didn't want them to change as quickly as they were.

What if the Soviet military had cracked down hard on the protests that would be the undoing of the country? There were still troops (lots) loyal to the state even after it ceased to exist. One could even say that for many governments a continuing USSR would be preferable to an unknown entity/entities popping up in it's aftermath. Any number of nightmare scenarios (loose nuclear weapons, rogue commanders) could be imagined by the administrations of West Germany, France, Britain, and the US and perhaps the best option in the case of a crackdown would be to shake one fist in righteous indignation while using the other hand to wipe their brows at the lucky break the Soviet military had given them.

This isn't just about the immediate effects of a continuing USSR, of course. When the Tienanmen Square Massacre happened, the world very conspicuously began it's first foray into a new world of moral gray areas: one where we hedged our bets against our consciences and hoped we wouldn't pile up too many regrets.

But how many regrets would there be after a Soviet crackdown in 1991 or 1989?
 
Propaganda coup for the west of course. A major re-evaluation of their stance on Gorbachev as well. For the USSR who knows, further repression would definately be necessary to reinforce the status quo, especially with the increased liberation Soviet citizens had enjoyed. And how long could it survive when they openly murdered their own countrymen?
 
They survived for 73 years by murdering millions of their countrymen so that wouldn't be a problem. As the OP has pointed out there were plenty of troops loyal enough and the regime, like in China, commanded if not the support, then the acquiescence of the majority of the population.
 
I once had a professor who suggested that china was willing to "pull a tiananmen" if you will, because it had watched all of the former communist regimes fall and knew it had to react strongly if they wanted to stay in power.

Maybe if China/North Korea maybe even Vietnam had all collapsed before the USSR, the Soviet leadership (you would probably have to have someone other Gorby for this to be practical) would have been more concerned about the consequences of not cracking down and reacted more harshly.
 

Thande

Donor
Makes a big difference if it happens in 1989 or in 1991. The fate of Eastern Europe could depend on it.
 
Indeed. I have to say a major crackdown in 1989 might forestall the events that lead to the U.S.S.R crumbling to begin with.Romania might still implode through the regime there had broken with the U.S.S.R decades ago but was much worse than all the other Eastern Bloc regimes by far. A relocation there could still happen or even a border war with Hungary.

If the CPSU clamps down the U.S.S.R survives, the events that caused it to fall were highly unlikely and had to happen in the order they did to push it over the edge. Drastic economic reform is still needed as Goby screwed it up via weak contradictory polices & trying to appease all factions in the CPSU at the same time. So a successful crackdown also implies more decisive leadership and a chance for coherent polices.

That could be good for Russia as none of the SSR's aside from the Baltics Benefited from the end of the Union and most were deeply harmed by it. Turkmenistan is the poster child for the ‘’it got worse trope to say nothing of Russia itself under Yeltsin’’.:(
 

Cook

Banned
...just a thought I had. When the Chinese changed horses and cracked down hard on the protestors, the world looked away…

Bob Hawke gave all Chinese students then in Australia permanent residency if they wanted it, and vocally condemned the Chinese Government's actions, so not a total case of looking away

Not sure what you would want international leaders of the time to do?

I think most people in the west expected a Soviet crackdown instead of a Soviet Collapse.

By the way, Hawke ended up working for the Chinese Government so go figure.
 
Hmmm... issues
1. The Soviet Union didn't have one big protest, it had lots of smaller protests, so harder to put a stop to the problem with one move.
2. Often the protests were in non-Russian republics, which is a different kettle of fish to putting down purely political dissent.
3. The Chinese only had 'one' protest because they had run a tight ship to start with, and when the Tiananmen thing started up, most regional party/state groupings apart from Beijing stopped it before the mass protest stage.
4. The grievances of the Soviet population were in some respects deeper. The CCP could at least point to economic development, and future prospects. The Soviets could at best promise to try and do better next time.
5. Following from this, even if the Soviets successfully cracked down once, without material improvement they would have to keep doing it.
6. The PLA and the Soviet Army were different in character. The PLA was at that stage was still highly politicised, and during the Cultural Revolution had even demonstrated that it could and would act to put down 'chaos' and run the country if the party/state couldn't. The Soviet Army in the meantime had become more professional and focused on fighting wars. While some formations might have fought, many would not. Consider the military response to Yeltsin's white house stand in 1991, where even elite units were refusing to put down what had become a mass protest. This actually raises the spectre of civil war.

Stopping the fall of the Soviet regime requires an earlier POD, and probably one that targets policy first, rather than action.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Hmmm... issues
1. The Soviet Union didn't have one big protest, it had lots of smaller protests, so harder to put a stop to the problem with one move.
2. Often the protests were in non-Russian republics, which is a different kettle of fish to putting down purely political dissent.

I'm not sure how the invasion of Czechoslovakia jibes with that, or the attempted Soviet call up of reservists to invade Poland in 1981. I think the Soviets were repeatedly very willing to use military force against protests. And if anything, 1989 and/or 1991 were more suitable times than any.

Now...using military force against their own government isn't something they seem willing to do. Politics and the Russian Army by Brian Taylor talks about how there does seem to be a general willingness on the part of the Soviet/Russian military to defend the government, no matter what that government is. There have been notable times where this wasn't the case, but by and large the military seems to do what the government says.
 

Cook

Banned
Anyone else remember watching Yeltsin climbing on that tank?

Did anyone else expect him to be shot instead of the tankie to shake hands with him?
 
I'm not sure how the invasion of Czechoslovakia jibes with that, or the attempted Soviet call up of reservists to invade Poland in 1981.
Czechoslovakia had the veneer of legitimacy because some Stalinist types invited the Soviets to intervene. After the reformer Dubcek, Husak was installed and what did he do? He purged the party etc. but he also had to make good with material improvements in the standard of living. By the late 1980s/early 1990s it is basically too late for the Soviet party/state to use this strategy, they don't have the resources and there isn't much good will left amongst the populous.

Poland didn't require intervention because Jarulzelski did a good enough job with his own guys. There will not be a 'Ukranian' army to help out the Soviets to put down unrest there. That many of the people in the Ukranian party apparatus were probably sympathetic to the nationalists would not have helped much. In some respects Soviet nationalism would be the worst of both worlds here, as it creates a sense of unity (sort of "we are all much the same") but with enough of a sense of otherness ("they are Georgians after all...") that would legitimise for any intervention force the idea that a crackdown was too much.

I think the Soviets were repeatedly very willing to use military force against protests. And if anything, 1989 and/or 1991 were more suitable times than any.
Yet the military was quite unwilling to use force against Yeltsin and his supporters, despite the (admittedly ineffective) coup by the Gang of Eight.

Also even in the earliest, bloodthirstiest periods of Soviet rule, there were limits to the ability to use the army to put down dissent. Both War Communism and the worst excesses of collectivisation were stopped essentially because the army could not manage against a mass revolt. By 1989/1991 the scale and geographic spread of protests would have a very similar effect. The Soviet military would be hard pressed to stop revolts breaking out similtaneously is say, Lithuania, Georgia and the Central Asian republics.

While I think of it, the last gasp of the Yugoslavian party/military against Slovenia in the early 90s might be a good counter example. While the die-hards in the party wanted the military, a largely conscript affair, to stop Slovenia from succeeding, it didn't really fly with anyone else. The troops didn't have the morale (because they had no stake in the fight, and didn't want to die for it), and in the background other nationalists took the opportunity to dismantle the state appartus. Western pressure also served to limit the war if not end it directly. Thus by the end of that rather short conflict, Croatia had declared independence (I think Boznia-Herzegovina too), and Serbia-Montenegro had borrowed what was left of the 'Yugoslav' apparatus for their own designs. So in this case, military force actually finished off the system, rather than saved it.
 
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