USSR survives

I was talking to my dad the other day and asked him " what if the Soviet Union still existed?" he simply replied "almost nothing would be different"


I thought about it for awhile and now posted this on here, How would things be different if the USSR was still here?

Iraq War, 9/11 attack, and terrorism in neighboring countries such as Afganistan and Iran

(i dont care how they survive, they just do)
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I think it would be different mostly because socialism/communism would not have become as discredited as it is IOTL.

(By the way, thank you for using the correct "USSR" rather than the incorrect but so-often-used "SU". )
 
What if it survived, but in a "reformed" state like Gorbachev was trying for? Communism would still be largely discredited, but the USSR remained?

If it wasn't butterflied away, the USA would have had a much harder time getting basing rights in the USSR during the Iraq war, at least.

(And what's wrong with SU? It's the ISO 3166 standard two letter code for the USSR. :))
 
What if it survived, but in a "reformed" state like Gorbachev was trying for? Communism would still be largely discredited, but the USSR remained?
Problem was, the kind of "reform" Gorbachev was going for involved allowing free discussion of, and admitting to, problems caused by the government - once the people became aware of just how incompetent their government was, it was only a matter of time.

What we need is for the USSR to do a China, the sooner the better (in, say, the mid-60s is probably plausible, assuming a Khruschev-like liberaliser can take over, rather than Brezhnev)
...
(And what's wrong with SU? It's the ISO 3166 standard two letter code for the USSR. :))
Exactly.

And has nobody ever thought these two things odd?
a) SU is the reverse - or opposite - of US.
b) the same abbreviation is used for "Student's Union".

:eek:


;)
 
Problem was, the kind of "reform" Gorbachev was going for involved allowing free discussion of, and admitting to, problems caused by the government - once the people became aware of just how incompetent their government was, it was only a matter of time.
Everyone knew how incompetent the Soviet Union was. Within their culture was rife with black humor and cynicism. No one believed in communism, everyone just pretended.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Everyone knew how incompetent the Soviet Union was. Within their culture was rife with black humor and cynicism. No one believed in communism, everyone just pretended.

That's rewriting history from a modern perspective in which we know communism failed. Had the USSR survived, however, we would see things in a very different light.
 
I think a hardliner (Brehznev type, say) could keep an (admitidly decrepit) USSR a going concern at least into the mid-1990s. Maybe Chernenko lives long enough to groom a successor (the hardliners lost a fair bit of power when three of their leaders keeled over in three years). Gorbachev's reforms were a good idea for easing the USSR into the modern world, but not as good for holding it together. The USSR under hardline rule would have fallen farther behind the West, especially as computers become more influential, but it could have survived for some time.
 
Problem was, the kind of "reform" Gorbachev was going for involved allowing free discussion of, and admitting to, problems caused by the government - once the people became aware of just how incompetent their government was, it was only a matter of time.
But could that matter of time still be ongoing? (As Atreus said.) I suspect it could given the right administrators...

Great ghost of Lenin, the Student's Unions are plotting to recreate the USSR! It all makes sense now.

If a ruler of the USSR saw the writing on the wall but had time, he could create a situation much more favorable to Russia after it fell. Parts of the Russian SSR transfered to other SSRs could be transfered back, the secession in Georgia (which was ongoing at the time) could have been made official... nukes could have been concentrated in Russian hands ahead of time. That's getting off topic, though.
 
I made one if these topics awhile back, but nobody seemed to be interested.

My idea was that a Gorbachev figure takes power after Khrushchev and starts a slow process of reforms. This would avoid the Brezhnev stagnation and perhaps make relations with the West better. Then you'd have a still-existent USSR in a West-dominated world, probably not as powerful though.

Or if you want an uber USSR, we could have the USA undergo some serious economic sh*t, lose the Cuban Missile crisis, have Latin America turn communist, have the USSR keep its allies, and put the West in the same position that the USSR was in in real life for most of the cold war.

I'm not going into details, I know, but maybe the above could work.
 

Neroon

Banned
I think a less successful version of todays PRC would be possible. Letting it's "allies" go in exchange for a guarantee of not joining the NATO before it was too late would have been a good start IMO. Would have made holding on to other restless minorities easier.
An earlier, but slower version of what Gorbachov did/wanted.

I think any discussions about the WoT are moot regarding this. With a surviving USSR - with a military which on paper probably looks far stronger than it really is - the Muslim world would never have risked alienating the USA like in OTL. Afganistan harbouring Osama Bin with the Soviets next door would require ASBs IMO.
 
Everyone knew how incompetent the Soviet Union was. Within their culture was rife with black humor and cynicism. No one believed in communism, everyone just pretended.

Oh, I realise that... everyone knew how bad things were locally. i.e. they knew their local hospital, for instance, was... but tended to believe this was a local difficulty, thanks to all the propaganda.

It was when people learned that things were bad all over that they felt truly cheated.
 
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