What if Andropov lived longer?

Well, long story short, Andropov rose to some prominence after Stalin's purges, engaged in partisan activities in the war, was a KGB agent in Hungary up to and during the Hungarian revolution in 1956, and became head of the KGB in 1967.

As head of KGB, he was quite liberal, in that he allowed some dissidents to defect, and didn't so harshly punish others the number of people confined was also small by Soveit standards anyway.

He became General Secretary after Brezhnev died, and began fighting a war on the corruption within the old Brezhnev government.

While he maintained a similar foreign policy as his predecessors, he began looking for ways to improve the efficiency of the Soviet economy, which had begun lagging under Brezhnev. Mainly he looked for inefficiencies and laziness, including famous campaigns to drive people caught in movie theatres and other public places during the day (when they were supposed to be working). He also promoted an anti-alcohol campaign (which has and still does cause Russia much grief), though he never went so far as to ban it, as Gorbachev did.

He seemed a hardline liberal sort of character. He was strict, but not excessively mean (as the dissidents part shows). He wanted slow reform, not the "shock therapy" that Gorbachev had vied for. I wonder, just like many here wonder about what would happen if Lenin/Stalin had survived longer, what would happen if Andropov survived longer?


I personally believe, that, being tougher than Gorbachev, Andropov could have allowed for the continued existence of the USSR.
 
There would be more "Hand drop off" jokes around ?

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No, can't think of a serious answer, I just don't know enough

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

MrHola

Banned
If Andropov had lived he might likely have emulated Deng by slashing military spending as a percentage of GDP, and privatizing the Soviet economy, while keeping political repression intact. Unlike Gorbachev's failed policy of political reform but no economic reform, Andropov's policy of economic reform without political reform might have been as successful in the USSR as it was in the PRC.
 
If Andropov had lived he might likely have emulated Deng by slashing military spending as a percentage of GDP, and privatizing the Soviet economy, while keeping political repression intact. Unlike Gorbachev's failed policy of political reform but no economic reform, Andropov's policy of economic reform without political reform might have been as successful in the USSR as it was in the PRC.

Hmmmm the USSR wasnt China.

Andropov would most likely try to reform the currant system and increace efficiency rather than replace the Stalinist economic model.

Furthermore, the lack of political reforms ala glasnost attempting to turn the USSR into a social democracy would prevent nationalists, capitalists, liberals and anyone else seeking to take political power away from the CPSU from ever organizing effectively. This would mean, among other things, that there would be much less ethnic unrest, violence, and demands for independence on the scale seen in Gorbachev's time. Also, there would be no radical demands to reform the system along ideological lines away from Marxism-Leninism.

Overall, the big challenge for the leadership would have been to find a way to reform the economy on socialist lines, that fit current demands and conditions better than the Stalinist economic model, which had been designed for radical industrialization, and not for consumer production and high-tech specialization.

Plans for various problem areas did exist, small scale examples of success abounded in Eastern European countries and the USSR itself, and the USSR had trained some of the brightest and most creative scientists and mathematicians in human history. I'm sure that after a certain period of research these scientists would be able to find a way to peacefully and successfully shift Soviet economic production to a post-Stalinist model without compromising ideology.

 
There would be more "Hand drop off" jokes around ?

- - -

No, can't think of a serious answer, I just don't know enough

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

What jokes?

Oh,I just got it. Hilarious. ha. ha.
Almost as funny as the Chernobyl one (which only works if you pronounce it 'Cher-knob-ill'. I didn't know that when I first read it... anyway, I digress).

I'm going with the 'Andropov does a Deng' idea. Seems to make sense. Although might he have tried to liberalise politics just a little, claiming to 'go back to the true spirit of socialism', or some such thing? Or was that just not in his character?
 
Well Andropov was an interesting figure, in fact apart of economic reforms, he seems that projected some kind of internal democratic elections within the Communist Party of Soviet Union to permit choose the members between different candidates, this was a project to made possible more flexible and competitive process to elect politburo members, but we have not confuse this with the "democratic" elections of february 1989 in OTL Soviet Union, Andropov not want (or at least at the time of his death not want) a reform to made possible to the soviet people some kind of democratic elections to choose part of their representatives, his politic reform was only centered in internal elections within the communist party.

Respect to economic reforms we could say that more or less the purposes of Andropov in the economic would be more or less as the initial stage of the Gorbachev reforms (march 1987-spring 1987) when Gorbachev programme was centered only in trying to revitalize the soviet economy without unarthodox or radical market socialist measures.

In the international scenario, Andropov had as one of his principal policies to try to made an arrangement with China to made possible to until certain point resurrect the good relations between China and Soviet Union, we could think that Andropov had made an earlier operture than Gorbachev, instead of 1989 could be 1987, while in the relations with China Andropov had go far more fast in searching an arrangement than Gorbachev, surely we would see a tougher stance with Andropov than Gorbachev respect to USA, it is very possible than without some kind of concession about SDI Andropov had not signed the IRBM treaty of december 1987, so respect to USA we would have probably a continuation of the cold war.
 
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