What if Gorbachev's reforms had succeeded?

Yes, his reforms were incredibly unlikely to succeed, but what if they somehow had, and a reformed Soviet Union continued to exist to the present day?
 
He needed to ditch the political liberalizations. The USSR was different from China in that it consisted of a ton of slave states of non-Russian people. The residents of those areas were never going to be interested in staying with the country; all liberalizing did was give them room to aggressively press for independence (not that I think that was a bad thing).

If he wanted to save the Soviet Union he should have just focused on reforming Soviet agriculture in the Chinese manner and opening up a degree of private industry everywhere else. That would at least have delivered the growth that the stagnant country desperately needed.
 
He needed to ditch the political liberalizations. The USSR was different from China in that it consisted of a ton of slave states of non-Russian people. The residents of those areas were never going to be interested in staying with the country; all liberalizing did was give them room to aggressively press for independence (not that I think that was a bad thing).

If he wanted to save the Soviet Union he should have just focused on reforming Soviet agriculture in the Chinese manner and opening up a degree of private industry everywhere else. That would at least have delivered the growth that the stagnant country desperately needed.

Agreed. The Soviet Union still couldn't feed itself (in 1991!)
In fact, the only thing that seemed to work at least nominally was the party's political control mechanisms.Changing that while trying to open up the economy was just asking for an implosion.
 
Agreed. The Soviet Union still couldn't feed itself (in 1991!)
In fact, the only thing that seemed to work at least nominally was the party's political control mechanisms.Changing that while trying to open up the economy was just asking for an implosion.

They were actually headed for starvation as it was. It's a math problem. You can't have your economy remain completely stagnant for decades while spending in excess of 20% of it on military stuff while still having enough resources left to feed your people.
 
They were actually headed for starvation as it was. It's a math problem. You can't have your economy remain completely stagnant for decades while spending in excess of 20% of it on military stuff while still having enough resources left to feed your people.

You could (and many have) write multiple dissertations on the fiscal buffoonery that was occuring in the Soviet Union during the Brezhnev to Gorbachev years.
The last chance at real positive reform ended with Khrushchev sadly.

But to the OPs question, had both Glasnost and Peristroka succeeded, we'd probably see a mirror (economically speaking) of the PRC in Russia, though the economy would be much less dynamic.
The outside satellites would still go as would the Baltics but Belarus and Ukraine have a chance of staying, especially if Gorbachev allows the latter to balkanize down the Eastern-Western cultural divide.
Once/If that happens, expect agriculture to go through a privatization-Renaissance with small farmers starting to produce for trade on the open market.

The question I have though would be about the effect this liberalization would
have global food and energy prices?

We might see grain completely collapse in value given the incomming suplus-glut, which actually might toss the liberalizing Soviet economy into a massive recession right out of the gate.
In addition, oil, which was going through its own global glut around this time wouldnt be a saving grace either. And then of course there's the big "what if" regarding the large amounts of de-mobilized soldiers coming back to their home towns and cities. What jobs would they have in a stagnate economy?
Russia may have been doomed from the start.
 
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You could (and many have) write multiple dissertations on the fiscal buffoonery that was occuring in the Soviet Union during the Brezhnev to Gorbachev years.
The last chance at real positive reform ended with Khrushchev sadly.

It's real lucky that Gorbachev was in charge when crunch time came instead of anyone else (say Grigory Romanov or Viktor Grishin). If any of the geriatrics who ruled the USSR in the early to mid-1980s had died earlier than they did (an example could be Chernenko dying of one of his infinite health issues a year and a half earlier than OTL right before Andropov) and the world has a real problem. The USSR wasn't ready for Gorbachev at that point (it was the death of the third elderly general secretary in a few years that convinced them they needed someone younger). If that happens, a hardliner ends up in charge. At that point, war seems pretty probable. We know the USSR was actively considering preemptive nuclear war with the West (especially during Able Archer) at that point. Anybody who will consider that will do anything.
 
Well it basically requires the USSR to get its loans at the G8 summit.
People like Thatcher and Reagan bluffed demanding the USSR to go through shock theraphy to get the loans in the hopes that it would cripple the state. Their bluff worked in the end. So you require less staunch anti-communists around the table there or more competent diplomacy from the Soviets.
 
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