WI Brezhnev dead 1976

In 1976 Leonid Brezhnev, leader of th Soviet Union, suffered a serious stroke which some claim left him clinically dead until his full death in 1982.

Let us say that the stroke kills him completely. What are the consequences?
 
Well, much depends on who succeeds him, no?

IMS Andropov was already a major power by the late 1970s, but IDK if he was ready to make his move in 1976.

I /don't/ think this leads to a much earlier breakup of the USSR -- IMO this came OTL about as early as it could have. It was driven primarily by internal forces (nationalism, economic stagnation, the decline of Communism as an ideology) that took a good long time to mature.

That said, a different leader could lead to a very different outcome. Some of the dumber decisions of the late Brezhnev years could have been avoided. In foreign policy, the pointless confrontation over medium-range missiles, and of course the invasion of Afghanistan. (Getting rid of that probably gives the USSR another couple of years of life right there.) Internally, the rampant corruption probably can't be stopped, but it can perhaps be slowed down a bit.

It's a good POD; I wish we had more Sovietologists around to do something with it.


Doug M.
 
If Brezhnev had died in 1976 instead of 1982 in OTL. We expect that USSR would not invade Afghanistan and economic stagnation would not be worse unlike in OTL and maybe USSR could recover from stagnation in 1982 in ATL.
 
Well, Afghanistan was like a man with alcoholism, diabetes and progressive heart disease suddenly sticking his hand into sharp rusty machinery, getting badly slashed, and developing a lingering septic infection as a result. It wasn't directly responsible for the man's death a few years later, but it certainly made his general health worse and probably shortened his life.

IOW, no Afghanistan is good for the USSR, but won't save it.

Note that, absent an Afghanistan, it's possible the alt-Soviet leadership might do something stupid elsewhere. OTL, having all those troops tied down in Afghanistan made them a bit more cautious otherwise.


Doug M.
 
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