WI: Gorbachev in '84? (Bonus, '82?)

I searched but couldn't find anything on here about Gorby coming to power in early 1984 immediately following Andropov (in the event that Chernenko pre-deceases him, which is plausible) as Andropov originally intended.

While not a massive shift this seems to me like it could cause a lot of butterflies.

What changes could we see if Gorbachev comes to power in early 1984?

As a bonus: Is it plausible and if so what are the effects if Gorbachev succeeds Brezhnev in late 1982? Assuming Andropov and Chernenko both die earlier than OTL?
 

Archibald

Banned
I'd vote for 1984. Gorbachev was Andropov protégé (as bizarre as it seems with perfect hindsight). Chernenko got the job only because of Brezhnev supporters in the Politburo that wanted to keep the statu quo for eternity.

Andropov (and much less Gorbachev) wasn't in a position to suceeded Brezhnev in November, 1982. It is really because Suslov death in January 1982 happened at the wrong time that Andropov could work his way to the leadership.
From memory it happened that way: Suslov (an old Stalinist dinosaur) was kind of guardian of the Soviet dogma, an important position for any future Soviet leader. Chernenko, a Brezhnev clone, was to get the job, but Andropov outsmarted him. When Brezhnev died in November, Andropov replaced him. Chernenko however got his revenge soon thereafter.

Make no mistake, Andropov was a miserable bastard and no reformist. What happened was that, as head of the KGB for the previous decade, he had seen the stagnation of the Brezhnev era to the point of collapsing the country.
Andropov goal was limited reforms just to repair Brezhnev corruption and stagnation. That's how he groomed Gorbachev.
Andropov however (as a former head of KGB) probably felt that Gorbachev was true reformist. His successors at the head of KGB - notably Kryuchkov - were given instructions to keep Gorbachev under control after Andropov death. And so they did. The 1991 coup did not happened in a vaccum. There were serious alerts as early as 1986-87 but Gorbachev ignored them.
 
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I mean, did Chernenko have any effect on the Soviet Union in any way whatsoever?

Well, he certainly delayed any constructive response to the Soviet dilemma.

Gorbachev coming to power earlier could well mean that the SU just falls earlier as well, of course.

Andropov however (as a former head of KGB) probably felt that Gorbachev was true reformist. His successors at the head of KGB - notably Kryuchkov - were given instructions to keep Gorbachev under control after Andropov death. And so they did. The 1991 coup did not happened in a vaccum. There were serious alerts as early as 1986-87 but Gorbachev ignored them.

There's no evidence before 1985 that Gorbachev was anything really unusual.

And what is your source for Kryuchkov being given instructions to keep Gorby under control? I am curious what his exact instructions would have been here...

fasquardon
 
https://books.google.fr/books?id=zQI5DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT234&dq="gorbachev""kryuchkov""andropov"&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjstcTs3IjXAhWKbFAKHZJLDtUQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q="gorbachev""kryuchkov""andropov"&f=false

Maybe I jumped to conclusions and perso nal bias, but the evidence is troubling. The way andropov and KGB worked, I can really see Andropov using Kryuchkov as an insurance against Gorbachev in the future. Kind of mole.

I am not seeing anything there which indicates Kryuchkov was specifically told to control Gorbachev. Indeed, it sounds like Kryuchkov was loyal until Gorbachev made him choose between loyalty to the leader and loyalty to the Party.

fasquardon
 
While the USSR might have been able to reform itself without falling apart by starting earlier, 1982 was unfortunately too late; if Gorbachev comes to power slighty earlier, that just (more or less) moves up the events of 1989-91... which actually does have intersting implications in its own right, depending on what you're doing with the US TTL.
 
The structural rot in place probably wasn't that much deeper in '86 than in '84.

The bigger question however has to be on the liberation movements in Eastern Europe. Those pressures were a bit more timeline focused and did intersect in many ways with Gorbachev's reforms. I think that you can make the case that the Soviet economy was going to drive the USSR into dissolution, but did that dissolution have to bring about the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe as well? Perhaps if there was liberalization and democratization of these countries in the late 80s rather than after a series of sometimes violent protests and attempts at repression, the Communist cause would have been seen as a force for stability and would have retained more popular support. As it stands, the only people who vote for Communist Parties in the old Eastern Bloc are old people who want their pensions. That didn't have to be the case.
 
The structural rot in place probably wasn't that much deeper in '86 than in '84.

I'm not so sure about the structural rot... The Soviets really were in a situation where every year of drift was burning vital political legitimacy.

The problem as I see it is that Gorbachev is Gorbachev, so the reform will be chaotic and ideologically incoherent. But even with all the damage Gorbachev did, even in 1991, the good he did probably outweighed the damage. So maybe starting 2 years earlier when the Soviets are a little stronger will mean that Gorby can get the new Union treaty through before the leaders of the Republics ripped the carpet from under the Soviet state.

The bigger question however has to be on the liberation movements in Eastern Europe. Those pressures were a bit more timeline focused and did intersect in many ways with Gorbachev's reforms. I think that you can make the case that the Soviet economy was going to drive the USSR into dissolution, but did that dissolution have to bring about the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe as well? Perhaps if there was liberalization and democratization of these countries in the late 80s rather than after a series of sometimes violent protests and attempts at repression, the Communist cause would have been seen as a force for stability and would have retained more popular support. As it stands, the only people who vote for Communist Parties in the old Eastern Bloc are old people who want their pensions. That didn't have to be the case.

I don't think that Eastern Europe can remain communist without the Soviet Union. As much as there were real Communists in E. Europe who really believed in their ideology and who really had significant power, the fall of the Soviet Union and its abandonment of them basically demoralized them. For the WarPac to survive without the Soviets you need someone with a very compelling ideological explanation why they should keep the faith and why the Soviet failure hasn't revealed a fatal flaw of the ideology itself.

Conversely, as long as the Soviets remain standing and they remain willing to send troops into E. Europe, then E. Europe's regimes can remain standing.

fasquardon
 
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