WI Gorbachev's plane crashes after Reykjavik?

PoD: October 13, 1986

Mikhail Gorbachev, while on a plane flying back from his summit with Reagan in Reykjavik, dies (along with everyone on board) when his plane crashes while flying back to Moscow (assume it's an accident, a real one; it's not likely, but possible).

Effects, anyone?
 

Bomster

Banned
Well I don’t know much about this time period but I assume that Gorby’s death would throw the Soviets into a little bit of confusion, it could lead to Soviet hard-liners taking power and preventing the reforms that made the dissolution of the Union much smoother than it could have been.
 
Well I don’t know much about this time period but I assume that Gorby’s death would throw the Soviets into a little bit of confusion, it could lead to Soviet hard-liners taking power and preventing the reforms that made the dissolution of the Union much smoother than it could have been.
That is one possibility. On the other hand, perhaps this could lead to hardliners or reformers preventing the dissolution of the Soviet Union?
 

TheShekler

Banned
That is one possibility. On the other hand, perhaps this could lead to hardliners or reformers preventing the dissolution of the Soviet Union?

The soviet system was to far gone anyway at this point, realistically I can't see them making it to 2000. SU could make it to the mid 90's without reforms, but it would be time fraught with peril for the politburo.
 
The soviet system was to far gone anyway at this point, realistically I can't see them making it to 2000. SU could make it to the mid 90's without reforms, but it would be time fraught with peril for the politburo.

Gorbachev had already made significant reforms. If those reforms weren't burnt on the altar of political expediency during the power struggle, then having time to bed in likely means they start to pay off.

And since the PoD is before Gorbachev removed the structural support at the core of the soviet system, I think the system was definitely not too far gone to survive.

That is one possibility. On the other hand, perhaps this could lead to hardliners or reformers preventing the dissolution of the Soviet Union?

I reckon the "hardliner versus reformist" dichotomy is a false one. Everyone important in Soviet politics after 1985 thought reform was necessary, the arguments were about what kind of reforms to go for and how far to push certain lines of reform and whether those reforms would favour the economic interests of their allies.

fasquardon
 
Saving the Soviet Union is viable up until August 1991.

My immediate thought is that Gorbachev gets scapegoated for Chernobyl, so whomever takes over doesn't have that particular shitstain hanging over them.
 
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