WI: Post-Soviet States try to retain Communism

I was more referring to large, state owned enterprises. Obviously, there are no kulak exproporiations or things of that nature. I am interested to hear though that Russian gas companies aren't a big player. I had read previously that with all the European pipeline expansion, they were becoming gradually a bigger deal in Belarus because of hostility from the Baltic states. Could be wrong on that, though.
Oh no doubt it is an issue, but Belarus doesn't want to give it away the right of way for free and would like to keep gas prices cheap ay home.

This is why other routes are being proposed.

You also have to understand that said pipes would then have to go through Poland who also isn't the greatest of fans of Russia.

Russia might have the gas, but they really are not making friends with or with out it.
 
This was not true, however, for the Central Asian Republics, which got more resources put into them then they could put back in. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in particular were major beneficiaries. These, I believe, could be the best candidates for keeping Communism long term, albeit it would be really just a matter of resource protection under a Red Flag rather than an attempt to further Communism. Also, remember that the Central Asian Republics were big on the idea of the Commonwealth of Independent States and were always pushing a unity line during 1990-1991, and were the most anti-Yeltsin of the Soviet Republics.
Could there have been a Central Asian Union?
 
I meant as in like a country, like a rump USSR.
Well, as has been noted, there already is regional cooperation, but the truth of the matter is that those countries really have a lot less to offer each other than the USSR did, with its constant investment in the energy sectors of that region and what that provided. They were net beneficiaries of regional transfers of goods, services, and labor (although this last point has caused cultural issues for some time now).

A good parallel might be the reaction of New Mexico and Mississippi (two most dependent states) to the breakup of the United States, if it was precipated by a political crisis driven in part by Kansas and Delaware (the two least dependent states).

The reason why they clung so tightly to the CIS and were so angry particularly with the Estonians during the negotiations over reform of the powers of the Supreme Soviet and the Presidium during 1989-1990 is because ultimately, those in charge of the SSRs in the Central Asian countries is because the prospect of independence meant an end to consistent fixed investment, and internal conflict over resources and sources of legitimacy with growingly worrying Islamist factions.

And, it should be noted, I believe that Tajikistan maintained a Supreme Soviet as its legislature until 1994, which I believe might have been the longest of the successor states (Russia abandoned it in 1993 with the constitutional crisis).
 
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