WI : USSR focuses more about the standard of living of it's citizens instead of the army

In this world , the soviets don't occupy eastern europe and instead leaves by 1948 , Let's say that after Breznev took control , he realises the problem in the soviet economy and instead of spending huge money on the red army , he actually focuses on making the standard of living of the citizens higher , since there's no warsaw pact in this ATL , could the USSR lived longer ? Could it still exist until today ?
 
It certainly has a better chance and its "anti-imperialist" rhetoric would have had more credibility with people like me. It is hard to take any "anti-imperialist" rhetoric seriously when you colonize half of Europe.
 
It certainly has a better chance and its "anti-imperialist" rhetoric would have had more credibility with people like me. It is hard to take any "anti-imperialist" rhetoric seriously when you colonize half of Europe.
But then again , Stalin was fascist imperialist communist guy it's hard to understand that fucker , the only "communist" in history who made a deal with fascists .
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
The Red Army's strength was what allowed their empire, which was really a large scale exercise in cronyist looting with an ideological facade, to exist.

As for the standard of living of citizens of the USSR, they certainly could have made things better even with the obvious failures of a command economy to predict consumer demand. That however would have required them to see citizens as people with individual wants and needs that don't correspond to rigorous economic plans rather than just as tools to be used for demographic conquest or manual labour.

The one thing they could have done to obviously help alleviate some of the health crises that rocked the late USSR would have been to spend a lot more money on industrial and mining safety advances and worker medical care. There were entire cities where life expectancy ranged in the late 40s and black lung disease or other labour related diseases pervaded. Think of West Virginia in the 1930s or textile workers in Gilded Age Massachusetts type ailments. Spending money on making people safer while working would have helped halt the gradual decay of the vitality and productive capacity of the average Soviet worker.

Also, no more population transfers or compulsory labour. These two things were, in addition to being moral abominations, extremely destructive to the economic well being of the USSR. Treating conquered populations as colonized people was self defeating.
 
Last edited:
"One imposes their system as far as their armies can reach." -Stalin.

The notion of Stalin withdrawing from Eastern Europe after holding democratic elections is unlikely. Perhaps if Beria comes to power. He indicated a willingness to withdraw from Eastern Europe in exchange for it becoming neutralized.
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
"One imposes their system as far as their armies can reach." -Stalin.

The notion of Stalin withdrawing from Eastern Europe after holding democratic elections is unlikely. Perhaps if Beria comes to power. He indicated a willingness to withdraw from Eastern Europe in exchange for it becoming neutralized.
Beria always seemed more of a psychopath than an idealist, but Beria also was faced with daunting state security problems in his role and the incorporation of Eastern Europe involved anti-partisan operations that dragged on extensively. This might have factored into his seemingly dovish views in 1953. East Berlin's revolt really seemed to have spooked him.

It is ironic that his downfall came from seeming too lenient and willing to allow people to escape from jackbooted Soviet rule, which was deemed a danger to the USSR's power, rather than his extensive 30 year history of being one of the worst human beings to ever walk the planet. He was basically Heinrich Himmler except more of a pervert.
 

Cook

Banned
Beria also was faced with daunting state security problems in his role...

As head of the NKVD, Beria was privy to the actual state of the Soviet economy, rather than to the cooked books that the Politburo saw; this may have been the origins of his willingness to decentralise the economy and also give East Germany to the Federal Republic in exchange for a large financial transfer, plus security guarantees.
 
The small countries of Eastern Europe all flirted with more consumer-orientated versions of Communism while spending very little on their militaries. Famous among those, Hungarian ghoulash Communism and Yugoslav Communism. Both of these had issues and most of these issues come down to the lack of real market prices in their economies.

While there are other sorts of consumer orientated Communism that are possible, I think that a less militaristic and consumer-orientated USSR would, if Stalin had still been boss in the 30s, basically look like a giant Hungary or Yugoslavia. IMO that would actually result in the USSR collapsing faster, since consumer subsidies could suck up even more of the scarce economic surplus generated by the economy than the military did (look at modern Western nations, where it is normal to spend around 2/3rds of government expenditure on pensions and healthcare subsidies and equally normal to spend around 10% or less of government expenditure on the military). That in turn would have exacerbated the balance of payments problem, eventually forcing the USSR to cut back and inflict deep austerity on its citizens which (just as in OTL's Eastern Europe) would lead to the collapse of support for the regime.

Now, if Stalin hadn't been boss, then instead of consumer-Stalinism, the USSR might end up developing a more effective sort of consumer Communist system - but, well, I am pessimistic about their chances of finding it.

fasquardon
 
The only way the Soviets withdraw from Eastern Europe is if there is no Barbarossa and as another poster suggested, you probably need to get rid of Stalin. He killed or terrorized everyone with an ounce of intelligence or willingness to take a risk on an idea. Change these two facts and you can basically imagine whatever you want. Free the butterflies!

As to the broader question asked in the OP about whether the USSR could still exist, it had a giant problem. The origins and subsequent propaganda were so aggressive and absolute about the superiority of communism to the west, that anything undermines the claim is an existential threat to the state. They would have needed to nerf the dogma and propaganda. But then how do you rally the populace to your cause between 1917 and 1930ish? They need to believe their sacrifices were worth it for the greater good. But then seventy years later the populace finally wakes up to the lies they've been told for two generations. The USSR was structurally flawed at its birth.
 
Perhaps Khrushchev uses the USSR's expanding nuclear arsenal as an opportunity to professionalise the Red Army from 1957 onwards (Phasing out conscription etc.), allowing money to be saved, and said savings to go towards further economic development.
 
The problem was that a lot of those troops were occupation troops as the revolts of '48, '56,'67 and '80 proved. Pull out the troops and you have more revolts.
 

missouribob

Banned
The only way I can see this happening is if Russia tries to pull a China and from what I've read that's pretty unlikely for a lot of economic and political reasons. So it's pretty unlikely.
 
Top