WI: Triune Russian Union

[lerk]

Could a "Union State", consisting of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus emerge? Don't cheat by doing something like "Russian Empire survives/becomes Russian Republic" or "USSR survives/becomes Union State" we are assuming that this proposed state consists only of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, whereas the Caucasus, Baltics, and Central Asian -stans are all independent (if one wants, one can go even further and have Chechnya become independent in this scenario, regardless the borders of this state would resemble what a Russo-Ukranian-Belarussian Union would be). What would such a state look like? How will it interact with the rest of the world?

 

[LSCatilina]

Does *Russia ITTL needs to encompass all OTL or OTL-equivalent Russian-speaking or Russian populations?
For instance, would a *Ruthenian state centered on a joined Kievan-Chernegovian-Pereyaslavian principality federating with western and northern-westerns entities whereas a distinct *Russian ensemble on the north wouldn't be included, count?

 

[Dan1988]

I'll do a bit of a cheat, but only to make a point here. You know that whole Belavezha Accords thing between Yeltsin, Shushchevich, and Kravchuk that declared the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its replacement with the CIS? Well, at least until Yeltsin had the idea to extend the CIS to the whole Soviet Union a couple of days later with the Alma-Ata Protocol on 21 December, it could be possible to conceive of the CIS with only those three as a "Union State" of sorts. In that case, another method would be needed to dissolve the Soviet Union with the Central Asian and Caucasian Republics without enlarging the CIS - perhaps here we could have a *Eurasian Economic Community take its place, modeled on the EEC/Common Market, while the OSCE could cover the region's security needs, as well as an eventual NATO replacement (from Russia's POV - but also, it's the '90s, where - for some of us - optimism was plentiful).

The problem for any Union State is basically tri-fold. I'm going to use the post-Soviet equivalent as my example here, but similar arguments would also work for any other analogue - if it evolved from the post-Tsarist/pre-October Revolution Russian Republic, for example, similar arguments would be used even if the details are different.

1. On one hand, Ukraine. Kravchuk's power base rested on a coalition between the Rukh types and his own "national communist" supporters (as Prof. Andrew Wilson puts it); as a consequence, he's on shaky ground politically because he was trying to appeal to everyone all at once (including the mythical "Ukrainian third way" economically that defied common sense and logic, by anyone's standards), and the whole thing was pretty messy.
2. Second off, Russia. As we all now know (although it wasn't known to outsiders in the 1990s - or, at least, wasn't talked about or overlooked), Yeltsin himself was just as power-hungry as everyone else and wasn't really the right person for the job after Belavezha. While at the time one could easily shift blame onto the Communists for blocking progress, in reality Yeltsin and the team around him (yes, that also implicates Gaidar) were just as obstructionist and uncommitted (or at least half-heartedly committed when it suited their interests) to democracy and capitalist economic reform.
   1. Therefore, in order for any Union State/triune CIS to survive, after it has been established, Kravchuk and Yeltsin would need to be replaced in fresh elections (as both states retained their Soviet-era Constitutions, even if the RSFSR's/Russian Federation's was heavily amended) and the early political technologists (read: consultants and lobbyists, as in Soviet times the art of political machinery was seen as technology) working alongside the Soviet-era bureaucrats to refashion the entire political system based on what already exists. This could include, for example, dissolving the LDPSU, at least within Russia and Ukraine, and replacing it with newer, non-Zhirinovsky Liberal Democratic Parties (based on the existing Democratic Parties which already existed in Russia and in Ukraine, the latter as one part of Rukh). Virtual politics (as Prof. Wilson puts it) could be a transitional state towards real politics, as long as there was a genuine commitment to economic reform and transformation to accompany it - and, at the time, along with what happened in the 1990s OTL (where one could just simply shop for and buy a party if they wanted representation in Parliament), the experience with bloc parties in the Eastern European satellites would be very helpful as templates.
   2. At the same time, there's also centrifugal forces at work in both Ukraine and Russia WRT nationalism. Rukh was part and parcel of the "people's movements" thing that harnessed nationalism in a similar manner as the Baltics and neighboring Moldova, providing a counterpart to OUN and others of their ilk that were closer to how the people's movements developed in, say, Belarus and Russia. Meanwhile, in Russia, Pamyat was right-wing ultranationalist and dedicated to bringing back the old Russian Empire (and in particular the vision of the Russian Empire as propagated by the Union of the Russian People), which would be a major problem for the CIS. In both Ukraine and Russia, for very different reasons, therefore, there are groups that would be dedicated to preserving national independence that would create a big issue for any Union State equivalent. Nationalism is still a powerful force here, as it was helpful in helping to dissolve the USSR. It would be enough to keep the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages alive (although necessarily with some major reforms to the orthography of both, maybe in the case of Belarusian even bringing back most of the Taraškievica as a basis for renewing the written language), for sure, and provide a counter-balance to the dominance of Russian in those two countries (except in the case of Russian-speaking Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalists).
3. Then there's the problem of the entire "Union State" concept itself. The Union State project originally existed as a power trip for Lukashenka to become President of Russia at a time when Yeltsin became extremely unpopular. An absence of Yeltsin in the 1990s (say, with a different leadership genuinely committed to change - which was difficult to find in the former USSR, admittedly) creates problems for Lukashenka during the period when he created his regime, as there's no Union State for him to use to push for his Soviet-restorationist agenda. However, if Shushkevich was still in power, perhaps a different conception of the CIS as a Union State of sorts between the 3 could work to overcome stiff opposition to the reformist and social-democratic agenda not only in Belarus' Supreme Soviet, but also from Kebich, the PM at the time. So it all depends on who comes up with the "Union State" concept, where it comes out from, and for what purpose.
   1. Note the placing together of "reformist" and "social-democratic" here - ultimately, Gorbachev's vision was similar to that but on a socialist economic base and with the CPSU still as the leading party even if its dominance was no longer constitutionally guaranteed; if economic reform was done right, then the existing Soviet mechanisms could be refashioned to serve capitalist ends but with "reformist" and "social-democratic" showing up. At one end could be Germany and Poland, and on the other - if the CIS wanted to be closer to the Nordic model Gorbachev envisioned for the Soviet Union - Denmark (with its flexicurity agenda), Sweden (in some aspects), and - yes - Estonia. Those two poles could also be part of the contours shaping the CIS's political spectrum.

So that's basically what I see as the problem with the Union State, if we use the CIS pre-Alma-Ata Protocol as our model. Ultimately, it's a clash of personalities, alongside the centrifugal force of nationalism and the promotion of half-hearted shock therapy as an enrichment scheme for the nomenklatura. If there was different leadership, things would turn out differently for the CIS if we want to use it as a Union State of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.

 

[History Learner]

Could a "Union State", consisting of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus emerge? Don't cheat by doing something like "Russian Empire survives/becomes Russian Republic" or "USSR survives/becomes Union State" we are assuming that this proposed state consists only of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, whereas the Caucasus, Baltics, and Central Asian -stans are all independent (if one wants, one can go even further and have Chechnya become independent in this scenario, regardless the borders of this state would resemble what a Russo-Ukranian-Belarussian Union would be). What would such a state look like? How will it interact with the rest of the world?

I've seen it argued Viktor Yanukovych not signing the agreement with the opposition could lead to something like this. After the agreement, the police basically melted away and, thereafter, the then government too. At the time, reinforcements from Crimea were in route and they were considered politically reliable; the boosted security forces probably would've been sufficient to control Kyiv itself and rally the East and South to Yanukovych. After that, you would get a "Galicia War" in the place of the Donbass conflict that would draw Ukraine closely to Russia.

 

[Jukato]

I've seen it argued Viktor Yanukovych not signing the agreement with the opposition could lead to something like this. After the agreement, the police basically melted away and, thereafter, the then government too. At the time, reinforcements from Crimea were in route and they were considered politically reliable; the boosted security forces probably would've been sufficient to control Kyiv itself and rally the East and South to Yanukovych. After that, you would get a "Galicia War" in the place of the Donbass conflict that would draw Ukraine closely to Russia.

The bloodbath in Kiev is likely to make Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr join the Galician cause as well.

 

[History Learner]

The bloodbath in Kiev is likely to make Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr join the Galician cause as well.

Probably, no doubt. On the flipside, Belarus won't flirt with the West like it did in 2014-2019, while China and the rest of the CSTO will be much quicker to back up Russia, since the latter would be arguing in favor of national unity as opposed to disunity here; obvious implications for Taiwan, etc.

 

[Jukato]

Probably, no doubt. On the flipside, Belarus won't flirt with the West like it did in 2014-2019, while China and the rest of the CSTO will be much quicker to back up Russia, since the latter would be arguing in favor of national unity as opposed to disunity here; obvious implications for Taiwan, etc.

Worth noting that the Ukrainian rebels would be able to claim that their side won the popular vote in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary elections and that this would have been enough to secure them the win had Yanukovych not changed the rules for Ukrainian parliamentary elections after his 2010 victory.