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How could you ensure a successful USSR?

I think that if you are talking in terms of an army coups and internal revolutions demolishing the state beuracracy you kind of need to question how successful the state in question can potentially be.

Other states have in fact bounced back from those. Sure, it's going to hurt a bit when it happens, but if you want it to last longer you really have to do some cleanup.
 
I think that if you are talking in terms of an army coups and internal revolutions demolishing the state beuracracy you kind of need to question how successful the state in question can potentially be.

Well, I mean, Japan became tremendously successful in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and what allowed to it become that was, well, a coup and internal revolution completely demolishing the state bureaucracy and political system in general.
 
Well, I mean, Japan became tremendously successful in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and what allowed to it become that was, well, a coup and internal revolution completely demolishing the state bureaucracy and political system in general.
Or it can go like Turkey where the military remains an elephant in the room long after the coup that nobody wants to talk about and is only weakened by an even more authoritarian ruler.
 
Alternatively... It doesn't have to deal with everything at once. The economy did chug along until the 70s.

Thing was though that the whole reason for Gorbachev to try to do his political reforms at all was because he felt that that was the only way for the party centre to establish supremacy over the bureaucracy.

He tried at first to do economic reforms, in particular in as far as agriculture was concerned, found himself blocked there, and so moved on to the political realm, the idea being that if he could establish popular support for his leadership in a relatively more open system--though still a far cry from liberal democracy, mind you--then he would have the legitimacy and the manifest popular support needed to make the bureaucracy bow to his will. He would use the reforms to try to maneuver out the bureacrats.

Of course, it didn't turn out that way. The moment he started opening up, he discovered that there were other people sick with the status quo who felt that Gorbachev wasn't going far enough. Neither in his economic reforms nor in his political reforms. And so Gorbachev found himself awkwardly squeezed in the middle, being attacked from two directions simultaneously, only to lament with a cruel sense of irony the fact that he had put into motion the very causes that allowed both sides attack him.

By the time the 70s roll around, it's all just too late. From thence, it's just managed decline and stagnation.
 
Thing was though that the whole reason for Gorbachev to try to do his political reforms at all was because he felt that that was the only way for the party centre to establish supremacy over the bureaucracy.

He tried at first to do economic reforms, in particular in as far as agriculture was concerned, found himself blocked there, and so moved on to the political realm, the idea being that if he could establish popular support for his leadership in a relatively more open system--though still a far cry from liberal democracy, mind you--then he would have the legitimacy and the manifest popular support needed to make the bureaucracy bow to his will. He would use the reforms to try to maneuver out the bureacrats.

Of course, it didn't turn out that way. The moment he started opening up, he discovered that there were other people sick with the status quo who felt that Gorbachev wasn't going far enough. Neither in his economic reforms nor in his political reforms. And so Gorbachev found himself awkwardly squeezed in the middle, being attacked from two directions simultaneously, only to lament with a cruel sense of irony the fact that he had put into motion the very causes that allowed both sides attack him.

By the time the 70s roll around, it's all just too late. From thence, it's just managed decline and stagnation.

But what if you do the political reforms in the 50s so that by the time the economy start flagging, you have the means to turn the ship around, rather than doing the political reforms after more than a decade of stagnation everyone is already sick of?
 
But what if you do the political reforms in the 50s so that by the time the economy start flagging, you have the means to turn the ship around, rather than doing the political reforms after more than a decade of stagnation everyone is already sick of?

I would definitely rank the plausibility of the Communist Party leadership doing democratization reforms in the 1950s to be beneath the plausibility of a military coup by the Red Army.
 
I would definitely rank the plausibility of the Communist Party leadership doing democratization reforms in the 1950s to be beneath the plausibility of a military coup by the Red Army.

Democratization opening up to more than the communist party? Definitely. Party reforms that deepens its pool of talent and reopen the door to different interpretations of communism? Not necessarily as hard.
 
Party reforms that deepens its pool of talent and reopen the door to different interpretations of communism? Not necessarily as hard.

Pretty much still as hard, I'm afraid.

Remember again that Gorbachev did not commence his reforms to encourage a plurality of opinions and interpretations for its own sake, but because he judged that it might help him shore up support for his particular line. As for the people around leading the party in the 1950s, there is no such reason for them to think that they have anything to gain by opening up internal democracy. If anything, it's just a massive risk, that will allow divergent and subversive opinions to creep into the ranks, and might very well just come to threaten the authority of their own leadership.
 
I think the real issue is Stalin built the Soviet State in a particular way, he achieved effectively what Hitler did with 'working towards the Fuhrer' but instead of individuals fighting endlessly and dragging their departments with them which endlessly grew and competed he did it systematically by reducing the heads to functionaries and neutering or strengthening different institutions and encouring people to generally fall in line whenever possible and punish deviation from what the perceived norm was in any form. At the heart of it was Stalin, the one guy who knew where the skeletons were buried and could remove anyone at any time and who could get things done. In 1941 the soviet leadership came crawling to him after the biggest cockup of his career when he was allegedly considering suicide before the Germans or his own people killed him and made it clear he was the only possible choice to organise the state for battle.


Then when he dies you don't get one strong figurehead, you get an unstable and somewhat shapeless series of coalitions, then you have Kruschev denouncing Stalinism whilst taking his place as the one strongman. Thereafter there are always factions and cliques but although there is usually a head they never seem to ever try (after Kruschev why would they seeing how that ended up for him) to be the driving force who controlled everything. Instead there is a real sense of inertia and caution at the top. Even the reformers don't seem particularly radical or driven, just aware that things aren't going so well.


Late Soviet is used to imply a certain listlessness and uncertainty mixed with incompetence and indifference. But I think it was apparent from early on but shored up by economic growth and a dynamic world situation, but the rot was fairly clear early on. I think ironically what the soviets needed was either another dictator or a strongman being cut down to size by a cable of reformers a certain dynamism and energy that I don't think was possible with the OTL setup of the survivors of a ruthless dictator who ultimately were survivors because of their utter unwillingess to take a stand or swim against the current. The only one to try served as a lesson to the others not to.


Maybe if Kruschev has a better run of things so the idea of one leader trying to push his vision doesn't get so tainted that successors generally try and maintain consensus avoid rocking the boat or pushing personal policies.



Contemporary Communist China was a Revolutionary State that was ultimately fine killing to accidentally or purposefully kill millions of its own people chasing various mad ideas, I think the Soviets were by the 1960s more like 2000s China, settled, times are good, the struggles are over, what kind of madman would want to bring back that sort of chaos? There was no appetite for seriously upsetting the applecart.
 
I think the real issue is Stalin built the Soviet State in a particular way, he achieved effectively what Hitler did with 'working towards the Fuhrer' but instead of individuals fighting endlessly and dragging their departments with them which endlessly grew and competed he did it systematically by reducing the heads to functionaries and neutering or strengthening different institutions and encouring people to generally fall in line whenever possible and punish deviation from what the perceived norm was in any form. At the heart of it was Stalin, the one guy who knew where the skeletons were buried and could remove anyone at any time and who could get things done. In 1941 the soviet leadership came crawling to him after the biggest cockup of his career when he was allegedly considering suicide before the Germans or his own people killed him and made it clear he was the only possible choice to organise the state for battle.


Then when he dies you don't get one strong figurehead, you get an unstable and somewhat shapeless series of coalitions, then you have Kruschev denouncing Stalinism whilst taking his place as the one strongman. Thereafter there are always factions and cliques but although there is usually a head they never seem to ever try (after Kruschev why would they seeing how that ended up for him) to be the driving force who controlled everything. Instead there is a real sense of inertia and caution at the top. Even the reformers don't seem particularly radical or driven, just aware that things aren't going so well.


Late Soviet is used to imply a certain listlessness and uncertainty mixed with incompetence and indifference. But I think it was apparent from early on but shored up by economic growth and a dynamic world situation, but the rot was fairly clear early on. I think ironically what the soviets needed was either another dictator or a strongman being cut down to size by a cable of reformers a certain dynamism and energy that I don't think was possible with the OTL setup of the survivors of a ruthless dictator who ultimately were survivors because of their utter unwillingess to take a stand or swim against the current. The only one to try served as a lesson to the others not to.


Maybe if Kruschev has a better run of things so the idea of one leader trying to push his vision doesn't get so tainted that successors generally try and maintain consensus avoid rocking the boat or pushing personal policies.



Contemporary Communist China was a Revolutionary State that was ultimately fine killing to accidentally or purposefully kill millions of its own people chasing various mad ideas, I think the Soviets were by the 1960s more like 2000s China, settled, times are good, the struggles are over, what kind of madman would want to bring back that sort of chaos? There was no appetite for seriously upsetting the applecart.

Yep, that's why I put new talents as the big priority.

Maybe Khrushchev having a long running struggle he wins by bringing in new kids loyal to him instead of a string of reforms then removal and rollback? Struggle to pass his agenda would give him reasons to bring more people in who can challenge the status quo.
 
Problem with the Soviet Union wasn't just the nature of the economic system, it's the fact that whole political system was just way too Byzantine with it being very unclear who really took orders from who, and where authority was ultimately vested, and such a system is insanely different to reform.
Indeed, this is a point made by, among others, Francis Spufford in Red Plenty and Benjamin Peters in How Not To Network A Nation: the USSR's command economy had been designed to only respond from ruthless orders from above, and after Stalin, no other Soviet leader had enough all-encompassing authority, nor enough willingness to violently purge everyone who didn't fall into line, to exert effective control over it. So it became a gigantic rent-seeking scheme in which the various ministries, administrations, etc., devolved into de facto fiefdoms that did their own thing and responded with inertia or passive resistance to any instructions they didn't feel like implementing. Reforming such a system turned out to be beyond the ability of anyone who gave it a try.

An added issue is that the USSR was essentially Great Russia with a paint job, but the share of the Russian/Ukrainian/Belarusian population was slowly decreasing until, by the late 1980s, it barely hovered above 50%. It's anyone's guess how a surviving USSR would deal with being a majority-minority state.
 
I wonder if this is where a Beria leadership would work out better for the Soviet in the long run.

I could see Beria centralising power to just him and using the secret police to silence opposition since at the end of the day everything Beria did seems to come from one aim, ensuring that Beria lived. Now I've heard some folks say that Beria would impose a 'Yugoslavia style economy' which I doubt, but I could see some decentralisation to the bottom to ensure that those in various ministries have less power than Beria which in the long run would befit the Soviet Union.

Really I could see a 10 year or so Beria leadership helping the Soviet Union in the long run, even if it essentially continues Stalinist terror for another 10 years in some ways.
 
I wonder if this is where a Beria leadership would work out better for the Soviet in the long run.

I could see Beria centralising power to just him and using the secret police to silence opposition since at the end of the day everything Beria did seems to come from one aim, ensuring that Beria lived. Now I've heard some folks say that Beria would impose a 'Yugoslavia style economy' which I doubt, but I could see some decentralisation to the bottom to ensure that those in various ministries have less power than Beria which in the long run would befit the Soviet Union.

Really I could see a 10 year or so Beria leadership helping the Soviet Union in the long run, even if it essentially continues Stalinist terror for another 10 years in some ways.

It's just... Not possible? Stalin reached power by being everything to everyone before he started purging. Meanwhile, everyone hate Beria and know what he's likely to do.

On the other hand, someone else using the Stalinist authority to change course sounds possible. Who has the spine though?
 
Who has the spine though?
That's the problem, maybe Molotov but I doubt he would be able to effectively do it. Maybe someone from the Brezhnev sect? The problem is that it seems that someone would have to centralised power to themselves to ensure they can steamroll there enemies...but after Stalin everyone fled from centralisation.
 
That's the problem, maybe Molotov but I doubt he would be able to effectively do it. Maybe someone from the Brezhnev sect? The problem is that it seems that someone would have to centralised power to themselves to ensure they can steamroll there enemies...but after Stalin everyone fled from centralisation.

Well, the advantage with Molotov is that he's the Stalin continuity candidate so he can inherit the centralization. The disadvantage is that he's likely to just coast on it or maintain it but not use it to solve any of the problems that comes with it.

@Makemakean suggested a retired Zhukov and that has potential. He's undeniably a competent leader of men and has the patriotic war credentials to rally people to him. Maybe Zhukov, but minus the coup? Krushchev failing to centralize power as a right-reformist and Molotov not having the character to be a leader could mean a search for a replacement figure, and the war hero works pretty well in that role. Maybe he could balance the two above as a sort of seesaw between reform and Stalinist methods to clear obstacles?
 
The latest point of divergence I can think of: What if there was perestroika but not glasnot? There would be economic liberalization but not political liberalization. With such China-style reforms, could the Soviet Union survive?
 
The latest point of divergence I can think of: What if there was perestroika but not glasnot? There would be economic liberalization but not political liberalization. With such China-style reforms, could the Soviet Union survive?

As pointed out upthread, Gorbachev saying to the ministries 'perform economic reforms' and the ministries actually doing those are two very different things and Gorbachev didn't really have any ability to force them to.
 
Well, the advantage with Molotov is that he's the Stalin continuity candidate so he can inherit the centralization. The disadvantage is that he's likely to just coast on it or maintain it but not use it to solve any of the problems that comes with it.

@Makemakean suggested a retired Zhukov and that has potential. He's undeniably a competent leader of men and has the patriotic war credentials to rally people to him. Maybe Zhukov, but minus the coup? Krushchev failing to centralize power as a right-reformist and Molotov not having the character to be a leader could mean a search for a replacement figure, and the war hero works pretty well in that role. Maybe he could balance the two above as a sort of seesaw between reform and Stalinist methods to clear obstacles?

Can't help but think that when you're talking about a senior General who didn't have any particular pre-existing political career to speak of* (beyond the fact that being a senior general involves politics) you've kind of got to have a coup to put them in power. Especially if they're actually going to be making massive reforms/purges off their own back rather than just serving as the figurehead for others.

*He's not even got the 2.5 years Defence ministry position under Khrushchev in this situation if it's literally straight after Stalin.
 
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