Would the Soviet Union still exist today if the August 1991 coup attempt didn't occur

[Hongfan91]

Gorbachev was thought of as weak by many in the Communist Party/KGB so they tried to overthrow him but he was eventually saved by Boris Yeltsin who lately outpowered Gorbachev and set in motion the fall of the Soviet Union and independence of Russia.

Had the August 1991 coup not been attempted, do you think the Soviets can still exist to this day as a superpower or weakened major power?

 

[ObssesedNuker]

At the very minimum? Not with it's 1991 borders. The Baltic States and Georgia are definitely going to bail regardless. Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan probably don't. Azerbaijan, Armena, and the rest of the -stan's are rather more up in the air...

 

[Napoleon IV]

By 1991 the USSR was in a death spiral. The economy was in the toilet, people were sick of Communist Party rule, the hardliners and moderates within the Party were barely on speaking terms, the Baltic States and Georgia had already declared their independence (and in Latvia at least Soviet forces had already been forced to withdraw), and the Soviet Union itself was to become a confederation, which would not include the Baltic States, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova. The best case scenario for this is that the Union of Sovereign States (what this new union would have been called) survives, but the Party either collapses or becomes one of many parties. This would leave the Soviet Union existing in name only.

 

[ThePest179]

Not a chance. The damn thing was already on death's door, having the hardliners back down is only going to delay the inevitable.

 

[Sabot Cat]

Yes, it definitely survives. The bureaucratic inertia of the nation was poised to follow along the New Union Treaty framework, and any discontent with the Communist Party could be channeled into the new free-ish and fair-ish elections.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

The Soviet Union dies, but we probably don't end up with the Russian Federation as we know it.

 

[Napoleon IV]

Yes, it definitely survives. The bureaucratic inertia of the nation was poised to follow along the New Union Treaty framework, and any discontent with the Communist Party could be channeled into the new free-ish and fair-ish elections.

In order to survive the Soviet Union (or the Union of Sovereign States) needs 3 things:

1. An end to the Communist monopoly on power.

2. A majority of states deciding to stay on.

3. The economic death spiral to stop.

The last point is key. By 1991 the Soviet economy was essentially at a breaking point. If this continues I highly doubt that states like Ukraine or Azerbaijan decide to stay on, since they might be able to do better economically. I suspect the Communist economy itself might have to be abandoned. But both this and the first point are going to upset hardliners. They would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into this, and it is quite possible that they halt progress altogether through obstructionism. Even if they somehow decide not to do this the Soviet Union still has to overcome a massive amount of problems, and it would take exceptional leadership to keep it together.

 

[David T]

Yes, it definitely survives. The bureaucratic inertia of the nation was poised to follow along the New Union Treaty framework, and any discontent with the Communist Party could be channeled into the new free-ish and fair-ish elections.

I am more inclined to accept Adam Ulam's judgment in *Understanding the Cold War: A Historian's Personal Reflections*, p. 354

"One must agree with the hapless [August] conspirators on one thing: there was no earthly chance that the proposed new constitution could hold the country together. It was at once vague and too specific, vague in delineating the authority of the center, but very specific in granting constituent units powers amounting to virtual independence." http://books.google.com/books?id=wgtCaPUPIlwC&pg=PA354