Could the USSR collapse earlier?

[mekilldyou]

Is it possible for the USSR to collapse in the 1960s or 1970s with a POD, preferably after WW2? Are bad leadership, disastrous economic conditions, nationalist uprisings ASB in this period of time?
What about the other eastern european countries? The communist regimes will probably fall with the USSR, but is it possible to have a sort-of Cuba, refusing to democratize?

[B_Munro]

No oil embargo (so less Soviet purchasing power) plus an earlier US grain embargo could put serious pressure on the Soviets in the 70s, although I am not sure if the USSR collapses or does something dangerously silly in this scenario.

The basic system put in place by Kruschev and others after Stalin's death was capable of producing enough growth through the 70s that a crisis as early as the 60s is unlikely: we need either a more radical reformer than Kruschev or perhaps a crypto-Stalinist who changes little save avoiding putting upper cadres at risk of the Gulag. Nationalist movements were so brutally crushed by Stalin that we are unlikely to see them emerge as a major force for a couple decades after his death. Perhaps someone less _exciting_ than Kruschev who concentrates on spending ridiculous amounts on the military and traditional approaches to economcs generates enough discontent that he gives way to a reformer in the 60s, in a reversal of the Kruschev-Brezhnev sequence? Reform is dangerous for the USSR: to use a quote from a Russian re Czarist Russia, the Soviet Union is like a dead fish that only avoids rot through remaining frozen...

(hm. A no-US-in-WWII scenario might give us a USSR on the Rhine: trying to maintain control of such a bloated empire, especially if they go with incorporating directly more of Eastern Europe, might well bring about an early collapse).

Bruce

[whitecrow]

Originally Posted by B_Munro

Reform is dangerous for the USSR: to use a quote from a Russian re Czarist Russia, the Soviet Union is like a dead fish that only avoids rot through remaining frozen...

Are you paraphrasing Konstantin Pobedonostsev?

[B_Munro]

Konstantin Leontiev, perhaps? http://www.languagehat.com/archives/002817.php

I'm not sure where I ran into the quote....

Bruce

[John Fredrick Parker]

This book argues that the Berlin Wall might have been stopped, and if so, East Germany would have fallen earlier, dooming the Warsaw Pact, and effectively moving up the events of 1989-91 about 25 years earlier. Anybody here take stock in that?

[B_Munro]

Originally Posted by John Fredrick Parker

This book argues that the Berlin Wall might have been stopped, and if so, East Germany would have fallen earlier, dooming the Warsaw Pact, and effectively moving up the events of 1989-91 about 25 years earlier. Anybody here take stock in that?

World War III is likelier...in any event, no US president was going to push the USSR to that extent. What the hell can Kennedy say? "stop building that wall or we start the bombing?"

Bruce

[B_Munro]

Or, to put it another way, it did indeed threaten the stablity and legitimacy of East Germany, so there is no way Kruschev would _not_ have taken steps to block the movement of Germans into west Berlin. It's an absurdist counterfactual.

Bruce

[phoenix7846]

Originally Posted by John Fredrick Parker

This book argues that the Berlin Wall might have been stopped, and if so, East Germany would have fallen earlier, dooming the Warsaw Pact, and effectively moving up the events of 1989-91 about 25 years earlier. Anybody here take stock in that?

Agreed with the last post, if I remember correctly, before the wall was put up, East Germany had lost something like 20 percent of its population through the Berlin loophole, and that's a number that most nations don't lose even in major wars that completely screw them. So East Germany's choice were really down to "how do we stop them" as opposed to "if".

[Red Cesar]

Yes, Berlin lost something of about 25 percent of its trained workforce before the wall was put up.

[Joseph Solis in Australia]

Could have been, the Arab oil embargo in 1973 just gave the Soviet Union another 15 years of existence before its collapse in 1991 as the Soviets had to tap their oil reserves for export to Warsaw Pact countries and to gain more dollars in their economy that time.

[Riain]

I've read that thhhe military buildup in the 80s challenged the Soviet economy in precisely the areas where it was least competitive, rapidly advancing high technology. Things like look-down shoot-down FCS, ECCM and the like, which had to be cutting edge, rapidly developing and widely deployed, because resting on advanced western economies this was exactly what western weapons can achieve.

So I'd suggest as a partial solution the succes, or greater success of some advanced weapons programmes. The F111 programme could have gone better, building them in much larger batches so that the USAF gets closer to 1000 rather than 540ish, I'd also have the TSR2 enter large scale production. That way the Soviets would pop a hemorrhoid trying to build and interceptor fleet with advanced enough look-down shoot-down capabilities to counter some 1200 long range, low level theatre strike assets, about a decade before they found it possible IOTL. I'd also push through the order for 50 or so Blackbirds that Curtiss LeMay almost signed, that would cause the Soviets to pop another hemorrhoid at the same time trying to build an interceptor fleet capable of fighting off dozens of mach 3 fighter/strike aircraft.

There are others, such as the US ABM system, which could cover the MX missile in early deployment, or the B1A which could be in service while the B1B is developed. This would help cause the Soviets to implode due to their lack of ability to counter so many threats.