AHC: Medieval Soviet Union

[Aluma]

Okay, I know the title sounds ASB, but hear me out.
By "Soviet Union" here I mean a counterpart, not a ISOT or anything of the sort.
Your challenge, if you decide to take it, is to create a pan-slavic state during the period between the fall of Rome and the fall of Constantinople.
Said state must follow a collectivist dogma and have a very powerful bureocracy similar to the likes of Imperial China or the Kingdom of France.
It obviously does not need to be called Soviet Union and you may use as many POVs as required to accomplish this so long they are historically plausible, though the less the better, but no type of time travel or supernatural phenomena.
Using religion or any sort of cult to do it is fine, most of the population IOTL USSR was religious, though preference being some christian sect akin to the Orthodox Church if you go that route since they were most orthodox. However because the official ideology was dialetical-materialism and the Union implemented state atheism I very much encourage to have the society of TTL "USSR" to eventually become secularist or be very focused on temporal matters(aka the material world) and seek modernization as IOTL.
I dont care much what form of government you pick for it, but if you choose a monarchy(which I think is what is the most likely for the time period) try to have it be more like the roman or napoleonic type rather than the ancien regime one.
That said you can make it as utopic or dystopic as you'd like and anything in between, no wank or screw is invalid(though if possible I would very much like if this "Soviet Union" lasted at very least as much as the OTL one) so long you follow the no-ASB rule(I know, ironic considering the title) as well as not bringing up modern politics to the topic as per forum rules.
Above all else, have fun! That's the most important thing after all.

 

[Mooze17]

This sounds like a medieval Russian Empire more so then a Medieval Soviet Union.

 

[Aluma]

I thought about that too but I figured some of the specifications(collectivism, huge bureocratic state, the ones about monarchies and materialism) might provide enough material for people to make it it's own thing.

Edit: if you wanna make it even less like Imperial Russia, you might try to make it more like a eastern Holy Roman Empire or some kind of confederacy of sorts, whatever you think that makes for a better scenario. I think that would be pretty cool.

 

[FouDuRoy]

The first thing you need is a political power strong enough to unify such huge territories much sooner than in OTL.
Maybe if you make the Empire of the Huns survive to Attila's death.
That could be a starting point.

 

[Help]

I don't see how you have the base for one close to the USSR. According to your guidelines, though, I think it could be doable if a vague resemblance works. Maybe the church has the same issues as the Catholic one during the reformation with perceived luxury and corruption. That causes a reaction, making the church then snap to a position more against wealth but more for sharing. Maybe also call for crusades against the steppe and muslim peoples neighboring them, supporting a slavic christendom concerned with community.

 

[An Thuong]

Had one of the more widespread peasant's revolts somehow snowballed into taking over a whole country, the results would have been fascinating. They likely wouldn't have tried anything close to socialism, certainly not initially (maybe instead just divvy out the land into allotments for all men) but it could've possibly opened the door for earlier proto-socialist movements.

 

[Aluma]

I think it could be doable if a vague resemblance works.

Yup
I tried to make the guidelines as specific as possible to give a clear idea of what I was going for.
However like I said you dont have to follow them so long it fits the initial premise cause I dont want to restrict anyone's creativity, so vague resemblance also works.

 

[alexmilman]

Yup
I tried to make the guidelines as specific as possible to give a clear idea of what I was going for.
However like I said you dont have to follow them so long it fits the initial premise cause I dont want to restrict anyone's creativity, so vague resemblance also works.

How, with any degree of a reality, are you going to provide state ownership on all “means of production” which was a foundation of the Soviet system?

As for the rest, it is trivial: you just need to modify a little bit Tsardom of Moscow and move its creation few decades ahead of the schedule.
“Collectivism” is not a problem if you are ready to settle on a village community with a communal land ownership. Bureaucracy is more complicated within your time frame simply because the area was not “civilized” enough but if you either expand the time frame or slightly expedite creation of the Muscovite state, this is not a problem: Tsardom had an extensive, well-entrenched and quite powerful bureaucracy from top to bottom. You may even view a Boyar Duma as a remote analog of Politburo with its formula “The boyars decided and Tsar ordered”. What else? Parallel “KGB - Oprichnina” is beaten to death. Corruption? It was institutionalized by the institutes of “kormlenie” (appointment to an administrative position in a province explicitly implied that an appointee will use it for self-enrichment) and “gratitudes” (a bureaucrat had to get some payment for the services granted to an individual, it was legal and even mandatory). Nomenclature - obviously nobility and aristocracy with a well-documented (and extremely complicated and quarrel-prone ) system of the appointments based upon family position.
Tsar, just as Secretary General, was a God-like figure with a power restricted only by Politburo/Duma members of which he could ...er... put out of circulation.
The state, just as the SU, was not demographically monolithic: there were ethnic vassal states (like Tsardom of Kasimov) with their own rulers (Soviet republics with their own First Secretaries).

 

[Aluma]

How, with any degree of a reality are you going to provide state ownership on all “means of production” which was a foundation of the Soviet system?

No need to own the means of production if they dont exist 8D
Okay, jokes aside
This is why I mentioned to make a counterpart rather than a perfect clone of the USSR and personally I think collectivized agriculture is already close enough anyways, specially before OTL Soviet Union fully industrialized
Also, good job, the rest of your comment summarizes exactly the kind of thing I wanted from this thread, thank you

 

[alexmilman]

No need to own the means of production if they dont exist 8D
Okay, jokes aside
This is why I mentioned to make a counterpart rather than a perfect clone of the USSR and personally I think collectivized agriculture is already close enough anyways, specially before OTL Soviet Union fully industrialized
Also, good job, the rest of your comment summarizes exactly the kind of thing I wanted from this thread, thank you

Well, “the means of production” did exist: various kinds of things had been produced if not in industrial way. OTOH, the “strategic” production, like making artillery and, from time to time, production and selling of vodka (you may need to make its production few decades ahead of schedule but, IIRC, the drinking establishments were under state control prior to its appearance on the market), was done by the government or by government’s license, the state had a monopoly on foreign trade and on some sectors of the domestic trade (salt). To think about it, a big part of the agricultural land also belonged to the government and was given on condition of a military service (Ivan IV drastically cut size of the hereditary lands by massive resettlement’s of the nobility).

Honestly, I’m not quite sure when exactly structure of the rural community was created but this definitely can be done ahead of schedule by the earlier enforcement of a severe model of the serfdom that was in place by the early XVIII. The nobility would like it.

So, short of the propaganda placards and other paraphernalia, we are practically there in NEP period. 😂