AHQ: USSR Secession Article Legitimate, Who Leaves and When?

[Synecdoche]

Article 17 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution allows Union Republics (Ukrainian SSR, Georgian SSR, etc...) to secede from the USSR legally if they so choose. The issue is despite the government being a federation, the party would in practice never allow such dissent to take place.

Republics like the Baltic SSRs obviously had a bone to pick with the USSR, and were the strongest pro-independence voices, but during the 1991 referendum, many SSRs chose to stay in the federation. So, if the Communist Party of the Soviet Union allows this article to be expressed, which SSRs would vote to leave, and when?

Maybe one state leaves but later votes to rejoin (due to increasing influence from Moscow) establishing that leaving or threatening to leave can get more resources diverted to the region in question? But perhaps that incentive is one reason the article was never taken seriously in the first place.

Please keep in mind that in this alternate history question, it would be the Communist governments of the Union Republics voting to secede, not any disgruntled, disaffected anti-communist group within the USSR, so I imagine secession will only happen in response to serious grievances between Communist parties. Reasons involving liberal nationalism or anti-soviet attitudes will not reach the soviets, due to the nature of Communist party rule, and would have to be cloaked in Communist language to be considered legitimate.

 

[fasquardon]

Well. Does this mean that Stalin is taking this seriously as well? I could see Azerbaijan succeeding in such a case simply due to bad blood from the civil war.

But let's assume that under Stalin, the patronage system and the purges keep any succession-minded party members from getting enough power to embarrass the Vozhd.

In the post-Stalin era, my bet would be Lithuania would be the first to try to succeed sometime in the 50s, as the Lithuanian Party was the most independent in the Union.

Note however, that for this to be taken seriously, an enormous shift would have needed to happen in the Party. Elections would need to allow outsiders to run, rather than being limited to only those with the connections to the local Party that would allow them to be nominated to run by the old guard. Open dissent or even multiple parties would need to be accepted, rather than the OTL adherance to democratic centralism where great pains were taken to give the external appearance of the Party moving unanimously on any issue. Because any succession from the USSR is a real indictment of the policies of the top levels of Party and State, an embarrassment to patrons in higher offices whose clients were asking the people in their republics wanted to break away and an fatal blow to any illusion that the Party was united on all the important issues. And such a big change in Party culture wouldn't be restricted to affecting only when some place succeeded or tried to succeed. It would mean a very different Stalin or even no Stalin as leader. It would mean very different local, republic and union parties which would make different decisions on other issues as well. It would mean not only different top leaders throughout Soviet history, but also different leaders at lower levels, different lower management and even a somewhat different Party membership.

fasquardon

 

[Augenis]

So, if the Communist Party of the Soviet Union allows this article to be expressed, which SSRs would vote to leave, and when?

Then you either wouldn't have a Soviet Union, or the article would be a paper article regardless. Article 126 remains, enshrining the leading role of a singular Communist Party of the Soviet Union - all the union republic communist parties were integrated into that party, controlled through second secretaries assigned from Moscow, and the CPSU obviously has a vested interest in keeping the union together. Since the CPSU led the Soviet Union, a branch of the CPSU declaring their republic independent from the Soviet Union would make as much sense as a branch of the US Democratic Party declaring independence from the US... during a Democratic administration.

Article 17 could only really be applied in practice if one of the constituent parties of the CPSU declares a split from the rest of the Party and begins operating independently. I believe the first one was the Lithuanian Communist Party, on 24 December 1989. Since Lithuania declared independence only a few months afterwards... I think the timing would basically be unchanged.