Could a Soviet victory in the west in 1919-20 lead to a more genuinely pluralistic USSR?

[Bad@logic]

The Soviet Union seems like it fell into an awkward position in its ethnographic balance, the ~50% range of the main ethnic group, since it was too Russian dominated to be viewed as really pluralistic and multi-national, and yet not so much so that like China, the main ethnic population absolutely dwarfs to irrelevancy the outlying minority populations. Although the 1920s saw significant experiments with korenisizatsiia, ie. indigenization, this was shortlived and by the 1930s the policies of Russification were once again full swing, and it's telling that the shorthand name for the USSR abroad was most often Russia. Although this worked as long as the system was stable, when it became unstable, resistance against Russian domination flared up which the Russian population was not large enough to render irrelevant as happens in say, Han-dominated China.

But what if the percentage of Russians in the USSR was substantially lower? Let's say that in the 1919-1920 period the Soviets, as they very might have done, manage to win their wars in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland - and not only this but particularly in the first four, mostly due to the actions of the local communists of those ethnicities, such as the Latvian Riflemen and the Finnish Reds. These are ultimately joined into the future USSR as SSRs, and perhaps the process repeats if future territory is added on. Would a much larger, and more authentically national (as opposed as simply being installed by foreign bayonets, with the admittedly glaring exception of Poland), selection of SSRs be enough to shift the ethnic balance in the USSR enough that it would cease to simply be greater Russia with red paint?

 

[Synecdoche]

I do think more national republics, particularly the western ones, could offer more energetic non-Russian leadership in the top positions. To really put the nail in the coffin, however, I think a more prosperous and peaceful early years is necessary to allow anti- Great Russian Chauvinism to take charge. With all the devastation, the internationalists had to rely on the bureacratic leftovers from the tsarist Russian era. Then, with the world war, they had another generational catastrophe to lock the old ways in place.

Even without the western territories, Lenin wanted a full purge of Russian domination. Stalins era I think acted as a transition between indigenism and Russification. It was certainly in those years that the RSFSR should have been fully separated from the USSR apparatus as a separate union Republic but that never happened.

So I’m my view,

Different post Lenin leadership
More prosperous, more peaceful leadership
And some more prominent non Russian communists

Make for a good recipe for a distinct USSR government separate from Russia in my opinion

 

[Bad@logic]

Even without the western territories, Lenin wanted a full purge of Russian domination. Stalins era I think acted as a transition between indigenism and Russification. It was certainly in those years that the RSFSR should have been fully separated from the USSR apparatus as a separate union Republic but that never happened.

At least in some other threads when this was brought up, such as the idea of the RSFSR gaining the institutions of a normal Union republic, the mention is that this would break the system - the RSFSR is such a behemoth in the USSR and the Russians having such a dominant role that it would short-circuit things, similar to how in say Britain, England doesn't have a parliament in contrast to the Welsh, Scots, and North Irish. Not giving the RSFSR its own Supreme Soviet essentially admits that the entire USSR is dominated by it, and giving it one moves al ot of political authority away from the broader union. How do you think the paradox could be challenged?

 

[oberdada]

At least in some other threads when this was brought up, such as the idea of the RSFSR gaining the institutions of a normal Union republic, the mention is that this would break the system - the RSFSR is such a behemoth in the USSR and the Russians having such a dominant role that it would short-circuit things, similar to how in say Britain, England doesn't have a parliament in contrast to the Welsh, Scots, and North Irish. Not giving the RSFSR its own Supreme Soviet essentially admits that the entire USSR is dominated by it, and giving it one moves al ot of political authority away from the broader union. How do you think the paradox could be challenged?

Breaking up the RSFSR?

Having the government of the RSFSR and the Soviet Union sit in different cities? One in Moscow and the other in Leningrad?

 

[Polish Eagle]

Breaking up the RSFSR?

Having the government of the RSFSR and the Soviet Union sit in different cities? One in Moscow and the other in Leningrad?

That's an interesting idea. How many of the OTL ASSRs could be elevated to SSRs instead?

Maybe if the Murmansk Soviet persists and there's outright no Entente intervention in the far north, you could get a Northern Region SSR that stretches from the Urals to Murmansk.

 

[thezerech]

The addition of the Balts iotl didn't do much, plus russification was always softer on non-Slavic peoples, even if oppression in general wasn't. I don't see how you're going to avoid russification when the main Bolsheviks are almost entirely ethnic Russians, many had connections to Ukraine, for example, like Chernenko and Khrushchev, but were Russians. Even those born outside the RSFSR aren't going to be reliably anything but chauvinists as the history of the USSR essentially demonstrates.

Korenizatsiia was never going to last, at least not in Belarus and Ukraine, nor in Central Asia where identities were weak, and nomadic lifestyles about to be ruthlessly destroyed.

For this, I think the POD you need is that the Russian Bolsheviks aren't the ones to unify the former Empire. Which doesn't seem possible.