What if Gorbachev never came to power and instead the hardliner Grigory Romanov became General Secretary? What would happen to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union without Gorbachev? Could the Soviet Union survive into the 21st century?
Would the Cold War still be going on?
What would such a world look like?
The SU would probably survive, it would enforce control over the satellite states but it's economic situation would be in a dire state.
That's what I was imagining too.
The Soviet Union declining into a gigantic North Korea-tier state with nukes.
What would the rest of the world look like though? Off the top of my head some major changes I imagine are: No 911, no Iraq and Afghanistan wars, no Arab spring, no EU, a more conservative US and Europe, more coups in the third world to remove Hugo Chavez-like leaders.
China is a wildcard.
>hardliner named Romanov triggers civil war and is eventually hanvef ala ceucescue
It's like pottery
If he's lucky he can even make it to 2017 to get overthrown 100 years after the other Romanov
well tecnicaly....
he will never into pizza hut commercial....
H.W. gets re-elected in 1992, probably. I give it until 2000 before the Cold War goes hot.
Dunno. Gulf War is gonna happen for sure as it began well before the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. Seems likely that the other conflicts happen, since Muslim terrorism was spiking even before the fall of the Wall, but they're stated as War on Communism instead of the War on Terrorism.
>China is a Wildcard
Nah. The Sino-Soviet split was cemented by Nixon. Seems more likely that China would side with the U.S. over the Soviet Union as they had increasing economic ties over the 80's.
>Gulf War is gonna happen for sure as it began well before the Soviet Union was officially dissolved.
Perestroika was already a failure by 1987, there was already massive inflation and shortages of goods had worsened. A USSR with no perestroika would act very differently on the world stage.
If the free market and freedom of speech are so good why did the Soviet Union collapse as soon as they were implemented?
Because they implemented the reforms from the top down rather than from the bottom up as in China.
By 1989 the Soviets still had price controls, wage controls, no free markets, no sound currency, creating bottlenecks , inflation, cronyism, and other typical problems of state-controlled economies with none of the benefits.
>Could the Soviet Union survive into the 21st century?
For sure. Economics was rising, weapon race was nice.
Gorbachev and his top leadership of Communistic party just dealed with West - breakup of country for privileged conditions of their families and their robbed capitals in Western countries.
>Would the Cold War still be going on?
>What would such a world look like?
Similar as modern with USSR as copy of China.
And? That's completely irrelevant to what I said. The Gulf War is going to happen, because it happened before the Cold War even ended.
>it happened before the Cold War even ended.
No it didn't.
Are you thick in the head?
By 1990, when the Gulf War broke out, the Cold War was over.
The Soviets had glasnost (free speech), perestroika, massive shortages of all types of goods, inflation in the three digits, the country in turmoil with rebellions in the Baltics, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Georgia, South Ossetia, Chechenya... Gorbachev had almost no control over Russian territory for fuck's sake (read up on the War of Laws)... and the Soviets had withdrawn from Eastern Europe (Sinatra Doctrine), allowing the regimes there to fall.
The Berlin Wall had already fallen, too, effectively ending the Cold War.
No Gorbachev = No perestroika = Soviets still in Eastern Europe and supporting client states across the world
If you can't tell how the Soviet Union remaining a superpower with a chance to intervene in the Middle East would affect Iraqi and American attitudes you are beyond retarded and belong in /b/ not Veeky Forums
By the time they implemented any reform at all, they were on the verge of collapse.
The Soviets didn't intervene to help Iraq when Iran was attacking them either.
Well it depends if the government could survive the oil glut, it wasn't accidental that the Soviet Union turned to a reformer they were out money and system was collapsing. Economic reforms were forced on the Soviet Union by economic necessity.
The Iran-Iraq War was a stalemate clusterfuck that destroyed both countries. You can bet your ass the Soviets would have intervened if a foreign power (particularly USA) was actively taking over a country that shared a border with them.
>implying they weren't too busy pulling out of afghanistan and having to deal with crumbling warsaw pact nations to intervene in Iraq
Gorbachev or no Gorbachev, the oil market is fucking them in the wallet.
Besides that, the Soviets aren't the US. They feel no need to babysit their client state if they do something retarded.
This is basically the premise of Red Storm Rising.
What would the world look like? No one can say, but it is safe to say that there would be a lot less Euros getting run over by trucks.