Was there ever a realistic chance for the Soviet Union to have become the dominate superpower after WWII? Speculate and post!
Define Victory.
I did, in the opening post.
Not with Ronald Reagan on the case, pal.
To be fair Seeds, Tailgunner Joe did his part.
Sorry, but Joe Biden was a marginal player at best.
:lol:
Yes, they only needed to shoot some nukes.
Define of
Not really. They could have strangled China in the cradle back in '69 though and still be in second place.
You could maybe make the argument that communism could win the cold war with communist parties wining elections in western europe after the war, but the USSR by itself did not have the population or resources to be dominate the globe.
The problem with this scenario is it requires something that was not true to be true: that Communism, at least the USSR version, would have to work as an economic and political system longterm. That problem was just not going to be overcome.
Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2013, 09:20:14 AM
The problem with this scenario is it requires something that was not true to be true: that Communism, at least the USSR version, would have to work as an economic and political system longterm. That problem was just not going to be overcome.
Disagree. Communism worked well enough in the short term (not well, but well enough) that other considerations could overwhelm the long-term advantage of free market democracy.
I guess they could not have won it outright as the USA was and is too strong and stable, but I don't think them losing it was not the only possible outcome. If they had reformed along the lines of China, the Soviet Union could still be around and be a superpower. They would inevitably have lost their grip on Eastern Europe though, so their power would decline, but they'd still be ahead of everybody but the USA and now China.
Quote from: Zanza on April 15, 2013, 09:48:02 AM
I guess they could not have won it outright as the USA was and is too strong and stable, but I don't think them losing it was not the only possible outcome. If they had reformed along the lines of China, the Soviet Union could still be around and be a superpower. They would inevitably have lost their grip on Eastern Europe though, so their power would decline, but they'd still be ahead of everybody but the USA and now China.
Is that possible? It seemed the economic dogma was far more important to the Russians than it was to the Chinese. Besides what happened in China was hardly easy, reforming along those lines required the nearly miraculous career of Deng. There was no comparable Russian figure.
Quote from: Zanza on April 15, 2013, 09:48:02 AM
If they had reformed along the lines of China, the Soviet Union could still be around and be a superpower.
I have a hard time imagining that being possible. The USSR was a bit less homogeneous than China, and a breakup was pretty inevitable once the hardline communists fell out of power.
Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2013, 09:20:14 AM
The problem with this scenario is it requires something that was not true to be true: that Communism, at least the USSR version, would have to work as an economic and political system longterm. That problem was just not going to be overcome.
It would be interesting to see them have a crack at it with the help of 90s computer technology however. Could really help the economic side at least. Though the 00s stuff would play havoc with the political/social side.
Did they? They still might.
Quote from: Barrister on April 15, 2013, 09:32:48 AM
Disagree. Communism worked well enough in the short term (not well, but well enough) that other considerations could overwhelm the long-term advantage of free market democracy.
True. It's actually remarkable that it worked as well as it did, even though it was living on borrowed time since maybe around the 60s, if not before then.
Quote from: Tyr on April 15, 2013, 09:56:28 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2013, 09:20:14 AM
The problem with this scenario is it requires something that was not true to be true: that Communism, at least the USSR version, would have to work as an economic and political system longterm. That problem was just not going to be overcome.
It would be interesting to see them have a crack at it with the help of 90s computer technology however. Could really help the economic side at least. Though the 00s stuff would play havoc with the political/social side.
The ComBloc imitation technology would have been entertaining, for sure.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2013, 09:56:53 AM
Did they? They still might.
But they're not the Soviet Union anymore. If anything, they're Mob, Inc. now.
Who figured there would ever be a nation-state for the mob again, after the attempt in Cuba failed? And a nuclear armed one, to boot?
Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2013, 09:50:49 AM
Quote from: Zanza on April 15, 2013, 09:48:02 AM
I guess they could not have won it outright as the USA was and is too strong and stable, but I don't think them losing it was not the only possible outcome. If they had reformed along the lines of China, the Soviet Union could still be around and be a superpower. They would inevitably have lost their grip on Eastern Europe though, so their power would decline, but they'd still be ahead of everybody but the USA and now China.
Is that possible? It seemed the economic dogma was far more important to the Russians than it was to the Chinese. Besides what happened in China was hardly easy, reforming along those lines required the nearly miraculous career of Deng. There was no comparable Russian figure.
The argument that there was no comparable Russian figure is meaningless when discussing a hypothetical. A Sergey Dengov is certainly not impossible to imagine. It's not like the Soviet Union didn't have a history of all powerful paramount leaders that could steer the country in whatever way they wanted.
I don't think economic dogma was really important to many Russians. Once they see the success of economic reforms they would leave Marxism behind just as fast as the Chinese, Vietnamese and other Communist countries. Plenty of the current oligarchs started out as functionaries of the Communist Party and then swapped to hardcore capitalism when the way was clear.
Quote from: derspiess on April 15, 2013, 09:55:26 AM
Quote from: Zanza on April 15, 2013, 09:48:02 AM
If they had reformed along the lines of China, the Soviet Union could still be around and be a superpower.
I have a hard time imagining that being possible. The USSR was a bit less homogeneous than China, and a breakup was pretty inevitable once the hardline communists fell out of power.
It's not like China isn't suppressing its minorities or unruly groups of the Han Chinese.
And it's not like the Soviets (or even Russia) never cracked down on their minorities to keep them in line. In a hypothetical scenario, I can imagine them cracking down on Central Asian or Baltic secessionists. Let's say the didn't waste their strength in Afghanistan and instead focused on keeping domestic dissent suppressed.
Quote from: Zanza on April 15, 2013, 10:18:19 AM
It's not like China isn't suppressing its minorities or unruly groups of the Han Chinese.
And it's not like the Soviets (or even Russia) never cracked down on their minorities to keep them in line. In a hypothetical scenario, I can imagine them cracking down on Central Asian or Baltic secessionists. Let's say the didn't waste their strength in Afghanistan and instead focused on keeping domestic dissent suppressed.
Not sure if I can imagine the Soviets having reformers with the stomach for such crackdowns.
Quote from: Zanza on April 15, 2013, 10:14:26 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2013, 09:50:49 AM
Quote from: Zanza on April 15, 2013, 09:48:02 AM
I guess they could not have won it outright as the USA was and is too strong and stable, but I don't think them losing it was not the only possible outcome. If they had reformed along the lines of China, the Soviet Union could still be around and be a superpower. They would inevitably have lost their grip on Eastern Europe though, so their power would decline, but they'd still be ahead of everybody but the USA and now China.
Is that possible? It seemed the economic dogma was far more important to the Russians than it was to the Chinese. Besides what happened in China was hardly easy, reforming along those lines required the nearly miraculous career of Deng. There was no comparable Russian figure.
The argument that there was no comparable Russian figure is meaningless when discussing a hypothetical. A Sergey Dengov is certainly not impossible to imagine. It's not like the Soviet Union didn't have a history of all powerful paramount leaders that could steer the country in whatever way they wanted.
I don't think economic dogma was really important to many Russians. Once they see the success of economic reforms they would leave Marxism behind just as fast as the Chinese, Vietnamese and other Communist countries. Plenty of the current oligarchs started out as functionaries of the Communist Party and then swapped to hardcore capitalism when the way was clear.
1) Capitalism was in living memory in China in 1980. Not true of the USSR after 1960, and even then most of them died in the war or the revolution.
2) Deng drew on Hong Kong, South Korean, Japanese, American and later Taiwanese expertise in a way the USSR never could have because of the cold war.
3) Chinese abroad communities were of paramount importance. Once Russians left Russia they were gone for good.
The could have first-strike nuked the world.
Well, for the Soviets to have become the dominate superpower, I think that you'd have to go back and change things that happened before the Cold War even started. If France and Britian had smacked Hitler down when he remilatarized the Rhineland, and Japan had been able to keep relatively low-ranking Army officers from starting wars in China, then there's no WWII, and the US doesn't re-arm. There's no Manhatten Project, and maybe no nukes. WWII speeded up decolonization, but it would have probably happened anyway by the mid-1970s at least. If at that point, you have a Soviet Union with a huge military, and the US has a regular Army roughly the size of what we had in the mid-30s (what was it, about 35,000 men?) and the rest of Europe is fragmented and worn out from fighting and loosing colonial wars, then maybe they can overrun Europe and become dominate.
Terrorists torpedoed my thread! :(
Quote from: Razgovory on April 15, 2013, 05:09:39 PM
Terrorists torpedoed my thread! :(
Did they hijack the Inca torpedo boats?
Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2013, 10:35:46 AM
Quote from: Zanza on April 15, 2013, 10:14:26 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2013, 09:50:49 AM
Quote from: Zanza on April 15, 2013, 09:48:02 AM
I guess they could not have won it outright as the USA was and is too strong and stable, but I don't think them losing it was not the only possible outcome. If they had reformed along the lines of China, the Soviet Union could still be around and be a superpower. They would inevitably have lost their grip on Eastern Europe though, so their power would decline, but they'd still be ahead of everybody but the USA and now China.
Is that possible? It seemed the economic dogma was far more important to the Russians than it was to the Chinese. Besides what happened in China was hardly easy, reforming along those lines required the nearly miraculous career of Deng. There was no comparable Russian figure.
The argument that there was no comparable Russian figure is meaningless when discussing a hypothetical. A Sergey Dengov is certainly not impossible to imagine. It's not like the Soviet Union didn't have a history of all powerful paramount leaders that could steer the country in whatever way they wanted.
I don't think economic dogma was really important to many Russians. Once they see the success of economic reforms they would leave Marxism behind just as fast as the Chinese, Vietnamese and other Communist countries. Plenty of the current oligarchs started out as functionaries of the Communist Party and then swapped to hardcore capitalism when the way was clear.
1) Capitalism was in living memory in China in 1980. Not true of the USSR after 1960, and even then most of them died in the war or the revolution.
2) Deng drew on Hong Kong, South Korean, Japanese, American and later Taiwanese expertise in a way the USSR never could have because of the cold war.
3) Chinese abroad communities were of paramount importance. Once Russians left Russia they were gone for good.
The Soviet Union late in life was not lacking in technical expertise, they already had that, besides they could draw on expertise in Western Europe. The French will build stuff for anyone.
Speaking of the Soviet Union doing a China and transitioning economics aren't the important factor, if that's all that matters then what is Russia if not just a (badly) reformed Soviet Union. The key is political and not having the other states of the union decide to break free.
A bit of a problem here lies in the way the Soviet Union was made up as opposed to China. China is rather big on the whole 'there is one China which has been around since time immemorial' thing whilst the Soviets as a key part of their claims to legitamacy liked to present themself as not just the Russian Empire but as a free association of states.
In China too it is the Han core which is without a doubt the most developed part of the country with the most likely to seek independence regions such as Tibet being undeveloped fringe regions hidden from the world, in the USSR the opposite was true with the most likely to break free Baltics being the most developed part of the Soviet Union.
I suppose the key question is: How many states does Russia have to keep to be counted as the Soviet Union? Can they just be Russia as we know it but keep the Soviet name?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 15, 2013, 10:02:44 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2013, 09:56:53 AM
Did they? They still might.
But they're not the Soviet Union anymore. If anything, they're Mob, Inc. now.
Who figured there would ever be a nation-state for the mob again, after the attempt in Cuba failed? And a nuclear armed one, to boot?
I meant ideologically. Though I guess outlasting communism by forty years is still technically winning.
But the actual geographical and political entity? Haha, hell no. I wonder at what point it'll be empty enough that Arabs, Turkics, Iranians, and Chinese will start colonizing it.
It depends what you mean by win and realistic :lol:
Edit: Especially given that we've got the benefit of hindsight. The USSR and their bloc collapsed. But I think you could argue for large periods of that time the USSR was the dominant 'winning' superpower.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 15, 2013, 09:52:33 PM
But I think you could argue for large periods of that time the USSR was the dominant 'winning' superpower.
Their high-water mark was from Sputnik to the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I blame Ike.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 15, 2013, 09:58:42 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 15, 2013, 09:52:33 PM
But I think you could argue for large periods of that time the USSR was the dominant 'winning' superpower.
Their high-water mark was from Sputnik to the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I blame Ike.
Pop quiz hotshot: do you intervene to help the Beet People?
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2013, 10:14:56 PM
Pop quiz hotshot: do you intervene to help the Beet People?
Oh hells no.
Actually, if I had to choose the perfect pretext, it'd be the Berlin Crisis. They don't have atomic weapons. Eastern Europe is freed with minimal casualties on our side. Iirc, they're even still dealing with a seriously deficient RKKA. I dunno if actually destroying the Stalinist government is worth the effort. Russia will be Russia.
1956 is iffier. They still aren't really a match for us, but they do have nuclear weapons, if a deficit of capable delivery systems. It's possible--it's been a while since I looked up the numbers--our actual superiority may have been too overwhelming to risk escalating to a nuclear conflict if we didn't go first. Obviously, the Eastern Euros were chafing and would have welcomed us. On the minus side, the Russians would be even more fearful of the West than they already were, possibly leading to an even more adversarial relationship later.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 15, 2013, 09:58:42 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 15, 2013, 09:52:33 PM
But I think you could argue for large periods of that time the USSR was the dominant 'winning' superpower.
Their high-water mark was from Sputnik to the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I blame Ike.
I am inclined to agree, though they may been strongest compared to the US in the early 1970's when the US was busy fighting in Vietnam, divided internally, and was unpopular with some of NATO's allies. Course they had their own problems.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2013, 10:27:26 PM
Actually, if I had to choose the perfect pretext, it'd be the Berlin Crisis. They don't have atomic weapons. Eastern Europe is freed with minimal casualties on our side. Iirc, they're even still dealing with a seriously deficient RKKA. I dunno if actually destroying the Stalinist government is worth the effort. Russia will be Russia.
1956 is iffier. They still aren't really a match for us, but they do have nuclear weapons, if a deficit of capable delivery systems. It's possible--it's been a while since I looked up the numbers--our actual superiority may have been too overwhelming to risk escalating to a nuclear conflict if we didn't go first. Obviously, the Eastern Euros were chafing and would have welcomed us. On the minus side, the Russians would be even more fearful of the West than they already were, possibly leading to an even more adversarial relationship later.
I wonder could the Soviets realistically hit an American city with a nuke before ICBMs? Just with bombers? Would any make it through
Quote from: Razgovory on April 16, 2013, 06:40:43 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 15, 2013, 10:27:26 PM
Actually, if I had to choose the perfect pretext, it'd be the Berlin Crisis. They don't have atomic weapons. Eastern Europe is freed with minimal casualties on our side. Iirc, they're even still dealing with a seriously deficient RKKA. I dunno if actually destroying the Stalinist government is worth the effort. Russia will be Russia.
1956 is iffier. They still aren't really a match for us, but they do have nuclear weapons, if a deficit of capable delivery systems. It's possible--it's been a while since I looked up the numbers--our actual superiority may have been too overwhelming to risk escalating to a nuclear conflict if we didn't go first. Obviously, the Eastern Euros were chafing and would have welcomed us. On the minus side, the Russians would be even more fearful of the West than they already were, possibly leading to an even more adversarial relationship later.
I wonder could the Soviets realistically hit an American city with a nuke before ICBMs? Just with bombers? Would any make it through
Maybe if the city in question was Nome.