What destroyed the Soviet Union?

[Pandeeria]

I would say the Soviet Union was destroyed due to nationalism and the fact that their heavy-handed approach convinced people they were conquerors rather than liberators, which made everyone hate them. Unlike other Communist regimes, the Soviet Union was far more federal and kept ethnicity-based divisions in existence (as Republics rather than independent states, but still) which meant that the various nationalistic groups that wanted their countries to be separate from the USSR had easy already-made borders to fall back upon.

Should the USSR have liquidated all of the SSR's?

[ODMS Babel]

I would say the Soviet Union was destroyed due to nationalism and the fact that their heavy-handed approach convinced people they were conquerors rather than liberators, which made everyone hate them. Unlike other Communist regimes, the Soviet Union was far more federal and kept ethnicity-based divisions in existence (as Republics rather than independent states, but still) which meant that the various nationalistic groups that wanted their countries to be separate from the USSR had easy already-made borders to fall back upon.

Should the USSR have liquidated all of the SSR's?

If they wanted to survive, yes. At least they should have liquidated the ones that had and replaced them with new ones, as the SSRs were threats to Soviet power.
Specificially, the Russian SFSR was a massive entity that (especially at the end of the Soviet Union) posed a huge threat to Soviet authority. Yeltsin proved exactly how dangerous this was when he took over and effectively destroyed the CPSU's authority over most of the USSR. The rest meanwhile had populations that owed more loyalty to their nation than to the USSR. The USSR might have survived (for a bit longer at least) if they had dissolved the Russian SFSR into various much smaller entities (so that somebody like Yeltsin could not take them all over) while changing the borders of the other SSRs to remove their association with pre-USSR countries (so that nationalist movements would have difficulty drawing borders for their new nations). This might not have stopped the border Republics from leaving, but it would have made it harder and probably would have stopped Yeltsin.

[Padnak]

I think the soviet union could have survived on for much longer if it had transitioned into something like a federation or commonwealth, in a similar vain to the UK. It would have kept the nation fairly united and would have allowed for much more effective internal trading

[Quew]

Simple command economies suck regardless of them being heavy handed (USSR we send you to gulag if you fail to meet quota) or soft touch (Central banking Keynesianism we print and spend fiat money in order to use more resources then the population can handle because raising taxes might cause a revolt but a slow but progressively inclining rate of inflation will not be noticed till it is to late to save the currency and the miseducated will blame the business man for being greedy).

[Pandeeria]

Should the USSR have liquidated all of the SSR's?

If they wanted to survive, yes. At least they should have liquidated the ones that had and replaced them with new ones, as the SSRs were threats to Soviet power.
Specificially, the Russian SFSR was a massive entity that (especially at the end of the Soviet Union) posed a huge threat to Soviet authority. Yeltsin proved exactly how dangerous this was when he took over and effectively destroyed the CPSU's authority over most of the USSR. The rest meanwhile had populations that owed more loyalty to their nation than to the USSR. The USSR might have survived (for a bit longer at least) if they had dissolved the Russian SFSR into various much smaller entities (so that somebody like Yeltsin could not take them all over) while changing the borders of the other SSRs to remove their association with pre-USSR countries (so that nationalist movements would have difficulty drawing borders for their new nations). This might not have stopped the border Republics from leaving, but it would have made it harder and probably would have stopped Yeltsin.

You want the USSR to survive, so you decentralize it further?!

What are you smoking?

[Union Of Canadorian Socialists Republic]

The answer is clear in the fact that virtually every godforsaken town and village in Russia is subject to those commie block apartments. The Soviet Union didn't collapse from government policies, it was simply screaming for increased floor space and non obnoxious neighbors partying and drinking in the apartment above. The wicked houses of the bourgeois were starting to become a hot trend among young Soviets, and pretty soon those nasty apartment blocks became unpopular, causing the collapse of Communism.


Source= Google Earth.

[Vetalia]

The extensive-growth economic model of the USSR was simply unsustainable; after the failure of the Liberman/Kosygin reforms of the 1960s, the Soviet economic model rapidly became obsolete in the face of an increasingly technology focused world economy and simply couldn't keep up with the complex economic structure a modern economy required.

They also mismanaged the commodity boom of the 1970s, selling commodities abroad to earn hard currency to keep the system creaking along rather than pushing a new set of reforms (the 1979 "reform" was anything but). When the bottom dropped out on oil prices in 1982, the USSR was stuck.

[ODMS Babel]

If they wanted to survive, yes. At least they should have liquidated the ones that had and replaced them with new ones, as the SSRs were threats to Soviet power.
Specificially, the Russian SFSR was a massive entity that (especially at the end of the Soviet Union) posed a huge threat to Soviet authority. Yeltsin proved exactly how dangerous this was when he took over and effectively destroyed the CPSU's authority over most of the USSR. The rest meanwhile had populations that owed more loyalty to their nation than to the USSR. The USSR might have survived (for a bit longer at least) if they had dissolved the Russian SFSR into various much smaller entities (so that somebody like Yeltsin could not take them all over) while changing the borders of the other SSRs to remove their association with pre-USSR countries (so that nationalist movements would have difficulty drawing borders for their new nations). This might not have stopped the border Republics from leaving, but it would have made it harder and probably would have stopped Yeltsin.

You want the USSR to survive, so you decentralize it further?!

What are you smoking?

I am not saying anything about (de)centralization, I am talking about the existence of internal rivals for power.

If you want the Soviet Union - or really any central government - to survive, you cannot have a massive amount of territory placed under a single sub-national entity. Especially not if that massive sub-national entity poses a direct threat to the national government's authority like Yeltsin's Russia did. The Russian SFSR was too large and had too much power, allowing it to be used by power-seekers like Yeltsin to undermine and overthrow the central Soviet government. The other SSRs were not large enough that their loss would impact the Soviet Union (even if their nationalist movements ensured they would attempt to leave), so they were individually incapable of destroying the USSR. It is the same reason why California and Texas are the most likely to try and secede from the USA - they are large and resource-rich enough to survive. Delaware though is small and dependent on inter-state trade, so a Delaware independence movement is unlikely to ever be an issue. And yet if California or Texas left the USA, this would have a far larger impact than if Delaware left. A big difference is that if California or Texas left, they would take a minority of the economy with them. When the Russian SFSR left the Soviet Union, it took almost everything with it.

The best solution would have been to dissolve both the Russian SFSR and all the lessers SSRs and create various new internal divisions far smaller than the SFSR and with no pre-Soviet national borders being used in their creation. The new SSRs - or whatever they would be called - would need to be large enough for easy administration and yet small enough that they would pose no threat to the central government. It would also be best for them to be roughly equal in size. In this way the new SSRs would be divisions of a single country, rather than preserved forms of conquered countries like the SSRs or threats to the Union's authority like the SFSR. This would stop nationalists from having easy borders to fall back upon if they tried to leave the Union while also stopping anyone from taking over a single Republic and using it to destroy the Union (like Yeltsin did).

[Pandeeria]

You want the USSR to survive, so you decentralize it further?!

What are you smoking?

I am not saying anything about centralization, I am talking about the existence of internal rivals for power.

If you want the Soviet Union - or really any central government - to survive, you cannot have a massive amount of territory placed under a single sub-national entity. Especially not if that massive sub-national entity poses a direct threat to the national government's authority like Yeltsin's Russia did. The Russian SFSR was too large and had too much power, allowing it to be used by power-seekers like Yeltsin to undermine and overthrow the central Soviet government. The other SSRs were not large enough that their loss would impact the Soviet Union (even if their nationalist movements ensured they would attempt to leave), so they were individually incapable of destroying the USSR. It is the same reason why California and Texas are the most likely to try and secede from the USA - they are large and resource-rich enough to survive. Delaware though is small and dependent on inter-state trade, so a Delaware independence movement is unlikely to ever be an issue. And yet if California or Texas left the USA, this would have a far larger impact than if Delaware left. A big difference is that if California or Texas left, they would take a minority of the economy with them. When the Russian SFSR left the Soviet Union, it took almost everything with it.

The best solution would have been to dissolve both the Russian SFSR and all the lessers SSRs and create various new internal divisions far smaller than the SFSR and with no pre-Soviet national borders being used in their creation. The new SSRs - or whatever they would be called - would need to be large enough for easy administration and yet small enough that they would pose no threat to the central government. It would also be best for them to be roughly equal in size. In this way the new SSRs would be divisions of a single country, rather than preserved forms of conquered countries like the SSRs or threats to the Union's authority like the SFSR. This would stop nationalists from having easy borders to fall back upon if they tried to leave the Union while also stopping anyone from taking over a single Republic and using it to destroy the Union (like Yeltsin did).

But the SFSR was the main administrative Republic, it was the central government.

If you wanted the Soviet Union to survive, you would have to do the following things:

• Liqudate and annex all SSR's under one Banner
• Expel and arrest those reformists that wanted to give the people freedom
• Have the State regain its totalitarian power
• Put more funding into Military and Police development
• Destroy any middle class, force all residents into a collective lower class or into a higher class
• Keep the system inefficient and bloated

That would be a fine start to the Union's survival, if you wanted it to survive.

[The Sotoan Union]

I am not saying anything about centralization, I am talking about the existence of internal rivals for power.

If you want the Soviet Union - or really any central government - to survive, you cannot have a massive amount of territory placed under a single sub-national entity. Especially not if that massive sub-national entity poses a direct threat to the national government's authority like Yeltsin's Russia did. The Russian SFSR was too large and had too much power, allowing it to be used by power-seekers like Yeltsin to undermine and overthrow the central Soviet government. The other SSRs were not large enough that their loss would impact the Soviet Union (even if their nationalist movements ensured they would attempt to leave), so they were individually incapable of destroying the USSR. It is the same reason why California and Texas are the most likely to try and secede from the USA - they are large and resource-rich enough to survive. Delaware though is small and dependent on inter-state trade, so a Delaware independence movement is unlikely to ever be an issue. And yet if California or Texas left the USA, this would have a far larger impact than if Delaware left. A big difference is that if California or Texas left, they would take a minority of the economy with them. When the Russian SFSR left the Soviet Union, it took almost everything with it.

The best solution would have been to dissolve both the Russian SFSR and all the lessers SSRs and create various new internal divisions far smaller than the SFSR and with no pre-Soviet national borders being used in their creation. The new SSRs - or whatever they would be called - would need to be large enough for easy administration and yet small enough that they would pose no threat to the central government. It would also be best for them to be roughly equal in size. In this way the new SSRs would be divisions of a single country, rather than preserved forms of conquered countries like the SSRs or threats to the Union's authority like the SFSR. This would stop nationalists from having easy borders to fall back upon if they tried to leave the Union while also stopping anyone from taking over a single Republic and using it to destroy the Union (like Yeltsin did).

But the SFSR was the main administrative Republic, it was the central government.

If you wanted the Soviet Union to survive, you would have to do the following things:

• Liqudate and annex all SSR's under one Banner
• Expel and arrest those reformists that wanted to give the people freedom
• Have the State regain its totalitarian power
• Put more funding into Military and Police development
• Destroy any middle class, force all residents into a collective lower class or into a higher class
• Keep the system inefficient and bloated

That would be a fine start to the Union's survival, if you wanted it to survive.

That's like everything that was wrong with the Soviet Union in real life.

[Bolnoa]

Gorby...Only Gorby...

[Dukats]

"Somehow it was the
Jews."

[Tzorsland]

Bah, stupid poll, doesn't have a "Pope" option.

[The Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine]

Itself. It made poor economic plans and got involved in to many foreign conflicts.

Contrary to popular belief, Ronald Reagan was not involved.

[Afro-Euasia]

Gorbachev

[United Marxist Nations]

Itself. It made poor economic plans and got involved in to many foreign conflicts.

Contrary to popular belief, Ronald Reagan was not involved.

He was though, his increased military spending cause the USSR to overspend on their own military, which drew massive funds away from other sectors. By 1989, the military accounted for up to a quarter of the Soviet economy, and the effects on healthcare and other sectors were beginning to show.