4 ms·

Yeah, USSR should have kept all the occupied countries! /sarcasm

• romwell 4y ago
  I was trying to say that there was a way forward for the Cold War to end without the dissolution of the USSR — not that it'd be great for the occupied countries (or people of USSR in general) for USSR to continue existing. The dissolution could have happened afterwards, in an organized manner, as a process — not a cataclysm. That way we could have ended up with the new countries not having old apparatchiks as little tsars. Maybe we'd have an independent Yakutia, Siberia, Tatarstan too
  • mantas 4y ago
    Dissolution as it did was quite organised. Especially when you take into consideration that the society could barely function in market economy after decades of living sovietism. And economically it was a mess with too much focus on military complex. The rest being terribly inefficient. The only way to stay away from the old apparatchiks would have been management by occupational forces for several decades. And that occupational forces should have kept USSR market closed instead of pushing their own produce. Which is hardly possible.
    • avmich 4y ago
      Right. I'd add that it was, judging by historical parallels, rather happy dissolution - not perfect, as GP mentions, but hardly a cause for too much annoyance.
      • mantas 4y ago
        Well, for the annoyances part, Russia did great work to setup future annoyances that they're now exploiting. Rebel republics in Georgia that were exploited in 2008. Nagorno karabach in Armenia is hot since late 80s and probably will stay such in foreseeable future. Then Moldova's Padniestre is ripe and would have been next after Ukraine. Crimea with special status of Sevastopol was perfect setup too. Here in Lithuania we narrowly avoided a similar issue as well with an attempt to establish an „autonomous republic“ in early 90s.