107Likes
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacksNo, but it's a very interesting question and I imagine every single person in Russia and the ex USSR countries has considered it, and/or has a strong view on it.Originally Posted by UhOhXplode
I think that RedFox attempted to do an analysis and I believe his conclusion was that Russia would have done better without the revolution and that the accomplishments of the USSR would have taken place anyway, or were irrelevant.
I am less convinced - I think it would have taken a long time for disadvantaged groups to get the advantages that the USSR offered them within only a a decade or two. There are Russian Nobel prize winners and prominent scholars and scientists whose parents or grandparents were practically illiterate peasants.
I also wonder if Imperial Russia would have been able to defend itself effectively against the attack from Nazi Germany, and whether regular soldiers would have had the same motivation to defend the territory of the USSR and liberate Eastern Europe. Things might have looked very different in Europe today, if they hadn't. Imperial Russia might have settled for simply defending its own historical territory and left Europe to the Nazis. The USSR went further West than Russia had ever been before, thereby defeating the nazis. Because fascism is the natural enemy of communism it spurred the USSR on in a way that might not have happened otherwise. Imperial Russia might even have reached some agreement with Nazi Germany that would have prevented it from getting drawn into the war completely.
Would Imperial Russia have built a sputnik and sent the first man into space? Part of the incentive for doing that, were ideological.
What would the situation be like in Central Asia? I think they'd be were Afghanistan and North West China are - instead they were treated as equals in the USSR, received support to develop their republics and are lightyears ahead of Afghanistan. I doubt most of the people there regret the USSR.
Would there have been democracy in Russia during the 20th century if the revolution never happened? Who would have accomplished that, and how would it have happened in absence of a revolution? Given what I know about Imperial Russia it seems unlikely.
My feeling is that Russia would have remained a country with extremely strong class divides without the revolution. Like Brazil today, perhaps, or other nations in South America which has well educated modern populations in the cities and poverty / poor education in rural areas. Russia is such a large and diverse country that only a really ambitious ideology with a centrally planned economy could have quickly achieved the changes that it achieved, across the nation.
However, for anyone who considers the USSR a total fiasco, obviously anything would have been preferable, including brutal class divides during the 20th century. I think that for a large, grand country like Russia, a really dramatic change and a grand, super ambitious ideology was the only way to achieve change across the country.
