the year is 2017 and in november of this
year it will mark the 100th anniversary
of the communist revolution
in russia the soviet union dissolved in
1991 but what would the world be like if
the ussr suddenly reunited today
what would the soviet union look like if
it existed today in 2017
to begin let's think about what
countries today used to be a part of the
soviet union
if the soviet union reunited today it
would completely encompass the countries
of russia
ukraine belarus moldova lithuania
latvia estonia georgia armenia
azerbaijan kazakhstan uzbekistan
turkmenistan kyrgyzstan and tajikistan
this obviously would make the modern
soviet union a very large country since
russia
alone has more land area than the entire
surface area of pluto
together the soviet union would be
bigger than australia
antarctica south america the arctic
ocean and the southern ocean
which makes the soviet union larger than
three continents
two oceans and one former planet there
are 11
time zones that would go through the
ussr so that means that if it was noon
here in this part of the country it
would be 11 pm
over here on the other side of the
country the soviet population would be a
very large 294 million
837 000 people which would place the
soviet union in fourth place in terms of
population behind the united states
this is interesting because the soviet
population in 1991 was almost the same
as it would be now
at 293 million 48 000 people
which shows just how greatly the
population in the region has been
stagnant recently
the american population at the same time
in 1991 was 248 million 710
000 people which was smaller than the
soviets but in the time
since the american population has
greatly increased to nearly 319 million
people
a majority of the people living inside
the ussr would be ethnic russians at
about 46
of the population with sizable
minorities of ukrainians uzbeks and over
a hundred
other ethnic groups russian would be the
dominant language of the state just as
it was during the soviet times as 58
of the population would be capable of
speaking and understanding it
russian would likely be the sole
official language within the country and
a return to communism would have to take
place in order for a true recreation of
the soviet union to be possible
the communist party of the soviet union
would be the sole legal political party
within the country and would possess a
monopoly on power
a return to state-sponsored atheism
would be enforced where believers would
be free to practice their faith in
private or in designated religious
buildings but all public displays of
religion outside of these designated
areas would be forbidden
despite this however the soviet union
would still have a very large religious
population with only 12 percent of the
modern population claiming to be atheist
or non-religious
54 would be orthodox christians another
3 percent catholic
24 sunni muslims 3 shia muslims and a
final four percent of multitude of other
diverse religions
the capital city would be located in
moscow the present capital of russia and
the largest city of the modern soviet
union
to add up to the top five largest cities
in the country we would add st
petersburg which would be renamed back
to leningrad as well as kiev tashkent
and
minsk the soviet economy would be pretty
large at 2.034 trillion us dollars
placing it as the eighth largest economy
in the world russia currently is the
12th largest world economy so the soviet
union would jump ahead of countries like
south korea and canada but remain stuck
behind
india and france the gdp per capita
inside the country would be fairly low
at just 6
899 dollars per person which would place
the ussr
all the way down at 76th place ahead of
bulgaria but behind
china this somewhat large economy would
however greatly support the soviet
military with a budget of 80.4 billion
us dollars
the fourth largest budget in the world
behind saudi arabia
china and the united states what the
soviets would lack in funds however they
would make up for in sheer size with a
force of 1 million 436
000 active duty soldiers the second
highest number in the world behind
china but the ussr would have an
additional two million
eight hundred eighty-four thousand
soldiers placed in reserves giving the
soviet military a potential size of four
million
three hundred twenty thousand soldiers
in the event of mobilization
a force almost as large as the entire
population of new zealand
a fully mobilized soviet military would
be about the same size as a fully
mobilized
chinese military and would be 42 percent
larger than a mobilized american
military
the soviets would also possess the
largest nuclear arsenal in the world
with 7
300 warheads compared to just 6970
american warheads
in addition the ussr would be by far the
largest oil producing country in the
world
outpacing both saudi arabia and the
united states with a production of 12
million
966 000 barrels of oil every day
if we get a little more ambitious with
this and decide to add all of the former
territory that once belonged to the
older russian empire
into the modern soviet union some
interesting things begin to happen
to do this we would add all of finland a
very large chunk of poland including the
capital warsaw
and all of alaska doing this would raise
the soviet population
up to 313 million 496
000 people which would be nearly equal
to the united states
her gdp would be dramatically increased
to 2.541 trillion us dollars
now placing the ussr as the world's
sixth largest economy ahead of both
india and france but still remaining
behind the united kingdom and
germany the added land would make the
super soviet union about the same size
as the mongol empire was at its height
the difference in size between the two
empires would only be an
area about the size of montenegro all
things considered the soviet union
likely wouldn't quite be the superpower
that it once
was it would have the largest nuclear
arsenal in the world
the second largest conventional military
in the world and would be the world's
largest
producer of oil but would be shackled by
a struggling economy and a stagnant
population growth
the united states and nato would almost
certainly be hostile to a resurgent
soviet union so the ussr would have to
seek allies elsewhere in asia and
africa it would likely be the cause for
resuming the cold war or the start of a
cold war too that could have global
consequences
the soviet union's very geography would
likely determine how she would interact
in the modern world
the soviet union's expansion was
partially a move to spread the socialist
revolution but it was also a bid to
protect moscow
you see every bit of russia's border is
protected with geography
except for here this is the northern
european plane
a flat 300 mile wide stretch of land
that funnels an invading western
european army
right up to the gates of moscow by
gaining influence in eastern european
countries
the ussr was able to create a zone of
buffer states between moscow and western
europe
not only is the russia of today weakened
by its lack of buffer states
but it is also condemned by its
geography because it has no
ice-free deep-water ports with direct
access to an ocean
that means it's hugely expensive to ship
russian
goods out of the country and their navy
can't properly function without the
permission of nato countries and allies
i talk about all this in much more
detail in my video over at wendover
productions which you can find here
please make sure to go ahead and check
out that video next as this video was
done in a collaboration with both
wendover productions and alternate
history hub
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