AHC: less communist Bulgaria post-war
- Thread starter mlp
- Start date
POD afer the war, probably not.
During - if the British hold Crete, ad teh war goes roughly as OTL, how much sooner can they get to Greece and then move forces into Bulgaria? Without a Greek Civil War they might be able to help Bulgaria avoid it.
OTOH, with the Greek government staying on the island and thus not as much support for the Communists (as mentioned in other threads about Crete being kept), it might also mean Stalin gives up on Greece to focus on Bulgaria. So, perhaps no net effect.
During - if the British hold Crete, ad teh war goes roughly as OTL, how much sooner can they get to Greece and then move forces into Bulgaria? Without a Greek Civil War they might be able to help Bulgaria avoid it.
OTOH, with the Greek government staying on the island and thus not as much support for the Communists (as mentioned in other threads about Crete being kept), it might also mean Stalin gives up on Greece to focus on Bulgaria. So, perhaps no net effect.
I believe that, although the partisans who were Communist in Greece were pro-Stalin instead of pro-Tito, they never received official endorsement from Russia itself in terms of supplies or etc.
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
Stalin did concede Greece to the Allies in exchange for the Allied recognition of Soviet control over Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.
Alternate History
Banned
Does it count if Dimitrov decides to flip the bird to Stalin and joins Yugoslavia, quickly enough so that it's a fait accompli and the Soviets can do nothing about it without tanks? I mean, it's not that far-fetched. Dimitrov decides to meditate long and hard on one fine evening and decides that unity in the Balkans is more important than some stupid squabble about Macedonia.
Is it possible that the West concede somewhere else, i.e. Austria or Finland, to the Soviets?
We talking about this guy, right?
If so, does that mean Bulgaria joins the Tito camp?
Is it militarily viable though?
Wellll, a "finlandisation" OTL does not need to be "finlandisation" of TTL.
How do you suppose the West "concedes" Finland when Finland is not occupied by the Western allies or the Soviets?
In fact the West seemed to have quietly accepted it as a fact that Finland was in the Soviet "sphere of influence" and that they couldn't do anything substantial if the Soviets tried to take Finland over as it was. And of course there is the point to be made that by 1945 Stalin, in turn, seemed to think that trying to conquer Finland was more trouble than it was worth, and that political and economic neutralization was the order of the day, barring a homegrown Finnish Communist coup somehow succeeding. The far left in Finland, then, proved to be too weak and/or indecisive to take power without strong Soviet support.
This all explains (at least in part) why Finland would not be a very good bargaining chip for either side -and also why we IOTL got "Finlandization" rather than a NATO or WP Finland.
A country can be communist or not communist, or even "communist", but how do you imagine "less communist?"
Hm, okay then.
Then why not Austria? Didn't the Soviets already occupy the eastern half of the country?
Yeah, but Austria ended up a neutral country, kind of like Beria's plan for Germany. It wasn't technically in either side's sphere of influence after Renner set up his republic.
Don't you think Austria was deemed to be neutral before Renner set up a "neutral" republic?
The September coup in Bulgaria came relatively late, and the involvement of the Bulgarian Communists enabled the Red Army to wield a lot of influence. It simply came too late to stop the Red Army from entering Bulgaria and setting up the situation for eventual Communist takeover.
If the Bagryanov government in the summer of 1944 had acceded to the demands of the Western Allies for declaration of war against Germany, I think things might have been different. If Bulgaria had also secured arrival of Western airborne forces into Sofia soon afterwards, it would have pre-empted the arrival of Red Army troops. That would have made it very hard for the USSR to declare war and occupy Bulgaria.
Without the presence of Red Army troops, it would have been much more difficult for the Communists to seize power. There would always be the chance of a Czech coup scenario, but that was greatly abetted by the people the Red Army put in place in local government during the time the Red Army had occupied Czechoslovakia. In a scenario where the Red Army had never entered Bulgaria, there is a good possibility the Communists could never have taken power.
If the Bagryanov government in the summer of 1944 had acceded to the demands of the Western Allies for declaration of war against Germany, I think things might have been different. If Bulgaria had also secured arrival of Western airborne forces into Sofia soon afterwards, it would have pre-empted the arrival of Red Army troops. That would have made it very hard for the USSR to declare war and occupy Bulgaria.
Without the presence of Red Army troops, it would have been much more difficult for the Communists to seize power. There would always be the chance of a Czech coup scenario, but that was greatly abetted by the people the Red Army put in place in local government during the time the Red Army had occupied Czechoslovakia. In a scenario where the Red Army had never entered Bulgaria, there is a good possibility the Communists could never have taken power.
Actually Soviets left Czechoslovakia early 1946. They didn't need to put somebody in place as communist had huge support especially in Czech lands and did very good in last free elections in 1946. That's why they had people in government. They were smart enough to directly hold or have their supporters in important ministries. Actually communist Klement Gottwald was PM in coalition government with commies holding Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Informations. Ministry of Defense was held by general Ludvik Svoboda, without any party membership but... He was commanding Czechoslovak Army in Soviet Union and was more pro then anti communist.
Cook
Banned
I think two key elements in 1944 would have to change, but not by much. The first would be Churchill’s ‘Naughty document’: his proposal to divide the Balkans up into British and Russian spheres of influence, with each empire’s percentage of the total influence in a particular country determined by agreement; in the document, Churchill proposed that the Soviet Union be allocated 75% and Britain 25% influence in Bulgaria. This is a bit of a peculiarity on Churchill’s part, because the adjoining countries, Rumania and Greece, were each divided 90:10 (Soviets controlling 90% influence in Rumania, the British 90% in Greece.) Yugoslavia was seen as concerning both empires, so was divided 50:50. Since Bulgaria was the buffer between future Soviet dominated Rumania and British dominated Greece, and was also adjacent to Turkey and the Bosporus (an area of sensitivity to both empires), logically influence in it should have been divided 50:50, making it another buffer state.
Historically, at the time that these secret negotiations were taking place in Moscow, 9 October 1944, the Soviets had been at war with Bulgaria for only a month, having declared war on Bulgaria only when their forces were already overrunning Rumania in an offensive that only began in the last week of August 1944. In September, Finland and the Soviet Union signed an armistice, which allowed the Soviet forces on the front north of Leningrad and on the Karelian Peninsular to be redeployed elsewhere.
Conceivably, the Soviet offensive might have been given a lower priority, with troops and supplies being prioritised to the Baltic States and East Prussia instead, delaying the commencement of an offensive that, other than denying the Ploiești oilfields to the Axis, served no strategic purpose in the drive into Germany. With a slower offensive in the Balkans, even of only four weeks, Stalin might have been willing to accept a Bulgaria that had ‘liberated’ itself and declared war on Germany prior to the arrival of any Red Army forces; presumably with a coalition government containing a large Communist contingent – local communists not beholden to Moscow and therefore more inclined to go the way of Yugoslavia.
Historically, at the time that these secret negotiations were taking place in Moscow, 9 October 1944, the Soviets had been at war with Bulgaria for only a month, having declared war on Bulgaria only when their forces were already overrunning Rumania in an offensive that only began in the last week of August 1944. In September, Finland and the Soviet Union signed an armistice, which allowed the Soviet forces on the front north of Leningrad and on the Karelian Peninsular to be redeployed elsewhere.
Conceivably, the Soviet offensive might have been given a lower priority, with troops and supplies being prioritised to the Baltic States and East Prussia instead, delaying the commencement of an offensive that, other than denying the Ploiești oilfields to the Axis, served no strategic purpose in the drive into Germany. With a slower offensive in the Balkans, even of only four weeks, Stalin might have been willing to accept a Bulgaria that had ‘liberated’ itself and declared war on Germany prior to the arrival of any Red Army forces; presumably with a coalition government containing a large Communist contingent – local communists not beholden to Moscow and therefore more inclined to go the way of Yugoslavia.
Cook
Banned
Far from it; Germany was under Four Power Occupation and Vienna, like Berlin, was a divided city in the centre of the Soviet Zone of occupation. The Soviet fear was that the western zones of Austria would be combined into an Austrian state, or worse: be amalgamated into the new West German state. The British and Americans were already arming Austrian Gendarmes in their zones, forming the nucleus of the future Austrian army; just as had happened in Germany. The Soviet zone of Austria was not viable as an independent state, so was well worth giving up in exchange for permanent Austrian neutralisation.