AHC: Communist Italy + West Berlin-like Vatican

[Noravea]

Originally Posted by d32123

Who would be the China analog?

Maybe Allied landing fails in Italian mainland, Soviets capture Peninsula, Italian Government flees to Sicily.

Of course, this is the most unlikely scenario.

[RandomChance]

This is all good, but the Vatican is rather small, certainly smaller than East Berlin. Would such a location be tenable without additional ground (for an airport at least)?

In the flip-side, I think the Soviets would concede the Vatican (and possibly some additional land) in order not to upset the entire Catholic world - especially in South/Central America where they were trying to acquire friends. Seize the Vatican and you might just trip a Crusade!

[Dan1988]

Originally Posted by d32123

Someone should write a TL where "Vietnam" happens on the Italian Peninsula.

If it involves the destruction of the Mafia and similar groups like the 'Ndragheta, I'd certainly be interested.

[Dan1988]

Oh, and BTW - there's another monkey wrench that would have to be addressed - San Marino. Would it remain independent or absorbed into a Communist Italy?

[freivolk]

Originally Posted by Dan1988

Oh, and BTW - there's another monkey wrench that would have to be addressed - San Marino. Would it remain independent or absorbed into a Communist Italy?

Funny fact! San Marino had from 1947 to 1957 a communist goverment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatti_di_Rovereta

[Laplace's Demon]

It sounds like the Italian Communist Party has a better chance of taking over the country in a nasty civil war in the post-war period than the Soviets do of taking all of continental Italy during WWII. I guess the ideal situation is it would happen before Gladio can be set up in any meaningful way, and the Soviets would be nearby to give arms - so, instead of needing Soviet tanks to have rolled through Italy, Soviet tanks rolling through Austria?

Ending up with Austria as a Soviet-puppet buffer state and Italy as an enthusiastically pro-Soviet, but with its own Soviet-style leadership and intellectual cadre, Eastern Bloc member?

Also, if you do have Italian revolutionaries being the ones to create the Red Italy, what if they retained their core leaders after the death of Stalin and leadership change-up in the Soviet Union? What might the impact of having a strongly-tied-with-the-Soviets Italy that still wants to be Stalinist? People on this thread seem to have implied that Italy has more to give to the Soviet Union regarding people with technical skills and so forth than the Soviet Union has to withhold from them unless they have a party purge of the Stalinists; which could make the situation tricky.