Can a Russo-German Alliance be beaten?

[Faeelin]

I've been thinking lately about the possibility of a Red Germany (across the Rhine, at least) in the aftermath of WW1 or the Russian invasion of Poland. [1]

There's no guarantee that a Russian-German bloc would hold, anymore than China and the Soviets formed an eternal union. But they would both have (and had) a lot of congruent and complementary interests in OTL. And the reactions in France and the United Kingdom to a Red Bloc spanning from the Rhine to the Pacific would be... amusing.


[1] No, not the victorious Red armies washing their boots in the river; I think it's more likely that the French occupy the Ruhr after the Germans treat a Soviet invasion of Poland as an excuse to retake the Corridor and get clever with reparations, and whoops, now the KPD and hard left of the SPD have risen up during hyperinflation.

[wormyguy]

Who would be in the German military in this case, given that the German military (especially the officer corps) was one of the more anti-Communist parts of society...

[The Red]

While I guess a communist Germany is at least plausible, there's no real reason for them to go to war.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by wormyguy

Who would be in the German military in this case, given that the German military (especially the officer corps) was one of the more anti-Communist parts of society...

I suspect they'd find officers for the Volksarmee from the same sources as the Soviets. Some officers who are loyal to Germany and not the hereditary dictatorship known as the monarchy, veterans from the Great War who were socialist, etc.

I admit I can easily see this ending with Rosa Luxembourg (if you can keep her alive) sending troops to the Russian border to defeat the deviationist Stalin.

[Chris S]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

I suspect they'd find officers for the Volksarmee from the same sources as the Soviets. Some officers who are loyal to Germany and not the hereditary dictatorship known as the monarchy, veterans from the Great War who were socialist, etc.

I admit I can easily see this ending with Rosa Luxembourg (if you can keep her alive) sending troops to the Russian border to defeat the deviationist Stalin.

Stalin will probably take her out before it comes to that (or attempt to anyway)

[yourworstnightmare]

On the other hand this might butterfly away Stalin and "Communism in one nation", since obviously there would be Communism in more than one nation.

[Inhato]

Not in the long run.
If not by war, it will be beaten by scientific and economic incompetence and resistance of subjugated populations.

It will also probably mean even earlier formation of trans-Atlantic community and support of USA for UK and France.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Inhato

Not in the long run.
If not by war, it will be beaten by scientific and economic incompetence and resistance of subjugated populations..

Which ones? The Chinese, the Indians, the Indonesians, or the Algerians?

[Snake Featherston]

I think there's a possibility of a Russo-German alliance people aren't considering here: supposing a revanchist coalition of conservatives takes control of Weimar and inaugurates its own rearmament and rebuilding, said conservatives and the Reichsheer would want to keep the Rapallo Alliance going. So you'd see DVNP/something like that-ruled Weimar and the Soviet Union forming a joint bloc seeking to revise Europe back to the way it was pre-1914, only tilted far more in favor of the USSR and Germany.

[MarshalBraginsky]

Another possibility would be a non-Nazi but still fascist Germany (of course they still lose WWI but let's say either Hitler is killed on the Western Front and there's no Nazi party to influence ordinary Germans), allied with a Russia that has gone fascist a la Mussolini. (An example would be one of the White faction leaders or a disillusioned Bolshevik forms his own fascist party.) Keep in mind that Mussolini was a former socialist who was expelled for stating his nationalist comments, which led him to his expulsion from the socialist party.

[basileus]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

I've been thinking lately about the possibility of a Red Germany (across the Rhine, at least) in the aftermath of WW1 or the Russian invasion of Poland. [1]

There's no guarantee that a Russian-German bloc would hold, anymore than China and the Soviets formed an eternal union. But they would both have (and had) a lot of congruent and complementary interests in OTL. And the reactions in France and the United Kingdom to a Red Bloc spanning from the Rhine to the Pacific would be... amusing.


[1] No, not the victorious Red armies washing their boots in the river; I think it's more likely that the French occupy the Ruhr after the Germans treat a Soviet invasion of Poland as an excuse to retake the Corridor and get clever with reparations, and whoops, now the KPD and hard left of the SPD have risen up during hyperinflation.

Russia and Germaby together are beatable, with enough nukes.

[MerryPrankster]

Originally Posted by basileus

Russia and Germaby together are beatable, with enough nukes.

Anyone is beatable with enough nukes. The problem is, it would take a truly massive number of nukes to bring down such an alliance, much more than it would take to break the back of say, Nazi Germany in 1944-45.

Also, the Russo-German combine would likely have nukes of its own, unless they do something foolish like drive all their Jewish physicists to the United States...

[azander12]

Originally Posted by MerryPrankster

Anyone is beatable with enough nukes. The problem is, it would take a truly massive number of nukes to bring down such an alliance, much more than it would take to break the back of say, Nazi Germany in 1944-45.

Also, the Russo-German combine would likely have nukes of its own, unless they do something foolish like drive all their Jewish physicists to the United States...

And a Marxist Germany run by Rosa Luxemberg isn't likely to enact the Nuremberg laws either... Germany with nukes, a scary thought!