Twilight of the Red Tsar
- Thread starter Napoleon IV
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Speaking of the agrarian issues plaguing the USSR ITTL, did it pursue Stalin's Plan for the Transformation of Nature that got largely abandoned IOTL after Stalin's death? And what of the Virgin Lands campaign? Stalin's Plan was a mixed bag (it envisaged extensive use of such dubious techniques as yarovization and square nested sowing ('квадратно-гнездовой посев'), but also some rational measures like nation-wide creation of protective belts to prevent dust storms), but the Virgin Lands campaign ended in a disaster, destroying North Kazakhstan's fragile topsoils and turning it into a dustbowl.
In the collapse of the Soviet Union, have efforts made in direction of unity among these rebels, with promises of independence or, at least autonomy, made (or at least the promise of reexamine the situation after, which could prove contentious when the exact borders will have to be fixed) and have the Western powers made any attempt to contact them?
Stalin's plan continued until his death, and the Virgin Lands campaign never got off the ground (IOTL a large part of the reason for its creation was Khrushchev's desire to have some sort of agricultural success to his name).
I'll discuss this in the next update. For now: part of the problem is that there isn't really any unifying ideology. Everyone wants the USSR to fall, but no one can agree on what it's replacement should be.
There have been some efforts, and that's part of the topic of the next update.
If there's one thing I learned from the OTL Russian Civil War, it's that whoever controls Moscow will win. Want proof? The Soviets should have lost, being surrounded on all sides and having a foreign intervention against them, but controlling Moscow (and Trotsky's(?) ingenious mobilization of resources) allowed them to win. The government should never have given up!
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Red Victory during the Civil War can be easy explained - they control center o the Russian Railways and most of the Russian Industry and Russian Emperor's Army Stocks was dislocated around the Moscow. Russian Railways is still very Moscow-centralied. But during Industialization and new factories were build. Soviet economy in TTL will be less centralized, than Russian economy in 1918. And most of weapons would be located in the western regions, such in OTL
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OTL Railways of the Soviet Union
OTL Soviet tank groups
OTL Soviet oil industry
OTL Soviet electrogenerating areas
I think its going to be mega Somalia regardless of Syndicalists participating.
The rebels make up everyone from syndicalists to outright fascists. How things turn out for them depends on how the war goes (assuming the USSR doesn't win).
I would like to take a moment and thank @Tzaero and @Gaius Julius Magnus for nominating this TL for a Turtledove. Onward to victory!
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In true Stalinist fashion if this TL wins I'm saying that it was because of my genius and vision. If it doesn't win I'm blaming Trotskyist wreckers.
You really have an excellent insight into how people are products of the environment they live in, and how easily that can turn good people into monsters or the other way around.
Bookmark1995
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I guess.
I feel like many of the problems of society come from the failure to see a person's environment. You can't just punish people who commit crimes, you need to remedy the environment that produces criminals, and you need to help criminals re-enter society.
ITTL, a lot of people have good reasons to despise the Russians, and their crimes against Jews, Chechens, and the peoples of Eastern Europe.
But in order for another Stalin to not rise to power, you need to treat the Russians the same way the Germans were treated OTL: you need to forgive them, but also force them to confront the crimes of their government, and create a social environment that does not allow a paranoid dictator to rise to power.
Whatever ends up replacing the Soviet Union must remind its children about the dangers of hatred. That is what must be done.
The big problem is, Stalin was the sole reason the USSR arose from rural backwater to powerhouse. After all, they can point to production increasing nearly fivefold between 1923 and 1951. This is made more difficult by Russia NEVER having anything resembling democratic institutions, which Germany had in some form.
This civil war is definitely on the horizon for the Soviet Union with Rebels wanting to get rid of the old system, while the nationalist within the nation and those of the Warsaw Nations are going to fight like wild cats to what perceive as the 'Evils of the Russian People'. So what to expect is one of two scenarios. The first is that a quick civil war will see the nationalist rebels crushed before anyone can get their hands on the nuke, meaning the nation that stays intact enough to prevent revuancahnism in the future. Or the second is a long going civil war which sees it going nuclear, and thus gallvanize NATO to directly intervene in order to pacify both groups of rebels along with confiscating as many Atomic weapons as possible.
Wouldn't that galvanize NATO and the US to directly intervene in the Civil War?
If you're talking about NATO intervening in the Civil War directly then there is no good reason to do that. While the rebels hate the Soviet government, they've spent a generation being fed propaganda that the U.S is the capitalistic devil that wants to oppress them for greedy corporate masters. If the U.S or NATO were to put boots in the USSR then WWIII would officially begin. It's far better to strike at the Warsaw Pact and other allies while the USSR is self-imploding.
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