Twilight of the Red Tsar

[Johnrankins]

One has to wonder what India, and Pakistan will look like now with this KMT in power. (All for a free Bangladesh.)

However, I see the KMT still suffering from all the issues it did before: Infighting and corruption. And Chiang still being a peanut head. Big reasons why they got kick off the mainland in the first place.

I won't be surprised if China never gets off the ground because of it, and still a mess even by 2017 TTL.

The Japanese are gone so a lot of its problems are gone. It wasn't like the Communists were free of corruption and they had their share of infighting. China is unlikely to be the most efficient country in the world, only in part due to the KMT, but it should muddle through.

 

[Johnrankins]

Finland was never a member of the Axis. The US had never fought the Finns and the UK had only had one small bombing raid against Petsamo. There was no blood between them. No Finish soldier had ever killed a WAllied soldier.

Finland was only a cobelligerant with Nazi Germany and that only because the Soviet Union had attacked it first (an attack which was universally condemned in the West).

Exactly, no one would give a damn. Finland was never considered an Axis member in the same way as as a country like Romania , not talking Germany, was. Hell, a lot of Americans don't even know that Romania and Hungary were Axis members as all the focus is on the Big Three.

 

[Johnrankins]

Just considering the fact they will have to based on following what their doctrines

They would be luck if they were merely shot instead of being slowly beaten to death by angry mobs.

 

[Slings_Arrows]

They would be luck if they were merely shot instead of being slowly beaten to death by angry mobs.

Christ dude, take it down a notch. For one thing this is fiction, for another responding to atrocity by committing atrocities, whether legally sanctioned or not, does nothing to heal the scars inflicted by said atrocities. There's a reason why most rank and file nazis were imprisoned instead of executed.

 

[Johnrankins]

Christ dude, take it down a notch. For one thing this is fiction, for another responding to atrocity by committing atrocities, whether legally sanctioned or not, does nothing to heal the scars inflicted by said atrocities. There's a reason why most rank and file nazis were imprisoned instead of executed.

I didn't say that is what I would want to happen but what I thought is likely to happen. You have a lot of angry people out there and if they caught someone who was responsible for the deaths of their relatives and friends they are likely to want vengeance. Russia isn't exactly stable at this point in TTL. I would imagine there are a lot of angry mobs out there and if a war criminal goes in the wrong place at the wrong time being beaten to death by the relatives and friends of the victims is not that unlikely. There is a reason I used the phrase "angry mobs".

 

[Johnrankins]

With such a severe brain drain probably all but butterflying the OTL Space Race and removing a LOT of trained professionals in much needed job positions. So the new Russia will have a harder time recovering what it lost.

The loss of Jews isn't going to be the only brain drain. My guess is that people during this entire time period wanted to get the hell out and the brightest had the easiest time figuring out how to do so.

 

[Johnrankins]

The problem is Russian industrialisation is inextricably bound to communism (the old adage of Stalin finding ploughs and leaving factories).

A myth, Russia was industrialized before WW1 and it had better growth than under Stalin to boot.

 

[MagicalPhantom345]

The loss of Jews isn't going to be the only brain drain. My guess is that people during this entire time period wanted to get the hell out and the brightest had the easiest time figuring out how to do so.

Well Stalin's second Holocaust and purge left the eastern bloc in a third world state, so i am not surprised.

 

[naraht]

A myth, Russia was industrialized before WW1 and it had better growth than under Stalin to boot.

Industrialized, yes, but considered to have done so relatively inefficiently by the standards of Northwest Europe.

 

[Johnrankins]

I'm surprised Lenin hasn't risen from the grave, and haunted the Stalingrad government for letting his name be associated with such a nightmare.

What's with all this Lenin worship? Stalin was a natural outgrowth of Lenin, who was a total dictator who ignored he first free election in Russian history and had an impressive body count of his own. Hundreds of thousands at least and quite possibly a million or more. Molotov once said "Compared to Lenin, Stalin was a mere lamb".

 

[Johnrankins]

Industrialized, yes, but considered to have done so relatively inefficiently by the standards of Northwest Europe.

Which continued under the Communists or was even the 1970's USSR a shining beacon of efficiency? Even at its height its efficiency was a joke compared to the US, West Germany, Japan and France among many others.

 

[Historyman 14]

What's with all this Lenin worship? Stalin was a natural outgrowth of Lenin, who was a total dictator who ignored he first free election in Russian history and had an impressive body count of his own. Hundreds of thousands at least and quite possibly a million or more. Molotov once said "Compared to Lenin, Stalin was a mere lamb".

Lenin himself realized he created a form of autocracy with the Bolsheviks and the USSR, which is why he tried in vain to stop Stalin from taking power.

And Lenin worst pales when put up next to Stalin of this timeline.

 

[Joshua Ben Ari]

I wonder... what would have been the fate of Andrei Sakharov?

 

[Historyman 14]

I wonder... what would have been the fate of Andrei Sakharov?

He became the leader of the Liberal Party before stepping down after clashing with the conservative and military wings of the Council of National Salvation.

(See here and also here.)

 

[Johnrankins]

Lenin himself realized he created a form of autocracy with the Bolsheviks and the USSR, which is why he tried in vain to stop Stalin from taking power.

And Lenin worst pales when put up next to Stalin of this timeline.

No, he tried to stop Stalin because Stalin insulted his wife. Lenin might not be as bad as Stalin but he was bad enough not to worship. The best way for him to have stopped Stalin was to respect the election and let the SR's take over.

 

[Johnrankins]

Doubtful- after Stalin the authoritarian left is literally nazi commies. However TTL has a libertarian ideology which promotes co-operation, direct democracy and mutual aid in the form of syndicalism. In fact I would say that syndicalism could probably be very popular in America, as it has its own national brand (De Leonism) while Europe will probably shift towards social democracy.

It would be very easy to sell De Leonism to Americans TTL based on nationalism and small government values, no doubt exposing the neocons* hypocrisy from right to work laws to taxes and economic freedom.

Very unlikely, it has both central planning and is based on a revolutionary party. Both are far too associated with Nazism and Communism to pass muster.

 

[Johnrankins]

For a political revolution (unlike a social revolution, which goes through the bullet and not the ballot) to succeed you need everyone to respect the democratic will and considering that capitalists sought to overthrow FDR, I don't think the capitalists reaction to an authentically anti-capitalist movement will be friendlier. An attempt at American Pinochet would probably happen in the scenario- people in power are not just going to give up their power unless forced to.

While syndicalism might be popular as a label, trade unions are gutted TTL far more than OTL. Syndicalism literally means trade unionism in Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/French languages and I am pretty sure the US government will learn the trade unions = socialism pretty quickly

Everyone, including FDR, considered the "business plot" a joke. No one was even prosecuted. It was little more than a bunch of rich guys complaining about the New Deal.

 

[Johnrankins]

It would make for an interesting subversion of most other Cold War timelines, it's easy to see Anti Russian sentiment develop in western countries over the fact that the resented nation on earth is the leading economic power and western nations are struggling from their economic meltdown.

That is extremely unlikely , it will take decades, if not a century or more for Russia to dig out of its hole. They might have higher growth than the Western Powers but they will be so far behind that they could in no way be the "Leading Economic Power" in less than 50 years.

 

[Bookmark1995]

What's with all this Lenin worship? Stalin was a natural outgrowth of Lenin, who was a total dictator who ignored he first free election in Russian history and had an impressive body count of his own. Hundreds of thousands at least and quite possibly a million or more. Molotov once said "Compared to Lenin, Stalin was a mere lamb".

Lenin himself realized he created a form of autocracy with the Bolsheviks and the USSR, which is why he tried in vain to stop Stalin from taking power.

And Lenin worst pales when put up next to Stalin of this timeline.

It is undeniable that Lenin, by suppressing democracy and persecuting peasants, set a precedent for the horrors of Stalinism.

 

[Johnrankins]

All this depend if the USA go full free market...and no country go that way, whatever they say, there are always rules, failsafe and regulation even because the international commercial community need that; so while a general relax of law and rules it's possible a free for all Rumsfeldia style it's not.
Plus much of the original Depression was due to the the closing of international commerce due to tariff and protectionism...and this is not the automatic outcome of any answer, and frankly if anyone face the possibility of Depression 2.0, well even OTL demostrated that this mere prospect make any ideological posture crumble; what will happen unfortunely will be that even in case of a 'simple' recession with the welfare net almost gone things will be very hard for the working class and poor.
Finally, the only other place that can weather the storm is western Europe, probably on his way to be a little more integrated than OTL at this stage, as while the the world economy is more integrated...it's not even near the level that we usually take for granted, so while surely hurting it will not bring down the entire building

Also a big part of it was WW1. Basically everyone owed the US money and had little means of paying it back. In TTL Europe probably doesn't owe the US a ton of money. When the depression hits the US dollar will go down. Europe will then start buying more American goods which will mitigate it.