Depending on how the end of the war plays out, I might be willing to throw out some ideas for the postwar world here and there.
I'm always going to have some knowledge.
The Twin Vipers: A TL of the Berlin-Moscow Axis
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Depending on how the end of the war plays out, I might be willing to throw out some ideas for the postwar world here and there.
I'm always going to have some knowledge.
I don't know if anyone else has pointed this out, but I find japan still very much taking an active role in 1944, while remaining decently healthy in terms of countrywide devastation and military power to be very interesting. No idea where that's going to lead, especially that Japan had an active nuclear program (that failed to really go anywhere OTL, but still a nuclear program nonetheless)
There are two essentially Fascist powers who will seat in the TTL's equivalent of UN Security Council, if there's any such thing. In any event, clearly, here Japan is going to count among the major powers post-war (if the Allies win, which seems to be the case). And it is a unrecostructedly authoritarian, militaristic right-wing Japan, even if it has managed to pull back from the brink of some of the worst excesses of OTL.
I am also wondering what is the attitude of non-Stalinist communists at this point in this war. Moscow has burnt a lot of bridges by allying with the Nazis (not just appeasing them, not even being in co-belligerance, but outright being in a military alliance, up to and including the propping up of the Reich in economic and military terms). In the context of a alliance of Fascism and Democracy against Nazism and Totalitarian Communism, where does the rest of the Left stand?
At this point, I can easily see countries like Spain and Portugal actually entering the war or at least providing volunteers (as Spain historically did IOTL), and I assume that most of Latin America is also formally involved in some way, Argentina being the most likely significant exception - I guess there's at mnimum a Brazilian brigade or something somewhere in Europe. That would do a little about the Allied concern for manpower (the serious answer to that problem, of course, would be Dominion-status India, but that requires a British willingness to manage the matter a lot more sensibly than they did IOTL, and probably also a different approach by the Indian leadership; conditions seem more favorable to such an outcome ITTL, but it is not really guaranteed).
Jiang might consider doing something about Mongolia as well if opportunity arises. The KMT kept claiming it (and Tannu Tuva) as a rightful part of China.
I'm always glad to hear ideas! Feel free to post them on the thread or PM me if you don't want everyone else seeing themDepending on how the end of the war plays out, I might be willing to throw out some ideas for the postwar world here and there.
I'm always going to have some knowledge.
Have you been opening AH.com only starting from page 2 of the After 1900 forum? Because I've been doing my best to keep this on page 1 for more than a month now.
'Communism' is going to be pretty badly discredited after the war (even if the USSR stays communist post-war, I still haven't decided on that), and associations to the Holocaust plus Stalin's bad behaviour in the 1930s aren't going to help things. Without any communist countries existing in the world other than the USSR, any movement that appears to be trending towards the far-left is going to be associated with Stalinism and evil, a bit like how OTL's public will snap to calling any far-right movement "Nazi" even if that group doesn't make any statements about Jewish or other groups that Hitler tried to kill.
The rest of the left is going to be forced to do one of two things: either somehow distance themselves from 'Communism' (a bit like socialists today do, or how Franco was considered somehow different to Mussolini/Hitler) in an attempt to appear more democratic (so a Labour Party can still exist in say Britain or France, but they will be more careful to avoid topics associated with Stalin), or simply not care and accept that they will be called "communists", with that word having the same negative connotations that "Nazi" has IOTL - a bit like the alt-right rationalises itself among its members, but with radical/Stalinist leftist beliefs.
Spain in particular I can't see joining until at least Hitler is out of the way. Not only because Hitler supported him in the SCW, but also the whole rebuilding issue - the Spanish Army isn't up to fighting the Red Army in anything beyond perhaps Corps strength so far from Spain. Possibly in 1945, doubt it any earlier. (Franco has made sure to distance himself from the Axis since it became clear that Germany wasn't going to break through France).
Re: India, it is still Churchill in charge here, and he's not exactly known for his great handling of the situation (Bengal!). The Indians have fought well and provide the overwhelming majority of forces for the Middle Eastern Front, but I can't see any of the radical changes needed to get a large commitment of Indians in Europe.
- BNC
Re commimism, I think that George Orwell might be something of a guideline- thanks in part to his experiences in the Spanish civil war he remained socialist while being an ardent opponent of stalinism. Given the "betrayal" of the Catalonia movement by Stalin's puppet and the parallel with Stalin alliance with Hitler I can see this catching on more generally among the more radical leftists.
Unfortunately fascism and even nazisim might also be somwhaht more rehabilitated, with Hitler's "perversion" of it being viewed as less innate and more an aberration.
Unfortunately fascism and even nazisim might also be somwhaht more rehabilitated, with Hitler's "perversion" of it being viewed as less innate and more an aberration.
So more people work in Gulag then. If you think about it we don’t need Europe to know what Soviet concentration camp do, the far East, Manchu border will work fine. Also 4 years of occupied, the Soviet can build 1 or 2 Gulags in Manchukou to cut the lost of workers, and in the way to Vladivostock, I believe there’s quite a few Gulags as well.
So what’s opinion of Allies if they find out something like this?
Japan captures alot t34 and Soviet heavy equipment, did they have any new weapon based on it?
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it would be a nice little nod to history if it were mentioned that western intelligence agencies thought Japan would get the bomb in 1952 or 1953, but instead detonated their first in 1949.
No-one in politics ever agrees on anything, so "all of the above" is probably the correct way to approach something like this. Most of the left will be less radical than IOTL in order to maintain popular support, but the more extreme you go, the more bickering about Stalin there will be.
As for Nazism, Hitler's pretty pathetic performance in the war after Poland fell is going to leave it to be taken a lot less seriously, a bit like we have the popular perception of Italian fascism leaving Mussolini as a joke and a 'failed Hitler', and be written off as a major threat, but unlike Mussolini who followed Hitler's ideology fairly closely, TTLs 'Big Bad' is Stalin, who has his own ideology become 'the' evil. I don't think I've ever seen a far-right party that claims anything to the tune of "let's do what Mussolini did", while there are quite a few Nazi groups hanging around. Nazism could be dismissed by people the same way as everyone is more worried about communist demonstrations.
(of course this is all how the average TTL person would see things, there will still be those who research into Nazism and find it not too different from more accepted fascist beliefs, but most won't worry about that)
More rope to hang Stalin with at this point. They already blame him for starving the Ukrainians, he launched a war of aggression against Japan and Poland, and there are justifiable claims that he helped in the Holocaust. A few thousands in the gulags is just another piece of evidence next to those.
The Japanese at this point are using the Type 3 Chi-Nu and the Sherman, both of which are comparable to the T-34/76 (there's no /85 ITTL). While the captured equipment is welcome, it isn't going to have any major effects.
- BNC
Also does anyone have an idea of what a Japanese puppet state based out of Vladivostock and covering land up to the Amur might be called? The closest thing I've ever found is Kaiserreich's Transamur and that's a pretty terrible name (not to mention it's not even really Japanese).
- BNC
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Why the Japanese don’t expel all of Russian and take the land for themselves. They are walk in the gold mine that nearly none live here, and after the war I don’t think there will be any Russian, Ukrainian want to live in the far East any more.
IMO, the whole "Oh Stalin didn't practice REAL Communism, so he's no true Commie" schtick might still come ITTL.
Thanks guys!
I'd considered the land being annexed to Japan, not so much the deportings. As Vladivostok had only ~200k people in it at the time... not an impossible thought.
There's people out there that say Hitler did nothing wrong too. Doesn't mean anyone is going to listen to them..
- BNC
I would say, that a puppet based around Vladivostok should be named the Far Eastern Republic.
In Italy at least, but also in a few other European countries and some sections of the Middle East and Latin America, there is admiration for Mussolini. I gather that the consensus on the Italian far right is about "Mussolini had good ideas but failed by chaining himself to Hitler, who also has some good ideas but clearly went way too far". This used to be fringe, but declaring oneself Fascist is no longer near-taboo in Italy nowadays (though still minority of course).
I understand that in the Anglo world, perceptions are obviously very different.
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