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This is above and beyond "What if Jack Ruby never shoots Oswald". What if Lee Harvey Oswald managed to avoid initial detection by the police, destroy the evidence that the rifle was his (the photographs of himself with the rifle), hide his fake Selective Service card and never leaves a palm...

Suppose that the Soviet Union and the Comintern decide to advise the CCP to avoid affiliation with the KMT and the Soviets stop supporting the KMT in 1926 or something. Would the CCP still succeed in seizing control of the mainland?

Excerpt from A History of the Politburo, from 1923 to 1939 At times, it is the tiniest of things by which history is made. "You had the rudeness to call my wife on the telephone and berate her." A simple sentence, with little consequence the vast majority of the time. But in February 1923...

Okay, so I'm working on an idea for a timeline which is basically built on the idea that the CSA survived, but was an agricultural shithole that fell to communist agitation in the 1920s, and I was curious about plausibility. Here's the general gist: Confederacy wins Gettysburg or whatever...

The JDPEN (aka JDPON) is a hypothetical political construct, a worldwide government lead by third-world communist movements which engages in a quite radical redistribution of wealth. Its supposed origin is that the third world, which is economically exploited to a vast degree by the first...

What would be the differences between a Trotskyist USSR caused by the following two PoDs? 1) Lenin dies in August 1918, after being shot by Fanya Kaplan. 2) Lenin's third stroke is delayed; he is alive to read his Testament aloud at the 12th Party Congress, but dies shortly thereafter.

Make a list of United Soviet States of America presidents from Norman Thomas up through 2011. In the vein of the "CSA Presidents Challenge," but with a socialist America following the 1933 revolution. Presidents are elected for two year terms. 1933: Norman Thomas (Popular Front) 1935: 1937...

A Socialist Spain in 1909? I was reading a bit around, and I came upon an interesting idea for an alternate timeline: the Semana Trágica. It was a conflict between the far left and the military in 1909, leading to a lot of bloodshed. I have two questions: What PoD could have plausibly...

So, the basic PoD in this idea is that the Nationalist forces begin to extend control over China much sooner, leading to a conflict between Japan and China in an attempt to ensure Japanese hegemony over East Asia. As in OTL, the US ends up intervening, and a bloody war is fought between the two...

I was reading the "The Worst piece of Alternate History Ever" thread, and a thought occurred to me: what would happen if we actually removed "America"? But then a further question occurs: what is "America," as in the United States of? What defines it and makes it so important? One particular...

So I was reading about Lenin's testament, and apparently Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev had initially planned to suppress its reading in order to reduce its political effect (which was, IOTL, devastating to Stalin). Of course, they failed, but what if they had succeeded? Would we see a...

So, here's the POD: Lenin's Testament gets out somehow, and Stalin gets removed from power. Assume that the following is true: internal soviet development goes mostly the same (Stalin having cribbed a lot of his ideas from Trotsky), only the soviets have some political power, there is no...

I did quite a bit of searching before asking this, so my apologies if it was already asked. With a POD after July 14, 1789, how could the French First Republic continue as a state into the indefinite future?

What if, Leopold the Second was murdered in his sleep ~1870? How would things have developed for the Congo which would later fall under his rule (other than much better)?

During the negotiations for a peace between Germany and the fledgling Russian Soviet Republic, Germany asked for (compared to what they got) very light concessions - the surrender of Lithuania and Poland to the German sphere of influence. This was very light compared to the final treaty...

Some of the Kaiserreich scenario is not the most plausible, but one can at least buy it for the most part. For those not familiar, here's what happens: Germany "wins" WWI in 1921, after fighting a long campaign against the British across the world following their dual victories over France and...

The Russian Revolution of 1905 deposes the Tsar and replaces him with a democratically elected President. They subsequently leave the Triple Alliance, feeling that it was a bad idea that would eventually force them into a nasty war. Over the next few decades, they gradually democratize and...

ITTL, the Fashoda incident declined into a brief colonial war between France and Britain, and thusly French and British relations never recover. French conservatives, disgraced by the war, are ousted and replaced with the left wing. The Fashoda incident was the last serious colonial dispute...

While slavery was still legal in the south, there were a number of slave revolts. Some were lead by slaves, others by northerners. What point in history would be most likely to produce a successful independent state in the US lead, in major part, by former slaves? What sort of person would be...

Here are a few facts: Islam had made significant progress in China by time of the Song Dynasty (which began in 960) Gunpowder was first developed by the Chinese in the 9th Century Gunpowder was first developed by Muslims in the 13th century So what if (for example) a Chinese alchemist who...