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This just occurred to me, but no War in Europe doesn't necessarily mean no War in Asia, does it? What happens in Japan and China? Do we get a basically OTL turn of events?

While others have noticed the economic effects of WW2 itself, the Soviet Union also moved a huge amount of its economy into military production in the lead up to WW2. In 1933, 93% of producer goods were invested into production, while in 1939, only 58% were; the production of military equipment...

Yeltsin's June 1996 stroke becomes public knowledge, Gennady Zyuganov wins the second round of the Presidential election, the CPRF controls parliament and the Presidency and starts turning the country's economy back around. There ya go.

Henry Wallace succeeds Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt. Without outside pressure (and, if you're that sort, with a slightly different Stalin), the situation in Europe is much cooler, with only Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Albania and Romania going communist. Khrushchev dies early, Beria succeeds...

OOC: Nah, to be fair there's been about 30 years of alternate social development, without the stagnation and conservatism of the Brezhnev era. Andropov (who I figure would be Brezhnev's successor ITTL) was a very spartan man, but I don't know if that translates to a socially conservative...

OOC: Is it bad that my first thought when I read that post was "No way, the late USSR was way too socially conservative to have government-produced and distributed pornography?"

Nope. The space race was a test of the practical abilities of the USSR and the USA's scientific establishment to accomplish meaningful, worthwhile goals. The moon is worthless. Twelve people have walked on the moon, all Americans between 1969 to 1972. Sounds like a sound investment of time...

Americans. :rolleyes: The Soviets put the first artificial satellite in orbit (Sputnik 1), the first animal in orbit (Laika), the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin), the first woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova), first space flight with a multimember crew (Voskhod 1), and the first space...

Why in the world would you think that the Soviet Union would have, for any reason, "pioneered" online stock trading? To a lesser extent, the same goes for online marketplaces. Socialist country doesn't come up with inventions to aid bourgeoisie in speculation! News at eleven! Who won the...

According to the recent study by University of Minnesota professor Charles Johnson, the GDP of the USSR increased in 2009 by an good 5% while the West's GDP growth was generally negative due to the recent recession. Yes, yes, I know, "it's an autarky, of course it would be unaffected, a bloo...

I'm reading through Bash the Fash: Anti-Fascist Recollections, 1984-93, and it brought to mind a particular question: how does the UASR treat fascists and violent anti-fascists? At this point there's still revolutionary violence and secret police, but presumably at some point things normalize...

...as opposed to what they did historically?

Maria sat in her small house, all alone. She sat, stock still, staring at a drawer in a desk. At last she moved, getting up and opening the drawer. She then withdrew its contents, and sat back down to read them. Her heart seemed to collapse in her chest as she read. --- To my Maria, I am...

Would it be Stalin alongside the Bukharinists? The marginalization of the Trotskyists occurred before Stalin allied himself with the Bukharinists. If Stalin falls from power and is succeeded by a Trotskyist, then you're probably going to want this to happen before Stalin marginalizes the...

Stalin dies of smallpox at age seven.

What is the defining difference between democratic socialists and communists who win elections? I don't think that the CPRF would throw the results out if they got voted out. But they probably won't get voted out anyway because: a) the Russian presidential system overwhelmingly favors the...

It's worth noting that he hasn't actually done anything yet, just made moves towards doing things (especially with respect to Cuba). Putin started forming decent bilateral relations with the North Koreans and Cubans in 2000, and the economy was actually worse in some ways. It's also worth...

Russia Plans Food Aid For North Korea August 28, 1996 Russia is currently looking into how best to assist North Korea, which has recently been ravaged by floods, destroying much of the country's farmland. Already having faced famine for the past year, the situation in Korea recently worsened...

Now that would be telling. ;) I will say this though: I am pretty sure the first significant (well, depends on your definition of significant, I suppose) extra-Russian political change will be in early 1997 in a certain former Communist country. It will not be a result of any direct...

There will definitely be a focus in Russian foreign policy on reclaiming the near east, though it will obviously be quite a bit harder for them to do in the Ukraine and Kazakhstan, since despite their close ties, they aren't quite as close as Belarus. Return of Socialism to Russia! August 12...