Search results

I suspect a fascist/far right Russia would bear a lot of similarities to Romania. The Bolsheviks would be defeated, but more by somewhat traditional forces who then form government. Unfortunately being in government just serves to discredit the traditional right wing (and the generals likely to...

The Social Revolutionaries program was heavily inspired by/similar to the narodniks, The SRs seem to have opted to pursue politics through the Duma rather than terrorism. So it's not entirely unfair to typify an SR who engages in terrorism as a 'narodnik'. The possibility that Bogrov might have...

Early in the piece I think Kamenev had a bit more political independence, but from what I've read it really does feel like those two tended to work together on everything from about 1917 onwards. Trotsky as you know it is. The deck is stacked against him, and the only reason he is considered a...

Stolypin was a spent political force when he was assassinated, so nothing changes beyond there being slightly less animosity to the narodnik-type terrorists... although without Stolypin they might end up assassinating someone else, bringing us nicely back to square one.

Trotsky would have to change radically to take over the leadership. As Wolfpaw notes, he was quite an unlikeable fellow. His next problem is that his organisational base was poor, party members liked his ideas/charisma sometimes, but his biggest supporters tended to be students who were either...

The original proposal for financing industrialisation, proposed by Preobrazhensky, was massive taxation on the peasantry. Collectivisation was a bit more direct, which also had some side 'benefits' like freeing up the rural labour force for factory work. I suppose that could be supplemented by a...

Having Soviet actions create a more leftist Israel would seem to be unlikely to work since it wouldn't necessarily change the zionist/Israeli domestic scene. It could also backfire. Having the Soviets take the active role in 'sovietising' another country is an invitation for them to meddle with...

Stalin had a number of health problems throughout his life, which is usually not a good indicator for longevity. Also both of your examples involve people in semi or full retirement. Stalin on the other hand for this ATL is to be in power for the whole thing. It's been noted by many that Stalin...

Sorry for the delay, haven't been able to log in for the last couple of days. Suslov, like Brezhnev, was promoted as part of the expanded Politburo Stalin had cooked up in 1952 (? maybe earlier?). Some have suggested that Stalin had been sufficiently put off by the interuption of party/state...

January 1969, Victor Ilyin goes to shoot Brezhnev... and he got pretty close. POD is that he succeeds. Mikhail Suslov is the only viable successor (Kirilenko was a joke with Brezhnev, nobody else had the credentials). Suslov, famous as an arch-conservative, probably won't avert a stagnation as...

As someone already noted, this is freakishly unlikely due to age. Something else you have to consider is that by 1953, Stalin was in the backseat. We still got to pull all the strings, but he wasn't the primary force behind things any more. The post WWII era was marked by a competition for...

If the Shah somehow dodges the bullet in 1979, he will have to keep doing it. As as already been pointed out, killing Khomeini isn't enough. Khomeini wasn't the only cleric with political aspirations, he wasn't even the first (consider Ali Shariati). The Shah had been confronted by mass...

I could be wrong about this, but wasn't the Vietnam War also terrifically expensive for the US government? Assuming it was, that would be an effective break on continued full involvement even if you could wave away the dissent.

I don't think this is a goer. Khrushchev's bombast, his confrontational politics, were pretty important for two reasons. 1. They appeased his domestic opponents. Khrushchev's more radical reforms were offset somewhat by his foreign policy initiatives. Going for full detente too early could...

:D I assume that there would be delays (first the Soviets have to agree to the hand over, then they have to get it out of inventory), and that UN forces might be inclined to use chemical warfare in such a total manner as to bring the war to an end quickly. Most chemical warfare plans by major...

1. It will probably work pretty well. The Chinese/North Korean troops couldn't have had much in the way of protective gear, while the UN forces will have plenty. I think even the PRC will flinch at the idea of massive casualties without any actual advantage gained. 2. Stalin won't react... well...

A scenario where Gorbachev somehow survives, along with the USSR, carries the problem in that the USSR won't be a superpower any more if he remains. He had alread presided over the collapse of the Warsaw Pact states and was in the process of negotiating a new Union treaty which would have...

That depends on how Stalinist it has to be (and what you consider to be Stalinism really). Even Stalin couldn't keep Stalinism going constantly, there were lulls where he was clearly in the background, but the system didn't really seem dominated by terror and excessive centralisation. The lates...

Giving Khrushchev more time/focus to his reforms isn't actually a good move. But Dave you say, he's a reformer... yes, but his reforms were horrid ideas. - The Sovnarkhoz system of regionally coordinating industry didn't actually work. The Soviet industrial complex wasn't really regional, in...

I agree that having Kornilov save the Provisional Government would make for a good timeline, and even one that is reasonable. The Bolsheviks probably would not have survived a military crackdown after the "July Days". Also not allowing the formation of the Red Guards would have limited any...