Now, we look at the delicate region of Asia.
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PART 6
Perekrestok
While things over in South America were tangent on maintaining the delicate balance that existed between those who's sympathies lied with the United States, and those who sympathies laid with the Germans. the vast expanses of Asia across the Pacific presented to a outside observer a different picture, the diverse people's and societies of the Eastern World saw themselves in a tenuous situation, riled with Conflict and forced to deal with the aftermath of the Second Great War, The people's of East Asia, Bitter and Destroyed and with abound uncertainty looked for reason and to find a purpose in the world, especially as the threat of the Germans, as well as their brewing ideological war with the United States encroached upon their lands.
Perhaps one of the most interesting nations in Asia was in fact the Soviet Union, still reeling from it's defeat against the Greater German Reich in the Second Great War, the USSR would find itself at a crossroads of not only it's own existence, but of the existence of all of the people's of the Union, especially that of the Russian people, who had been pushed out of their own Ethnic and Cultural Heartland as the USSR as a whole was forced East of the Ural Mountains by the Germans. As a consequence of the Second Great War, what was left of the Soviet Union now found itself in a extremely dire situation, Struggling their attempt to not only reunite the people's of the Union, but in just keeping the USSR together as a government and a nation.
Figure 1: Marshal Lavrentiy Beria, Former Chairman of the NKVD and the Leader of the Soviet Union since the death of Joseph Stalin in 1942.
The government of the Soviet Union, now based in the city of Irkutsk due to the loss of Moscow, was headed by a Triumvirate Council, itself headed by former NKVD Chairman and current General Secretary Lavrentiy Beria.
Beria had assumed power in the aftermath of Joseph Stalin's death in December 1942 and had been one of the leaders of the group that ultimately signed peace with the Germans. The "Gallery of Irkutsk", as it was mockingly referred to as by many within the USSR, was a extremely unpopular government with the Soviet public, Not only because of the fact that the Triumvirate had been the government that had signed the Peace Accords with the Reich which ended Soviet involvement in the Second Great War, and handed over the Heartland of the Union. But also because of the fact that Soviet Communism as a political system had been thoroughly eviscerated in it's validity as a result of Russia's loss in the War.
the Soviet Union's defeat against the Reich had a huge consequence for the Soviet government, as the defeat of USSR had for the first time for a majority of citizens of the Union directly shined a direct spotlight on the corrupt, inefficient and destructive nature of the Stalinist system, And as a result, many of the disillusioned and broken people's of the Union, whether they were Anti-Communist before the War or not soon lashed out at the government in Irkutsk, and unrest soon breakout, this unrest soon brought many patriotic or power hungry citizens to the idea that they needed to create a better future for what was left of Russia before it was too late, or for some within the Union, a better future for themselves. This directly led to the formation of various opposition political groups, including various Fascist, Military and Republican organization, all of which opposed the Communist government in Irkutsk and sought to establish a new government within the remaining territory of the USSR. the Irkutsk government's attempts at stabilizing the Soviet Union were mixed, and despite all the government's best attempts at curtailing unrest and discontent among the Soviet public, this would be the beginning of a long and tough road ahead for the Soviet Union.
Figure 2: a Anti-Communist Partisan and local civilians in Komsomolsk-on-Amur stand around the mangled remains of a Soviet soldier, c. 1948.
Beria's government also had to contend with unrest in the Central Asian Republics, with the End of the War, Nationalism among the people's of the Steeps resurged in the aftermath of Soviet defeat, Various Pan-Central Asian and Ethnic based Resistance Groups were formed by various individuals who sought to save Central Asia "from the suffocating carcass that was the Soviet Union" and push Central Asia towards their own destiny free of the strangling hands of the Russians, outright rebellion itself broke out when Uzbek Nationalists captured Tashkent and other cites in the Uzbek SSR, similar rebellions broke out almost simultaneously in the neighboring Kazakh and Kirghiz SSR's as the Red Army desperately tried to keep the Union together. One Bit of Positive News did come for the Soviet Union in the immediate aftermath of the Second Great War, and that was the signing of the Soviet-American Accord of Friendship and Mutual Respect in 1949, the Accords would effectively formalize an alliance between the Soviet government and the United States, the former being seen by Washington as a important geopolitical ally in Asia to protect it from "encroaching European Fascism".
To the South of the Soviet Union was China, Who also found itself at a dire crossroads in it's existence, despite being ravaged by decades of disunity caused by Warlords, Civil War and a fight for national survival against a invading Japan, China had managed to survive everything thrown at it, and arrive at the other end stronger, The End of the War with Japan and the latter's downfall at the hands of the United States gave China a chance to finally look inwards and deal with it's own internal problems, specifically the issue of the various Warlords and the Communists, finally undistracted, and with the aid of Washington and the resources of Manchuria at their disposal after the US transfer of Manchuria back to Chinese control, the Chinese Army would over the next year make quick work of the various warlords within the country, including the break away state Tibet through either straight up military conquest of using methods of political persuasion to get Warlords to stand down.
Figure 3: Chiang Kai-Shek, leader of China since 1928
This methodical and successful campaign led by the Chinese government soon gave reality to the idea of Chinese unity as the government in Nanjing quickly oversaw the process of reincorporating the former warlord territory back into the Republic. Reuniting China for the first time since the collapse of the old Qing Dynasty in the 1911 Republican Revolution, the elimination of the Warlords soon left a lone enemy left in the way of the KMT and Chiang Kai-Shek's goal of reuniting China, and that was Mao's Chinese Communist Party.
the Civil War had effectively been a state of truce since 1937 when both the CCP and KMT had called off the War in order to combat the Japanese Invasion, However with the end of the War with Japan and the general end of War in the Pacific, the one thing keeping the peace between the CCP and KMT was gone, and Chiang Kai-Shek turned to eliminate the threat of Mao and the Communists forever. the CCP itself suffered several blows to it's situation, starting with the large discrediting of the Communist ideology in the aftermath of the defeat of the Soviet Union in the Second Great War, this saw many of Mao's followers and CCP Troops betraying him as they lost faith in his cause, either defecting back to the KMT, or defecting to various warlords within China, this also had the blowback of causing dwindling support for the CCP as many Chinese who might've been inclined too or did support Mao gradually lost faith in him.
The second blow came as a result of the KMT's gradual reunification campaign of 1945 and 1946, as the KMT regained access to many of the natural resources of China, as well as gaining the support and aid of the United States. it's military strength only improved thanks to these boosts, while the CCP on the other hand was quickly isolated with no backers, encircled and slowly collapsing from within as it starved whatever resources it had remaining.
A Series of Governmental Offensives in 1946 and 1947 would ultimately be the swan song of the CCP's resistance, the collective military strength of the NRA soon broke through the remaining Communist strongholds and together the strength of Governmental forces busted the back of remaining Communist resistance, in one final blow to the Communist Cause, the untimely Death of Mao Zedong in the Battle of Zhengzhou would serve as the destruction of the remaining unifying factor within the Communist Party, as a result of Mao's death, Communist resistance soon collectively collapsed across the board, remaining bands were quickly mopped up by the NRA as Chiang Kai-Shek celebrated his dream, the reunification of China...
Figure 4: Indian revolutionaries raise the "Freedom Banner" in a local village captured from the British, c. 1948.
Meanwhile to the West of China laid the British domains in India, More formally known as the British Raj, the longtime Crown Jewel of the British Empire and a cornerstone of British Foreign Policy decisions for nearly a century, the Native Population, both Muslim and Hindu was growing agitated with the current situation of being dominated by London, and calls for autonomy or even outright independence were becoming louder and louder as each year passed, and continually ignored by the British Government. the Second Great War left Great Britain in debt and economically as well as emotionally destroyed, Britain as a result of the War found itself needing to police new colonies in Africa as well as the unruly Middle East, the continuing and growing unrest in India soon caused Britain to find it increasingly difficult to maintain their hold on the Raj.
This unrest among the native population quickly manifested into violent attacks, the first of such occurring on October 21st, 1947 when a group of 26 Patriotic Civilians in Bombay assaulted the British Garrison in the City, the Incident in Bombay resulted in the death of 12 Revolutionaries and the arrest of the other 14, and prompted the outraged population of the Raj to launch a series of similar attacks on British Garrisons by both Hindu and Muslim revolutionaries across the entire Raj. These attacks quickly escalated into outright armed insurrection over the late months of 1947 and early months of 1948 as groups such as the "All-India Muslim League" and the "Free India Movement" took up arms against the Princely States and the British Colonial Government, these actions by the Patriotic Citizens of India would be the beginning chapter of what would become known as the Indian War of Independence...