the Challenge is this, with any post-1900 POD make your country (as in the one you're from) as Dystopic as you can, go! 
the Challenge is this, with any post-1900 POD make your country (as in the one you're from) as Dystopic as you can, go!![]()
US: The Yellowstone super volcano erupts January 1st 1900. This also has the effect of making Canada and Mexico the most dystopic as well. The rest of the western hemisphere follows. Eurasia and Africa probably will too.
Britain's quite easy (avoiding 1984). During the General Strike of 1926, the government does go the full nine yards with them, treats them as revolutionaries and what not. The situation deteriorates, communists gather strength and violence skyrockets. By the end of it, the communists are in power, and a USSR situation occurs.
In France, the 1958 Algiers Putsch, which in OTL led to De Gaulle being called to form an emergency cabinet, turns wrong. Operation Resurrection, a mock aeroported operation from Algeria to Corsica in order to impress the French government and to make them believe that the Generals are ready for a coup, becomes a terrible incident: shots are fired, some policemen and civilians are killed. De Gaulle seems to have lost the control of the putschists and loses the trust from the Paris government, thinking that it's only a scheme to gain power. Instead, President René Coty asks General Salan to form a Commitee of Public Salvation, overcoming the legislative and executive powers. A military dictatorship begins in France, supported by former Vichyist elements and hardliner militarists worried by another Dien Bien Phu in Algeria.
By 2009, the Algeria War is still ongoing, the French military having maintained troops in the area since 1954, infuriating the worldwide Arab Community against France. The Commitee of Public Salvation still rules over a puppet President and a mock National Assembly, and persecutes all its wannabe opponents: Algerians, communists, socialists, and other peoples suspected of secession: Corsicans, Brittons... The USA, viewing France as a masterpiece of the Cold War and later of the War on Terror, still supports the French regime, and the idea of an almighty military dictatorshipn has spread throughout Europe, such as in Spain, Portugal and Italy...
This idea was a project of alternate history novel of mine.