[AH Fiction] The Bengasi Confessions
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My, my, such confidence in the end of history analysis that says Communism is the only dysfunctional deviation to worry about..maybe now appended with a footnote that religious extremist regimes are also bad. But the magic of the marketplace cures all, eh?
I think if the Chinese are spared Communist mismanagement under Mao, they will then suffer KMT mismangement instead. The latter are more in line with Western economic ideology, but Western economic ideology is not so good in pure form for developing nations. Show me a successful non-Communist Asian Tiger and I will show you a police state that plays fast and loose with all the traditional academic economic "scientific" maxims and rules for a pragmatically successful result. The same has historically been true of liberal democracies, or societies evolving toward such a state as say Bismarckian Germany; they adopt all sorts of policies contradicting the recommendations of orthodox economists in the metropolises of the most successful powers, until they pull ahead into the top ranks, at which point they seek to impose these dysfunctional rules on the next batch of up-and-comers.
That Mao imposed disastrous decisions on the PRC is clear enough. I still think the radically unorthodox command economy he imposed cut through several developmental Gordian knots in the long run, mainly by imposing a system that commanded absolute obedience it was possible for Deng and successors to then impose a largely capitalistic system on a predictable and stable if dysfunctional base, with no rebelliousness. Meanwhile the draconian one-child-per-family policy reined in an otherwise catastrophic population explosion. My faith in humanity is such that I believe the right way to achieve population control is to create a very liberal and democratic society that in particular empowers women to decide for themselves--combine that with prosperity and after a final growth surge population will stabilize or even start to contract (which has alarmists then running in circles, screaming and tearing their hair about that and like as not demanding rollbacks in women's reproductive rights). But there are emergency situations and China was facing one in the mid 20th century; no amount of dizzy rapid growth was simply going to grow them out of it. China needed shock therapy and Mao delivered it, handing the patient over to a different doctor with different treatment in mind.
Take away the Chinese Communists by having Americans pump in enough aid paralleled with US troops serving alongside the KMT soldiers, and I do suppose the KMT can manage to sort of limp along as being the weak but sole authority. But between Chinese per capita poverty, continuing exponential population growth and the notorious corruption of the KMT way of doing business, which American advisors might simply write off as the inscrutable way of the Orient, and I do not believe China will ever reach the sort of position it was reaching OTL by the 1980s. It will collapse into a fratricidal mess until someone as draconian as Mao comes along and then stagger belatedly through generations of ideological misrule before finally perhaps settling into a draconian market-guided society such as it has today. Note also that the Chinese Party may be guilty of betraying Marxist notions of socialism, but it retains political control and that includes the authority to redirect the financial decisions of the semi-autonomous corporations. These are free to find their own profitable way as long as they continue to demand labor and make profits; should there be a big snarl-up economically, the Party will take over and manage the crisis pragmatically. Or try anyway-it could be authority has eroded invisibly under quasi-capitalism and the result of attempted dictatorial crisis management will be a breakdown and return to something like warlordism with different factions tearing the country different ways and people voting with their feet between the various schemes.
Conceivably the Americans will pick someone who acquires great stature as a national leader and is clever enough to deliver comparable outcomes to OTL. In doing so they might even acquire a surprising independence from American pulled levers and strings; it would look something like the Sino-Soviet split of OTL perhaps.
But I think the notion that China must automatically do better or even at least as well as OTL without Mao or someone as reprehensible is plain dumb. China in mid century had serious problems, and being dependent on patronizing and largely clueless American largesse to solve them is a formula for disaster. As an optimistic humanist I can hope somewhere there is a clever TL that shows how they solve their problems better than they did OTL. In terms of realpolitik odds, it is the job of that clever TL writer to show how it is done, step by difficult step, and pulling out a text of Keynesian or Chicago school economics is just a joke, useless for the purpose. If solutions involve imposing a draconian super-capitalist regime on the masses as OTL, Marx's Capital would be a far better guide and I suspect the PRC bigwigs have had recourse to it frequently OTL.
I don't discredit the agency and ability of the Chinese people one little bit.
OTL they chose Mao. What does that tell us?
Also of potential interest - https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...e-reich-general-discussion-q-a-thread.428470/
I find the idea of the KMT, as you say, magically, getting its corrupt act together kind of humorous if it weren't such a matter of grim consequence to a billion Chinese. But the context is that the Soviet Union collapses, which does weaken Stalin or a successor's ability to aid the Chinese Communists--at the same time, the USA, finding the war in Europe smoldering down with Britain bowing out (so, no U-boat attacks on ships with US citizens--Britain grudgingly permits the German merchant marine to rebuild, or to preempt that British ships serve Reich controlled ports with the Reich able to purchase colonial goods "fair and square" (never mind where they get the hard money value needed to do that...not if you want to sleep well tonight...) So FDR has no opportunity for an anti-"Prussian" or frankly anti-German crusade in Europe. But the Japanese still attack Pearl Harbor anyway, and now the USA has nothing better to do but defeat Japan ASAP--the RN is also in better position for a more active war in the Pacific. Both Anglo powers keep a lot of force in reserve in the Atlantic area lest Hitler get any ideas, which of course is exactly what the Japanese were counting on...but the Reich is too busy trying to digest their massive former Soviet territory conquests. The whole point of "Drang Nach Osten" was I thought to consolidate control over the "Heartland" of Eurasia so that he could turn around one more time and bring the British and the former European colonies into his world-system, and presumably he realized this probably meant fighting the Yankees again too, but it would be easy for him to underestimate the USA, and where is the territory we could project power onto in the Old World? Knock out Britain and we haven't got a leg to stand on, what are we going to do, pull a reverse "Sea Lion" all the way across the Atlantic? So as I understand it he figured around 1950 he'd start WWIV, quickly subduing Britain with massive seapower built up with Eastern resources then moving on to digest Africa and Asia. When exactly he figured he'd be fighting Japan I am not so sure, but probably that conquer-Britain-and Africa while holding off the Yanks war would turn smoothly into a start-grinding down Japan war. This, or maybe a little before the anti-Britain war, is when he'd finish off the Bolsheviks beyond the Urals too. (Frankly I never believed in the "stop at the Urals" plan; it might have been the notion, but if the Werhmacht got that far in good condition the Soviets would be reeling and I figured they'd just keep going until they got to where they were running into the Japanese, then negotiate a border with them and round it out southward until again they ran into Japanese held stuff there, or temporary allies like a pro-Axis revolutionary India. But for whatever reason stopping there is canon in this TL).
So, over round the other side of Asia, the Soviets are preoccupied with trying to beat the Germans for years, and the Japanese are as OTL running rampant over China, with the KMT state the USA recognizes under Chiang kicked into the far south and away from the Pacific, but still putting up some resistance there, while Mao consolidates his control over the northwest and puts up serious resistance in the northeast. Britain, despite her debacle in Europe, has her pride and most of the RN intact, and the ANZACs have not yet had a chance to be massacred in Europe yet, so their mobilized manpower is pretty much at Home. India is restless and a manpower sink since Hitler's version of independence is gaining traction, but the British, freed of the war in Europe, while keeping a wary eye on the Continent...well, hell, the author just said the Italians dominate nominally independent Egypt--not sure how that happens since the British would be desperate to control Suez. Maybe they figure that with the Reich puppeting Vichy France, and Vichy running North Africa where Spain or Italy do not, the Med is just plain lost and there is no more advantage to the Suez route? They hang on to Gibraltar because they can, and maybe Malta, but the Axis does not press them because they withdraw from the Med and concentrate on keeping in contact with India and Iraq and maybe even Jordan/Palestine by circling round Africa. They hold on to their African colonies and take charge, via a puppet Free France, of the French colonies below the Med, as well as Belgian Congo. The Portuguese must understand that if they align too closely to Hitler and seem likely to threaten remaining British options by letting Hitler use the Azores or the colonies of Angola or Mozambique, the British will seize all those colonies too, so Lisbon plays a careful balance game and effectively stays neutral through limited capabilities. Heavy trade with Australia/NZ is around Africa; for faster communications the British develop a trans-mid African airline from West Africa to Kenya. With forces detached to keep order in Iraq and TransJordan and maybe even Palestine, and negotiating to keep Turkey a neutral buffer, they write off Egypt but resolve that Italian naval power will not project past the Red Sea, and with the Americans also keep Saudi Arabia out of the Axis. They hang on for dear life in the Persian Gulf region, placating the local emirs a great deal and jockeying to get a monarchy they can work with in Baghdad. The Iranians and Afghans are a buffer between Nazi ruled far Eastern Europa and the troubled Raj.
As OTL, when Hitler conquered the Netherlands, the Dutch authorities in the Dutch East Indies refused to obey his puppets in their homeland and aligned what forces they had with the Allies instead. The Japanese apparently miscalculate and attack Pearl Harbor or otherwise do something, like invade Southeast Asia without covering themselves by sinking the US Pacific Fleet first. Probably as OTL they make a lot of scary progress at first. But from the beginning, more Australian and NZ forces are at home, so readily deployed to Singapore in greater force; able to assist the Dutch in the East Indies in greater force, and despite numerous distractions Britain, Canada and South Africa are better able to respond quickly. I can't guess whether Singapore falls anyway, but with Americans in the war and focused totally on the Pacific, the tide turns more quickly. Probably the Philippines still fall. MacArthur runs the show--or just maybe perhaps, the loss of the Philippines is the excuse needed to remove him.
Whatever American is in charge, with the British being stronger due to this being their only hot war now too, they play a major role--the Japanese do not get as far west in SE Asia; areas of Indonesia hold out and from them much is taken back there; US island hopping starts about as slowly as OTL in 1942 but by 1943 the pace is much quicker and paralleled by a faster leapfrog push northward. Indonesia and Philippines get more attention since this is how to involve the Army more in what otherwise would be an all Navy war. With a stronger position in Burma and Thailand falling rapidly various routes to southern China are more open; token US troop deployments beyond the Flying Tigers are based in China in the hope of serving as cadres to stiffen KMT armies--and they do. Versus OTL, the Japanese get considerably more grief from southern China.
As I said, it was not clear to me why Hitler does not decide to press on past the Urals to destroy the Soviets completely. Maybe he feared that if he did not offer them a survivable peace, the Americans would ally with them, whereas if he offered a draconian enough Brest-Litovsk sort of peace, where they were obligated to deliver Siberian and Central Asian products to the Reich at ruinous enough rates to tie them down, he could keep them off the table as yet another harmless buffer state
Finally caught up in the varyar-verse! Nice!
Have you ever considered combining it all into a single thread, threadmarked, where you can update the individual storylines as you please?
Have you ever considered combining it all into a single thread, threadmarked, where you can update the individual storylines as you please?
Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it!
As for consolidating it, it would probably be a good idea, but threadmarks confuse and scare me.
Update!
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The dining room was, in contrast to the parlor, thoroughly Italian. Specifically, it was Roman, or at least some architect’s idea of what a Roman dining room would have been like.
Fine china. Crystal glasses with golden rims and bases. Silverware that was actually silver.
The food itself was less amazing – penne ultra arrabiata, the standard dish of Italian Libya. It was good penne ultra arrabiata, but it was not the exotic cuisine Genoveffa expected. Then again, it was done on fairly short notice. And the wine, more Lamia Libica, was superb.
Genoveffa saw the Contessa cross herself and murmur a Latin prayer before eating. She didn’t join in, mostly because she didn’t know that particular prayer. Her Latin more or less began and ended with the Pater Noster and Ave Maria, much to the chagrin of the good sisters of Our Lady of Lepanto who had taught her not so very long ago.
Then they ate.
The pasta was good, the conversation mild.
The Contessa asked about Genoveffa’s projects (a conspiracy thriller Il Bersaglio and a superhero movie Arma Invisibile), her hobbies (drawing – not very well) and her sports team (Atalanta BC out of Bergamo, near her hometown of Albino).
She did not ask about Genoveffa’s miseries or her rapist producer. Genoveffa didn’t mention them, either.
Eventually, the Sicilian took their plates away. There was no dessert, which was fine with Genoveffa. She felt what was perhaps belated awkwardness, embarrassment, realization her driver (cheese and bread notwithstanding) was hungry and bored and tired.
Finally, inevitably, The Issue came up again.
“You could go to the police,” the Contessa said after dabbing her lips and chin with a silk napkin.
Genoveffa shook her head vehemently. “I can’t! He’s connected!” That was no lie. All the Cinecittà bigwigs had patrons in the Party or else the Banda del Lazio (the Roman Mob) or the Cosa Nostra (the Sicilian Mob) or maybe the ‘Ndrangheta (the Neapolitan Mob). The local bigwigs were tight with either the Facists or the Serpenti (the Cyrenaican Mob)/
“Mm,” the Contessa said. Her expression was rather stormy. It made Genoveffa nervous, made her wonder who would be stupid enough to make her angry. “All right. Here. I’ll give you the private number of a friend in Rome. He’s very well connected. You see? If you ever have a problem you want to go away, he’ll make them go away. FILOMENA!”
The Sicilian swiftly appeared.
“Paper and a pen, please.”
The Sicilian swiftly disappeared and reappeared with the items in question.
The Contessa swiftly scribbled something on the paper with the pen and then slid it across the table to Genoveffa. “There. If you need it.”
Genoveffa took the paper, studied the number. She had no words.
“I’m sorry,” the Contessa said. “And my offer still stands.”
“Th – thank you.” Genoveffa pushed herself up before she took the offer and damned herself. She wanted to take the offer, but she didn’t want to at the same time. She was better than that.
Wasn’t she?
She thought of what Dino had done to her, had made her do with him, and wasn’t sure.
The Contessa stood up. “My door is always open. At any hour of any day,” she said with an inscrutable look on her face.
“Thank you, Signora Contessa,” Genoveffa said. She backpedaled, dizzy, drunk, dismayed, uncertain.
Her driver was waiting, and said nothing as Genoveffa collapsed into the back of the car, barely able to say “The hotel,” in a stable voice.
“Yes, signorina,” the driver said. Whatever he felt, he didn’t voice it.
“Good,” Genoveffa said. She held a piece of paper to her breast and wondered...
Good update, as usual. Varyar, how do threadmarks scare you? You've crafted a good tale, but it's clunky going between snippets on your universe that you've crafted. I caught bits of what you posted, how you want to dart between projects. A combined thread will help with that. Post a bit on one track, post from another, your world is already rich enough. With threadmarks, this allows new readers to start from the beginning and not get lost. I have noticed the Narrator posts seem to tax you more, this is how you can space them out without having the human sucked out of you. Just a thought. I do appreciate your work, I just wanted to offer an idea that would help both you and your readers.
Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying this.
As for threadmarks, they don't literally scare me, of course, they're just new and unfamiliar to me. I'll give them a try in the next thread, at least.
I look up as the reference flies over my head...
M.G.?I thought you wrote this story.I don't know who that is, nor does Google help.
He is named as the current Duce in a number of posts
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