Your challenge is to not only have the USSR survive up to the present, but to have its relations with the USA on the same level as they were in the 1950s-that is, extremely hostile. A demonization of communism must be prominent in the American mindset.
Can you manage it?
How about McCarthy is elected President after a group of left-wing radicals attempt to assassinate him? He institutionalizes hardline anti-Communism. That, and the West German government collapses into socialism, unifying with the West as a Labour-Socialist coalition takes control of Britain and France comes under a military dictatorship due to the Algerian War.
I subscribe to that, but I think I'll elaborate on it a bit more:
1947:The Socialist Party gains power in France(not sure how this would happen, even though the Socialists were a very prominent force on French politics at the time and were often in the government. Maybe a more inefficient Marshall Plan, focused more on, say... military aid)
1948: Victory of the Communists in the Italian parliamentary elections(they were REALLY close to winning)
This pretty much sets the stage for McCarthy winning, or at least becoming a respectable runner-up in the election of 1952.
The SFIO really wasn't that left-wing. Besides, in that period the SFIC was a larger political forceI subscribe to that, but I think I'll elaborate on it a bit more:
1947:The Socialist Party gains power in France(not sure how this would happen, even though the Socialists were a very prominent force on French politics at the time and were often in the government. Maybe a more inefficient Marshall Plan, focused more on, say... military aid)
1948: Victory of the Communists in the Italian parliamentary elections(they were REALLY close to winning)
This pretty much sets the stage for McCarthy winning, or at least becoming a respectable runner-up in the election of 1952.
Well, the SFIC allying with the SFIO isn't impossible either. They've done it before.The SFIO really wasn't that left-wing. Besides, in that period the SFIC was a larger political force
most likely the latter. I doubt the Communists could rule alone, and at the very least they'd need the continued support of the SFIO, if not the more centrist Radical-Socialistes. France could become the new left-wing cause celebre, at any case, being a modern industrial-capitalist nation seemingly making a transition to a socialist state.Well, the SFIC allying with the SFIO isn't impossible either. They've done it before.
The question though, would be, of course, political. Would France follow the soviet way of getting things done, or would it be more independent, eventually splintering away(IMO the latter is likelier)