As it says, with a POD of 1900, have it so the general trend of history is the same as OTL. There exists a communist Soviet Union, and a democratic United States, there are two world wars, and so on. Just that no Cold War between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. occurs. No arms race, no global ideological battle, nothing like that. Perhaps by drastically lessening the growth of anti-socialist and anti-communist sentiment in the U.S. for one thing.
AHC: Avoid The Cold War
- Thread starter Cochlea
- Start date
You'd probably have to eliminate Stalin as head of the USSR and have a lesser degree of Soviet atrocities than OTL. The USSR needs to be bad enough to be threatening, hence the emergence of fascism and Nazism, but not so bad that any post-war peace arrangements with it would be impossible.
That on one hand would make the Soviet Union a lot more friendlier to America, but not the other way around. There was already a lot of fear and hate of communism and socialism (and the left in general, including anarchism, trade unions etc.) in the United States. That has to be eliminated as well. So that both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. are able to build good relations throughout the 20th century.
So have socialism be a lot more popular in America as a political movement, and have a good leftist representation in American politics. And if you also erase Stalin and Stalinism, then I'm sure American socialists will like the Soviet Union a whole lot more. Also this might mean that the Soviet Union doesn't create the Warsaw Pact with satellite nations, or has satellite nations to begin with. Either NATO doesn't exist or there is an organization like it in which both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are together.
One idea I've had for this scenario is that Operation Long Jump go ahead and succeed, killing the leaders of the allied powers. This has a number of effects on the subsequent leadership of the main allied powers which changes the dynamics of postwar diplomacy.
For the Soviets Molotov is killed alongside Stalin whilst Beria is blamed for dropping the ball on security and is quickly disposed. Soviet leadership falls into an uneasy duumvirate between Malenkov and Zhukov. Eventually Malenkov suffers an accident and Zhukov becomes the sole leader of the Soviet Union. Using his position as leader of the USSR, his position in the military and his popularity as a war hero he is able to launch a thoroughgoing and earlier Destalinisation program which goes a long way to improve the Soviet's image in the world (although Communist circles remain divided over fears of Bonapartism) and build a sense that Soviet leadership was entering a new era. His two main policy achievements involve removing most of the Stalinist old guard and replacing them with fresh blood and stronger ties and cooperation with the West. After securing the peace he retires from politics and lives out the rest of his days in peace, a Soviet Cincinnatus.
For the British both Churchill and Eden get killed and Stafford Cripps becomes PM (although Atlee might seem a more likely choice for successor Cripps was seen as a potential rival to Churchill, maybe throw in a successful Cripps' Mission to give him more credibility and throw up some interesting butterflies in India). This leads to much closer ties between Britain and the USSR both during and after the war. In the 1945 election Labour wins an even bigger majority than IOTL, being able to leverage the prestige of Cripps as the wartime hero and the Conservatives being deprived of Churchill, which allows Labour to push through an even more radical program than IOTL. In 1950 Labour does better in the election and is able to win a workable majority. Cripps soon retires due to health reasons and Nye Bevan becomes PM, promising to continue Labour's policies of radical domestic reform and a foreign policy built on decolonisation and cooperation with the US and USSR.
For the Americans FDR gets killed and Henry Wallace becomes President. He was quite in favour of cooperating with the Soviets, a stance which Zhukov's Destalinisation will make a lot more palatable to the American people. He goes on to win the 1944 and 1948 elections, continuing his pro-cooperation foreign policy whilst pushing a left-wing economic policy and staunch support for Civil Rights. Amongst other things he extends Marshall Aid programs to the Soviet Union and the other Communist countries helping to economically integrate the US and Soviet Bloc and stabilise them. In 1952 the Republicans run Bob La Follette Jr. who wins and continues US cooperation with the Soviets and domestic Civil Rights reform. He is then re-elected in 1956. US-Soviet relations are now firmly entrenched and support for the alliance is bipartisan. There is no Red Scare, instead earlier and stronger support for Civil Rights inspires a violent right-wing backlash with rising acts of domestic terror and assassination plots against both Presidents and as a result the energy and resources that were used against Communists and their sympathisers is turned against them. It's not pretty but it does help pave the way for more effective Civil Rights.
Japan and Germany are both put under full joint-occupations with no separate occupation zones, which encourages greater cooperation between the occupying powers. Japan and Germany (including Austria) are reestablished as completely demilitarised and neutral republics.
In Italy, due to various butterflies and changes, the Popular Front are able to scrape a near majority and form a coalition with Liberal and Social Democrats. Italy develops into a 2.5 party system with Christian Democrats on the Right the Popular Front on the Left and Social Democratic Liberals playing kingmaker between them and wedded to a neutral foreign policy, effectively making Italy non-aligned. Combined with Germany this means that Soviet bloc and Western Europe now have two neutral buffer states between them, which helps keep tensions down.
With neither Britain or the US willing to prop up the Monarchists the Communists handily win the Greek Civil War. Increasingly surrounded Turkey is Finlandised and forced to give independence to Kurdistan.
Due to a more successful Cripps' Mission and with Cripps in charge of overseeing Indian independence things go differently. Partition is put off in favour of loose federation and a referendum on partition scheduled for a decade or so later. As a result Partition is avoided or is carried out in a more amicable manner and the subcontinent is much less of a hotspot as a result.
Because there is no Suez Crisis Nasser, whilst still quite popular, is not as entrenched as IOTL and eventually has to give way to democratic civilian government. The Arab world gradually unified into a Federal Republic as the gulf monarchies start to fall. The ethnic Kurdish regions are seceded to Kurdistan in exchange for aide from thee US and Soviet Union who are cooperating to ensure a peaceful and stable political order.
In the 60s a treaty is signed between Israel and the Arab Federation, overseen by the UN and with US-Soviet support, which establishes peaceful recognition, with Israel seceding the Negev to the Arab Federation, giving them territorial contiguity, in exchange for rights of access and transit to Red Sea ports and mutually beneficial trade agreements. To ensure that the peace is maintained large numbers of international peacekeepers are stationed in Israel. Whilst the peace doesn't please everyone it does manage to hold.
The French get pushed out of Indochina in the 50s and the whole region falls under the control of Communist-dominated Nationalist governments. They maintain open relations with the US who offers them aid and support.
When Fidel Castro overthrows Batista the US negotiates with him, meaning that he doesn't become a Soviet ally, which prevents fears of Soviet expansion into America's sphere of influence and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Without Cold War fears of Soviet domination the Americans, along with the Soviets, back Patrice Lumumba and help him to stabilise the Republic of Congo. Whilst things aren't always smooth and there are a lot of problems things sort of work out in the end and Congo gradually integrates and unifies with the various Francophone African countries surrounding it.
Korea isn't partitioned and instead the Americans and Soviets backed the native Peoples Republic that initially declared independence. Postwar elections ensure that Korea is dominated by left-wing pro-Soviet parties and falls into the Soviet sphere of influence. There's no Korean War, Korea remains fairly open to the outside world and the madness of the Kim regime is butterflied away.
In China the Soviets and Americans desperately try to negotiate some sort of compromise between the Communists and KMT, however, Chaing and Mao proves to be too stubborn. So the Americans decide to cut Chaing loose and arrange an "accident" for him and replacing him with Yan Xishan. A power-sharing agreement is worked out and an uneasy triumvirate of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Yan Xishan is established. Mao is not particularly happy with this and there are right-wing KMT types who don't like the fact that they have been sidelined, so things aren't ideal, but they muddle through. With Mao unable to rise to total control in the 50s the worst excesses of the GLF are avoided with China focusing on more slow and steady economic plans. There are still problems, industrialising a country as large as China is never going to be a painless operation, but with more sensible economic targets and access to international aid and support it's a hell of a lot smoother than IOTL.
There is no space race. Instead there is international cooperation towards space exploration with the first moon landing completed by an international team.
By the time the 70s roll around rising economic prosperity, more openness and foreign influence leads to increasing demands for social and political reforms in the Soviet Union which results in the democratisation of the USSR and wider Communist Bloc. Peace reigns across the world under a broadly left-wing and democratic political consensus.
For the Soviets Molotov is killed alongside Stalin whilst Beria is blamed for dropping the ball on security and is quickly disposed. Soviet leadership falls into an uneasy duumvirate between Malenkov and Zhukov. Eventually Malenkov suffers an accident and Zhukov becomes the sole leader of the Soviet Union. Using his position as leader of the USSR, his position in the military and his popularity as a war hero he is able to launch a thoroughgoing and earlier Destalinisation program which goes a long way to improve the Soviet's image in the world (although Communist circles remain divided over fears of Bonapartism) and build a sense that Soviet leadership was entering a new era. His two main policy achievements involve removing most of the Stalinist old guard and replacing them with fresh blood and stronger ties and cooperation with the West. After securing the peace he retires from politics and lives out the rest of his days in peace, a Soviet Cincinnatus.
For the British both Churchill and Eden get killed and Stafford Cripps becomes PM (although Atlee might seem a more likely choice for successor Cripps was seen as a potential rival to Churchill, maybe throw in a successful Cripps' Mission to give him more credibility and throw up some interesting butterflies in India). This leads to much closer ties between Britain and the USSR both during and after the war. In the 1945 election Labour wins an even bigger majority than IOTL, being able to leverage the prestige of Cripps as the wartime hero and the Conservatives being deprived of Churchill, which allows Labour to push through an even more radical program than IOTL. In 1950 Labour does better in the election and is able to win a workable majority. Cripps soon retires due to health reasons and Nye Bevan becomes PM, promising to continue Labour's policies of radical domestic reform and a foreign policy built on decolonisation and cooperation with the US and USSR.
For the Americans FDR gets killed and Henry Wallace becomes President. He was quite in favour of cooperating with the Soviets, a stance which Zhukov's Destalinisation will make a lot more palatable to the American people. He goes on to win the 1944 and 1948 elections, continuing his pro-cooperation foreign policy whilst pushing a left-wing economic policy and staunch support for Civil Rights. Amongst other things he extends Marshall Aid programs to the Soviet Union and the other Communist countries helping to economically integrate the US and Soviet Bloc and stabilise them. In 1952 the Republicans run Bob La Follette Jr. who wins and continues US cooperation with the Soviets and domestic Civil Rights reform. He is then re-elected in 1956. US-Soviet relations are now firmly entrenched and support for the alliance is bipartisan. There is no Red Scare, instead earlier and stronger support for Civil Rights inspires a violent right-wing backlash with rising acts of domestic terror and assassination plots against both Presidents and as a result the energy and resources that were used against Communists and their sympathisers is turned against them. It's not pretty but it does help pave the way for more effective Civil Rights.
Japan and Germany are both put under full joint-occupations with no separate occupation zones, which encourages greater cooperation between the occupying powers. Japan and Germany (including Austria) are reestablished as completely demilitarised and neutral republics.
In Italy, due to various butterflies and changes, the Popular Front are able to scrape a near majority and form a coalition with Liberal and Social Democrats. Italy develops into a 2.5 party system with Christian Democrats on the Right the Popular Front on the Left and Social Democratic Liberals playing kingmaker between them and wedded to a neutral foreign policy, effectively making Italy non-aligned. Combined with Germany this means that Soviet bloc and Western Europe now have two neutral buffer states between them, which helps keep tensions down.
With neither Britain or the US willing to prop up the Monarchists the Communists handily win the Greek Civil War. Increasingly surrounded Turkey is Finlandised and forced to give independence to Kurdistan.
Due to a more successful Cripps' Mission and with Cripps in charge of overseeing Indian independence things go differently. Partition is put off in favour of loose federation and a referendum on partition scheduled for a decade or so later. As a result Partition is avoided or is carried out in a more amicable manner and the subcontinent is much less of a hotspot as a result.
Because there is no Suez Crisis Nasser, whilst still quite popular, is not as entrenched as IOTL and eventually has to give way to democratic civilian government. The Arab world gradually unified into a Federal Republic as the gulf monarchies start to fall. The ethnic Kurdish regions are seceded to Kurdistan in exchange for aide from thee US and Soviet Union who are cooperating to ensure a peaceful and stable political order.
In the 60s a treaty is signed between Israel and the Arab Federation, overseen by the UN and with US-Soviet support, which establishes peaceful recognition, with Israel seceding the Negev to the Arab Federation, giving them territorial contiguity, in exchange for rights of access and transit to Red Sea ports and mutually beneficial trade agreements. To ensure that the peace is maintained large numbers of international peacekeepers are stationed in Israel. Whilst the peace doesn't please everyone it does manage to hold.
The French get pushed out of Indochina in the 50s and the whole region falls under the control of Communist-dominated Nationalist governments. They maintain open relations with the US who offers them aid and support.
When Fidel Castro overthrows Batista the US negotiates with him, meaning that he doesn't become a Soviet ally, which prevents fears of Soviet expansion into America's sphere of influence and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Without Cold War fears of Soviet domination the Americans, along with the Soviets, back Patrice Lumumba and help him to stabilise the Republic of Congo. Whilst things aren't always smooth and there are a lot of problems things sort of work out in the end and Congo gradually integrates and unifies with the various Francophone African countries surrounding it.
Korea isn't partitioned and instead the Americans and Soviets backed the native Peoples Republic that initially declared independence. Postwar elections ensure that Korea is dominated by left-wing pro-Soviet parties and falls into the Soviet sphere of influence. There's no Korean War, Korea remains fairly open to the outside world and the madness of the Kim regime is butterflied away.
In China the Soviets and Americans desperately try to negotiate some sort of compromise between the Communists and KMT, however, Chaing and Mao proves to be too stubborn. So the Americans decide to cut Chaing loose and arrange an "accident" for him and replacing him with Yan Xishan. A power-sharing agreement is worked out and an uneasy triumvirate of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Yan Xishan is established. Mao is not particularly happy with this and there are right-wing KMT types who don't like the fact that they have been sidelined, so things aren't ideal, but they muddle through. With Mao unable to rise to total control in the 50s the worst excesses of the GLF are avoided with China focusing on more slow and steady economic plans. There are still problems, industrialising a country as large as China is never going to be a painless operation, but with more sensible economic targets and access to international aid and support it's a hell of a lot smoother than IOTL.
There is no space race. Instead there is international cooperation towards space exploration with the first moon landing completed by an international team.
By the time the 70s roll around rising economic prosperity, more openness and foreign influence leads to increasing demands for social and political reforms in the Soviet Union which results in the democratisation of the USSR and wider Communist Bloc. Peace reigns across the world under a broadly left-wing and democratic political consensus.
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Have Stalin commit suicide in 1941 as the Germans rampage through the Soviet Union. A coalition government is formed, likely hiding Stalin's death, and leads the USSR. In the chaos of setting up this new government Moscow falls and the Eastern Front becomes even bloodier for the Soviets. At the close of the war, this coalition is much more willing to accept American aid. Weak as they are, the USSR gradually withdraws from Eastern Europe as it rebuilds. Western aid leads to detente and necessary reforms are made during the rebuilding, the most important being a decentralization of central authority in a single person as well as more local autonomy and the revival of NEP. Destalinization follows. This regime eventually enters the world market tying it to the capitalists regimes.
Elsewhere, China remains divided North/South and Korea never sees war. Without the fear of communist expansion, no Red Scare.
Elsewhere, China remains divided North/South and Korea never sees war. Without the fear of communist expansion, no Red Scare.
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I think the key thing is to avoid Stalin running the USSR in the post war period - if he dies before VE day, the Soviet leadership doesn't have his paranoia to steer them away from becoming integrated in a US world order after WW2.
However, it's hard to avoid some sort of rivalry between the US and the USSR - whatever else, they are still the two biggest economies on the planet and the USSR, while it may be forced to marketize, will still be to the left of the US and the disintegration of the European empires will provoke a rush to vie for influence in the new states in Africa and Asia.
fasquardon
However, it's hard to avoid some sort of rivalry between the US and the USSR - whatever else, they are still the two biggest economies on the planet and the USSR, while it may be forced to marketize, will still be to the left of the US and the disintegration of the European empires will provoke a rush to vie for influence in the new states in Africa and Asia.
fasquardon
Stalin dead early in WW2, new leadership decides beating nazis is key. Agree Finlandizing Poland.
Helps Warsaw rising
Helps Warsaw rising
I'm not sure if that scenario would necessarily work.
Firstly, taking out Stalin at the start of Barbarossa might actually strengthen the Soviets. Stalin was basically non-responsive for the first few weeks of the invasion making it difficult to organise a response. Taking out Stalin and allowing others to take the reigns of power could actually prevent that and give the Soviets a stronger position.
Secondly, weakening the Soviets isn't likely to prevent the Cold War, if anything it will make the Soviets more desperate to expand their meagre sphere of influence against outside existential threats, whilst America might take the opportunity to press the attack and destroy the Soviets whilst they are in a position of weakness.
Thirdly, keeping China, or any area of significance, divided between Communists and anti-Communists is more likely to inflame tensions and encourage Cold War chicanery.
In my opinion the secret to preventing the Cold War involves extending cooperation between the major powers (there were certainly those in positions of power who wanted to on all sides) to the point where it becomes institutionalised, establish a geopolitical order that none of the major powers regard as threatening (a demilitarised buffer between the Soviet Bloc and Western Europe combined with Marshall Aid for the Soviets would help) and make sure that the power that be regard the new status quo that emerges as being more beneficial than attempting to rock the boat and screw the others.
Impossible with Stalin. He needs to go. His paranoia made partnership at any level impossible.
I'm not sure this is possible with the mere existence of the USSR; it was built on revolution (with a repugnant ideology no doubt) and had intended to bring socialism outside its borders no matter what and that alone would bring conflict with its neighbors which would involve the UK and/or the USA. IMO, the best way to achieve this is to have the USSR collapse yet have the Third Reich still defeated shortly after; then the Allies along with a rump USSR that reforms into some Eurasian federation that completely ditches communism forms a world order in the form of a UN/NATO esque alliance to maintain world peace similar to the A4 from AANW.
Earth Judicar
Banned
Wait do you have a source for this project?
About the OP-maybe have more conciliatory leadership on both sides, more technology transfer, probably requires someone other than Stalin in charge.
The Soviet Union is some kind of evil omnicidal entity only in the minds of right-wing propagandists and red scarers. I'd rather this thread focus on historical fact rather than ideology. Though if you can prove your claims here of the Soviet Union as an innately or inevitably belligerent nation, I'd like to see your evidence. I suppose the Vietnam War doesn't prove the U.S.'s innate belligerence, nor does military-industrial complex influence in its politics.
And for people saying more economic liberalisation will do it for the Soviet Union, remember the liberalisation from Khrushchev onwards was drastic for the economy. We don't want to Soviets to dismantle and the OP indicates that the Soviets should remain communist. Seeing as the Soviets were already pretty capitalist, and tilted towards market socialism, they can move towards something more like GDR's policies to do better economically.
I take offense to your claim (though I do not wish to debate this here, like as if the USSR's antics need "debating"), but I will say that at least one politician argued this was so along with the communist concept of world revolution. Though you can argue this was so with just Stalin but still, something that the USSR flaunted with time and time again IOTL with the creation of the Warsaw Pact countries and backing of various pro-Soviet states.
I find it's less the Soviets as a sort of evil omnicidal entity and more that the two countries just have such a virulently opposed outlook on the world that they were bound to clash over it's fate in the post-war. The Soviets had the inheritance of Tsarist Russia's old geopolitical position that propelled it's expansion coupled with the ideological doctrine of communism, which held that true cooperation with non-Communist states was impossible. This gave them a foreign policy based on brutal realpolitik infused with the strange "internationalist-nationalist" that Leninist and Stalinist thought expounded: the capitalists would invariably seek to destroy the Soviet Union, as the bastion of the workers revolution whose destruction would mean a major setback for said revolution the security of the USSR must be held above everything else, security was a zero-sum game which could only come to the Soviet Union at the expense of others, foreign policy can only be based on objective factors (relative military-industrial strength and situation) between countries, the exposed borders of the USSR can only be secured by buffers, etc. etc. Morality simply doesn't enter into it. Even all the other contenders for power prior too and after Stalin, Khruschev included, bought into these ideas to some degree or another.
For it's part, the US's ideological view was influenced by it's own geopolitical position and internal history, which combined a homeland that could not actually be challenged with great prosperity and great regard for individual rights. This resulted in an highly individualistic and moralistic view of international relations which tended to view foreign policy through a prism of "free and not free" and "good vs evil" that was uncomfortable with focusing, or even acknowledging, large-scale movements and instead focused on national leaders to make an ally or enemy out of, a view which believed that security and global peace could be based on cooperation of national leaders working together to create world orders and arbitrate disputes. This was a policy that frequently clashed with the uncomfortable reality of a global or regional situation, as the entire history of US foreign policy from WW1 on can attest, but it even in it's most realpolitik moments the US sought to infuse it into how it conducted itself in the world... even if it was flagrantly immoral actions in the pursuit of these moral goals (remember the saying about the path to hell?).
Such viewpoints in the two most powerful military superpowers was bound to create too much friction for actual cooperation to be possible.
Admiral Beez
Banned
Avoid the cold war by pursuing a hot war in 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Totality
BigBlueBox
Banned
The simplest way to do this would be for the Soviets to do much worse in WW2, and end up meeting the Allies at the pre-1939 border. Soviets don't join the war against Japan, so there is a united and non-communist Korea, and Manchuria is in KMT hands. The Chinese Civil War goes on longer and either devolves into a low-level insurgency or results in the country being split. The Soviets decide to focus on internal affairs and rebuilding instead of spreading their influence .