AHC: Frendly Soviet-American Relations

your challenge is to find some way of having the US and the USSR maintain good relations with one anotherwith changing the overall nature of either state (that means no overtly communist/socialist USA or capatalist USSR)
 
This is extremely difficult and almost impossible to do in any circumstances where the USSR's origins and history remotely reflect OTL. The USSR would be vast, evil, totalitarian, and remote. The USA of course has always behaved like a generic European-style empire and claimed a moral high ground it invariably fails to live up to and tends to blow incidents far out of proportion to what they deserve, while the USSR tends to be weaker, more incompetent, but also far more realistic in assessments of what it can do and do well than the USA tends to be. I'm sure there are ATLs where it's possible but they involve a USSR that's embraced into the 1920s social order from the first and thus prevent the USA and USSR from being more than two of the Great Powers in a multi-polar world, which while technically within the confines of the OP is not I think what it's shooting for.
 
Perhaps some way by which France and the British Empire break away from the Western bloc to form their own European power bloc, while Mao's China and perhaps India find some common ground in south-east and central Asia. The world becomes a lot more multipolar by 1960.

The USSR/Eastern Bloc would then become the only power whose sphere of interest does not coincide with that of the United States, and they'd have more to gain by working with each other to prevent the rise of China and to break up the European empires in Africa.
 
Stalin dies before VE day and is replaced by a Gorbachev like figure who wants to reform the Soviet Union and has no territorial ambition.
 
Kennedy isn't assassinated and Khrushchev remains in power for an extended period of time, with his eventual successor (its going to happen) being of similar politics but not as much of a Moderate. For the United States you would also need a similar individual, possibly Richard Nixon (going off the basis that since relations have improved, he wouldn't be working with China against the USSR). Joint Lunar Landing also goes through at some point.

From here, at least on an iconic standpoint, there should be a significant thaw in the Cold War, and gradual movement toward peace; total peace no, but enough that we might begin drawing our forces down somewhat and stop needling each other over what would be otherwise insignificant issues.​
 
to add to this I read somewhere that beria grew somewhat disillusioned with communism during the later years of his life as well as annoyed with stalin's anti-west attitudes and paranoia. Plus that the lend-lease deal the Soviets had with the US made him think that a more US friendly Soviet Union could be massively lucrative and profitable to the Soviet economy.

Any truth to this?
 
China goes Batshit?

How about one of the members of the Gang of Four ends up as the leader of China after Mao's death? Think of the wonders you could have with China operating under the same general concepts as Kim Jong Il.
 
Soviet American Solidarity

I've banged this drum before- say Stalin dies during the defense of Moscow.

Molotov, Beria, or some other moderate has no objections to WAllied troops on Soviet soil. Instead of spending three years waiting for WAllied troops to do more than take babysteps pinging the Atlantic Wall and wrapping up N Africa- they see Americans, Canadians, Brits, Free French, Polish etc troops dying to help liberate their homeland.
Americans get a clue about decent tank tactics and deep-battle strategy, maybe even adopt the T-34 and ppsH-44 but mostly, see the biblical devastation wrought by the Nazis on Russia, Poland, etc. firsthand and respect for their Soviet comrades in the drive to expunge the Nazi threat not just from Russia but the Earth shoulder to shoulder.

I agree it's ASB on several levels. Stalin'd never allow it. The WAllies'd be appalled by the carnage on the Eastern front and terrified of being commanded by the Soviet front commanders with their casual acceptance of casualties to accomplish objectives. It'd be logistical nightmare to accumulate enough troops and gear either through Archangel, Vladivostok,
and/or Iran to make an impact.

However, imagine the impact of hundreds of thousands of Allied troops on Soviet society. Instead of feeling like the world's ganging up on them,they see the world coming directly to their aid in their darkest hour.

Since the West is coming from the East, there's no sweat as to who gets to Berlin first. If anything, US/UK bombers based in Russia are considerably more effective at taking out Ploesti and other key objectives. They'd be running headfirst into major LW resistance, but they did anyway.
Being able to sandwich them between UK and USSR-based bombers, Germany gets strategically strangled quicker.
VE Day could happen in 1944 if the cards are played right. Soviet formations could end up replaying what tsarist troops did in defeating Napoleon, exposing hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops to Western Europe. Since there's lots of Western troops around, the Soviets don't feel quite as free to exact revenge on German civilians.
YMMV as to whether the Western troops object, turn a blind eye, or join in. Knowing human nature when confronted with such horrors, probably a little of all three.

The USSR is no longer an isolated pariah nation. Allied engineer units work wonders improving the Soviet rail, road, and air networks. Many Western volunteers and opportunists come to the USSR to help rebuild, offered incentives to help bring land back under cultivation and rebuild industry wrecked by the Nazi invasion more or less under the Yugoslavian co-op model.
Soviets study abroad and bring back ideas about business management and political freedom as well.

You butterfly away the mutual suspicions that fueled the Cold War. The Russians don't need the Iron Curtain and Warsaw Pact for a strategic buffer. Europe is helped to economically recover from the Urals to Brest from the nightmare of WW2. The US doesn't feel that the Soviets are as much of an alien threat and neither does the USSR view the USA as such.

China is liberated by Allied Soviet-American-British forces pushing through Manchuria some going south, and some continuing on liberating Korea. I'm betting a coup by Left-GMD forces topples CKS and incorporates some CCP figures into a coalition government- Mao dies a mysterious death, Chou-en-Lai survives as do other moderates.
They wind up agreeing on an authoritarian national recovery scheme to vastly improve agriculture, light industry, and educate their population that is far more social-democratic in nature than OTL Great Leap Forward.

There will be commerical, technological, and political rivalries, but not the mutually suspicious armed camps threatening nuclear holocaust to billions.
 
to add to this I read somewhere that beria grew somewhat disillusioned with communism during the later years of his life as well as annoyed with stalin's anti-west attitudes and paranoia. Plus that the lend-lease deal the Soviets had with the US made him think that a more US friendly Soviet Union could be massively lucrative and profitable to the Soviet economy.

Any truth to this?

Yep. Beria was even talking about restoring the free market and reunifying a Finlandized Germany. He was a sociopath and a killer, but probably the best bet to avoid the Cold War.

There's also very little chance he could come to power, however. Everyone else despised him, at basically all levels of Soviet society.
 
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