AHC: Less Powerful Britain and USSR pre-WW2

IS there any way that Britain and the USSR could have been less powerful (As in militarily) before Fall Gelb?

For Britain its too easy. They just decide to be more restrained with their increased defence spending from 1936.

The USSR was very powerful and had weapons programmes that would have made them invincible TO ALL powers by 1942. You would have to get rid of Stalin but then if you did you might avoid the purges and so you have better Russian generals.
 
There's no way for the USSR to be *less* militarily efficient than it was after most-all its high ranking generals were shot by Stalin in the period 1937-41 and the USSR deliberately disbanded its concept of mechanized war. There are far more ways for it to be far more powerful. As far as the UK, I can't see that either, and I see no means short of a Tunguska-level impact aimed at London for Hitler to win a war with the UK due to his lack of a navy and unwillingness to fight that kind of war. Hitler might if infernal luck favors him force the UK to a cease-fire via a naval strategy but there's a huge leap from cease fire to an outright victory.
 
Maybe Trotsky wins out over Stalin and institutes a more moderate industrialisation.

MattII

That could make the SU weaker simply because Trotsky was more intent on exporting the revolution so would worsen relations with its neighbours. [Yes they could have been worse than they were;)]. Also as an ideal-log he could have still had purges and attrocites similar to Stalin.

Steve
 
As far as the USSR is concerned, the Poles could get more out of the Polish-Soviet War than OTL. If I remember right, the Soviets offered them a peace deal, the Poles refused it and tried for more, and then they got knocked back to Warsaw.

Keeping butterflies to a minimum, the USSR will have less territory than OTL. And the possible butterflies could affect Stalin's rise to power, the purges, etc., so things might be even more divergent from OTL.
 
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