AHC: The U.S. Focuses On The Soviets As a the Enemy And Not The Communists

Your challenge is to see (WITHOUT MAKING US COMMUNIST) whether Americans see the Soviets rather than the Communists as the enemy during the Cold War. So basically they're fighting Soviets and Soviet influence why tolerating communists as long as they're at least willing to stay neutral.

EDIT: How does this also affect America's response towards peace hippies and left-wingers and does this necessarily make the U.S. Better?
 
If I'm reading it correctly, you would see a less Asia-centric foreign policy through the first half of the Cold War. Korea still happens, but more because Stalin was there. Vietnam is butterflied.

Arab leftism would still be challenged because of the oil issues, but this different US policy might move non-Soviet client states into the non-aligned movement.

Cuba and Che's revolutions would face full focus throughout the Cold War as Stalinist clients.

Allende probably doesn't get overthrown and there's probably much less US support for Pinochet and Peron in South America. Africa probably becomes Communist simply due to decolonization forces.

It might be more peaceful, or it might be nastier, because the US resources would be focused on a few big fires.
 
If I'm reading it correctly, you would see a less Asia-centric foreign policy through the first half of the Cold War. Korea still happens, but more because Stalin was there. Vietnam is butterflied.

Arab leftism would still be challenged because of the oil issues, but this different US policy might move non-Soviet client states into the non-aligned movement.

Cuba and Che's revolutions would face full focus throughout the Cold War as Stalinist clients.

Allende probably doesn't get overthrown and there's probably much less US support for Pinochet and Peron in South America. Africa probably becomes Communist simply due to decolonization forces.

It might be more peaceful, or it might be nastier, because the US resources would be focused on a few big fires.

Don't worry your good. I did mean that the U.S. focuses on attacking the Soviets rather than communism. Heck OTL US did see Yugoslavia's Tito in a good light.
 
Your challenge is to see (WITHOUT MAKING US COMMUNIST) whether Americans see the Soviets rather than the Communists as the enemy during the Cold War. So basically they're fighting Soviets and Soviet influence why tolerating communists as long as they're at least willing to stay neutral.

EDIT: How does this also affect America's response towards peace hippies and left-wingers and does this necessarily make the U.S. Better?

Is this a DBWI? The US did give aid to Tito to keep him afloat after his break with Stalin. http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01629-9.html In the 1970's it tilted toward China against Russia--it even supported Pol Pot retaining the UN seat for Cambodia aftee the Vietnamese invasion of that country...
 
Is this a DBWI? The US did give aid to Tito to keep him afloat after his break with Stalin. http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01629-9.html In the 1970's it tilted toward China against Russia--it even supported Pol Pot retaining the UN seat for Cambodia aftee the Vietnamese invasion of that country...

Yeah, especially post-Vietnam, US foreign-policy was not as anti-Communist as both its defenders and opponents made it out to be. Granted, at least with China, there was probably the idea that people like Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiapoing(ie. the faction the US was reaching out to, even while Mao was still alive) were the more pro-capitalist group in the CPC.

That said, assuming that "anti-Soviet" means "anti-Russian", the biggest differences between OTL and the OP's scenario might be in the rhetoric employed by US government propaganda. Less emphasis on the evils of Communism, more on the supposed barbarism and savagery of Russians(and whichever Slavic groups were allied with them). I guess comparable to the way the gutter press portrays arabs and Mulims today.

Also, the Cold Warriors in the US would probably be way more suspicious of people like Solzhenitsyn, and Russian nationalists generally. They might cynically latch onto a few stats and anecdotes from The Gulag Archipelago for propaganda purposes("See, look how horribly those subhuman Russians treat each other!!"), but you wouldn't see that book's author lionized on the cover of National Review, as you did in real life.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Is this a DBWI? The US did give aid to Tito to keep him afloat after his break with Stalin. http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01629-9.html In the 1970's it tilted toward China against Russia--it even supported Pol Pot retaining the UN seat for Cambodia aftee the Vietnamese invasion of that country...

I've asked a few professors about that one. The United States said it was opposed to communism, but it was willing to work with certain socialists. Thus, as far as the United States government was concerned, Yugoslavia was a socialist state that had freed itself from the communist Soviet orbit.
 
I've asked a few professors about that one. The United States said it was opposed to communism, but it was willing to work with certain socialists. Thus, as far as the United States government was concerned, Yugoslavia was a socialist state that had freed itself from the communist Soviet orbit.

Are your professors distinguishing between Communists(seen as bad by the US), and socialists(seen as redeemable)? Because I don't think that really applies to American allies like the Khmer Rouge, who(whatever the actual reality), claimed to be Communist, and would almost certainly have been regarded as such by the Americans had they been in the Soviet camp.

I think the distinction was basically between "Groups that ally with the Soviets", and "Groups that ally against the Soviets", with anti-Soviet Communists being more than welcome as US allies.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Are your professors distinguishing between Communists(seen as bad by the US), and socialists(seen as redeemable)? Because I don't think that really applies to American allies like the Khmer Rouge, who(whatever the actual reality), claimed to be Communist, and would almost certainly have been regarded as such by the Americans had they been in the Soviet camp.

I think the distinction was basically between "Groups that ally with the Soviets", and "Groups that ally against the Soviets", with anti-Soviet Communists being more than welcome as US allies.

Politics is a lot of how you frame something. You can't be opposed to Soviet communism and go and sell F-86 fighter jets to the Yugoslavian communists, regardless of what alliance they might be in. The idea of monolithic communism only died when the PRC and Soviet Union threatened each other with nuclear war throughout much of 1969 as part of the Sino-Soviet Conflict. Nixon's visit to the PRC injected some realpolitik into things, people still like communism, and politicians didn't want to be seen as soft on it.
 
I've asked a few professors about that one. The United States said it was opposed to communism, but it was willing to work with certain socialists. Thus, as far as the United States government was concerned, Yugoslavia was a socialist state that had freed itself from the communist Soviet orbit.

US policy makers were well aware that Tito was still a Communist, though one independent of the USSR. Also after 1956 the US gave some aid to Gomulka's Poland in an attempt to encourage its independence from Moscow. See LIFE magazine's defense of this policy in 1957: https://books.google.com/books?id=tVYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA46 (It actually compared Gomulka *favorably* with Tito--this was at a time when Yugoslavia and the USSR were in one of their periodic reconciliations...)
 
Your challenge is to see (WITHOUT MAKING US COMMUNIST) whether Americans see the Soviets rather than the Communists as the enemy during the Cold War. So basically they're fighting Soviets and Soviet influence why tolerating communists as long as they're at least willing to stay neutral.

EDIT: How does this also affect America's response towards peace hippies and left-wingers and does this necessarily make the U.S. Better?

If I'm understanding this correctly, the US would still be fighting communism pretty much everywhere except for Central and South America. The Soviets were the driving force behind the spread of global communism, that was kind of their gameplan. I doubt that this improves attitudes towards leftists. At best, they'll be seen as potential traitors.
 
I believe that the NKVD and KGB killed off many of the non-Leninists and non-Stalinists. They were for instance only a minority amongst the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Until they sidelines and executed their non-murderous Spaniards and those actually in favor of elections. Also the problem of how many hostages the So it's had. They kept the son of Chiang Kai Sheck and that of a leader of American socialists hostage for quite some time. And of course they were able to off many non-Communists when they came to join the Soviet Union after WWI and ended up sent to their deaths.
 
If I'm understanding this correctly, the US would still be fighting communism pretty much everywhere except for Central and South America. The Soviets were the driving force behind the spread of global communism, that was kind of their gameplan. I doubt that this improves attitudes towards leftists. At best, they'll be seen as potential traitors.

They could have negotiated agreements with Communist nations to stay at least neutral in the Cold War in exchange for recognition of their governments.
 
If I'm reading it correctly, you would see a less Asia-centric foreign policy through the first half of the Cold War. Korea still happens, but more because Stalin was there. Vietnam is butterflied.

Arab leftism would still be challenged because of the oil issues, but this different US policy might move non-Soviet client states into the non-aligned movement.

Cuba and Che's revolutions would face full focus throughout the Cold War as Stalinist clients.

Allende probably doesn't get overthrown and there's probably much less US support for Pinochet and Peron in South America. Africa probably becomes Communist simply due to decolonization forces.

It might be more peaceful, or it might be nastier, because the US resources would be focused on a few big fires.

How did US challenge Arab leftism?
 
Wait, did the Americans actually support Peron, Theoretical? Plenty sure the Junta moved against Peronists for being too Leftist.
 
The reason that in the 1950's the US regarded the PRC as the ally of the USSR is that at the time it was. The US did at first keep the door open to encouraging greater independence of the Chinese Communists from Moscow. But any hopes for this were blasted by Mao's "lean to one side" speech, the 1950 Sino-Soviet treaty, and finally the Korean War.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
The reason that in the 1950's the US regarded the PRC as the ally of the USSR is that at the time it was.


I would also add: the reason that from fall 1944 through -summer 1948 the US regarded Yugoslavia as the ally of the USSR is that at the time it was.

Also, the Cold Warriors in the US would probably be way more suspicious of people like Solzhenitsyn, and Russian nationalists generally. They might cynically latch onto a few stats and anecdotes from The Gulag Archipelago for propaganda purposes("See, look how horribly those subhuman Russians treat each other!!"),

That had to wait until after 1991, when the CPSU wasn't there to kick around anymore. Russia itself became the enemy or rival that at least had to be hedged against (NATO expansion).

Wait, did the Americans actually support Peron, Theoretical? Plenty sure the Junta moved against Peronists for being too Leftist.

The Americans didn't actually support Peron. America disliked him for his Axis ties, anti-American rhetoric, and charismatic leadership style, not really for being too leftist. The officers who did overthrow him and sectors of society who endorsed that probably did think he was too leftist.
 
Your challenge is to see (WITHOUT MAKING US COMMUNIST) whether Americans see the Soviets rather than the Communists as the enemy during the Cold War. So basically they're fighting Soviets and Soviet influence why tolerating communists as long as they're at least willing to stay neutral.

EDIT: How does this also affect America's response towards peace hippies and left-wingers and does this necessarily make the U.S. Better?

I think this is difficult because you're asking a large segment of the US political elite to abandon the ability to tar it's domestic opponents as traitors. If you look at the 20th Century after the "progressive package" of Amendments (16th, 17th, 18th, 19th), every social reform or program that has been disliked by the American conservatives that that is remotely left of center gets painted as the machinations of the Soviet Union. Child labor laws? Moscow's attempt to destroy America. Minimum wage? The Soviets want to destroy America. Equal rights for not-white people? The vile communist plot to destroy private property. Allowing union organizing? Their only doing it for their Russian paymasters.

A big, nebulous reason to call your domestic opponents anti-American traitors is a very hard thing to let go of.
 
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