AHC/WI: Swap the fates of America and Russia

[SonOfSharknado]

Submitted for your approval: An America under monarchical rule for 400 years before swift and violent communist revolution comes at the dawn of the 20th century. From there, the fledging Soviet State becomes a world superpower. Does it collapse? Does it endure? Who leads this strange, new world? And across the Atlantic, across the great European landscape, a Russia under the thumb of its own imperial oppressor, before breaking those shackles in the late 18th century. From there, revolution, freedom, democracy, and a slow rise to the heights of power and a symbol of freedom, racing to the moon.

 

[Dominic]

Getting America to be 400 years old is a rather larger challenge than having it fall to communism in the early 20th century.

 

[SonOfSharknado]

That's fair, although I suppose you could make a case for it being a splinter from the English crown. Though, still, you're probably right. It doesn't have to be a 1-to-1 flip.

 

[Dan1988]

I'm actually doing research now for a TL project on a similar topic, with a Communist US and a democratic Russia, though how they each get to that point is going to be different (the flip is largely 20th-century - up to that point, US and Tsarist Russian history will largely be OTL). There's actually several challenges I'm hitting which are unique to the project, including reconstructing Communism without Lenin but with some parallels. It helps that with the Communist Party USA's leadership, some of the early one parallel Soviet leaders, but the origins and how to get to the point of a USSA is rather tricky and is relying on far more of a hodge-podge than Communism as developed in Russia.

 

[Thomas Jefferson]

The best way to get America to be a monarchy for several hundred years is to have Charles I flee to the colonies after the English Civil War, although obviously that's a pre-1900 POD. You could get a more or less capitalist Russia and a Communist USA after 1917 by having the Mensheviks prevail over the Bolsheviks and set up a real electoral democracy with a generally socialist bent, and have the USA become more reactionary in the aftermath until the Great Depression leads to a full-on Communist revolution.

 

[SonOfSharknado]

I'm actually doing research now for a TL project on a similar topic, with a Communist US and a democratic Russia, though how they each get to that point is going to be different (the flip is largely 20th-century - up to that point, US and Tsarist Russian history will largely be OTL). There's actually several challenges I'm hitting which are unique to the project, including reconstructing Communism without Lenin but with some parallels. It helps that with the Communist Party USA's leadership, some of the early one parallel Soviet leaders, but the origins and how to get to the point of a USSA is rather tricky and is relying on far more of a hodge-podge than Communism as developed in Russia.

Hey, that sounds cool! I'll definitely keep an eye out for it.

 

[SonOfSharknado]

The best way to get America to be a monarchy for several hundred years is to have Charles I flee to the colonies after the English Civil War, although obviously that's a pre-1900 POD. You could get a more or less capitalist Russia and a Communist USA after 1917 by having the Mensheviks prevail over the Bolsheviks and set up a real electoral democracy with a generally socialist bent, and have the USA become more reactionary in the aftermath until the Great Depression leads to a full-on Communist revolution.

Yeah, that's sort of why I wasn't sure whether to post this in before or after 1900 PoD, because it's sort of both?