Alaska Purchase fails - a dystopian timeline

I came up with this one a couple of years ago. It is what I call a "poison pill" timeline - one where a change doesn't change much to begin with, but snowballs later.

In our time line, the Tsar needed some cash and offered to sell Russian America to the United States for a small sum. The debate in Congress took years before the purchase was approved, and then a whole separate debate was needed to actually secure funding for the purchase. It was a close-run thing.

Now, if the bills failed to pass, nothing much would have happened. Gold would have been discovered in the Klondike, which would likely have had the Tsar extend the gulags to Russian America and reinforce it with troops and NKVD to defend Russian gold, and Novy Archangelsk would have become a sizeable city, but frankly, not a whole lot would have changed outside of Alaska and western Canada.

WW1, the October Revolution, the Depression, Nazi Germany... the Berlin Airlift, no significant differences from our timeline.

August 29, 1949. 0700 hours. The NKVD atomic bomb project detonates "First Lightning" and the USSR becomes a nuclear power.

Around now, things start going pear-shaped.

The Cold War hasn't really gotten started yet, but the House Un-American Activities Committee had been working since 1938. In 1949, HUAC was close to its peak of political power. But instead of blackballing actors and sniffing around social clubs, they'd have real, nukular-powered Rooskies sitting right on our doorstep.

A HUAC with a visible, immediate enemy would likely have been much more powerful and effective. Even without atomics, most of North America would have been within reach of Soviet Tu-4s (B-29 copies) flying from Russian America or even Siberia.

The first notable event of the Cold War was the Berlin Airlift, which began in 1948. A handful of Red Army soldiers in Russian America would have been irrelevant. But after First Lightning in 1949, the balance of power would have been dramatically different. During the early phases of the Cold War, all of the western USSR lay within range of Allied bombers operating from bases in Germany and France. While Europe was within range of Soviet bombers, the Soviets didn't have any practical way to strike at North America until they developed ballistic missiles.

With bases in Russian America, the Anglo-American/Soviet balance would have been somewhat in favor of the Soviets. While the Soviets could pick up any gas station map to find a place in North America, the Soviet maps might show cities tens of miles from their true locations... if they were shown at all. The Allies could strike at a handful of well-known locations, but most of the USSR was simply a blank page.

With this in mind, the Soviet clampdown in Eastern Europe would probably have been much tighter. In the 1950s, the Soviets put a lot of effort into Africa, most of which went nowhere. That might have changed. And the Middle East. And Southeast Asia. And South America. And consider Canada, sharing a long border with the USSR... where the USA balked the USSR's expansionism before, things would go the other way.

By 1967, a century after fumbling the Alaska Purchase, things could be very grim. I can come up with some "most likely" timelines until the late 1950s, and then the options start multiplying rapidly. I see the most likely general timeline as a Soviet-dominated world; the SSRs, the Soviet-dominated blocs, Soviet fellow travelers, a handful of nominally non-aligned or opposing states living on suffrance, and the USA.

But that USA of 1967 would be armed to the teeth, paranoid, isolationist, and it would look a lot like Russia during the Terror of the 1930s. Civil rights? What civil rights? Don't you know They are out to get us? And they're winning?!
 
I'm not so sure that Russia maintaining Alaska would result in "not a whole lot changing". I think there are a number of things you haven't taken into account, most notably that of the Butterfly Effect. Simply put the people and events of TTL are going to be slightly different no matter what the change is. To posit a nearly identical cold war occuring 100 years after the POD is a bit far fetched.

Also, why would the USA let the USSR maintain Alaska during the 1920's? Surely Britain, Canada, and the US would balk at a Soviet Alaska during this period. It would be in their best interest to see to it that some White successor state take hold in the region, or some other solution that would prevent the Soviets from gaining such a vital piece of real estate. Furthermore, should they do this, the USSR, mired in civil war would be able to do exactly nothing.
 
First, a small nit to pick. The Tsar would have deployed the Okhrana, not the NKVD, which did not yet exist. (Its ancestor, the Cheka, was established shortly after the October Revolution by Felix Dzerzhinsky.)

Second, things would have gone pear-shaped, as you put it, shortly after the October Revolution. IOTL the Palmer Red Raids and other nonsense took place here during 1919 and 1920; there would have been much more of that if a communist Russia had a large foothold in North America.

However, if the Whites can seize control of Alaska during the Russian Civil War they could set up a government in exile. Given how difficult it would be to get there from Russia, especially if there is a hostile US Navy in the way, Lenin and company might well just let it go. A White Russian Alaska allied to Western European powers and/or the USA would be a strange creature, but by no means impossible.
 

abc123

Banned
Now, if the bills failed to pass, nothing much would have happened. Gold would have been discovered in the Klondike, which would likely have had the Tsar extend the gulags to Russian America and reinforce it with troops and NKVD to defend Russian gold, and Novy Archangelsk would have become a sizeable city, but frankly, not a whole lot would have changed outside of Alaska and western Canada.

No gulags and NKVD during Tsar's rule...

Katorga and Okhrana would be more likely...
 
No gulags and NKVD during Tsar's rule...

Same happy faces, new happy name!

On the other hand, the gulag system goes way back into Tsarist history. It was one of the things Lenin promised to abolish, except they were too useful to let go of.
 
Alaska could be russian, it certainly wont be communist. Given that the west otl sent troops to suppot the whites, im sure that ittl the whites can win locally in alaska. How would the reds support their forces there?

Whether this alaska is seriously independent, a us or uk puppet, or ends up part of the us or canada is open to question. But soviet? No way!


With apod that far back, it could be part of a still tsarist russia.
 
As others have said, assuming the October Revolution isn't affected by butterflies (a big assumption), then Russian Alaska almost certainly becomes a "Taiwan" -- an exile regime. OTL it took years for the Bolsheviks to consolidate control over the Russian Empire -- as it is they lost outlying bits like Poland and Finland, and only kept the bulk of it due to the division and incompetence of the White forces and dis-interest in the West at being involved in another war without end. An Aleyska protected by the guns of the British and U.S. fleets would be out of reach of the Red Army (and all but non-existent Red Navy).

This does have interesting implications for relations w/the USSR -- do the US/UK put up a better show of backing up *Kolchak on the grounds that if Siberia falls, Alaska will be next? (That's not true, but politicians are rarely known for their grasp of logistics.) Does the presence of a "legitimate" Russian government in Sitka delay diplomatic recognition of the USSR? It may well be that, far from your scenario, it's the Soviets that find themselves a paranoid bunker state, surrounded on all sides by enemies.
 
I just got a vision of jews in Alaska! It could be a perfect place to the Tzar to drop jews from Poland and Ukraine. they can be told that the Tzar send them to America, and then they are encouraged to mine and trade the gold! this will save some jews from the pogroms and will help to develop the gold industry.
 

abc123

Banned
Same happy faces, new happy name!

On the other hand, the gulag system goes way back into Tsarist history. It was one of the things Lenin promised to abolish, except they were too useful to let go of.

Not quite the same.
If it was the same, there wouldn't be any revolution in Russia...;)
 
Butterflies will fly long before the 1940s my friend.

Butterfly Effect.png
 
While the Soviets could pick up any gas station map to find a place in North America, the Soviet maps might show cities tens of miles from their true locations... if they were shown at all. The Allies could strike at a handful of well-known locations, but most of the USSR was simply a blank page.

Why should they be able to get to a gas station map?

In OTL, the main driving force for connecting the Lower 48/Inhabited Canada with the main part of Alaska (using the Al-Can highway) was to help defend Alaska during WWII from the Japanese. If the Soviets are in the same situation in this TL (a big assumption, but one you are making), why would a road to Soviet Alaska help anyone during the war? Anything that gets shipped to Alaska still has to cross water to connect in to the Soviet Rail system (a rail line connecting Alaska to the rest of the USSR is barely at our abilities today). So you could easily get to the beginning of the cold war with *no* road connection with Soviet Alaska at all?

North of the Alaskan Panhandle (which isn't *anyone*'s idea of easily crossed land), I could see during the ugliest parts of the Cold War a 25-50 mile no-go zone on the Canadian side of the border. Don't think Taiwan, think the area in Cuba surrounding Guantanamo.


I actually think that a "Texas" equivalent in 1917/1918 is most likely. When the Whites fall, the Russian population in Alaska is so small relative to the Americans that the US ends up taking it over...
 
Now, if the bills failed to pass, nothing much would have happened. Gold would have been discovered in the Klondike, which would likely have had the Tsar extend the gulags to Russian America and reinforce it with troops and NKVD to defend Russian gold, and Novy Archangelsk would have become a sizable city, but frankly, not a whole lot would have changed outside of Alaska and western Canada.
There were more Americans [fishers and trappers] in 1870 Alaska than there were Russians.
The Russian authorities were actually worried about a Texas type Coup pre sale.
 
My guess on a Russian Alaska is that it becomes independant as a white state during the Russian Civil War and becomes aligned with the United States and Canada.
 
I just got a vision of jews in Alaska! It could be a perfect place to the Tzar to drop jews from Poland and Ukraine. they can be told that the Tzar send them to America, and then they are encouraged to mine and trade the gold! this will save some jews from the pogroms and will help to develop the gold industry.

Please tell me the "Jews mining gold" bit isn't some sort of "dur hur Jewish bankerz" type of dig.

In any case you won't be able to relocate a significant amount of Russian Jews to Alaska unless you have the intent of making it a penal colony even worse than Australia for survival prospects, Alaska just trades in the poisonous snakes, spiders, and unforgivingly harsh heat for unforgiving harsh cold. People are going to die on mass and really it IS a pogrom to send Jews in any serious numbers to Alaska, they either starve or die of exposure.

On a less semitic note, Alaska is going to get in the American sphere of influence sooner or later. If the Klondike gold rush happens, and later if petrol is discovered, there's going to be a whole lot of American settlers who sure didn't come up to frozen Alaska to learn Russian, at which case we have now brought in the American settlement formula:

1. American settlers arrive en masse to a territory.

2. American settlers begin to displace and outnumber the original inhabitants/rulers of the territory.

3. The settlers continue to identify as Americans.

4. Through force or through diplomacy, the American government manages to eventually obtain the territory. Given the state of the Russian Empire and its relationship with the United States, the latter is very possible, but the Alaska Purchase will have a hefty price tag.
 
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