Collier's "Russia's Defeat and Occupation 1952-1960"

So, many, many years ago, in 1951, Collier's magazine, now defunct, did a special issue about the invasion of the USSR following a failed assassination attempt on Tito, including information about how the war was fought, how the people of the USSR would react and how the country was rebuilt, all through the lense of American media. I've managed to find some pretty high quality scans of the magazine, and I figured it would be best to post it here, since there's bound to be someone here would be more than interested in seeing it in all its glory - it's pure alternate history, through and through, and like a lot of timelines it even has little point of view sections :p

So, in order, here are the first 20 pages of the scenario! :D All the images should be a high enough resolution for them to be readable, but you'll probably need to click on the images themselves in order to make them large enough to read.

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The entire issue is available here as a PDF file if you want to do more reading. It's got quite a bit more content, both for the scenario and in the form of old-timey adverts, but I'd suggest downloading it since it is a pretty chunking thing even by PDF standards. :D
 
This is Fallout-levels of optimism over a nuclear war (not surprising, since the Fallout-verse is based in Zeerust 50s America after the reality sunk in). I like it. :3
 

Insider

Banned
Oh these wonderful times when one could publish and no flock of trolls reminded him about things like plausibility and cried "Sea Lion!" every time his publication was mentioned. But I admit the graphics were lovely.
 
This is fantastic and wonderful. The ads alone are worth it. Light liquid cream that does not cause grease stains in my hat band, you say? Shut up and take my money!
 
I have this idea in my head of creating a "For want of a nail" timeline based off this scenario.

My idea is that after this hypothetical world war 3 and the rebuilding of the former Soviet Union & the SSRs isn't such a rosy and lighthearted romp like in this comic scenario but instead a dark take on the rebuilding of "1950's post-WW3" Europe, Asia and Americas.

Here are a few of my ideas.

- Later in the 50's, the newly independent Russia is struggling with a destroyed economy, suffering populace and the rising corruption that in happening in the shadows

- Eastern Europe is suffering the aftermath of this Third World War and the scars of the Second World War

- Georgy Zhukov (that is if he even survived the war.) becomes the leader of Russia after winning the election. but in later years, he becomes a sort of "strongman".

I have a bunch of ideas for this scenario i'm cooking up but I feel like fleshing them out more.
 
I have this idea in my head of creating a "For want of a nail" timeline based off this scenario.

My idea is that after this hypothetical world war 3 and the rebuilding of the former Soviet Union & the SSRs isn't such a rosy and lighthearted romp like in this comic scenario but instead a dark take on the rebuilding of "1950's post-WW3" Europe, Asia and Americas.

Here are a few of my ideas.

- Later in the 50's, the newly independent Russia is struggling with a destroyed economy, suffering populace and the rising corruption that in happening in the shadows

- Eastern Europe is suffering the aftermath of this Third World War and the scars of the Second World War

- Georgy Zhukov (that is if he even survived the war.) becomes the leader of Russia after winning the election. but in later years, he becomes a sort of "strongman".

I have a bunch of ideas for this scenario i'm cooking up but I feel like fleshing them out more.
That would be cool to explore. But I don't see Zhukov as a strongman. Konev on the other hand...
 
This is Fallout-levels of optimism over a nuclear war (not surprising, since the Fallout-verse is based in Zeerust 50s America after the reality sunk in). I like it. :3
I wouldn't describe Fallout as optimistic in terms of depicting the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse.:p
 
I wouldn't describe Fallout as optimistic in terms of depicting the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse.:p

The pre-war American government would certainly approve of it though. Change the dates and the communists to Chinese and you have a nice little pre-war goodie to pick up in the wasteland. :p
 
Text is too small for me to read easily at all. I've downloaded the PDF and will try that.

Thoughts:
1) "but the outcome was inevitable, a smashing victory for the West". Smashing? Yes, lots of things would get smashed. Pyrrhic victory MIGHT be closer. Inevitable? maybe. Depends on how much of Europe you're willing to have trashed with Soviet conventional forces.
2) The US, with dozens of B-36s, only manages one bomb on Moscow, but the Soviets, flying Tu-4s (I assume) manage to hit every city they want? (Maybe I'm overreacting here)
3) best as I can tell, the USSR had 25 total nukes in '51 and 50 in '52 (I assume at the end of the year?), which would mean they had somewhere in between for the time of this war. Meanwhile the US had 400+ and 800+ respectively.
4) The will to rebuild all of Europe would be ... interesting, especially after a major war.
5) this is before anyone had a usable Hbomb, so all yields will be in the <1MT range, and fallout will be bad. It would be interesting to see how long the Soviets would have held out. My guess, long enough to over run most of Europe, at which point they've got a great big bargaining chip...


Yes, any time up to the Cuban Missile crisis or so, the US could decisively 'win' a nuclear war with the Soviets - but occupying the country and de-communizing it? Ouch.
 
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