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I currently have an idea for a dystopia timeline which hinges on the USSR taking a more dictatorial and totalitarian turn. Whilst the USSR was certainly an authoritarian political dictatorship during its early decades, what I have in mind would go much further than that. What I'm aiming for is almost like a left-wing version of fascism, so it wouldn't be enough to just derail the democratisation and liberalisation of the 30s and 40s. We're talking few, if any, internal checks and balances, mass purges, violent crackdowns on dissidents to an extent far beyond OTL, personality cults, etc.

The obvious choice would be to go with the old Red Bonaparte military coup trope that everyone and their mother writing a dystopian USSR TL likes to fall back on, but I want to steer clear from that for a number of reasons (mostly because it's trite and overdone, has little evidence of actually being that much of a possibility, and probably wouldn't have developed the sort of totalitarian structures I have in mind). Any suggestions?

Some things to consider:

  • How is this going to affect the world Communist movement. Would the Comintern parties tolerate a major backslide by the USSR, or, especially given how libertarian some of the factions in the 3rd International were, could it lead to outright splits? Perhaps a 4th International headed by Zinoviev?
  • Another thing to consider is the possible butterflies this could bring up for US-Soviet relations. Whilst considerations of Realpolitik and political economy are arguably more important, the Soviet Union's democratic credentials were a key factor in securing popular support for the US to lean towards the Soviet Union and against the Empires once they started flexing their muscles on the global stage. A dictatorial Soviet Union would have been a much harder sell IMO.
  • How would a permanently dictatorial USSR affect the development of the so-called strong and guided democracies, such as Spain, Italy, Hungary, Portugal, France, and to a lesser extent the UK?
  • How would this affect the struggle for civil rights within the USSR, as well as their support for oppressed struggles outside their borders? In particular LGBT rights, anti-racism and anti-colonialism, and press freedom.
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