DBWI Operation Long Jump hadn't happened or had failed?

[Gar48]

So i was browsing the Net today and reading about the Tehran attack i discovered that Otto Skorzeny almost persuaded Hitler to abort the mission.
So really my question is simple: how do you think WW2 and the Cold War would have been different if the attack hadn't happened ? Or better yet what if Stalin, Churcill and/or Roosevelt hadn't died in the attack?

I know this is still a sensitive topic for American and Soviet members of this site, but i hope we can still have a civil discussion about it.

 

[TheTeaMustflow]

I know this is still a sensitive topic for American and Soviet members of this site, but i hope we can still have a civil discussion about it.

Just American and Soviet? There a reason you're leaving the Empire out? As you say, Churchill was there too.

Anyway, Berlin's chances of not being bathed in atomic fire increase considerably, so that's probably a plus.

 

[Johannes Parisiensis]

Could we see a softer denazification, since Britishs would feel way less vengeful TTL?

 

[Gar48]

There a reason you're leaving the Empire out?

Yeah, but bringing up the Commonwealth usually also starts discussion about the Union of South Africa and the Dominion of Rhodesia that i usually want to avoid.

Anyway, Berlin's chances of not being bathed in atomic fire increase considerably, so that's probably a plus.

I wonder how this would impact Henry Wallace's reputation ITTL, considering his decision to nuke Berlin, Nurimberg and Dresden is still extremly controversial .

Also let's be honest the Germans who died in Berlin were far luckier than the ones who ended up in the USSR's occupation zone after the war.

Could we see a softer denazification, since Britishs would feel way less vengeful TTL?

Maybe Germany could be allowed to keep more of its industry and pay less reparations, but i think Bavaria is going to be indipendent in this TL too.

After all the kingdom of Austria-Bavaria was proposed by Churcill himself before dying. In a TL where he still lives, he could easily use his influence to have the project approved.

 

[Sam R.]

Germans who died in Berlin were far luckier than the ones who ended up in the USSR's occupation zone after the war.

Yes because life in the DDR is so terrible.

Soviet rapes finished three days after siege, or within three weeks in rural areas. They finished with a pistol as part of the Party’s political control, extremely skittish political control. Remind me again about the Bonn Republics “discipline?”

Stalin would probably continue his policy of tail ending party consensus and retire or die sometime in the 40s or 50s. He was a consensus politician, slightly mitigated against by his decisiveness in the civil war, the purges and Great Patriotic War. I doubt his decisiveness would dominate post war: he preferred to lead the room to his conclusions through chats beforehand and then agreement with the line he’d built. There certainly wouldn’t have been the hysteric power struggles between Zhadanov and the others that we saw. Maybe Stalin has another book in him other than the Short Course and we might discover more of his theory.

Stalin is of course just as likely to continue the post war United Nations cooperation as the clique were. I see Stalin’s interest in nationalities leading to a stronger support of antiimperialist movements than historically. But decolonizers turned to the second world anyway in part due to the Sickness in the Empire. Maybe more anti colonial movements succeed but fewer would be as pro Soviet.

I think it is pretty obvious that without the threat of global imperialist war due to the United Nations that Stalin would probably follow the cliques “many lines for many nations to socialism” and that apart from the 1952-8 recession in the second world that there’d be little tension between multiparty people’s democracies under United Workers Party guidance and their fraternal Soviet backers. Soviet economic aid kept them afloat historical and it would take gross mismanagement and a wave of horrific anti democratic political scandals to turn the workers of people’s democracies against the Soviet Union. Only some kind of anti democratic idiot who didn’t listen to advice would do that; and that is the cautious consensus Stalin we know as the Martyr of Tehran.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Yeah, but bringing up the Commonwealth usually also starts discussion about the Union of South Africa and the Dominion of Rhodesia that i usually want to avoid.

Hey now, them still living like its the 1890s doesn't erase their contribution to the global war on Fascism. At least, no more than the pogroms that followed the alleged assassination of Zhadanov erase the Soviet's contribution.

 

[JonKenobi]

Let's be honest here. Hitler was insane and into big productions and symbolic gestures. No one could have talked him out of the attack.

It failing on the other hand....

 

[Gar48]

Hey now, them still living like its the 1890s doesn't erase their contribution to the global war on Fascism. At least, no more than the pogroms that followed the alleged assassination of Zhadanov erase the Soviet's contribution.

Tell that to Angola and Mozambique. Some areas are still uninhabitable thanks to all the napalm and other vsrious chemical weapons Capetown and Salisbury used to assist Portugal between 1956 and 1961. Even president MacCarthy was horrified by that

Maybe more anti colonial movements succeed but fewer would be as pro Soviet.

You think that Hồ Chí Minh will remain communist in this TL? In OTL his decision to abandon Marxism and instead embrace "Socialism with Vietnamese characteristics" was mostly caused by Zhadanov's refusal to assist and Wallace supporting Vietnam's indipendence against French wishes.

Stalin would probably continue his policy of tail ending party consensus and retire or die sometime in the 40s or 50s. He was a consensus politician, slightly mitigated against by his decisiveness in the civil war, the purges and Great Patriotic War. I doubt his decisiveness would dominate post war: he preferred to lead the room to his conclusions through chats beforehand and then agreement with the line he’d built. There certainly wouldn’t have been the hysteric power struggles between Zhadanov and the others that we saw. Maybe Stalin has another book in him other than the Short Course and we might discover more of his theory

I mean no offense but this looks like Soviet propaganda regarding "The Great Leader". As much Zhadanov, Molotov and Kaganovich tried to deny it, most western historians agree that Stalin was too paranoid to simply give up on power.
I agree that he would probably step down shorthly affter WW2 as he was simply getting too old , but i suspect he would probably put in charge some figurehead leader like Malenkov or Beria , who would have followed his istructions on how to run Russia rather than completely giving up on his power.

Also wasn't he incredibly antisemitic? His survival could have had serious repercussions on the relationship between the USSR and Israel.

Yes because life in the DDR is so terrible.

And yet somehow of all Germany's successor states it is the one who lost less territories

 

[Sam R.]

You think that Hồ Chí Minh will remain communist in this TL? In OTL his decision to abandon Marxism and instead embrace "Socialism with Vietnamese characteristics" was mostly caused by Zhadanov's refusal to assist and Wallace supporting Vietnam's indipendence against French wishes.

Minh's communism was dependent upon sources of supply. American loans were a reality. It isn't as if Minh's nationalist grouping had to spend 50 years solving a problem through shoestrings as mentioned in relation to Rhodesia's still unresolved imperialism. Vietnam displays highly social democratic features, despite having refused to ever formally align with the second world.

I mean no offense but this looks like Soviet propaganda regarding "The Great Leader". As much Zhadanov, Molotov and Kaganovich tried to deny it, most western historians agree that Stalin was too paranoid to simply give up on power.
I agree that he would probably step down shorthly affter WW2 as he was simply getting too old , but i suspect he would probably put in charge some figurehead leader like Malenkov or Beria , who would have followed his istructions on how to run Russia rather than completely giving up on his power.

Stalin was so paranoid that he let Zhukov control the economy before his martyrdom. It feels like you're bending the spoon. Stalin *had* to purge the party. The party demanded it. The working class, after the failures in the five year plans, demanded it. Stalin had to be viscious in the civil war. Stalin had to centre the Central Apparatus in the Great Patriotic War. His ordinary operations were cemented in party life. He might have been a workaholic, but he also liked to party. He'd given enough, he'd background himself. You're drawing on the worst aspects of his character and then *exaggerating* them. You may as well suggesting that Churchill's incompetent amateurism would continue after the war in a Tory Government into the 1950s. Or ridiculously have Churchill ejected from office, and then return in a triumphant surge. Sure. Sure Stalin would become a paranoiac dicator who didn't listen to consensus when acting.

Also wasn't he incredibly antisemitic? His survival could have had serious repercussions on the relationship between the USSR and Israel.

No more than other non-Jewish soviet leaders. Remember the standard of "incredibly antisemitic" were set by Germany and her allies. Stalin's core attitude would be best described as extremely individually bigotted, aware of and willing to use cultural antisemitism for personal political gain, and detesting intelligentsia. Stalin didn't give half a shit about the religion of peasants. Stalin wanted prominent intellectual figures publicly punished if the party lower eschelons demanded it.

And yet somehow of all Germany's successor states it is the one who lost less territories

The Soviet Union feared a castrated Germany less than a boyant Poland or Fascist Ukraine. Germany was further away. The DUAP (German Unified Workers Party) was very fraternal.

Stalin's hagiography has fallen apart as the Soviet Union has opened more of its archival material in the "great relaxation." In part this has been due to the ongoing economic problems. "Pay to read" archival access is quite common. To the point where history departments have been demanding chemistry, biology, or even experimental physics level grants to find out such trivial stuff as whether local initiative dictated Stalin's letters, or whether the centre led the periphery. As Fitzpatrick, herself a communist, shewed, the local dictated the general in the purges. There's not a single reason why Stalin's character would radically change post-war and transform his general system of government into some paranoiac power-mad fantasism. Stalin would listen to the locality, and then carefully implement what was demanded.

And as we saw in general in the second world: power, purges, relaxation, stagnation, "special zones," new investment.

With the United Nations keeping the peace, it isn't like war has spurred asian development (outside Japan/Korea). When American and French labourers got too costly, it was cheaper to buy from Poland, the DDR, Romania or Yugoslavia.

There's no way Stalin isn't going to "relax" after the Great Patriotic War. The only reason we got a bit of chaos was because Zhadanov loved fighting. Stalin would have massaged all those tensions with barely anything reaching the surface.

yours,
Sam R.