Democratic Japan versus Fascist USA

Exactly. They perhaps could've had a Communist revolt in the 20s, however it would've required the SU to support it somehow, and for them to have a little luck. Not ASB levels of luck, but some luck.
 

CalBear

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Why, oh, why, do you continue to post the bizarre threads that require near or actual ASB sorts of changes without doing any sort of justification for the Mirror Universe changes?

If you want to post ASB, put it in ASB.

CalBear in Mod Mode.
 
Umm, I tried to justify it. Okay, it didn't work out, and that's what I'm working on here. This doesn't have to be ASB.
 
Umm, I tried to justify it. Okay, it didn't work out, and that's what I'm working on here. This doesn't have to be ASB.

I agree, it might be not particularly likely, but I think it's entirely possible without the help of ASB, as long as you are relatively loose with the definitions of "democratic" and "fascist". You might see an authoritarian populist regime in America, aligning either with the Nazi's or staying out of the war all together, with a democratic but still elite-run Japan fighting a pro-German KMT and supporting the Western powers and USSR with its war-stimulated industrial base.
 
Exactly, especially since I subscribe to the minamalist definition of Fascism. What's that? Basically, the only requirements for fascism are ultranationalism, and a dream of national rebirth. That's it. So a national populist movement in the USA easily could've been Fascist.

As for Japan being lightly democratic, Russia needs to beat them in the Russo-Japan war in a way that discredits militarism. That might be pretty hard, but certainly isn't ASB.
 
Exactly, especially since I subscribe to the minamalist definition of Fascism. What's that? Basically, the only requirements for fascism are ultranationalism, and a dream of national rebirth. That's it. So a national populist movement in the USA easily could've been Fascist.

As for Japan being lightly democratic, Russia needs to beat them in the Russo-Japan war in a way that discredits militarism. That might be pretty hard, but certainly isn't ASB.

There was a TL on this section of AH.com a while ago that explored that. If the Japanese army had been humiliatingly defeated on the continent, due to the overly aggressive and incompetent actions of the Japanese General Staff, then that might have discredited the military enough that it's political role would have been minimal.

The Russo-Japanese War also caused major reform in the Russian military, which made it much more competent in the Great War. If these reforms hadn't been enacted, then the Central Powers might have been even more successful than in OTL.
 
Hmm. If you combine those two together...

One could get an earlier Communist revolt(from casualities in Europe getting worse earlier,) and the Central Powers able to focus on France early, which dooms it.
 
Hmm. If you combine those two together...

One could get an earlier Communist revolt(from casualities in Europe getting worse earlier,) and the Central Powers able to focus on France early, which dooms it.

That makes sense, although that would make the ATL WWII completely different. What might work is a collapse of Russia in the East, but the Germans attempt to occupy areas of the East and install puppet regimes. Many of the various factions in these territories unite to drive their new imperial occupier out of their land. This running sore draws many German troops into the East, and as they are forced to retreat and fight on the Western front, the power vacuum created allows the Communists to take over, as OTL.
 
Yes, and also, we've just created a more plausible Kaissreich timeline, sort of.

Why? If Germany takes France, they can't hold it. The population would never tolerate it. If the Socialists play their cards right, they can push Germany out while uniting the populace behind them.

Not sure what would happen to Italy or the UK in this scenario though.
 
Yes, and also, we've just created a more plausible Kaissreich timeline, sort of.

Why? If Germany takes France, they can't hold it. The population would never tolerate it. If the Socialists play their cards right, they can push Germany out while uniting the populace behind them.

Not sure what would happen to Italy or the UK in this scenario though.

Makes sense, although no matter how successful the German armies are, they'll never occupy France. The French government might sue for peace if Paris is taken, but they won't get occupied.

As for the UK and Italy... additional pressure on Italy might make it cede parts of Venetia to Austria-Hungary and completely demilitarize the Alps in exchange for peace. For the UK, unrestricted submarine warfare from an earlier date would have starved the British out pretty damn early. The food riots caused by that might blow up into a real revolution..
 
Ah, excellent point.

But yeah, France won't be occupied, Germany knows better than to try to do that. However, such a defeat could easily send France into a Socialist Revolution.

If events go this way, Italy may just sit out the war altogether, watching on the sidelines to avoid getting damaged by it.

Finally, I could easily see the UK experiencing Socialist revolts from all of this because of not only shortages, but also because the UK's own militarist tradition has been discredited.
 
As for the Great Depression, again, Japan's militarism has been discredited. Hence, the military won't as powerful of a political force, and won't be able to do the stuff it did in OTL. How it responds to the Great Depression will be interesting to ponder though.

Although, here's something interesting. Before the military takeover, the(I think) Prime Minister of Japan was actually handling it quite well, doing Keynesian style spending with military equipment. When he stopped it in order to avoid excess deficit, the military killed him(or someone close to him, can't remember exactly what occurred with that.) Perhaps we could see Japan taking the Keynesian route, similar to the USA did in OTL?
 
As for the Great Depression, again, Japan's militarism has been discredited. Hence, the military won't as powerful of a political force, and won't be able to do the stuff it did in OTL. How it responds to the Great Depression will be interesting to ponder though.

Although, here's something interesting. Before the military takeover, the(I think) Prime Minister of Japan was actually handling it quite well, doing Keynesian style spending with military equipment. When he stopped it in order to avoid excess deficit, the military killed him(or someone close to him, can't remember exactly what occurred with that.) Perhaps we could see Japan taking the Keynesian route, similar to the USA did in OTL?

That would make sense. Parts of the Army might actually do the same thing and try to overthrow the civilian government, but there would be enough "civilian" control over the military that the attempted coup would be shut down. The new government would, then, continue the Keynesian spending spree they were doing before, but this time without any sort of overwrought militarism. Thoughts?
 

Sumeragi

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As for the Great Depression, again, Japan's militarism has been discredited. Hence, the military won't as powerful of a political force, and won't be able to do the stuff it did in OTL. How it responds to the Great Depression will be interesting to ponder though.
Wait, are we going with that Japan loses Russo-Japanese War route? If so, I'll think about it.


Although, here's something interesting. Before the military takeover, the(I think) Prime Minister of Japan was actually handling it quite well, doing Keynesian style spending with military equipment. When he stopped it in order to avoid excess deficit, the military killed him(or someone close to him, can't remember exactly what occurred with that.) Perhaps we could see Japan taking the Keynesian route, similar to the USA did in OTL?
No, Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated because he opposed the military's expansionist plans in China. He had been continuing the "Keynesian" style of inflating the economy, which had crashed again when Hamaguchi Osachi's administration went back to the gold standard.
 
OH! That explains a lot. Thank you.

But anyway, they could continue the Keynesian route this time, and avoid the Gold Standard.

Yes, this time the Keynesian policies will probably be more focused on expanding civilian infrastructure, among other things. However, there will be some military investment from the tensions the world is probably experiencing at this point.
 
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