How would a modern 21st century Nazi Germany look like?

[spoonzandforkz]

Nazi victories are probably the most common counterfactual-history prompt out there. But most portrayals of a victorious Nazi society seems to be set in the late 20th century, usually around the Cold War: The Man in the High Castle, Fatherland, The New Order, etc. There are usually motifs of space programs, mass infrastructure projects, and obviously legions upon legions of atomic-armed bombers and missile silos...

...but, much rarer is the depiction of a Nazi Germany in the modern day, with Internet, computers and smartphones and all that fancy stuff. How might Nazi internet culture, with all of its subcultures, memes, quick trends and fads, evolve?


Now, people will offer the obvious retort that the Nazis couldn't have survived, would have eventually collapsed, etc, and scenarios like The Man In the High Castle and The New Order are already predicated on pretty ASB preconditions and developments (i.e. the Germans hilariously getting the bomb first and somehow managing to deliver it to the US).

So, sure. I'm well aware of the arguments, and don't necessarily disagree with any of them: the Third Reich was a regime of mass plunder, and the likeliest scenario even given their (already-unlikely) survival is eventual collapse due to gross economic mismanagement, probably sometime in the late 20th century.

But assume, by some dint of luck, it somehow didn't.

Assume out of the millions of worlds, diverging since WW2, most ending up with with allied victories, or continued Nazi survival but eventual collapse in the late 20th century, we choose instead to peer into the (say) few dozens of worlds where a Nazi regime, or something close to it, exists in the modern day... in 2023. No US entry into the war, but the Soviets still fall (the Nazis roll all sixes, the Soviets roll snake eyes: maybe Stalin dies early—smoking habit caught up to him?—and the Soviets are divided in leadership: the political climate of the 1940s Soviet Union was not a chill one), and the Germans swoop most of the East, with Siberia being a rump state, maybe under US protection or something.

How does it look like? For the sake of survival does it likely eventually moderate—do we see a Nazi Germany eventually chilling, as most totalitarian states do, or does it somehow retreat into its shell, remaining a North Korea-type bastion of extremist nationalism and totalitarianism? Or something in the middle, not as extreme as the 1940s, but not entirely apologetic or liberal either?

Then there is the obvious question of all those Genocides, of all those tens of millions (maybe hundreds of millions—if they're "successful") of corpses. Possibly they employ the US/Australia/insert-settler-colony type excuse of "we're regretful, but no reparations beyond symbolic sorries: it's a done deal, and it was a long time ago, and everyone who did it is dead or old, and they fought and murdered each other anyway, and what's this about your own history?"-type excuse, but it might not be as clean-looking without the international hard or soft power that comes from being the leading global hegemon to back it up (not to mention the lack of a cool movie industry: "Naziwood?"... but the censors, man!)

Or assuming they're _really_ thorough, maybe with most of the victims dead, there just isn't anyone to advocate for them (well, aside from the US Jewish lobby...)

Obviously the question of how the Nazis do (somehow!) survive, does directly relate to how they will look like in the modern day. That's not something you can just handwave, I concede. But basically I'm just looking for thoughts and ideas here.

 

[shearsforest]

Nazi victories are probably the most common counterfactual-history prompt out there. But most portrayals of a victorious Nazi society seems to be set in the late 20th century, usually around the Cold War: The Man in the High Castle, Fatherland, The New Order, etc. There are usually motifs of space programs, mass infrastructure projects, and obviously legions upon legions of atomic-armed bombers and missile silos...

...but, much rarer is the depiction of a Nazi Germany in the modern day, with Internet, computers and smartphones and all that fancy stuff. How might Nazi internet culture, with all of its subcultures, memes, quick trends and fads, evolve?


Now, people will offer the obvious retort that the Nazis couldn't have survived, would have eventually collapsed, etc, and scenarios like The Man In the High Castle and The New Order are already predicated on pretty ASB preconditions and developments (i.e. the Germans hilariously getting the bomb first and somehow managing to deliver it to the US).

So, sure. I'm well aware of the arguments, and don't necessarily disagree with any of them: the Third Reich was a regime of mass plunder, and the likeliest scenario even given their (already-unlikely) survival is eventual collapse due to gross economic mismanagement, probably sometime in the late 20th century.

But assume, by some dint of luck, it somehow didn't.

Assume out of the millions of worlds, diverging since WW2, most ending up with with allied victories, or continued Nazi survival but eventual collapse in the late 20th century, we choose instead to peer into the (say) few dozens of worlds where a Nazi regime, or something close to it, exists in the modern day... in 2023. No US entry into the war, but the Soviets still fall (the Nazis roll all sixes, the Soviets roll snake eyes: maybe Stalin dies early—smoking habit caught up to him?—and the Soviets are divided in leadership: the political climate of the 1940s Soviet Union was not a chill one), and the Germans swoop most of the East, with Siberia being a rump state, maybe under US protection or something.

How does it look like? For the sake of survival does it likely eventually moderate—do we see a Nazi Germany eventually chilling, as most totalitarian states do, or does it somehow retreat into its shell, remaining a North Korea-type bastion of extremist nationalism and totalitarianism? Or something in the middle, not as extreme as the 1940s, but not entirely apologetic or liberal either?

Then there is the obvious question of all those Genocides, of all those tens of millions (maybe hundreds of millions—if they're "successful") of corpses. Possibly they employ the US/Australia/insert-settler-colony type excuse of "we're regretful, but no reparations beyond symbolic sorries: it's a done deal, and it was a long time ago, and everyone who did it is dead or old, and they fought and murdered each other anyway, and what's this about your own history?"-type excuse, but it might not be as clean-looking without the international hard or soft power that comes from being the leading global hegemon to back it up (not to mention the lack of a cool movie industry: "Naziwood?"... but the censors, man!)

Or assuming they're _really_ thorough, maybe with most of the victims dead, there just isn't anyone to advocate for them (well, aside from the US Jewish lobby...)

Obviously the question of how the Nazis do (somehow!) survive, does directly relate to how they will look like in the modern day. That's not something you can just handwave, I concede. But basically I'm just looking for thoughts and ideas here.

Reading through this for the first time, I'd imagine something akin to OTL North Korea.

 

[Kalga]

Banal authoritarian brutality, tolerated by the international society much like we tolerated (and continues to in the case of the latter) the excesses of the Soviet Union and PRC in OTL. So long as they keep their mass murders, human experimentations, eugenics, and other stuff to themselves the world would just shrug and live and let live.

The moderation from the glories of 'Blut und Boden' and other similar ideological measures will probably happen with the death of the original generation of fanatics, replaced by regular greedy bastards who want to horde as much wealth as possible. Under the new generation of bland greedy bureaucrats and politicians the nazi empire will open itself back up to foreign investments and such, and the US (or some other countries) will take the opportunity to make mutually profitable deals. While the vast pool of slave labor of Nazi Europe is not the same as the sweatshop labor of OTL, the vast resources of a continent does give them some attraction.

Ultimately, hypocrisy and old fashion greed will be the salvation of the Nazi empire in the long run, allowing it to gradually evolve into a regular authoritarian regime, whose origin stories will be relegated to 'the product of their times', and 'hard times called for hard men to make hard choices while hard'.

 

[Kaiser of Brazil]

It can be anything from a Kleptocracy that plays with symbolism. Like a racist and more authoritarian version of Putinist Russia, to a Totalitarian cult-like superstate covering Europe that would make North Korea look like Switzerland.

The possibilities are almost endless and it hinges on Hitler's succession and how his successors interpret him (almost in a religious way) and apply those teachings. Contrary to China, you can't really separate the Ideology from it's founder and go on an opposite way. There is no collective leadership or a philosophical basis to Nazism, unless you somehow had Rosenberg be more than a "nerd" that everyone ignored.

 

[bikchanin]

Probably not a satisfying answer to give, but it depends.

The thing is with National Socialism that is shares with a rival, Communism is that there is so much ideological and political diversity within that ideology. For instance to see what I mean just look at all the varieties of Marxist ideology there is, there's Marxism-Leninism which we saw in the Eastern bloc. Even then that ideology had its own subideologies from Stalinism, to Khrushchevism, to Kadarism, Hoxhaism, etc. There were various power struggles in the communist world to decide which ideological faction took power, such as Trotskyism's struggle against Stalinism in 1920s USSR, later on you had Bukharinists lose against Stalinism. In the PRC post Mao's death you'd Maoists like Jiang Qing try to retain dominance but lost to the Dengists in the end.
I don't remember who said this, but I do distinctly remember that someone high ranking in the NSDAP who said it, might've been Goebbels or someone like that. But, paraphrasing here, this person said that in a crowd of one million National Socialists, there would be one million different intrepretations of National Socialism. Of course that's exaggerating a bit, but it does show the ideological diversity of the NSDAP and that things were not as necessarily uniform as they may seem at first glance. You had Himmler with his crazy neopagan views, Goebbels with his populist ones, Rosenberg who was deep in philosophy. There were others who I won't list, but you get the idea.

By the time of Hitlers death, you'd likely have several factions each with their own objectives and beliefs vying for their own dominance over the state. What deeply complicates predicting how NS Germany would look like is that these factions would have their own rise and perhaps eventual fall. In the USSR for instance, you had Beria and Malenkov who dominated post Stalin until they were executed and ousted respectively by Khrushchev. Beria hadn't even lived a full year after Stalin's death, Malenkov wasn't even leader of the USSR 3 years until Khrushchev deposed him. In the PRC after Mao's death, Hua Guofeng ruled only 2 years until Deng won the struggle.

As for how a modern a NS Germany would like, it would be dependent on what exactly occurs during Hitlers later reign, ie the postwar era. Does he die right after the war? Or does he manage to last until the early 1950s like Stalin? Or does he perish in the late 50s? Or maybe he lives even to 1960s or 70s? Perhaps Hitler develops dementia late in life and goes mad like Stalin did at the end with plans to purge a lot of his subordinates. Again going to Stalin for a second, history would've taken a much different direction had he died in 1928 or 1958. Whatever decisions or life alt-Hitler is going to have will have a major impact on who leads the state after the (Eternal?) Fuhrer finally passes away and which faction dominates.

If the Fuhrer manages to live until the early 1950s then many of the Old FIghters who fought for the NSDAP early in its existence are going to be passing away and maybe even some of Hitlers inner circle are dead as well either of natural causes, partisans bullets or executed for being losers of power struggles or simply retired. People like Goering may die as well due to a combination of poor health and increasing age. Overtime depending his lifespan you'd see the slow retirement or death of the Hitlers older inner circle as new men rise to the occasion.

This effect of new men becomes more pronounced once a new Fuhrer takes power who brings in his own underlings to help him govern the state. If this Fuhrer dies or is ousted someone new takes power who in turn dies or is ousted. A couple Fuhrers from Hitler and you have someone who is likely completely removed from the original inner circle and with a possibly different mindset as well given the different circumstances. This only becomes more pronounced if Hitler lives longer say until late 1950s, 1960s or 1970s, in which time you'd see the rise of new men to Hitlers inner circle who maybe completely unknown in our world. Again going back to the Soviet Union, how many people would've heard of Mikhail Gorbachev if Stalin died in 1958 instead of 1953? Would such men even rise to prominence in an alt-Soviet Union which ruthlessly persecutes dissidents with Stalinist zeal? It's possible that those men become some nameless factory managers somewhere in Siberia in an alternate Soviet Union or are simply executed for not being Stalinist enough. EIther way, these two men would likely die completely forgotten by the world.

Another factor to consider is Hitlers possible family. Hitler was married to Eva Braun, but wasn't able to have children due to the war. In an alternate scenario where Germany does win Hitler may consider settling down with Eva Braun and having a family with maybe one to three children depending on how potent Hitler still manages to be even after all that happened. Given the level of worship that the NSDAP cultivated in the German people for Hitler, a future contender for Fuhrer may use Hitlers family as a way of gaining popular support to gain power. This popularity of Hitler could be used by his children to gain their dominance and see the establishment of a new Hitler dynasty ruling the Reich.

All in all, I think its difficult to predict how a surviving NS Germany would've looked like due to the factors I listed:
-Ideological diversity in the NSDAP.
-Fickleness of power and how quickly people can rise and fall.
-Hitlers varied lifespan in a successful NS Germany.
-Hitler's decisions in an alternate successful postwar NS Germany.
-Death of various powerful National Socialists depending on Hitlers lifespan.
-Rise of a new generation indoctrinated in National-Socialist ideology.
-Rise of potentially completely unknown people in our world.
-Hitlers possible family in this timeline.
-The Hitlers family potential desire to establish a dynasty.

There are other factors involved, but those are some I just felt are important to list.
I don't think it's set in stone that NS Germany was going to go down one path. They could've become a massive European North Korea. They could've become like the USSR and stagnated politically and economically. Or they could've become like the PRC and adopt some reforms but still retain the NSDAP's dominance over society. Or they maybe could've become a crazy neopagan state that would've collapsed. It's a tossup really.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

Or they could've become like the PRC and adopt some reforms but still retain the NSDAP's dominance over society.

This is the only way Nazi Germany could possibly survive into the 21st century.

 

[Yankeewolf]

Banal authoritarian brutality, tolerated by the international society much like we tolerated (and continues to in the case of the latter) the excesses of the Soviet Union and PRC in OTL. So long as they keep their mass murders, human experimentations, eugenics, and other stuff to themselves the world would just shrug and live and let live.

The moderation from the glories of 'Blut und Boden' and other similar ideological measures will probably die with the original generation of fanatics, replaced by regular greedy bastards who want to horde as much wealth as possible. Under the new generation of bland greedy bureaucrats and politicians the nazi empire will open itself back up to foreign investments and such, and the US (or some other countries) will take the opportunity to make mutually profitable deals. While the vast pool of slave labor of Nazi Europe is not the same as the sweatshop labor of OTL, the vast resources of a continent does give them some attraction.

Ultimately, hypocrisy and old fashion greed will be the salvation of the Nazi empire in the long run, allowing it to gradually evolve into a regular authoritarian regime, whose origin stories will be relegated to 'the product of their times', and 'hard times called for hard men to make hard choices while hard'.

There wouldn't be moderation. The Junge Kampfer would be completely vindicated in their thoughts and actions. The 'Old Fighters"(Munich Clique) would age out and be replaced by those who were Hitler Youth Leaders and veterans of the Eastern War against the Soviet Union.

A continental system would be established with Germany firmly on top and everyone else subserviently(naturally).

The main thing here would be trying to win the peace and ensure that the subsequent generations did not lose the flame that burned within them. In essence, the next step would be to ensure that the 'masses's negative and disordered tendencies(normie meme slavery such as that dating podcast everyone keeps fucking posting on twitter) could be effectively channeled into the 'volk'(YOU WILL LISTEN TO WAGNER AND YOU WILL ENJOY IT!)

On a more serious note, if you read Xi Jinping's speech(translated in Palladium here: https://www.palladiummag.com/2019/05/31/xi-jinping-in-translation-chinas-guiding-ideology/ ), and change the requisite words, you could very well have something that a senior Nazi party leader would be giving at say... the 100th party congress at Nuremburg. This isn't to say that Xi Jinping is a secret National Socialist or whatever. But it is clear to note how the concerns of ensuring the subsequent generations of party comrades will hold on to the ideological creeds of Marxist-Leninism and Maoism, or in this case, National Socialism, are common throughout long-standing authoritarian regimes.

Kamerade Theodore Oberlander pointed out: “The banner of National Socialism cannot be discarded. Throwing this banner out negates the glorious history of our Party. Generally speaking, our Party’s history is still a glorious one. Although our Party has made some large mistakes in its history, including in the 30 years since the founding of the Greater German Reich, even mistakes as large as the Cultural Revolution, in the end it was our Party that made the revolution successful. Germany's status in the world was significantly improved after the National Socialist Party took power. Only the founding of the Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation enabled us, a big country with a population of nearly one fifteenth (?) of the Earth’s total, to stand up and stand strong in the world.”[xiii]

He also emphasized, “The appraisal of Adolf Hitler and the exegesis of Hitlerism does not solely touch upon the personal issues of Adolf Hitler . These things cannot be cut away from the entire history of our Party and our country. To grasp this is to grasp everything. This is not just an intellectual issue—it is a political issue. It is a great political issue, both here and at home.”[xiv]

This is the vision of a great National Socialist politician. Just think: if at the time of reform Adolf Hitler had been completely repudiated, would our Party still be standing? Would our country’s system of government still be standing? And if it was not still standing, what would we have? A world of chaos.

Even if Germany reformed in terms of economics to be more free-market or if the SS overplayed their hand and were substantively rebuked by more conservative and conventional elements of German Society, it would be completely transformed none the less.

In terms of geopolitical sway. Europe would still be a massive force in the world, as opposed to the geopolitical equivalent of a nursing home. To be clear, instead of the European Union, you would more or less have Germany and Friends(Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, maybe Vichy France) dictating things and acting the part of "Europe's main Representatives" as sort of a mirror-world European Union. They would exercise considerable sway as not only being head honchos in Europe, but also substantive '''commitments''' in Africa(more due to Italy and Vichy and Portugal, Hitler thought the desire for colonies in Africa was foolhardy). In terms of Italy it would be continuous guerilla warfare with Ethiopian Rebels. For Vichy it's holding a vise grip behind a curtain of a West-African "Confederation" along with Algeria directly integrated.

In terms of culture, there would be pushes and pulls from Italy and Germany in terms of trying to define postwar culture in Europe. Do you stay with State-proscribed Heroic Realism as in Germany or go a little out there and avant-garde like in Italy? 'Big' Movies would be Waterloo-tier spectacles of cinematic coordination between, Party, State and the Military in terms of going big assuming a butterfly net such that these kinds of movies are still popular in the 50s and 60s. You'd probably get a big 3-4 hour epic about the 1848 revolutions in Germany here lavishly rendered in a native german version of Technicolor by Lehi Riefenstahl in 1948.

In terms of Cold War Politics. If it took Nixon, a Cold Warrior, to go to China, a devoutly Communist State, and build ties. Then it would inversely take a Cold War Liberal... Say Robert F Kennedy to 'go to Berlin' and begin ties there.

 

[James Ricker]

Nazi Economic Policy was unsound, the German economy would have collapsed in the 1950s.
There would have had to have been massive economic reforms in order to preserve the German state.

 

[brunohusker]

Honestly, I think much like the otl Soviet Union they’d start to fall apart in the 80s. Hitler would probably die for sure by 1970 as even without the war, his health would deteriorate.

While Himmler and Goering and Goebbels would still be around, they’d be older men, and honestly, I could see Goering or maybe Reinhard Heydrich in charge of the regime. I feel like Himmler is just too nutty and strangely enough, I could see an SS purge, or maybe removing esoteric types with more practical men.

As for Europe itself, it depends. Personally the only way I see a Nazi victory is for the US to stay out and the Germans somehow have a truce or stalemate with the UK and somehow keep the Soviets at bay. It might require there to be no Churchill, but the combined one two punch was always going to defeat the Nazis and arguably the Soviets could though with no lend lease, things might be more dicey and with no western front, it might be easier to hold up the Russians and maybe a peace settlement is made though Stalin will never want that, so you might need changes before 1939 or for the Nazi Soviet pact to last which wasn’t likely to happen.

 

[Fratsup]

Nazi Germany is not going to fall like the USSR, especially as many region would either be ethnically cleansed or simply be fully under the German boot to rebel. If Germany does last to the 80s any hope of restarting the old nations is going to be near impossible especially as their is likely going to be a lot less of the original people left to revive them and a lot more Germans. Weather it reforms or not this Germany is still going to be the major continental power and would still hold a lot of land.

 

[thaddeus]

not impossible that Germany and the USSR could have swapped fates. if the Soviets acted aggressively at certain points, perhaps against Turkey and/or Iran? and/or developed a collaboration with Japan?

not impossible then that the Nazi regime could gain Baku, by virtue of an Axis Turkey and no L-L. one scenario would be the Latin bloc of Italy, Vichy France, and Spain/Portugal maintain fascist/authoritarian regimes into the 1970's but gradually evolve, while the Nazi regime holds Eastern Europe in a more repressive, backwards state.

 

[Garrison]

Nazi victories are probably the most common counterfactual-history prompt out there.

That doesn't make the prompt either plausible or realistic. If you want to discuss how Nazi Germany would look in the 21st Century you need to explain what sort of Nazi victory you are talking about? Or you could read someof the other hundred threads where the skeleton of this dead horse has been repeatedly flogged.

 

[Yankeewolf]

That doesn't make the prompt either plausible or realistic. If you want to discuss how Nazi Germany would look in the 21st Century you need to explain what sort of Nazi victory you are talking about? Or you could read someof the other hundred threads where the skeleton of this dead horse has been repeatedly flogged.

Dunkirk Disaster. Mannerheim commits. Hoover's stinginess wrt Soviet Lend Lease holds sway. Joseph Kennedy and Roosevelt get along like chums and therefore less aid to Britain.

There's plenty more where that came from.

 

[Garrison]

Dunkirk Disaster. Mannerheim commits. Hoover's stinginess wrt Soviet Lend Lease holds sway. Joseph Kennedy and Roosevelt get along like chums and therefore less aid to Britain.

There's plenty more where that came from.

Yes I am aware there are plenty of flights of fancy, but none of those describe the actual victory in question.

 

[Grey Wolf]

Like China?

The days of the cultural revolution and the great leap forward are now long gone but China has a unique system

It has a modern industrial base, albeit a lot of it is based on what might be called temporary slavery, including youths. It has some loosening of social morality laws, but the quid pro quo is never to criticise the government, and to exist within the closed political system

But it's quite capable of reinstituting concentration camps where felt needed

It focuses on maintaining a state of the art military, space programme etc.

Dissidents have a tendency to disappear

Even high profile politicians can be "retired" and removed from the system

The only party allowed is the ruling party, and that is the only political system

 

[RedSword12]

There wouldn't be moderation. The Junge Kampfer would be completely vindicated in their thoughts and actions. The 'Old Fighters"(Munich Clique) would age out and be replaced by those who were Hitler Youth Leaders and veterans of the Eastern War against the Soviet Union.

That is oversimplistic. Stalinism was "vindicated" with the defeat of Germany and the formation of the Eastern Bloc. And the Soviet Union still became more moderate over time. There is plenty of proof that reformers in an authoritarian state can exist and as shown by the example of Gorbachev, can also rise to the top. Arguably a victorious Nazi Germany is actually more likely to successfully reform than the postwar Soviet Union, since its ideology is in many regards loosely-defined and thereby highly malleable.

 

[thaddeus]

Like China?

The days of the cultural revolution and the great leap forward are now long gone but China has a unique system

It has a modern industrial base, albeit a lot of it is based on what might be called temporary slavery, including youths. It has some loosening of social morality laws, but the quid pro quo is never to criticise the government, and to exist within the closed political system

But it's quite capable of reinstituting concentration camps where felt needed

It focuses on maintaining a state of the art military, space programme etc.

Dissidents have a tendency to disappear

Even high profile politicians can be "retired" and removed from the system

The only party allowed is the ruling party, and that is the only political system

well put. one could overlay elements of apartheid South Africa and Saudi Arabia also?

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

Even more immigrants than OTL western europe. You've got not only ideological reasons such as Himmler's views of islam as a "warrior religion", hindus/south asians being "aryan" but demographic reasons like wanting to keep up with the US/fill the conquered east up as reasons for it.

 

[Gabingston]

China but with a higher birth rate.

 

[Yankeewolf]

Even more immigrants than OTL western europe. You've got not only ideological reasons such as Himmler's views of islam as a "warrior religion", hindus/south asians being "aryan" but demographic reasons like wanting to keep up with the US/fill the conquered east up as reasons for it.

Any National Socialist sympathy towards Islam is hysterically overexaggerated and only came about postwar because of Arab-Israeli relations being in the gutter. And the second point is just facile trolling. No, Richard Darre does not think 60 million Hindus from Uttar Pradesh are Aryan and should move to Germany. No, Hitler talking with a mufti does not mean that Nazis were all secretly reciting the shahada anymore than Hitler meeting with a Black Economics PhD student meant that he actually was a Hotep.

That is oversimplistic. Stalinism was "vindicated" with the defeat of Germany and the formation of the Eastern Bloc. And the Soviet Union still became more moderate over time. There is plenty of proof that reformers in an authoritarian state can exist and as shown by the example of Gorbachev, can also rise to the top. Arguably a victorious Nazi Germany is actually more likely to successfully reform than the postwar Soviet Union, since its ideology is in many regards loosely-defined and thereby highly malleable.

Stalinism was not vindicated because economic growth ceased being more than 5% a year and 'Russia' was still behind her glory days no matter how many people were sacrificed on the altar of the 5 year plans. In 1945 the Soviet Union took Berlin. In 1815 Russian Troops marched through Paris.

With Germany it's the opposite, the place in the sun has been finally achieved. It would only take a Cultural Revolution level of social disaster to cause any sort of Reform. And even then it'd be on the level of the PRC: economic reform and greater openness about how the Cultural Revolution was kinda bad and Mao wasn't 100% correct but that doesn't mean you should remotely throw everything out.