Ok, here's something I've been working on for a long while.
The PoD is that Nikolai Bukharin and Joseph Stalin have a falling out in the 1920s,
and by the time he begins his rise to power Bukharin is an enemy of Stalin.
He gains the support of many Trotskyists and a significant opposition movement gathers around him.
Joseph Stalin is assassinated in 1930, and many blame the Bukharinists, saying that the assassination
was part of a coup attempt, which plunges the country into a civil war between Stalinist and Bukharinist
elements of the party and army.
Most of the Red Army's most talented generals join the side of the Bukharinists, most notably Tukhachevsky,
whose theories on warfare were spectacularly vindicated during the Georgia Campaign.
The civil war lasts less than a year and results in a complete Bukharinist victory.
The new government implements reforms to the state and party, increasing the accountability of ministers
and democratizing and decentralizing the Soviet economy. An industrialization program is put into place
wherein collectively owned factories work through trade unions to manage the economic apparatus,
and laborers who can't find work are employed in the construction of new factories to respond to any lacking need.
Agriculture is allowed to continue along previous lines, wherein peasants work their own plots. Food prices are
controlled so that all can afford to eat, and agricultural work is subsidized by the state so that the farmers are
guaranteed a living.
This system works remarkably well. Agriculture is kept stable while the nation's resources are mobilized in the creation
of new factories, with various "release valves" in place to dedicate labor to new projects and economic realms at
need when supply is sufficient in one field and excess labor is not needed. Pay is in the form of credits which are
given out in various quantities depending on the difficulty and importance of the labor done. All expansion of the
economy is undertaken with the input of the local labor and technical syndicates.
While this is going on, Germany still goes on the warpath as OTL. The Rhineland is occupied, Austria is annexed,
the Sudetenland is annexed, Czechoslovakia falls. Poland is invaded in 1939. The invasion takes longer than OTL
without Soviet aid from the other side, and the USSR actually provides some arms to partisan groups. France is
invaded successfully and occupied after a six month war.
In 1941, Germany and its central European allies invade the Soviet Union. The invasion progresses slowly with
high casualties, while the Red Army falls back in a fighting retreat to prepared defensive lines in Belarus and Ukraine.
The Germans manage to get the baltic states and Finland (under nationalist governments) to declare war as well,
but this turns out t be more of a hindrance than an advantage. The offensive at its high tide only gets as far as
Donetsk, Poltava, Chernihiv, Smolensk, and Pskov. After this, the Red Army slowly rolls it back, recapturing cities
with the help of local partisans. After Finland undergoes a coup against the nationalists and attempts to back out
of the war, German agents release the nationalist leaders from prison and put the country under military rule.
This backfires when Soviet backed Communists gain popularity and set up a new government, which declares war
on Germany. The Baltic states fall and new socialist governments set up by partisans. By mid 1943, the Red Army
is at the Rhine. The USSR and Yugoslavia launch an invasion of Fascist Italy from the north.
France manages to liberate itself from Nazi rule, and Free French forces, along with a British Expeditionary Force
meet the Soviets at the Rhine.
A new polish state is set up, as well as socialist states throughout all of Eastern Europe. East of the Rhine, the
People's Republic of Germany is formed, while the western part of the country comes under French rule. The French
annex the Rhineland with American and British support in an effort to bolster its industrial capacity in the event of
a war with the Soviets.
The war is much less devastating on Europe, and much less economic and infrastructural rebuilding is necessary.
This results in a more stable and prosperous post-war Europe which holds on its colonial empires.
Albert Einstein decides to keep his convictions about the potential of nuclear weapons secret, and thus the US
atomic bomb program never begins.
In the east, the Americans fight the Japanese, and in 1944 execute with Soviet assistance an invasion of the
home islands. The USSR liberates Manchuria and all of Korea, which is put under the control of Lyuh Woon Hyuk.
Japan is divided between an American backed south, the Empire of Japan, and a Soviet backed north,
the People's Republic of Japan.
The Communists, led by Chen Duxiu, win the Chinese Civil War and establish the Socialist People's Republic of China,
which executes Bukharinist programs in China, to some success in modernizing the country and nucleating the
development of industry.
Peace lasts for nearly 20 years. The international situation is made a bit more stable than OTL due to a more open
Soviet government and a more successful soviet economy and society. There is throughout this time, however,
a "cold war" between the west and east, vying for influence in the smaller nations of the world. Concern about the
Monroe Doctrine arises when socialist revolutions begin a major upheaval in Latin America. Bolivia, Chile, Argentina,
Venezuela, Colombia, and Nicaragua undergo violent revolutions, while in Mexico, Arnoldo Martínez Verdugo is
elected president by popular vote, supported by socialist movements within the country and throughout the Americas.
The US condemns this, and supports rightist guerrillas.
The peace ends in 1962, when French agents assassinate German President Max Reimann along with several other German
leaders in a bombing attack, the United Nations is sent into turmoil. Negotiations break down and in March of that year
Soviet bombers attack French military installations on the other side of the Rhine. The Third World War begins.
In Europe, the war consists mostly of two fronts. The northern front, which for much of the war remains a bloody stalemate
on the Rhine river; and the southern front, which is a more mobile war in southern France and Italy.
One of the early Eastern successes is the Ligurian Offensive, which drives the French army back from the Italian border,
capturing Marseilles and advancing the front to the Rhone river.
Meanwhile the west experiences early failures.
In an attempt to outflank the Italians, the allies launch an invasion of Switzerland, which is bogged down quickly and serves
only to bring the Swiss firmly on the Soviet side.
In Spain, Franco is assassinated and anti-fascist, Soviet backed rebels declare a Third Republic, with a provisional government
in Valencia. This new state gains the support of many regions, and soon the rightist regime is facing a second civil war.
Meanwhile in Africa, the colonial authorities collapse amid native uprising as troops are recalled to fight in Europe and Asia.
This results in a chaotic decolonization. West-Central Africa is a patchwork of warlord statelets and factional civil conflict. In South Africa and Rhodesia, ethnic cleansing campaigns are executed by both sides. Whole communities
are often found depopulated, the people having been hacked to pieces with machetes.
In the Middle East, the Greeks, Bulgarians and Soviets launch and invasion of NATO aligned Turkey.
Israel is beset on all sides by invasion, mostly from the People's Republic of Egypt and the Socialist People's Arab Republic.
Western aligned Iran fights against Soviet invasion. A Kurd state is established from eastern Turkey and northern Iran.
Western aligned Pakistan and Eastern aligned India fight all along the border, while India overruns Bangladesh.
North and south Japan fight one another with aid from the Soviets, Chinese, Koreans, and Americans. The Red Navy's Pacific Fleet,
which the Soviets seriously invested in after the Second World War, proves vital in maintaining the Tsushima strait and Hokkaido supply lines.
The generation of commanders which participated in the Hokkaido invasion at the end of the last war, who gained experience in amphibious warfare,
prove equally vital.
Indonesia fights Australia and New Zealand in New Guinea, and Western aligned North Borneo and Sarawak.
The American invasion of Socialist Mexico proves much more difficult than anticipated. Conventional resistance holds out in the south tenaciously,
while guerrilla warfare in the north proves a major headache.
US invasions of the South American states fare little better. Colombia and Venezuela hold out inland, while an American invasion of Bolivia with
the help of Brazil is bogged down as well. Argentine armies fight in Chile, Bolivia, and Paraguay.
Brazil attempts to march through Uruguay in an attempt to take Buenos Aires.
The world in 1963, a year into the Third World War: