Paralyzed in Darkness: A Very Different Cold War (TL)

[EternalDawn]

Yeah, because a failed painter becoming the dictator of a neighborly nation, attempting world domination and genocide and even having a shot at succeeding is much more credible instead.

If that never happened IRL and someone written it as AH it would be seen as "almost ASB" by plenty of people. But since someone did it before, set the formula so to speak, now it is a more realistic scenario.

You may think the Reach becoming less hard-lineiin future generation (I also don't believe in the "sin of the father" bs) to be impossible, I'm instead of the opinion that nothing is impossible. Life is strange already, and stranger things happened than that.

It is just an opinion, take it as you wish. I've not said what is the most *likely* path, but what I would consider what would be the most *interesting*, because no one ever does.

People always write for the path that is *logical*, ignoring that life hardly ever is.

 

[sloreck]

I agree that AH can look at things that were not "expected". My point is that it is one thing to discourse on the possible outcomes of different results of the Conference of Nicea, and quite another to posit that the Pope and the Church embrace the prophecies of Muhammed in 750 AD. Naturally a Nazi state will evolve over time, but racial policies which are the absolute core of the political philosophy, while possibly altering some, are unlikely to "mellow" with time. Only if and when those principles are completely repudiated would the essence of the Reich change. This change could come about from an external force, the rise of a new prophet to replace Hitler, some sort of complete economic collapse that would significantly affect the core Aryan population (more dead slaves, a nuisance only), the arrival of tentacled green aliens, or whatever. I stand by saying that in a Nazi world first first few centuries would see a strengthening of the ideology, not a weakening.

 

[TheReformer]

Vercingetorix​

On January 16th 1947 France went to the polls to elect their new President, or at least 895 members of the French Legislature did. Under the 1940 French Constitution implemented by Petain's administration Parliament would be the primary elector for the office of President for a seven year term, this would be Petain's second, while the Chamber of Deputies would be directly elected every five years and the senate entirely appointed by the President. The build up to the election did not come without it's controversy, nobody expected the old Marshal of France to actually see out his full seven year term at the age of 91, yet merely as a mark of respect for Petain's leadership he was automatically considered the front runner by the French public and the natural candidate for the position. The Union Nationale, the primary political party in France since 1942 when the country had elected their first legislative body since the war and the troubles of the early 40's, backed Petain unanimously - thus assuring the old man's election due to the UN's overwhelming control of the National Assembly. Only two candidates even bothered putting their hat in the ring primarily with the aim of becoming front runners in the eyes of the public next time, Michel Clemenceau of his own Republican Party of Freedom established in 1945 and Yvon Delbos of the 'Rally for the Republican Left'. Both candidates had no chance and Petain was elected overwhelmingly with the support of not only the Union Nationale but also many other members of the house with a resounding victory of 75% of the vote. The now very old Marshal of France truly was the hero of the nation, and the middle classes and elite loved him for it.

Speaking from a podium beneath the Arc de Triomphe to a very large crowd spanning down the Champs-Élysées the highly popular President promised in his victory address that France's best days were truly ahead of it, and committed his Government to continuing a policy of reforming state institutions towards technocratic structures based on merit and strengthening the military rather than a return to the weak ways of the past. Unexpectedly too the President launched into an eloquent tirade against the Communist movement in the country which, despite remaining banned from political registration, still retained reasonably significant national support. He largely blamed the Socialists and Communists for the failures of the Third Republic, arguing it was their weakness and ignorance toward the threat of Germany that caused the Stockholm Treaty and arguing that Communism must be denied control of any state as a result.

Communist movements worldwide had however suffered since the near collapse of the USSR, even if Socialist parties had remained relatively strong in scandinavia and the west as a result of the British Labour Party's success and popularity that many attempted to emulate. Even in Indochina the Viet Minh force fighting for independence there had become increasingly alienated by Communism and the movement had begun to shift largely towards a more nationalist revolt rather than a communist revolution. Such was the extent of this shift due to the lack of support from Communist states like the Soviet Union that some Viet Minh leaders were even quietly proposing that they go to Germany for arms and financing. This was extremely uncomfortable for Ho Chi Minh who was a stalwart Communist and believed in Communist ideals, however his primary goal had always been and remained to see an independent Vietnam and the end of Colonial rule in Asia. He even recognised that conflict was never the ideal means of achieving such a goal, and as a result he had attempted to reach an agreement with the French on some kind of path to meaningful independence or self-determination without bloodshed. This of course had failed, Petain's administration cared little for the desires of their colonial subjects to be free no more in Indochina than they did in Syria or Algeria. The homeland was under threat, how could they afford to start giving away territories they held some or significant economic gain and, in the view of the Government, would be easy to hold anyway. After all, what harm can some tribesmen in Syria or some rice farmers in Vietnam do? As it turned out, Syrian tribesmen could do quite a bit of harm.

For a month now Syrian forces of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party had quietly been developing an army under the revolutionary nationalist Antoun Saadeh in Turkish South Eastern Anatolia. What had started as a small armed group only months ago had been swelled by thousands of raw recruits, many of them tribesmen from the North and the coastal cities who had been sent by their elders or volunteered to fight for a free Syria. Saadeh after all could certainly pay, Germany had provided for that, and he could arm them better than some of the French garrisons had been. For the tribes of the north the French had provided little but an obstacle to their own self-determination that they had been promised for years, while on the coast the citizens had become sick of French exploitation and occupation that recently had resulted simply in deaths or beatings when they attempted to protest. Many of these men were of course though very fresh and had rarely if ever seen any form of combat, thus while they trained extensively under German commanders and advisors only a small force of a few thousand loyalists were dispatched into Syria actual. In December several key checkpoints along the Syrian-Turkish border had fallen to rebels, this was notable in the city of Kobane and in other towns and villages further inland in Mesopotamia. The French initially had not been concerned by such developments, after all these were just sporadic elements of the resistance that bore no real concern. January 24th therefore came as a surprise when two forces of Syrian troops swarmed across the border unopposed in trucks, some of which holding mounted mortars or armed with heavy machine guns mounted on the chassis and seized the cities of Al-Hasakah and Manbij in the north and north east of the country. The French Garrisons, outnumbered and largely outgunned due to the rapidly advancing units transported on horseback or via trucks and cars, either put up light resistance before withdrawing entirely or just abandoned their posts. The French now had not one, but two conflicts to face in their colonial possessions - and unlike the loss of border facilities they had to respond this time. Unbeknownst to the French however these forces had crossed from Turkey, whereas their intelligence and front line reports assumed these forces had emerged from the largely uncontrolled rural areas of the north east due to the German tactic of simply outflanking most French positions in the area before encircling them and attacking from all sides - a tactic that the inexperienced and surprised French commanders lead them to believe the rebels had emerged from the countryside.

The French commander in the region, General Henri Dentz, assumed based on reports that a surprisingly well armed rebellion had erupted in the north and thus dispatched several divisions of Chasseurs d' Afrique featuring some light tanks and cavalry based units. In France General Charles de Gaulle, one of Petain's most vocal critics and least favourite commanders, heard of Dentz's decision and feared the Army of the Levant would become cut off or overwhelmed in the region. He protested the decision to French Army Chief of Staff General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny and requested that he be allowed to travel to Syria to relieve Dentz. Tassigny refused, instead reaffirming his belief that the rebellion was minor in nature and could be suppressed quickly and ordering de Gaulle to remain in command of the now expanded French Armoured Corps at the Franco-Burgundian border. As it turned out, much like when de Gaulle argued against the Maginot Line defence before the Battle of France, de Gaulle would prove once again to be right. This would only become clear in February however when Syrian Social Nationalist Forces stormed across the Turkish border in force and rapidly advanced on the city of Aleppo, easily surrounding the city and advancing on Raqqah and Hama. French forces, largely distracted by focused fighting in the rural east of the country that by February had been ongoing for weeks, were stunned by the speed of the Syrian advance made up of forces driving not just weaponized trucks but also German style half-tracks and even some tanks. The advance was such that the outnumbered French Army of the Levant completely shattered as it's commanders, fearing becoming surrounded and trapped in North Eastern Syria, ordered a full retreat. This quickly developed into a rout as two of the three Lebanese and all eight Syrian battalions of the army revolted against their senior commanders when their experienced and trained indigenous officers joined the rebellion. The revolt would prove pivotal for the Syrian advance in the east which quickly captured several key cities in the east and began the advance west towards Palmyra. Only following the withdrawal of forces opposing the initial February 7th -10th advance south of the Euphrates did the eastern advance halt outside of Sukhna. French forces too withdrew from Hama following intensive fighting towards Homs hotly pursued by the Syrian forces who managed to capture the centre of the city before French forces dug in on the south and eastern suburbs. Stronger forces on the coast quickly pinned the advance of the Syrian forces towards Tripoli and Latakia but in doing so became so focused on the coast that they were unable to reinforce the inland areas of the country.

The initial success of the month long Sukhna offensive proved to be not only a great tactical military success for the Syrian Social Nationalist forces, but furthermore provided the national platform the party had largely failed to achieve for years prior to seeking German support. Across Syria and Lebanon, and even in Iraq and Transjordan, Antoun Saadeh's name was celebrated by fed up Syrians who now sought to find their own way of supporting his cause nationwide. A pivotal factor in the advance too had been the fact that the SSNP enjoyed significant support among young students who were able to produce underground newspapers and information documents to spread among the local populace showing military victories and spreading the ideology of the SSNP. Even Reichsminister Goebbels dispatched a team to document the advance of the Syrian forces with the aim of producing short news-films showing the valliant fight of the racially sound Arabs over their French colonial masters and portraying Saadeh as the 'Hitler of Assyria'. In the United States the state department however was less shocked about the SSNP's rapid advance. As far as they were concerned when it came to a conflict against other Arabs the largely Arabic or at least Muslim and colonial French Army of the Levant may as well not have even been there - there essentially was almost no french army in the region to speak of. They were however more surprised than the British who actually knew that the rebellion in the north the French had experienced in mid to late January was no rebellion at all. British codebreakers had easily intercepted German transmissions in the middle east months ago and knew of the SSNP's strategy to prompt much of the French army into the north before striking from behind and threatening encirclement as they had successfully done, thus prompting the collapse of most of the French Army of the Levant. Prime Minister Attlee had taken the strategic decision to not inform the French of such a plan by the Germans and Syrians in a gamble aimed at forcing the French into a more cooperative position on global affairs such as the conflict in Indochina in exchange for British support. Now the gamble had largely paid off, and as the third phase of the SSNP advance ended on February 14th the French approached the British seeking military support in Syria to keep the Germans out. Britain of course was ready to do so, but it had it's price.

France would be forced to recognise Syrian and Lebanese independence in full in exchange for British forces supporting in the effort to crush the pro-German SSNP before British forces then escorting the French out of the middle east much akin to the recent British withdrawal from Transjordan. This gave the French a conundrum; either to continue the good fight alone and just ship more forces to the region, or to accept that the region was lost and that as a result of the population being overwhelmingly against their administration in the region they could no longer retain control but could at least deny the Germans the chance to take control of the region themselves through the SSNP. In the eyes of some in the French command the war could however still be won without British intervention, and as a result on February 16th 1947 General Charles de Gaulle was dispatched alongside a new expeditionary force of natural French forces to restore order to the region and relieve General Dentz. For the moment Attlee's gamble had failed, but time would tell if the French position in the region could be salvaged. Meanwhile Petain was more than happy to see de Gaulle go, he vehemently opposed de Gaulle's views and found him incredibly difficult to work with to the point where he almost hoped the General would fail in Syria so he could be cast out. He did however recognise de Gaulle's military thinking as a doctrine that may have stopped Germany in 1940 and as a result was interested to test his tactics in the field against what France now knew to be German supported and trained forces. These Syrian troops of course were hardly the most skilled or anywhere near equivalent to the Germans, if anything thousands of them had been trained by the French under the Army of the Levant, but they would be a useful guinea pig nonetheless.

Germany's had it's own rebel problems however due to the emergence of a group labelling themselves as the "Armiya vozrozhdeniya" - or 'Revival Army'. So far such a force was only known about by the German high command and the forces in Reichskommissariat Moskowien, but the force had become a significant problem since January when it was thought it was formed. German military intelligence were going by a theory that several large groups of insurgents, the ones located in RK Moskowien often numbering in the hundreds, had merged under a new charismatic leader or former Soviet officer. As a result Germany now was facing a relatively weak but highly motivated and experienced force in the north of the country with high morale and evidently a sizeable amount of weapons and ammunition. German forces in early February had paid the price for their lack of knowledge of this group's formation when an entire brigade of German soldiers on their way to the Ural front was massacred on their train which was destroyed by light artillery and small arms fire after being stopped on damaged tracks. German command didn't even know of the attack until the next day when a supply train found the wreckage which had been littered with poorly made propaganda saying that 'Spartacus' or "Spartak" was coming to retake Russia and free the slaves. Regardless this presented a significant security risk to Germany's most rural and least controlled Reichskommissariat and forcing German forces to redouble their efforts to find this 'army' often through the use of planes or scout helicopters. These actions did little to fear the already slightly paranoid civilian Government in Twer however, but little else could be done. By contrast life in Germany proper had improved in the last few months, a steady and increasing supply of food products was entering the country from the east where German settlers were reporting an end to the partisan attacks of the last few years which spurred a new colonial drive among the population. The economy was improving following the post-war slump as industries previously forced to produce new facilities to pump out weapons now had largely been re-purposed towards heavy industry and some luxury goods with Government grants. Germany did remain in significant debt to the various private banks within the country and it's allies, especially Italy who's lack of participation in any major war had left their economy relatively unscathed, but this was now looking set to stabilise due to the forecasted budget deficit reduction at the end of the financial year. Exports from Germany too had slowly grown in the last three years, especially to Asia, Scandinavia and Latin America where Germany's new resources were proving to be considered valuable. Germany's slave labour population was proving both beneficial and negative on the economy however as while these people could be forcibly subjected to public works programs and more manual jobs in cleaning, maintenance etc they inadvertently starved the German economy of jobs needed by many elements of German society. As a result a lot of German citizens returning from military service had returned home to find their jobs filled by forced labourers, often meaning they had to retrain in a new craft or service. Thankfully for these people they were given Government support to retrain in various areas ranging from financial services to manual skills, many single and younger former soldiers simply signed up for a series of new private security companies that had been set up to loan out to Foreign Governments or protect the various settlements in the east that the German army had become too overstretched to secure. Alternatively young couples often took the state grants of several tens of thousands of Reichsmarks and moved east to claim the various lots of land in Ukraine and start a new life. Unemployment however still remained relatively high following the post-war spike.

There was however a darker side to this seemingly improving quality of life in the Reich. With the fall of the USSR, the defeat of the west and almost complete German hegemony established in at least eastern Europe the Government had now begun to pursue it's more radical domestic policies. So while some Germans marvelled as the capital of the Reich (Germania) had it's skyline re-shaped with a slowly expanding great dome of the Volkshalle, while Germans in the east began to set up new towns and communities and while German workers previously consigned to their cities went on state sponsored cruises in the Black Sea on KdF liners the Hitler Government planned their attack on the 'opium of the masses'.

 

[Vuu]

Interesting...

 

[Tjakari]

Good to know that the fight lives on Russia, I wonder who the "Spartak" actually is. A cosmonaut maybe? Maybe a politician or an officer in the army?

 

[skarosianlifeform]

Following this.

 

[TheReformer]

The Ideologues​

While on the legal state dance floors of Berlin blasted out "I can't give you anything but love" and "i want to be happy" from Germany's 'favourite' Jazz band Charlie & His Orchestra it was it's underground dance and swing scene that was the most popular past time for German youth, at least those of them feeling rebellious anyway. The Swingjugend, or Swing Youth, were a popular counter culture group that had suffered in the last six years under Nazi rule since their banning and a further ban of any young people under the age of 21 from attending any kind of dance clubs. The group had essentially been eradicated by 1943, however remnants still remained and had grown in peacetime as German society grew accustomed to their new more relaxed and prosperous position. But while this small group was an example of opposition to the regime in Germany there was little real opposition remaining by this point. Even the most radical of German moderates in the army and NSDAP found themselves with few allies simply due to their criticisms having little real basis anymore since Germany's ascendance. How after all could one question the system if it had delivered on every front? Russia was conquered, the economy was stable despite a post-war shrink and as far as German society knew their lives could never be better - especially given their poor experience with the Weimar Democracy of the past. German society too was numerically growing, though while the Nazis associated this with their policies of handing out medals to mothers with seven children and their lebensborn program, the reality was many of these policies did little to actually expand the German population more than the default level of growth. It was instead a baby boom that emerged from troops returning from war, a return of national confidence and wealth and most importantly the expansion of German civilisation to the east that drove a quick rise in birth rates. The German Government's provision of child benefits and veterans benefits further too drove this boom which began in 1945 and by 1947 was still growing as the Government pumped out more propaganda each year encouraging young people to have children "to give their parents grandchildren" and as a duty to the Reich. The Lebensborn program too was expanding with further SS funding and several new 'homes' being established across the occupied territories. The main problem the Government was finding now however was that now eleven years after the creation of the first Lebensborn home, Heim Hochland, near Munich the children were developing slight social abnormalities that scientists pinned down to the lack of individual father and mother figures in their upbringing. Further, only about 20,000 children had been born since 1936 through the program along with an additional 30,000 or so that had been abducted for Germanisation from the east, all of whom had to be looked after by the state for their entire lives which had proven surprisingly expensive. The result of this so far had been that the older generation who had been abducted were sharply polarised between those who accepted their new position and those who rebelled against it or had simply gone into a psychological breakdown or depression over their circumstances. In most cases the abducted children largely formed very dependent bonds with members of staff of visiting male members of the SS whom they adopted as parent figures with the more accepting members becoming dutiful and arguably obsessive followers of the 'church' of National Socialism. Many of these children were fostered into the German public within a few years to families who could not have children or were too old to have any more. The less accepting often just became aggressive, violent or non-inclusive to the rest of the communities around them leading to several suicides and many cases of children being taken away from the system after a few years or months within it.

This was not the only policy with it's own problems in Germany however. Hitler had often said during his early years in Government that he believed he was acting "in the sense of the almighty creator", yet in 1942 the man who claimed to once be a Christian had banned the Holy Bible and replaced it with his own Reich Bible. His war with the church had been long and difficult, from an initial agreement with the Vatican who at the time supported Hitler to now an effective replacement of both the catholic and protestant churches in Germany a new Reich's Church. While Hitler believed that atheism ought to be eradicated, it had become clear to the world that he too thought that any other faith must also be eradicated too and replaced with a pseudo-christian church of the state to worship the state. Bibles had been replaced in Churches of the German Reich Church with copies of Mein Kampf, Crucifixes replaced with Swastikas or broken Viking Sun Crosses. In many churches the valuables and artefacts were seized, stripping many mainly Catholic churches of symbols much akin to the dissolution of the monasteries in England under Henry VIII while images of saints were removed and in some cases replaced with images or sculptures of the Fuhrer. A new Reich Bible was written removing all Hebrew words and outlining Hitler's own personally designed '12 commandments' and a new Lord's Prayer, the church demanding that all Germans follow their teachings and thus follow the will of the Fuhrer. No pastors, chaplains or priests were permitted to speak in Reich Churches, only national Reich orators were permitted. Hitler even had attempted to re-define Jesus as 'the great Nazarine' and the 'first great enemy of the Jews' who would, he claimed, eventually go on to kill him.

Hitler's 12 Commandments
Honor God and believe in him wholeheartedly.
Seek out the peace of God.
Avoid all hypocrisy.
Holy is your health and life.
Holy is your well-being and honor.
Holy is your truth and fidelity.
Honor your father and mother—your children are your aid and your example.
Keep the blood pure and the marriage holy.
Maintain and multiply the heritage of your forefathers.
Be ready to help and forgive.
Honor your Führer and master.
Joyously serve the people with work and sacrifice.
​

Despite these repressive efforts, which had earned Hitler the opposition of the Catholic Church and the Pope, Pius XII, the Nazi effort to de-Christianise Germany was staggeringly slow and if anything just unnecessarily damaging. For years now Alfred Rosenberg had led the charge of the new reich Church, but had failed to deliver significant results other than a significant amount of dead bodies and a vast number of irritated and deeply personally offended Christian followers. These followers still largely preached in closed or secret ceremonies or simply practiced their religion at home despite Nazi efforts to encourage the population to look down on those who did not attend party gatherings such as the weekly church service. This was especially notable in Bavaria, Austria, Baden and Württemberg where Catholic majority populations were becoming increasingly more hesitant to support wholeheartedly the Nazi Regime. This too was exploited ruthlessly by the God-Fearing Americans who through 'the Voice of America' were broadcasting support for the Christians and especially Catholics who were being repressed by the regime akin to how the Romans oppressed the Christians before their conversion. While Hitler's ability to push for a 'Reich Church' was still strong the world's media were beginning to ask if doing so would come at the cost of his immense popularity and cult-status in the nation, especially as the arrests continued to mount up and even started expanding from the clergy into the general practising Christian population of Germany.

Germany was not the only country where a leader's grip on the nation they ruled seemed to be slowly slipping. In the 1930's Chiang Kai Shek had built a powerful bloc within the Kuomintang known as the Blue Shirt Society, or in it's long form the Society of the Practice of Three Principles of People with a group of military officers. It rapidly established control over the Kuomintang when Chiang Kai Shek took over control of the party and the Presidency once again in 1932 after a struggle with his opponents and began modelling the KMT on Benito Mussolini's Fascism. Some even suggested the adoption of blue shirted soldiers as a paramilitary wing of the party though this was shut down, though the slow militarisation of Chinese society was introduced. The group's methods in conflict against the Communist Party of China however were much more effective than those of the rest of the Kuomintang, the same was true for corruption where the group's methods were especially effective. Chiang personally had very little to do with this, he had been far more focused on the 'big picture' while the BSS slowly built a power base within the party which it led, often on a local level. This was especially notable in Jiangxi where the construction of roads, provision of loans to citizens to alleviate poverty and reforms to the army to create an air branch and armoured corps proved decisive in reforming Chinese society for the better and the region's prospects. The war however got in the way of this progress, along with Chiang's interference with the group by issuing obsessive instructions on how Chinese citizens should live that simply led to the new way of life becoming a hindrance rather than an improvement. This failure of policy led to the eventual decline of the group, only further pushed by Chiang's removal of specific leaders over fears that they may challenge his own power. A rift however emerged as a result of the kidnap of Chiang Kai Shek and the formation of the Chinese United Front in 1937 due to arguably reckless actions of the BSS in the campaign to free Chiang. Chiang dismissed BSS commander Hu Zongnan, instead appointing Ze Kang, and froze all BSS activities before eventually forcibly merging the KMT and BSS together, thus spelling the end of the Blue Shirt Society. Many of the BSS' members didn't want to join the KMT however which led to the creation of a new force within the Kuomintang, the Youth League of Three Principles of the People or YLTPP, led by Hu Zongnan and his agent Ze Kang.

Kang had been a very successful leader of the group, he transformed a 400,000 member organisation in 1937 to a 1.7 million member organisation by 1947 - and one that was less corrupt and better organised than even the Kuomintang. He had held the position tenuously, benefited greatly by the death of Chiang's son Chiang Ching-kuo in the Battle of Moscow in 1942 where he had been held a captive by Stalin during the Soviet-German war. Chiang Ching-kuo was rumoured to have been the man who Chiang Kai Shek intended to use to reign in the YLTPP, yet Kang remained in power still by March 1947. Kang knew his position was weak but there was little that he could actively do about it, he was committed to Chiang's Government but equally aware of it's flaws, yet found himself surrounded by loyal allies to Chiang while he and his group were out of favour among the hierarchy of the Kuomintang. The YLTPP did not aim to be a threat to the slowly consolidating Chinese Government, but with corruption rife among the inefficient KMT and the Communists in the north losing ground yet remained in a strong position. This had only been made worse by several key errors on the part of the Kuomintang; first that they had reduced the size of the Chinese Republican Armed Forces significantly following the defeat of Japan leaving many able bodied former soldiers without pay and disgruntled from the KMT, these soldiers now had in many cases joined the Communists in the north. Secondly and finally, Chiang Kai Shek has instructed the army to defend urban centres and as a result had neglected the countryside and thus allowed the Communists a free reign to move weapons and supplies they had captured in the north that the Americans had not been able to seize when they conducted coastal landings in 1946 on MacArthur's instruction. Other than the major offensive against the Communist capital and a southern offensive against the Communists's Shandong and Henan holdings in the south there had been no effort to contain the communist spread, resulting in much of northern Manchuria being occupied. By contrast to this the powerful YLTPP had a long record of successful military policies while they were labelled as the Blue Shirt Society, and furthermore they had significant numbers of able bodied men. This created a prospect for a potential new model army of the Kuomintang.

While war raged in China once again after a brief break to deal with the Japanese, so too did it rage in Syria where the forces of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party had effectively halted their advance. By the end of February SSNP forces had made significant ground, but failed to actually push to the coast as they initially intended. This was largely the consequence of General Charles de Gaulle who had arrived and taken command, then enacted an elastic defence that saved the French army from being overrun in the south east. De Gaulle was convinced however that this offensive conducted by the SSNP was merely the result of momentum, once their advance had defeated the front elements of the French army they had broken the lines entirely and the then shattered Army of the Levant had either defected or run. De Gaulle believed that a firm and mobile counter-attack against SSNP forces therefore would succeed as the SSNP was likely overextended and an aggressive, not defensive, force. De Gaulle's gamble bore fruit on March 20th when his armour surgically cut through SSNP lines south of Palmyra, this was a weak point in the line due to the SSNP's positions being focused on a series of villages around the road to Palmyra. French armour advanced day and night to Sukhna as De Gaulle had planned and expected with little true resistance until they arrived at their target city on the Euphrates Deir-ez-Zor. There suddenly the French offensive collapsed under attack from what was assumed to be German 8.8cm guns from the city limits that massacred the now over-confident French tanks while infantry failed to advance through organised Syrian positions. French forces now halted having after advanced for three days straight while De Gaulle re-thought his strategy. His intention was to seize Deir-ez-Zor and in doing so divide the main routes of supply between the eastern and western theatres of the SSNP Army by taking the major roads and rail routes. This having failed however De Gaulle needed a new target for his force and thus decided on the 26th to launch a new offensive North West in a pivot towards Raqqa, one of the major cities in occupied Syria that the Government of the Syrian Social Republic were seated in. A victory here would be an important military and political victory, and thus when the city fell to a rapid advance of French armour, cavalry and mechanised forces on March 30th President Petain exclaimed the victory as a sure fire sign that 'God was with the French' and that the French state would survive and thrive despite their earlier defeat. His words would come back to him later.

For De Gaulle this was an important victory, but while the Syrian forces had successfully been defeated in Raqqa the French had failed to dislodge the Syrians from the villages around the city, especially north of the river Euphrates. Furthermore the victory was only positive for the French from a one dimensional military perspective, the reality too was that France's hold on the region was becoming increasingly tenuous even in it's biggest cities. Protests were emerging once more in Damascus and Beirut, but the key difference now from before was that these protests were in favour of Antoun Saddeh's SSNP rather than just independence. Saddeh's movement had seemingly won the battle for monopoly on Syria's independence lobby, and it was a significant lobby among the population. However in the northern region of Latakia the SSNP were far from popular. Among the Shia and Christian provinces of French Syria the SSNP were viewed as potentially Sunni zealots who would destroy their relatively western way of life, or even as obsessively nationalist statists who like the Communists wanted to come for what they had. When SSNP forces entered the region in February therefore many Alawites fought back, with French assistance the SSNP's forces were halted on their way to the city of Latakia. One respected man had stood out among the crowd though, Ali Sulayman al-Wahhish or as his local villagers knew him as Al Assad - 'the Lion'. By March Assad had assembled a small army of Alawites named the Army of God that allied themselves with De Gaulle. They launched their own offensive against Aleppo with the intention of seizing back the city but while they were capable of liberating several small towns and villages they failed to take the city or it's approaches. Nonetheless Syria was rapidly developing into a melting pot of cultural, ethnic, ideological and religious warfare as Christian joined Shiite to battle Sunni and Secularist, Socialist and Nationalist battled Frenchman and Liberal.

And that was March 1947.

 

[BigBlueBox]

@TheReformer Why is a movement led by an Orthodox Christian viewed as Sunni zealots?

 

[TheReformer]

@TheReformer Why is a movement led by an Orthodox Christian viewed as Sunni zealots?

It's less about who it is lead by than who makes up it's ranks. The organisation after all is actually secular, yet most of its soldiers will be Sunni and from in-land Syria. Of course there will be loads of Shiite and Christians in the SSNP too, but for an alawite seeing an army of predominantly Sunni soldiers bear down on your homeland with the intention of making a highly centralised state in Syria that would be dominated by Sunni leaders there would be a natural fear that the tyranny of the majority takes over and they end up the ones being oppressed.

 

[TheReformer]

The Embers of April​

Russia requires a 'strong man' to lead it, as has been the way of the vast and diverse continental empire since it's dawn. From Ivan the Terrible to Alexander III to Stalin and Catherine the Great the empire was held together by individuals and powerful centralised government, not any ideal or sense of unity. The country's collapse after the Great Patriotic War was lost therefore was inevitable, especially following Stalin's death on his belated attempt to flee Moscow. Balkanisation of such a vast empire was essentially avoided after the first civil war because of the communist Government's strength in central leadership that held the country together much akin to the Tsars. Thus once the Communist apparatus of Government, their strength and legitimacy were removed without anyone to replace them the country collapsed, however such a collapse was not natural to the Russian state. While it was true some Generals had formed their own little Warlord 'states' in the vast Russian expanse as the Soviet Government under Molotov attempted to retain some kind of control and many ethnic and cultural groups had broken free, to suggest Russia had collapsed forever would be a falsehood. So when General Zhukov, having fought a slow campaign from the east to seize power over the remaining apparatus of Soviet Government, finally seized what remained of the Russian capital at Novosibirsk and unified the communist remnants and his own institutions he inherited less a broken warlord dominated state than a federation of highly autonomous vassals. The Russian heartland itself was autonomous in some regions, but generally willing to listen to a central Government so long as that central Government was assertive enough - Molotov's Government however had no credibility and thus had failed to control the various pockets that had emerged across the nation. Zhukov by contrast had a loyal and willing army that was well equipped and supported by their new American 'friends'. He therefore was capable of saying to the various ethnic enclaves and military redoubts that he was truly in charge and they must do as he wished, in essence he was a feudal King presiding over the previously rebellious vassals of his predecessor - yet now they listened. The only places this was not true was in the vast Kazakh state and the various former soviet Turkmen states governed by their former communist leaders or new local leaders.

When he established his new Government at Krasnoyarsk, the largest remaining soviet city, Georgy Zhukov's priorities were clear. First he had to establish a stable administration capable of unifying the splintered Russian states that, while individually not that powerful or legitimate, made the Russian state as a whole weak. Second he had to ensure the long-term stability of the country in terms of food, shelter and economic stability. Third, he had to face down Russia's various threats that existed largely to their west. The most important question Zhukov had to ask himself first though was what to do with the existing remnants of the shattered USSR. technically after all he had inherited control of a state known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, yet the reality was this was not exactly much of a 'union' anymore. The Turkmen states of Central Asia, for a time briefly governed independently by their former-soviet leaders as independent republics, had now all fallen to the advances of the Bukharran nationalist Shahmurad Alim Khan and his Turkmen People's Republic. This entity, while only recognised by the Republic of China, would be incredibly difficult to overthrow due to popular support from the locals and a good reputation on the world stage, especially due to the fact that the country was led by a former soviet soldier and the legitimate heir to the Bukharran dynasty who furthermore had established the country as a fairly democratic pro-western state, much to the pleasure of the United States. The Kazakhs too had broken free under Osman Batyr as a new Republic, though while their forces could probably be defeated in a conflict the Russian Army was in no way ready to launch major operations of that nature. The country needed to be brought together first. Even the Ukrainians now had been granted freedom from the USSR, albeit not in Ukraine proper but in the so called 'Green Ukraine' of Transamur that had essentially been established as a US puppet state to control Russian food imports. The Baltic peoples and Belorussians had all left the country by April 1947 too, all headed instead off to the various new United Nations City States along the east African Coast. Therefore the USSR now consisted of simply just Russians, Russians who were deeply dissatisfied with the ruling party and it's record of imposing starvation, war and a police state upon their people in a manner akin to the Tsars. The capital in Krasnoyarsk was a melting pot of political ideas that threatened to overturn the established order at any time, many of them non-socialist yet only sitting in silence because of Zhukov's 'bigger gun diplomacy'.

President Zhukov addresses the public in Krasnoyarsk​

Zhukov now had a choice, he could either inherit the unpopular but powerful legacy of the old Soviet system and reform it to his slightly differing image while retaining the USSR's claims on Kazakhstan, Green Ukraine and of course German occupied Russia. Or he could recognise the new reality that Russia found itself, abandon the idea of the 'Soviet Union' and instead forge his own political regime and even state built around Russia rather than the mesh of countries that formed the former USSR. From Zhukov's perspective the people had lost faith in the old system, and as such on April 1st 1947 - four months after he had seized power - Zhukov announced the dissolution of the former USSR, the reformation of the Bolshevik All-Union Communist Party to the new 'Russian People's Communist Party' (Rossiyskaya Narodnaya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya) and the effective independence of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from the USSR as the new primary state of Russia. The RSFSR too would be renamed appropriately to fit this change, adopting the title of the 'Russian People's Republic'. All of these changes were done for good reason, the party through it's renaming and restructuring would be purged by Zhukov of all former Stalinists who he could afford to let go, however in contrast to the last great purge under Stalin Zhukov spared their lives. Instead forcing his opponents out of the party and into the lives of ordinary civilians while promoting a host of military officers and civilian experts to fields in which they had expertise. The USSR was to be dismantled because the reality was it had already been dismembered regardless, to continue it's legacy would be a reminder of the destructive and painful past that Zhukov's new ministry sought to write over. The renaming of the country was the final act of respect to the Russian people whom Zhukov's new administration wished to dedicate their loyalty, not to that of an ideal but the people whom it claimed to serve - and the Russian people, not any other. This in essence would be defined by historians later as "the end of the long standing political, economic and social union of the Russian people and their various tributaries" as a military reformer revered by his people stepped in, took the system and tore it down. It was in reality not the end of the communist ideals that had built the USSR, Zhukov attributed much of his own personal success and upbringing to the revolution and the military, but it would be the end of the legacy of that first revolution - and the beginning of another. A more technocratic and meritocratic vision of what Communism and Socialism should be, and one built on the structures of the military that introduced it.

The 1947 Russian Constitution would largely maintain the same political structures seen in the Soviet Union with some more formalised institutions. The office of President of the Russian People's Republic would be established as the main executive office for the country, while the Supreme Soviet of the USSR would be renamed as the Russian Supreme Soviet. The two branches of the Supreme Soviet would be reformed to constitute the Soviet of Russia, the lower house previously known as the Soviet of the Union, and the upper house known as the Federation Council that would be populated with independent and non-partisan appointees which would replace the now defunct Soviet of Nationalities. The lower house, traditionally directly elected by the public in non-competitive elections, would remain the domain only of the ruling party and independent representatives approved by the party. The new upper house however would represent one of the most significant shifts in the structure of Soviet administration as the President of the People's Republic would not only appoint all members of this upper house, but furthermore be appointed by this house. As a result the President could essentially just appoint supporters of his viewpoint and side of the party, who would then appoint his chosen successor to the position and pass his legislative reforms. Further questionable stipulations within the constitution were the continued recognition of the Governing party of the country as the only legitimate party, the 1936 constitution having specifically referenced the Communist party as the sole legal front for political action while this 1947 constitution specifically referenced the new Russian People's Communist Party in the same manner - thus making it the sole legal party in the country. There were however marked differences in the new constitution to the 1936 constitution, most notably being the implementation of term limits restricting members of the Soviet of Russia (lower house) from standing for election more than four times, thus limiting the maximum time in office of a politician in the lower house to 16 years due to the four year terms continued from the 1936 constitution. This was aimed at rooting out deep inset corruption within the country, as was Zhukov's decision to expel all sitting members of the last Soviet of the Union to allow the new Soviet of Russia to be populated by new individuals. Thankfully for some of the more reformist and open minded members of the lower house they often would find themselves new seats in the Federation Council shortly after.

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The 18th Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party -- Where are they now?
Lavrentiy Beria - Commander of the Georgian People's Liberation Army in the Northern Caucuses
Nikolay Shvernik - Killed in the 1st November German Nuclear Bombing of Novosibirsk
Nikolai Voznesensky - Alive, Joined Zhukov's National Government following the Novosibirsk Bombing
Georgy Malenkov - Killed in the 1st November German Nuclear Bombing of Novosibirsk
Alexander Shcherbakov - Killed in the Battle of Moscow while attempting to flee with Joseph Stalin
Nikolai Bulganin - Killed in the 1st November German Nuclear Bombing of Novosibirsk
Alexei Kosygin - Alive, Joined Zhukov's National Government following the Novosibirsk Bombing
Andrey Andreyev - Alive, Joined Zhukov's National Government following the Novosibirsk Bombing
Kliment Voroshilov - Alive, Joined Zhukov's Rebellion after the collapse of the USSR
Andrei Zhdanov - Killed in the Battle of Moscow while attempting to flee with Joseph Stalin
Lazar Kaganovich - Alive, exiled by Zhukov to the Republic of Ukraine in the Far East
Mikhail Kalinin - Alive, Joined Zhukov's National Government following the Novosibirsk Bombing
Anastas Mikoyan - Alive, Joined Zhukov's Rebellion after the collapse of the USSR, Appointed Chairman of the Presidum of the Soviet of Russia.
Vyacheslav Molotov - Killed in the 1st November German Nuclear Bombing of Novosibirsk
Joseph Stalin - Killed attempting to flee Moscow during the Battle of Moscow
Nikita Khrushchev - Leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine in the Republic of Ukraine in the Far East

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Zhukov's final act of reform was to amend the ministerial system in the new Russian People's Republic, favouring a more structured military style model the now President handed powers of appointing the Presidum of the Soviet of Russia (essentially Prime Minister) to himself, along with the power to appoint any individual he chose fit to serve as a minister of any office regardless of their membership of the Russian People's Communist Party. This replaced the long-standing system of the party electing members to the Politburo who were then given positions dependent on the chairman of the party and adopted a more authoritarian, yet less one-party state focused tone in the country. The western press would hail this shift in soviet governance as a step towards western liberal institutions, yet the reality was more of a nuance. Despite being a reformer Zhukov had encompassed significant power behind a position he would hold for life as President or until he resigned or was voted out of power by the Federation Council, all so he could in his eyes consolidate his grip on power in the country and pass what he deemed to be necessary reform. He had done away with the old Communist party in favour of his own personal party, one essentially built around him rather than any central tenants of ideological purity as the Bolshevik party had aimed to be. Despite the RPCP being a direct successor to the All-Union Communist Party it shared few of the former party's leaders, and was more nationalist in nature. He had ensured political opponents in the lower house could no longer challenge him after they had been in a position of power long enough, and ensured he alone could reward those who supported him with positions in the Federation Council, inadvertently also the only body that could remove him or elect his successor. This was for all intensive purposes a coup against the Soviet system, and one that had succeeded in eradicating the USSR and most of what it stood for - even though many historians today would argue that Stalin's actions as Chairman and the German invasion eradicated the state regardless.

Zhukov's Perestroika (or restructuring) of the country's system of administration would go into public life too however, over April he would institute new legislation by Presidential Decree in what would become known as 'Glasnost' or 'openness'. Closed trials were abandoned in favour of a more open legal system and restriction on the freedoms of the press were relaxed, however a new ministry of information was established as a sole legal source of information on Government activity in order that the Government could control access to the narrative of that free press. Most importantly for the world media the new system permitted the admission of foreign journalists to the Russian People's Republic, however for Russian citizens themselves the biggest change would be the dissolution of the NKVD by Zhukov by executive decree. While this was a big win for the public in their eyes, behind closed doors Zhukov still silently used military intelligence forces and the army to arrest individuals that sought to subvert or undermine the Russian state - but in contrast to his predecessor he was a saint. These reforms all portrayed an image to the public of a new strongman in power, yet a reformist strongman - one who sought to repair the damaged trust of the past while strengthening the Russian state to face it's adversaries in the west, and anywhere else that they might emerge.

Meanwhile elsewhere in the former USSR the new Republic of Ukraine (in the Far East) held it's first elections in April 1946 under US guidance. US Marines had moved into the now rather populous republic following the dismantling of the Transbaikal Republic earlier this year as a result of the Tehran Agreement. The country had decided in a brief constitutional convention involving former soviet administrators, representatives of the various Ukrainian social, religious and economic communities and other exiled Ukrainian nationalist politicians that the nation would adopt a constitutional system akin to their new friends in the United States. A President would be elected every four years in a rounds based vote and a House of Representatives, or Palata Predstavnykiv, would be elected alongside them. The 'Verkhovna Rada' or Supreme Council of Ukraine, the new upper house of the legislature, would be elected two years after the Presidential and House elections in the middle of their terms of office. Various politicians were involved in the first free Ukrainian elections in history, but the former polish legislator and centre-right politician Stepan Vytvytskyi would be the man elected to lead the young republic in it's early days. His election did come as a surprise to some however after speculation in the western and mainly British press before the vote that Dmytro Klyachkivsky and his Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, a near fascist organisation on the far right, may be narrowly ahead in the polls. Their defeat therefore led to immediate accusations by the OUN of American vote tampering due to the presence of US soldiers at ballot stations to supervise the Republic's first elections in a deal agreed before the elections were called. Regardless, the OUN's previous agreement to this compromise minimised their ability to level criticism or raise doubt and the debate would be over by May, however this would be the final election that US forces would supervise in Ukrainian history.

​

Ukrainian Political Parties (1947)
Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO) - Social Conservative, Economic Paternalist
Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party (USDLP) - Marxist, Social Liberal
Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) - Nationalist, Ukrainian Irredentist, Corporatist
Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) - Communist, Marxism-Leninism
Ukrainian Radical Democratic Party (URDP) - Social Democracy, Social Liberal
The Bund - Minority Rights (Specifically Jewish/Russian), Social Liberal, Socialist

In the Palata Predstavnykiv elections the OUN did however hold up a significant vote, forcing the UNDO to choose between working with their nationalistic and paternalistic views or joining the USDLP in a near grand-coalition of the two reasonably centrist-ish parties. However due to the Presidential nature of the Ukrainian system it was not vital to maintain a permanent form of supply to a legislative government as the President carried veto powers and other parties could be approached for support on specific legislation, the only exception to this being the budget. Therefore the UNDO opted by May to back a minority government in the legislature, taking advantage of the decision to appoint a bi-partisan upper house until the first elections for the Verkhovna Rada would be held in 1950 and agreed to appoint a bi-partisan speaker from the UNDO with support from the USDLP for the time being.

The US' involvement in Ukraine's elections by contrast to the suggested interference of the OUN was actually quite minor. President Dewey had requested that the CIA "make it so someone we can work with Governs this time around", however despite this clearly being electoral interference on an egregious level the CIA actually did relatively little. According to CIA Analysts polling conducted throughout the brief campaign Vytvytskyi was set to win regardless, the Agency merely put him over 50% in the vote count to avoid a second round of voting. For the US this was a geopolitical security issue, they had established the new Ukraine with the aim of achieving a level of economic control over Russia that could not have been achieved if Russia had held onto their few remaining large ports in the Pacific. Now the Ukrainian Government could control most of what went into and out of the near land locked Russia which had been promised money for a new major port at either Chumikan or Okhotsk, but was constrained by the fact few people lived on the Russian pacific coast and such a project would take time. Until then Russia was at the effective economic mercy of Ukraine - and thus indirectly the United States. The US too saw the region as a perfect means of projecting power to the Sea of Japan and thus intended to base a new US fleet at Vladivostok, the new capital of Ukraine where they intended to purchase a century of naval basing rights and the right to construct their own military facility. The fact that the pro-western Stepan Vytvytskyi was elected therefore was a big win for US foreign policy, even if they did slightly cheat in the process.

The US State Dept too was starting to consider addressing the fate of the other former soviet states that had emerged in April of 1947. Following his rise to power in 1946 and subsequent wars to seize control of much of Transoxania and Zhwarezm Shahmurad Alim Khan now had control over the former Soviet Republics of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan - now only leaving Persian occupied Turkmenistan as the one region out of the grasp of his Turkmen People's Republic. For the US this threatened to undermine the Tehran agreement that allowed Persia to occupy the region to support the stem of migrants from the Russian steppe in order that they could be properly registered and distributed accordingly, now Shahmurad wanted the land back and for those who he called invaders to return to Persia following one lasting occupation of all of Turkmenistan in 1945 and now another more contained occupation that still continued. US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles appreciated the view of the Alim Khan Government, but the importance to the security of the Tehran Agreement that the occupation held put his Government in a difficult new position. On the one hand an ally in the region would help the US contain the Reich's potential routes of expansion, on the other to abandon the occupation could alienate the Persians who were vital to the humanitarian effort in the region and generally saw the occupation is a non-US matter - they did it before the US arrived on the scene and would continue to do so if the migration crisis continued. This wasn't that the Persians cared especially for the refugees from the north, more that they simply cared that they were all arriving in their country at once and they had no real capability of stopping or containing them, not without violence that would haunt their country on the world stage. The US therefore began to formulate a proposal to hand to the Turkmen Government offering them a place in the United Nations and official recognition by the US and it's allies as a legitimate Government if they were willing to permit the continued occupation of the road of bones in the western Turkmenistan Soviet Republic until January 1949. After which the US would recognise the territory as the sovereign territory of the Turkmen People's Republic on the condition that Turkestan would adopt responsibility for transporting any remaining refugees safely to Persia.

Syrian Social Nationalist forces rest during the second battle of Deir-ez-Zor
​

While the US continued to clean up Germany's mess in Central Asia, the French were continuing their offensive in Syria against the Syrian Social National Party. De Gaulle was determined to break the Syrian line at Deir-ez-Zor, but repeated attacks had failed to achieve a breakthrough. This originally was as a result of the 8.8cm guns the Germans had loaned to the SSNP that decimated French tank attacks in a manner they had not really seen even in the war in the west in 1939, however after repeated air attacks and artillery strikes these guns had now largely been neutralised. The main French problem now seemed to be that no matter how much artillery was levelled on the city the local fighters and SSNP forces seemed to simply dig in more. Most of the city sat south of the river Euphrates too which meant SSNP artillery was quite safely protected behind the river while their frontline forces held off waves of French attackers, each time inflicting massive damage from artillery strikes and machinegun fire in well positioned nests in the rubble on outskirts of the city. By the third week of April the French assault nationwide had effectively halted, with little ground having been achieved since the March advances, and significant resources piling into the seemingly vital battleground of Deir-ez-Zor. Of course De Gaulle had attempted to simply go around the Syrian held town, but in a failed bridging attempt at Madan, some 60km north-west, French forces again came under relentless artillery fire by long-range howitzers shortly after being spotted by Syrian cavalry scouts that patrolled the banks of the river. The SSNP it seemed were not letting the French across. Thankfully for De Gaulle his infantry finally managed to reach the banks of the Euphrates on April 25th in the centre of Deir-ez-Zor, only to unsurprisingly find the bridges destroyed. The next five days were almost as hellish as the battle for the city centre previous as Syrian forces posing as civilians launched terrorist attacks on French forces or ambushed them in the streets as they attempted to move engineer units and equipment forward to repair the bridges. De Gaulle famously issued the order to throw grenades in every room in some areas of the city on April 28th in a move that led to the deaths of a significant number of civilians, though the exact number has been censored by the French Government since, yet still the Syrian forces fought on in the city - often resorting to sniper attacks aimed at picking off officers.

Despite this slow and painful success in Deir-ez-Zor however De Gaulle's hawk-like focus on the conflict at the frontline had failed to account for the bigger picture in Syria, a picture that had been developing for months since the SSNP invasion and only became clear on April 30th 1947. For the Syrian people in most of the country this rebellion was more than some ideological group or German vassal state attempting to take over Syria - it was a liberation movement aimed at making Syria a free state for the first time in centuries, if ever. This carried a significant amount of emotional backing, and the protests against the French that had been held for years now, only to be repressed by the new French Union Nationale administration, now changed their tack. Now the protests were no longer against the French, but for the SSNP. This was a significant change in the eyes of British military planners, even if it didn't seem to phase French military planners who were observing the conflict from a conventional perspective. It did however alarm the French when on April 30th the French garrison in the town of Soueida, south of Damascus, were brutally attacked by mobs of often armed Syrian civilians who stormed the local garrison and forced the french out of the city. This was not an army 'liberating' a town, but a local population liberating themselves - and that created the potential for a nation wide riot against the French. Something that the French would struggle to control if too many civilian centres rallied behind the SSNP and the independence movement.

 

[Vuu]

Is "Ukraine" even majority Ukrainian at this point? In Green Ukraine Ukrainians were a plurality at best

 

[skarosianlifeform]

The French have clearly lost the battle of Syria, politically if not militarily (yet). Even if they somehow beat the SSNP they'll get guerilla, strikes, boycott... from the locals, making the colony a net drain.

On the other hand they could negotiate with the SSNP : abandon German alliance, let France have air and sea bases, in return for independence.

 

[TheReformer]

Is "Ukraine" even majority Ukrainian at this point? In Green Ukraine Ukrainians were a plurality at best

The majority of surviving ethnic Ukrainians from the west have been, I guess exported, to the country. That's around five million people. While they of course were not majority before, they definitely are now. Their major problem ATM like that of Russia is that they don't really have enough houses and urban areas to accommodate them which will be solved by the new govt.


Also while I'm here, I've had a lot of coursework these last few weeks so you'll get an update most likely Wednesday/Thursday. Glad to see people are still enjoying!

 

[sarahz]

There is absolutely nothing in the history of the Reich, or in the history of its mortal enemy, the Soviet Union (which was never quite at the evil level of the Reich, mainly because Stalin was a paranoid sociopath while his successors were just routine brutal kleptocrats), that indicates that the Reich would ever mellow. It might well stop killing million of Slavs, Jews, Roma, Gays, and whatever other hated minority was being wiped out, but that would simply be due to running out of victims.

If anything the Reich would follow the general arc of the USSR, clinging to a discredited political ideology as the country gradually imploded thanks to gross mismanagement and lack of potential new conquests to suck dry.

Whilst the USSR did do that I don't think it was because Gorbachev was an evil man for example or a brutal kleptocrat, perhaps naïve but certainly not evil.

 

[sarahz]

Yeah, because a failed painter becoming the dictator of a neighborly nation, attempting world domination and genocide and even having a shot at succeeding is much more credible instead.

If that never happened IRL and someone written it as AH it would be seen as "almost ASB" by plenty of people. But since someone did it before, set the formula so to speak, now it is a more realistic scenario.

You may think the Reach becoming less hard-lineiin future generation (I also don't believe in the "sin of the father" bs) to be impossible, I'm instead of the opinion that nothing is impossible. Life is strange already, and stranger things happened than that.

It is just an opinion, take it as you wish. I've not said what is the most *likely* path, but what I would consider what would be the most *interesting*, because no one ever does.

People always write for the path that is *logical*, ignoring that life hardly ever is.

but Turtledove did (although it was a very thinly veiled rewrite of the events in Russia)