Plausibility Check: USSR Wins

Recently I was at work and my co-worker mentioned that he felt he was working in the USSR, aka: work quotos, no performace bonuses, no training, bizzare company loyalty chants at the start of shifts, pictures of our CEO everywhere, etc.

I got to thinking could the USSR and International Communism have gone the distance and overcome the capatalist dogs in the West? Without ASB or ISOT did the USSR ever stand a chance or was that chance lost when International Trotskyism Died?
 
Define Win

Last longer, certainly. Dominate continental Europe and maybe the far east sure. Convince the US to mind it's own business in the Western hemisphere, possible

Actually make the US collapse/turn communist, no real plausible way
 
This is a difficult question that depends on whether or not you believe planned economies can work, which, honestly, is not a question that will be settled here. I'd suggest an easier approach than trying to make the USSR win is to make the US lose. Ramp up racial strife in the US in the 60s. Replace Vietnam with a quagmire even worse. Have a limited nuclear war break out in the Mideast. Cripple the West so thoroughly that even the corrupt stagnation of Brehznev looks preferable. Otherwise you're getting into the sort of philosophical arguments that are not going to be solved in a thread on an alternate history fourm.
 
Well, if you can keep the USSR going and have the US suffer from and handle worse an economic crash like that of OTL 2008, they certainly will win "we told you so" rights...:)

Bruce
 
The problem with "USSR: Victors of the Cold War" is that you can never get people to agree on what the hell "winning" actually entails. You get the people who think that socialism in Russia was doomed from the October Revolution because Communism can never work U-S-A! U-S-A! arguing with the people who think that the Soviet system could be saved as late as a convenient death of Brezhnev before the mid-70s, and really everything in between, and that's just the arguments on if the USSR worked, never mind if it could have won.

Personally, I think it could have happened, but you'd have to look at a much different world outside of just the USSR. If the USSR never gets into totalitarianism, and some troika member decides to institute some form of "soviet democracy" while the USA slips into autocracy after, I dunno, a worse Civil Rights debacle, a few quagmires, and a steadily failing economy as the 20th century wears on, Soviet socialism's going to look a whole lot nicer to the West as well as the rest of the Americas, and the USA becomes more like a friend who's just starting to worry you these days by getting more and more unhinged. One "American Spring" later, and ta-da! Some sort of Soviet victory. A little silly, and certainly needs fleshing out, but it's a win for the USSR.
 
Total dominance is impossible, but Communism could have overrun most of the industrialized world, as it was essentially a 19th to 20th century religious movement. Ideas, regardless of their lack of merit, can gain major traction and acceptance. Peoples' religious loyalty to Marxism means it had a chance, simply because it captured peoples' minds.

Remember, a handful a Marxists overthrew the whole country of Russia. A handful of apostles turned Christianity in history's most dominant religion. Epicurus' and Aristotle's materialist philosophy, which for most of history was ignored by idealists or adapted to a largely idealist worldview, is today the dominant worldview everywhere.

To me, materialism is totally bunk, but all of our scientific understandings take it for granted. So, could Marxism take over much of the world? Sure, but it depends if the right zealots get into power in different places, take over culture and etcetera. You would needs tons of PODs (i.e. no Hitler, etc.)
 
A lot of good comments. I agree that the term'winning' is subjective. Even the vistory of the West and USA over the USSR in the OTL does not look like winning in some ways. I mean the West won but we dotn physically control Russia or China or anything.

To me a victory of the USSR would be a world that is mainly Communist and where a few Capatalist holdouts exist in the US/Canada, Australia and a few other places.

IMHO best peak for the USSR would be to somehow moderate Stalin with victories in Spain and overall USSR dominance in Europe and Asia. Then continued revolution in Latin America.

Some kind of extreme move to isolationism in the US in the 1940's and 1950's might severly mess up what was left of the West's chances. A turn toward the darker side of America populism would create strife and perhaps low grade insurgency out of the Civil Rights movement. An arrogant US, isolationst and backward could get left behind amidst the overall progress of the World.

If the US is somehow kept out of WWII all this might happen. But then again if the us is not in WWII I can't see UK/USSR overpowering Germany.
 
Recently I was at work and my co-worker mentioned that he felt he was working in the USSR, aka: work quotos, no performace bonuses, no training, bizzare company loyalty chants at the start of shifts, pictures of our CEO everywhere, etc.

I got to thinking could the USSR and International Communism have gone the distance and overcome the capatalist dogs in the West? Without ASB or ISOT did the USSR ever stand a chance or was that chance lost when International Trotskyism Died?



Sure.

The USSR did fine for a long time. There are a ton of potential PODs that could have greatly strengthened the East or weakened the West, to the point that the USSR would be in the dominate position.

There is a list of nations that might have gone Red, Greece, Italy, Iran, ect. that would have made any Balance of Power judgments much more unpleasant.

The US could have bungled economic or social policy.

What if stagflation never ended? What if we rushed and bungled Puerto Rico Statehood and ended up with a semi-serious terror issue?

What if Nixon invaded CUba and it turned into ANOTHER Vietnam?

What if Ford was president and supported the Shah and ended up with ANOTHER Vietnam, and a WoT in the 70s WITH the Cold War still going on.

ect. ect.ect.
 
Rather than create a brand new wall of text regarding this subject matter, I'll quote myself from an earlier thread (two days ago) discussing Soviet survival (w/ a 1967 POD involving Che Guevara's assassination failing):

One major problem with a POD this late is that there are already several fronts on which the Soviet Bloc was falling behind in this time period.

Take China, for instance. By this point in the 1960's, the Sino-Soviet Split had resulted in yet further sectarianism amongst the Revolutionary Left, and any rapprochement was made highly improbable thanks to the Cultural Revolution. Ultimately, Nixon's visit to China, followed by Deng Xiaoping's re-integration of the country into the capitalist world as a sweatshop platform, gave capitalism a massive counterwieght to the Soviets on the Eurasian mainland. Even if the PRC somehow manages to get out of the Cultural Revolution earlier, the Mao-led hatred of Soviet "Revisionists" is unlikely to die out quickly enough for a new friendship between the two nations to emerge. Nonetheless, if China somehow avoids falling into the capitalist camp, that'll deprive Western industries of a major place to outsource their manufacturing.

Within the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact nations, there needs to be plenty of divergence from OTL on several fronts. Butterflying away the Prague Spring, or somehow preventing the Soviet leadership from sending in the tanks, will do wonders for the Soviets' reputation vis a viś Eastern Europe (as well as the Western part). In the Kremlin itself, it's absolutely necessary to reshuffle the make-up of the Politburo, starting first and foremost with getting Brezhnev into an early retirement. IMO Alexei Kosygin would make for a good successor to a disgraced (or deceased, if an assassiation is what removes him) Brezhnev, or perhaps a less hawk-minded Yuri Andropov (by this I point out that Andropov was one of the chief proponents of crushing the Prague Spring).

Still, whichever leadership emerges in Moscow, it'll have to have ambitions both abroad as well as at home. Besides greater support for Revolutionaries in the Global South, the Soviet economy will have to get re-energized during this time period. Greater investment should be directed towards the Central Asian republics, to exploit their oil and natural gas reserves as well as provide better infrastructure. In the planning realm, getting a technological/information revolution going is definitely a must. Programs directing state enterprises to standardize and integrate their computing material can pave the way for a nationwide computer network (which can also extend to the other Soviet allied states) that'll allow for more effective communication amongst planners. In time, such a network - a "Communet" if you will - can also become more readily available to everyday Soviet and Warsaw Pact workers, provided that other areas are further improved upon.*

--Areas such as gaining more and more allies beyond the Iron Curtain, in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, even Western Europe and Latin America. For East Asia: assuming that the POD is 1967 - yes, by this point Indonesia is almost certainly a lost cause for the time being, as their Communist party (before 1965, the third largest) was decimated by Suharto. Outside of Indochina, I guess the Soviet Bloc can redirect their efforts toward supporting anti-Marcos rebels in the Phillipines and possibly making inroads to the other mainland Southeast Asian countries such as Burma. Also, if pro-Soviet North Korean officials somehow overthrow Kim Il-Sung (I guess while the Dear Leader is on a visit to Moscow), the DPRK together with Vietnam can take a more proactive role in supporting revolutionaries throughout the region (much like Cuba). As for China, see my first paragraph.

South Asia is probably the easiest place for the Soviet Bloc to spread its influence. IOTL, India had pretty good relations w/ the Soviet Union, culminating under Indira Gandhi's administration. If the local communist parties somehow manage to overcome their own factionalism (and if the Naxalite rebellion is somehow resolved early on), and manage to drag India's political culture further leftward, it might be possible for India to even become an observer state of COMECON.

In the Middle East, the best places for Pro-Soviet forces to emerge besides South Yemen are Syria and Iraq, though for both cases the Husseins and Al-Assads preferably shouldn't be involved. Iran might be an opportunity if the Soviets are willing to potentially pull another Cuba in terms of ratcheting up tensions w/ the West. But for the Tudeh Party to gain more traction and not be seen as merely a replacement of American-backed stooges for Soviet-backed pawns? That'll be quite an undertaking. But if that major gamble succeeds, the West will have to double down on its support for the Saudis and the other Gulf Monarchies, which BTW will be constantly paranoid about their oppressed Shi'ite minorities (esp. Bahrain).

For greater Soviet Bloc success in Africa, prevent Mengistu from taking power in post-Imperial Ethiopia. Soviet goodwill toward the continent was severely tarnished by the legacy of famine, civil war and terror under the Derg regime. Better for there to be focus on helping comrades in Angola and Mozambique fight against the Apartheid regime, as well as economic aid which provides a viable alternative to the World Bank/IMF's structural adjustments.

Western Europe has a few opportunities for Soviet advancement, albeit ones that'll surely ratchet up tensions. Portugal and Greece are the most likely candidates (as depicted in Drew's Fear, Loathing, and Gumbo), but another place for revolution to come about is possibly France in May 1968. Assuming that the General Strike goes unresolved and escalates into a genuine threat to the French state, there's a plethora of possible outcomes which I'll not get into detail about.

And finally, the New World. Honestly, even with a POD that has Che Guevara inheriting Fidel's luck at avoiding assassination, I don't see much opportunity for Soviet influence to spread here (at least during the 70's and '80's) beyond Cuba and Central America. I'd guess that in a Soviet Survival scenario (where the Warsaw Pact is alive and well going into the 90's), Chavez might emerge as an ally should he manage to come to power, but butterflies from the POD might lead to him (and his fellow travelers in the Venezuelan military) on to different paths. And he need not be a dictator either, because by this point (the 1990's/2000's) I'd imagine that the hypthetically more successful Soviet bloc will have loosened its ideological rigidity in accepting more and more allies.

-BTW, if this post comes across as incoherent in any way, it's because I typed it up on my mobile (took about 2 hours to type up at my rate.

*the man to lead this task would be Viktor Glushkov, the main proponent of Integrating computer networks into economic planning. Further details are mentioned in the essay InterNyet.

-Will come back later with additional discussion points, but this post should be sufficient for now.
 
The cold war was in a large part about agitation and propaganda. The best way to win is, if you can bring the populace of the other bloc on your side, and on the side of your ideology.

Leftist and even communist presence in the west was very strong in OTL (think of France, Italy, the protests of 68, etc.), though not all of these were pro-soviet. This fact could be changed, and even if not, if they succeeded in their revolutions, these new states could easily fall into the soviet orbit through pollitical reality, propaganda and aid.

So the leftist and communist movements in the west become more pro-soviet (pollitically and ideologically), the pro-soviet parts are more successfull in their agitation, or the left becomes more ready for an actual revolution and falls into the Soviet sphere afterwards.

This could happen at any point, from the 40s to the 80s and even past that, if the cold war goes on. I think this would be the broad standart scenario for such a case.

Alternatively there are many other specific scenarios of how this could play out. The soviets liberate all of europe in WW2 ; The US isolates after the war and europe becomes socialist ; A WW3 scenario ; Catastrophe in the US ; and so on and so forth.
 
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So crafting a few scenarios on my ideas above, how abou these:

1. The economic crisis of 1966/1967 sparks a massive leftist and communist movement in the west, just like in OTL. However, in this TL, the idiotic idea that the soviets have somehow 'betrayed' socialism nevet comes up. Think about how dumb and unlikely this was OTL. Communists, people who believed in Marx and Lenin, demarcate themselves from the socialist states of the time, because they criticize things (like the large state apparatus, the kind of soviet person elections, and the enforcement of democratic centralism) they would have done in the exact same way if they came to power. So in this ATL, there are only one type of communists, and communist party membership and electoral successes skyrocket in the west. With no divide in the movement the capitalist governments react badly, cracking down hard and eventually sparking communist revolutions.

2. The USA shows weaknes in international pollitics, so when the protests of 68 take place, there is more of a revolutionary sentiment and the violent uprisings really happen all over the west (more or less bloody). In the end the newly established socialist nation of western europe and north america find themselves doing vary similiar pollicies to that of the USSR (planned economy woth large state apparatus, person elections, democratic centralism, etc.). So as pollitical reality debunks the claims of 'betrayal' by the USSR, and with a lot of cultural and ideological exchange taking place with the soviets, the western nations slowly adopt more and more soviet-style pollicies, till their pollitical system equals that of Poland or Czechoslovakia. Soviet successes in the third world would also take place as capitalism in the first world dies.

3. The military buildups and provications of the Reagan era are more in number and more dangerous than in OTL. The world is on the brink of nuclear war at many points in the 80s. Paranoia and hate towards its leadership grows in the west and solidarity with the eastern bloc grows, as they sre the victims of provocation. In the end the risk of war causes many people to support leftist and communist groups and parties, which eventually overthrow capitalism and form popular front governments.
 
I'd suggest an easier approach than trying to make the USSR win is to make the US lose. Ramp up racial strife in the US in the 60s.

How? Secretly fund black extremists or the KKK?


Replace Vietnam with a quagmire even worse. Have a limited nuclear war break out in the Mideast.

Unfortunately, from a Soviet perspective, a nuclear war in the Mideast would've been a one-sided slaughter wrecking Soviet clients there. Israel had and retains, a regional n-monopoly. And you don't have to go that far anyway. Just rearm the arabs after the '73 war and encourage them to try again. Discourage Iraq from attacking Iran in 1980 and have them ready to back up Syria, should Egypt stay out of the next round. Regardless of the outcome on the battlefield, US backing for Israel could've led to another oil embargo, and, if memory serves, the US was exceedingly vulnerable to that around the late '70s or so.


Cripple the West so thoroughly that even the corrupt stagnation of Brehznev looks preferable.

Might've been possible. Still to win, it wouldn't have been enough to throw a monkey wrench into the western system. The Soviets would've been well advised to reform their system. They should've tried the same approach as China--let a capitalist economic system coexist with an authoritarian political one.
 
Recently I was at work and my co-worker mentioned that he felt he was working in the USSR, aka: work quotos, no performace bonuses, no training, bizzare company loyalty chants at the start of shifts, pictures of our CEO everywhere, etc.
Totally agree with your co-worker on this. If Stakhanov was alive and working today, he would be a hero to many.
 
A good starting point would be WW2. Germany doesn't run right over France, and the war starts grinding into a quagmire. The USSR continues building up and exerting its influence on first the land allotted to it by the Molotov Ribbentrop pact, and then the Balkans while everybody else is busy bashing into each other in France. Then at some point in 1942-44 they launch a general invasion and overrun a exhausted Germany, and continue into a shattered France. Most of Europe is turned into socialist republics or thoroughly finlandized, barring Britain behind the Channel.

In Asia Japan likely gets into a fight with the USA at some point. While the USA supports free Europe with land lease, it doesn't get involved against the Nazi and is too late to help before the Soviets overrun France. So it focuses on Japan. The USSR can take more of Japan's empire, such as all of Korea. China goes communist like OTL, but the USSR can exert more sway.

That puts a enormous amount of industry, resources and population under their control, instead of being arrayed against them. They have far fewer land frontiers to be ready at all times to invade through, and thus put more effort into foreign policy, the navy and economic development. Most of the Core USSR isn't devastated by the German armies. And a great deal of the world has been decapitated, due to the USSR sitting on the European colonisers. So they can start exporting the revolution right away, and the US and UK have to sit on a dozen hot spots to stop them getting overrun by Communists. They will have less issues with agriculture, which was a major issue OTL.
 
A good starting point would be WW2. Germany doesn't run right over France, and the war starts grinding into a quagmire. The USSR continues building up and exerting its influence on first the land allotted to it by the Molotov Ribbentrop pact, and then the Balkans while everybody else is busy bashing into each other in France. Then at some point in 1942-44 they launch a general invasion and overrun a exhausted Germany, and continue into a shattered France. Most of Europe is turned into socialist republics or thoroughly finlandized, barring Britain behind the Channel.

In Asia Japan likely gets into a fight with the USA at some point. While the USA supports free Europe with land lease, it doesn't get involved against the Nazi and is too late to help before the Soviets overrun France. So it focuses on Japan. The USSR can take more of Japan's empire, such as all of Korea. China goes communist like OTL, but the USSR can exert more sway.

That puts a enormous amount of industry, resources and population under their control, instead of being arrayed against them. They have far fewer land frontiers to be ready at all times to invade through, and thus put more effort into foreign policy, the navy and economic development. Most of the Core USSR isn't devastated by the German armies. And a great deal of the world has been decapitated, due to the USSR sitting on the European colonisers. So they can start exporting the revolution right away, and the US and UK have to sit on a dozen hot spots to stop them getting overrun by Communists. They will have less issues with agriculture, which was a major issue OTL.

Problem is Noone wanted communism by 1940s.. At least Soviet led.

Why trade the asshole and system you know for an import?

.
That you know is brutal and more f-ed up than what they know
 
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