Well, in this TL, who would have the chance to join NATO ( if it would ever form, under a name or another)?
Red Spies in the White House: An Alternate Cold War
- Thread starter Ulysses Orbis
- Start date
A lot of doubt on that.
The Cold War didn't exactly end because Gorbachev's empire was underextended. The enormous damage of the war is the same. This does nothing I can see to avert Solidarity, or Chernobyl, or the Sino-Soviet split, or any of the other structural issues that caused the collapse. What I see is a minor potential economic boon from Mediterranean access.
I mean, on the positive end. I also see a scarier Russia that will better unify its near-neighbors, and a Russia with more imperial expenses and overstretch.
You have it a bit backwards. Let's not conflate my point with its opposite - I didn't say or imply "must." I offered pushback on the fallacy that additional victories by Stalin automatically translate to extra decades before Soviet collapse. That's not how anything works. The collapse was not inevitable or on some adjustable timer. The collapse had factors pushing it, and factors mitigating against. Most push factors remain ITTL.
All its neighbors, obviously. More communist countries Moscow can't occupy are just more Tito's and Mao's at best a couple decades later. More communist countries Moscow can occupy mostly mean more overstretch, expenses, and potential embarrassments (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland). Friendships in the 3rd world are almost exclusively expenses if not problematic obligations.
The mistake here is a common one, imagining the Soviet collapse as a matter of American agency and prior US successes. Mostly, it happened because they were brutalized in WWII, had severe internal issues, and were unwanted occupiers. (And Yeltsin.) The US can lose and turn inward and the Soviets can still collapse in the '80s or '00s when they give up on suppressing German *solidarity, handing Cold War 'victory' to the anti-Russian alliance founded by China, Yugoslavia, and France... who all practice mixed "socialist" systems.
I will add my opinion is that the OTL collapse is probably one of the more dramatic possibilities, and in my opinion most soviet collapse scenarios in most timelines would see less breakup. The Baltics and Caucasus were almost certain to go for it if they sensed enough weakness, but Turkmen and Belarusian independence could easily be avoided in other timelines. The only area of loss I see as a matter of when is the Warsaw Pact; eventually nations will pursue their interests and eventually Russia won't quash them.
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The problem is the USA has no strong capitalist-democratic alies. Japan and Germany are fucked, Europe is turning pink and everything else is still developing.
Hopefully a fully backed by the USA middle east can get out of their rut.
Poor Israel though.
The mass movement was sparked by the severe economic crisis coupled with the conservative society. Well, you can mitigate the first one but some sort of political reform will be necessary to keep the PUWP in power.
Near-ASB event as reactors usually does not explode. Chornobyl was a result of a massive clusterfuck where there were numerous technical issues and an inexperienced crew. Any TL with a scenario similar to Chornobyl should be deemed as slightly more possible than the Sealion operation.
Averted? Probably no. However, it can be delayed if there is no rapid destalinization or Mao dies earlier. His successor would possess too little of the power base and would be more reliant on foreign aid.
Hungary did happen only because Nagy was appointed as the Prime Minister during the New Course policies of Georgy Malenkov. Then he was removed by Rakosi when Malenkov lost his power because Nagy was a Moscow man in Hungary. 1955-1956 was a time of recession in the East Bloc that also can be averted (No Tito TL or simply delayed arms race). Keep in mind that the Soviets intervened only after Nagy announced withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. Poland of 1956 wasn't as much an embarrassment as the Soviets accepted the transfer of power from Stalinists to moderates. In a more secure Soviet Union scenario, Czechoslovakia would probably go a similar way (especially if Germans are starved and more susceptible to the Soviet propaganda or generally anti-Western).
Don't get lost in the weeds. You can't save Native Americans by eliminating a half dozen key names who lead massacres, because massacres were normative. Precise causative factors will obviously be different in many cases, but that's also true for all the problems they could have had IOTL but were lucky enough to miss out on.
The mass movement, or even the Polish party, is not the issue. There will be mass movements somewhere; Soviet puppets will be threatened at some point. As you said, economic issues will occur, if not OTL's.
Just as in OTL. It's no more or less likely, and while other problems will likely not have the incredible costs and risks, there are many other things that will take its place. Much less severe nuclear disaster, for example.
All that can happen. Sure. Doesn't conflict with my point. Could make anti-Moscow relationships somewhat earlier as well.
Shuffle the deck and some issues can be avoided, but others will arise instead. More satellites, more potential for problems keeping them on side. Forced to invade Yugoslavia, perhaps. Romanian or German problems we never saw afflict the USSR. Who knows?
The mass movement, or even the Polish party, is not the issue. There will be mass movements somewhere; Soviet puppets will be threatened at some point. As you said, economic issues will occur, if not OTL's.
Just as in OTL. It's no more or less likely, and while other problems will likely not have the incredible costs and risks, there are many other things that will take its place. Much less severe nuclear disaster, for example.
All that can happen. Sure. Doesn't conflict with my point. Could make anti-Moscow relationships somewhat earlier as well.
Shuffle the deck and some issues can be avoided, but others will arise instead. More satellites, more potential for problems keeping them on side. Forced to invade Yugoslavia, perhaps. Romanian or German problems we never saw afflict the USSR. Who knows?
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Chernobyl can be avoided by simply building a better-designed reactor. The Sino-Soviet split can be mitigated and turned in the USSR's favor when the USA refuses to trade or do large scale business at all with anyone to the right of Franco and Pinochet. Without the massive western investment in the Chinese and Asian market (and continued Japanese-Chinese rivalry, and not just economic rivalry either), the USSR doesn't have anything to worry about from a China who won't experience anywhere near the explosive growth they did OTL.
Structural issues can be mitigated and even reduced by different policies. If Stalinism doesn't get swept under the rug as quickly, or even continues further into the Cold War, it may be better for the USSR as it's puppets and allies become territorial buffers and resource producing client states rather than valued parters. It doesn't really need Hungary or Czechoslovakia to be coherent government entities anymore, just that their industry and resources are stripped out and taken to the USSR. The one exception I can see is Italy, who will be able to retain some independence because of it's distance from the USSR geographically and culturally (Eastern and Mediterranean Europe is very different), and it's maritime and mechanical industry would be extremely valuable intact.
Wartime demographic damage is a harder nut to crack, but it can be fixed with careful strategy and population control. I could see a Stalinist USSR under Kaganovich or Zhdanov with a much larger population than IOTL because of a much increased focus on repairing wartime casualties (perhaps in preparation for another huge war with another global power) and long-term cultural damage.
The problem with your reasoning is, while everything changes around the USSR and because of its actions, the USSR itself remains its OTL self.
Try to imagine the USSR in 1945-1950 with the economy booming, massive international trade, lots of joint ventures with American capital, propaganda blaring about friendship with USA, which is so progressive now, peoples' wildest dreams seemingly coming true. Why would anyone in Europe be hostile to such a miracle?
Try to imagine the USSR in 1945-1950 with the economy booming, massive international trade, lots of joint ventures with American capital, propaganda blaring about friendship with USA, which is so progressive now, peoples' wildest dreams seemingly coming true. Why would anyone in Europe be hostile to such a miracle?
Its still (for awhile) a Stalinist Russia, which means paranoia and distrust are part of every day life. Beria and the NKVD/KGB are still riding roughshod over the Russian population, and even worse on the occupied territories. Inefficiency, payoffs, and corruption rule the economy and everyday life. Having friendly, or at least non-belligerent, relations with America won’t change that. And maybe without the pressure to “keep up” with the west, these conditions could get even worst. A scorpion is still a scorpion no matter how deep the river is.
ric350
ric350
There was much less paranoia during the war, and there would be even less of it while White is an asset.
To "keep up" with the West, Stalin invented this horrendous autarchical model of economy, and as a consequence introduced near perfect self-isolation, draconian regulation of all contacts with foreign nationals (every such contact was legally a treason) and yes, paranoia.
That's like saying that our reliance on fossil fuels could be mitigated by building a sci-fi fusion plant.
It's a vast, vast oversimplification and not something actually possible.
Could a different design be built? Sure. You'd need a reason for a vastly different design to be built though and you'd need the ability to see the future to make an actually safe system.
The OTL Chernobyl's were designed the way they were based of 50s designs and deliberately designed for optimal generation over redundancy and was viewed to be a better design than everyone else had at the time because it while having some "minor" flaws as it was known at the time, used far less heavy water and required maintenance less often.
The sheer scale of the flaws was not actually known until after Chernobyl.
So they can't "simply build a better-designed reactor" because they viewed it as the better designed reactor at the time and until Chernobyl happens or one of the other of that type of reactor has a similar issue, it'll still be perceived as a better designed reactor.
Were not known until later but they had already discovered flaws in the design anyway. As long as they take the time to iron out some of the hastily brushed over kinks they will mitigate or reduce the disaster.
And of course, one of the primary reasons for the reactors meltdown was lack of maintenance and sheer incompetence by the reactor's staff.
The problem with trying to fix the "minor" flaws is that a lot of the worst flaws were deliberate design decisions or a result of deliberate design decisions. The lack of redundant systems and so on.
As for lack of maintenance and incompetence... That's not actually the case, at least to my knowledge?
Being fair, you might have access to more information than I do on that but I can find no evidence that Chernobyl wasn't maintained properly and the reason the staff were "incompetent" is that the test was repeatedly delayed until the night shift, the ones who were originally expected to just make sure the test was continuing as planned and keep things at the required level had to run the full test themselves on short notice which naturally led to mistakes.
Even then, we don't actually know why the worst "mistakes" of the Chernobyl disaster occurred because the only people involved didn't survive it and it's easy to judge them as a mistake with the benefit of hindsight.
I'm not saying that Chernobyl can't be avoided, I'm saying that it wouldn't be anywhere near simple to do so.
Also on another note did the Oder-Neisse borders still get established ITTL even with the Morgenthau Plan implemented? I know that the Oder-Neisse borders were not welcomed into the plan since it involved Poland taking much of East Germany's agricultural land so that North Germany can be purely pastoralist. The plan also involved North Germany keeping Pomerania along with Silesia but judging from Stalin's domination over Europe, I guess he still gets his way.
Conversely wouldn't also be fair to say that the new hand could also bring the USSR, some great unforeseen boon not seen otl? Also we are not remotely dealing with a fair game here, the deck is rigged and the USA has already thrown the first few hands: Africa and Eurasia are falling into the Soviet hands and the USA has not even realised it.
Also on a less rhetorical note, from what I heard the French and Italian communist parties were slavishly pro-Moscow/Stalin during this time period: that has got to count for something, right?
Meanwhile in Japan, from what I understand, the execution of the Emperor is simply the gravest of long line of insults towards the people off that country, in which the American occupation authorities managed to (separately) antagonize and persecute members of every single political faction in that country worth noting (and banned a good number of them to boot).
I give the Japanese republic 5 years tops, until it gets reformed back into the Japanese Empire, slides into civil war, or overthrown (by some group).
Not least as when the Communists and Socialists inevitably get themselves banned after President White falls, what happens to Japanese democracy? The Americans will have run rough shed and then banned every single major party other than the Liberals and the more obscure National Cooperative, and not even they are left alone. At that point there is no way any principled Japanese leader could countenance continuing serve under such circumstances (and then you are left with the unscrupulous).
Yes, the Americans could do a course correction, reinstate the monarchy and not go after the Socialists. But that would require them to be reasonable, in the midst of what is likely to the greatest nationalist hysteria since ... well, ever.
Yes, because they've never built another reactor design before learning RBMK failure in a hard way. Considering that they did, they had active nuclear program since the World War 2, it's by no means certain that exactly the same reactor design would be built ATL.
By 1970s, some of reactor flaws were recognized during the Leningrad power plant accident.
tonycat77
Banned
This wouldn't get their culture of nuclear safety changed however.
Some sort of large nuclear disaster would be inevitable.
Saying that a Chernobyl-like disaster is inevitable is cursed when you look at the absolute near ASB level of a clusterfuck that actually happened at Chernobyl in particular, yet against all odds it still managed to happen.
So many things can be changed with simple random POD's and different Soviet Leaders leading to different consequences for the USSR as a whole, having a POD where a Communist Spy happens to accidentally become the President of the United States America at a very significant point in the nations history will create a drastically different future and lead to endless possibilities and events, yet some of the OTL events in our history will be stubborn to get rid of.
One thing for sure is the Soviets not having as much Cold War paranoia as they did in OTL with the handicapped state that the USA is in will certainly benefit the future health of the interior in the Union and lead to lesser draconian measures of secrecy and more information sharing, this will further reduce the chance of a ATL Chernobyl-like disaster happening, especially if the information of what happened in a ATL Leningrad Nuclear Power plant was shared with the other nuclear plants.
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There's a decent chance that the US mounts a coup in France (or at least tries to) the government tried it in OTL