The Anglo-Saxon Social Model

French History, 1944 - 1963
A Certain Idea of France: The French Empire under the Fourth Republic
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Le grand Charles: the last-known photograph of Charles de Gaulle, taken shortly before his assassination in November 1946


The French surrender in 1940 and the subsequent ‘Vichy’ regime lead by Philippe Petain brought the curtain down on the Third Republic, a regime which, while it was the longest-lasting constitution since the fall of the ancien regime, had never commanded unqualified support nor quelled the doubts of many elements of society, both reactionary and revolutionary, about the viability of democracy as a governing system. Charles de Gaulle had been the leading figure of the Free French forces during the War and was widely expected to take a senior position in the government of the new Fourth Republic. As head of the provisional government set up in 1944, de Gaulle had declared war on the Axis and chaired the subsequent constitutional convention.

The convention produced a constitution with a unicameral legislative assembly elected every four years. Presidents were elected via an electoral college to a maximum of two five-year terms, on a joint ticket with a Vice President whose main job was to chair the council of ministers. Despite his domineering presence at the convention, de Gaulle was not wholly satisfied with its results - in particular he was dissatisfied that the presidency would not be subject to direct elections - and he was initially minded to withdraw from public life. However, he was prevailed upon by his allies to stand for the presidency, for which he was generally regarded as a shoe-in, on the assumption that he could make whatever amendments he regarded as necessary down the line.

However, whatever dreams de Gaulle may have had for the future would come to nothing. In November 1946, only eleven months after he won the first presidential election, he was assassinated in Paris by the right wing activist Paul Touvier. Into the vacuum, the Vice President Georges Bonnet ascended to the presidency. Bonnet’s presidency would be troubled and dominated by the question of the future of France’s colonial empire. Bonnet was unwilling to make concessions to nationalist leaders, an attitude which had begun a war in Indochina in December 1946 and which was causing trouble to brew in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. His equivocation on the issue, combined with the continued failure of French forces to control the growing insurgency in Indochina and the victory by Pierre Mendes France’s Radical Party in the 1948 elections, resulted in his attempted impeachment in 1949. Although the vote failed, Bonnet was left as a lame duck and did not stand for re-election in 1950.

This vote was won by Philippe Leclerc, a hero of the World War who had urged reconciliation between imperial and nationalist forces in Indochina during his tenure in command there (1944-46). In March 1951, a tentative agreement was reached between Leclerc and the two senior Vietnamese leaders: Emperor Bao Dai and the communist leader Ho Chi Minh. While the Emperor and Ho had no love for one another, the Emperor had earned the revolutionary’s respect owing to his activity in the anti-Chinese resistance during the war. Furthermore, while Ho was no fan of French power, he saw it as being in long-term decline and feared it less than the Chinese or the Japanese. Under the terms of the Leclerc-Ho-Bao Agreement, French Indochina would be disestablished and divided into the kingdoms of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (the last of whom would have Ho as its prime minister) and the Republic of Cochinchina (the region around Saigon and the Mekong Delta that was dominated by white French merchants and plantation owners). They would all be independent members of the French Union.

Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia would agree to join in this putative union in 1954 but the organisation would not take its full form, with a bureaucracy and decision-making forum, until 1958, with the accession of Guinea, Senegal, West Africa and Equatorial Africa. However, hopes that the FU would emulate the example of the Commonwealth seemed fanciful almost immediately: in the first place, only residents of certain communes of Senegal (since 1879) had been French citizens prior to 1958; secondly, none of the French colonies (including Senegal) had undergone the process of building up civil society institutions or a Francophilic elite that would make the transition easier. As Harold Nicolson (who, as Lord Nicolson, was not above a bit of continuing freelance diplomatic work) rather dismissively noted in his diary after leaving a Commonwealth-FU conference in 1959, “the French simply haven’t put the work in.”

The first elections to the FU assembly took place in 1958 and the campaigning season was marred by violence and disruption and, on polling day, rioting broke out across a number of colonies. Allegations of voter intimidation were rife, both in the former colonies and in Metropolitan France. During his final years in the Elysse, Leclerc worked to try and ensure that there were free and fair elections along the lines of universal suffrage that was (theoretically) guaranteed, as well as making big gestures towards including black and Muslim members of the FU assembly in its decision making process.

But the reality was that a large minority of his party (the Union of Democrats (“UD”) founded by de Gaulle) were not with him on this, instead favouring the pieds-noirs (where they were a relevant minority) and/or French business interests at the expense of native Africans, Muslims or Indochinese. The pieds-noirs in north Africa caused a particular problem, working to try and minimise Arab turnout through a mixture of violence and bureaucratic maneuvering. A veneer of free and fair elections open to all had been maintained only by the heavy presence of French and Foreign Legion soldiers and it was clear that this would have to be the case for the foreseeable future. Even notwithstanding this, a great deal of communal violence still occurred and it was particularly bad in Oran and Algiers, where 133 Muslims and 56 pieds-noirs were killed in political violence over the course of 1958-59. In an attempt to evolve the empire into something more just, Leclerc looked to have accidentally increased French military commitments to its colonies.

Leclerc’s relatively progressive attitude towards France’s former colonial subjects, as well as his willingness to use French troops to enforce voting rights for non-whites in the FU, caused a backlash amongst conservative-minded opinion in metropolitan France itself. Many thus deserted the DU and found their voice in the Union of Independent Republicans, a party led by a mix of social conservatives and, some pointed out, those who had collaborated with the German occupation. A particular source of outrage for many was the decision to make Algeria a member of the FU separate from France itself.

By the mid-1950s, therefore, France had developed for itself an almost unique party-political structure. Rather than two competing parties of the centre-left and centre-right with assorted smaller parties milling around, as was the case in most western European countries, France instead developed a tripartite party division. The DU became a mainly rural party advocating a small but protective state, mixed in with a support for the FU and anti-socialism. The Independent Republicans (who shortened their name to simply the Republicans in 1960) also took a right wing perspective but their political base was drawn mainly from the business class and those who felt strongly about French grandeur and the empire. Many of their supporters were also unreconstructed white supremacists and anti-democrats, although these messages were often kept quiet. The French Communist Party had been discredited after the failure of a minor Soviet-backed coup in 1947, leaving the Radical Party as the supposed voice of the French left. But it did so in a unique way. The easiest way to describe its political position is somewhere around the left wing of the Liberal Party and the right wing of the Labour Party in the UK. Representing a belief in a protective and proactive state, the party drew much of its support from the urban working classes and the trades union movement. However, it was never the only party advocating for state direction or intervention (both the DU and the Republicans did so to differing degrees) which stopped it holding this territory to itself and becoming the kind of fully social democratic party seen in the Commonwealth or the United States.

Well funded and with close ties to the business community and the military, the Independent Republicans became the largest party in the assembly in 1956, forming a minority coalition under General Raoul Salan. In the elections of November 1960, they went one better and managed to form a majority government. This posed huge questions for the presidential elections only a month later. The Republican candidate, Said Boualam, failed to fully capitalise on the breakthrough of his party in the legislative elections (partly because of the anti-democratic sentiment he espoused repeatedly on the campaign trail) but was still left with enough electoral college delegates to block either the Radical candidate Felix Gaillard or the DU candidate George Pompidou from receiving the necessary 50%+1 to win the presidency. In negotiations between Salan and the DU, Salan agreed that Republican votes would go to the DU on three conditions: that a pieds-noir exclave be carved out of independent Algeria and governed as an autonomous part of metropolitan France; that French troops be withdrawn from monitoring the next FU elections in 1962; and that the constitution be amended to grant greater budget-setting authority to the legislature. Pompidou agreed to the terms and, with the votes of the Independent Republicans, he won the presidency on the next ballot of the electoral college.

The partition of Algeria (without consultation with the Algerian government, of course) took place on 3 May 1961, with the city of Oran and the area around it returning to French control as the Department of the Maghreb. The partition, appearing as it did with little to no foreknowledge, immediately initiated a widespread refugee crisis as pieds-noirs and Francophile Muslims (often former or present harkis) sought to enter the Maghreb and many Muslims sought to flee to independent Algeria. In the resulting civil violence, the numbers of killed and missing has been estimated from anywhere between 5,000 to 30,000. With all sides overwhelmed, in July the government of Algeria and France together forcibly shut the border and banned movement of peoples between Algeria and the Maghreb.

Over the next few years, the Republicans began to work with various political factions around the FU to draw together an alliance of co-opted colonial elites and French business interests which triumphed in the 1962 FU elections. With France no longer going to send troops to enforce elections, these various colonies all began systematic voter suppression exercises designed to entrench their own power. In November 1963, Ho was turfed out of power in Vietnam following elections marred by widespread vote-rigging. Responding to this, Ho retreated to the countryside where he declared Vietnam’s secession from the FU as a republic and began a guerilla campaign against royal forces.

Presidents of the Fourth Republic
  1. Charles de Gaulle; Union of Democrats; December 1945 - November 1946
  2. Georges Bonnet; Union of Democrats; November 1946 - December 1950
  3. Philippe Leclerc; Union of Democrats; December 1950 - December 1960
  4. Georges Pompidou; Union of Democrats; December 1960 - present

Premiers of the Fourth Republic
  1. Charles de Gaulle; Union of Democrats; August 1944 - December 1945
  2. Robert Schuman; Union of Democrats; December 1945 - November 1948
  3. Pierre Mendes France; Radical Party; November 1948 - November 1952
  4. Robert Schuman; Union of Democrats; November 1952 - November 1956
  5. Raoul Salan; Union of Independent Republicans; November 1956 - April 1962
  6. Maurice Faure; Radical Party; April 1962 - November 1964
  7. Edmond Jouhaud; Republicans; November 1964 - present
 
What is happening in Finland?

Mostly the same as OTL domestically but with a couple of international changes. Widespread emigration to Sweden has led to close cooperation between the two countries. Finland is thus a founder member (along with Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland) of the Nordic Cooperation Council in 1953 and the Nordic Economic Community in 1961.
 
By the mid-1950s, therefore, France had developed for itself an almost unique party-political structure. Rather than two competing parties of the centre-left and centre-right with assorted smaller parties milling around, as was the case in most western European countries, France instead developed a tripartite party division. The DU became a mainly rural party advocating a small but protective state, mixed in with a support for the FU and anti-socialism. The Independent Republicans (who shortened their name to simply the Republicans in 1960) also took a right wing perspective but their political base was drawn mainly from the business class and those who felt strongly about French grandeur and the empire. Many of their supporters were also unreconstructed white supremacists and anti-democrats, although these messages were often kept quiet. The French Communist Party had been discredited after the failure of a minor Soviet-backed coup in 1947, leaving the Radical Party as the supposed voice of the French left. But it did so in a unique way. The easiest way to describe its political position is somewhere around the left wing of the Liberal Party and the right wing of the Labour Party in the UK. Representing a belief in a protective and proactive state, the party drew much of its support from the urban working classes and the trades union movement. However, it was never the only party advocating for state direction or intervention (both the DU and the Republicans did so to differing degrees) which stopped it holding this territory to itself and becoming the kind of fully social democratic party seen in the Commonwealth or the United States.

What happened to the SFIO and assorted non-communist socialists? The radicals sounds like they take after the center left 3rd republic PRRRS (Parti républicain, radical & radical-socialiste). But I think they would have to compete with the pretty strong non communist left for which they would be too moderate. I can't imagine the PCF fading quietly either, even with a failed coup, they were pretty big. And you have to contend with left wing unions. I'd expect to have a liberal left/labour right equivalent Radical party and a Labour left equivalent SFIO.

An outright majority for the far right party is also unlikely in a multiparty system, especially if they're tarred with the memory of the shameful collaboration. It took a long time before the FN could compete on the national scene despite De Gaulle's pullback from Algeria. It's more likely for them to try to coup like OTL than climb to a majority.
 
What happened to the SFIO and assorted non-communist socialists? The radicals sounds like they take after the center left 3rd republic PRRRS (Parti républicain, radical & radical-socialiste). But I think they would have to compete with the pretty strong non communist left for which they would be too moderate. I can't imagine the PCF fading quietly either, even with a failed coup, they were pretty big. And you have to contend with left wing unions. I'd expect to have a liberal left/labour right equivalent Radical party and a Labour left equivalent SFIO.

The Radical Party TTL is more of a big tent party including factions from the left and left-of-centre, a bit like how OTL Mitterrand forged the Socialist Party over the course of the 1960s and '70s. So the SFIO, the trades union movement and so forth are a part of the Radicals, while the PCF remains significant at local levels in certain departments but can't muster the strength to challenge on a national level. So, of course, question how long the Radicals can continue to cohere in this environment, especially after the Pompidou-Salan deal effectively seals the UD's capitulation to the Republicans.

An outright majority for the far right party is also unlikely in a multiparty system, especially if they're tarred with the memory of the shameful collaboration. It took a long time before the FN could compete on the national scene despite De Gaulle's pullback from Algeria. It's more likely for them to try to coup like OTL than climb to a majority.

I wouldn't say that the Republicans are explicitly far right, as such. At least, not quite as it would be understood TTL. It certainly has explicit racists within its ranks and its campaigns play on those themes to audiences they think might be receptive. But it's worth noting that, by the time it gets a majority in the legislature in the late 1950s, it had taken over much of what would be recognised as the centre-right. This is partly because of the incoherence of the DU as a governing party (they're basically a De Gaulle fan club by this point but TTL this doesn't really imply as much of an ideology as OTL), whose support for state intervention has alienated businessmen and landowners. One way of thinking about what the Republicans are is not to think of the OTL FN but (and I appreciate that this is a potentially politically-charged analogy so feel free to disregard it) the OTL contemporary GOP: where a centre right electorate (broadly-speaking) is lead by a party of reactionary Christians, white-supremacists and economic plutocrats, held together by their concerns about the racial, cultural and political 'socialism' of their opponents (be that the OTL Democrats or the TTL Radicals).

The other thing to say is that the Republicans aren't 'dominated' by Axis collaborators (which I'm aware is something my update might have implied, so apologies if that was misleading). Of course, their biggest figures on the national scene - Boualam, Salan and Jouhaud - served under the Vichy government but after the war TTL the French army was given some of the same treatment that the Wehrmacht received OTL and so Boualam's and Salan's reputations (among others) were somewhat whitewashed away (Jouhaud, of course, did have something of a resistance background).
 
The Radical Party TTL is more of a big tent party including factions from the left and left-of-centre, a bit like how OTL Mitterrand forged the Socialist Party over the course of the 1960s and '70s. So the SFIO, the trades union movement and so forth are a part of the Radicals, while the PCF remains significant at local levels in certain departments but can't muster the strength to challenge on a national level. So, of course, question how long the Radicals can continue to cohere in this environment, especially after the Pompidou-Salan deal effectively seals the UD's capitulation to the Republicans.

Yeah I can't see that lasting. There's a reason the OTL Radicals and SFIO were separate until the SFIO moved to the center, and with the PCF down, I expect there's a lot more room to be had on the left. I could see the more moderate radicals gravitate towards the remains of the UD refusing to join the Republicans, but alienate trade unions and democratic socialists, who would go back to being the left opposition.

I wouldn't say that the Republicans are explicitly far right, as such. At least, not quite as it would be understood TTL. It certainly has explicit racists within its ranks and its campaigns play on those themes to audiences they think might be receptive. But it's worth noting that, by the time it gets a majority in the legislature in the late 1950s, it had taken over much of what would be recognised as the centre-right. This is partly because of the incoherence of the DU as a governing party (they're basically a De Gaulle fan club by this point but TTL this doesn't really imply as much of an ideology as OTL), whose support for state intervention has alienated businessmen and landowners. One way of thinking about what the Republicans are is not to think of the OTL FN but (and I appreciate that this is a potentially politically-charged analogy so feel free to disregard it) the OTL contemporary GOP: where a centre right electorate (broadly-speaking) is lead by a party of reactionary Christians, white-supremacists and economic plutocrats, held together by their concerns about the racial, cultural and political 'socialism' of their opponents (be that the OTL Democrats or the TTL Radicals).

I would totally call the modern GOP far right though? Picking Trump as your candidate really discarded all doubt there is to be had. Maybe they still have moderates who shut up and vote on a party line, but said party line is a far right one.
 
Second Castle Ministry (1967-1971)
Leaving the Feudal Age: Political Reform under Castle and Jenkins
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It remains a matter of contention amongst historians as to what extent Castle was bounced into an election in the spring of 1967 by Thorpe’s campaign over the previous summer and autumn. As many have pointed out, just after the four-year mark was a relatively common time for government’s to go to the country. One the other hand, it is certainly true that, when they did finally go to the country, Labour failed to get on top of the narrative and Castle was dogged throughout her campaign by questions of whether or not her government had been ‘frit’ by the Liberals. When Jeremy Thorpe ended his final address to his MPs before the campaign by commanding them to “go home to your constituencies and prepare for government,” many believed that he was right. As polling day came closer, some within Labour even began to voice concerns privately that they were going to lose.

While the wilder predictions of Labour defeat proved unfounded, nobody could deny that the election had dealt the party a severe bloody nose. Labour had governed with small majorities before and their sleek election-winning machine had prevented the Liberals from getting over the line but they had been taught a serious lesson about the dangers of taking the electorate for granted. Perhaps the worst night, however, was had by the Conservatives, who were reduced to only eight seats. Jo Grimond resigned the next day, his vision of a libertarian, centrist party in tatters. In his place the party elected Robert Carr in October 1967. Carr was an experienced hand but it was unclear in which direction he was going to lead the party.

Thorpe, on the other hand, could claim a moral victory, if not a psephological one. The contrast between a bubbly Thorpe and the more subdued-looking Castle at the state opening of Parliament in 1967 lead one sketch writer to describe the former as “the real Prime Minister.”

As Labour had done before when it had operated on small majorities, the government turned its primary attention to matters which could plausibly be conducted on a crossparty basis. In this case, Castle’s government chose to focus on constitutional reform.

A by-product of the heated debates about Irish Home Rule in the 1880s had been a reduction in the power of the Lords through the Parliament Acts. The concept of ‘Life Peers’ had subsequently been introduced in 1920, further curtailing the powers of the hereditary aristocracy. The Sankey-Beauchamp-Salisbury Agreement - a by-product of the agreements over the Chamberlain Doctrine in 1929 - had further limited the Lords’ power by agreeing that they would not oppose a government’s manifesto promise. However, the impression remained that there was unfinished business with Lords reform. In 1967, Roy Jenkins was moved from Health Secretary to head up a new ministry operating out of the Cabinet Office known as the Ministry of Constitutional Reform. The first target he took aim at was the second chamber.

Jenkins’ white paper appeared in 1968, proposing the removal of the hereditary peers and their replacement by an entirely elected body. This occasioned much negotiation both within and between the parties, with Labour’s tricky electoral position perhaps occasioning greater compromise than might have occurred otherwise. The resulting House of Lords Act 1969 kept 92 hereditary peers (elected from amongst their number), 16 bishops of the established Church of England (selected by the Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Law Lords (who formally lost their right to vote and attend ordinary sittings until they retired).

The remaining life peers were to be phased out in thirds through a series of elections, to be replaced by peers elected for a single term of 18 years with no possibility of re-election. A prospective elected Lord could only be elected if they had served ten years or fewer in the Commons. This would preserve the less partisan nature of the Lords and, hopefully, encourage non-political experts from industry and/or academia to put themselves forward for election. (Although it should be noted that buy-in from academia, science and industry is not something the British political class had traditionally struggled to receive.) An exception was made for former prime ministers - who, it was agreed, would be offered life peerages when they left the Commons - and the Lord Chancellor - who would continue to sit as a member of the Lords but would no longer be given a peerage, would continue to be a member of the Commons (even if they could not sit in it or vote in its divisions) and notionally represent their constituents in Parliament.

The first such election would be in 1970, for the first third of elected peers, the second third would be elected in 1976 and the final third in 1982. Those seats elected in the first election in 1970 would then be up for election again in 1988 and so on. On each occasion 120 Lords would come up for election, with 12 being elected from each of the 10 nations of the UK via the single transferable vote. At each election, a third of the pre-existing life peers would retire. This would leave the Lords, by 1988, with at least 481 members (depending on the number of former prime ministers who took up the offer of a life peerage).

Following on from Lords reform, Jenkins also turned his attention to the make-up of the House of Commons. His white paper on this topic appeared in September 1969 and suggested a system known as the ‘top up system.’ This reduced the number of constituency MPs from 735 to 635, who would be elected by a preferential voting system (a slight tweak on the traditional first past the post system). The remaining 100 MPs would then by selected via party lists on the proportional representation system. This would have introduced an element of proportionality into the British political system, while retaining the relationship between constituents and their MPs. It also allowed the parties to retain considerable control over the electoral process.

However, the thin balance of the Parliament caused severe problems for this second proposal. There were too many MPs worried about the reduction in constituency seats (not all of them guaranteed to get anywhere near the top of a party list) for such a reform to pass without controversy. While the Labour and Liberal whips were able to cobble together enough pro-reform MPs to send it to committee, Castle understood the difficulties the bill would face on a final reading and so made sure that enough of her backbench loyalists were on the committee to see that it was quietly put on ice, at least until after the next election.
 
Interesting, so the lords may keep their responsibilities now that they're elected. I could see people removing the remaining hereditary and church seats later though.

preferential voting is going to change some things, if the bill is passed, other parties may try their hand at competing in election to see how far they can go. Same with proportional.
 
Interesting, so the lords may keep their responsibilities now that they're elected. I could see people removing the remaining hereditary and church seats later though.

preferential voting is going to change some things, if the bill is passed, other parties may try their hand at competing in election to see how far they can go. Same with proportional.

One of the more annoying things about attempting to keep this TL plausible has been having to remind myself that the British never conduct reform all in one go if it can be done in bits and pieces.

What are the chances of someone other than Labour forming a government at the moment?

Well, it's very difficult: Labour had so inveigled themselves into civil society and their electoral operation is so slick that they've certainly made themselves look pretty hegemonic. That being said, they're a democratic party in a democracy and nothing is permanent. Without giving too much away, things won't go as well for them over the course of the 1970s.
 
Well, it's very difficult: Labour had so inveigled themselves into civil society and their electoral operation is so slick that they've certainly made themselves look pretty hegemonic. That being said, they're a democratic party in a democracy and nothing is permanent. Without giving too much away, things won't go as well for them over the course of the 1970s.
So, Labour has become like the LDP in Japan?
 
But the LDP is still in office :p

The LDP is very much not left wing, though. Also, Britain may end up with a "everyone-that-isn't-Labour Alliance" coalition government eventually.

You're both right, of course, and both the Soc Dems and the LDP were inspirations for Labour's hegemony.

What I'd also say is that Labour's policy platform is definitely closer to OTL's Soc Dems than the LDP but I've tried to differentiate it a bit so that it reflects what I think of as an authentic British radical tradition mixed with trades unionism, rather than just a carbon copy of either Sweden or OTL Labour. Aside from that, TTL's UK definitely has the kind of close nexus between the government, the bureaucracy, business and academia that was seen during the LDP's hegemony from the 50s onwards.
 
One way Labour could fall is if electoral reforms means people are more willing to split, and tensions between the right and left of the party become too much to bear.
 
Bucharest Mutiny, 1968-1969
The Bear and the Eagle: The Bucharest Mutiny and the Crisis of the Soviet Empire
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Mutineers attack Soviet soldiers in Bucharest


Since their takeover of eastern Europe in the 1940s, Soviet power had been remarkably untroubled. The Soviet client states had governed with a reasonable amount of competence (notwithstanding their general corruption and authoritarianism) and the countries in question had all experienced economic growth in the subsequent two decades. While these improvements were, it is now generally believed, the result of the ‘peace dividend’ post 1945 Europe rather than anything specific about the Soviet planned economy (similar economic booms were experienced in such varied countries as Italy, the Benelux and Yugoslavia) they nonetheless served to tamp down demands for political reform, at least for a while. However, this changed when Mikhail Tukhachevsky died suddenly of a heart attack in June 1968.

Tukhachevsky’s death came as a surprise (despite his relatively advanced age, he had remained vigorous and seemingly in good health) and left a power vacuum within Soviet politics. While Nikolai Bukharin remained hegemonic at the Finance Ministry and the position of General Secretary had come to be subject to a loose kind of performance review every five years at a Party Conference, the role of Premier had no defined line of succession and there was not an obvious figure to step into the role. Georgy Zhukov, who had held a variety of civil and military posts in the Soviet government since his participation in the World War, stepped in as Premier but few observers thought that this would be a long-term solution (if nothing else, he was nearly 72 at the time).

With the iron face of Soviet repression now out of the way, a variety of local grievances coalesced with a general dissatisfaction with the state of the political system (now ironically exacerbated by the economic improvements which had tamped down these concerns in the past) to create a dangerous political cocktail for the Soviet administrators in eastern Europe. The first sign of the troubles began in July 1968, in the form of a mutiny of Romanian soldiers at the mixed Soviet-Romanian garrison in Otopeni, about 10 miles north of Bucharest. Further rebellions (consistently referred to as ‘mutinies’ of local troops by the Soviet authorities, even if this wasn’t strictly true) then erupted in Czechia, Hungary, Brandenburg and the Polish regions of Poland-Slovakia.

Lurid tales of the massacre of Soviet soldiers and their families by a Romanian mob were reported back in the Soviet Union and the initial prevarication of the Soviet government caused an outbreak of genuine anti-government hostility in the Soviet media. Zhukov was quietly pensioned off in December 1968, replaced by Leonid Brezhnev, who adopted a hardline approach towards the rebels. With only Prussia, Saxony, Bulgaria and the Slovakian regions of Poland-Slovakia remaining loyal, the rebellion posed a considerable threat to Soviet power in the region. However, the generally disorganised nature of the various mutinies (not to mention the lack of direct support from NATO or the Commonwealth) meant that they were unable to construct a united front and were instead crushed piecemeal by the overwhelming force of the Soviet military machine and their Bucharest Pact allies (whose role in the suppression played an important propaganda role).

On 1 January 1969, the Soviets granted amnesty to all rebels “not involved in murder” (a suitably elastic term) but hostilities did not finally end until September 1969. This amnesty, however, did not seriously preclude widespread reprisals from Soviet forces, many of whose officers adopted a ‘no prisoners’ policy. An estimated 100,000 civilians are believed to have been killed during the uprising, either during the military campaign or as part of the subsequent crackdown as the Soviets reasserted their control.

As the campaign wound down, Soviets planners turned their mind directly to how to reorganise their European domains. In August 1969, the Soviet legislature passed the European Development Plan, which formally dissolved the ‘independent’ governments of the Bucharest Pact countries and transferred their control to the Soviet Union. A new Soviet department, the European Ministry, was created to handle the governance of the region, with a new Politburo position created for its head. The Soviet ‘advisors’ to the Romanian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Brandenburger governments were given the new titles of ‘governor’ and given the job of implementing the policies devised by the European Ministry. The governments of Prussia, Saxony, Slovakia and Bulgaria remained in place but were now subordinated to the Soviet governors of the other eastern European provinces. The countries then withdrew their missions from the UN (most diplomats claimed asylum in New York) and were replaced by one single mission representing the ‘Commonwealth of Independent States,’ complete with a brand new flag and anthem. The Bucharest Pact, a dead letter anyway, was dissolved and a separate mutual defence treaty was signed between the Soviets and the CIS. The other members of the UN protested but, with the Soviets threatening a veto over any Security Council actions, there was little that could be done about what was, in strictly legalistic terms, the voluntary amalgamation of independent states.

This reorganisation of their domains overlay a number of dramatic changes to the structure of Soviet control of the region. For the two decades since the seizure of eastern Europe, defence of the region was, from the Soviet point of view, conducted on the cheap: local soldiers outnumbered Soviet ones by up to nine to one. The Mutiny, which came as a severe shock, altered the mixture. The various armies of the former eastern European nations were amalgamated into one CIS army, with the ratio of CIS soldiers to Soviet ones being held at something closer to two to one. The preference was for recruits to be drawn from poor peasants or urban workers and deployed around the new country so that they developed as few regional attachments as possible. Native officers were removed, either returning to the ranks (their prospects for advancement severely restricted) or being arrested.

Mustering a roster of around 250,000 soldiers available for active service and an estimated support network of nearly 10,000,000 men, the army was by far the largest employer in the new CIS and absorbed around a third to a half of its revenue. This created a formidable source of cannon fodder (for which the Soviet Union did not have to pay directly) for potential overseas deployments but its primary function would be domestic intimidation. Laid out at regular intervals across the country, its garrisons were a permanent reminder of who was really in charge. A large police apparatus, numbering around 100,000 men by 1980 would serve as the forward screen of repression. Down to the end, the CIS would remain a garrison state.

Coercion, of course, could never be sufficient in and of itself: it always required a degree of collaboration as well. This came from two main areas. In the first place were the rulers of Prussia, Saxony, Slovakia and Bulgaria, who had remained loyal during the Mutiny and were allowed to remain in their government offices. While they were now, as we have seen, de jure as well as de facto subordinated to the Soviets, they remained beneficiaries of the imperial regime and enjoyed its protection in their exploitation of the tenants and workers underneath them. These forces were natural Soviet subordinates. Less so could be said of the petit bourgeois businessmen who became the beneficiaries of the economic reforms after the Soviet reoirgnisation (which, with minor national changes, had largely mimicked the Soviet market socialist reforms of the ‘20s). Many were resentful of the limitations imposed by Soviet domination, including a tariff system which prioritised trade to and from the Soviet Union at the expense of local economic growth. But they nonetheless generally understood that Soviet rule guaranteed them access to each other’s markets and most seem to have regarded Soviet hegemony as the underpinning of stability.
 
This naked imperialism by the Soviet will probably speed up the split between socialism and Soviet communism.

Aside from the CIS, what other countries could be considered to be in the Soviet sphere?
 
This naked imperialism by the Soviet will probably speed up the split between socialism and Soviet communism.

This distinction is very important because it allows socialists in Labour (and elsewhere) to openly advocate strongly left wing causes without being tarred with the implication of treason and/or dictatorship. As I imagine it (and I might have forgotten to mention this in an actual update) by the late 1960s there aren't really any viable Communist Parties in Europe who still openly take direction from the Soviets (the exception being the PCF, which is why they disappeared from national view in the 1950s). The big example of this would be the PCI, which formally broke with the Soviets in the 1940s and has since become the main left wing party in Italian politics (Berlinguer becomes prime minister in 1969, for example).

Aside from the CIS, what other countries could be considered to be in the Soviet sphere?

Manchuria, Mongolia and Turkestan are the other three which are in the empire directly. Their governments are more akin to the OTL Eastern Bloc and were part of the Bucharest Pact (after the dissolution of the eastern European governments they signed a separate mutual defence agreement with the Soviets in 1969).

Iran has been governed by a succession of Soviet-friendly governments since the 1950s but isn't quite in the same as the other four. In particular, Iran is an imperfect democracy and the government has, broadly speaking, alternated between centre-left and centre-right parties. The centre-left parties like the Soviets because they like the economics and the centre-right parties like the Soviets because they help Iran act as a counterweight to Arabia in the Middle East.
 
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