The ideal 20. century ?

I'd like to avoid the shocking wars and genocides of the 20th century as well as having slower population growth to reduce overall pressure on the environment.

And I'd like the Matich SR4 to race in the US can Am series.
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The 20th century can be vastly improved, simply by making sure three leaders, Hitler, Mao and Stalin, never acheive any form of significant political power.

This can be acheived in several ways, but one way I can think of is by having Vladimir Lenin live a few more years by avoiding his attempted assasination.

He publicly reads Lenin’s Testimony and Stalin is removed as General Secretary, with Trotsky or a similar Soviet leader attaining his position.

This avoids the policy of Social Fascism, with Communist parties in Germany cooperating with Social Democrats to prevent Hitler from attaining power.

In China, with Trotsky in charge of the USSR Chen Duxiu receives support instead of Mao and a policy of cooperating with Nationalist China continues.

This most likely butterflies World War 2, while Communist parties are able to exert continued pressure throughout the rest of the world.

With the avoidance of World War 2 Europes colonies are released more slowly, hopefully allowing them to establish firmer democratic traditions
However it’s also possible that without World War 2 bankrupting countries like Britain they’d be significantly more willing to use extreme force to maintain control over countries like India.

Hitler, Stalin and Mao were responsible for 80-120 million people, making the world significantly better off without them.

Trotsky would not be any better than Stalin. Stalin adopted the idea of industrialization from him, he would be more aggressive, purges would still happen, Winter War would probably be a complete success with a Finnish SSR, Poland and Romania would fall to the Union and the Russians are probably as far west as Hannover and communists movements would be better funded. No Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact for certain and France would have a slim chance of falling to a Marxist government. Japan would not mess with them and PRC would get far more funding and most likely win earlier, probably by late 40s or early 50s, after Russia kicks Japan off the mainland. The Cold War is much more heated and Britain and France(if they don't fall which is most likely) would be much firmer in holding their colonies and the US would probably back them as Communism would definitely be much more anti-colonial earlier than OTL. Even more of Europe and all of Korea would be under the Soviet Boot. Hitler would've still come to power, as Trotsky being a Bolshevik Jew aggressing in Eastern Europe and Finland would essentially prove his ramblings right, but he wouldn't be able to do much. He might be propped up as a puppet German ruler by the West to keep the Soviets at bay, albeit he wouldn't have enough spare resources to pursue the Holocaust plus the West would immediately crack down on that if he tried plus the persecuted would flee to East Germany. Timeline seems slightly worse than OTL as our WWII is avoided but more people are underneath Soviet oppression and the West would stay extremely reactionary and I don't think that Chen would have enough support even with Trotsky but if he does I agree the PRC would not accrue such a high death toll.
 
Avoiding WWI is your big step, but seeing the subsequent consequences would be interesting, especially in colonialism.
WWI was a big catalyst in the French empire to bring the subjects together, with Black soldiers in the trenches and Indochinese workers in the factories (they were not deemed strong enough to fight).
It's hard to extrapolate long term trends as, if France can help it, they will keep their indochinese subjects in that status, as subjects, with a second class status.
Another interesting thing to consider is that, those "guest workers" were exposed to unions and western ideas like Communism, that's how Ho Chi Minh got his start after all.
It might be different in African colonies were France has a history of dealing with Black population and has a reservoir of loyal black civil servants from the Caribean, and as such, examples of successful black people.
Since there were less solid pre-existing state and more possibility of diluting black population in the state apparatus (less state, less national identity, existing black civil servants), Africa might get more integrated and end up as part of France proper at some point, or with some kind of Federalist parliament. A full on one person one vote would never go through, which might create tensions. You'd probably see a dual system with parliaments by zone (West African parliament...) dealing with local issues, like the Scottish parliament in the UK.

Another thing is that if there is no WWI, France doesn't get Alsace-Lorraine back, which might cause continuous tensions with Germany
 
Avoiding the World Wars would have a major effect on colonialism as well as scientific development, let's not forget that.
 
Russia beats Japan in 1904

This also helps China as Chinese businesses were in partnership with Russia

Japan will recover in time and sort itself out
Though Korea probably becomes a Russian protectorate like Khiva

Russia doesn't have the 1905 revolution but remains focused on the Far East
 
Australian sport doesn't get taken over by marketing arseholes; the AFL goes national using established clubs and promotion/relegation and V8 Supercars doesn't suck the technical interest out of Touring Car racing.

CAMS does a lot more right in the 60s with the Tasman Series and Group A sports cars and the 1972 Supercar scare gets delayed until after the 1972 homologation specials are released.
 
What would the best possible/least bad twentieth century be for jewish history? Almost any ATL without the World Wars seems like it would be better for Central and Eastern Europe. Would most Ashkenazi Jews still emigrate to Palestine or the USA, or stay in a more tolerant Europe? What if Larry David becomes a world-famous Polish actor/comedian, or Bernie Sanders enters the Habsburg parliament as a socialist MP for his family's home district in Galicia?
Just avoiding the Russian Revolution could butterfly the trajectory of Ayn Rand's life. She was a 12 year old in St Petersburg in 1917, and the Bolshevik's takeover of her family's business was a major formative experience in developing her political beliefs. Would emigre scientists and intellectuals like Einstein and Kissinger might have ended up pursuing similar fields back in Europe?
 
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