The North Star is Red: a Wallace Presidency, KMT Victory, Alternate Cold War TL
- Thread starter TastySpam
- Start date
With Nazism having been so recently, there's probably very little taste for some parts of the hardline right. I'd imagine that it collapses like a house of cards 10-20 years down the line or manages to reform so that it's extremely hardline right on some issues while being fairly left on others. At least in France and some of the areas that suffered under Nazi rule.
Well, economic policy isn't actually that much different from OTL. Pretty much every West European government is implementing the welfare state, "social market economy", etc. What's different is foreign policy (a much greater commitment to flailing colonial empires) and civil liberties (ie, "red scare" type sentiments). The West German military has all kinds of super-sketchy Wehrmacht connections (and plays up the Clean Wehrmacht myth), but they're July 20th-style guys, not Nazis (ie, their leader was an actual participant in the July 20th plot.) And Charles de Gaulle of course, was the ultimate anti-Nazi in France (and a bit of a strongman, but not really authoritarian). The same applies to Greece, where the sorta-pretty-fascist Metaxas ferociously resisted Mussolini/Hitler.
Franco and Salazar, are well, not that different from OTL at home. Besides those two, the most authoritarian governments in Western Europe either directly just emerged out of authoritarian communism (Hungary) or well, had really awful, traumatic things happen to it (Sweden-Finland). And even the Hungarians ferociously repudiate the Iron Cross Party. They're more the Hungarian version of Kaiserboos than Neo-Nazis.
Presumably, a lot of the propaganda war will be both sides finding an excuse to call the other side a Nazi. The Western Europeans will point endlessly at Molotov-Ribbentrop, while the Eastern bloc will probably point to all of these former Wehrmacht generals in West Germany and stuff.
The real issue will be the intensifying losses/exhaustion from the colonial wars + increasing anger over political repression (spirit of 1968 and all). The colonial wars in the empires of Portugal, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain are basically already leaving a social scar.
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AVH and Securitate rolled into 1? Good grief, that will be the evilest secret police in all eternity! Speaking of those things, is Sigurimi a thing in Albania?
Chapter 118 - IKEA
IKEA
One of the greatest symbols of the Cold War were the weapons used by so many radicals and guerillas in their war against the enemy. In the Communist bloc, this symbol was the almighty Kalashnikov rifle, known for being durable, almost impossible to break, reliable, and incredibly deadly. Eventually, the original model, the AK-47, was replaced in 1959 by the new AKM, which the Soviet Union also rapidly exported across the entire world. The Soviet Union not only exported an estimated 10 million AK rifles, but North China and North Japan famously exported over 10 million Type 56s, the Sino-Japanese designed variant of the AK-47. In the immediate years after the Three Years War, these weapons were shipped like candy to rebels, whether they be in Northern Ireland, Algeria, Oman, Egypt, Laos, Iraq, Lebanon, Venezuela, the Congo, the Central African Federation, Tunisia, Indonesia, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, or South Africa (and those were just the wars in 1960!)
However, in the years to come, a new symbol would characterize a different side of the Cold War. Whereas radical leftist guerrillas would soon idolize the Kalashnikov rifle, a new rifle would become idealized by radical rightist guerillas across the world. Very soon after the end of the Three Years War, postwar Swedish governments found it very difficult to govern without the tacit support of Per Engdahl's new "Swedish Social Movement." This was because as a condition for ascension into NATO and into the European Economic Community, the Spanish and Portuguese governments demanded that Swedes officially ban the Swedish Social Democratic Party, as it was seen as filled with Communist entryists after the destruction of the Swedish Communist Party. This was seen as a grave violation of the democratic process and large numbers of politicians from both the People's Party and the Rightist Parties balked. After all, it was basically a foreign coup if they were to simply ban the historically most popular party in the nation. The French also objected to the Spanish/Portuguese ultimatum, but the West Germans supported them, causing the French to withdraw their objections.
General Swedlund realized that Swedes/Finns were dying everyday from cold, hunger, and disease everyday and the threat of the Soviet Union still looming. He didn't want the Social Democrats banned, but he saw no other choice. Realizing he didn't have a majority, he then pulled in pro-ban members of the Farmer's League. However, even that wasn't enough. As more stories of dead children flooded the newspapers, Swedlund made a deal with the devil. The Swedish Social Movement was brought into the government and given control of two ministries, namely the Ministry of Defense and the new Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Defense was given to the token Finn of the cabinet and a member of the SSM, one of Finland's most prominent veterans of the Three Years War, the American-backed Lauri Torni. MITI was created to more or less quarantine off Engdahl from the rest of the Cabinet, where he'd get to play with a few industrial projects. Torni was largely placed in charge as a ceremonial head - his primary job would be to communicate with the United States Army, which he was a former member of. The Swedish Social Democrats were soon proscribed by law, which sparked large amounts of protests that the Army quickly dealt with. In practice, most actual Communist entryists began leaving the nation, while former Social Democrats flooded into the other parties, chiefly the Farmer's League (Sweden was now a much more agrarian nation after its largest metropolitan area had ceased to exist). So devastated and shocked by the thermonuclear annihilation of Stockholm, few Swedes had the will to resist anything that the powers in charge promised would led to an end to famine and cold.
The inclusion of the SSM in the Swedish government helped create one of the largest industrial and military conglomerates of postwar Sweden. The treasurer of the SSM, Ingvar Kamprad, was an incredibly capable entrepreneur, and leveraging his contacts in the Swedish government (both in the Defense Ministry and MITI), significantly expanded his furniture business to include all kinds of Swedish state assets that were sold off at a discount rate. This included chemicals factories, steel factories, coal mines, pharmaceuticals, woodcutting, paper mills, canneries, fisheries, and all kinds of businesses. In addition, Kamprad managed not only to purchase the old Finnish weapons company SAKO (which had fled to Sweden), but he also managed to combine their operations with the recently privatized Swedish state weapons company, Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori, and the private Swedish gun maker Husqvarna Vapenfabrik.
Their new all-purpose assault rifle, the IKEA-60 rifle, was a modernized version of the Carl Gustaf m/45. Updating the SMG with a delayed lever-blowback system borrowed from the Hungarian Pal Kiraly (Hungary was now a close ally of Sweden-Finland), rechambering to the Swedish 6.5x55mm caliber, and then giving the weapon better sights and a foldable wooden stock. Notably, to save costs, unlike future delayed lever-blowback rifles (such as the French FAMAS), the IKEA-60 did not flute any of its barrels, which caused firing each round to destroy the case fired. Otherwise, it used the body of the m/45...except with various livability corners cut (the IKEA rifle notably did not have a safety setting).
Extremely modular and dirt-cheap as a result of Kamprad's general philosophy on products, the IKEA rifle was easy to ship out in tiny modular pieces and could be covertly assembled by anyone. When they first encountered the weapon, the Soviets were mind-boggled that anyone had managed to create a weapon cheaper than the AK-47. The AK-47 costed an estimate $180 to produce - while the IKEA rifle only costed $95. The IKEA assault rifle was just as deadly and reliable as the AK-47, but it was also lighter. The only real downsides of the weapon was that it 1) had a tendency of injuring nearby people by violently ejecting destroyed cases, 2) it was much louder than the AK-47, 3) it had a lower rate of fire than the AK-47, 4) it had a smaller clip, 5), it was less accurate at long ranges (500m+), and 6) did I mention it didn't have a safety function??? None of this mattered to the purchasers - the IKEA rifle was cheaper than the AK-47 and easier to transport. Sweden, desperate to export anything to help improve its economy, greenlit massive production of the new IKEA rifle in hopes that guerrillas anywhere and everywhere would use it. Very soon, orders came rolling in. The beauty of the IKEA rifle was that it funded itself - it only used totally disposable ammunition largely only manufactured in Sweden, so the production of ammunition for cheap Swedish weapons around the world became a huge economic opportunity for the country. As a result, a decision was made to simply give away these rifles for free with "trial period ammunition." This proved successful in getting all kinds of new customers "hooked".
The Ulster Volunteer Force in Northern Ireland, terrified that the Maoists were becoming increasingly well-armed, found the perfect weapon to purchase. The IKEA rifle produces a very distinctive and loud noise and street shoot-outs in Belfast actually became very easy to hear from a distance, because the two rifles used by both sides had a very different sound. It also became the choice of weapon for Iraqi Nationalist forces, Italian neofascist guerillas, both Turkish and Greek rebels in Cyprus, anti-Communist organized crime groups (such as Latin American drug cartels, the Sicilian Mafia, the Yakuza, or the Triads), or even just normal civilians who wanted a personal defense weapons in the various conflict zones of the world. In contrast to the Soviets who tried to only export AK-47s to their friends, IKEA rifles were for everyone!
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I wonder if the reactionary environment in Western Europe will one day spark an even more powerful 1968 series of revolutions.
Also, shouldn't the Venezuelan civil war be causing a refugee crisis on the OTL 1980s Central American conflicts?
Also, shouldn't the Venezuelan civil war be causing a refugee crisis on the OTL 1980s Central American conflicts?
True, though the refugee spillover would presumably be mostly towards Colombia, maybe Brazil.
Chapter 119 - The Spanish State
The Spanish State
The end of Spain's international isolation more or less coincided with the election of Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle in France, who in hopes of rallying the nations of Europe behind a French-led anti-Soviet alliance, initiated a rapid defrosting of relationships between the French Republic and the Spanish State. Outraging the descendants of Republican Spanish who had fled into France, the two quickly established defense and trade links over the Pyrenees, precipitating Spanish entry into the Three Years War. Spain did not directly fight in Yugoslavia (over fear of discrediting the socialist Yugoslavs), but they did provide logistical support in the Mediterranean. In addition, Spanish troops DID eventually enter the fray in Finland, where over 30,000 died serving alongside British and French troops.
Spain had also garnered good will outside of the right, by rapidly decolonizing in Morocco. This came as a shock to many who had expected the right-wing authoritarian state to be a colonial holdout (like well, the rest of Western Europe), but some of Franco's most loyal troops were Muslim auxiliaries from the Army of Africa. Republican Spanish troops infamously had a tendency of executing Muslim soldiers on sight. In many ways, Franco was simply returning the favor, as Spanish Morocco enjoyed more civil liberties than Spain proper. In addition, the new commander of the Moroccan Army, Mohamed Meziane, was a close friend of Franco. The Spanish Empire, one of the first colonial empires based in Europe, was also the first to end.
A loosening of the autarky distinctly improved the Spanish Army, which was teetering on bankruptcy. Realizing that Spain, a then-participant in the Three Years War, was seriously economically suffering, the French, British, and Americans all rushed to guarantee loans to Spain. In many ways, this had a huge impact on the trajectory of Spanish history. Whereas liberals (often linked to Opus Dei) were fighting with economic interventionist old Falangists arguing that the old economic system was clearly failing due to Spain's imminent bankruptcy, the manner in which Spain had evaded bankruptcy through participation in the Three Years War proved a dramatic boost for the Falangists. They had argued Spain had evaded bankruptcy through war - war that Spain was prepared for because of Falangist economic policy. Ultimately, the Falangists won out, after voting down the Opus Dei-backed "Stabilization Plan." Further opening up trade was irrelevant to this group as well, because Spain was a signing member of the Treaty of Brussells, whereupon it joined the European Coal and Steel Community - Spain was thus already trading with the rest of Western Europe. There was no more desire to see Spain further open its markets. As a result, Spain's economy remained closed to everyone outside of Western Europe and large-state-owned enterprises employing only members of the state-run, Falangist labor unions remained the dominant economic model in Spain.
Although living standards continue to rise under this system, Spain was essentially running an import substitution industrialization strategy without trade restrictions or tariffs. As a result, Spanish industry never dramatically developed outside of the state-owned enterprises, simply because French private industry (far more established) more or less had a comparative advantage over any small Spanish industries. As a result, Spain became a country of large-state owned enterprises and privately owned farms, but little in between, as most Spanish consumers simply imported products from West Germany, France, the Benelux, or Scandinavia. The winners of this arrangement were farmers in Spain and industrial workers in France, while French farmers and Spanish industrial workers suffered. Most Spanish state-owned enterprises were essentially subsidized by the Spanish Army, which became an active participant in NATO, even stationing a token force in West Germany that the Spaniards themselves ironically referred to as the "Blue Legion" (named after the Spanish volunteer force for Germany in WWII).
Not linked to the Spanish military state and totally out-competed by other Western European industrial nations, the industrial regions of Barcelona and the Basque Country continued to stagnate, causing anger to continue building up. When the Basque ETA launched attacks on the Spanish State hoping to spark a low-intensity war, they were shocked by how much support they found among the population, who had further turned against Franco due to decades of economic stagnation. Franco responded like he did to any entity that "threatened Spanish unity" - by imposing martial law, sending in the army, and having suspected secessionists (both violent and non-violent) executed. Although keeping the peace and preventing the ETA from openly operating (especially after French soldiers captured dozens who had tried to use France as a safe haven and sent them back to Spain, where they were summarily executed), local opinion quickly became polarized.
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AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
Okay, that settles it. You have my nomination for the upcoming Turtledoves in a few months. I can't believe I found a timeline with such wacky and darkly comedic hijinks such as this that isn't downright grimdark. But I did, and I love it.
I wonder if Algeria will become a convenient place for Europe to put refugees (of European-origin) in if they don't want it elsewhere. Might be a good strategy for France to hold on to the colony. Of course that would be a catastrophe for the Arabs and Amazigh.
Also how is Jordan pro-US when the US supports Israel? Wouldn't Jordan look to the USSR?
Also how is Jordan pro-US when the US supports Israel? Wouldn't Jordan look to the USSR?
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BigBlueBox
Banned
The Hashemites were always wary of Nasserists and Ba’athists and weren’t as enthusiastic in fighting Israel as Egypt and Syria were. Of course, the population of Jordan is just as vehemently anti-Zionist and pan-Arabist as the Syrians. @TastySpam has written in earlier chapters that one of the goals of Syria’s war on Israel is to destroy the public support of the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan and the other conservative pro-West monarchies of the Arab World
Good point. Or why not at least play both the US and USSR against each other?
BigBlueBox
Banned
Neutrality ITTL Middle East is effectively impossible. Not joining the war against Israel is an extreme embarrassment to the Hashemite monarchy among both its own people and the rest of the Arab World. This is why the OTL Hashemites had Jordan join every war against Israel despite distrusting Egypt and Syria, not being as enthusiastic about destroying Israel, and maintaining ties with the US. It’s possible that even if Syria fails to destroy Israel a popular revolution could overthrow the Hashemites with a strongly anti-Zionist, pan-Arabist, and pro-Soviet governmnent, leading to a net gain for the Soviets.
And if you want to give me an extra boner, Italy needs the Savoia monarchy back.
Then Italy would be god damn perfect.
Then Italy would be god damn perfect.