The North Star is Red: a Wallace Presidency, KMT Victory, Alternate Cold War TL
- Thread starter TastySpam
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This is how i immagine Molotov reacting to the recent events in Russia from his (north) chinese exile
Ficboy
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@TastySpam I suggest converting the story into PDF novel form and to publish it in order to spread the word.
Chapter 181 - The Alliance for Progress (Part One)
The Alliance for Progress (Part One)
Key in President Kennedy's struggle against "global communism" was his Alliance for Progress, an organization of pro-American nations in North and South America that would generously given foreign aid funding. Even in the darkest trenches of the 1963 recession, Kennedy and the Democratic Party refused to cut funding for the Alliance for Progress - choosing instead to cut domestic welfare programs instead. The underlying theory of the Alliance of Progress is that economically successful nations would simply not turn to a "Communist alternative", which was in broad strokes true, though occasionally not entirely true.
The biggest success story of the Alliance for Progress was Colombia, under the American-backed strongman Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Colombia was one of the top recipients of Alliance for Progress aid - with the largest neighborhood in the capital of Bogota, being renamed Ciudad Kennedy in his honor (most of the public housing was paid for by the Americans). The Americans demanded that Rojas hold elections (to at least keep up appearances of democracy) - Rojas easily won to nobody's surprise, both in 1959 and 1963 (term limits had also been ended). That being said, the elections weren't entirely faked. Rojas was genuinely popular among many working-class Colombians for simply bringing prosperity to much of the urban working-class - prosperity made possible by generous American support.
Even Venezuela was seen as a surprising success - as the American oil recession began to wane after more and more Venezuelan oil rigs got on board, generously funded by the United States. Sucre Figarella, a right-wing national Catholic, was a resistance fighter against the American-backed Jimenez regime - but was now surprisingly friendly with the United States. Money had a way of papering over old disputes. His presidential election campaign was generously funded by the CIA - and as a result, Venezuela was open for business, even as many localist and populist politicians lambasted Figarella as an American puppet.
In Bolivia, it only caused the strongman President, Víctor Paz Estenssoro, to continue his rapid movement to the right and consolidation of power, further angering leftists in the country. His obvious attempts to disband the left-leaning militias in Bolivia sparked a desperate last-ditch attempt by the left under Vice-President Juan Lechin to launch a 1959 military coup in the capital, which surprisingly succeeded in capturing Paz. Oscar Unzaga, the leader of the Bolivian Socialist Falange , declared that they would restore "lawful government" by force - a call that was also heeded by a conservative military officer, Rene Barrientos. The Bolivian Civil War had kicked off. The United States declined to intervene, largely because the combination of the bulk of the Bolivian military and the paramilitary of the Falange made defeat for the leftists very obvious - they were quickly chased out of office, with Rene Barrientos being installed as the head of a pro-American "government of unity." Economic aid continued to generously flow, allowing the charismatic leader to quickly come to terms with rural indigenous communities, bringing the Bolivian Civil War to a surprisingly quick end. Although hundreds, perhaps even thousands had died, by late 1959, the country was largely at peace, with many militants fleeing abroad to the Amazon jungles, where the Brazilians in theory opposed them, but didn't have the manpower to hunt them down.
Although Manuel Odria, the military dictator of Peru, was persuaded by the Americans to cancel scheduled elections in 1956, he was never a harsh dictator at heart - and by 1961, the Kennedy Administration had grown supportive of his plans to hold an election. Stepping down from the presidency, the 1961 elections was fought between the pro-American Manuel Prado - and the much less pro-American Fernando Belaunde. Although Prado was wildly expected to win, Belaunde won an upset victory of thanks to a splinter right-wing candidate seeping votes away from Prado. Belaunde took power - and the Americans, remembering how disastrous Venezuela went - decided to butter Belaunde up instead. For now, this kept his government stable and popular - and left-wing and right-wing forces in the military stayed their hands.
Whereas Peru stayed stable, Ecuador, where popular sentiment was still extremely anti-Peruvian after the Ecuadorian-Peruvian War, was less so. The popular José María Velasco Ibarra won the 1960 presidential election on a campaign of import-substitute industrialization and a pledge to retake the Ecuadorian-claimed lands under Peruvian occupation. A military coup removed him less than a year into his presidency, by CIA elements afraid that another Peruvian-Ecuadorian War might spark from his revocation of the Rio de Janeiro Protocols (which ended the first Ecuadorian-Peruvian War). However, his Vice President who climbed into the presidency to replace him, Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy, was a committed leftist, who seemed significantly more left-wing than Brazil's Goulart. A coup subsequent in 1962 overthrew him and established a tightly-run military junta, which sought to defeat Communism by reforming society, attacking both the left and traditional landlords. With generous American support...they were actually quite successful.
Meanwhile in Central America, the APP was not successful everywhere. In Nicaragua, the Somoza family simply embezzled most of the money for their own security forces and personal use. In 1961, the National Liberation Front, inspired by other third world liberation movements, was founded by several dissidents and militants, eventually renaming themselves the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). American foreign policy planners generally dismissed the founding of this minor group, believing that they would not prove relevant against the overwhelming power of the American-aligned Somoza family. The FSLN, however, recruited many able personalities, chief among them an Argentinian doctor who moved from Arbenz's Guatemala and had been increasingly radicalized by the violence and corruption of the Somozas, Ernesto Guevara.
In El Salvador, the Kennedy Administration was close with the nation's military dictator, Jose Mario Lemus Lopez, who won the rigged 1956 elections, but proceeded to govern as a moderate, allowing dissidents to return to the country. The Kennedy administration gleefully promoted this, giving him more aid the faster he liberalized. However, his reforms were opposed by hardliners in the army - who organized a coup and declared the founding of the Civic Military Junta in 1961. An annoyed America temporarily cut military aid to the junta - before almost immediately restoring the military aid when a bunch of leftist officers led by Fabio Castillo Figueroa and Rubén Alonso Rosales threatened, and ultimately overthrew the regime. The right-wing militarists had faced massive protests and a general strike in the streets - and a left-wing coup was the death knell to their regime, as they all packed their bags to nearby Nicaragua. The United States vociferously condemned the new El Salvadorean government, but it was too late. A distinctly left-wing power survived immediate American, OAS, and APP embargos, which would have massive effects on its neighbors (it was a huge morale boost for the nascent Sandinistas).
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I assume it'd hit in the exact same way, but I don't think it'd be worse than OTL.
Also, why do people think the TL is so dark? Real life gave us pretty crappy stuff too.
lol, you're no fun.I assume it'd hit in the exact same way, but I don't think it'd be worse than OTL.
Also, why do people think the TL is so dark? Real life gave us pretty crappy stuff too.
Chapter 182 - The Alliance for Progress (Part Two)
The Alliance for Progress (Part Two)
Honduran politics had grown dominated by the wildly popular Ramón Villeda Morales since his election in 1957. Implementing generous programs of worker protection, land reform, universal healthcare, and universal education (funded partly with American funds), the traditional landlord ruling class of Honduras grew increasingly incensed with his rule, viewing him as a dangerous populist. Although a liberal, Villeda was a strong opponent of Marxism, and thus could draw on generous American support. With the leftist coup in El Salvador, right-wing elements in the military decided to make their move, calling Villeda a crypto-Marxist. They viewed him as an existential threat - as he had distrusted the military since a failed 1959 coup attempt, and his successor (who was so left-wing as to denounce Villeda) was heading towards a landslide victory in the 1963 elections. The Americans warned of severe repercussions if the military were to overthrow Villeda - with President Kennedy directly warning the military. They disregarded his warnings. In October, 1963, a week before the planned election, military troops stormed the Presidential Palace and launched attacks on members of the Civil Guard (a pro-Villeda paramilitary guard). During an evening and night of killings, they had seized control of the capital.
In Washington DC, President Kennedy was furious. President Kennedy was known for his backpains and the White House Doctor he had brought into him in 1957, Max Jacobson, was known for giving him highly rejuvenating "vitamin shots" in order to relieve his pain and increase his energy. As Kennedy's government centralized more and more power in the Executive Office of the President of the United States, Kennedy had longer and longer working-days, until he was regularly working up to 140 hours per week, micromanaging mostly foreign and military affairs in his bid to roll back Communist power. The primary active ingredient in Kennedy's "vitamin shots" was Methamphetamine. Although President Kennedy made sure to keep up appearances in public, in private, he had become increasingly dependent on "vitamin shots", which led to severe mood swings. In particular, Kennedy became significantly more hawkish when plowing through late-nights with his Vitamin Shots, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was rather surprised when President Kennedy called him at 3 A.M., immediately telling him "Get ready, we're invading Honduras." When asked why, Kennedy told him that he had warned the coup planners to not try to overthrow the government - and it was the new junta in Honduras who had made the decision to "fuck around and find out."
Under American orders, the Organization of American States demanded that the military restore the constitutional government. American paratroopers soon parachuted over Tegucigalpa. The Honduran military, not expecting the Americans to actually call their bluff, almost immediately collapsed. Villeda, with the Americans whispering into his year, announced that there would be a general amnesty. Soon, almost all except the most hardline elements would give up (the hardliners would flee abroad, primarily to Nicaragua). In the end, 19 Americans and 45 Hondurans would be killed either in brief fighting over several radio stations or in various accidents.
The military part had proved an overwhelming success, but now America had inherited a dangerous situation. Both the radical right and far-left denounced "American imperialism." Elections would be delayed for two months and in what was widely believed now to be an election "influenced" by American "election observers" (who were generally not suspected by the center-left), center-right candidate Ramón Ernesto Cruz Uclés was elected in an surprise upset. Although American foul play was likely involved, Cruz also benefited from the revulsion by many middle-class liberals to the leftist coup in El Salvador. Much to the outright of the radical right, Cruz generally decided to not roll back any of Villeda's programs, and much to the delight of America, he continued Hondura's relations with the USA.
In Guatemala, President Jacobo Arbenz deftly promoted populist policies and had originally sought to stay nonaligned in the burgeoning Cold War, primarily focused on amassing more centralized power for himself. Although he had fancied himself a socialist, he had turned on most of the left after the Americans acquiesced to the seizure of United Fruit Company land - and offered Alliance for Progress funding in exchange. A military crackdown on leftist students sent hundreds of students and professionals fleeing abroad, such as the doctor Ernesto Guevara (who fled to Nicaragua). Abroad, Arbenz tilted closely towards a network of similiarly minded, vaguely-pro-American but pragmatic strongmen, such as Gustavo Rojas Pinilla of Colombia, Juan Peron of Argentina, and Ramón Castro Jijón of Ecuador - though this crew had shrunk after the departures of Jose Mario Lemus Lopez of El Salvador, Manuel Odria of Peru, and Jimenez of Venezuela. They had hoped Rene Barrientos would lead Bolivia into a similar direction, but Bolivia would go into a very different direction.
Finally, the giant of Latin America was very much the odd man out in all of these political developments. Brazil, under the social democrat Joao Goulart, had the closest relations of any Western-aligned state with the Social Camp. Joao Goulart's reform policies (not so different from Villeda's) had made him quite popular - but his willingness to accept aid from both the Western and Eastern bloc soon sparked Western paranoia. In particular, President Kennedy grew to distrust the wily left-leaning Brazilian President. Not for the substance of his domestic policies, but his unwillingness to denounce the Communists in Parliament, a few of which had joined his cabinet. Goulart won a landslide re-election in 1960, much to the distress of the Kennedy administration. Although the Americans were preoccupied in Venezuela, Indonesia, and Oman - once they had extricated themselves from those wars, American eyes soon turned on Brazil. A fellow Catholic, John Kennedy eventually brokered close relations between the United States government and Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, who would use American funding to found the organization Tradition, Family and Property, which rallied traditionalist Catholics against the left-leaning Goulart. Amusingly, many beneficiaries of Goulart's land reform would join this organization - middle-class peasants often rallied behind religiosity instead of economic reform once they had become small self-sufficient farmers - a profound irony since the original raison d'etre of TFP was to oppose Goulart's land reform.
The Alliance for Progress cut off all funding for Brazil, while the Kennedy Administration steered American businesses away from Brazil. The Brazilian economy almost immediately struggled, as the IMF and the World Bank rejected any kind of bailout or debt negotiation for Brazil. The hope was to drive Brazil into economic decline and set the stage for a violent change in government. However, much to the outrage of Kennedy, one of his allies abroad reneged on their agreements. In 1963, a consortium of international lenders brokered a debt refinancing agreement with the Brazilian government in exchange for a share in Brazil's new state-owned oil corporation, Petrobras. The vast majority of those companies were Italian, with the influence of Prime Minister Enrico Mattei all over the project. The Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi took a significant share of Brazil's Petrobras. When an outraged Kennedy called him and demanded why he broke their previous agreement to align foreign and financial policies - Mattei simply stated that the oil crisis of 1963 meant that every country was for itself. Arthur Schlesinger, who was listening to the call, would write later that "President Kennedy made the same great mistake that every epochal ruler, from Kaiser Wilhelm to Hitler to Tito had made - he trusted the Italians." The Brazilian economy pulled back from the brink - and plans for a coup were thus scrapped.
I believe it's down to several reasons actually.
1. The Three Years' War, which was essentially a pseudo-WW3.
2. An actual freaking military coup takes place in the USA by a bunch of admirals, even if it failed, imagine the precedent it sends.
3. The Tsar Bomba wiping Stockholm off the map completely, plus several nukes being used in China, essentially breaking the nuclear taboo.
4. Beria becomes the new head of the Soviet Union after Stalin.
5. Stalin commits a Soviet Holocaust on the USSR's Jewish Population, while not as gruesome as "Twilight of the Red Tsar" still is tragic.
6. The South Japanese essentially constructing a Berlin-Wall analogue in Tokyo.
7. West Germany is essentially a military dictatorship.
8. Korea being overrun entirely by the communist north. Even if the north isn't as insane as the Kim Government, the idea of a communist Korea is probably not something easy to swallow for a lot of people on this site given OTL.
9. The spectacular implosion of the British Empire as of late it seems.
10. That chapter on psychiatric abuse in both the USA and USSR, which had one comment basically "Great, I can't even really tell the difference between the NKVD and the CIA."
11. Because of geographical and historical reasons, the Great Leap Forward is not some analogue for failed government policies that led to millions dying but is seen as a model among the far-left, plus Maoism being more popular even in the IRA.
These are just some reasons I speculate as to why people believe this TL is so dark.
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The great Italian mercenary tradition is still strong.
That's really clever to connect Italian oil ambitions with Petrobras, it'll give their attempts to compete with all the Standard Oil breakup companies in the United States an actual fighting chance.
Interesting times, really interesting times.
When was this?
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1. Yeah, though I more thought of it as an escalated/expanded Korean War.
2. Yeah, still not entirely sure what the repercussions of that will be.
3. Stockholm was pretty bad, pretty much nothing comparable in OTL. But we're actually breaking even on atomic bombs - since Nagasaki never got atomic bombed while North China caught one atomic bomb. Death toll of OTL Nagasaki and ITL Mukden is comparable, I think.
4. As a person, he's one of the worst humans imaginable, but as a leader...well, I actually don't know how future people in the USSR would classify him. He might be the ultimate example of an evil person doing something right for the wrong reasons, because he has made a lot of reforms to the Soviet Union that he believes strengthens his own power and then he accidentally yeeted himself lol
5. I don't think it's comparable to the Holocaust - it's more comparable to the many many mass OTL deportations/ethnic cleansings under Stalin and Beria. It's probably actually less bloody/deadly than the other deportations - not because the government is nicer, but just because the USSR is more prosperous. The expulsions during World War II had truely grotesque death rates - but the post-WW2 expulsions were generally less bloody. A quick look on Wikipedia seems to make it seem like 1/3rd of the Chechens died and 1/6th of the Kalmyks - but the Poles expelled from the annexed territories circa 1946 seem to have mostly survived. So presumably thousands of Jews died (and up to a million deported) but it wasn't the Holocaust (I think something like 90% of German Jews died in the Holocaust). I think most Jews would compare it less to he Holocaust and more to the pogroms in Imperial Russia, which while very bad, weren't the Holocaust.
6. Ah yes, there are plans.
7. As of right now - West Germany isn't quite like Franco's Spain or Portugal. It's more closer to Turkey in the Cold War. There's basically democracy at the local level and democracy at the national level, but there's a lot of censorship and repression - and the implicit threat that if you elect someone too far outside the Overton window (aka someone who looks too "Red"), the military might step in.
8. Ah yes, there are plans.
9. True, though that depends on your opinions of the British Empire.
10. Ah yes, there are plans.
11. Kind of ironically, it's only popular in countries that aren't really agrarian enough to do it lol. It's somewhat different though just because it's not viewed as a distinct ideology from Soviet Communism - but rather just a more localized form of Soviet Communism. Which is ironically closer to what Mao Zedong Thought in China actually is. Mao Zedong Thought in China and Maoism abroad are actually very distinct in that sense as Mao Zedong Thought under CPC doctrine isn't a distinct form of Communism, it's just Marxism-Leninism "adapted to Chinese national conditions."
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While I agree that this is a really dark timeline, I think people are ignoring a lot of bright spots:
1) Iran and Afghanistan are both stable and more or less democratic
2) Pakistan is under a secular government
3) Southern China is slowly democratizing, with the KMT losing control of power
4) Hungary managed to oust the Soviets and is now an independent country
5) Most of South America is under democratic governments and Kennedy is willing to tolerate left-wing governments as long as they are not Communists
6) India is avoiding most of its OTL problems and is economically more stable than OTL
7) Lybia and Tunisia are using all the chaos in North Africa to crete their own sphere of influence and improve their situation
1) Iran and Afghanistan are both stable and more or less democratic
2) Pakistan is under a secular government
3) Southern China is slowly democratizing, with the KMT losing control of power
4) Hungary managed to oust the Soviets and is now an independent country
5) Most of South America is under democratic governments and Kennedy is willing to tolerate left-wing governments as long as they are not Communists
6) India is avoiding most of its OTL problems and is economically more stable than OTL
7) Lybia and Tunisia are using all the chaos in North Africa to crete their own sphere of influence and improve their situation
I think he could be classified as "pragmatic evil": after all he opposed Stalin's antisemitic purges not on moral grounds but because starting a second Holocaust would have completely destroyed the Soviet Union's reputation at home and abroad.
After reading about Brazil, we can all agree this is now Italy's official slogan.Hopefully the two events are connected
Hi everybody!
I'm just dropping this message to say that I'm in the process of reading this TL from its first chapter and that I'm finding this alternate post-war world very fascinating. However, I also feel compelled to add that the retcons you introduced in the first part of the TL (1944-1950), while not detrimental to the narrative (in fact, I quite liked your portrayal of a Wallace Administration) made quite a lot of revised chapters very hard to read. In particular, Brown vs Board of Education (ch. 35) was a particularly jarring reading experience because of all the unedited leftovers from the pre-retcon chapter: Russell apparently being both President and Senator from Georgia, Barkley in the White House out of nowhere, Wallace's Supreme Court appointees from a previous revised chapter suddenly becoming Russell's appointees, etc. To the point in fact that I had substantial trouble following the dynamics of what actually happened. For example I don't know why Taft's death in 1954 suddenly made the Senate a 48-48 tie from a previous situation of 49-47 in favor of the Republicans. I think that Ohio laws allow governors to appoint substitutes from any Party to fill Senate vacancies until a special election can be called, which could explain the new balance if ITTL Ohio has a Dem governor in 1954 like IOTL, but an additional line to explain that that was what happened would have been very helpful.
Overall, I'm enjoying what I'm reading but there are several little things, mostly unrelated to the facts depicted, which are bothering me and which could be corrected. Sorry if my first post was mostly used as a way for me to complain. 😅
I'm just dropping this message to say that I'm in the process of reading this TL from its first chapter and that I'm finding this alternate post-war world very fascinating. However, I also feel compelled to add that the retcons you introduced in the first part of the TL (1944-1950), while not detrimental to the narrative (in fact, I quite liked your portrayal of a Wallace Administration) made quite a lot of revised chapters very hard to read. In particular, Brown vs Board of Education (ch. 35) was a particularly jarring reading experience because of all the unedited leftovers from the pre-retcon chapter: Russell apparently being both President and Senator from Georgia, Barkley in the White House out of nowhere, Wallace's Supreme Court appointees from a previous revised chapter suddenly becoming Russell's appointees, etc. To the point in fact that I had substantial trouble following the dynamics of what actually happened. For example I don't know why Taft's death in 1954 suddenly made the Senate a 48-48 tie from a previous situation of 49-47 in favor of the Republicans. I think that Ohio laws allow governors to appoint substitutes from any Party to fill Senate vacancies until a special election can be called, which could explain the new balance if ITTL Ohio has a Dem governor in 1954 like IOTL, but an additional line to explain that that was what happened would have been very helpful.
Overall, I'm enjoying what I'm reading but there are several little things, mostly unrelated to the facts depicted, which are bothering me and which could be corrected. Sorry if my first post was mostly used as a way for me to complain. 😅
And that's i found a little problematic, not for the act itself but the continous backstabbing all the italian goverment do regarding foreing policy...and that's a little irrealistic, not only for other countries to still believe Italy but that an italian goverment wil continue to act like that, because unless you are a superpower you are usual a lot more carefull in burning all the bridges around you.
If you do, you do for a lot of important reason or because the price is too good to not do it, for this reason i said that Italy will have accepted the Soviet proposal during the war with Jugoslavia and inglobated a lot more of territory, as the agreement basically made Italy a pariah among other nation and so, at least the price need to be good enough.
Italy reneging the agreement with Kennedy and financing Brazil, it's starkly possible but i also expect dire economic consequences and a lot of internal problem for Mattei, basically Italy is a regional power at best and while in a good position economically is hardly on par with the superpowers.
Sparring with France or Turkey? Oh sure, they are on our league...with the USA? Hardly
I'm not really sure if that's a good thing, if the regime in question is anything to go by. What with the de facto genocide it had the army carry out against Pakistan's resistant peasantry sparking a massive refugee crisis (upwards of 10 million people fleeing to India apparently) or its full scale endorsement of Hoxha esque bunker building it doesn't seem that much better... or stable.