How's the situation in Portugal? Weeks ago, you spoke about the US involvement in Angola and the humanitarian crisis occuring, but hows the situation in Portugal itself?
The North Star is Red: a Wallace Presidency, KMT Victory, Alternate Cold War TL
- Thread starter TastySpam
- Start date
I wonder if that's where the HoI4-TWR devs got that from for TTL's Algerian War.
I'm only on page 20 of this and this is already one of the best Cold War TL ever created.
Venditg
Banned
We don't have the like many Cold War TLs. Well at least, those which continue, because others are either simple questions what if and others got banned, stop developing them or other😅 @TastySpam is a good exception finally.
Chapter 188 - New Communism
New Communism
The global student movements of 1964 would not just cause turmoil in the West with the rise of the "New Left", it would also call turmoil in the Communist bloc with the rise of what was rapidly called "New Communism", ideologies inspired by Marxism-Leninism that significantly deviated from the ideology, in many ways. While many of these offshoots would die off, either from lack of interest or from official state repression, many would grow to become more prominent in the years to come.
One such ideology was Cosmocommunism, which took off shortly after the Soviet Red August. A friendly competitor with other ideologies, such as Snezhnevsky's Schizocommunists or Glushkov's Cybercommunists, Cosmocommunism saw many of its origins far away in El Salvador, where an Argentinian Communist guerilla nicknamed Juan Posadas published his 1964 work, "Flying saucers, the process of matter and energy, science, the revolutionary and working-class struggle and the socialist future of mankind", where he asserted that UFOs did in fact exist because of his optimistic Marxist-Lenininist interpretation of the Drake Equation (which posits that intelligent life must exist somewhere in the universe based on the sheer size of the universe). He explained that any civilization or society advanced enough to engage in interstellar travel faster than the speed of light without destroying itself would have to be a Communist society and that all UFOs would naturally be adherents of Communism. In this theory, the reason humans had not encountered aliens was that aliens themselves refused to contact primitives who had not advanced yet to Communism. His focus on interstellar travel found an incredibly open audience in the Soviet Union, where much of the population was still enamored with the Soviet moon landing. In fact, almost every faction of the Soviet Union put interstellar travel as a key justification for Communism, creating fertile ground for Posadas. His other work, the bulk of his work, actually drew far less interest.
Posadas himself was invited to Moscow by influential Red Guard leaders, where he became exceptionally influential, writing like mad, until ironically also being killed by a revolutionary rival from the Schizocommunist faction in a now-infamous murder, who feared that his writings on the desirability of a nuclear first strike on the West would actually cause such an outcome. His ideas on the desirability of a nuclear war did not catch on after the murder of the Trotykist thinker (also ironically done with a ice pick), but his final essay was actually adopted by the Soviet government. His final paper discussed the possibility of human-dolphin interaction and the desirability of human water-birth, both of which would be adopted into government policy. Even as the rest of the Soviet economy ground to a halt, an effort was made to construct a massive Dolphin research facility in Moscow. Today, the Kazan Dolphin Aquarium, a popular tourist destination, is the largest aquarium for dolphins in the world and credited for rescuing several dolphin species from danger of extinction. Posadas's final essay also inspired Soviet cosmonautic officials, keenly aware of the wave of sympathy towards Posadas after his death, announced that the Soviet Union would attempt to have a woman give birth in a space on the 50th anniversary of Red October - in an imitation of the water-birth of dolphins. Despite the lack of many native dolphin species in the Soviet Union, dolphins quickly became adopted as a symbol of the Soviet Navy (a branch that saw significant investment in the Beria years).
Pure Communism was a result of the most unexpected political conversions in East Asia. Taking its name from Kita Ikki's famous essay, The Theory of Japanese National Essence and Pure Socialism, famous Japanese author Yukio Mishima found far less to complain about Marxism-Leninism when he made a now famous trip with a friend to the former capital of Manchukuo (and de facto capital of the People's Republic of China), Xinjing. Mishima was always actually a fairly poor fit on the Japanese far-right, largely because he believed that the Showa Emperor should abdicated at the end of World War II for "failing" Japan - which embittered many Japanese right-wing radicals towards Mishima. At the same time, he loathed the bourgeosie values of South Japanese leftists - and largely viewed North Japan as a Soviet puppet (a belief not uncommon ironically in North Japan itself). However, it was on a visit to the People's Republic of China where Mishima found his cause. Writing eloquently about the wave of emotions he was given by visiting the North Chinese "Lei Feng Hall of Heroes" (formerly Manchukuo's replica of Yasukuni Shrine) and "Mao Zedong Mausoleum" (formerly Manchukuo's replica of Ise Grand Shrine), Mishima asserted that Chinese Communism did a better job of reviving "traditional Japanese martial virtue" than "bourgeoise, American puppetized Japan." On their part, North Chinese authorities weren't exactly thrilled by this interpretation, but they were happy to sow ideological confusion in South Japan.
Returning to Japan, Mishima quickly became one of the most prominent Marxists in South Japan, advocating for a "Japanese National Pure Communism", arguing that South Japan should immediately remilitarize (as a nonaligned power), replace the powerless Showa Emperor with an empowered "People's Emperor", establish a one-party socialist state, establish stricter environmental standards, establish a larger social welfare safety net, peacefully unify with North Japan, and remove both American and Soviet bases. Some of those policies, such as environmental standards and social welfare nets, became rather popular after several well-published environmental catastrophes, such as the mass mercury poisoning of Minamata Disease or the infamous Yokaichi Asthma. With the Japanese Communist Party still illegal, Mishima's "Pure Socialist Party" became an eclectic mixture of the far-left and far-right that quickly became the number one domestic Asia-Pacific enemy of the American CIA.
The biggest deviation from Marxism-Leninism - possibly enough to throw off Marxism in its entirety and declare itself as post-Marxist, was also nearby - Juche socialism. Hwang Jang-yop, the dean of Seoul National University. One of Kim Il-Sung's last speeches before the Korean War and his untimely death, On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work, was quickly spun by Hwang into a more wide-ranging ideology. Rejecting the materialism in Marxism-Leninism as improperly minimizing the "spiritual virtues" of the Korean race, Hwang presented Juche as a "middle way" between North Chinese and Soviet Communism, largely because he deviated from both. Calling for both "socialism with a human face" and "a singular Great Leader to serve as vanguard for the masses", Hwang also took a surprisingly pragmatic approach to relations with North China. Although lambasting the "Manchu domination of Joseon" by referencing the Gapsin Coup, he also pointed that out "patriotic agitators against Manchu domination inadvertently opened the door to Japanese imperialism." Regardless, the modest criticism of Chinese-style Communism was seen as a significant threat by the incumbent government. However, having failed to truly construct a Marxist-Leninist state (with the People's Republic of Korea being a unwieldy coalition between three distinct Communist groups, North Korean Communists, South Korean Communists, and Chinese-Korean Communists), the state was never able to suppress the spread of Juche ideology or Hwang himself. As the People's Republic of China spent escalating amounts of manpower and money supporting various colonial struggles in Africa, Latin America, and even Northern Ireland, they neglected political changes in Korea.
The update was surprisingly wholesome for Posadas (other than his asassination)
Whoever had “communist dolphin aquariums and state-policy water births” on your bingo board, raise your hand!
Great stuff as always Tasty!
Great stuff as always Tasty!
Venditg
Banned
@TastySpam I have a few questions
Great work by the way.
How much info did you manage to find about his movement? I have tried to find it through contacting the websites, the author who wrote about him and the movement and other search engines but I discovered little.
I wonder, all of this Beria plans and so on, are they based on historical info you found or is this the way you want to take the story?
Great work by the way.
The internet has way too much information on Posadism, but it's actually disputable how much of it actually has to do with Posadas himself (a lot gets lost in translation). That's fine for my purposes, because I assume ITL, a LOT gets lost in translation from Spanish into Russian - and I think it's explicitly stated that Soviets kind of ignore his actual theory and just focus almost entirely on the UFO stuff lmao.
The Beria Navy expansion is an ITL thing - based on the Soviet Union being totally outmatched on the sea in the Three Years War.
Chapter 189 - A Tryst of the Destined
A Tryst of the Destined
Indian political history in the 1960's was in many ways continued to boil down to disagreements with regards to independence. The INC (Socialist) was widely expected to win the 1962 elections, but when Menon fell short, incriminations went everywhere. Chief among this belief was the idea that Menon had simply tried too hard to go it alone. His platform was wildly popular - but he hadn't been making friends very effectively at the local and state level. The imperious Menon, surprisingly took the criticism without lashing out at his subordinates, but still did not want to be overly "compromised" with "localist" and "feudalist" politicians. As a result, he chose to turn to a new force:
At the end of World War II, the former commander of the Indian National Army, Subhas Chandra Bose had fled to Japanese Manchuria with the intent of defecting to the Soviet Union in a bid to rally Soviet support for Indian independence. In contrast to the warm support he had received from the Imperial Japanese, the Soviets simply did not trust him, and imprisoned him along with the rest of the Kwangtung Army. Even when most of the Japanese were repatriated to North Japan or China, Bose (as well as many top Kwantung Army officials) were kept on (albeit in more comfortable circumstances) until an amnesty was issued in 1954 (with release delayed until 1957, after the end of the Three Years War). Although not a vehement anti-Communist, Bose never truly embraced Communism, viewing the Soviets quite insufficiently committed to anti-colonialism. Indeed, Stalin himself was never interested in the anti-colonial project.
When Bose returned to India, he was given a hero's welcome by former INA veterans and much of Indian society, who saw him as a hero of both independence. In particularly, many anti-Communists viewed Bose as more palatable than other Indian nationalists, because he was generally believed to have been embittered towards the Soviet Union. Eventually, Bose would quickly re-establish his own patriotic paramilitary, the "Indian National Service Corps", that would quickly operate through direct action to lobby Indian politics. However, the INC (S) and the INSC were never able to establish a strong partnership, largely because Menon did not want to compromise to any other force. Interestingly, INSC, despite being officially non-communal and secular, quickly drew many former RSS cadets for being such forceful advocates for "Indian territorial integrity", and was thus given often unofficial support by the ruling Rajaji government, who saw them as preferable to the Hindu nationalists.
Calling the Rajaji Administration weak, the INSC seemed like a lucrative partner for Menon's INC (S). And indeed, in a meeting in 1964, Bose and Menon agreed on a tactical alliance going forwards in the next alliance. The INSC would lend its official paramilitary support to the INC (S), with prominent INSC members standing as members of the INC (Nationalist), which would not compete in the same districts as INC (S) members. The Menon-Bose alliance would send shockwaves through Indian politics. Interestingly, the INSC would recieve significant support from Western special services (despite Bose's reputation as an anti-Western crusader), because while Menon was regarded as a Soviet sympathizer, Bose was seen at most neutral towards the USSR (which was correct) and thus a preferable outcome if the pro-Western Rajaji went down in the scheduled 1967 elections. Indeed, it was a strange coalition. Although the biggest war at the time was the Ceylon War, the INC (S) called the war in Ceylon "Western imperialism", while the INC (N) lambasted the Rajaji government for being unable to win the war.
Venditg
Banned
What about Beria economic decisions? Did they exist OTL as well or also ITL?
Ps Bose is... interesting.
I love it! Straight to the point of matter! No debate, just straight "fuck you!" with guns