TLIAPOT
- Thread starter Blair
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- dystopia morgenthau wikibox tl
Not really, the Communists were a minuscule fringe party for most of the post-war period, they didn't even break 5% until the 70s. They've gotten stronger now, but didn't really get close to the Socialists until they themselves imploded in the 90s.
Count Valerian
Banned
I reckon the Japanese left is going to be facing significant difficulty in asserting itself, what with the mainland now very red.
I agree with @Count Valerian. A slide into right-wing semi-authoritarianism sounds likely—not the outright abolition of democratic institutions, but wielding the full power of the state to ban peaceful political parties which the government doesn't consider ideologically acceptable, akin to the anti-socialist purges in the United States in OTL.
Count Valerian
Banned
I'd also predict partial re-militarization. Probably something similar to the Bundeswehr of OTL, or pre-WWI Britain brought up to speed with the times: small/non-existent army, big navy and air force. Is Taiwan part of Red China? Expect opposition for re-militarization to be even more muted. We might see Japanese soldiers fighting alongside American ones in Vietnam.
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin was the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union... or at least that's what the man himself believed. The fact that Foreign Minister Mikoyan and Second Secretary Suslov had accompanied him on his grand tour of the United States spoke rather poorly of that supposed reality. To call these three men a "troika" implied that there was at least some cooperation between them. There wasn't. The new president was a shred man, unlike his predecessor, he could see shades of red. He knew there was a reason why the Chinese had sent political nobodies to the last Party Congress and why Marshall Tito himself had enjoyed roast duck in the Kremlin last week. The times were changing.
Premier Bulganin drank his champagne while Anastas Mikoyan was busy schmoozing the American Ambassador. Bulganin turned to face Suslov "and what of you Mikhail Andreyevich" Bulganin said aloud vaguely gesturing in Suslov's direction "friend of yours?" Mikhail Suslov was staring at a portrait of... somebody. "Senate Majority Leader Kenneth Wherry" the placard read. "So y-" Bulganin began, Suslov quickly cut him off "we say the proletariat is the undertaker of capitalism" Suslov said turning to Bulganin "it looks like the capitalists have their own undertakers" Suslov turned back to the portrait "if you aren't careful they just might bury you Nikolai Alexandrovich". Suslov walked away. Bulganin muttered to himself before downing the rest his glass, such childish taunts from his supposed second-in-command were becoming more and more common. Bulganin brushed it off and walked into the next room, a secret service agent following him at a comfortable distance. "Idiot" Bulganin spat under his breath "does he really think I'm going to bug this place myself?" [1] Bulganin then turned to look at the outdated map of Europe hanging on the wall, "I'm going to get that remade soon" said the president as he strolled into the room "any last minute changes you want to make?" he asked with a smile. Indeed there had been quite a few changes since the "end" of the war, not all of them of Soviet design. Though granted the most recent change had come at Stalin's hand. The GDR was much larger now, its eastern borders returned to the 1939 status quo with the exception of Upper Silesia, East Prussia, and Lviv. The Poles objected of course, not that Stalin had much of a problem overruling them. President Pieck now had access to those coal fields he so craved, all the better for the productivity of COMECON. The Bavarians for their part claimed all of the former American Occupation Zone, not that they could hold it all. The lines would be shifting for a few years before a defined border could be worked out...
Upon his return to Moscow, Premier Bulganin laid out a bold five-year-plan. The "innovative applications of communism" scheme would be expanded to restructure the Soviet economy from the ground-up. Taking cues from the East German Wirtschaftswunder, Bulganin eased restrictions on private ownership of light industries. Gossnab had no business telling anyone how to run a hotel or teashop from his perspective, Soviet consumer goods should follow private demand. Of course, heavy industry would continue to be the prerogative of the state. However, factories would become subject to "anti-lethargy" campaigns. In other words, plant managers were encouraged to fire stupid people...
The de-industrialization of West Germany, along with the flight of nearly all skilled mechanics, had effectively killed the German car industry. The West German Bundestag in Frankfurt had turned to coal, iron, and steel mining to be the underpinnings of the new economy. Afterall, swinging pickaxes did not require skilled workers. But Germany would never again be the sole player in these areas, the Swedes and their friends in the NEZ had already begun encroaching on the markets during The Anarchy. France, Belgium and Britain all stood to gain from Germany's devastation as well. A race had already begun among the Western European powers to build modern continuous casting and basic oxygen furnaces that would put Germany to shame. In the case of France and Britain, the modernization effort necessitated the abandoning of existing plants wholesale and the building of new ones along the coasts. Cities like Dunkirk, Teesside, Port Glasgow, Marseilles and Le Havre were among the first to make extensive use of gastarbeiter for these tasks. Although such "spendthrift" projects would have been balked at by Paris and London just a half-decade prior, the reneging of American aid under President Taft had put things in perspective. France and the United Kingdom would have to put modernizing their economies above everything else lest they be forever dependent on Washington.
Although the new Anglo-British automotive industry drove demand for steel and other products, the Europeans knew the Germans were strapped for cash. Any trade deal negotiated by the Bundestag would inevitably favor the other party. In this uncertain environment young Germans continued to seek work outside the country, the GDR being an attractive choice after Bulganin's reforms...
For a time it seemed as if the world had settled into a temporary peace. West Germany continued to decline of course, but unlike before it did so without bloodshed. Bulganin had achieved a tentative truce between the United States and Soviet Union and, the African escapades of German mercenaries in the French Foreign Legion aside, there were no major conflicts to speak of. Then the 7th fleet of the United States Navy began steaming toward the Black Ditch. War. War never changes.
[1] The Soviets have already bugged the American Embassy in Moscow as per OTL.
Premier Bulganin drank his champagne while Anastas Mikoyan was busy schmoozing the American Ambassador. Bulganin turned to face Suslov "and what of you Mikhail Andreyevich" Bulganin said aloud vaguely gesturing in Suslov's direction "friend of yours?" Mikhail Suslov was staring at a portrait of... somebody. "Senate Majority Leader Kenneth Wherry" the placard read. "So y-" Bulganin began, Suslov quickly cut him off "we say the proletariat is the undertaker of capitalism" Suslov said turning to Bulganin "it looks like the capitalists have their own undertakers" Suslov turned back to the portrait "if you aren't careful they just might bury you Nikolai Alexandrovich". Suslov walked away. Bulganin muttered to himself before downing the rest his glass, such childish taunts from his supposed second-in-command were becoming more and more common. Bulganin brushed it off and walked into the next room, a secret service agent following him at a comfortable distance. "Idiot" Bulganin spat under his breath "does he really think I'm going to bug this place myself?" [1] Bulganin then turned to look at the outdated map of Europe hanging on the wall, "I'm going to get that remade soon" said the president as he strolled into the room "any last minute changes you want to make?" he asked with a smile. Indeed there had been quite a few changes since the "end" of the war, not all of them of Soviet design. Though granted the most recent change had come at Stalin's hand. The GDR was much larger now, its eastern borders returned to the 1939 status quo with the exception of Upper Silesia, East Prussia, and Lviv. The Poles objected of course, not that Stalin had much of a problem overruling them. President Pieck now had access to those coal fields he so craved, all the better for the productivity of COMECON. The Bavarians for their part claimed all of the former American Occupation Zone, not that they could hold it all. The lines would be shifting for a few years before a defined border could be worked out...
Upon his return to Moscow, Premier Bulganin laid out a bold five-year-plan. The "innovative applications of communism" scheme would be expanded to restructure the Soviet economy from the ground-up. Taking cues from the East German Wirtschaftswunder, Bulganin eased restrictions on private ownership of light industries. Gossnab had no business telling anyone how to run a hotel or teashop from his perspective, Soviet consumer goods should follow private demand. Of course, heavy industry would continue to be the prerogative of the state. However, factories would become subject to "anti-lethargy" campaigns. In other words, plant managers were encouraged to fire stupid people...
The de-industrialization of West Germany, along with the flight of nearly all skilled mechanics, had effectively killed the German car industry. The West German Bundestag in Frankfurt had turned to coal, iron, and steel mining to be the underpinnings of the new economy. Afterall, swinging pickaxes did not require skilled workers. But Germany would never again be the sole player in these areas, the Swedes and their friends in the NEZ had already begun encroaching on the markets during The Anarchy. France, Belgium and Britain all stood to gain from Germany's devastation as well. A race had already begun among the Western European powers to build modern continuous casting and basic oxygen furnaces that would put Germany to shame. In the case of France and Britain, the modernization effort necessitated the abandoning of existing plants wholesale and the building of new ones along the coasts. Cities like Dunkirk, Teesside, Port Glasgow, Marseilles and Le Havre were among the first to make extensive use of gastarbeiter for these tasks. Although such "spendthrift" projects would have been balked at by Paris and London just a half-decade prior, the reneging of American aid under President Taft had put things in perspective. France and the United Kingdom would have to put modernizing their economies above everything else lest they be forever dependent on Washington.
Although the new Anglo-British automotive industry drove demand for steel and other products, the Europeans knew the Germans were strapped for cash. Any trade deal negotiated by the Bundestag would inevitably favor the other party. In this uncertain environment young Germans continued to seek work outside the country, the GDR being an attractive choice after Bulganin's reforms...
For a time it seemed as if the world had settled into a temporary peace. West Germany continued to decline of course, but unlike before it did so without bloodshed. Bulganin had achieved a tentative truce between the United States and Soviet Union and, the African escapades of German mercenaries in the French Foreign Legion aside, there were no major conflicts to speak of. Then the 7th fleet of the United States Navy began steaming toward the Black Ditch. War. War never changes.
[1] The Soviets have already bugged the American Embassy in Moscow as per OTL.
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There's no way that Sweden will acquire a dominant position in the European steel industry post war, primarily because Sweden doesn't have access to ressources of coking grade coal. Sure, it'll produce more steel than OTL but it won't be dominant.
France, Belgium and Britain all stand to gain from Germany's loss to varying degrees. Whoever will gain the most will be whoever modernises the most first with continuous casting and basic oxygen furnaces.
In the case of France and Britain this modernisation means abandoning existing plants wholesale and building new ones on their coasts, in places like Dunkirk, Teesside, Port Glasgow, Marseilles or Le Havre. This didn't happen OTL in France as the industry shied away from large scale investments and didn't have the cash. This could change TTL since the absence of American help should (hopefully?) force countries like France and the United Kingdom to put modernising their economies above everything else.
The fact that the European car industry will be focused on France & Britain will also drive demand for steel and other products.
TTL's France & Britain could each produce 40Mt of steel by 2016 if they play their cards rights. That's 4 times OTL.
TTL's incentives for an Anglo-French lead Europe will also be a lot stronger due to American absence. There's no other alternative after all ...
Ill change this.
Agreed, I'll add this.
Agreed, I'll add this.
Thank you for your input.
No goodies on the car market for Italy? Both FIAT and Alfa Romeo could benefit from Volkswagen being dead, after all, and while both had been extensively damaged by the war and OTL had received great help from American funding, they had been stumbling back into business by '46 (and FIAT completed the reconstruction of its factories in '48).
Plus italian car industry always had a good relationships with the URSS
Lost Freeway
Banned
Whats the URSS?
French acronym for Soviet Union. Why it's so popular on this site I don't know.
Because in Italian it's: Unione delle Repubbliche Socialiste Sovietiche or URSS, mine is just an habit
I don't know, but here's an idea: Because some people don't speak English as their first language, so they don't necessarily default to the English version of every acronym.
It's just a matter of convention, which is different for different people. For example, see CERN, which I expect you probably don't call ECNR.
I suspect Italy will get a good share of the market. Bulganin will probably start importing Italian cars and Yugos to the Eastern Bloc.
There are a couple of major problems I see in the implementation of this election............
First we have Kefauver losing the nomination despite clearly winning the primaries to a dividing candidate. Now while that happened historically, we have to factor that in with the addition that the States' Rights Party is an established force in the South, meaning that the Southern delegations at the Convention are going to have a tendency to be more Liberal and smaller given fewer bonuses for elected officials and such. Claude Pepper is also not the right kind of candidate for this environment having (until recently so I can allow for butterflies if you implement them) favored reconciliation with the Soviet Union, and for this reason in OTL he was opposed by the major labor unions which would have had to be mustered to give his candidacy much of a chance. Pepper also clearly isn't a Moderate by any stretch or capable of bridging the ideological gap the way for example Stevenson could between the various factions opposed to Kefauver, he would be wholly aligned with the Leftists of that bunch, and the idea of tacking on a Tennessean onto the ticket to hopefully Moderate him would be about as successful a concept as tacking on a Pennsylvanian to a ticket with Reagan. The obvious choice if not Pepper would then be Averell Harriman, especially if he had been a prominent critic of the foreign policy of the Morgenthau and Taft Administrations which would have granted him a more prominent spotlight than he had historically, nor would he be offensive to any particular faction opposed to Kefauver. A more unconventional choice would former Senator James Murray of Montana, who himself would be a prominent critic of the Taft Administration though more so on the Domestic side, and given his age his would probably at most seek a single term in office, allowing any among the Anti-Kefauver faction to seek the nomination themselves come '56.
Also people seem to have over-voted, as the totals in the Wikibox for the election are equal to (102.3%).
...
Other notes -
Brien McMahon never actually entered or intended to enter the primaries in OTL, he was going to pursue the nomination at the Convention among the slew of others who took that route.
The "Dixiecrats" would almost certainly be known as the States' Rights Party by this point, not the Dixiecrat Party. I realize it is a quirk with Wikipedia that they are largely labeled so, but it makes more sense for the label be the latter, especially when they now have members outside of traditional Dixie.
You should continue doing House Wikiboxes, but do so with the OTL redistricting. I'll readily admit it is not the most realistic given as you've said the district lines would almost certainly be different, but it remains a useful tool to judge whether certain notable individuals may or may not have their OTL careers in Congress, or whether new ones may arise, or as a rule of thumb in determining who might control Congress.
First we have Kefauver losing the nomination despite clearly winning the primaries to a dividing candidate. Now while that happened historically, we have to factor that in with the addition that the States' Rights Party is an established force in the South, meaning that the Southern delegations at the Convention are going to have a tendency to be more Liberal and smaller given fewer bonuses for elected officials and such. Claude Pepper is also not the right kind of candidate for this environment having (until recently so I can allow for butterflies if you implement them) favored reconciliation with the Soviet Union, and for this reason in OTL he was opposed by the major labor unions which would have had to be mustered to give his candidacy much of a chance. Pepper also clearly isn't a Moderate by any stretch or capable of bridging the ideological gap the way for example Stevenson could between the various factions opposed to Kefauver, he would be wholly aligned with the Leftists of that bunch, and the idea of tacking on a Tennessean onto the ticket to hopefully Moderate him would be about as successful a concept as tacking on a Pennsylvanian to a ticket with Reagan. The obvious choice if not Pepper would then be Averell Harriman, especially if he had been a prominent critic of the foreign policy of the Morgenthau and Taft Administrations which would have granted him a more prominent spotlight than he had historically, nor would he be offensive to any particular faction opposed to Kefauver. A more unconventional choice would former Senator James Murray of Montana, who himself would be a prominent critic of the Taft Administration though more so on the Domestic side, and given his age his would probably at most seek a single term in office, allowing any among the Anti-Kefauver faction to seek the nomination themselves come '56.
Also people seem to have over-voted, as the totals in the Wikibox for the election are equal to (102.3%).
...
Other notes -
Brien McMahon never actually entered or intended to enter the primaries in OTL, he was going to pursue the nomination at the Convention among the slew of others who took that route.
The "Dixiecrats" would almost certainly be known as the States' Rights Party by this point, not the Dixiecrat Party. I realize it is a quirk with Wikipedia that they are largely labeled so, but it makes more sense for the label be the latter, especially when they now have members outside of traditional Dixie.
You should continue doing House Wikiboxes, but do so with the OTL redistricting. I'll readily admit it is not the most realistic given as you've said the district lines would almost certainly be different, but it remains a useful tool to judge whether certain notable individuals may or may not have their OTL careers in Congress, or whether new ones may arise, or as a rule of thumb in determining who might control Congress.
I could have Gore get Kefauver's senate seat ITTL instead of Kefauver. This should cut into Kefauver's support ITTL.
If he changes his rhetoric, does he have a shot at the nomination? If not, is he suitable as a VP pick for Harriman or Murray?
I'll change this.
I'll change this. What year will the Dixiecrats stop being referred to as the Dixiecrats and start being referred to as the States' Rights Party in infoboxes?
I'll change this.
What do you think of the election ITTL back in 1948? Should I have made Douglas the candidate? If Douglas would have been more plausible, who would make a good running mate for him? (Besides Barkley)
My problem with this is that it would be a lot of work to do something that wouldn't even be accurate. At least with the Senate boxes I have some idea of how things might go/it's a good visual for the reader. If anyone wants to know about a certain individual's fate ITTL, they are more than welcome to ask. I'll also be sure to include who controls congress in each election update to avoid confusion in the future.
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