Twilight of the Red Tsar

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Maybe that will be the thing that dashs the hopes and dreams of the end of the Cold War.

In the mid-1960s, apparently the Cold War ends, either because the USSR collapses, or simply because is decides to give up on supporting authoritarian puppets in Eastern Europe.

For a while, an "end of history" feeling pervades through the year 1969, just like in ITTL 1993: America is the only standing superpower, the economy is doing okay, Soviet Jews may be granted their freedom, democracy has reached Eastern Europe, China is rebuilding, etc.

But like OTL, a serious blowback caused by Western intelligence agencies in a Muslim state ends up biting them hard.

Maybe in 1970, Egypt's fundamentalist leaders fund terrorism in Israel and in America, or launch an attack against Saudi Arabia. This chaos triggers an oil crisis, while the terrorism forces the US into a prolonged and costly intervention with a Middle Eastern state.

So the OTL 1970s becomes mixed with the OTL 2000s: a decade of both energy shortages and a costly war on Muslim terrorism/controlling world oil supplies. Not a fun decade to say the least, but there's more.

Like OTL, Japan and Germany and the Eastern Tigers begin their rise as industrialize nations, and hurt America's industrial hegemony. But now, there are two more countries that America has to compete with: a resurgent, and unified China under KMT rule, and a South Vietnam no longer menaced by its Northern Communist brother. North Vietnam's post Ho Chi Minh-leaders, after witnessing the USSR's failures, could also engage in free market economics, again, another thing that could compete with American manufacturing.

There are other unsolved challenges on the horizon: the anti-apartheid struggle, Rhodesia, Portugal's colonies, Syndicalist Latin American resistance to America's heavy-handed policies, Yellow Banner terrorism, neo-Stalinist groups, nuclear proliferation.


Yeah, the 1970s are going to be a very painful decade to say the least, moreso that it follows a geopolitical event that brought joy to people.

The snip about the cold war winding down can be also a new leaderships in Moscow deciding to try some detente-like policies due to cost of mantain the armed forces and the revolt in the east...basically Krushev a decade later and for all we know can be a temporary thing.

China is a clusterfuck for the time being and probably for a couple of decades more, lost too many people (more than 10% of the population due to the war with the URSS, the civil war and the mass emigration), too much destruction, too much warfare and ITTL Eastern Tigers will have a serious problem regarding the chinese minority/refugee that can cause serious civil disruption even if we can butterfly away the Vietnam War we can't presume that the Yellow banner will not be an hostile force strong enough to cause similar event.
Not considering the fact that Tibet it's independent, there is an Huan nation and Mongolia annexed part of the chinese territoy, so relations with their neighbourgh will not be pretty as any KMT leaderships will desire getting back/in the fold the wayward territories.

An Oil crisis was and will be always on the premise, the various arab states regardless of the type of regime in the end will be fed up by the seven sisters control of the black gold and will want their share; this can be engulfed in a new Israel-Arab war event (maybe even somekind of hodge-podge coalition like 1967) and worsened by the fact the usual Israelian patron aka France and UK will probably not have the political possibility to distance themselfs from Tel Aviv due to the previous success of the Suez operation and the second holocaust (same for the US but probably in a more 'behind the scene' role). Regarding terrorism, i fear that the possibility of an ITTL 'intifada-like' revolt are very slim as Israel seem have been received the permission for mass expulsion of arab from the territory that controls (and in case she acquire Gaza and Cisgiordania the same will happen there), it will probably more like the 'war of attrition' of the 70's with added attempted incursion.
Finally, there is the possibility that the oil crisis will be somewhat mitigated by an enlarged nuclear civilian program as off-shot of the various military ones.

Recession and oil crisis can be some relative term, maybe are a shock for the people of the time, as the 60's were a very prosperous time expecially in Europe as it was the apex of reconstruction, but are somewhat a lesser version of OTL event; for the USA expecially if there is no a Vietnam War or some analogue.

The ITTL International terrorism of the 60's/70's will be much different form OTL; communist group will be probably much smaller as they will must face the ideological competition of the syndacalist and probably extremist from both side will target each other and the Egyptian attempt to return to the middle age (relatively speaking) will have much much lesser appeal than OTL for the people in the west due to their own radical changes...even if fellow traveller will always exist. The political cause that will take more prominence will be probably decolonization, as while non avoidable, both France and UK (and the other minor powers), will want that happen at their term; due to that it's probable that Portugal will receive somekind of support for their colonial warfare or at least not be subjected to weapons embargoes.
Nuclear proliferation will probably been seen as a good thing ITTL as a mean to bring stability (i have WMD, you have WMD...so don't play strange games)...at least while western nation are the one with the bomb.
 
What's the status of the various space programs? While no space-race exist ITTL and the soviet seem behind OTL in rocket science...the ICBM concept is too precious to be discarted and space offer serious and specific advantage in intelligence gathering and communication/commercial to let waste it.
 
What's the status of the various space programs? While no space-race exist ITTL and the soviet seem behind OTL in rocket science...the ICBM concept is too precious to be discarted and space offer serious and specific advantage in intelligence gathering and communication/commercial to let waste it.

Ultimately, I imagine that the US beat the Soviets to the punch in terms of getting a Satellite into orbit, and probably sent a guy up there as part of a propaganda coup. I doubt they'll go as far as putting a man on the moon, as the superiority of US tech combined with Stalin's purges likely means the Soviets are too far behind to challenge. Add no Kennedy, and it becomes very unlikely that TTL will ever see a man on the moon for a good while yet. However, I imagine a Reagan-esque SDI program will be a lot more palatable to the people of this world.

Expect to see a lot of propaganda about how the fact the US put a satellite and man into orbit first as proof of the inherent superiority of their way of life, while the Soviet propaganda machine will deride it as fancy toys to impress people while the workers starve.
 
The Cuban Revolution also led to new theories about the goals and implementation of Syndicalism emerging. The most famous of these is Saville’s Thesis, created by British academic and historian John Saville. Saville argued that the Cuban Revolution proved that the best breeding ground for Syndicalism was in the Third World, where “The ongoing processes of decolonization and pro-democracy struggles are rallying the masses and making them realize their power.” Saville’s Thesis was expanded on by French writer and filmmaker Guy Debrod. Debrod claimed that the Cold War would eventually end with one side collapsing due to the inherent contradictions of their system. The Syndicalists should thus work to prepare for that day, working to build Syndicalism in the Third World so that it would become clear that it was a viable system. Once one of the superpowers collapsed the Syndicalist power would then be able to mobilize and help guide the former superpower towards Syndicalism.

It seem ironic how accurate Debrod is about the Cold War coming to an end, although it looks like the Syndicalist movement is gonna struggle till that day comes around when the recessions of the 60s and 70s come around as you foreshadowed. So if it survives it would be interesting to see how it reforms and changes over time and how it will affect the geopolitics of post soviet russia, or whatever is left of it.
 
The snip about the cold war winding down can be also a new leaderships in Moscow deciding to try some detente-like policies due to cost of mantain the armed forces and the revolt in the east...basically Krushev a decade later and for all we know can be a temporary thing.
Problem is, Detente requires cooperation on both sides, and good luck getting the US in a trusting mood towards the USSR.

Or indeed anyone west of Berlin.
 
Problem is, Detente requires cooperation on both sides, and good luck getting the US in a trusting mood towards the USSR.

Or indeed anyone west of Berlin.
Indeed, the term "winding down" implies a permanent end to the Cold War rather than simple detente, which seems to point towards the USSR either collapsing or ceasing to be a superpower.
 
Indeed, the term "winding down" implies a permanent end to the Cold War rather than simple detente, which seems to point towards the USSR either collapsing or ceasing to be a superpower.

How is it even a superpower by this point? They economy is a total mess, it has zero allies, it's behind in so many fields, it's ideology is dead.
 
Yep. While no nations like the USSR, they got plenty of nukes to turn Europe into glass.

If they get backed into another corner, they could end up using them again.
Normally, I would agree.

One issue though. They used nukes on China with no provocation. Hell, they used pretty much everything in their arsenal on China without any provocation.

So Europe now has to wonder if the man in the Kremlin is sane, and will remain sane.
 
Normally, I would agree.

One issue though. They used nukes on China with no provocation. Hell, they used pretty much everything in their arsenal on China without any provocation.

So Europe now has to wonder if the man in the Kremlin is sane, and will remain sane.

China did not have nukes, the West, and USA does, and WILL use them if the USSR push too hard. Even the insane ones should know this.

And just how nukes will actually work when use?
 

bookmark95

Banned
Normally, I would agree.

One issue though. They used nukes on China with no provocation. Hell, they used pretty much everything in their arsenal on China without any provocation.

So Europe now has to wonder if the man in the Kremlin is sane, and will remain sane.

Suslov still puts his ideology above feeding people, but he his merciful enough to exile his enemies instead of deporting them to the gulag. I don't think he'll drop the bomb.

But there could be someone else who could grab the reins of power as the Communist bloc starts to come apart.
 
Suslov still puts his ideology above feeding people, but he his merciful enough to exile his enemies instead of deporting them to the gulag. I don't think he'll drop the bomb.

But there could be someone else who could grab the reins of power as the Communist bloc starts to come apart.
But does the West know that?

Remember, at this point, all they know is "Someone's in charge, he ain't Stalin".
 

bookmark95

Banned
And that's not even counting the fact that domestically, any form of reaching out to the Soviets is going to crash and burn so fast it'll get whiplash.

And if the revolts in Eastern Europe continue throughout 1961, an outreach to Russia would be political suicide. Russia is King George, and Eastern Europe would be the 13 colonies.

Side note: I wonder what Richard Nixon would do if the Soviet Union collapsed after he left office, and his successor got the credit.

Nixon: (watching television) They always do this to me. Taking credit for I've accomplished. Look at that f**ker shaking hands with the Russian premier! Even when I'm out of the spotlight, they always f*ck with me, those f*cking bastards.
 
And if the revolts in Eastern Europe continue throughout 1961, an outreach to Russia would be political suicide. Russia is King George, and Eastern Europe would be the 13 colonies.

Side note: I wonder what Richard Nixon would do if the Soviet Union collapsed after he left office, and his successor got the credit.

Nixon: (watching television) They always do this to me. Taking credit for I've accomplished. Look at that f**ker shaking hands with the Russian premier! Even when I'm out of the spotlight, they always f*ck with me, those f*cking bastards.

I think it would be funnier if he said that whilst being interviewed by a journalist.
 
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