Twilight of the Red Tsar

[Ryan]

Except the War Generation is still in charge. The West isn't led by armchair generals eager to carve up the Soviet Union, it's led by men who fought with them against the Fascists. And they wouldn't let an formerly axis nation enact Lebensraum on the Soviet Union.

umm... have you actually read this TL? no one has any love for the USSR and it's seen as on par (if not worse) than Nazi Germany at this point. Even the communist parties in the west have disassociated themselves from the USSR and are now calling themselves syndicalists.

 

[Johannes Parisiensis]

Except the War Generation is still in charge. The West isn't led by armchair generals eager to carve up the Soviet Union, it's led by men who fought with them against the Fascists. And they wouldn't let an formerly axis nation enact Lebensraum on the Soviet Union.

Finland would just get back territories robbed to them by Stalin, so it might pass in the Western opinions.

 

[Roland Traveler]

Except the War Generation is still in charge. The West isn't led by armchair generals eager to carve up the Soviet Union, it's led by men who fought with them against the Fascists. And they wouldn't let an formerly axis nation enact Lebensraum on the Soviet Union.

And the War Generation said no to annexing bits of other countries, meaning that all the Finns would be doing is righting a wrong in their eyes. Especially since they aren't planning of enacting Lebensraum, just getting their turf back.
And as for fighting alongside the USSR, at this point it's viewed as a "Oh shit, things were so bad we had to ally with them?" rather than a "Ah, I remember when Soviet and American soldiers viewed each other with relief rather than suspicion," if it was ever viewed like that.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

I do think you lot are seriously underestimating the fact that Finland fought on Hitler's side.

Stalin is hated too, but millions of Americans, Britons, Frenchmen etc didn't spend months or years being shot at, ensuring unpleasant conditions and watching their friends die at the hands of Russians. That was the Germans. The people who won the war against Germany and its allies aren't going to forget that in a hurry.

 

[Johannes Parisiensis]

I do think you lot are seriously underestimating the fact that Finland fought on Hitler's side.

Stalin is hated too, but the people who put the Third Reich in a well-deserved grave aren't going to forget that in a hurry.

They could rationalize by saying they were just defending themselves against Stalin.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

They could rationalize by saying they were just defending themselves against Stalin.

You're talking about a logical argument. I'm talking about an emotional one. The Finns fought for the enemy.

 

[Historyman 14]

They could rationalize by saying they were just defending themselves against Stalin.

And they can use the Winter War in why they sided with the Axis, and now they taking back old land taking by Stalin.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

And they can use the Winter War in why they sided with the Axis, and now they taking back old land taking by Stalin.

The people of the West will never care half as much about the Winter War, in which they were uninvolved, as a war they put their blood, toil, tears and sweat in, themselves. That's human nature.

Call me when there are as many English-language films about the Taiping Rebellion as the American Civil War - despite which of those was the greater conflict on an objective scale.

 

[Kammada]

I do think you lot are seriously underestimating the fact that Finland fought on Hitler's side.

Stalin is hated too, but the people who put the Third Reich in a well-deserved grave aren't going to forget that in a hurry.

With the bad rap Stalin's USSR has got ITTL, I can see some former minor Axis powers (like Finland or Bulgaria) getting a slack on that, provided they didn't commit large scale atrocities and genocide on their own. If that sounds ASB, that was pretty much the treatment Thailand has got OTL.

 

[naraht]

I'm still thinking Finland gets a break. US policies toward Finland during WWII was as to oppose Finland exactly as much as the minimum they could do without breaching the relationship with the Soviets. And *Israel* doesn't consider Finland to have significantly assisted in the Holocaust.

 

[Zagan]

Finland was never a member of the Axis. The US had never fought the Finns and the UK had only had one small bombing raid against Petsamo. There was no blood between them. No Finish soldier had ever killed a WAllied soldier.

Finland was only a cobelligerant with Nazi Germany and that only because the Soviet Union had attacked it first (an attack which was universally condemned in the West).

 

[Perfidious Albion]

The USSR's bad reputation has come from things it has done to "faraway people of whom we know nothing". Do you seriously have such an idealistic view of human nature that you think Westerners of the generation that fought National Socialist Germany will care as much about that as about the enemy that sent bullets and bombs at then, waged war upon their country, killed their friends? And Finland allied itself with that power. Not under German occupation, like France. On purpose, for revenge and revanchism against the Russians.

By the time those people are dead and their children and grandchildren are making decisions...? Sure. But not when it's them.

 

[Historyman 14]

The USSR's bad reputation has come from things it has done to "faraway people of whom we know nothing". Do you seriously have such an idealistic view of human nature that you think Westerners of the generation that fought National Socialist Germany will care as much about that as about the enemy that sent bullets and bombs at then, waged war upon their country, killed their friends?

By the time those people are dead and their children and grandchildren are making decisions...? Sure. But not when it's them.

The Western Allies never fought Finland at all. Only the Russians did. No Finns killed any Americans, any British, etc, etc.

And the past is the past. Hitler, and all the other big Nazis are dead, and gone. The USSR is the next horror of the world, and it is coming apart.

 

[Zagan]

The USSR's bad reputation has come from things it has done to "faraway people of whom we know nothing". Do you seriously have such an idealistic view of human nature that you think Westerners of the generation that fought National Socialist Germany will care as much about that as about the enemy that sent bullets and bombs at then, waged war upon their country, killed their friends? And Finland allied itself with that power. Not under German occupation, like France. On purpose, for revenge and revanchism against the Russians.

By the time those people are dead and their children and grandchildren are making decisions...? Sure. But not when it's them.

Even in OTL, in the 1970's the West was friendlier with (former minor Axis Power) Romania than with (their former Ally) the Soviet Union.

Everybody understood perfectly that Romania and Finland only wanted to recover their lands stolen by the Soviet Empire.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

The Western Allies never fought Finland at all. Only the Russians did. No Finns killed any Americans, any British, etc, etc.

They fought for the people who did.

And the past is the past. Hitler, and all the other big Nazis are dead, and gone.

Dead but still remembered by those who lost friends to them, and thus still hated far more than those who hurt "a faraway people of whom we know nothing".

I think you massively underestimate how much hatred is aroused by not merely hearing of a war on the news (a comparatively ignorable experience) but actually experiencing a war first-hand, struggling to survive and knowing many who don't.

 

[Historyman 14]

They fought for the people who did.



Dead but still remembered by those who lost friends to them, and thus still hated far more than those who hurt "a faraway people of whom we know nothing".

I think you massively underestimate how much hatred is aroused by not merely hearing of a war on the news (a comparatively ignorable experience) but actually experiencing a war first-hand, struggling to survive and knowing many who don't.

The Allies biggest worry is the chaos in Russia crossing the border and someone firing off nukes at someone. Russia loses land? Good! To Finland? Sure!

 

[Zagan]

Dead but still remembered by those who lost friends to them, and thus still hated far more than those who hurt "a faraway people of whom we know nothing".

I think you massively underestimate how much hatred is aroused by not merely hearing of a war on the news (a comparatively ignorable experience) but actually experiencing a war first-hand, struggling to survive and knowing many who don't.

There is always more hatred for the current foe (in the Cold War) than for a former foe (in WW2).

 

[MERRICA]

Finland would just get back territories robbed to them by Stalin, so it might pass in the Western opinions.

NATO might let Finland get it's border territories back to pre Winter-War boundaries. But any attempts at a greater Finland will get stomped hard.

 

[Johannes Parisiensis]

NATO might let Finland get it's border territories back to pre Winter-War boundaries. But any attempts at a greater Finland will get stomped hard.

So Finland might get back its 1938 borders; given the chaos in the rest of the Soviet Union, and the beforehand Stalinist repression, some Russian inhabitants might even be delighted to be under Finnish rule.

 

[Historyman 14]

NATO might let Finland get it's border territories back to pre Winter-War boundaries. But any attempts at a greater Finland will get stomped hard.

I think that's all Finland would really what. Sure, some would push for a Greater Finland, but nothing would come form it.