Bookmark1995
Banned
India maybe the only major nation without a pathological hatred of Russia. Russia does have tons of resources it could want. But it could only occur if India liberalizes its economy and if Russia has a responsible government.
Twilight of the Red Tsar
- Thread starter Napoleon IV
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India maybe the only major nation without a pathological hatred of Russia. Russia does have tons of resources it could want. But it could only occur if India liberalizes its economy and if Russia has a responsible government.
There's going to be no shortage of films based on the Soviet Holocaust, just like there's no shortage of films based on the Holocaust in OTL. The Soviet Holocaust is going to provide just as much Oscar Bait as the Holocaust does in OTL. If not more because of how comparatively fresh in people's minds it is.
I think they would have been cowed into doing so by the west for fear of being labeled far left sympathizers.
Far from all of them, however. Many were just common people who acquired oil and gas stocks through luck in the privatization process. That's how the "New Russian" stereotype came to be - common people who never had wealth before suddenly acquired millions and then went full nouveau riche.
More importantly, however, the ideas of stealing, bribery, corruption and decadence were not merely present in the nomenklatura - they were entrenched in all layers of Soviet society. Ever head of the common saying in Soviet Russia - "We pretend that we work, they pretend that they pay us"? Yeah, that lifestyle continues on until today in many places IOTL. In addition, when the workplace is owned by the state, thus owned by everyone, nobody saw it as a crime to steal from it, it is owned by the people, after all - and this idea persisted even when that workplace got privatized.
OTL post-Soviet states struggled with this mentality and still struggle with it as hard as before, and TTL Russia is not going to be a superpower with these problems no matter how much money it receives from the West (which might end up biting them in the end anyway if Russia needs to repay it back)
Bookmark1995
Banned
Oh, the Soviet Holocaust is just the cherry on top of so many horrors.
I think there will be countless types of media on the Holodomor, Caucasus Genocide, Baltic Genocide, Soviet Civil War, Sino-Soviet War, etc.
The history of Soviet Russia will be one long, long, litany of human misery.
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Puzzle
Donor
Are we talking about the same Russia that's currently in a vicious civil war that's been exhausted by conquests and purges suddenly leaping to be the best country in the world? While the US lacking government healthcare will hurt them it's not it like didn't have it in the 1920s where it was still casually richer than everyone else. The west is in a position of such dominance over Russia that I'm tempted to say that the predictions of its imminent fall and Russia's inevitable ascendency sound like tankies' talking points.
QueerSpear
Banned
I think that if Russia managed to stabilize and rebuilt its economy while remaining a free and democratic country then social prosperity is inevitable.
However, if by 2010s the USA has neither re-created the welfare state (probably through a constitutional amendment) or implemented syndicalism while Russia prospers, then that means the USA stopped being a democracy at some point in the TL or will fall into revolution.
Quite frankly I don't see the US remaining without a safety net until TTL 2017, it would require the US never facing a recession which is impossible.
So you think there is a chance for a severe depression in the future
QueerSpear
Banned
Obviously, no welfare state + laissez faire economics = Great Depression 2.0.
OTL it took little more than twenty years for Reagonomics to crash and burn and the US didn't went full neoliberalism, only neoliberalism lite. TTL the US does actually implement free market policies.
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Even so I believe this second Great Depression will be even more widespread in it's impact than the first one thanks to 1. More Countries to trade and invest with and 2. A more integrated world economy
Bookmark1995
Banned
Yeah, America is more central to the world economy than ever. The Eastern bloc, Russia, and China are totally burnt out, and will require American cash to recover. If America's economy crumbles, it could drag down much of the world. The only places that could weather the storm are Brazil and India.
Such an event could lead to syndicalism spreading around the world. Again, the US could not retain free markets without falling into revolution.
All this depend if the USA go full free market...and no country go that way, whatever they say, there are always rules, failsafe and regulation even because the international commercial community need that; so while a general relax of law and rules it's possible a free for all Rumsfeldia style it's not.
Plus much of the original Depression was due to the the closing of international commerce due to tariff and protectionism...and this is not the automatic outcome of any answer, and frankly if anyone face the possibility of Depression 2.0, well even OTL demostrated that this mere prospect make any ideological posture crumble; what will happen unfortunely will be that even in case of a 'simple' recession with the welfare net almost gone things will be very hard for the working class and poor.
Finally, the only other place that can weather the storm is western Europe, probably on his way to be a little more integrated than OTL at this stage, as while the the world economy is more integrated...it's not even near the level that we usually take for granted, so while surely hurting it will not bring down the entire building
QueerSpear
Banned
While not a free for all system, there certainly would be heavy deregulation like it happened under Clinton and Bush and that could contribute for reckless investments that could lead to a nasty recession.
So, how much time before people start singing We'd Like to Thank You, John McKeithen?
I can agree with this since events related to Stalin's prolonged existence have forced France to accept the European Defence Community this time around. Which combined with the Economic and Atomic Energy Communities, it would give a much stronger foundation for creating the OTL institutions that ACTUALLY dictate the politics of the member states
Here's an idea:
It's the 80s. For the last decade or two, small town America has watched in horror as the welfare state is rolled back, the towns get smaller while the cities get bigger, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, everyone seems obsessed with sex and money, people have forgotten God, forgotten their communities under the alter of Randism, forgotten about the working man. Eventually, it comes to a point, in an era of a suffering working class, skyrocketing crime rates, legalised abortion, mixed with shocking levels of Godlessness in society, that the backlash to Objectivisim comes in both the economic AND cultural form.
The Religious Right take over the Democrats, preaching a Socially Christian-infused idea of Leftism (a New New Deal), praising the virtue of small town America against the socially liberal city-slickers who only care about money. This leads to the re-allignment of a Libertarian Republican Party (a favourite of New England and California) and Populist Democrat Party (popular with flyover counties).
Seems like the best way economically leftist ideas can come back without any taint of Communism or Syndicalism. A uniquely American solution to a uniquely American dilemma.
It's the 80s. For the last decade or two, small town America has watched in horror as the welfare state is rolled back, the towns get smaller while the cities get bigger, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, everyone seems obsessed with sex and money, people have forgotten God, forgotten their communities under the alter of Randism, forgotten about the working man. Eventually, it comes to a point, in an era of a suffering working class, skyrocketing crime rates, legalised abortion, mixed with shocking levels of Godlessness in society, that the backlash to Objectivisim comes in both the economic AND cultural form.
The Religious Right take over the Democrats, preaching a Socially Christian-infused idea of Leftism (a New New Deal), praising the virtue of small town America against the socially liberal city-slickers who only care about money. This leads to the re-allignment of a Libertarian Republican Party (a favourite of New England and California) and Populist Democrat Party (popular with flyover counties).
Seems like the best way economically leftist ideas can come back without any taint of Communism or Syndicalism. A uniquely American solution to a uniquely American dilemma.
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Oh my god the US is gonna become like that in the book/ TV series "The Handmaids Tale". Though the European Union will go full on Syndicalist in response to this Second Great Depression.
Bookmark1995
Banned
I don't think such a religious revival would go that far.
ITTL, there seems to already be a strong religious movement going hand in hand with this Gordon Gekkoism. Jewish Americans, for example, are staunchly embracing their faiths, so I would guess many people who were also anti-communist would also be turning to religion in reaction to the staggering brutality of the atheist Soviet Union.
The political backlash in the ITTL 1980s maybe against the ideals of the Objectivists and the religious right.
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