USSR andd US much closer after WWII

This is one inspired by re-reading Werth's "Russia at war".

Werth is claiming that the split in "East" and "West" might not have happened, at least not as definitive.

Werth is quoting William Appleman Williams's definitions of Soviet leaders: Softies, Conservative and doctrinaire Revolutionaries.

The softies, inclusing Litvinov, obviously were in favour of a loan from US (the $7 billion which never came about).

The "choice" was between closer cooperation and dependency on US via loan and continued LL and security.

According to Werth, many soviet leaders had all three tendencies in varying degrees in their heads at the same time, so it is not possible to really label soviet leaders.

Litvinov poured his heart out to Werth in 1947. LItvonov claimed that in 1945, USSR had a choice between "cashing in on the goodwill in the west" and "security". Security was what Stalin and Molotov went for. Grab as much of Eastern Europe while the going was good.

Werth is claiming that the half-way mark prevailed. The conservative policy went ahead. Stalin rejected the World Revolution way, etc.

Apparantly life did become easier in 1944/5 at least in Moscov and a reconstruction loan from US would have raised the living standard dramatically, especially if the arms race got curbed together with demobilisation.

It did not exactly helpt that Truman cancelled LL even before the war ended but still asked USSR to partake in the war against Japan.

Here is my WI:

WHAT IF
LLwas not cancelled
$7 billion for USSR
US looking at USSR as a new market and starts to invest heavily
Private markets are accepted to a degree in USSR
Demobilisation
Control of Eastern Europe, but not dictatorships

Is it plausible? because the obstacles are:
Poland
Stalin did not exactly trust Churchill and Truman was still a new man to be judged
Molotov had a tendency to rub peopel up the wrong way
US attitude to communism
Partition of Germany (USSR wanted shared control, not a divided Germany)

How would USSR have developed in the 1950's and 1960's? Would Brezhnev still have been in?

Could UN have worked better?

Flashpoints?
  • Vietnam?
  • Korea
  • Berlin
  • Africa?
If USSR and US had formed some sort of alliance, UK and France would have been left behind: Impact on Suez?

Comments on this one?

Ivan
 
POD: 1943 - Hitler cancels Operation Citadel (Kursk) before it begins.

Hitler decides to listen to his generals, and cancels Kursk. No operation Citadel. Instead, annoyed at the situation in the Med, Hitler diverts Luftwaffe to support Tunisia and Italy. Meanwhile, the Germans keep their Eastern Front Panzers as mobile reserves, preserving them, while working on a truly effective counter to the T-34.

1943 - Tunisia is even bloodier, but the logistics - and economics - still favor the Allies. The US gets more combat experience against the Germans. The Germans get more troops out of Africa to Italy.

The Germans bolster Musso's position. The Allies invade Sicily in August, but it is not until October that the island is cleared. Musso survives - barely - when the Germans 'casually' move Kesselring's armored corps close to Rome.

In the east, when the Soviets figure out Citadel isn't happening, the Red Army launches large attacks in the Ukraine in August. The Germans are not surprised by the attacks, but are surprised at the scope and skill of the Soviet effort. The Germans are driven back, but Kharkov and Orel hold before the fall rains shut down the Soviet attack. The Soviets inflicted fewer casualties on - and took more casaulties than OTL Kursk without taking back as much of the Ukraine. The Germans do realize that they are in real trouble in Russia.

In October, the Americans hit Salerno while the British cross at Messina. Italian and German resistance are strong, but both attacks succeed. The American attack on Naples draws Kesselring's armor from Rome, and Mussolini is toppled on Nov 2. Italy withdraws on Nov 5th. Butterflies mean that the Polish Corps attached to the British Army makes a sprint, and manages to capture Monte Cassino before the Germans can fortify it. WIth the Gustav line breached, the Germans fall back to north of Rome, which is liberated on Jan 4th 1944.

The Germans turn Italy into the strategic cul-de-sac as in OTL, but the WAllies benefit from fewer casualties, the symbolic Fall of Rome, and the freeing up of more troops for Overlord.

The Russians surge forward in the winter - and are driven back by the Germans. With Italy 'contained', the Germans need to play for time, using their mobility to blunt Soviet advances. The Dnepr is properly fortified, and Kiev turned into a festung. The Soviets hemorrage casualties forcing the line, and encircling Kiev. Hitler's 'not one inch' commands still infuriates the German general staff.

During the spring of 1944, the Soviets continue to attack, but exhaust themselves failing to break the Germans. The Germans are driven back, but it is not the rout of OTL. The Germans maintain their cohesion, the mobile reserves, and their grip on their minor allies, especially Romania.

The WAllies drive up Italy, expending men for minor gains. The Americans quickly grow frustrated with the situation, and plan to move troops out.

June 6 - D-Day. The WAllies land in France, at Normandy. The situation is much as in OTL with the exception that Omaha goes a bit better for the Americans. Hitler orders the insane counter-attacks, the weather is better for the WAllies, and the upshot is that Falaise bags the whole German Army in France - including the mobile units and Erwin Rommel. This rips open the West, and the only things slowing down Ike are fuel and Montgomery.

This proves too much. The German generals move against Hitler led by Von Stauffenberg. The plot succeeds in killing Hitler, and Himmler's attempt at a counter-coup fails.

The German generals - Guderian is in charge - are desperate. A plea for peace with the WAllies meets a firm 'Unconditional Surrender' reply. Meanwhile the Soviet's 'Bagration' offensive gets to the gates of Minsk before petering out. In October, the generals hold a meeting. They conclude:
1. The War is lost.
2. The WAllies with seek revenge, but not genocide on Germany, especially after the camps are found.
3. The Soviets will ravage Germany if they get to it.
4. All concentration camps are closed immediately.
5. The best solution is to try and hold the Western Allies at the West Wall while putting Germany's last Panzer reserves (OTL Battle of the Bulge forces) in an attempt to stave off the Red Army.

The Germans desperately reform on the West Wall, and repel the first Allied probes. Meanwhile, the Panzers mass for Operation 'Watch on the Dvina'. On Dec 14th, 1944, the Germans launch an all-out attack on the Soviets. The Panzers break through, and are racing for Smolensk.

It is not to be. The Germans underestimated the power of WAllied - especially American - air, and the depth of Soviet reserves. Zhukov contains the German breakthrough short of Smolensk, and the Americans break through just south of Aachen. Patton gets an intact bridge at Remegen, and the Americans steam-roll the Rhine front.

German attemtps to reform on the Elbe fail, and the German generals are not going to sacrifice Berlin for no reason. The German government flees to Breslau, and then Danzig, before the Americans and Soviets meet near Brest-Litovsk in April of 1945. The War in Europe ends.

With the end of combat operations, the WAllies 'own' far more of Europe than on OTL. As such, free elections occur. Communism gets nowhere in Eastern Europe. With that, the Soviets realize that they can't compete with the WAllies, and that the WAllies seem disinclined to go to war with the Soviets (a public demand of the Germans in 1944 - and one utterly rejected by the WAllies).

There is rivalry, of course. But the Soviets never become the bug-a-boo of the American political right to the extent that happened in OTL. They were too badly damaged - to be seen as much of a threat. Stalin dies in 1949 (earlier caused by stress of war and fewer victories), and is replaced by Molotov. The Soviets recognize the hopelessness of near term competition with the United States, and so elect not to. They still promote communism - but through the idea of free elections (the dialetic demands it, of course). As the years pass, and the world moves on, the Soviets moderate themselves more and more, until by the 1980s they are seen in the West as a good place to do business, despite their odd political ideas. There is no 'cold war', nor Vietnam or Korea. China is a mess, but a mess both the Soviets and Americans stay out of.

Mike Turcotte
 
For the US and USSR to be much friendlier post WWII in addition to what ivan and Mike have posted you'd need several PODs

FWIW I've heard it mentioned the Soviets had two big beefs with the WAllies in 1945.

(1) The Soviets suffered grievous combat casualties compared to the UK and USA, especially the USA and NEVER felt they got their respect for their contributions. Frex, 8.7M Soviet military casualties and 10M civilian casualties out of @ 175M population vs 400K US dead out of 132M. The UK lost 388K in military and civilians out of 49M.
Sure the Soviets had plenty of information of what the WAllies were up to, but OTOH, nobody in the West knew how badly devastated the Soviets were by WWII and how horrible the SS and collaborators had been to folks during their occupation of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

(2) IMO IF the WAllies had sent divisions to the USSR to fight on Soviet soil to help liberate the USSR, there'd be a much bigger sense of shared sacrifice.
The Soviets were grateful for LL aid, but all the jokes about Spam and LL supplies being the "Second Front" Stalin kept demanding from the WAllies have a grim ring of truth until 1944.

(3) The US didn't willingly share the A-bomb with the world or put it in collective hands via the UN in 1946.
 
I think the biggest problem with closer US-USSR relations is Stalin. The USSR was researching the atomic bomb, and the Red Army swung south in 1944 to get a few more friendly countries. I don't think Stalin would let Western troops into Russia, as they could not be controlled. They refused to let the US station fighters to protect bombing missions. And it isn't one sided, of course. Cutting off Lend-Lease (the US did that to Britain also, right?) plays into anyone's paranoia. Beria, of all people, seemed to be in favor of trading East Germany for US loans.
 
Beria was surely in favour a much closer cooperation after the war.

If Werth is right, then it was by no means a sure bet which way it would go.

I also think that a lot of events soured the relationship: the bomb, LL, poland, etc.

That said, WI Stalin had realised that without the West, it would take too long to get USSR back on its feet?

Ivan
 
The biggest obstacle was the Soviet leadership. They had never experienced anything but dictatorship (the short Russian experiment with democracy was to short to count), they had joined a totalitarian dictatorial party and knowingly destroyed everything that could compete with the Party regarding influence over Soviet Union. It may be clearest in Stalin, but the whole political leadership shared these values.

Even during WW2 Soviet worked against serveral suggestions of cooperation, for example basing US heavy bombers on Soviet airfields. Stalin prefered to keep the fraternizating between his subjects and foreigners to a minimum, even if the war effort suffered.

So there were no question regarding allowing foreign companies in the US, foreign investments and definetly no free markets. And at first troubles in the Soviet-occupied countries a carbon copy of the soviet political system was introduced. There were no attempts at "understanding" or "meeting halfway" with non-communist Poles, Germans etc.

And the basic Russian fear/distrust of the non-Russian world was inherited by the Soviets, added with the losses during WW2. So having a bunch of satellite states protecting the Motherland was a high priority.

After the war it was clear that the occupation of Germany would lead to conflicts. Both parts wanted to impose there model on Germany, and wouldn't accept the others model.

I think the only POD would be Stalin dying in 1943-early 1944. His sucessor wouldn't be as powerful (if only because the whole leadership had seen was Stalin did to them during the Moscow trials), the military would have some say in the election (giving a non-political input) and ability to negotiate with the WAllies would be a criteria. This New Man could be similar to Ding Xaoping - "it does not matter if the cat is black or white, as long at it catches mice". As a part of the reconstruction of SU some small market initatives could be allowed - and slowly widening the exceptions to become the norm. (But now I am speaking of decades of transformation.) And cutting the armed forces in size, aiming to raise the SU standard of living.
 

Artatochor

Banned
I think fear could make them closer. Fear of a resurgent Germany/Japan. Things like a strong Werwolf guerrilla, German use of nerve gas on the battlefield to draw out the war and casualties, or successful attacks on American cities using long-range bombers/V2 carried by subs. The Americans would see what the Soviets were facing, and might, despite all their socioeconomical differences, work together to safeguard the world from another Axis.
 
avoiding the inevitable

With stalin in power and Anglo-American hostility to communism, and the world devastated and ripe for the picking over by the two superpowers left standing, one issue is to get one or more countires to survive the war as an additional balance such that there were always competing interests.

If china emerged as non-communist but nationalist and enjoyed a marshall plan-like revival it could serve to balance russia in central asia thus potentially opening up room for US-Russian cooperation there .... all three might compete in middle east and africa making two-on-one partnerships part of an ever changing dynamic depending on the balance of power and country in question.

Another option is UK making it out of the war able to hold on to significant portions of their empire for longer, or revamping the empire significantly such that the UK and Russia face off in Europe, but cooperate in the pacicif to balance the US .... in such a case, Russia and the US might be the anticolonial powers cooperating to undermine UK is places like africa and middle east while cooperating with UK elsewhere.
 
I think fear could make them closer. Fear of a resurgent Germany/Japan. Things like a strong Werwolf guerrilla, German use of nerve gas on the battlefield to draw out the war and casualties, or successful attacks on American cities using long-range bombers/V2 carried by subs. The Americans would see what the Soviets were facing, and might, despite all their socioeconomical differences, work together to safeguard the world from another Axis.

This would actually probably hurt, rather than help. Memories of cooperation would quickly fade, replaced by even more paranoia.

Werewolf was a fantasy, and, Turtledove aside, it gets the Germans squashed even flatter.
 
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