We are the Soviets. You Will be Assimilated. Resistance is Futile

Speaking as a Brit, some places never integrate. There's an island just over yonder which was a wee bit recalcitrant about that...
Speaking as an American I agree. Despite the fact that Canada basically belong to America they keep insisting they are a separate country.:p
 
I wonder if a better chance of this happening is a TL where:

Germany for whatever reason does not invade the Soviet Union (Hitler dies early or something) but tries a blockade England/ Mediterranean strategy which doesn't work. Japan comes in as OTL. USA comes in as OTL but focuses even more on Europe.

With Germany totally preoccupied with air and naval construction and suffering a gigantic African failure in May 1944 (like Tunisia May 1943 OTL but worse) and a May 15th 1944 coup against Mussolini. The USSR senses weakness and jumps in. War ends in May 1945 in Europe around same front lines as OTL.

However in the Pacific, USA is running about 3 months behind OTL due to focus on Europe.

USSR invades Japan early in this TL, even before Europe has ended in March 1945. Japan surrenders in July 1945 before bomb has dropped.

USSR doesn't have the history of Lend/Lease and conferences and the west has a grudge for the USSR treating with German/Japan for so long. So there is no spirit of cooperation.

As far as the local populations in these places and how mad they are. How much difference is there in being a SSR vs. an "independent communist state". I mean the Ukraine had a UN diplomat in OTL, then so could these. If you are in Poland would the flag flown be a Polish SSR flag or the Soviet flag? Perhaps the USSR could as suggested offer these SSRs a few more bits of independence.

There would be resistance but this USSR would be much stronger to handle it, at least initially.
 

MrP

Banned
Ah yes, from the Cuban SSR, I presume? :D
I'm aware this was written in jest, old boy, but it raises an interesting issue nonetheless: outside of Europe, most of the success enjoyed by Communism was due to its ability to piggyback on nationalism. Many a Third World country that turned to Communism did so because it seemed to offer a "fast track" to independence from overt or covert meddling by First World powers. If Communism amounts to direct rule from Moscow, the ideology will lose its major selling point to the Third World.
 
I'm aware this was written in jest, old boy, but it raises an interesting issue nonetheless: outside of Europe, most of the success enjoyed by Communism was due to its ability to piggyback on nationalism. Many a Third World country that turned to Communism did so because it seemed to offer a "fast track" to independence from overt or covert meddling by First World powers. If Communism amounts to direct rule from Moscow, the ideology will lose its major selling point to the Third World.

Is that a bad thing for the USSR though? Having to prop-up (with weapon shipments, monetary 'aid' used to buy weapons shipments, advisers, preferential trade deals etc) all those more-or-less failed states was really taxing on the Soviet economy, probably a lot more than the effort the US spent countering those moves.
 
Any chance it could see the West integrate in kind? There were already proposals (mostly ignored) in OTL to create a united European Federation after WW2 - here, I wager those gain a bit more attention.
 
Any chance it could see the West integrate in kind? There were already proposals (mostly ignored) in OTL to create a united European Federation after WW2 - here, I wager those gain a bit more attention.

IDK. If I was a western European politician ITTL, I would cling to NATO and the Americans like there was no tomorrow. Having a separate European army may get into the way of that.

Also, on a personal note, this is perhaps the first 'TL' started in a purpose-built thread that I actually finished :D
 
Top