What if the Soviet Union won the Cold War?

[Alexniko]

Hey folks, this is another "What if the USSR won the Cold War" thread. I know there have been many of those over the years, but the latest is like a year old and I think the standart of alternatehistory.com has improved since then (more scientific discussions, and many new well-read people). However that could also just be my personal impression.

Anyway, what is the most realistic scenario for a soviet victory in the cold war? The world doesn't have to go red in the 20th century and the USSR doesn't have to be the most powerfull nation economically and militarily. However many more nations have to become socialist and the socialist camp (unofficially led by the USSR) has to be more powerfull than the capitalist one, making an effective anti-communist alliance impossible. Wheater the capitalist camp collapses completely as a hegemonic bloc (with NATO dissolving and some capitalist nations beginning to lean towards the USSR for practical reasons), or the remaining few capitalist nations continue to pose futile opposition to world socialism, doesn't matter. Socialism continues to spread in the third world and the communist parties become increasingly popular in the industrial capitalist countries. All signs indicate that the future belongs to socialism, and the ever growing socialist camp only waits for the ultimate victory of the world revolution.

Furthermore, the socialist camp has to survive to this very day, and has to remain more powerfull than any remaining capitalist alliance. The POD has to be after 9. of May, 1945. And before someone claims now that "the USSR was destined to fall from the very beginning", I don't buy into that. Some limited market reforms are allowed in this scenario, however the USSR has to remain socialist. Apart from that, everything is allowed, including Cybersyn, no Sino-Soviet split and a soviet moon landing.

How would the world look like? How would the geopollitical situation develope? What would culture be like within and out of the socialist camp? How long could the USSR remain the most powerfull/influential nation?

Bonus points if the cold war remains cold.

Double bonus points if it's a positive scenario
(and it could definetly be one. I'm reffering to my post in the "North Korea is best Korea" scenario https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ahc-north-korea-is-best-korea.487717/. And if I can make North Korea a prosperous socialist democracy, a shining beacon of leftist thought, you can certainly make a soviet victory positive ).

 

[Deleted member 96212]

The key problem is that it's not a matter of changing the USSR to be able to survive, it's more a matter of crippling the United States (and possibly other competitors like China) enough that the USSR can be a stronger nation in comparison. Rumsfeldia could be considered a TL that does this pretty well, although the plausibility issues have been debated endlessly.

 

[Alexniko]

The key problem is that it's not a matter of changing the USSR to be able to survive, it's more a matter of crippling the United States (and possibly other competitors like China) enough that the USSR can be a stronger nation in comparison. Rumsfeldia could be considered a TL that does this pretty well, although the plausibility issues have been debated endlessly.

Well then, lets say the USSR doesn't have to be the most powerfull nation, yet the socialist camp (unofficially led by the USSR) has to be more powerfull than the captalist one and the correlation of forces has to favour the socialist camp to such an extend, that it is basically safe as no capitalist alliance would be able to pose any real threath to it (short of a strategic nuclear attack).

 

[Unkown00]

Maybe if the USSR adopted a form of Market socialism like china it might have a chance. For the US I assume if the nation gets more politically divided like in the 60s but worse many of its citizens might see capitalism as a failure? I honestly don't know.

 

[Cudymcar]

No Stalinist isolationism+chauvinism state ideology, no censorship, no Suslov, no state anti-semitism, no repressions against dissidents, no invasions into Hungary and Czekoslovakia.

 

[fasquardon]

Anyway, what is the most realistic scenario for a soviet victory in the cold war? The world doesn't have to go red in the 20th century, but many more nations become socialist and the USSR is the most powerfull/influential nation in the world (at least for a time, before beeing overtaken by nations like China or India). Furthermore, the socialist camp has to survive to this very day, and has to remain more powerfull than the capitalist one.

Given how far ahead the US started, I just cannot imagine how the Soviet Union could overtake the US before we go into future history.

The US is really, really powerful and there is alot of infrastructure, alot of factories, alot of smart, educated people, alot of coal, alot of oil, alot of navigable rivers, alot of coastline, alot of arable farmland. The best I could do you is propose various PoDs that would make the USSR a closer second to the US during the Cold War and put them on a trajectory to overtake the US by maybe 2050 or so. And while it is possible to put China on a less successful path, I think the odds are that by the time the USSR was no longer playing second fiddle to the US, they'd be playing second fiddle to China.

fasquardon

 

[xsampa]

Given how far ahead the US started, I just cannot imagine how the Soviet Union could overtake the US before we go into future history.

The US is really, really powerful and there is alot of infrastructure, alot of factories, alot of smart, educated people, alot of coal, alot of oil, alot of navigable rivers, alot of coastline, alot of arable farmland. The best I could do you is propose various PoDs that would make the USSR a closer second to the US during the Cold War and put them on a trajectory to overtake the US by maybe 2050 or so. And while it is possible to put China on a less successful path, I think the odds are that by the time the USSR was no longer playing second fiddle to the US, they'd be playing second fiddle to China.

fasquardon

Red US?

 

[fasquardon]

Red US?

Then the red US would win the Cold War. You may have noticed from real history that the communist states were really good at falling out with each other. China was for most of the Cold War more hostile to the USSR than the US was.

And besides which, a "red" USA would mostly just be the USA. The culture would be American culture. The geostrategic interests would be American. And in any case, the USA was already a revolutionary republic. Going "Red" isn't as much of a change in that respect for the US as it was for Russia to go from Tsarism to something that saw itself as the latest, newest and best iteration of a revolutionary tradition that included the founding fathers of the USA.

fasquardon

 

[33k7]

this site wouldn't exist

 

[Insane Ranter]

Have the Soviets accept the Marshall Plan to go into the Eastern Bloc. You could even have the Soviets accept money as well to help rebuild. This increase in funds helps to build up what becomes Warsaw Pact. Have the USSR help her satellite states instead of just using them as colonial holdings. Do not have the Sino-Soviet split occur. (How not sure).

Sent Iran better equipment for the Iran-Iraq war. And in no way fight in Afghanistan.

 

[LNSS]

Stalin dies from a heart attack in 1943. Power struggle between the Party and the NKVD, until Zhukov intervenes, reins in the intelligence services, and breaks up the Party. After the war, a new Constitution is drafted which guarantees a multi-party socialist democracy, a model which is adopted in countries liberated by the Red Army. Basically multiple parties are allowed as long as they renounce capitalism, and the police state is also taken down several notches.

Zhukov's party wins the free elections and he spearheads the creation of united Germany and Korea in the 50s, which are militarily neutral but politically socialist democracies. Italy votes a Popular Front government led by former guerilla fighters too, and aligns closer to the Soviets. There is no split with Yugoslavia and infact Marxism-Leninism-Zhukovism is much closer to it's market socialist system than IOTL.

US and Western leaders become alarmed that this soft friendly communism is growing too powerful and threatens their economic interests , and thus become more and more authoritarian. They attempt to hold their colonies at all costs, which just causes them to become more friendly to communism when they go independent anyway. By the late 60s, mos of Africa and Asia are independent communist countries aligned with the USSR.

France falls to revolution in 1968, which causes President Goldwater to invade. American tanks roll through the Champs Elysees. Defenders of the move become known as Tankies.

By the 80s, the USA is isolated. Spain and Portugal only remain dictatorships due to American military presence, American-imposed French Sixth Republic is technically a democracy but all leftist parties are banned, and a revanchist Empire-less British government is slowly collapsing due to pressure from Irish socialist militias. Latin America is likewise mostly right-wing military dictatorships. Japan, Rhodesia, and Apartheid South Africa are America's only reliable partners elsewhere.

Germany, Italy, and Korea meanwhile have begun communist powers in their own right, and USSR, under Premier Valery Sablin, is increasingly seen more and more as just first among equals. When reformist elements in the led by President Bernie Sanders attempt to reform the USA in the early 90s, it all comes crashing down...

 

[Komnenos002]

Given how far ahead the US started, I just cannot imagine how the Soviet Union could overtake the US before we go into future history.

The US is really, really powerful and there is alot of infrastructure, alot of factories, alot of smart, educated people, alot of coal, alot of oil, alot of navigable rivers, alot of coastline, alot of arable farmland. The best I could do you is propose various PoDs that would make the USSR a closer second to the US during the Cold War and put them on a trajectory to overtake the US by maybe 2050 or so. And while it is possible to put China on a less successful path, I think the odds are that by the time the USSR was no longer playing second fiddle to the US, they'd be playing second fiddle to China.

fasquardon

It also depends on how you define victory in the Cold War. I find it hard to see the USA as anything less than a Great Power, even if it's made a series of bumbling errors. The worst the USA can do after 1945 is be a Great Power with extensive interests throughout the Americas and the rest of the world. Even a USA kicked out of Europe and entering an isolationist phase is considerably more secure and affluent than the Soviet successor states in 1993.

With what you said about China being true, it seems more plausible that alt*Communism is the stronger ideology by a certain point in time. Which is quite different from the USSR being the global hegemon.

 

[Iron_Lord]

Have Trotsky take over instead of Starlin.

 

[the Imperium of Canada]

Didn't Losing the Peace (which has a Soviet victory in the Cold War) have the Morgenthau Plan actually be enacted, leading to what was essentially a reverse Holocaust in West Germany, which ultimately alienated the French and British and horribly damaged the reputation of the United States?

 

[Alexniko]

Didn't Losing the Peace (which has a Soviet victory in the Cold War) have the Morgenthau Plan actually be enacted, leading to what was essentially a reverse Holocaust in West Germany, which ultimately alienated the French and British and horribly damaged the reputation of the United States?

Never heard of it. I'll check it out.

 

[Saint_007]

One more factor to 'help' the Soviet victory is that the Manhattan Project has problems, is unable to get results in time, or is sabotaged. As a result, the USA (and the WAllies) would have to go all in with Operation: Downfall, losing hundreds of thousands of men in an attempt to break the Japanese fighting spirit. It would end with a victorious USA, but at the cost of the generation who would have started the baby boom of the late 1940s and the 1950s.

It wouldn't be enough to take the US out of the running, mind, but a first weakening blow would probably soften it up to other calamities enough to allow the USSR to ultimately gain the lead. Maybe.

However, a Soviet victory in the Cold War would mean nothing unless their own (very numerous) problems were sorted out first. Granted, with the loss of the Cold War, it means they no longer have to maintain their ludicrously bloated military and "aid" budgets, but that's only part of the problem. They'd have to sort out the tons of problems with the Soviet economy and the system inefficiencies. We're still talking about the nation that had Chernobyl happen because everything was handled so incompetently. There was one a fire in a big library in Moscow where they put out the flames with water and then tried to blow-dry soggy, damaged books that were hundreds of years old.

 

[Deleted member 96212]

One more factor to 'help' the Soviet victory is that the Manhattan Project has problems, is unable to get results in time, or is sabotaged. As a result, the USA (and the WAllies) would have to go all in with Operation: Downfall, losing hundreds of thousands of men in an attempt to break the Japanese fighting spirit.

You don't even need to sabotage the Bomb, just have the Kyujo Incident result in a success, which will inevitably prolong the war despite the Bomb.

 

[History Learner]

The Germans take the Mediterrean Option in 1941, electing to postpone Barbarossa until 1942 and then thereafter permanently as emerging Soviet strength comes into focus and the U.S. enters the war. WWII in Europe lasts until 1945, same as OTL, with Stalin entering the war in 1944 and the Germans fully collapsing in 1945. The division lines are mostly OTL, with adjustments here and there; Yugoslavia is still a monarchy and formally is in NATO due to no Western support to the Titoists, etc. The USSR has avoided the horrific demographic and economic impacts of the German invasion, while still having its buffer states gained IOTL.

Due to the heavy casualties incurred, the U.S. retreats into isolationism Post-War and the Soviets "Finlandized" Western Europe thereafter.