WI: No Cold War

Typo

Banned
Well, even without Stalin the Soviet leadership was pro-empire building in Eastern Europe post-WWII. The only one who wasn't was, ironically, Beria (who favored creating a united, neutral Germany, and a possible withdrawal from Eastern Europe in exchange for Marshall Plan aid), and he got a bullet to the head for his trouble. Maybe you could have Beria win over Malenkov to his point of view so that Malenkov doesn't throw him under the bus like he did in OTL, and the two of them stay in power.
Not really.

The Soviets took Eastern Europe because they could, the only thing that the USSR must have is Poland
 
I think that if a Soviet leadership were willing to a deal on as it were Finalandizing Poland they could have dominate most of the rest of Eastern Europe without too much opposition from the West.

The interesting question in my mind is what would have happened to Germany. I think that there would have been a more intense de-Nazification and maybe a longer formal occupation.
 
Some complications...

The trouble is a lack of access to Germany: another WWII with the Germans as Western Allies? Not good. A disarmed, neutralized Germany, perhaps: a divided Germany, tolerable: an all-commie Germany, excellent. A united Germany in the Allied camp - very bad.Therefore, the desire for a friendly government in Poland, at least.

On the Allied side, a neutral unified Germany was not a pleasant idea, even among a lot of Germans. Commie Germany was unthinkable, so from the Allied POV the divided-but-mostly-western Germany was probably the best option aside from the unlikely all-western Germany. So there were some fairly strong drivers for central Europe to end up as OTL: the fact that atom bombs had really changed the nature of the game (Germany was a far smaller and more accessible target than the USSR) does not seem to have entirely sunk in.

In any event, even without Soviet pressures from '45 on, there will be Red states in eastern Europe. Yugoslavia, which went Commie early '46, is going to be Red even with a less pushy USSR: and the Communists were dominant in Bulgaria from September '44 when the local Reds siezed power with the aid of incoming Soviet forces, who are hardly likely to _prevent_ them from holding onto power. If the USSR plays a role of "good buddy to Red nations, but no military interventions" we might see the Yugoslav-Bulgarian union that nearly took place OTL in 1947, thereby encircling Romania (rather less likely to go Red without active Soviet participation). The Communists in Albania were also quite strong and supported by the Yugoslavs communist partisans.

Bruce
 
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