WI: Soviet Europe after WW2

Are you kidding? Would you like a list of war crimes they committed against the Poles?

Notice that I said not as bad. Katyn stands out as the worst off the top of my head (Though it was pre-Eastern Front), though crimes against Germany were arguably worse. Hm. They're probably equally bad.

I suppose we'd have to look at actual political and environmental factors. What factors caused Soviet war crimes in China, Poland, and Germany that could be applicable to France?
 
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Notice that I said not as bad. Katyn stands out as the worst off the top of my head (Though it was pre-Eastern Front), though crimes against Germany were arguably worse. Hm. They're probably equally bad.

Post-liberation, Soviet occupation forces in Poland conducted so many indiscriminate rapes against women of all ethnicities (including fellow Russians) that even the puppet government they installed protested directly to Stalin about it.
 
That's really asking alot. That's a total change in Soviet behavior.

You could have the Nazis fail more spectacularly- what if they got stopped around Rostov instead of Stalingrad, or lost at Moscow with even more casualties? If you can save the Russians a few million live bodies and a few hundred thousand square km, it could do the trick.
 
Would the Soviets use french nationalism later at their advantage? There would be only anglosphere remaining, so...
The Soviets could use past French heroes and figures and ideals and cast them in a Communist light to stir up the people. As France is a bastion of and founder of modern Democracy, it wouldn't be hard to do. And I believe there may have been certain statements and ideas by French Democratic thinkers which were proto-Communist already.

It's been brought up before, though, would the Soviets actually push all the way westward or leave France to the Western Allies?
 
How about this::

Britain surrenders mid-1940. No invasion or anything like that but consents to disarmament, letting Free French go, and some minor colonies to Germany & Italy.

As a result, no lend-lease, and much less tension between Germany/US over u-boats.

Spring 1941 - Germany invades Yugoslavia & Greece.

Germany attacks Russia mid-1941. Spain is persauded to join the war in the East. Generally wars pretty much as OTL, except with no lend-lease Russia suffers even heavier losses.

Late 41, Japan goes to war against the US & Britain. Germany reaffirms neutrality.

By late 1944 Japan is driven back to the home-islands. The US & Britain, with no atomic bombs, etc., Operation Olympic goes ahead, an extremely bloodly invasion of the home islands.

Meanwhile in 1944 Russia has now gained the upper hand over Germany and is pushing them back.

In Spring 1945, Russia enters Eastern Germany. Hitler rejects all ideas about negotiated peace and wants to hold on until super-weapons are developed to drive the Russians back. Berlin falls, German armies retreat towards the Rhine, pulling millions of semi-starving German civilians with them) A plot by von Stauffenberg to overthrow the Nazi regime is unsuccessful.

Finland surrenders, and Russia forces occupy the country.

Late 1945. US & Britain are still fighting in Japan. US deploys first atomic bombs. Hitler (now headquartered in Paris) says this is the weapon Germany must deploy (of course there is no realistic prospect of this anytime soon). He says Germany will be invincible with jets, rockets, and atomic bombs.

March 1946. Russians cross the Rhine and over-run France in 6 weeks. Hitler relocates to Madrid. SS troops in Madrid & Rome, seize control of the cities to prevent peace-factions in both countries from attempting a negotiated end to the war. A simultaneous attack on Sweden captures Stockholm and races towards Oslo, Russians enter Northern Italy and establish crossings of the Pyrennes. Faced with invasion, Turkey consents to Soviet occupation.

June 1946 - Largest faction of Japanese government finally surrenders to US & Britain, however resistance from various hold-out factions (and other groups not recognizing any central authority) continues for almost another year.

July 1946 - Aided by massive anti-fascist uprising, Russians advance rapidly into Spain & Italy. Rome & Madrid fall to advancing Soviet forces. Soviets cross into neutral Portugal in alleged pursuit of retreating fascist forces. Hitler is captured by Spanish Republican partisans, executed, and their bodies hung upside down on meathooks from a gas station. Surrounded on all-sides Switzerland negotiates a treaty of friendship and cooperation (puppet status) with the USSR. It takes almost another two years to crush Nazi and fascist hold-outs in pockets in Spain, the Alps, Norway, Southern Italy and the Balkans.

August 1946 - Victory parade in Moscow

May Day 1947 - Fraternal delegations from the occupied European regions (large countries such as Turkey, Germany, France, Italy and Spain are subdivided) visit Moscow and request admittance to the USSR.... upon the advice from Comrade Stalin, the Supreme Soviet votes to welcome these republics into the USSR.
 
While the above statements about Communist splits is mostly true, I'd say that one should not compare full-sized France or Germany, each with around or over 60 million people to relatively puny states like the OTL DDR (15 million) or the Czechoslovakians (didnt they ahve like ten million?). the USSR might station troops in conquered Germany and France, but barring forced Balkanization (which would have no justification in postwar France) you'd nevertheless have the issue of a large, powerful Communist nation that may very well want to go its own way, particularly if the Soviets don't give them enough breathing room, as was their habit. Germany could be split up into more manageable chunks, but a more independent-minded Red France could stand up to Moscow (kind like the way they weren't fully committed to America's idea of NATO the same way the FRG and UK were).
 
Alright then, I shall concede to your points. That being said, would having to hold down France, Germany, and the Low Countries in the fashion you propose contribute to an earlier downfall of the USSR or give it more years?
 
What sort of losses would the Soviets take in a campaign to take the whole of western Europe? They'd already suffered deaths in the millions in their defense against and repulsion of the German invasion, which had extreme demographic repercussions that are still felt today.

Most German forces in France were relatively inexperienced and weak. They wouldn't be any match for veteran Soviet armoured columns. The Soviets would have annihilated the Germans in France, especially since the French communists would rise up in support. The Maginot line had been destroyed after the capture of France, so the Nazis wouldn't have any good defence line in the East.
 
What about the effect of this scenario on the US, British Empire, foreign colonies of the powers now under Soviet occupation, and the Cold War as a whole? That's only been touched upon a little so far.
 
There's also a small chance Australians and New Zealander's might still consider themselves 'British,' in addition to those national identities. IIRC, a strong affinity with the mother country would last right up until Britain joined the EEC in the early 70s. A Soviet occupation of W. Europe butterflies that away...

No. Just no. Australians and New Zealanders mostly stopped considering themselves British after the Gallipoli campaign. The upper-class British looked down on the 'colonials' and only the very loyal monarchists and British immigrants in New Zealand considered themselves British.
 
Why? They treated Chinese civilians in Manuchuria just as bad. From what I've read it took the Soviets limiting their junior troops to their barracks only to stop the rapes in Austria.

I doubt that somehow crossing the French border while advancing against fleeing Nazi units is going to make all the Soviets angels.

Hell based on Zhukov's behavior they most likely will be loading every train car they can with stolen art and luxury goods. And of course they will be stealing every bit of industrial equipment they can find, that's not going to stop at the French/German border.

One of the reasons that there were so many rapes were because f how the Nazis treated Russians. Many of these young Russian soldiers' sisters or mothers had been repeatedly raped by the Nazis. It was revenge. Although there would've been sexual predators, as in any military (see Americans in Okinawa militray base/cave of the negroes).
 
One of the reasons that there were so many rapes were because f how the Nazis treated Russians. Many of these young Russian soldiers' sisters or mothers had been repeatedly raped by the Nazis. It was revenge. Although there would've been sexual predators, as in any military (see Americans in Okinawa militray base/cave of the negroes).
That still doesn't explain why the Russians raped Polish, Chinese, and even Russian women as well as Germans. While the Russian soldiers were out for revenge, the military leadership didn't do anything to at least redirect this rage so that civilians wouldn't be as victimized. Stalin even condoned it, saying something like "a soldier should be allowed to have some fun with a girl as his reward for marching so far".
 
That still doesn't explain why the Russians raped Polish, Chinese, and even Russian women as well as Germans. While the Russian soldiers were out for revenge, the military leadership didn't do anything to at least redirect this rage so that civilians wouldn't be as victimized. Stalin even condoned it, saying something like "a soldier should be allowed to have some fun with a girl as his reward for marching so far".

Very true, Stalin couldn't have cared less. The Soviet leadership really should've put in stronger punishments for that behavior.
 
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