WI: Soviet puppets instead of annexation

So a thought that came to me. What if Stalin decided to not annex the baltic countries and poland into the USSR with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact but instead he decided to create soviet puppets similar to what he did after ww2? What are the chances of Stalin doing this and how does this impact things in the USSR if the baltic countries are not directly part of the USSR?
 

Marc

Donor
I strongly suspect that it never entered Stalin's mind. The Baltic states (and eastern Poland) were carved out of the Russian Empire, that made them lost lands that had to be properly liberated and brought back into the bosom of the Motherland. Whether that is true or not, it was the belief.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Stalin was pretty insistent on restoring the borders of the former Russian Empire, with the exception of Poland and Finland whom he thought would be too much trouble to annex outright, although as we know he did desire parts of both of those country's territory. Different Soviet leadership would be necessary.
 
How can you even carve puppets out of eastern Poland? If for some reason Molotov-Ribbentrop is implemented to the letter there can be a rump socialist Polish state around Warsaw, but the rest of it was Belorussian and Ukrainian land, it wouldn't make any sense to establish West-Belorussia and West-Ukraine separate from their SSRs.
 
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I don't know how reliable this is, but one source says that Zhdanov was apparently open (or claimed to be) to an "Outer Mongolian" status for Estonia:

"During the period from June 21 to July 21, 1940, the Estonian Communists toyed with the idea that Estonia be given special status within the Soviet orbit, that is to say, something similar to the status of Outer Mongolia. Deputy Prime Minister Kruus had expressed himself to this effect already in the early days of July. 88 Thus, on the eve of the first session' of the "puppet'' parliament a draft resolution along these lines was drawn up which envisaged for Estonia an autonomous status with its own currency, consular representation, army, and local legislation. The idea was based on Zhdanov's words. He had told Vares on July 17 that Estonia would be given some kind of special treatment when it submitted its petition for incorporation into the Soviet Union. 89

"Zhdanov forwarded this plan, conceived in the first instance on his own suggestion, to Moscoav. But Moscow frowned on the idea and turned it down, apparently, preemptorily. Zhdanov now held his Estonian Communist advisers responsible for having embarrassed him with his high-level superiors in the Kremlin and released a furious blast at the Estonian Communist leaders, ordering them to forego all such nonsense in the future. 00 On July 21, the Latvian and Lithuanian "puppet" parliaments had accepted the resolutions for joining the Soviet Union. But the Outer Mongolian episode delayed the action of the Estonian Communist Parliament. However, the resolution for incorporation with the Soviet Union was passed in the form required by Zhdanov on July 22, 1940. '

https://archive.org/stream/reportofselectco1954unit#page/284/mode/2up

Of course this ignores that one reason Outer Mongolia was not incorporated into the USSR is that technically speaking it was still as of 1940 a part of China, and Stalin didn't want to unnecessarily alienate the Chinese...
 
Of course this ignores that one reason Outer Mongolia was not incorporated into the USSR is that technically speaking it was still as of 1940 a part of China, and Stalin didn't want to unnecessarily alienate the Chinese...

So that's why Mongolia remained independent!

Makes me wonder how things would go if the Soviets and Nationalists didn't get on as they (mostly) did in OTL. Sinkiang was also run as if it were a Soviet republic, so at least that, and possibly Inner Mongolia and Manchuria might end up being incorporated into the USSR.

fasquardon
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
So a thought that came to me. What if Stalin decided to not annex the baltic countries and poland into the USSR with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact but instead he decided to create soviet puppets similar to what he did after ww2? What are the chances of Stalin doing this and how does this impact things in the USSR if the baltic countries are not directly part of the USSR?
While eastern Poland had some areas with Polish majority there were mainly Belarussian or Ukrainian majorities, so I don't think Eastern Poland would have been a valiable puppet.
 
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