I'm not sure if there's a specific name for this phenomenon, but since time immemorial, militaries have tended to 'mix' their soldiers, meaning that you generally won't see a unit comprised solely of people from Region X or Town Y or Village Z, and you sure as hell won't see a unit like that serving at home, as they might show more loyalty to each other and their region than to the institution as a whole. The Soviet Union in particular did this, sending the many different peoples to serve in ethnically mixed units to the far reaches of the country and beyond. For example, my uncle (from Lithuania) was deployed to the Transcaucasian Military District, first in Baku, then Tbilisi.
As a quick aside, when he was training in Baku, my uncle was actually temporarily put together with other Lithuanians until the training ended. Before that could happen, they sang a Lithuanian marching song instead of a socialist, state approved one, and the unit was broken up and mixed as a result. So, pretty good example of what militaries want to avoid.
Now this got me thinking, why not make it so the Warsaw Pact has a completely unified, single military? IOTL all the puppet armed forces were integrated into the overall WP command, but the soldiers of those countries served at home and only Soviet soldiers got to serve abroad. In some of these countries, Soviet soldiers remained until the end of the Cold War (like Germany and Poland), in other places they were withdrawn for a time and redeployed later (Hungary and Czechoslovakia), and elsewhere still they were withdrawn altogether (Romania and Bulgaria).
So what if Moscow was both a tad more internationalist AND more controlling? While stopping short of annexing the WP countries, they decide to assimilate their militaries and secret police agencies into the Soviet Armed Forces and KGB entirely (though officially it would be an equal unification into some kind of Social-Internationalist Armed Forces or whatever). I imagine that only Stalin could pull this off, and MAYBE Khrushchev before destalinization. The Stalinist WP leaders were fiercely loyal to Moscow (Klement Gottwald, for example, apparently urged Stalin to annex his country outright, and the others would similarly do as they were told), but Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin changed that, and only Bulgaria would remain staunchly loyal to the end. If the armed forces (and secret police) are combined, you wouldn't just see Soviet soldiers serving abroad, but all soldiers from every WP country serving in every other WP country. You'd see Poles in Bulgaria, Germans in Hungary, Romanians in Central Asia, Bulgarians in the Baltic, etc., just like the Soviet peoples served all over the Soviet Empire.
If I had to guess what the effects of this would be, I would say that Moscow would have much greater control over its satellites. No Hungarian Uprising, No Prague Spring, no bullshit from Ceausescu. Most of the WP would be kind of like Bulgaria IOTL in terms of political loyalty from the local communist parties. There might be a greater sense of unity between all the WP states, as all military-aged men would be spending a few of their younger years in different countries and would likely come to love them and the peoples living there. With not just Soviet soldiers on their soil, but others too (as well as their own serving elsewhere) resentment for the USSR might be less pronounced.
On the other hand, it might play out way different. The civilians of the satellite states might come to feel more united in their oppression and opposed to Moscow instead. Moscow might have to unofficially limit the number of satellite troops serving in the satellite states and send most of them to the Soviet interior, lest they all decide to pull a region-wide uprising. If Afghanistan still happens, they will be really pissed for having to send their boys to die in some distant backwater for no good reason, which would probably lead to an earlier collapse.
What are your thoughts on the effects of this scenario? Discuss!
As a quick aside, when he was training in Baku, my uncle was actually temporarily put together with other Lithuanians until the training ended. Before that could happen, they sang a Lithuanian marching song instead of a socialist, state approved one, and the unit was broken up and mixed as a result. So, pretty good example of what militaries want to avoid.
Now this got me thinking, why not make it so the Warsaw Pact has a completely unified, single military? IOTL all the puppet armed forces were integrated into the overall WP command, but the soldiers of those countries served at home and only Soviet soldiers got to serve abroad. In some of these countries, Soviet soldiers remained until the end of the Cold War (like Germany and Poland), in other places they were withdrawn for a time and redeployed later (Hungary and Czechoslovakia), and elsewhere still they were withdrawn altogether (Romania and Bulgaria).
So what if Moscow was both a tad more internationalist AND more controlling? While stopping short of annexing the WP countries, they decide to assimilate their militaries and secret police agencies into the Soviet Armed Forces and KGB entirely (though officially it would be an equal unification into some kind of Social-Internationalist Armed Forces or whatever). I imagine that only Stalin could pull this off, and MAYBE Khrushchev before destalinization. The Stalinist WP leaders were fiercely loyal to Moscow (Klement Gottwald, for example, apparently urged Stalin to annex his country outright, and the others would similarly do as they were told), but Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin changed that, and only Bulgaria would remain staunchly loyal to the end. If the armed forces (and secret police) are combined, you wouldn't just see Soviet soldiers serving abroad, but all soldiers from every WP country serving in every other WP country. You'd see Poles in Bulgaria, Germans in Hungary, Romanians in Central Asia, Bulgarians in the Baltic, etc., just like the Soviet peoples served all over the Soviet Empire.
If I had to guess what the effects of this would be, I would say that Moscow would have much greater control over its satellites. No Hungarian Uprising, No Prague Spring, no bullshit from Ceausescu. Most of the WP would be kind of like Bulgaria IOTL in terms of political loyalty from the local communist parties. There might be a greater sense of unity between all the WP states, as all military-aged men would be spending a few of their younger years in different countries and would likely come to love them and the peoples living there. With not just Soviet soldiers on their soil, but others too (as well as their own serving elsewhere) resentment for the USSR might be less pronounced.
On the other hand, it might play out way different. The civilians of the satellite states might come to feel more united in their oppression and opposed to Moscow instead. Moscow might have to unofficially limit the number of satellite troops serving in the satellite states and send most of them to the Soviet interior, lest they all decide to pull a region-wide uprising. If Afghanistan still happens, they will be really pissed for having to send their boys to die in some distant backwater for no good reason, which would probably lead to an earlier collapse.
What are your thoughts on the effects of this scenario? Discuss!
Last edited:
