Soviet Union Unites the Planet?

[RealityX]

How plausible do you think it is for a single world communist state to occur by the year 2000? What would be the best POD's for a 'RED PLANET'

Personally I think a communist Germany (instead of Nazi) aligned or part of the Soviet Union would be the best bet for a single world state. What do you think?

[Doraemon]

Imo, I think that any single world state scenario without the use of nukes is largely asb.

[Solomaxwell6]

I think a single world-state is nigh impossible, a world-state united by the Soviets is even unlikelier. Germany would certainly help, but by 2000? Unlikely. As long as both the US and Britain remain as part of the First World, the Soviet Union will be hard-pressed to conquer them without starting a nuclear war. Your best bet is having the US have a democratically elected Socialist (or even Communist) government. Imagine the political landscape during and after WW2 with a Communist America!

Just a silly little map. Not pictured are unified Korea and the Democratic Republic of Japan. Yugoslavia is firmly in the Soviet/American sphere this time around. Sorry for its ugliness, but I couldn't find a good post-WW2 Europe map, so I'm just blowing up Europe from a world map. Too lazy to fill it in, but B-W is sort of a French puppet (it's OTL's French Occupation Zone).




In the 1950s, Baden-Wurttenburg seeks annexation from RoG, which accepts. The Soviet Union invades BW, fearmongering, saying that Germany is just repeating its actions in the 30s (as if this runt Republic of Germany has anywhere near the same potential for destruction as Nazi Germany ). France moves in to defend its ally, sparking WW3. Britain soon joins in, as does the United States. China and Japan uses the distraction to set up Ho Chi Minh and other Communist leaders in Indochina.

A decade later, America, Russia, and China have won. America has directly annexed Canada, and much of Central and South America are in its influence. Mainland Europe have all joined the Soviet sphere. Britain is free, but has lost its empire and is now only a minor power. China and Japan are allied to make a third Communist grouping, and have influence in New Zealand, Indochina, and other large chunks of SE Asia/Oceania. One by one, the remaining free nations fall to the three great Communist groupings. In the year 1999, Soviet Premier Putin hosts the annual meeting of the Comintern. In honor of the new millenium, and the fall of the last Capitalist/Imperialist nation in 1997 (Australia, now just one more puppet member of the Shanghai Pact), they decide to establish the Comintern as a true world government, having precedence over their own respective nations.


ASB, I know, but a fun little TL for me to wile away my time with.

[Admiral Matt]

Very, very, very, very hard.

I think I've worked out a fairly reasonable scenario for a Soviet Europe and a Soviet most-of-Asia. If done in the right time frame that would effectively mean dominance over Africa and the rest of Asia indirectly. But if even Britain is difficult to imagine falling without a prior carpet-nuking, how are the Soviets getting at Brazil and Australia? [Forgetting for a moment that America's even there.]

[RedRalphWiggum]

Superman lands in the Ukraine

[Blue Max]

What about Suslov's Missile?

Is it possible for the Soviet Union to pull that one off? Start a Nuclear War between China and the USA while the Soviets sit back and smile in the warm glow of distant fireworks?

(I still can't believe that was actually tried. I'd be the first one to point out that the USA might hit the Soviets for Everything on that one...)

[Geekhis Khan]

Originally Posted by Blue Max

What about Suslov's Missile?

Is it possible for the Soviet Union to pull that one off? Start a Nuclear War between China and the USA while the Soviets sit back and smile in the warm glow of distant fireworks?

(I still can't believe that was actually tried. I'd be the first one to point out that the USA might hit the Soviets for Everything on that one...)

I hadn't heard about that one!

My lord, it's like a SPECTRE plot from a bad Moore Bond movie!!

To the question, I'd think hoping for the two enemies to conviniently annihilate each other without either of them nuking their mutual enemy while they're at it is insanely optimistic at best, IMO. I'd suspect some sort of hurried diplomatic deal as the Chinese rush to deny any responsibility. Once the missile remains are identified as Soviet there will be hell to pay for the USSR as both the US and China suddenly find the USSR to be overwhelmingly their common and very hostile enemy.

[Solomaxwell6]

Originally Posted by Geekhis Khan

Once the missile remains are identified as Soviet there will be hell to pay for the USSR as both the US and China suddenly find the USSR to be overwhelmingly their common and very hostile enemy.

How long would it take to identify the remains (especially if the Soviets had taken steps to disguise it... obviously can't be perfect, but maybe it'd help at least a little)? I mean, if the PRC and USA both end up going all out with their respective first strikes, the US might suddenly be lacking some of the facilities necessary to identify it. If they do get suspicious, the Soviet Union still has all of its nukes ready and waiting. Having to use them wouldn't be an ideal situation, but I think they have at least a shot of getting away with it with minimal losses.

[Geekhis Khan]

Well, if the US acts in a blind panic and fires all nukes (unlikly, IMO, on a single missile strike, General Ripper stereotypes aside) then yes, you would see global annihilation, and I bet USSR gets nuked by US or China or both just to keep the "other" enemy from taking over (the US at least had the nukes to spare, IIRC).

However, a single missile strike you get High Alert and when no more nukes appear it's time to contact the various governments and find out what happened. When the nuclear radiation signature* of the explosion is recorded by the sensory equipment that was IIRC out there even back then, the CIA soon notes that it came from a Soviet reactor and the red phone to Bejing lights up for Detente, possibly effective anti-Soviet alliance.

I can't see this leading to anything good for the Soviets no matter the reaction, but for the sake of a Soviwank it could work as an implausible but interesting POD.

* = This is based on IIRC the isotrope ratios and is a specific fingerprint of where the fissile/fussile material came from, what mine/source, what reactor, etc. This will be nigh impossible to disguise.

Seriously, WTF was that guy thinking?

[Consumerist]

So if the soviets had just stolen fissile material from the Chinese then it would have worked?

[Geekhis Khan]

Originally Posted by Consumerist

So if the soviets had just stolen fissile material from the Chinese then it would have worked?

Would have been more likely to pass as Chinese assuming there aren't enough remnants of the missile itself, but as I mentioned earlier even if it "works" it fails.

[Atreus]

Originally Posted by Consumerist

So if the soviets had just stolen fissile material from the Chinese then it would have worked?

There is also the minor stumbling block that China lacked both the necessary warhead and missile to carry out such a strike, and American intelligence was aware of that.

[Admiral Matt]

Also that China was not - heck is not - an even match for the United States. A nuclear war between the two would see the rapid destruction of Taiwan, Korea, and most of China and Japan. A few nuclear warheads might go off in the continental United States, but a few is it. When the dust settles the United States is radicalized, a little short on ICBMs, and mostly undamaged. They proceed to dominate East Asia, and will not be friendly about Russian interference.

This is not a big Soviet win.

[The Red]

Originally Posted by Admiral Matt

Also that China was not - heck is not - an even match for the United States. A nuclear war between the two would see the rapid destruction of Taiwan, Korea, and most of China and Japan. A few nuclear warheads might go off in the continental United States, but a few is it. When the dust settles the United States is radicalized, a little short on ICBMs, and mostly undamaged. They proceed to dominate East Asia, and will not be friendly about Russian interference.

This is not a big Soviet win.

However there will be massive anti US sentiment across the world and American troops might very well be forced out of Europe.

[BlackWave]

Originally Posted by The Red

However there will be massive anti US sentiment across the world and American troops might very well be forced out of Europe.

Alternately, the Soviet Union might be able to lob a load of ICBMs from Pacific-based submarines during the exchange, which may just work. Of course, timing would be of the essence.

[Solomaxwell6]

Originally Posted by BlackWave

Alternately, the Soviet Union might be able to lob a load of ICBMs from Pacific-based submarines during the exchange, which may just work. Of course, timing would be of the essence.

That's what I was thinking. The US is going to have a few glowing cities, plus have lost a lot of its immediately ready ICBMs on China, which means that the Soviet Union has a chance at messing up the US in time. Granted, the US will probably still be able to get a few nukes off, but there would be huge potential victories. Very unlikely, and would require everything to go off absolutely perfectly. Too risky to try. But I can see someone fooling themselves into thinking it'll work perfectly.

[Peter Hillock]

Maybe the title of the thread is too ambitious, and the SU "unifying" the world isn't realistic without nuclear war. But it is interesting to think how the Soviets might have won the Cold War, and what the world would be like if they had.

No doubt there has been a thread like this, though I confess I haven't seen one, so I'll pretend this is a fresh new line of thought.

Possibilities (not a timeline or even in chronological order): the British don't manage to stop the Greek communists. The US fails to approve the Marshall Plan, adopts the Morgenthau Plan instead. The Soviets liberate Helsinki in 1944-5 (yes, liberate, what are you, a fascist?). Something goes wrong with the Hiroshima bomb and Moscow takes more of Korea and China, part of Japan. The Remagen bridge blows up and the Rhine line holds in the west. No CIA coups, and it turns out Dulles was right (Guatemala, Iran and Chile really were going commie-- though I personally think that's hogwash) Etc., etc., including no shoulder-launched missiles delivered from the CIA to the Afghans, so it's just another Soviet Central Asian SSR, by its own request, of course.

This seems ridiculous in hindsight (what does ASB stand for, anyway?), but I remember reading in the paper (as a 12-year-old paperboy no less) that Kissinger had thought it would be good to let Portugal go communist, as it appeared it would in the mid-70s, in order to "inoculate" (his choice of words) the rest of Western Europe against the temptation of leftish pacifism and neutrality in the Cold War. So it's really not so far-fetched, not so ASB.
Hmm, Altered-State-of-Being? Absolutely-Stoned-Blathering? Asinine-Stupid-Baloney? It's bad enough that I can't figure out my 14-year-old's text message abbreviations, now this on my favorite forum.

So what would life be like for people in countries that might have tipped into Moscow's sphere but didn't? It seems to me it wouldn't have quite been 1984, but on the other hand there were reasons the communist bloc regimes took such extreme measures to keep their subjects from escaping.

[Tobit]

Originally Posted by Peter Hillock

Maybe the title of the thread is too ambitious, and the SU "unifying" the world isn't realistic without nuclear war. But it is interesting to think how the Soviets might have won the Cold War, and what the world would be like if they had.

No doubt there has been a thread like this, though I confess I haven't seen one, so I'll pretend this is a fresh new line of thought.

Possibilities (not a timeline or even in chronological order): the British don't manage to stop the Greek communists. The US fails to approve the Marshall Plan, adopts the Morgenthau Plan instead. The Soviets liberate Helsinki in 1944-5 (yes, liberate, what are you, a fascist?). Something goes wrong with the Hiroshima bomb and Moscow takes more of Korea and China, part of Japan. The Remagen bridge blows up and the Rhine line holds in the west. No CIA coups, and it turns out Dulles was right (Guatemala, Iran and Chile really were going commie-- though I personally think that's hogwash) Etc., etc., including no shoulder-launched missiles delivered from the CIA to the Afghans, so it's just another Soviet Central Asian SSR, by its own request, of course.

This seems ridiculous in hindsight (what does ASB stand for, anyway?), but I remember reading in the paper (as a 12-year-old paperboy no less) that Kissinger had thought it would be good to let Portugal go communist, as it appeared it would in the mid-70s, in order to "inoculate" (his choice of words) the rest of Western Europe against the temptation of leftish pacifism and neutrality in the Cold War. So it's really not so far-fetched, not so ASB.
Hmm, Altered-State-of-Being? Absolutely-Stoned-Blathering? Asinine-Stupid-Baloney? It's bad enough that I can't figure out my 14-year-old's text message abbreviations, now this on my favorite forum.

So what would life be like for people in countries that might have tipped into Moscow's sphere but didn't? It seems to me it wouldn't have quite been 1984, but on the other hand there were reasons the communist bloc regimes took such extreme measures to keep their subjects from escaping.

Good post, world domination, I agree, is impossible. It seems basically for the US to lose the Cold War it has to be very inactive, to the point of isolationism. I wonder though if US doesn't act will no other enemy of Soviets make it life difficult for them?

ASB= Alien Space Bats, its an old saying among internet alt-historians.

[metalstar316]

The best POD would have to be a MUCH earlier industrial revolution, like in the Middle Ages. That might bring a Karl Marx figure into play several centuries before OTL.

Or maybe the Roman Empire not falling, something like that. Anything else is waaaaay too NOOBish ASB.

[Admiral Matt]

Originally Posted by Tobit

ASB= Alien Space Bats, its an old saying among internet alt-historians.

Specifically, in a discussion on SHWI years ago it was proposed that if Nazi Germany had mass produced jet planes early, and if they had avoided the early engineering problems, and if they found a solution to the planes vulnerability on take off, and IF they found a way to build runways better protected from Allied bombing, and IF these hypothetical planes had better armaments.... Then Germany could do better in the war.

Basically, the argument boiled down to, "If everyone did everything right forever, and somehow had more resources to do it, things would be different."

One response was that "Alien Space Bats would be more likely." It's since become a general term for when people make truly extraordinary and unlikely (if not outright impossible) assumptions in making their TLs.

So.