AHC: optimize Soviet performance in WW2
- Thread starter Krasno
- Start date
Keep armies along the Stalin Line, no Molotov line.
Have a anti tank rifle ready at the beginning of the war.
Have a anti tank rifle ready at the beginning of the war.
How would that butterfly Barbarossa? The Nazis always had an end goal in striking east.
One might argue that it only happened because the soviets looked weak. Others would argue differently.
Had the Soviets looked strong there may have been a Nazi cold war instead.
Finland gave the Germans the perception that the USSR was a rickety house that would collapse if you kicked the door in. Romania gave the Germans the perception that they had to act quickly. Without those, Barbarossa might well have been delayed to 1942, and if the US got into the war, perhaps permanently.
Gaúcho Maldito
Banned
1. Don't invade Poland, make the Germans fight for every village and then blackmail them for your share over oil after they are finished.
2. Don't invade Finland.
3. Invade Romania instead, during the Battle of France and with full force, and turn it into a puppet state. Cut commerce with Germany after that.
4. Make a deal with the Bulgarians and the Hungarians for a piece of Romania in return for a non-aggression pact and a joint invasion.
You kill possibly three rabbits with one stone. Finland is out of the war, Romania is destroyed and you can even entertain the possibility that Hungary will sit out and rethinking its bets better.
Finally, Germany will be without oil and wouldn't be capable to strike deep into the USSR even if they want.
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Invading Finland was a life saver for the Soviet Union. It made the flaws in the Soviet Military undeniably visible. Without that ,reforms wouldn't be taking place. They were in progress when Barbosa started, but the Soviet Army would have done a lot worse if those reforms weren't started.
Gaúcho Maldito
Banned
That's why I said we need to invade Romania instead. The Red Army will learn abouts its flaws against a much more strategically sound enemy. Finland won't join Germany without the Winter War. Romania on the other hand, has vasts oil reserves and will probably join Germany either way.
The Romanians contributed significatly to the Barbarossa Operation,and the opportunity to defeat and destroy their army in detail should be taken.
Gaúcho Maldito
Banned
Nonetheless, in hindsight, maybe a much more interesting strategy would've been to simply never sign the treaty with Germany, or betray this treaty in the aftermath and support Poland during the German invasion in 39.
This would guarantee that the bulk of the war will be fought outside of Soviet land. Maybe it's not the most strategically sound decision considering the ultimate objective of gathering influence for the marxist-leninist revolution in Europe, but it's the option that saves more lives both in the Soviet Union and abroad. The demographic weight of all the losses during WW2 are enormous, and this is the option that lets the Soviet preserve more of their strenght. The war will be a trench attrition warfare fought in Poland where the Germans are going to get starved out of resources pretty quickly. A nightmare scenario for Hitler.
Poland could probably be turned Red solely due to the influx of Soviets troops defending it from Germany, so it's not like the Soviets will walk of it barehanded.
I have no shadow of a doubt that this is the safest decision to take. It's too risky to simply let France fight Germany and risk them failing to the Nazi onslaught, because it means that we are going to have to fight the Nazis alone sometime.
This would guarantee that the bulk of the war will be fought outside of Soviet land. Maybe it's not the most strategically sound decision considering the ultimate objective of gathering influence for the marxist-leninist revolution in Europe, but it's the option that saves more lives both in the Soviet Union and abroad. The demographic weight of all the losses during WW2 are enormous, and this is the option that lets the Soviet preserve more of their strenght. The war will be a trench attrition warfare fought in Poland where the Germans are going to get starved out of resources pretty quickly. A nightmare scenario for Hitler.
Poland could probably be turned Red solely due to the influx of Soviets troops defending it from Germany, so it's not like the Soviets will walk of it barehanded.
I have no shadow of a doubt that this is the safest decision to take. It's too risky to simply let France fight Germany and risk them failing to the Nazi onslaught, because it means that we are going to have to fight the Nazis alone sometime.
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What is “the Soviet Union” what is “performance?” I assume “in” relates to the performance and interests during the war with a level of average bureaucratic or social movement blindness to future desires.
The Soviet People haven’t been mentioned so widows and the dead exist to the extent that “The Soviet Union” has an interest in them.
From the start date The Soviet Union was a contested state apparatus controlled by a party and a ruling class (partially comprised of the party), both of those levels of interest had internally diversified interests except as regards their survival as groups and their puissance as groups. A party vibe that desires puissance in one state is different to a party vibe with a mission for global (nomenklatura capitalism) socialist revolution is different to a party vibe which a mission for global rapid communisation under workers control. Historically survival of nomenklatura capitalism won these debates and The Soviet state survived. Historically the method of adjudicating between interests was the near total policy dominance of one position and the attempted social liquidation of other lines (in part by the physical liquidation of their advocates). We don’t ask about what is desirable (a political or moral issue) but what is variably plausible from the best readings of texts.
By the death of Lenin the capacity to extract feudal surplus in tax tithe and rent had been undermined by land distribution. No consumer industry or import route existed for voluntary enclosure. The urban working class was concentrated on top of the arsenals and had demonstrated independent political capacity, a willingness to liquidate ruling classes and a latent demand for bread. This latent demand will actualise and the two ways out are forced enclosure or the dissolution of the nomenklatura. As we have identified the Soviet Union as involving the nomenklatura forced enclosure will be required. The party was reluctant to antagonise the peasantry and waited until the working class actually threatened them in the Ural Siberian area. By this time specialist purges had already begun.
So any plausible Soviet Union will end up with five year plans, forced enclosure and purges of the party. What can it avoid? It can avoid incompetent forced enclosure. It can avoid famines resulting in mass death. It can avoid the prison-industrial gulag or the horror gulag, it can avoid hysteric purges. These *all* have economic costs which will reduce the rate of growth by channeling higher quality labour and nomenklatura into these areas. Think of Mikoyan not collectivising where a famine amelioration system is not in place and collectivisers being police-agronomists instead of police-incompetents. Think of Dzherzhinsky running a three tier gulag of prison farms for workers and peasants, gaol farms for thieves, and 1930 grade gulag and secret gulag for politicals. That’s a lot of competent managers taken from elsewhere: but, the absence of hysteria and mass mortality probably makes up a lot of the lost growth, taken from consumer and non heavy industrial. The Soviet Union can implement banishment to fish canning plants or “soft gulag” instead of destruction of managers. And imprisonment on farms instead of a high chance of death for workers and peasants.
The Soviet Union can avoid committing as if for a 1938 war in military design and training with iteratively tested weapons relying on field exercises and a better planned purge of the military which attacks exercise based incompetence over a board wipe. The Soviet Union can industrialise based on a “deep war” strategic concept which uses civil war experience of depth of strategic operations to lose less plant if invaded.
That’s about as far as the policy implications of macro-economics can take me. I see no option for other macro-economic lines coming into being due to the necessity of enclosure for continued nomenklatura class rule.
The Soviet People haven’t been mentioned so widows and the dead exist to the extent that “The Soviet Union” has an interest in them.
From the start date The Soviet Union was a contested state apparatus controlled by a party and a ruling class (partially comprised of the party), both of those levels of interest had internally diversified interests except as regards their survival as groups and their puissance as groups. A party vibe that desires puissance in one state is different to a party vibe with a mission for global (nomenklatura capitalism) socialist revolution is different to a party vibe which a mission for global rapid communisation under workers control. Historically survival of nomenklatura capitalism won these debates and The Soviet state survived. Historically the method of adjudicating between interests was the near total policy dominance of one position and the attempted social liquidation of other lines (in part by the physical liquidation of their advocates). We don’t ask about what is desirable (a political or moral issue) but what is variably plausible from the best readings of texts.
By the death of Lenin the capacity to extract feudal surplus in tax tithe and rent had been undermined by land distribution. No consumer industry or import route existed for voluntary enclosure. The urban working class was concentrated on top of the arsenals and had demonstrated independent political capacity, a willingness to liquidate ruling classes and a latent demand for bread. This latent demand will actualise and the two ways out are forced enclosure or the dissolution of the nomenklatura. As we have identified the Soviet Union as involving the nomenklatura forced enclosure will be required. The party was reluctant to antagonise the peasantry and waited until the working class actually threatened them in the Ural Siberian area. By this time specialist purges had already begun.
So any plausible Soviet Union will end up with five year plans, forced enclosure and purges of the party. What can it avoid? It can avoid incompetent forced enclosure. It can avoid famines resulting in mass death. It can avoid the prison-industrial gulag or the horror gulag, it can avoid hysteric purges. These *all* have economic costs which will reduce the rate of growth by channeling higher quality labour and nomenklatura into these areas. Think of Mikoyan not collectivising where a famine amelioration system is not in place and collectivisers being police-agronomists instead of police-incompetents. Think of Dzherzhinsky running a three tier gulag of prison farms for workers and peasants, gaol farms for thieves, and 1930 grade gulag and secret gulag for politicals. That’s a lot of competent managers taken from elsewhere: but, the absence of hysteria and mass mortality probably makes up a lot of the lost growth, taken from consumer and non heavy industrial. The Soviet Union can implement banishment to fish canning plants or “soft gulag” instead of destruction of managers. And imprisonment on farms instead of a high chance of death for workers and peasants.
The Soviet Union can avoid committing as if for a 1938 war in military design and training with iteratively tested weapons relying on field exercises and a better planned purge of the military which attacks exercise based incompetence over a board wipe. The Soviet Union can industrialise based on a “deep war” strategic concept which uses civil war experience of depth of strategic operations to lose less plant if invaded.
That’s about as far as the policy implications of macro-economics can take me. I see no option for other macro-economic lines coming into being due to the necessity of enclosure for continued nomenklatura class rule.
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I'd love to read this TL lol. However, an execution order is risky because it could be intercepted, or perceived as Lenin having gone insane, or denied by a loyalist.
No, Vladimir thinks, steepling his withered fingers. The only way to ensure the job is done is to call Stalin into my office and shoot him myself.
Lenin could barely speak, I don’t see how he manages to execute Stalin since any written order would be denied if it falls in the hands of an ally if Stalin and if it ends in the hands of an enemy of Stalin they can be accused of fabricating the document.
Avoid the German-Soviet trade of 1939-41, or at least stop it after the Fall of France (when it's clear that the war in the west won't be a repeat of WWI Western Front)
Germany won't have the means to mount an invasion of the USSR while suffering from a crippling shortage of oil, food and strategic mineral resources.
Germany won't have the means to mount an invasion of the USSR while suffering from a crippling shortage of oil, food and strategic mineral resources.
When this idea will die in fire at last? Germany fought for FOUR freaking years without any deliveries of oil or any other materials from the Soviet Union. Soviet-German trade was not that important.
Germany spent more oil and oil products (probably by few orders of magnitude) attacking the Soviet Union that they ever get out of it via previous trade or looting during the war. Ergo, Soviet trade was not vital for the German war effort.
And Germany didn't pay up for these products, well until after the war
I mean, with 1924 as your PoD it's not even guaranteed that the Nazis still come to power and WW2 happens in the same shape.
Like, for example, one could argue that the PoD is just Stalin falling down a staircase by mistake, Trotsky taking control of the Soviet Union and his backing the KPD in Germany so strongly that they manage to take over when the Great Depression hits Europe.
Maybe the TL you wanted was purely "All politics stays the same, what changes militarily" to which the counter-point is simply that all military decisions in the SU are political.
Like, for example, one could argue that the PoD is just Stalin falling down a staircase by mistake, Trotsky taking control of the Soviet Union and his backing the KPD in Germany so strongly that they manage to take over when the Great Depression hits Europe.
Maybe the TL you wanted was purely "All politics stays the same, what changes militarily" to which the counter-point is simply that all military decisions in the SU are political.