CH: Soviets Don't Treat Conquests Badly

[wormyguy]

Arguably Bulgaria got a better deal, they kept their territorial gains and could thus be seen as the most successful Axis nation.

In Romania but not Yugoslavia/Greece (although in retrospect the USSR probably wishes they'd let them keep those too). In any event, I was referring to the people of the countries, not their governments.

 

[Urban fox]

Any comments on my suggestion for Afghanistan?

I remember seeing a post-1991 interview with some elderly Soviet guy who described how the Soviet intervention came on gradually based on requests for more and more aid and soldiers from the Afghan Communist regime.

(Well, before the full-on invasion took place.)

If someone in the Politburo decides "THIS FAR AND NO FARTHER," they might end up with some agreement to garrison the cities and let the locals deal with the guerrillas in the countryside.

Afghanistan would be a total bloody mess no matter what the Soviets did or didnt do.

Though they did suffer from a textbook case of ''mission creep''. Staying out and simply feeding in money & arms means the country is either in a state of constant civil war between the Communist central goverment & Pakistan funded rebels.

Or the Afghan Communists are reduced to a Soviet backed rump-state near the Tajik border...

 

[MerryPrankster]

Afghanistan would be a total bloody mess no matter what the Soviets did or didnt do.

Though they did suffer from a textbook case of ''mission creep''. Staying out and simply feeding in money & arms means the country is either in a state of constant civil war between the Communist central goverment & Pakistan funded rebels.

Or the Afghan Communists are reduced to a Soviet backed rump-state near the Tajik border...

But this thread is about less Soviet brutality. If the Soviets don't go about trying to drive the entire Afghan rural population into Pakistan, that's a lot less blood on their hands.

Source for their intentions: http://www.amazon.com/Afghanistan-Military-History-Alexander-Taliban/dp/0306811642. This would deprive the guerrillas of their support and burden the Pakistanis with caring for the refugees.

Whether that would have been effective or not is a different story.

 

[MerryPrankster]

And given the presence of Ahmed Shah Massoud and how hard it was for the Soviets to get rid of him, I don't think the regions close to Tajikistan would have been a good place for a pro-Soviet rump.

The Uzbek (and Turkmen, maybe) border might be better, since they'll have the support of this gentleman here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rashid_Dostum

 

[Julian]

Having a well trained and professional group of NCOs would go a long way towards preventing the mass rape and looting seen in Soviet occupied countries. NCOs and political officers in the Red Army actively encouraged, ignored, and often took part in war crimes. They also ignored or did a piss poor job of carrying out orders to reign in their men. The problem is that the problem of poor officer training and discipline goes back well into the 1930s; David Glantz postulates in Stumbling Colossus that the Purges only exacerbated the problem and that the Red Army failed consistently to create a disciplined officer corps due to poor training and perennially low morale. The problem only began to be addressed in the early 1940s, just over a year before Operation Barbarossa. So effectively to create a better behaved Red Army you'd have to alter Red Army training going all the way back to the 1920s and 1930s. Mobilization plans would also have to be altered because, as was found in 1938-1941, they were extremely flawed and actually overestimated the number of trained officers the Red Army would have even without the Purges.

 

[ScorchedLight]

Okay, basically, the Soviet army DOESN'T rape and pillage the countries they enter. How? That's why this is a challenge.

Goal is to have no noticeably large amounts of rape from the Soviet military. Looting is fine, however not on such a scale that it causes the countries they enter to hate them.

This will probably require a rather far back POD, so I'll be interested to see what's came up with.

So pillage is not permited, but looting is a-ok?

Hmm... So the Soviets don't rape, pillage and murder. I can think of a few PODs that will ensure that this won't happen.

1.- Meteor impact Earth before 1917, killing everyone.
2.- Yellowstone erupts. The northen hemisphere becomes uninhabitable.
3.- Gavilo Princip chokes on his damn sandwich.
4.- The Whites win the Russian Civil War.
5.- Nazi victory in the Eastern Front. The Soviet Union collapses.

Without a Soviet Union, you don't have Soviet attrocities occuring.

 

[Gunnarnz]

Without a Soviet Union, you don't have Soviet attrocities occuring.

Note that the OP specifies Soviet troops entering countries. We probably need a Soviet union to achieve that part of the criteria.