Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

[TheRomanSlayer]

You can finish it on here, can't you?

I would have to rewrite it at some point, because there are some things that I wanted to change over. It's the TL where Stalin dies on October of 1945, leading to the rise of Anastas Mikoyan as Stalin's successor. Things go bad from there.

 

[Captain X]

Blackie Blackie Brown?

Indigenous superhero avenges past wrongs in Kill Bill-style play

A mild-mannered archaeologist transforms into an instrument of bloody vengeance in this pulpy, Tarantino-like revenge fantasy.

www.theage.com.au

Indeed.

 

[WolfBear]

I would have to rewrite it at some point, because there are some things that I wanted to change over. It's the TL where Stalin dies on October of 1945, leading to the rise of Anastas Mikoyan as Stalin's successor. Things go bad from there.

Any eventual Soviet collapse?

 

[TheRomanSlayer]

Any eventual Soviet collapse?

In the original TL that I wrote, I had the Soviet Union collapse around 1948, with a successful Western Allied invasion of the USSR. Unlike the German invasion of the USSR, the Western Allied invasion in this case might have been more successful, as they can count on resistance movements that are fighting the Red Army. Basically Unthinkable being played out.

 

[WolfBear]

In the original TL that I wrote, I had the Soviet Union collapse around 1948, with a successful Western Allied invasion of the USSR. Unlike the German invasion of the USSR, the Western Allied invasion in this case might have been more successful, as they can count on resistance movements that are fighting the Red Army. Basically Unthinkable being played out.

Do all of the SSRs still become their own independent countries?

 

[TheRomanSlayer]

Yes.

 

[Buba]

GOP might become more libertarian by now as opposed to drifting in a more Fascist and white nationalist direction?

LOL!
I was not expecting such entertainment on this board

Have people universally accept Republicans' claims that the Democrats are the real racists!

But they are. They have locked the Blacks into a client-patron relationship with all their handout programmes.

a certain Austrian-born dictator who may not be born ITTL who deserves that hatred most of all

Nope. There are worthier candidates. Like his peer in age with a bigger moustache ...

 

[Zyobot]

Nope. There are worthier candidates. Like his peer in age with a bigger moustache ...

Actually, yes. While he was certainly one of the twentieth century’s worst dictators—and probably more ferocious than Hitler, when it came to purges and haranguing his subordinates—Stalin didn’t have an equivalent to Generalplan Ost, last time I checked (i.e, exterminating just about every Western and Central European man, woman, and child as soon as he won World War II).

Hitler’s inner circle, on the other hand, drew up plans to completely raze Eastern Europe, as opposed to “merely” lording over and oppressing it like the Soviets did. If they had their way, the Nazis would’ve wracked up a body count to make even the communists look like amateur softies. The reason they ultimately didn’t was because they were stopped early, even before we address whether or not freed-up German logistics would’ve been enough to exterminate almost all the Slavs and Germanize the very few with “acceptable features.”

 

[Atarlost]

2. I was sick and tired of only Bushes and Clintons controlling either the US Presidency or the US Vice Presidency for the previous 28 years (1981-2009). This is why I was also strongly opposed to having Obama choose Hillary as his VP pick. Because then we could have had a whopping 44 years of non-stop Bushes and Clintons as either US President or US Vice President (1981-2025, assuming 8 years as VP for Hillary and then another 8 years as President for Hillary).

If that had been the common feeling among Obama primary voters they would have voted in the general for the ticket that had no Clinton because a Bush wasn't running. And McCain didn't get those votes.

 

[History Learner]

Looks good in hindsight, but without hindsight, Hitler felt that he could win big in the Soviet Union in 1941, in which case 1942 could be a mopping-up year and 1943 could be a Mediterranean focus year, I would presume.

It's most rational to go for the biggest prize first, if you think that you can actually get it. Your calculations might, of course, be incorrect, but that's life. Go big or go home, as they say.

Hitler seems to have been motivated not by perceived Soviet weakness but actually strength; the fear his window to strike was closing, rather than it being an easy opportunity. His initial instinct, as evidenced by the Berlin Summit of November, 1940 was actually to achieve a lasting peace with the Soviets via bringing them into a Four Power Pact with Italy, Japan and Germany. Stalin proved unwilling to deal and began directly endangering German security in Finland, Bulgaria and with Romania; as a result, in December of 1940, Hitler resolved to strike.

 

[WolfBear]

If that had been the common feeling among Obama primary voters they would have voted in the general for the ticket that had no Clinton because a Bush wasn't running. And McCain didn't get those votes.

Hang on--I'm confused: Obama's 2008 and 2012 tickets both didn't have any Clinton on them. Now, you're right that if these tickets did contain Hillary, they the overwhelmingly majority of Obama voters would have still voted for the Democratic ticket, but I'm not actually sure that a ticket containing Hillary would have actually been their preference.

Hitler seems to have been motivated not by perceived Soviet weakness but actually strength; the fear his window to strike was closing, rather than it being an easy opportunity. His initial instinct, as evidenced by the Berlin Summit of November, 1940 was actually to achieve a lasting peace with the Soviets via bringing them into a Four Power Pact with Italy, Japan and Germany. Stalin proved unwilling to deal and began directly endangering German security in Finland, Bulgaria and with Romania; as a result, in December of 1940, Hitler resolved to strike.

The dispute was over a Soviet sphere of influence in Bulgaria and the Black Sea, right? And Yes, I know that Hitler planned to negotiate with the USSR to bring Britain out of the war. However, this didn't necessarily preclude attacking the USSR at a later time if the opportunity was actually right for this.

 

[History Learner]

The dispute was over a Soviet sphere of influence in Bulgaria and the Black Sea, right? And Yes, I know that Hitler planned to negotiate with the USSR to bring Britain out of the war. However, this didn't necessarily preclude attacking the USSR at a later time if the opportunity was actually right for this.

Romania and Finland too; oil from the former would be endangered by Soviet encirclement and the latter was the chief supplier of nickel for the Germans. It appeared Stalin was preparing for another round with the Finnish, with the intention of fully bringing them down. Reviewing Goebbel's, Ribbentrop's and Halder's private writings suggests it was a serious offer with the intention of removing the need for a later war.

 

[WolfBear]

Romania and Finland took; oil from the former would be endangered by Soviet encirclement and the latter was the chief supplier of nickel for the Germans. It appeared Stalin was preparing for another round with the Finnish, with the intention of fully bringing them down. Reviewing Goebbel's, Ribbentrop's and Halder's private writings suggests it was a serious offer with the intention of removing the need for a later war.

Interesting. That said, "Romania and Finland took" what exactly?

 

[History Learner]

Interesting. That said, "Romania and Finland took" what exactly?

Typo; meant to say just "too". Highly suggest you grab a copy of Sean McMeekin's Stalin's War, which goes over this and has forced me to re-evaluate a lot of the conventional wisdom on World War II.

 

[WolfBear]

Typo; meant to say just "too". Highly suggest you grab a copy of Sean McMeekin's Stalin's War, which goes over this and has forced me to re-evaluate a lot of the conventional wisdom on World War II.

Thanks; I'll try finding a copy of this book.

BTW, it's still not too late for you to fix your typo above!

 

[History Learner]

Thanks; I'll try finding a copy of this book.

BTW, it's still not too late for you to fix your typo above!

Should be available on Amazon for $15 or so.

 

[WolfBear]

Should be available on Amazon for $15 or so.

Thanks. FWIW, I can also try finding it on LibGen. LibGen is actually a great resource to use for finding full books and journal articles, though one needs to be careful with it because it could involve piracy. Still, it's a great resource to bring additional knowledge to people who lack a lot of money.

 

[WolfBear]

‘General Secretary Lazar Kaganovich’.

Maybe US Jews are targeted much more in any McCarthyist Red Scare? After all, if the leader of the Soviet Union himself is Jewish, then more Americans might believe in a global Jewish conspiracy. And Neo-Nazis are definitely going to have a field day with this!

In such a scenario, you could end up having the Soviet Union look like North Korea today, depending on who exactly Kaganovich chooses as his successor. If it's someone just as hardline as he is, then the Soviet Union can survive in a decrepit form for who knows how long?

Kaganovich I suspect might be less inclined to support the spread of Communism into the Third World than Khrushchev and Brezhnev were--with him possibly preferring to continue Stalin's "Socialism in one country" policy. Or maybe not, if he views getting the US involved in pointless Third World wars as being beneficial to Soviet interests.

Kaganovich's relations with Israel and attitudes on Soviet Jewish emigration are certainly going to be interesting, to say the least. He might be less willing to allow Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union than Brezhnev and especially Gorbachev were in real life.

 

[WolfBear]

Some questions:

1. Does Denmark still sell the Danish West Indies (later renamed the US Virgin Islands) to the US in the absence of World War I? If so, when?

2. If Russian Tsar Alexander II is assassinated in 1866 rather than in 1881, does his son, the new Russian Tsar Alexander III, still sell Alaska to the US?

3. Does the Spanish-American War ever actually occur without the USS Maine exploding in Cuban waters?

 

[Doomsought]

Speaking of US colonies, what if the Philippines were made into a US state prior to World War II? This would completely change the dynamic of the Japanese invasion of the Islands. With the Philippines being a full part of the US rather than a colony, there would be a much greater need to defend it and take it back if lost.