Alternate History Question: What if the Soviet Union won the Cold War?
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.Richard III
Duke of Gloucester
Yeah, those Red Commie Evil Bastards (c) would sure love you, questioning work assignments, dissing the home of the Winnipeg General Strike...
Heresy!
Heresy!
Heresy!
Heresy!
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
I recall a famous cartoon from the 1960's, Russian no less. The image is of a flatbed traincar with one enormous nail riding on it. The caption says "The Program has succeeded." or something of the kind. This project was to build 50 tons of nails, which it did inthe form of one 50 ton nail. My Eastern European friends find this hilarious. Their humor is as obscure as the Brits sometimes.
In any event, it illustrates the problem. The USSR was never a true world power in the sense that the US is. Take away the nukes and they become the biggest power in Europe and nothing more. As they are today. The world would have to be VERY different for the USSR to be the dominant world power.
Here's one scenario. The world is composeed of plates floating on magma. The edges of the plates either push or pull on the plate next door. One of the really big "pull" sites is in the Pruerto Rican trench off, ta da, Puerto Rico. Suppose you drop a really BIG bomb to the bottom? In theory you might shift the whole pair of plates, the Atlantic and the North American. Think a grade 10 or 11 earthquake with dozens of grade 8-9 aftershocks and grade 6 and 7 quakes by the thousand for months afterward. All of this concentrated on the American Atlantic seaboard. Tidal waves half a mile tall. Florida gone. Salt water in Atlanta. Sympathetic destruction all along the Pacific coast and the European coast. The country most immune is the USSR, since its major population centers are far inland.
What then.
In any event, it illustrates the problem. The USSR was never a true world power in the sense that the US is. Take away the nukes and they become the biggest power in Europe and nothing more. As they are today. The world would have to be VERY different for the USSR to be the dominant world power.
Here's one scenario. The world is composeed of plates floating on magma. The edges of the plates either push or pull on the plate next door. One of the really big "pull" sites is in the Pruerto Rican trench off, ta da, Puerto Rico. Suppose you drop a really BIG bomb to the bottom? In theory you might shift the whole pair of plates, the Atlantic and the North American. Think a grade 10 or 11 earthquake with dozens of grade 8-9 aftershocks and grade 6 and 7 quakes by the thousand for months afterward. All of this concentrated on the American Atlantic seaboard. Tidal waves half a mile tall. Florida gone. Salt water in Atlanta. Sympathetic destruction all along the Pacific coast and the European coast. The country most immune is the USSR, since its major population centers are far inland.
What then.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
I'm honored
Care to explain how you came to that conclusion?
Richard III
Duke of Gloucester
Originally posted by rmsharpe
I'm honored
Care to explain how you came to that conclusion?
Well, you would have stayed, and fought. Because you would know that they'd had you on a list somewhere. But you wouldn't have taken more than six with you...
And I'd said Mexico because it has jungle, and it just seemed like a better place for him than San Antonio. It's colour! Give me a little leeway to make the story more interesting!!!
R.III
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
Bah! Hogwash. I'd join the Red Army, get real close to Comrade Stalin...and when he's least expecting it...
*boom*
Pieces of the Kremlin would be spread out all over Moscow
*boom*
Pieces of the Kremlin would be spread out all over Moscow
ComradeDavo
Formerly God
That would probably be true actually, soviet style Leninism doesn't really appeal to me!!!
Just imagine.....
Me - 'your not true commies!'
Them - ''die Marxist scum!!''
Me - ''Die Leninist scum!''
....and so on, with baffled onlookers puzzeling over why the commies are killing each other!!
marshal zhukov
good economist wannabe
Well, the USSR was world superpower exactly because it had so many ICBMs. Having a large navy is not pivotal for being a super power. The USSR never had a large navy because it was not necessary and also because the USSR has a poor access to the sea.
About the thread topic I would say that the world would end up becoming a gigantic China, no freedom, only censorship
The capital of this united planet would be in Moscow, we could then expect the end of hunger and ethnic wars in Africa, the impoverishment of the US and Western Europe.
And a much better funded Space Program, we would probably be in Mars already
It seems to me I've already seen it somewhere... Let me see. Oh, yeah, it was Kennedy. Good lesson from America.
What if we take away nukes from the US? He-he. What'd our dictators do, I dunno. They'd be VERY sad, I guess. And evil would spread around the world so quickly... with nobody able to stop it.
Just a small note: Russia is the biggest power not only in Europe, it's a bit larger than the US. Twice. In terms of the territory it occupies.
knowltok2
Deity
He's yours now. You can keep him.
EdwardTking
Deity
Soviet communism as we know it would have collapsed anyway.
It simply has too many theoretical and pragmatic flaws.
The only thing that got it started was the military failure
of a flawed feudalistic system in two successive wars
(Russian Japanese and World War 1). It was consolidated
by the failed western interventions in 1918; revived by
the Nazi invasion and propped up by the cold war itself.
If it had expanded further; it would have fallen earlier.
It simply has too many theoretical and pragmatic flaws.
The only thing that got it started was the military failure
of a flawed feudalistic system in two successive wars
(Russian Japanese and World War 1). It was consolidated
by the failed western interventions in 1918; revived by
the Nazi invasion and propped up by the cold war itself.
If it had expanded further; it would have fallen earlier.
ComradeDavo
Formerly God
The provisional government failed to hold the elections it had promised.
Bifrost wrote:
quote:
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The provisional government failed to hold the elections it had promised.
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Not really - they just didn't manage to share the power(its about Kerenski and Kolchak),so they didnt worry much about the people's interests.
That certainly wasn't a democracy then. As the Soviet Union and its satellites would aptly illustrate throughout the 20th century, just because they called themselves democratic doesn't mean they really were democratic. The effusive expressions of "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" and "Rzeczpospolita Polska Ludowa" didn't magically turn these states into democratic or "peoples'" republics...
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The provisional government failed to hold the elections it had promised.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not really - they just didn't manage to share the power(its about Kerenski and Kolchak),so they didnt worry much about the people's interests.
That certainly wasn't a democracy then. As the Soviet Union and its satellites would aptly illustrate throughout the 20th century, just because they called themselves democratic doesn't mean they really were democratic. The effusive expressions of "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" and "Rzeczpospolita Polska Ludowa" didn't magically turn these states into democratic or "peoples'" republics...
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