Actually, the issue is that these transliterations are not Latinizations at all. If they were, they would be closer to the more commonly employed spellings.
Why would the Soviets choose to hamstring their foreign policy in such a way?
History questions not worth their own thread IV
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Ajidica
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It was Stalin and from what I remember he was pretty much convinced the next rival for the USSR would be not America, but Britain.
The shift in Soviet foreign policy towards the Arab states took place after the shift away from Israel; the former was a Stalin-era "initiative", the latter took place under Khrushchev. They were seen as separate and distinct. Israel, furthermore, was not really viewed as a geopolitical ally and more of a 'social' ally due to the dubious connections between the kibbutz and the kollektiv. When it became apparent that these considerations, insofar as they existed, did not exercise a meaningful or relevant influence on the Israeli government, ties were abandoned.
Gen.Mannerheim
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Well if you're a fan of Harry Turtledove...
Ajidica
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Hey, I resent the insinuation that the Soviet Union might have continued their pro-Israel policies are on the same level as janky CSA nonsense!
Phrossack
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I have a few ideas myself, but they're poorly developed and I'm always left wondering "Well, so that's different. Now what?" Alt-Hist is hard.
The Soviets shifted support away from Israel during Stalin's lifetime, as Dachs said. Stalin originally supported Israel for several reasons. One reason, which Dachs focused on, was that he thought the left-wingers in the Israeli government would Lean towards the USSR, giving him an ideological ally in the region. This didn't happen.
Another reason was to cause the British problems. The British were caught between a rock and a hard place in the immediate post-war period in Palestine. They had promised Zionists a Jewish state in the region as early as WWI, while simultaneously promising Arab nationalists their own state. This was a fairly prudent policy during WWI; when you're fighting a war it would be stupid to turn down allies, even if those allies are not exactly friendly with each other. But after the British took control of the territory of Palestine this policy came back to bite them in the arse. There was the constant, barely-contained threat of civil war between the Jewish and Arab inhabitants of the Mandate, terrorist attacks against both sides AND by both sides against the British, and no simple, obvious solution.
The British wanted out of Palestine badly, but couldn't be seen to favour either side. Favouring the Jews would seriously damage Britain's image in the Middle East, threatening their informal empire in the region, and, by extension, the precious oil supplies it contained. This is without even mentioning the obvious British interest in the Suez Canal. Favouring the Arabs, on the other hand, would seriously damage Britain's image in the rest of the world, which had come around to the idea of a Jewish homeland in the region, due largely to the horrors of the Holocaust. By supporting the Zionists, Stalin simultanously improved his own public image in the non-Arab world - Stalin was not particularly interested in his image in the Middle East at this time, since he had his own oil and was making a play for Iran and Turkey already - and increased the pressure on Britain. Also, the more troops the British expended keeping peace in the region, the less they had to face him in Europe, should the situation there spill over into open conflict. It was a win-win for Stalin.
Stalin's attitude towards Israel changed in the 1950s. Firstly, Israel, while still left-wing, was clearly leaning towards the West, rather than towards the Communist bloc. This was despite the armaments and other assistance Stalin had sent their way in the 1947-8 war, and the continued diplomatic support he'd given them. Secondly, Stalin was preparing another purge, and had decided that anti-Semitism, always popular in Russia, would be the basis of it. The so-called Doctor's Plot was the start of a planned anti-Semitic purge of the Communist Party which would have removed even Molotov, Stalin's long-term right-hand man. Obviously, this new domestic policy was not compatible with a pro-Israel foreign policy. Thirdly, Stalin had failed in his attempts to include Turkey and Iran in his sphere of influence, with Turkey becoming a steadfast US ally and Iran becoming, in effect, an Anglo-American condominium. He no longer had any goals in the region which limited his diplomatic possibilities, and therefore had every reason to court the new breed of Arab nationalists, with similar hopes to those he'd originally placed in Israel; that they'd damage the British interests in the region, and that the left-wingers among them would lead their states towards socialism. At the very least, if the USSR dominated the Middle East then at least America and the UK wouldn't.
Yes. Why pay for something when you can steal it for free? It's not like France could do anything about it.
This is incorrect. While it is true that Stalin saw Britain as a major rival on the world stage, this was because the UK had long been the greatest of the great powers. It ruled a quarter of the world and a quarter of its population. No one, not even the British themselves, realised how damaged their economy was at the end of WWII, and it took until the Suez Crisis before the collapse of the British Empire would be truly and publicly acknowledged. In 1945, the US and USSR both saw Britain as a potential future threat. It's a well-known fact that FDR even saw the USSR as a potential ally against Britain. Truman backed away from this policy.
The USSR, likewise, wished to splite the UK from the US, and potentially even have the British as a Soviet ally. It wasn't for nothing that Stalin wooed the British Labour Party during WWII. He followed a similar policy in France. But Stalin always focused on the US as the primary threat, not the UK. He did believe the UK to be more resilient, however, and thought that eventually he'd need to deal with them.
ParkCungHee
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Was there any possibility of that going differently?
Not really. Stalin's idea that the left-wingers would steer Israel towards the Communist-bloc rather than the West was never really more than a pipe-dream.
You're right. Niall Ferguson can't do it either.
SeekTruthFromFacts
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Can you explain "ally"? Do you mean "tactical ally in particular negotiations over Greece/the price of fish/etc."? Surely not "strategic ally in a fighting war"?
He saw the USSR as a potential economic ally in breaking up the British and French empires.
NedimNapoleon
Weird Little Human
FDR hated the idea of Colonial Empires.
Most Americans did at that time. Funny how they didn't recognise Siberia as a colony.
NedimNapoleon
Weird Little Human
Also the US had the Philippines as a colony at the time. It had also imposed its hegemony over Cuba, taken Puerto Rico, and intervened in some central American nation (Guatemala or Nicaragua, I cant remember quite well). Also it intervened in Haiti.
There was no need to reach so far and tenuously as Siberia when Ukraine, all of Central Asia, the Baltics, Caucuses and Belarus were all directly appended to the Soviet Union.
NedimNapoleon
Weird Little Human
I've read that the USSR demanded Somalia from Italy at the end of WW2, the other powers ofc refused and the USSR backed down. Is this true in any way?
Good and believable ones are, anyway. Glad to see you aren't going the garbage route and doing it right.
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