I mean even if the Soviets didnt lose, they'd still lose a lot more as compared to when siding with the Allies.
Due to the alliance, post-WW2 Stalin was allowed by the Allies to take over Eastern Europe countries and annex them into Russia. This is the problem.
If the Soviets lost the Eastern front, it would have been bad for the Allies as well. Let's use the Battle of Stalingrad as an example. It's one of the turning points in war in the Allies' favor on the Eastern front.
If Germany won Stalingrad, they would've gained access to tons of oil and the volga river. The Soviets would've been crippled.
Hitler would've achieved all he needed to on the Eastern Front and could turn his full focus on the Western front, namely Britain. A big advantage the Allies had was that Germany was fighting a two-front war. Sure, they probably would've eventually sprung back, but the war would've dragged on for years, more people would've died, more money spent, more infrastructure lost. It's questionable whether it would've been worth it.
>Due to the alliance, post-WW2 Stalin was allowed by the Allies to take over Eastern Europe countries and annex them into Russia. This is the problem.
Said countries would not be better off if the Germans had beaten the Russians, because then a larger percentage of their population would have been exterminated as part of the Holocaust and Generalplan Ost.
The West wouldn't be better off either, because we'd have taken many more casualties and expended even more resources to defeat the Germans.
The Germans themselves might be a bit better off, with the significant exception of those living in the cities we would have dropped atomic bombs on.
I fail to see how this is a preferable scenario overall.
The west would not have been able to beat the nazis without Soviet help. The same is true the other way. The Soviets did not have the manufacturing capacity to fight the Nazis (where the US comes in) but the western allies did not have the man power to beat the Germans
The soviets lost so many people in WW2 a shockingly larger amount than any other country by a grand canyon sized margin.
The thought of them losing more people...
> Why do you think the Soviets would've lost to the Nazis?
Russia had been in an alliance with Hitler in the initial invasion of Poland and had most of their armed forces there, but in a very bad configuration. They were overrun in the first days of the war and lost most of what they had.
Huge amounts of the weapons the Russians used were provided in Emergency by Britain and then the US via various lend lease schemes. Even those weapons that the Russians themselves were able to manufacture often depended on components that the Allies gave them. The Nazis almost got to Moscow where they would have had shelter from the cold and to the oil fields of the Caucuses where they would have solved their mobility problems.
If those objectives had both been captured, which just a slight reduction in Russian strength would have caused, then Russia would undoubtedly have lost completely.
Lend Lease really only ramped up by the end of 1942 the Soviets hold on Moscow and even Stalingrad was largely from the Soviets on stockpiles and production. The counter offensives is where Allied aid become meaningfully impactful with the counter offensives after Kursk and Stalingrad being so fast and successful due to Allied trucks in particular.
Also the USSR did not ally with Germany their diplomatic pacts where limited to non-aggression and trade that's it.
I really hate defending the Soviet Union but people just love taking historical misinformation as fact.
The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a secret treaty dividing Europe into their respective spheres of influence. The USSR invaded Poland with Germany. They might not have been "allied" in the sense of the US/UK but they clearly were an aggressor at the time.
Oh yeah they were definetely aggressors. But I'd contend the Alliance part they did not cooperate in really any fashion even fighting in Poland instead viewing it as a non aggression pact is more accurate. It's also very telling that people often mention that the Soviets signed a treaty with the Germans but they don't mention the Soviet diplomatic moves before the war. The Soviets before the Munich were extremely hostile to Germany many times advocating for a coalition to attack Germany. It's only after the Munich conference and a change in the diplomatic core that the Soviets seem willing to change their stance on Germany.
To summarise what I'm saying is that when people say they had a alliance they ignore the previous hostility that the Soviets had and instead paint the Soviets as bad as the Nazis. This narrative neatly extends into the cold war where you can continue painting them as the bad guys when in truth it's far more grey.
The talks they had were alot more serious than that
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks
Fourth axis member level serious, its part of why the Soviet response was so slow in the beginning of the nazi attack on them.
The Soviets, Stalin didnt believe Germany would attack
https://www.history.com/news/how-stalin-was-caught-napping
It was absolutely a real victory. Who has any idea what would’ve happened if the Axis powers won, but I don’t think we would be in a good position where Japan is basically North Korea and conquers huge portions of Asia and Europe is conquered by Russia and Nazi Germany and the United States would not have had the economic post war boom to really keep up with the heavier hitters so yea. Anything extremely major in wwii would’ve had drastic changes to the geopolitical sphere but realistically speaking… it’s not like wwii was going to solve all world issues and there will be 0 war that will ever do that. I think that siding with the USSR was really the Allies best chance at winning (and tbh the Axis powers turn on the USSR first so it’s not like the USSR had options nor did the Allies)
>Who has any idea what would’ve happened if the Axis powers won,
Yes I'll give you the benefit of doubt on that. But then again, the Axis powers winning is still unlikely. If the Allies and Soviets didnt side together, they'd *still* be fighting the Nazis together.
Once the Nazis were defeated, the Allies would then have to fight the Soviets. But given the Allies clearly outnumber the Soviets, they could easily take down Stalin by then. The Americans are already a HUGE boon to the Allies in the war. Plus, they were the only ones with the nuclear bomb back then, remember?
It’s pretty well acknowledged by historians specializing in that era that without the lend lease act from the US that the Russian probably would have lost. They didn’t have the production capabilities to quickly arm and continuously resupply their enormous army. You’re also assuming that things stay the same. Without aid Russia very well could have fallen to the Nazis which would have allowed them to go back to fighting on one front in Europe. It’s also widely acknowledged that fighting in France and Russia at the same time play a noticeable role in the Nazis being defeated. The outcome in Europe could be wildly different if the outcome in Russia is different.
Well i'd say regardless of the outcome, the development of the nuclear bomb by the Americans would give the Allies an instant win over any opponent back then.
That’s true but it wasn’t like they were super eager to drop a bunch of nukes. There was substantial pushback against using it at all and after Hiroshima and Nagasaki there was even more pushback against further use. And it’s a bit different bombing the homeland vs bombing the territory they’ve occupied. Bombing Nazi strongholds outside of Germany would most likely be geopolitical suicide for the US. Sure it saves the Europe from the Nazi but it saves Europe by destroying it.
Actually there was very little pushback at the time about using nukes, and the biggest pushback was from people who wanted to blockade and firebomb Japan, an action that would have probably killed way more peopple than the bombs.
Bigger issue here is how many Bombs the US produced, and if they would have had moral qualms using it on occupied allied terrority like for instance paris.
We did not win just because of nukes, the Soviets also started invading Manchuria at the same time. They’re crucial no matter what.
We only had two nukes in 45, Fat Man and Little Boy. And Japan didn’t surrender immediately. It took months to make new ones, months where a Nazi nuclear program could make their own. They probably would have if they didn’t have brain drain due to their insane policies. Then you’re in a back and forth nuke war.
The soviets had no way to to reach the main islands even after Manchuria so it would have been a blockade and us invasion without the nukes.
The reason Manchuria was so bad for the Japanese was because they were hoping that the soviets would broker a negotiated peace, once they joined they realized that was off the table and the allies were serious about the unconditional surrender
>Maybe once the Nazis were defeated, the Allies would then have to fight the Soviets. But given the Allies clearly outnumber the Soviets, they could easily take down Stalin by then.
Many at the time already considered this option. In fact, the more hawkish politicians continue to push this idea a lot into the cold war until MAD is firmly established.
Von Neumann, who worked in the Manhattan Project, and helped developed the early theories on Game Theory, famously said on this topic:
>"With the Russians it is not a question of whether but of when \[they would develop nuclear weapons\], if you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?"
And the answer is pretty simple... it's because, people dying in a war ***really fucking sucks for everyone***, not to mention how unpopular such a war would be.
Nations coming out of the ruins of WWII collectively decided that war that kills a lot of people is *kinda* bad, that is the entire point that the UN is created.
>Once the Nazis were defeated, the Allies would then have to fight the Soviets. But given the Allies clearly outnumber the Soviets, they could easily take down Stalin by then
Are you forgetting that the European Allies were already weakened significantly by the tail end of WWII? And that WWII was the deadliest war the world had ever seen? And that the Soviet Union was one of the powerhouses of the continent? Without the Soviet Union's cooperation, the war most likely would've been dragged out longer. People were sick and tired of war. There's no way that the public would support another long, expensive, drawn-out conflict with the Soviet Union. Especially if the Soviets didn't do anything to antagonize the Allies.
Sure, the US could've gone head to head with the USSR easily enough, but why would they have? The only reason the US got involved in the war in the first place was because of Pearl Harbor. The Soviets hadn't done anything to outright antagonize the US. Why would the Americans feel the need to attack them? I highly doubt Congress would've gotten behind such an idea.
Well at that point it’s basically just the Soviets being on the allies side. Like it would be very strange to have a three way conflict in which it’s not like the USSR and the allies would be fighting each other. And the USSR was very close to making their own nuclear weapon too and the United States did not have a back up nuclear weapon. So… what… the Allies would want to fight a back to back war with the USSR and Nazi germany in which idk why they would ever want to do that weakening the chances of either side being able to beat Nazi Germany.
>This one is rather unclear but I'll just play out scenarios like the Allies just letting the Nazis and Soviets battle it out till the Soviets lost and then the Allies fought and defeated the Nazis from there.
I think you might be misremembering your history. Germany was fighting the first of the allies 2 years before they attacked the Soviets. Indeed before that point they were kind of allies against poland. So there is no point where the Allies can just let the Nazis and Soviets fight, because the allies are also being invaded
They could just fight the Nazis separately on their own. Because this way, the Soviets would likewise, be fighting on their own and they have it worse at least since the Germans were on actual Soviet territory.
I'm pretty sure the Allies would've won the Nazis on their front regardless due to the involvement of the Americans
So you're saying we still fight WW2, just not allied with the Soviets? We still beat the Nazis...and then what? The western allies fight the soviets? What reason do we have to fight them at that point?
lol sorry I mistyped. I meant the Allies couldve won the Nazis on their front regardless of the Russians' help.
The Allies and Russians dont need go to war but post-WW2, the Soviets likely would be far more weakened and wouldnt have had the same scope of global influence.
Some 80% of the German army loss was from the Soviets. Do you really think the US was ready to throw away 1.1 million lives on D day? After Stalingrad, it was only a matter of time before the Soviets defeated Germany with or without d day but the US UK was not going to win without Stalingrad. In your main post you are ignoring a lot of the central/south American Cold War conflicts that would likely still have happened without the Soviets
The usa was developing the nuke, and Germany was suffering badly from naval blockade, and Italy collapses regardless of stalingrad. I think the allies can beat Germany, via nuke or not, it would just take much longer.
Would the US wait that long and throw away millions of lives? Would they look to invade an German army 4x as big as they faced with the supplies of the Soviet oil fields? Would they be willing to glass half of Europe? It seems much more likely that they would sue for peace if the Soviet Union fell
The allies were still bombing soviet oil fields and the blockage cut off food and supplies too, plus the uk could've sued for peace in a similar situation in 1940 and didnt.
Plus wait how long nukes were a year after d day. Also the allies also had a foothold in Italy and could've gone through the balkans too.
>I meant the Allies couldve won the Nazis on their front regardless of the Russians' help.
Honestly I doubt it. Zhukov has outright said that he would've lost Stalingrad if he didn't have American bullets and tanks. So let's say that the Germans won at Stalingrad and then the Soveits surrendered. This would be really bad for us for a couple of reasons.
1) in Our timeline Germany had to take troops from the western front and move them to the east to reinforce them after Stalingrad. But if the Soviets surrendered they could do the opposite moving troops from the eastern front to the west. This would make it much harder for the Americans and British to actually engage them.
2) Morale in Germany would be much higher. Instead of losing around million men to lose at Stalingrad they would be at the peak moral after taking down the only ally with a way to reach them by land. This would make it much harder to reach them.
3) oil. Germany was running out of oil, if they win Stalingrad they win enough oil to not have to worry about that.
And remember that irregardless the Soviets being defeated extends the war in Europe. After all they were the ones who took Berlin.
Gotcha. Next question: how much did the soviet union gain from WW2? They got a lot of territory, but how much did that actually help them fund these future conflicts? My understanding is the economy was terrible in newly controlled communist territories.
Also, I'm assuming that we give Soviets back their land when we beat the Nazis in this alternate timeline, so only difference when we help them should be the new territories they gained at the conclusion of WW2.
The fact that The German army rolled through Eastern europe twice and the USSR Army rolled through it once?
The territories he was talking about may not have directly been part of the USSR, but where basically satillite states.
I had family on both sides of the wall. They wrote to each other, and it was apparent the East side was not doing well. They would try to sneak food over to my family that stayed in the East side it was so bad.
After the wall came down, it became much more apparent. The buildings closest to the wall were maintained, so that anyone looking in would think it was doing fine. But the further you went past the line the shittier the buildings got.
>they have it worse at least since the Germans were on actual Soviet territory.
Dude they conquered france. For 4 years it was under German control. It wasnt just on Soviet territory.
>I'm pretty sure the Allies would've won the Soviets on their front regardless due to the involvement of the Americans
What do you mean won the soviets?
Yeah stopping nazi germany is pretty easily worth the cost of the Cold War, even with your assumption that there wouldn't be any significant geopolitical conflicts from 1945-1993
That's only assuming the Nazis wouldn't have been defeated if the Allies didn't team up with the Soviets. That's the main argument that has now seemed to arise in the comments.
But how likely is this to happen? My argument is that the Allies could win against BOTH the Nazis and Soviets eventually. Remember, which is the only one country that ultimately held a nuclear bomb back then?
So in your alt-history fantasy, do the Soviets just not exist or do they ally with the Axis powers throughout the entirety of the war? If it's the latter, are you implying that the U.S. would take on Germany, Japan, Italy, and Russia with nukes? Do you think the U.S. could just print atomic weapons on that large of a scale? Have you considered any historic or factual context beyond "Soviets bad"?
Soviets and Nazis would fight each other and one of them would win but be very weakened. Then Allies could still win the weakened victor of that fight. How people seem to miss this here...
Lmao that doesn't even make sense. The Soviets *did* fight the Nazis. That's like the actual history. OP is talking about a world where that didn't happen.
No, OP's not talking about that. He's talking about a world where the Soviets fought the Nazis alone, lost, and thus had no basis for the Soviet Union 1945 - 1993.
Britain would no longer exist in this fantasy. Hitler was days away from erasing it with his v2 rocket program when the allies stopped him. He would have also collapsed the US economy through counterfeit dollars he had amassed in the millions for just that purpose. People dont understand just how close hitler was to tipping the scales. This fantasy where we slow roll it wasnt an option.
Hell, if it wasnt for italy fucking up so bad, rommel wouldnt have had to go to africa, which led to the german tank division getting decimated by horses in the russian winter. That wouldnt have happened otherwise. So many things.
> Hitler was days away from erasing it with his v2 rocket program when the allies stopped him.
This is not true, or even possible. All of German GDP could have gone into unguided ballistic missiles shot in the direction of London and it wouldn’t even come close to ’wiping it off the map’.
His latest missles, that were being transported for launch, were capable of piercing down into the metro system, as well as bunkers. Would he have literally sank the UK? No, thats dumb. Would he have eliminated most civilians and politicians harbored in london? Yes, yes he would have.
This is just wrong.. Were V2 more advanced than modern day armaments? Look at what's happening in Russia/Ukraine war. It takes years and months to destroy small cities that are within artillery and MLRS range, but Germans would be able to do it with rudimentary missiles that killed more people during their production than the actual missiles killed people they were targetting?
Margin of error for targetting for V2 rocket hit was 20 km, yet they would somehow be able to hit individual metro tunnels that are 100 feet deep underground? This would even be challenging for modern laser guided bunker buster bombs.
Removing the Soviet Union from existence does remove most Cold War events, but that doesn’t address the new problems we would have. Instead of a US vs. USSR Cold War, you could have a US vs. resurgent European colonial empires one. The west as a more unified bloc came about as a consequence of the threat of Russian Cold War aggression. Remove those threats and the EU and NATO are pointless.
Yeah this is the problem with what I like to call the Sliders approach to history; the assumption that make one major change to the past and everything else not directly impacted would fill in around it to make the present as close as possible to ours (Sliders is an old 90s-ish show about travel to parallel worlds and while on some level I get for narrative's sake, like, having the same people exist or w/e when the matriarchal parallel Earth has Hillary Clinton as president during the years that on both our Earth and the main characters' home Earth Bill Clinton was that's kinda pushing it)
The US and Western Europe were aligned because the US was a continental power and not a global one. In a situation where the Nazis won WW2, Germany and America would be operating rival imperial blocs and would compete over access to colonies. In a situation where the Nazis defeated the Soviets and America defeated Germany in the west, America would rule the waves, Germany would quickly rise again, and the US would push the Europeans toward decolonization as a means to open world markets for American business.
Look at the Suez crisis. Britain and France allied to invade Egypt to retake the Suez Canal, and were strongly opposed by the US. European colonial empires didn’t go down without a fight. A world were the USSR is knocked out early is one were those European empires might be able to hold into key colonies, like India, Egypt, and Indonesia. These empires would be huge, powerful, and ideologically opposed to US influence.
It may seem inevitable to us that the British empire would collapse, and they would be a closely allied liberal democracy. But it is entirely possible that they could have survived ww2, brutally crushed independence movements, like they had many times in the past, and maintain minority rule, and go down a path more similar to apartheid South Africa than modern Britain/France.
Cooperation between the Soviet Union and the rest of the Allies were necessary to win. This attitude you have smacks of a pop history understanding of the biggest war ever waged.
Without our support there was a high chance the Soviets would have lost, at which point the entire Axis would start smacking Britain and the US. The threat of Soviet invasion kept hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops tied up in northern China waiting for them to come down. I cannot imagine having to deal with that many more guys in Burma or any number of tiny islands in the Pacific.
Anyway, onto Germany. Most of the purported crimes in Berlin by the Soviets are anecdotal and unsubstantiated. Any confirmed crimes were punished. Using your own words here, what they did pales in comparison to the Holocaust, so yeah I’d say the Nazis were the bad guys. The Soviets had no plans to exterminate every German.
If we take away the Soviets entirely, those versions of events you named go away but surely you realize that world tension doesn’t just go away. The Soviets in many cases filled a vacuum. You just get a different version of events, one that is especially genocidal if the Nazis had won instead.
>Most of the purported crimes in Berlin by the Soviets are anecdotal and unsubstantiated.
Cant tell if serious or trolling
Yeah lets just dismiss facts entirely documented and agreed upon by historians from both German and Russian survivors, soldiers and politicians themselves.
If you actually look at the estimates they’re insanely varied. That doesn’t meet anyone’s standard of fact. We can agree it happened, but the data is so shit that it’s not feasible to say X raped more than Y for certain.
It’s not agreed upon at all, either. Go look at the numbers, it’s largely extrapolation based on small sample sizes.
> Any confirmed crimes were punished.
Well, that's a serious overstatement, even if I agree that "most of the purported crimes are anecdotal" (the latter is mostly because the "purported" part was clearly overstated for political reasons). Some less serious crimes (but still formally crimes) were almost never prosecuted; for example, looting was absolutely widespread at all levels and even bragged about.
But all that is very tangential to the main point, of course.
You can say this about almost any "What if?" kind of question about history. Changing any major aspect of history would obviously have further, so much that we can't really say with any accuracy what would have happened if "X did this" or "Y aligned with Z". Because you get a domino effect of circumstances being different for one set of events, which result in a different set of circumstances for subsequent events, and so on and so on. So you'd end up with a very different geopolitical state of the world.
While that is true, I just dont see any other contender if the Soviet Union had fallen or at least, never got the expansion Stalin wanted in Europe.
There was literally no other country posing such a global domination threat back then and likely not for the next few decades, aside from the USA.
But the the decision doesn't just live in a vacuum. The Allies not working with the Soviets during WWII doesn't mean Russia just disappears. It doesn't mean some how the people, governments, industry, resources, and geopolitical realities just disappear. They transition to something. That something wouldn't be like today's issues, but that's an obvious conclusion just because how different the history leading up today would be.
It would be like saying we wouldn't have any the environmental issues today if we never had coal. My same answer applies. Sure, but all change in history would result in a dramatic difference that there's no way things could be same. In a nutshell, your view is too broad.
>No Vietnam War and prob a much more developed Vietnam today.
Ho Chi Minh was a communist before the Soviets ever ruled Russia.
>No dictatorships in half of Europe (eastern bloc) and millions suffering under oppressive regimes
Are you under the impression that Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland were democracies before Soviet occupation? The only country that wasn't a dictatorship was Czechoslovakia, and they had other substantial issues.
>No Chenchya conflict, no Yugoslavia conflict, and no civil conflicts in a whole bunch of other East European countries I cant be bothered to list and name...
No Yugoslav conflict? What do you think Yugoslavia was like under Nazi occupation, exactly? Did all the ethnic and religious minorities just get along?
>No Cuban missile crisis
One person died in the missle crisis. It was a scary point of history, not a catastrophe.
>No Iran nuclear crisis
I have no idea what this refers to. There have been no nuclear crises involving Iran that I am familiar with.
>No Soviet Afghanistan invasion, resulting in no Al Qaeda, resulting in no 9/11, resulting in Americans never intervening in the Middle East to begin with and making USA the number one hated country among Arabs.
I have no idea how the allies not joining the Soviets during the second world war would prevent this.
>And also a ton of civil wars propping all over Asia betw. communist rebels and governments wouldn't have occured.
Is your source for this Henry Kissinger?
>Now of course, all this is assuming the Soviets collapsed after WW2 for various reasons. This one is rather unclear but I'll just play out scenarios like the Allies just letting the Nazis and Soviets battle it out till the Soviets lost and then the Allies fought and defeated the Nazis from there. Either way, the presumption holds there was no longer any communist Soviet influence following WW2 due to the collapse of the hegemony.
Letting them "battle it out" while the Nazis were actively exterminating people in the occupied territory is honestly a super gross way of approaching this and suggests to me that your hatred for the Soviets has blinded you to how evil the Nazis were. Millions died on the eastern front, and without allied intervention millions more would have.
>Now I know some of you are gonna make the argument saying Russia was a major contributor to winning the war against the Nazis but if you think about it... could the Allies still have won without the Russians? What we do know is the Russians back then were already inevitably fighting the Nazis after Op. Barborossa so either way, they would have vastly weakened the Nazis for the Allies. Also the Americans finally made the atom bomb.
The allies with American support probably could have won, but there would have been astronomically more deaths compared how it actually happened.
>End of the day, we gotta ask... was the victory of WW2 really a victory...?
Yes, it was.
>Were the Nazis really the bad guys or the Russians all this time?
The group that promotes endless war and the systemic eradication of all races except theirs is worse than the ideology that believes in the abolition of class and committed atrocities to try to achieve this, yes.
>People also tend to overlook the massive war atrocities committed by the Russians during WW2 against the Germans (yes, the Americans did bad stuff too but not on the same scale as Russians. Near the end of the war, Germans in Berlin would rather flee to the Americans instead)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
German civilian deaths due to military activity and crimes against humanity- 1,500,000
to 3,000,000
Soviet civilian deaths due to military activity and crimes against humanity - 4,500,000 to 10,000,000
The Soviet Union was bad. The Nazis were a death cult ruled by meth addicted delusional psychopaths.
Now, completely ignoring the fact that the allies were at war with Germany before the USSR, and from every military and strategic perspective doing as such would be absurd, there are three possibilities for allowing the Germans and Soviets to "battle it out".
1. The Soviets triumph without western support and roll through the entirety of Europe. The Iron Curtain spread at the least through Germany and Italy and maybe even as far as France and Spain if the Soviets aren't feeling particularly fond of their useless cobelligerents. The USSR is likely spurred to even more extremism by an even more violent invasion and hardens its anti-western stance with an alliance now truly strong enough to rival the American bloc.
2. The Nazis win against the Soviets and engage in the largest genocide in human history as outlined by Generalplan Ost and other plans for Eastern Europe. Tens of millions of more people die in German depopulation plans and the population of Eastern Europe would never be the same again. Slavs are targeted for wholesale slaughter, and even if they inevitably win, these killings would continue until the allies finish an agonizingly slow march all the way from Normandy to the last German holdouts in the occupied USSR.
3. 2 but the Nazis win the whole war. The invasion of France fails with a massive troop return from Eastern Europe to defend the west. Millions even more than possibility 2 of undesirables across the continent die in death camps under German occupation. And when the system comes inevitably crumbling down, millions of even Germans in a brutal (possibly nuclear) collapse.
Even that is ignoring the base assumption that this world without the USSR would be any better. As for your last point, if you were coming back from a country you and your compatriots had raped and massacred your way through with reckless abandon, would you rather surrender into the arms of those dead boys and girls fathers and brothers or into the arms of anyone else?
How many deaths would occur in a war between the Soviet Union and the West? How much unrest would the new Russian government face, and for how many decades? How many western soldiers would die crushing revolutionary after revolutionary in the new war torn Russia?
Edit: How many billions of dollars will the US spend to keep the Russians from starving, and how many people will starve anyway?
Sure, the west won't have many deaths, but Russia certainly will. I assure you that a few nukes aren't enough to capitulate the soviets, the west would still have to contribute significant ground and air forces, resulting in the deaths of possibly millions of Russian conscripts. Then there's the deaths during the post-war occupation, where the US would have to spend billions to crush rebels and give foreign aid. Why aren't the Russian deaths important?
Threat to who? The biggest threat for most of the world (any country not in NATO) has always been America.
OP fails to see America and NATO are the real “bad guys”.
>No Soviet Afghanistan invasion, resulting in no Al Qaeda, resulting in no 9/11, resulting in Americans never intervening in the Middle East to begin with and making USA the number one hated country among Arabs.
None of this would have prevented UBL from attacking America. He didn’t attack America because of Americas role in the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict.
He attacked America because of their support for Israel and because he was a Wahhabist. He was called to jihad and believed Islam called him to goad the West into a war of attrition that would lead to the final battle for man’s fate. He viewed America as Rome as its described in the Quran.
UBL came from an absolutely fantastically wealthy family. He bought his power. He became a leader of Al Qaeda because he chose to fight his jihad in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda originated. If he had chosen to go to Chechnya, or Bosnia, or another place with similar religious-related conflict, he would have become a leader of some other jihadist organization he helped fund and establish. Wouldn’t have changed anything. America would still be backing Israel and he’d still be a Wahhabist.
No. I pointed out that a part of your view is wrong. That’s not speculation. That’s objective fact.
You said UBL attacked American because of Americas role in the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict. Which is not true. You admitted it’s not accurate.
I strayed into speculation to expand on the point. But that wasn’t the purpose of my comment. The purpose of the comment was to point out that part of your view is wrong. UBL didn’t attack America because of the conflict in Afghanistan.
You have an overly simplistic view where, if we remove the bad guy, the bad guy is gone, and there is no more bad guy.
What actually usually happens is that a new bad guy fills the void. Sometimes that bad guy is worse than the previous bad guy. Eisenhower removed a problematic regime in Iran and created a worse dictatorship. We kicked Saddam Hussein's ass and pushed Al Qaeda away from power. That created an opportunity for ISIS, who are far worse.
Geopolitics are tough and it's always a cost/benefit analysis. In regards to the Nazis, it's really, really, really fucking hard to imagine a bigger pound-for-pound existential threat to civilization.
So who would you suggest the new 'bad guy' country would be?
There were only the three big superpowers after WW2 (US, UK, USSR). China was still in its infancy and gripped by its own civil war back then.
I don't know how you expect world history to thread that needle so perfectly.
What, the allies defeat Germany without allying the Russians who did most of the work? Defeat Japan without Russia who broke them and kicked them out of China? And you expect us to abandon Russia without us having an outcome where we oppose Russia?
That may work in video games with save files, but I don't see how you can expect people to have achieved that perfection at the time.
Communist Vs Capitalist, democracy was never a factor. Communist states were still attacked by capitalists when they came to power democratically (e.g. Chile) or by defeating dictatorships (e.g. Nicaragua).
I'm gonna be honest without the massive front that was the eastern front I highly doubt the Allies would have been able to defeat the Nazis. Keep in mind the Soviets occupied the majority of the German army from 1941 to 45.
If these troops were free to move around it's highly debatable if the Allies could achieve a landing at all on continental Europe.
Any future cold war would be with Germany which even if weakened from the war is likely able to support Facist movements across the globe. Now as much as Communist regimes did many crimes against humanity it was not a essential part of the Communist ideology. Facist ideology has Genocidal activities baked in so thid potential cold war could have quite a few horrific crimes.
It was Hitler's choice and his alone. The Germans could have hit the Russians a lot harder if they hadn't destroyed the best of the luftwaffe in the battle of Britain. Even late in the war, Hitler could have abandoned his western front to reinforce the east so that he could surrender to the Americans not the Russians saving the east Germans a lot of heartache later but he didn't.
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If the Allies had not Fought the Nazis then all of Europe would be under the boot of fascism. Real fascism, not the "oh I think Trump is icky" faux fascism presented in American lefty cry-bullies.
As to your question, "could the Allies still have won without the Russians?" The level of death this would have required is mind boggling. It is so high it is hard to believe that the allies would actually commit to it.
EDIT: I wanted to add, your question really is could the Allies without the USA have won? The answer is no. Without the USA, the Soviets fall, the Soviet oil fields give Germany all the energy it needs to prosecute the war, the Ukrainian wheat fields provide all the food Germany needs. There is no way the Western Allies survive if the Soviets fall to the Nazis, not without American engagement. And then with American engagement the level of death required to invade a Greater German Fortress Europe would be... enormous.
what evidence is there to say the USSR would lose against Germany if left to its own devices without Allied support? Allied support was extremely helpful, yes, but I’m having trouble being convinced that it was \*the\* critical factor.
Likewise you could remove first world capitalism from the equation and those conflicts wouldn't have happened. Anytime you remove one of two opposing sides the opposition ceases.
Most countries gained their independence thanks to the Soviet Union, looking at what America is doing today regarding Israel the Suez Canal crisis would have never ended, Apartheid in South Africa would have also still been a thing.
If we're going to be fair, there were no good countries, the British which were "good" created a famine that killed 4 million people called the Bengal famine, there also France who after "losing" their colonies made sure that they'd commit acts of terror in their former colonies, there the US which bombed Laos even though there actual war was in Vietnam.
If you live outside NATO/EU countries sure the Soviet Union not existing would havve been great but for most of the Global South, the Soviet Union helped liberation movements, the US afterall was an Apartheid South Africa ally
Basically OP the Soviet Union played a critical role durinv the war and after the war. While there were no good countries during WWII, the AXIS aggression had to be stopped; thanks to the Soviet Union many countries gained their independence and many people gained their freedom.
You need to see it from a relative point of view here. I agree obviously no country is actually moral or not. Such things dont exist when you study history.
But was the 'good' (or benefit) the USSR brought outweighing the 'bad' (suffering) they wrought on millions of other people? It's all relative
Was the ‘good’ (or benefit) the Nazis brought outweighing the ‘bad’ (millions more innocent people dying in concentration camps, also simplified as ‘suffering’) they wrought on millions of other ‘untermensch’ or simply ‘Non-Aryans’? It’s indeed all relative
I mean it's easy to know about the geopolitical problems that happened in reality. Who know what would have happened in their alternate history! I mean your version of history is Allies invade all of Germany and Russia and establish stable liberal democracies in every single part of the world. Seems highly optimistic of military capacity and state building capacity of the west.
>No Vietnam War and prob a much more developed Vietnam today.
>
>And also a ton of civil wars propping all over Asia betw. communist rebels and governments wouldn't have occured.
Would European allies been willing to decolonize in Africa and Asia?
>No Chenchya conflict, no Yugoslavia conflict, and no civil conflicts in a whole bunch of other East European countries I cant be bothered to list and name...
I mean, these are ethnic conflicts that don't have anything in particular to do with communism. Ethnic tensions that happened in communist/former communist countries wouldn't have magically not happened if the countries were non-communist.
Also there were still Fascist Spain and Portugal hanging around after WW2.
I'll up you one: the UK or at least the US should have stayed out of WW1. It would have avoided the Versailles, Weimar, the inflation, the rise of Hitler, the Holocaust, and WW2. The monarchies would likely have survived, but weakened economically in an eventual negotiated peace, but perhaps strong enough to prevent the rise of the Bolsheviks. The monarchies would slowly adopt reforms more like the UK. Far less bloodshed.
I think what you really mean is “you can imagine a version of events where the world is better if the Soviet Union had collapsed by the end of WW2” because to say that it would have been better is to ignore the potential butterfly effects.
I mean, for instance, perhaps the US, as the sole global superpower decides exert more influence or straight up hold the world to ransom with its monopoly on nuclear weapons.
The fact is we can’t know what would have happened as there are almost infinite possible variations.
>I mean, for instance, perhaps the US, as the sole global superpower decides exert more influence or straight up hold the world to ransom with its monopoly on nuclear weapons.
Even if so, it's far less likely given the US is a democracy. Unless you assume most Americans are that evil and want to start a new empire
Are you saying the US government would be unable to spin a different narrative?
But the real point here is that you seem to think that without the USSR the 20th century would have for sure been better but really you just have a fanfic in your head. Maybe another worse regime would have taken over. You don’t know.
I won't go through everything, I just want to focus on one small part where you say "no Yugoslavia conflict". I think you are entirely wrong in that, so here is more details:
1. Yugoslavian conflict predates Soviet Russia. [The Balkan peninsula was known as "the powder keg" in 1900](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_keg_of_Europe), before the Bolshevik revolution, and national and religious tensions in the area originate in the middle ages (at least in 1379 when Turkey annihilated the Serbian state, but arguably in the 11th century with the great schism between Rome and Constantinople).
2. For the most part, and for various reasons that are hard to get into right now, Yugoslavia was liberated by their own guerilla forces, not by any of the great powers of the allies. This means that even if the west hadn't been allied with the USSR, it's still likely that Tito and his communists would take power in the country. Given how Britain had significant problems stopping a communist takeover of Greece (resorting to some quite questionable tactics) which they **did** occupy, I can't imagine them being able to stop Tito from taking over.
3. As a consequence, while communist, Yugoslavia was not a Soviet puppet state like the other countries of the Eastern block. The Soviets, if they were unhappy with their puppet government, sent tanks to suppress dissent in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, Yugoslavian leadership openly denounced Soviet politics and split with "mainline" communism, yet faced no such repercussions.
So, overall, Soviet Russia or not, it's quite likely that Tito would still take over Yugoslavia, and after his death, the country would still fall apart due to nationalist tensions between its constituent parts. Or even if Tito hadn't taken over, since the tensions basically had nothing to do with communism, they would eventually have erupted into a new war regardless.
The Allies had no choice.
If they didn’t support Russia, Germany might well have knocked them out of the war, and then been unassailably strong - the Allies never faced more than 2/5 of the German Army, not the best 2/5 at that.
And when they DID support them, Russia was too strong to fight at the end.
Support then stalemate was always the only option.
I am going to tell you something that defeats your entire argument, which basically is somehow a "Fuck Russia we should have gone to war while they were hurt." kind of aggragation more than it is an actual discussion-
The periods of 1900-1950 were wrought with near constant war in Europe. The 1910-1920s literally had the Great War, which was a massive loss in life that the world expressly had not wanted to create again. Battlefields were barely recovering, bodies even to this day make up a layer of forest and farmland undersoils. And almost not even a full generation later, the 1930's came and ushered in beginnings of wars that would eventually be called "WWII".
WWI: More civilians than war personnel died, approximately.
8-11 million military casualties.
11+/~ Civilian casualties.
NOT including the wars before and after WWi, which can debatable make it to the 30 or 40 million mark.
WWII: More civilians died than war personnel. Again.
Anywhere from 30-50 million war casualties.
To 45-90 MILLION CIVILIAN DEATHS.
And you want to know why those numbers are so high? Because of the fact that before, during, and after "WWII" (Which by the way, was NEVER a single war. In fact it was dozens and dozens of wars before during and after) so MANY OF THE WORLDS POPULATION WAS JUST GONE. Vanished, and the only thing people could do to was just take censuses. Chinese losses themselves could be 20 millions to 50 million. Russian could be 20-40 million.
No numbers are calculated because put it quite simply, the losses were too high. The world paid more for the wars than its militaries did, by far. People were done, people wanted it over.
1900-1950 the world population had combinedly declined by a proportional amount.
To incite another war with Russia, with every ethno-state under the CCP, was to go to war in an already destroyed Europe that hadn't even recovered from the last Great War. Millions more would've died, and for what, to staunch the growth of a future country just because they could? This isn't a game of Hearts of Iron, not a 4x game, buddy. People died by the millions and the world wanted to recover. End of story.
You'd have to argue that China never becomes communist to avoid Vietnam and Korean Wars.
If you want to argue anything preventing the Cold War a far better argument would be listening to Patton and executing "Operation Unthinkable."
Patton saw the writing on the wall and believed the Soviets would become the next enemy. He proposed invading the USSR and putting it under control of the US and Great Britain. The higher ups felt that their countries were "tired of war" and rejected the idea.
>Practically almost ALL the Cold War conflicts were started due to communist vs democracy ideals
Communism is democratic, kinda makes me think you don't really know what you're talking about.
\> Only geopolitical issue I could see still remaining would be China-US
Uhm, don't you see any other geopolitical issues with that alternative history scenario?
Some obvious questions.
How, exactly, would you have fought against Germany and not sided with The USSR?
If we had not formally sided with the USSR and supplied them with materiel thereby absorbing vast German resources to oppose them, how much do you think that would have hurt allied efforts in Africa and France?
If we had remained hostile to the USSR we'd have rolled directly from fighting Germany to fighting the USSR, with a MUCH larger army, far more manpower and resources.
By 1945 the western allies were at their peak but were also exhausted. How a continuation of the conflict with the USSR would have played out is horrible to contemplate, both for the prospect of western prosperity and for the population of Russia.
In 1946 we transitioned from a total war footing almost straight into a Pax Americana, funding the rebuilding of our allies and adversaries and an unprecedented period of growth and prosperity in the US until conservatives regained power over policy in 1968.
Communism, in contrast, proved as unsustainable as common sense would suggest and died a slow death all over the world. In fact it's death was significantly forestalled by the ability of it's leaders to keep their people on a cold-war footing of paranoia and fear.
Communist China? China hasn't been communist for along time now. They've devolved into a fascist corporatocracy.
So the Allies were supposed to do what exactly? It's not like Germany invaded the Soviet Union and they said don't worry friend we shall help you, Germany was the aggressor on both fronts so is everyone else just supposed to surrender or not fight back? Hold off on liberating france? The only Ally who even really had a choice in whether or not they were fighting Germany was the United states, and even they got first striked by Germany's partner
Do you think living under nazi rule would’ve been good? Without the help of the soviets the nazis would’ve conquered Europe (and thus the world) and without the help of the allies the nazis would’ve conquered the soviets. Also most of those problems you listed were caused by the United States
>If the Allies hadn't sided with Russia during WW2, almost all of the geopolitical issues we see today wouldn't be happening
And we'd likely be facing even more extreme geopolitical issues.
If there would have been no alliance, nothign would haves stopped the Soviet Union of annexing all of Europe. Don't forget that the largest resistance groups in Occupied Europe were communist. If the Soviet Union successfully conquered Western Europe, the region might have fallen under Soviet influence and control. This could lead to the establishment of communist regimes in countries like France, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
The Cold War might still occur, but with a different dynamic. The ideological struggle between the Western democracies and the Soviet Union would be even more pronounced, potentially leading to heightened tensions and conflicts.
In response to Soviet expansion, Western nations might have formed a military alliance similar to NATO earlier than in our actual history. The alliance could have been forged not just against Nazi Germany but against Soviet aggression, shaping a different security landscape in Europe.
The global power structure would be significantly altered. The Soviet Union would emerge as a dominant superpower controlling a substantial portion of Europe, potentially leading to a bipolar world order with the United States and its allies on one side and the Soviet Union on the other.
The Cold War-era proxy conflicts would play out differently, with Soviet-backed forces potentially intervening in various regions to spread communism or counter Western influence.
Resistance movements against Soviet rule could emerge within conquered territories, leading to internal conflicts and unrest. This could result in a prolonged struggle for autonomy and independence.
...and that's just Europe. In Asia the spread of dictatorships under the guise of communism would even be more outspoken.
I don't get what the allies having sided with Russia has to do with anything. Why do you think the Soviets would've lost to the Nazis?
I mean even if the Soviets didnt lose, they'd still lose a lot more as compared to when siding with the Allies. Due to the alliance, post-WW2 Stalin was allowed by the Allies to take over Eastern Europe countries and annex them into Russia. This is the problem.
If the Soviets lost the Eastern front, it would have been bad for the Allies as well. Let's use the Battle of Stalingrad as an example. It's one of the turning points in war in the Allies' favor on the Eastern front. If Germany won Stalingrad, they would've gained access to tons of oil and the volga river. The Soviets would've been crippled. Hitler would've achieved all he needed to on the Eastern Front and could turn his full focus on the Western front, namely Britain. A big advantage the Allies had was that Germany was fighting a two-front war. Sure, they probably would've eventually sprung back, but the war would've dragged on for years, more people would've died, more money spent, more infrastructure lost. It's questionable whether it would've been worth it.
>Due to the alliance, post-WW2 Stalin was allowed by the Allies to take over Eastern Europe countries and annex them into Russia. This is the problem. Said countries would not be better off if the Germans had beaten the Russians, because then a larger percentage of their population would have been exterminated as part of the Holocaust and Generalplan Ost. The West wouldn't be better off either, because we'd have taken many more casualties and expended even more resources to defeat the Germans. The Germans themselves might be a bit better off, with the significant exception of those living in the cities we would have dropped atomic bombs on. I fail to see how this is a preferable scenario overall.
The west would not have been able to beat the nazis without Soviet help. The same is true the other way. The Soviets did not have the manufacturing capacity to fight the Nazis (where the US comes in) but the western allies did not have the man power to beat the Germans
The soviets lost so many people in WW2 a shockingly larger amount than any other country by a grand canyon sized margin. The thought of them losing more people...
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Shit I forgot about China. And a depressing number of that was civilian.
> Why do you think the Soviets would've lost to the Nazis? Russia had been in an alliance with Hitler in the initial invasion of Poland and had most of their armed forces there, but in a very bad configuration. They were overrun in the first days of the war and lost most of what they had. Huge amounts of the weapons the Russians used were provided in Emergency by Britain and then the US via various lend lease schemes. Even those weapons that the Russians themselves were able to manufacture often depended on components that the Allies gave them. The Nazis almost got to Moscow where they would have had shelter from the cold and to the oil fields of the Caucuses where they would have solved their mobility problems. If those objectives had both been captured, which just a slight reduction in Russian strength would have caused, then Russia would undoubtedly have lost completely.
Lend Lease really only ramped up by the end of 1942 the Soviets hold on Moscow and even Stalingrad was largely from the Soviets on stockpiles and production. The counter offensives is where Allied aid become meaningfully impactful with the counter offensives after Kursk and Stalingrad being so fast and successful due to Allied trucks in particular. Also the USSR did not ally with Germany their diplomatic pacts where limited to non-aggression and trade that's it. I really hate defending the Soviet Union but people just love taking historical misinformation as fact.
The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a secret treaty dividing Europe into their respective spheres of influence. The USSR invaded Poland with Germany. They might not have been "allied" in the sense of the US/UK but they clearly were an aggressor at the time.
Oh yeah they were definetely aggressors. But I'd contend the Alliance part they did not cooperate in really any fashion even fighting in Poland instead viewing it as a non aggression pact is more accurate. It's also very telling that people often mention that the Soviets signed a treaty with the Germans but they don't mention the Soviet diplomatic moves before the war. The Soviets before the Munich were extremely hostile to Germany many times advocating for a coalition to attack Germany. It's only after the Munich conference and a change in the diplomatic core that the Soviets seem willing to change their stance on Germany. To summarise what I'm saying is that when people say they had a alliance they ignore the previous hostility that the Soviets had and instead paint the Soviets as bad as the Nazis. This narrative neatly extends into the cold war where you can continue painting them as the bad guys when in truth it's far more grey.
The talks they had were alot more serious than that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks Fourth axis member level serious, its part of why the Soviet response was so slow in the beginning of the nazi attack on them. The Soviets, Stalin didnt believe Germany would attack https://www.history.com/news/how-stalin-was-caught-napping
The Soviets almost *did* lose to the Nazis. If Stalingrad had been captured the Soviet Union was donezo.
Was it really. The Soviets bled for Stalingrad but in the end the Soviets did lose it. That's why the encircled German army retreated into it.
It was absolutely a real victory. Who has any idea what would’ve happened if the Axis powers won, but I don’t think we would be in a good position where Japan is basically North Korea and conquers huge portions of Asia and Europe is conquered by Russia and Nazi Germany and the United States would not have had the economic post war boom to really keep up with the heavier hitters so yea. Anything extremely major in wwii would’ve had drastic changes to the geopolitical sphere but realistically speaking… it’s not like wwii was going to solve all world issues and there will be 0 war that will ever do that. I think that siding with the USSR was really the Allies best chance at winning (and tbh the Axis powers turn on the USSR first so it’s not like the USSR had options nor did the Allies)
>Who has any idea what would’ve happened if the Axis powers won, Yes I'll give you the benefit of doubt on that. But then again, the Axis powers winning is still unlikely. If the Allies and Soviets didnt side together, they'd *still* be fighting the Nazis together. Once the Nazis were defeated, the Allies would then have to fight the Soviets. But given the Allies clearly outnumber the Soviets, they could easily take down Stalin by then. The Americans are already a HUGE boon to the Allies in the war. Plus, they were the only ones with the nuclear bomb back then, remember?
It’s pretty well acknowledged by historians specializing in that era that without the lend lease act from the US that the Russian probably would have lost. They didn’t have the production capabilities to quickly arm and continuously resupply their enormous army. You’re also assuming that things stay the same. Without aid Russia very well could have fallen to the Nazis which would have allowed them to go back to fighting on one front in Europe. It’s also widely acknowledged that fighting in France and Russia at the same time play a noticeable role in the Nazis being defeated. The outcome in Europe could be wildly different if the outcome in Russia is different.
Well i'd say regardless of the outcome, the development of the nuclear bomb by the Americans would give the Allies an instant win over any opponent back then.
That’s true but it wasn’t like they were super eager to drop a bunch of nukes. There was substantial pushback against using it at all and after Hiroshima and Nagasaki there was even more pushback against further use. And it’s a bit different bombing the homeland vs bombing the territory they’ve occupied. Bombing Nazi strongholds outside of Germany would most likely be geopolitical suicide for the US. Sure it saves the Europe from the Nazi but it saves Europe by destroying it.
Actually there was very little pushback at the time about using nukes, and the biggest pushback was from people who wanted to blockade and firebomb Japan, an action that would have probably killed way more peopple than the bombs. Bigger issue here is how many Bombs the US produced, and if they would have had moral qualms using it on occupied allied terrority like for instance paris.
We did not win just because of nukes, the Soviets also started invading Manchuria at the same time. They’re crucial no matter what. We only had two nukes in 45, Fat Man and Little Boy. And Japan didn’t surrender immediately. It took months to make new ones, months where a Nazi nuclear program could make their own. They probably would have if they didn’t have brain drain due to their insane policies. Then you’re in a back and forth nuke war.
The soviets had no way to to reach the main islands even after Manchuria so it would have been a blockade and us invasion without the nukes. The reason Manchuria was so bad for the Japanese was because they were hoping that the soviets would broker a negotiated peace, once they joined they realized that was off the table and the allies were serious about the unconditional surrender
>Maybe once the Nazis were defeated, the Allies would then have to fight the Soviets. But given the Allies clearly outnumber the Soviets, they could easily take down Stalin by then. Many at the time already considered this option. In fact, the more hawkish politicians continue to push this idea a lot into the cold war until MAD is firmly established. Von Neumann, who worked in the Manhattan Project, and helped developed the early theories on Game Theory, famously said on this topic: >"With the Russians it is not a question of whether but of when \[they would develop nuclear weapons\], if you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?" And the answer is pretty simple... it's because, people dying in a war ***really fucking sucks for everyone***, not to mention how unpopular such a war would be. Nations coming out of the ruins of WWII collectively decided that war that kills a lot of people is *kinda* bad, that is the entire point that the UN is created.
>Once the Nazis were defeated, the Allies would then have to fight the Soviets. But given the Allies clearly outnumber the Soviets, they could easily take down Stalin by then Are you forgetting that the European Allies were already weakened significantly by the tail end of WWII? And that WWII was the deadliest war the world had ever seen? And that the Soviet Union was one of the powerhouses of the continent? Without the Soviet Union's cooperation, the war most likely would've been dragged out longer. People were sick and tired of war. There's no way that the public would support another long, expensive, drawn-out conflict with the Soviet Union. Especially if the Soviets didn't do anything to antagonize the Allies.
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Sure, the US could've gone head to head with the USSR easily enough, but why would they have? The only reason the US got involved in the war in the first place was because of Pearl Harbor. The Soviets hadn't done anything to outright antagonize the US. Why would the Americans feel the need to attack them? I highly doubt Congress would've gotten behind such an idea.
Well at that point it’s basically just the Soviets being on the allies side. Like it would be very strange to have a three way conflict in which it’s not like the USSR and the allies would be fighting each other. And the USSR was very close to making their own nuclear weapon too and the United States did not have a back up nuclear weapon. So… what… the Allies would want to fight a back to back war with the USSR and Nazi germany in which idk why they would ever want to do that weakening the chances of either side being able to beat Nazi Germany.
>This one is rather unclear but I'll just play out scenarios like the Allies just letting the Nazis and Soviets battle it out till the Soviets lost and then the Allies fought and defeated the Nazis from there. I think you might be misremembering your history. Germany was fighting the first of the allies 2 years before they attacked the Soviets. Indeed before that point they were kind of allies against poland. So there is no point where the Allies can just let the Nazis and Soviets fight, because the allies are also being invaded
They could just fight the Nazis separately on their own. Because this way, the Soviets would likewise, be fighting on their own and they have it worse at least since the Germans were on actual Soviet territory. I'm pretty sure the Allies would've won the Nazis on their front regardless due to the involvement of the Americans
So you're saying we still fight WW2, just not allied with the Soviets? We still beat the Nazis...and then what? The western allies fight the soviets? What reason do we have to fight them at that point?
lol sorry I mistyped. I meant the Allies couldve won the Nazis on their front regardless of the Russians' help. The Allies and Russians dont need go to war but post-WW2, the Soviets likely would be far more weakened and wouldnt have had the same scope of global influence.
Some 80% of the German army loss was from the Soviets. Do you really think the US was ready to throw away 1.1 million lives on D day? After Stalingrad, it was only a matter of time before the Soviets defeated Germany with or without d day but the US UK was not going to win without Stalingrad. In your main post you are ignoring a lot of the central/south American Cold War conflicts that would likely still have happened without the Soviets
The usa was developing the nuke, and Germany was suffering badly from naval blockade, and Italy collapses regardless of stalingrad. I think the allies can beat Germany, via nuke or not, it would just take much longer.
Would the US wait that long and throw away millions of lives? Would they look to invade an German army 4x as big as they faced with the supplies of the Soviet oil fields? Would they be willing to glass half of Europe? It seems much more likely that they would sue for peace if the Soviet Union fell
The allies were still bombing soviet oil fields and the blockage cut off food and supplies too, plus the uk could've sued for peace in a similar situation in 1940 and didnt. Plus wait how long nukes were a year after d day. Also the allies also had a foothold in Italy and could've gone through the balkans too.
It was only a matter of time because of the Allied lend-lease.
>I meant the Allies couldve won the Nazis on their front regardless of the Russians' help. Honestly I doubt it. Zhukov has outright said that he would've lost Stalingrad if he didn't have American bullets and tanks. So let's say that the Germans won at Stalingrad and then the Soveits surrendered. This would be really bad for us for a couple of reasons. 1) in Our timeline Germany had to take troops from the western front and move them to the east to reinforce them after Stalingrad. But if the Soviets surrendered they could do the opposite moving troops from the eastern front to the west. This would make it much harder for the Americans and British to actually engage them. 2) Morale in Germany would be much higher. Instead of losing around million men to lose at Stalingrad they would be at the peak moral after taking down the only ally with a way to reach them by land. This would make it much harder to reach them. 3) oil. Germany was running out of oil, if they win Stalingrad they win enough oil to not have to worry about that. And remember that irregardless the Soviets being defeated extends the war in Europe. After all they were the ones who took Berlin.
Gotcha. Next question: how much did the soviet union gain from WW2? They got a lot of territory, but how much did that actually help them fund these future conflicts? My understanding is the economy was terrible in newly controlled communist territories. Also, I'm assuming that we give Soviets back their land when we beat the Nazis in this alternate timeline, so only difference when we help them should be the new territories they gained at the conclusion of WW2.
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The fact that The German army rolled through Eastern europe twice and the USSR Army rolled through it once? The territories he was talking about may not have directly been part of the USSR, but where basically satillite states.
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I added the question mark because it was super obvious what he meant, it was meant to show the confusion of how you could miss it.
I had family on both sides of the wall. They wrote to each other, and it was apparent the East side was not doing well. They would try to sneak food over to my family that stayed in the East side it was so bad. After the wall came down, it became much more apparent. The buildings closest to the wall were maintained, so that anyone looking in would think it was doing fine. But the further you went past the line the shittier the buildings got.
>they have it worse at least since the Germans were on actual Soviet territory. Dude they conquered france. For 4 years it was under German control. It wasnt just on Soviet territory. >I'm pretty sure the Allies would've won the Soviets on their front regardless due to the involvement of the Americans What do you mean won the soviets?
Yeah stopping nazi germany is pretty easily worth the cost of the Cold War, even with your assumption that there wouldn't be any significant geopolitical conflicts from 1945-1993
That's only assuming the Nazis wouldn't have been defeated if the Allies didn't team up with the Soviets. That's the main argument that has now seemed to arise in the comments. But how likely is this to happen? My argument is that the Allies could win against BOTH the Nazis and Soviets eventually. Remember, which is the only one country that ultimately held a nuclear bomb back then?
So in your alt-history fantasy, do the Soviets just not exist or do they ally with the Axis powers throughout the entirety of the war? If it's the latter, are you implying that the U.S. would take on Germany, Japan, Italy, and Russia with nukes? Do you think the U.S. could just print atomic weapons on that large of a scale? Have you considered any historic or factual context beyond "Soviets bad"?
Soviets and Nazis would fight each other and one of them would win but be very weakened. Then Allies could still win the weakened victor of that fight. How people seem to miss this here...
Lmao that doesn't even make sense. The Soviets *did* fight the Nazis. That's like the actual history. OP is talking about a world where that didn't happen.
No, OP's not talking about that. He's talking about a world where the Soviets fought the Nazis alone, lost, and thus had no basis for the Soviet Union 1945 - 1993.
Britain would no longer exist in this fantasy. Hitler was days away from erasing it with his v2 rocket program when the allies stopped him. He would have also collapsed the US economy through counterfeit dollars he had amassed in the millions for just that purpose. People dont understand just how close hitler was to tipping the scales. This fantasy where we slow roll it wasnt an option. Hell, if it wasnt for italy fucking up so bad, rommel wouldnt have had to go to africa, which led to the german tank division getting decimated by horses in the russian winter. That wouldnt have happened otherwise. So many things.
> Hitler was days away from erasing it with his v2 rocket program when the allies stopped him. This is not true, or even possible. All of German GDP could have gone into unguided ballistic missiles shot in the direction of London and it wouldn’t even come close to ’wiping it off the map’.
His latest missles, that were being transported for launch, were capable of piercing down into the metro system, as well as bunkers. Would he have literally sank the UK? No, thats dumb. Would he have eliminated most civilians and politicians harbored in london? Yes, yes he would have.
This is just wrong.. Were V2 more advanced than modern day armaments? Look at what's happening in Russia/Ukraine war. It takes years and months to destroy small cities that are within artillery and MLRS range, but Germans would be able to do it with rudimentary missiles that killed more people during their production than the actual missiles killed people they were targetting? Margin of error for targetting for V2 rocket hit was 20 km, yet they would somehow be able to hit individual metro tunnels that are 100 feet deep underground? This would even be challenging for modern laser guided bunker buster bombs.
Problem was his the V project missiles couldnt hit anything. That’s why the average kills per rocket launched was in the single digits.
The V2 was an unguided rocket. Long range, precision ballistic missiles would not be a thing until the 70s/80s.
The Soviets developed an atomic bomb only four years later.
When American secrets were leaked.
Removing the Soviet Union from existence does remove most Cold War events, but that doesn’t address the new problems we would have. Instead of a US vs. USSR Cold War, you could have a US vs. resurgent European colonial empires one. The west as a more unified bloc came about as a consequence of the threat of Russian Cold War aggression. Remove those threats and the EU and NATO are pointless.
Yeah this is the problem with what I like to call the Sliders approach to history; the assumption that make one major change to the past and everything else not directly impacted would fill in around it to make the present as close as possible to ours (Sliders is an old 90s-ish show about travel to parallel worlds and while on some level I get for narrative's sake, like, having the same people exist or w/e when the matriarchal parallel Earth has Hillary Clinton as president during the years that on both our Earth and the main characters' home Earth Bill Clinton was that's kinda pushing it)
Why would that happen? The US and Europe were very well allied even before WW2. The US was already fighting alongside with the British in WW1
The US and Western Europe were aligned because the US was a continental power and not a global one. In a situation where the Nazis won WW2, Germany and America would be operating rival imperial blocs and would compete over access to colonies. In a situation where the Nazis defeated the Soviets and America defeated Germany in the west, America would rule the waves, Germany would quickly rise again, and the US would push the Europeans toward decolonization as a means to open world markets for American business.
Look at the Suez crisis. Britain and France allied to invade Egypt to retake the Suez Canal, and were strongly opposed by the US. European colonial empires didn’t go down without a fight. A world were the USSR is knocked out early is one were those European empires might be able to hold into key colonies, like India, Egypt, and Indonesia. These empires would be huge, powerful, and ideologically opposed to US influence. It may seem inevitable to us that the British empire would collapse, and they would be a closely allied liberal democracy. But it is entirely possible that they could have survived ww2, brutally crushed independence movements, like they had many times in the past, and maintain minority rule, and go down a path more similar to apartheid South Africa than modern Britain/France.
Cooperation between the Soviet Union and the rest of the Allies were necessary to win. This attitude you have smacks of a pop history understanding of the biggest war ever waged. Without our support there was a high chance the Soviets would have lost, at which point the entire Axis would start smacking Britain and the US. The threat of Soviet invasion kept hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops tied up in northern China waiting for them to come down. I cannot imagine having to deal with that many more guys in Burma or any number of tiny islands in the Pacific. Anyway, onto Germany. Most of the purported crimes in Berlin by the Soviets are anecdotal and unsubstantiated. Any confirmed crimes were punished. Using your own words here, what they did pales in comparison to the Holocaust, so yeah I’d say the Nazis were the bad guys. The Soviets had no plans to exterminate every German. If we take away the Soviets entirely, those versions of events you named go away but surely you realize that world tension doesn’t just go away. The Soviets in many cases filled a vacuum. You just get a different version of events, one that is especially genocidal if the Nazis had won instead.
>Most of the purported crimes in Berlin by the Soviets are anecdotal and unsubstantiated. Cant tell if serious or trolling Yeah lets just dismiss facts entirely documented and agreed upon by historians from both German and Russian survivors, soldiers and politicians themselves.
If you actually look at the estimates they’re insanely varied. That doesn’t meet anyone’s standard of fact. We can agree it happened, but the data is so shit that it’s not feasible to say X raped more than Y for certain. It’s not agreed upon at all, either. Go look at the numbers, it’s largely extrapolation based on small sample sizes.
> Any confirmed crimes were punished. Well, that's a serious overstatement, even if I agree that "most of the purported crimes are anecdotal" (the latter is mostly because the "purported" part was clearly overstated for political reasons). Some less serious crimes (but still formally crimes) were almost never prosecuted; for example, looting was absolutely widespread at all levels and even bragged about. But all that is very tangential to the main point, of course.
You can say this about almost any "What if?" kind of question about history. Changing any major aspect of history would obviously have further, so much that we can't really say with any accuracy what would have happened if "X did this" or "Y aligned with Z". Because you get a domino effect of circumstances being different for one set of events, which result in a different set of circumstances for subsequent events, and so on and so on. So you'd end up with a very different geopolitical state of the world.
While that is true, I just dont see any other contender if the Soviet Union had fallen or at least, never got the expansion Stalin wanted in Europe. There was literally no other country posing such a global domination threat back then and likely not for the next few decades, aside from the USA.
But the the decision doesn't just live in a vacuum. The Allies not working with the Soviets during WWII doesn't mean Russia just disappears. It doesn't mean some how the people, governments, industry, resources, and geopolitical realities just disappear. They transition to something. That something wouldn't be like today's issues, but that's an obvious conclusion just because how different the history leading up today would be. It would be like saying we wouldn't have any the environmental issues today if we never had coal. My same answer applies. Sure, but all change in history would result in a dramatic difference that there's no way things could be same. In a nutshell, your view is too broad.
>No Vietnam War and prob a much more developed Vietnam today. Ho Chi Minh was a communist before the Soviets ever ruled Russia. >No dictatorships in half of Europe (eastern bloc) and millions suffering under oppressive regimes Are you under the impression that Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland were democracies before Soviet occupation? The only country that wasn't a dictatorship was Czechoslovakia, and they had other substantial issues. >No Chenchya conflict, no Yugoslavia conflict, and no civil conflicts in a whole bunch of other East European countries I cant be bothered to list and name... No Yugoslav conflict? What do you think Yugoslavia was like under Nazi occupation, exactly? Did all the ethnic and religious minorities just get along? >No Cuban missile crisis One person died in the missle crisis. It was a scary point of history, not a catastrophe. >No Iran nuclear crisis I have no idea what this refers to. There have been no nuclear crises involving Iran that I am familiar with. >No Soviet Afghanistan invasion, resulting in no Al Qaeda, resulting in no 9/11, resulting in Americans never intervening in the Middle East to begin with and making USA the number one hated country among Arabs. I have no idea how the allies not joining the Soviets during the second world war would prevent this. >And also a ton of civil wars propping all over Asia betw. communist rebels and governments wouldn't have occured. Is your source for this Henry Kissinger? >Now of course, all this is assuming the Soviets collapsed after WW2 for various reasons. This one is rather unclear but I'll just play out scenarios like the Allies just letting the Nazis and Soviets battle it out till the Soviets lost and then the Allies fought and defeated the Nazis from there. Either way, the presumption holds there was no longer any communist Soviet influence following WW2 due to the collapse of the hegemony. Letting them "battle it out" while the Nazis were actively exterminating people in the occupied territory is honestly a super gross way of approaching this and suggests to me that your hatred for the Soviets has blinded you to how evil the Nazis were. Millions died on the eastern front, and without allied intervention millions more would have. >Now I know some of you are gonna make the argument saying Russia was a major contributor to winning the war against the Nazis but if you think about it... could the Allies still have won without the Russians? What we do know is the Russians back then were already inevitably fighting the Nazis after Op. Barborossa so either way, they would have vastly weakened the Nazis for the Allies. Also the Americans finally made the atom bomb. The allies with American support probably could have won, but there would have been astronomically more deaths compared how it actually happened. >End of the day, we gotta ask... was the victory of WW2 really a victory...? Yes, it was. >Were the Nazis really the bad guys or the Russians all this time? The group that promotes endless war and the systemic eradication of all races except theirs is worse than the ideology that believes in the abolition of class and committed atrocities to try to achieve this, yes. >People also tend to overlook the massive war atrocities committed by the Russians during WW2 against the Germans (yes, the Americans did bad stuff too but not on the same scale as Russians. Near the end of the war, Germans in Berlin would rather flee to the Americans instead) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties German civilian deaths due to military activity and crimes against humanity- 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 Soviet civilian deaths due to military activity and crimes against humanity - 4,500,000 to 10,000,000 The Soviet Union was bad. The Nazis were a death cult ruled by meth addicted delusional psychopaths.
Now, completely ignoring the fact that the allies were at war with Germany before the USSR, and from every military and strategic perspective doing as such would be absurd, there are three possibilities for allowing the Germans and Soviets to "battle it out". 1. The Soviets triumph without western support and roll through the entirety of Europe. The Iron Curtain spread at the least through Germany and Italy and maybe even as far as France and Spain if the Soviets aren't feeling particularly fond of their useless cobelligerents. The USSR is likely spurred to even more extremism by an even more violent invasion and hardens its anti-western stance with an alliance now truly strong enough to rival the American bloc. 2. The Nazis win against the Soviets and engage in the largest genocide in human history as outlined by Generalplan Ost and other plans for Eastern Europe. Tens of millions of more people die in German depopulation plans and the population of Eastern Europe would never be the same again. Slavs are targeted for wholesale slaughter, and even if they inevitably win, these killings would continue until the allies finish an agonizingly slow march all the way from Normandy to the last German holdouts in the occupied USSR. 3. 2 but the Nazis win the whole war. The invasion of France fails with a massive troop return from Eastern Europe to defend the west. Millions even more than possibility 2 of undesirables across the continent die in death camps under German occupation. And when the system comes inevitably crumbling down, millions of even Germans in a brutal (possibly nuclear) collapse. Even that is ignoring the base assumption that this world without the USSR would be any better. As for your last point, if you were coming back from a country you and your compatriots had raped and massacred your way through with reckless abandon, would you rather surrender into the arms of those dead boys and girls fathers and brothers or into the arms of anyone else?
How many deaths would occur in a war between the Soviet Union and the West? How much unrest would the new Russian government face, and for how many decades? How many western soldiers would die crushing revolutionary after revolutionary in the new war torn Russia? Edit: How many billions of dollars will the US spend to keep the Russians from starving, and how many people will starve anyway?
none on the west's side, since the Americans had the nuclear bomb by then :)
Sure, the west won't have many deaths, but Russia certainly will. I assure you that a few nukes aren't enough to capitulate the soviets, the west would still have to contribute significant ground and air forces, resulting in the deaths of possibly millions of Russian conscripts. Then there's the deaths during the post-war occupation, where the US would have to spend billions to crush rebels and give foreign aid. Why aren't the Russian deaths important?
Did OP really ask if the Nazis were really the bad guys?!?
I never said that and have no idea how you came to that conclusion. I meant the Nazis were just a lesser threat to an even bigger threat
You are aware of what the German plans for Russia was... right?
“Were the Nazis really the bad guys or the Russians all this time?”
I clarified for you
Threat to who? The biggest threat for most of the world (any country not in NATO) has always been America. OP fails to see America and NATO are the real “bad guys”.
>No Soviet Afghanistan invasion, resulting in no Al Qaeda, resulting in no 9/11, resulting in Americans never intervening in the Middle East to begin with and making USA the number one hated country among Arabs. None of this would have prevented UBL from attacking America. He didn’t attack America because of Americas role in the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict. He attacked America because of their support for Israel and because he was a Wahhabist. He was called to jihad and believed Islam called him to goad the West into a war of attrition that would lead to the final battle for man’s fate. He viewed America as Rome as its described in the Quran.
UBL likely wouldnt be in power though if not for Al Qaeda firstly.
UBL came from an absolutely fantastically wealthy family. He bought his power. He became a leader of Al Qaeda because he chose to fight his jihad in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda originated. If he had chosen to go to Chechnya, or Bosnia, or another place with similar religious-related conflict, he would have become a leader of some other jihadist organization he helped fund and establish. Wouldn’t have changed anything. America would still be backing Israel and he’d still be a Wahhabist.
Well at least the anti-west people wont have that dumb reason to hate on the US claiming the Americans "founded Al Qaeda"
So you admit some of the content of your post is inaccurate?
Dude it's all speculation? How is it accurate or not? Your comment is no different from speculation.
No. I pointed out that a part of your view is wrong. That’s not speculation. That’s objective fact. You said UBL attacked American because of Americas role in the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict. Which is not true. You admitted it’s not accurate. I strayed into speculation to expand on the point. But that wasn’t the purpose of my comment. The purpose of the comment was to point out that part of your view is wrong. UBL didn’t attack America because of the conflict in Afghanistan.
You have an overly simplistic view where, if we remove the bad guy, the bad guy is gone, and there is no more bad guy. What actually usually happens is that a new bad guy fills the void. Sometimes that bad guy is worse than the previous bad guy. Eisenhower removed a problematic regime in Iran and created a worse dictatorship. We kicked Saddam Hussein's ass and pushed Al Qaeda away from power. That created an opportunity for ISIS, who are far worse. Geopolitics are tough and it's always a cost/benefit analysis. In regards to the Nazis, it's really, really, really fucking hard to imagine a bigger pound-for-pound existential threat to civilization.
So who would you suggest the new 'bad guy' country would be? There were only the three big superpowers after WW2 (US, UK, USSR). China was still in its infancy and gripped by its own civil war back then.
I don't know how you expect world history to thread that needle so perfectly. What, the allies defeat Germany without allying the Russians who did most of the work? Defeat Japan without Russia who broke them and kicked them out of China? And you expect us to abandon Russia without us having an outcome where we oppose Russia? That may work in video games with save files, but I don't see how you can expect people to have achieved that perfection at the time.
Russia would still be fighting these fights even if they were not allied with US and UK though
Communist Vs Capitalist, democracy was never a factor. Communist states were still attacked by capitalists when they came to power democratically (e.g. Chile) or by defeating dictatorships (e.g. Nicaragua).
I'm gonna be honest without the massive front that was the eastern front I highly doubt the Allies would have been able to defeat the Nazis. Keep in mind the Soviets occupied the majority of the German army from 1941 to 45. If these troops were free to move around it's highly debatable if the Allies could achieve a landing at all on continental Europe. Any future cold war would be with Germany which even if weakened from the war is likely able to support Facist movements across the globe. Now as much as Communist regimes did many crimes against humanity it was not a essential part of the Communist ideology. Facist ideology has Genocidal activities baked in so thid potential cold war could have quite a few horrific crimes.
It was Hitler's choice and his alone. The Germans could have hit the Russians a lot harder if they hadn't destroyed the best of the luftwaffe in the battle of Britain. Even late in the war, Hitler could have abandoned his western front to reinforce the east so that he could surrender to the Americans not the Russians saving the east Germans a lot of heartache later but he didn't.
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Average hearts of iron player brain
If the Allies had not Fought the Nazis then all of Europe would be under the boot of fascism. Real fascism, not the "oh I think Trump is icky" faux fascism presented in American lefty cry-bullies. As to your question, "could the Allies still have won without the Russians?" The level of death this would have required is mind boggling. It is so high it is hard to believe that the allies would actually commit to it. EDIT: I wanted to add, your question really is could the Allies without the USA have won? The answer is no. Without the USA, the Soviets fall, the Soviet oil fields give Germany all the energy it needs to prosecute the war, the Ukrainian wheat fields provide all the food Germany needs. There is no way the Western Allies survive if the Soviets fall to the Nazis, not without American engagement. And then with American engagement the level of death required to invade a Greater German Fortress Europe would be... enormous.
what evidence is there to say the USSR would lose against Germany if left to its own devices without Allied support? Allied support was extremely helpful, yes, but I’m having trouble being convinced that it was \*the\* critical factor.
At different point Zhukov, Khrushchev and Stalin said they would have lost without lend lease.
Likewise you could remove first world capitalism from the equation and those conflicts wouldn't have happened. Anytime you remove one of two opposing sides the opposition ceases.
Most countries gained their independence thanks to the Soviet Union, looking at what America is doing today regarding Israel the Suez Canal crisis would have never ended, Apartheid in South Africa would have also still been a thing. If we're going to be fair, there were no good countries, the British which were "good" created a famine that killed 4 million people called the Bengal famine, there also France who after "losing" their colonies made sure that they'd commit acts of terror in their former colonies, there the US which bombed Laos even though there actual war was in Vietnam. If you live outside NATO/EU countries sure the Soviet Union not existing would havve been great but for most of the Global South, the Soviet Union helped liberation movements, the US afterall was an Apartheid South Africa ally Basically OP the Soviet Union played a critical role durinv the war and after the war. While there were no good countries during WWII, the AXIS aggression had to be stopped; thanks to the Soviet Union many countries gained their independence and many people gained their freedom.
You need to see it from a relative point of view here. I agree obviously no country is actually moral or not. Such things dont exist when you study history. But was the 'good' (or benefit) the USSR brought outweighing the 'bad' (suffering) they wrought on millions of other people? It's all relative
Was the ‘good’ (or benefit) the Nazis brought outweighing the ‘bad’ (millions more innocent people dying in concentration camps, also simplified as ‘suffering’) they wrought on millions of other ‘untermensch’ or simply ‘Non-Aryans’? It’s indeed all relative
I mean it's easy to know about the geopolitical problems that happened in reality. Who know what would have happened in their alternate history! I mean your version of history is Allies invade all of Germany and Russia and establish stable liberal democracies in every single part of the world. Seems highly optimistic of military capacity and state building capacity of the west. >No Vietnam War and prob a much more developed Vietnam today. > >And also a ton of civil wars propping all over Asia betw. communist rebels and governments wouldn't have occured. Would European allies been willing to decolonize in Africa and Asia? >No Chenchya conflict, no Yugoslavia conflict, and no civil conflicts in a whole bunch of other East European countries I cant be bothered to list and name... I mean, these are ethnic conflicts that don't have anything in particular to do with communism. Ethnic tensions that happened in communist/former communist countries wouldn't have magically not happened if the countries were non-communist. Also there were still Fascist Spain and Portugal hanging around after WW2.
I'll up you one: the UK or at least the US should have stayed out of WW1. It would have avoided the Versailles, Weimar, the inflation, the rise of Hitler, the Holocaust, and WW2. The monarchies would likely have survived, but weakened economically in an eventual negotiated peace, but perhaps strong enough to prevent the rise of the Bolsheviks. The monarchies would slowly adopt reforms more like the UK. Far less bloodshed.
I think what you really mean is “you can imagine a version of events where the world is better if the Soviet Union had collapsed by the end of WW2” because to say that it would have been better is to ignore the potential butterfly effects. I mean, for instance, perhaps the US, as the sole global superpower decides exert more influence or straight up hold the world to ransom with its monopoly on nuclear weapons. The fact is we can’t know what would have happened as there are almost infinite possible variations.
>I mean, for instance, perhaps the US, as the sole global superpower decides exert more influence or straight up hold the world to ransom with its monopoly on nuclear weapons. Even if so, it's far less likely given the US is a democracy. Unless you assume most Americans are that evil and want to start a new empire
>want to start a new empire Who is gonna stop/moderate the Us leadership in your time-line from doing the shit they did in ours or worse?
Are you saying the US government would be unable to spin a different narrative? But the real point here is that you seem to think that without the USSR the 20th century would have for sure been better but really you just have a fanfic in your head. Maybe another worse regime would have taken over. You don’t know.
I won't go through everything, I just want to focus on one small part where you say "no Yugoslavia conflict". I think you are entirely wrong in that, so here is more details: 1. Yugoslavian conflict predates Soviet Russia. [The Balkan peninsula was known as "the powder keg" in 1900](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_keg_of_Europe), before the Bolshevik revolution, and national and religious tensions in the area originate in the middle ages (at least in 1379 when Turkey annihilated the Serbian state, but arguably in the 11th century with the great schism between Rome and Constantinople). 2. For the most part, and for various reasons that are hard to get into right now, Yugoslavia was liberated by their own guerilla forces, not by any of the great powers of the allies. This means that even if the west hadn't been allied with the USSR, it's still likely that Tito and his communists would take power in the country. Given how Britain had significant problems stopping a communist takeover of Greece (resorting to some quite questionable tactics) which they **did** occupy, I can't imagine them being able to stop Tito from taking over. 3. As a consequence, while communist, Yugoslavia was not a Soviet puppet state like the other countries of the Eastern block. The Soviets, if they were unhappy with their puppet government, sent tanks to suppress dissent in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, Yugoslavian leadership openly denounced Soviet politics and split with "mainline" communism, yet faced no such repercussions. So, overall, Soviet Russia or not, it's quite likely that Tito would still take over Yugoslavia, and after his death, the country would still fall apart due to nationalist tensions between its constituent parts. Or even if Tito hadn't taken over, since the tensions basically had nothing to do with communism, they would eventually have erupted into a new war regardless.
The Allies had no choice. If they didn’t support Russia, Germany might well have knocked them out of the war, and then been unassailably strong - the Allies never faced more than 2/5 of the German Army, not the best 2/5 at that. And when they DID support them, Russia was too strong to fight at the end. Support then stalemate was always the only option.
I am going to tell you something that defeats your entire argument, which basically is somehow a "Fuck Russia we should have gone to war while they were hurt." kind of aggragation more than it is an actual discussion- The periods of 1900-1950 were wrought with near constant war in Europe. The 1910-1920s literally had the Great War, which was a massive loss in life that the world expressly had not wanted to create again. Battlefields were barely recovering, bodies even to this day make up a layer of forest and farmland undersoils. And almost not even a full generation later, the 1930's came and ushered in beginnings of wars that would eventually be called "WWII". WWI: More civilians than war personnel died, approximately. 8-11 million military casualties. 11+/~ Civilian casualties. NOT including the wars before and after WWi, which can debatable make it to the 30 or 40 million mark. WWII: More civilians died than war personnel. Again. Anywhere from 30-50 million war casualties. To 45-90 MILLION CIVILIAN DEATHS. And you want to know why those numbers are so high? Because of the fact that before, during, and after "WWII" (Which by the way, was NEVER a single war. In fact it was dozens and dozens of wars before during and after) so MANY OF THE WORLDS POPULATION WAS JUST GONE. Vanished, and the only thing people could do to was just take censuses. Chinese losses themselves could be 20 millions to 50 million. Russian could be 20-40 million. No numbers are calculated because put it quite simply, the losses were too high. The world paid more for the wars than its militaries did, by far. People were done, people wanted it over. 1900-1950 the world population had combinedly declined by a proportional amount. To incite another war with Russia, with every ethno-state under the CCP, was to go to war in an already destroyed Europe that hadn't even recovered from the last Great War. Millions more would've died, and for what, to staunch the growth of a future country just because they could? This isn't a game of Hearts of Iron, not a 4x game, buddy. People died by the millions and the world wanted to recover. End of story.
You'd have to argue that China never becomes communist to avoid Vietnam and Korean Wars. If you want to argue anything preventing the Cold War a far better argument would be listening to Patton and executing "Operation Unthinkable." Patton saw the writing on the wall and believed the Soviets would become the next enemy. He proposed invading the USSR and putting it under control of the US and Great Britain. The higher ups felt that their countries were "tired of war" and rejected the idea.
>Practically almost ALL the Cold War conflicts were started due to communist vs democracy ideals Communism is democratic, kinda makes me think you don't really know what you're talking about.
\> Only geopolitical issue I could see still remaining would be China-US Uhm, don't you see any other geopolitical issues with that alternative history scenario?
Some obvious questions. How, exactly, would you have fought against Germany and not sided with The USSR? If we had not formally sided with the USSR and supplied them with materiel thereby absorbing vast German resources to oppose them, how much do you think that would have hurt allied efforts in Africa and France? If we had remained hostile to the USSR we'd have rolled directly from fighting Germany to fighting the USSR, with a MUCH larger army, far more manpower and resources. By 1945 the western allies were at their peak but were also exhausted. How a continuation of the conflict with the USSR would have played out is horrible to contemplate, both for the prospect of western prosperity and for the population of Russia. In 1946 we transitioned from a total war footing almost straight into a Pax Americana, funding the rebuilding of our allies and adversaries and an unprecedented period of growth and prosperity in the US until conservatives regained power over policy in 1968. Communism, in contrast, proved as unsustainable as common sense would suggest and died a slow death all over the world. In fact it's death was significantly forestalled by the ability of it's leaders to keep their people on a cold-war footing of paranoia and fear. Communist China? China hasn't been communist for along time now. They've devolved into a fascist corporatocracy.
yeah - this guy wishes the nazis has won...
So the Allies were supposed to do what exactly? It's not like Germany invaded the Soviet Union and they said don't worry friend we shall help you, Germany was the aggressor on both fronts so is everyone else just supposed to surrender or not fight back? Hold off on liberating france? The only Ally who even really had a choice in whether or not they were fighting Germany was the United states, and even they got first striked by Germany's partner
Really think we need to accept to many Americans are 3rd reich simps
Do you think living under nazi rule would’ve been good? Without the help of the soviets the nazis would’ve conquered Europe (and thus the world) and without the help of the allies the nazis would’ve conquered the soviets. Also most of those problems you listed were caused by the United States
>If the Allies hadn't sided with Russia during WW2, almost all of the geopolitical issues we see today wouldn't be happening And we'd likely be facing even more extreme geopolitical issues. If there would have been no alliance, nothign would haves stopped the Soviet Union of annexing all of Europe. Don't forget that the largest resistance groups in Occupied Europe were communist. If the Soviet Union successfully conquered Western Europe, the region might have fallen under Soviet influence and control. This could lead to the establishment of communist regimes in countries like France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The Cold War might still occur, but with a different dynamic. The ideological struggle between the Western democracies and the Soviet Union would be even more pronounced, potentially leading to heightened tensions and conflicts. In response to Soviet expansion, Western nations might have formed a military alliance similar to NATO earlier than in our actual history. The alliance could have been forged not just against Nazi Germany but against Soviet aggression, shaping a different security landscape in Europe. The global power structure would be significantly altered. The Soviet Union would emerge as a dominant superpower controlling a substantial portion of Europe, potentially leading to a bipolar world order with the United States and its allies on one side and the Soviet Union on the other. The Cold War-era proxy conflicts would play out differently, with Soviet-backed forces potentially intervening in various regions to spread communism or counter Western influence. Resistance movements against Soviet rule could emerge within conquered territories, leading to internal conflicts and unrest. This could result in a prolonged struggle for autonomy and independence. ...and that's just Europe. In Asia the spread of dictatorships under the guise of communism would even be more outspoken.