AHC:Prevent the cold war from starting
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The Americans and the Soviets have very different views on the world, distrusted each other and will do whatever they feel is necessary to avoid the other being in a position to dictate or threaten them. Outside ideology, the Cold War was the result of bad blood.
The West has its skeletons and it did some horrible, inexcusable things in the Cold War. However, I'll argue the instigator for the bad blood was the Soviet Union under Stalin. The Roosevelt idea for world order after the War was idealistic in a way that proved sadly incorrect: Europe and Asia would be free, the US and USSR would remain allies inasmuch as the US and UK, and the United Nations of WW2 that had beaten Germany would become an official organization and be the force that would secure world peace in a Pax Terra against the threat of any major threat ever rising up again.
Instead, the Soviets already had spies in the West. The Soviets after the War never freed Eastern Europe, and institutionalized their occupation with puppet states. And the Soviets tried to starve out West Berlin, which was a major watershed in realizing this was now a Cold War. The Soviets were preparing for the possibility of any future threat against them at the point of a bayonet and under a boot, and that fear was aimed at (not with) the West. And any criticism of the regime by other powers was met with further provocation while the Soviets saw what they could get away with, and gaslighting and whataboutism when the West called out those actions.
To prevent the Cold War, have Stalin not act as Stalin. The defining thing is trust and friendship. That was completely undone by the time you hit the 50s. The West, under the duress of the threat of the Axis, made the risk of trusting the Soviet Union as an ally. And there were still many who distrusted of the Russians, fearing they'd do exactly what they did. The Soviets would not risk trusting the West after the War.
The West has its skeletons and it did some horrible, inexcusable things in the Cold War. However, I'll argue the instigator for the bad blood was the Soviet Union under Stalin. The Roosevelt idea for world order after the War was idealistic in a way that proved sadly incorrect: Europe and Asia would be free, the US and USSR would remain allies inasmuch as the US and UK, and the United Nations of WW2 that had beaten Germany would become an official organization and be the force that would secure world peace in a Pax Terra against the threat of any major threat ever rising up again.
Instead, the Soviets already had spies in the West. The Soviets after the War never freed Eastern Europe, and institutionalized their occupation with puppet states. And the Soviets tried to starve out West Berlin, which was a major watershed in realizing this was now a Cold War. The Soviets were preparing for the possibility of any future threat against them at the point of a bayonet and under a boot, and that fear was aimed at (not with) the West. And any criticism of the regime by other powers was met with further provocation while the Soviets saw what they could get away with, and gaslighting and whataboutism when the West called out those actions.
To prevent the Cold War, have Stalin not act as Stalin. The defining thing is trust and friendship. That was completely undone by the time you hit the 50s. The West, under the duress of the threat of the Axis, made the risk of trusting the Soviet Union as an ally. And there were still many who distrusted of the Russians, fearing they'd do exactly what they did. The Soviets would not risk trusting the West after the War.
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Option 1:
Stalin decides that America is unwilling to use up its atomic stockpile in the defence of Western Europe. The Soviet Union takes advantage of the close timing of elections in Czechoslovakia, Italy, and France to declare that the diabolical Americans are manipulating the vote to prevent communist victories and Soviet troops must liberate Western Europe. No Cold War develops, because the world is now in the grips of the Hot War.
Option2:
Step One: Edward Benes refuses to accept the resignations of the non-communist ministers in the Czechoslovak government; the Communist Party effort to purge the police of non-communist elements is halted, but the Communist Party ministers are not punished for their effort. Stalin can see that the communist position in Czechoslovakia remains relatively secure, so the February Coup does not occur.
Step Two: The US congress continues to fight over the proposed Marshall Plan. It eventually passes, but with the Soviet threat somewhat less threatening, Marshall and Truman are forced to accept major cuts and the whole plan is smaller than either the initial proposals or OTL's Marshall Plan by a significant extent.
Step Three: European nations, especially Britain and France, are bitterly disappointed by America's stinginess, and retaliate by diplomatically protesting against the creation of a West German government. This doesn't prevent the functional creation of West Germany, but it both angers the Americans, thereby butterflying NATO as we know it. Meanwhile, the Europe-US split is obvious enough that Stalin is tempted to attempt to further the split diplomatically, and the Soviet Union begins increasing diplomatic efforts to appeal to Western European leaders.
Step Four: the Tito-Stalin split begins slightly earlier in the year (perhaps Tito feels Stalin is to collaborationist with the West?) and Stalin doesn't just privately denounce the Greek uprising by ELAS as overly confrontational with the West (as he reportedly did OTL, if you believe Yugoslav accounts[1]) but publicly calls for peace in Greece and the embrace of democratic means to end the conflict.
Step Five: Embracing his newfound role of peacemaker (so long as peace suits him) Stalin follows up by trying to halt Mao's advance at the Yangtze and encourage negotiations between Mao and Chiang. (As he reportedly tried to convince Mao to do privately OTL[2], but publicly). Whether this causes a serious enough split in the CCP to somehow get the KMT back in the game, or whether it only generates an extremely early Sino-Soviet split with Mao denouncing Stalin(!) a new player is added to the board and American fears about Communist dominance in Asia are suddenly vying with American hopes of encouraging an intra-communist civil war. (If you want to prevent the Cold War in the average American's mind establishing some kind of hybrid-coalition government in China would have huge effects, but its extremely implausible. An early Sino-Soviet split would have less impact on American political thought, but would still undermine a lot of the basis for rising tensions while also being somewhat more plausible.)
Step Six: Eduardo Chibas wins the Cuban election of 1948, begins an anticorruption drive, and gains support from the US State Department with promises of a better Cuba. He obviously can't solve all of Cuba's problems, but his efforts to clean up military corruption combined with the CIA warning Batista against a coup (since Chibas is popular in Washington) means that Cuba will never be quite destabilized enough for Castro's revolution to succeed.
There you go. Six major events which could have occurred in 1948 which collectively increase the belief in ordinary citizens of Western democracies that UN peacemaking can work (since Stalin seems to be supporting it) and that the American heartland is not at risk of communist subversion (since communist expansion will seem much more limited iTTL). The average Soviet citizen will still be told by their propaganda that they're besieged by Western imperialists, but a one-sided competition that forms only part of a multilateral competition should be quite different from our 'Cold War'. (Unless economics wins out, everyone ends up needing to decide whether they're going to suck up to the US or the Soviet Union anyway, and the fundamental Cold War lines just end up being drawn a few years later once the Soviet Union develops nukes. But I hope its at least plausible that something different- a four way atomic race with Western Europe and later China as distinct players- could happen.)
I should note that although the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States would look almost unrecognizable in this TL, and might well never get named the 'Cold War', there would certainly still be American efforts to diplomatically and economically isolate the Soviet Union, and Soviet efforts to spread communism abroad and maintain a repressive regime at home, not to mention espionage and military build-ups on both sides. The line between uneasy co-existence of two opposed ideologies and a Cold War is a blurry one, and this TL could tip over it at any moment (or even all the way to a hot war, if someone does something stupid at the wrong time); but at the very least tensions iTTL will tend to be quadrilateral (with the Soviet Union, the United States, Western Europe, and China all significant independent power blocs).
[1]Specifically Milovan Djilas' Conversations with Stalin. Note that Djilas is an unreliable source for OTL history given his Yugoslav bias, but even if Stalin OTL never believed this, he might find it convenient to embrace it in an ATL both as a diplomatic ploy and as a weapon aimed at making Tito appear a warmonger.
[2]Again, this is a highly disputed claim about Stalin OTL. However, he had at least been willing to back the KMT against Japan even when the CCP did not wish to be in a United Front, and his dislike of Mao as overly independent is somewhat more established.
Stalin decides that America is unwilling to use up its atomic stockpile in the defence of Western Europe. The Soviet Union takes advantage of the close timing of elections in Czechoslovakia, Italy, and France to declare that the diabolical Americans are manipulating the vote to prevent communist victories and Soviet troops must liberate Western Europe. No Cold War develops, because the world is now in the grips of the Hot War.
Option2:
Step One: Edward Benes refuses to accept the resignations of the non-communist ministers in the Czechoslovak government; the Communist Party effort to purge the police of non-communist elements is halted, but the Communist Party ministers are not punished for their effort. Stalin can see that the communist position in Czechoslovakia remains relatively secure, so the February Coup does not occur.
Step Two: The US congress continues to fight over the proposed Marshall Plan. It eventually passes, but with the Soviet threat somewhat less threatening, Marshall and Truman are forced to accept major cuts and the whole plan is smaller than either the initial proposals or OTL's Marshall Plan by a significant extent.
Step Three: European nations, especially Britain and France, are bitterly disappointed by America's stinginess, and retaliate by diplomatically protesting against the creation of a West German government. This doesn't prevent the functional creation of West Germany, but it both angers the Americans, thereby butterflying NATO as we know it. Meanwhile, the Europe-US split is obvious enough that Stalin is tempted to attempt to further the split diplomatically, and the Soviet Union begins increasing diplomatic efforts to appeal to Western European leaders.
Step Four: the Tito-Stalin split begins slightly earlier in the year (perhaps Tito feels Stalin is to collaborationist with the West?) and Stalin doesn't just privately denounce the Greek uprising by ELAS as overly confrontational with the West (as he reportedly did OTL, if you believe Yugoslav accounts[1]) but publicly calls for peace in Greece and the embrace of democratic means to end the conflict.
Step Five: Embracing his newfound role of peacemaker (so long as peace suits him) Stalin follows up by trying to halt Mao's advance at the Yangtze and encourage negotiations between Mao and Chiang. (As he reportedly tried to convince Mao to do privately OTL[2], but publicly). Whether this causes a serious enough split in the CCP to somehow get the KMT back in the game, or whether it only generates an extremely early Sino-Soviet split with Mao denouncing Stalin(!) a new player is added to the board and American fears about Communist dominance in Asia are suddenly vying with American hopes of encouraging an intra-communist civil war. (If you want to prevent the Cold War in the average American's mind establishing some kind of hybrid-coalition government in China would have huge effects, but its extremely implausible. An early Sino-Soviet split would have less impact on American political thought, but would still undermine a lot of the basis for rising tensions while also being somewhat more plausible.)
Step Six: Eduardo Chibas wins the Cuban election of 1948, begins an anticorruption drive, and gains support from the US State Department with promises of a better Cuba. He obviously can't solve all of Cuba's problems, but his efforts to clean up military corruption combined with the CIA warning Batista against a coup (since Chibas is popular in Washington) means that Cuba will never be quite destabilized enough for Castro's revolution to succeed.
There you go. Six major events which could have occurred in 1948 which collectively increase the belief in ordinary citizens of Western democracies that UN peacemaking can work (since Stalin seems to be supporting it) and that the American heartland is not at risk of communist subversion (since communist expansion will seem much more limited iTTL). The average Soviet citizen will still be told by their propaganda that they're besieged by Western imperialists, but a one-sided competition that forms only part of a multilateral competition should be quite different from our 'Cold War'. (Unless economics wins out, everyone ends up needing to decide whether they're going to suck up to the US or the Soviet Union anyway, and the fundamental Cold War lines just end up being drawn a few years later once the Soviet Union develops nukes. But I hope its at least plausible that something different- a four way atomic race with Western Europe and later China as distinct players- could happen.)
I should note that although the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States would look almost unrecognizable in this TL, and might well never get named the 'Cold War', there would certainly still be American efforts to diplomatically and economically isolate the Soviet Union, and Soviet efforts to spread communism abroad and maintain a repressive regime at home, not to mention espionage and military build-ups on both sides. The line between uneasy co-existence of two opposed ideologies and a Cold War is a blurry one, and this TL could tip over it at any moment (or even all the way to a hot war, if someone does something stupid at the wrong time); but at the very least tensions iTTL will tend to be quadrilateral (with the Soviet Union, the United States, Western Europe, and China all significant independent power blocs).
[1]Specifically Milovan Djilas' Conversations with Stalin. Note that Djilas is an unreliable source for OTL history given his Yugoslav bias, but even if Stalin OTL never believed this, he might find it convenient to embrace it in an ATL both as a diplomatic ploy and as a weapon aimed at making Tito appear a warmonger.
[2]Again, this is a highly disputed claim about Stalin OTL. However, he had at least been willing to back the KMT against Japan even when the CCP did not wish to be in a United Front, and his dislike of Mao as overly independent is somewhat more established.
The Soviet nomenklatura's fear of further war was real, in part due to the trauma of the last one. The Stalin clique had rational ways to explain this fear, and to rationalise it, and did so. This spread the fear of immanent imperialist war throughout the aligned parties, including in the Central European soon-to-be-fraternal States.
However, despite this fear of war, the French and Italian parties weren't given "go" orders. The Soviet Elite was horrendously cautious. Even the "intervention" to support true communists in Yugoslavia didn't go ahead—in part because the Korean party lied about its capacities, in part because the Southern organisers in the Korean party lied about their capacities.
So have the Korean comrades be more self-critical and you can get an invasion of Yugoslavia. I mean admittedly this will happen after Churchill engages in hysterics; but, I guess that means that I view the lock-in of the cold war being Korea, not the salami tactics.
yours,
Sam R.
I think this is the case of having to change the worldview of both the United States and the Soviet Union. Stalin was Stalin and thought war between the capitalists and the Soviet Union was inevitable. The United States, especially those in power, were fervently anti communist. They saw communism as a threat to Christianity and Americanism. Americanism could mean liberal democracy or/and the white dominated racial hierarchy. The United States was the last world power to recognize the Soviet Union and had purged its own left wing during the first red scare of 1917-1921
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I don't entirely agree. Neither the US nor the Soviet Union was as close to being attacked in their homeland as either believed, but both had goals extending internationally rather than solely domestically. The Czechoslovak coup, the Comintern, the Greek civil war- all of these were real 'threats' of one sort or another to the US and the international system it was trying to build. Just as US efforts to define the UN, shore up the KMT in China, diplomatically support Finland and set up a West German government were all real issues for the Soviet Union's attempts to control and define its borders. The Cold War was built off of real challenges- that's why it's so hard to butterfly.
was dissolved in 1943.
was not instigated by the USSR, it was caused by utter stupidity of the far-right Greek government imposed by the British in a non-democratic way.
When Truman formulated his doctrine, he stated that it was a response to the Soviet military threat to Turkey and Greece. In both cases this alleged threat was nonexistent.
The Comintern was indeed officially dissolved in 1943. Also, all of its functions continued to be carried out by the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, whose full title is a bit of a mouthful. That's not a dissolution in any meaningful sense, but if you insist on respecting the Soviet nomenclature I won't stop you.
I never stated that the Greek civil war was instigated by the Soviets- but it also wasn't caused by Greece's government. The decision to refuse lawful orders from the government of national unity they were officially a part of was made by ELAS. The decision to resume hostilities in 1946 after nearly a year of ceasefire was also ELAS'.
But the problem was that no one believed that the Soviet Union was NOT involved either. Similarly any trouble within the USSR's sphere of influence was blamed on "Western Imperialists aggression" even if it clearly wasn't. The leadership on both sides as well as the general situation would have to be very different at the end of WWII for the Cold War not to develop.
Randy
Years ago I had a question about Finlandization. The Soviets were effectively convinced by their treaty that Finland was a "safe" neighbor and they never intervened (militarily). I had wondered if this could happen anywhere else and this thread has reminded me of the Czechoslovak coalition government that preceded the coup, how might Stalin be persuaded to accept freeish governments where the Communists are mandatory coalition members?
Austria was basically the "Finland of the South", with it being neutral and strictly demilitarized under both sides' conditions.
Germany could also have been "Finlandized" if Stalin's plan for a neutral, demilitarized Germany was approved by all sides. Thing that for Konrad Adenauer was a hard "NO" but things could have happened in another way if another party was in power or just another Chancellor was on his place.
Yugoslavia was not Finlandized but still was not exactly a Soviet reliable ally, thing that was good enough for America and the rest of the West.
With Finland, Germany, Austria and Yugoslavia being neutral (or unaligned), you basically have a solid "Neutral Wall" that could have helped things a lot, or at least helped to avoid some of the "hot spots" that existed in this timeline.
Stalin dies in 1948. This is during a short period of time in between WW2 and the 50s where both Khrushchev and Zhukov had both temporarily fallen from grace and Malenkov had yet to firmly establish his grip of becoming Stalin's defacto successor.
This is Beria's best chance of taking power and holding onto it. Beria is also the one guy in the politburo willing to maintain detente with the Americans.
It would have to be late 1948, after the Leningrad affair.
This is Beria's best chance of taking power and holding onto it. Beria is also the one guy in the politburo willing to maintain detente with the Americans.
It would have to be late 1948, after the Leningrad affair.
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The problem with the Soviets is guessing at the Soviets when or even unsure if there are ulterior motives. It is something of a perversion of the Marxist-Leninist idea of looking at who stands to benefit, and the secret intents of hidden hands. It becomes a hall of mirrors.
Such is the case with German neutralization. Was Stalin really willing to neutralize Germany? Or was he looking to officially neutralize Germany but use subterfuge to influence and mold an officially neutral Germany. Or was the whole thing just a political stuffed animal: offering to neutralize Germany but knowing the West Germans would turn it down and the US and West would not support it, and then being able to call out the West as agitators and play the role of victim of Western persecution against world peace and the happiness of the Germans?
Was Beria really pro-Western, pro-reapprochment? Or was that just a game? And who was it a game against: the West, the Russian people, the Russian political powers, Eastern Europe, or multiple of them? Or was it a slander made against him?
The problem is one you still see: if it was a game, it was one to give enough meat to people arguing the Soviets were trying to make peace, were the victims of Western aggression, and that the US etc al were the true aggressors and the most guilty party. And once someone allows themselves to enter that idea, that can become a force of gravity that catches and pulls them deeper and deeper into Soviet apologia and the concepts that need to be held to support it.
Mind you, I'm not saying that about the idea or discussion that the West was flawed. But it is about the idea that both the West was flawed and the Soviets were only flawed insofar as pushed by the West or that there was no difference between West and East in conduct. It is a logic of whataboutism, original sin, gaslighting and excuses. It's not a rational camp that is looking only for the truth in its complexity above the back and forth. It may think it is doing that, but it is not. It's an us versus them conception that sees the world in terms of power structures and power moves and chooses a team.
Such is the case with German neutralization. Was Stalin really willing to neutralize Germany? Or was he looking to officially neutralize Germany but use subterfuge to influence and mold an officially neutral Germany. Or was the whole thing just a political stuffed animal: offering to neutralize Germany but knowing the West Germans would turn it down and the US and West would not support it, and then being able to call out the West as agitators and play the role of victim of Western persecution against world peace and the happiness of the Germans?
Was Beria really pro-Western, pro-reapprochment? Or was that just a game? And who was it a game against: the West, the Russian people, the Russian political powers, Eastern Europe, or multiple of them? Or was it a slander made against him?
The problem is one you still see: if it was a game, it was one to give enough meat to people arguing the Soviets were trying to make peace, were the victims of Western aggression, and that the US etc al were the true aggressors and the most guilty party. And once someone allows themselves to enter that idea, that can become a force of gravity that catches and pulls them deeper and deeper into Soviet apologia and the concepts that need to be held to support it.
Mind you, I'm not saying that about the idea or discussion that the West was flawed. But it is about the idea that both the West was flawed and the Soviets were only flawed insofar as pushed by the West or that there was no difference between West and East in conduct. It is a logic of whataboutism, original sin, gaslighting and excuses. It's not a rational camp that is looking only for the truth in its complexity above the back and forth. It may think it is doing that, but it is not. It's an us versus them conception that sees the world in terms of power structures and power moves and chooses a team.
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Have M4 Sherman tanks crashing into the Kremlin, guns blazing.
That’s the only way to avoid Cold War.
That’s the only way to avoid Cold War.
Pangur
Donor
A issues need to be looked at. Russia in its various in carnations had been invaded three times since 1914 twice by Germany and once by the UK and the US. They had grounds for fear. To deal with it have it made clear that the US military are not staying in Europe after the defeat of Germany. Stop interfering in European elections, if they want to vote for communists let them