Outline
Summary:
in 1799, Napoleon dies in battle against the Royal Navy when he is on his way back from the Nile. Sieyès is able to successfully conduct his coup d’état and establish the constitution he had in mind fully. The country is more amenable to moderating constitutional arrangements, and even externally, neighboring countries, especially Spain, are relieved to find in the Grand Elector’s figure a semblance of a King. Therefore, an uneasy peace developed between on one side France, the Batavian Republic, Spain, the Italian Republic, and the German Confederation, and on the other most other absolute monarchies. The United Kingdom, seeing the moderate republic, also relaxed its foreign policy, if only in Europe.
During the first decades of the 19th century the uneasy balance remained, with the occasional outbreak of limited, short wars. Nevertheless, the ideas of the Revolution and the Enlightenment, now shored up in a stable France, spread throughout Europe, enticing the bourgeoisie and popular urban classes. Two strands of constitutional philosophies develop: French thought, normally called Republicanism, with a political view of constitutive nations, and Germanic thought, normally called Nationalism, which had an ethnic view of nations. Many absolutist monarchies saw the inevitable rise of the Enlightenment’s principles and co-opted nationalism to secure their positions. For others it became the basis of revolutions and uprisings against regimes that came to be seen as foreign Prussia, Poland, and Denmark were examples of nationalist victories. The Spanish monarchy fell victim to republicanism after a civil war broke out in 1819 when Charles IV died. France too, saw periods of intense political upheaval towards the end of the 1830s, as the ideas of democracy and popular sovereignty progressed, which came to see Sieyès constitution as too far removed from a populace that was increasingly politicized.
By the 1850s most European countries had regimes adapted to the ideas of the Enlightenment and had adopted Constitutional Monarchies and Human Rights to some degree, and tensions in the continent stopped being ideological and went back to power politics, although an East-West divide between countries aligned with French interests and those aligned with Prussia’s remained, with the occasional outbreak of limited conflict. The UK meanwhile, was content on increasingly ignoring European international relations and focused their efforts more and more on their colonies.
In the context of popular demands and contestations, socialist ideas, those of radical equality and challenging private property, developed and started to gain traction among the population. Authors such as Proudhon, Marx, and Mills became established as the intellectual guides of popular movements, which insisted, and little by little obtained democratic concessions in France and elsewhere. Sieyès constitution was progressively amended to make it more democratic and to ensure true accountability to the population, and so to were those that had been inspired by it.
The second half of the century saw the parallel rise of worker’s movements and of national movements that advocated true nation-states. Italy unified in 1867, and Germany in 1872, after a brief conflict against resisting states (which were backed by France) – which was the last continental war until the Great War. Furthermore, the industrialization that had begun in the 1830s in the coal-rich regions of Europe spread enormously, and industries developed elsewhere, together with the spread of railways. Populations flocked to the cities and education was extended to more and more people. This increased the pressure by worker’s movements, and Unions became increasingly powerful. By the 1890s, most industrialized states had to recognize their legitimacy, although class warfare and union-busting remained poignant. Nonetheless, during the same period, worker’s movements started to gain more and more representation in parliaments, although they normally used it to contest and protest the bourgeoisie, which still dominated them most of the time. At the same time, the two parallel constitutional strands kept developing, and their rivalry was increasingly visible, especially in Germany since its unification. While it had started industrialization relatively late, Germany was rapidly rising to rival France and the United Kingdom as the first industrial power of Europe. By the turn of the century, tensions were developing in Austria-Hungary, which was in a period of constitutional uncertainty due to divided support for a Republican constitution or a national one. The first was backed by the German side of the Empire and the second by the Hungarian side, which saw a political conception of the nation as a way to deal with its ethnic diversity.
In 1911 the tensions between Hungary and Austria led to a full-blown civil war, which through alliances and interests quickly pulled in states from all corners of Europe, and the Ottoman Empire. Germany, Denmark, Poland, Austria, Bulgaria and Romania were all on what has come to be called the National Axis, while the Republican Alliance was formed by the Netherlands, France, Italy, Hungary, Spain and the UK, supported by the Ottomans. Russia remained largely in the sidelines of the war. Germany, which had been preparing for such a war for some time, and which had established an enormous military apparatus, defeated the Republicans in 1916 (taking the Rhineland from France, among other concessions, especially colonial).
The defeat had tremendous political consequences in the defeated countries, most of them undergoing periods of violent social unrest, which ultimately lead to the passing of renewed constitutions which were more favorable to workers (now called the plebeian-democratic constitutions). Workers movements were mostly successful, with alliances of communists and social republicans, and social libertarians. This was especially so in France, Spain and Italy, which joined by the same republican traditions of the 19th century formalized their alignment in the Barcelona Pact of 1927. For the first time, this established transnational political, economic and defensive institutions between the three countries. While Germany saw this as a threat, it was dealing with its own internal social struggles due to a skyrocketing economy which was having embracing dealing with a new European and colonial paradigm, but that was also seeing deepening inequality between owners and workers.
The London Market Crash of 1925 caused deep recessions in many countries. It deepened the economic reforms started by the Barcelona Pact, which adopted some measures economic planning. By contrast, liberal market economies saw deep economic strife for a good part of the following decade, with millions of unemployed people. The political consequences were great, as socialist and workers movements, inspired by the actions of the Barcelona Pact gained traction amongst the unemployed, through repression and propaganda by the ruling classes. Small owners and industrialists, and elites reacted to this contestation of the system and increasingly supported fascists movements. The first to win power was the Austrian National Action Party in 1926, which gained power after a march on Vienna. It adopted productivism combined with a reinforced nationalist discourse, blaming foreign influences for the social movements which threatened social order. By 1929 a similar movement arose in Germany, where the discourse was combined with racism and virulent antisemitism (a great number of leaders in France were of Jewish ascendance). These nationalist movements combined 19th century ideas of an ethnic nation with socialist references (the German party called itself the National Socialist Party), racism, and the promise to maintain order and property secure from the “claws of the communists”. Most economic efforts of these nationalist parties focused on deepening military industry and related capabilities.
In the United Kingdom, the loss of the war was less damaging than for the continental countries, as it was able to negotiate a separate agreement with Germany which established a shipbuilding limitation and permission for German ships to access the ports of Gibraltar and Malta, as well as some limited concessions, such as the establishment of the Suez Canal as an International Zone or Legation Cities in the Chinese coast. The UK was deeply affected by the London Market Crash, but the major parties were able to maintain control over British politics after a Liberals and Labor coalition adopted limited intervention measures in the economy. Nonetheless, the political environment was tense during the period, and there were occasional outbreaks of political violence.
In the meantime, Russia had been going through an extremely tumultuous period. Even though it had not been involved in the Great War, and its industry had benefitted from supplying the landlocked Germans, its focus on exports of goods and manufactures had inflationary effects on its own economy (like otl Spain during the First World War). Furthermore, the benefits that Russian capitalists obtained during the period were mostly spent on leisure, not seeing the need to invest them into the economy. The end of the war and the rise of social movements in Western Europe meant the end of foreign investment, which slowed the economic growth it had seen since the beginning of the 20th century. This economic conundrum led to the rise of a strong popular opposition to the tsarist regime, which was seen as terribly outdated. This opposition was extremely radical and prepared to commit to violence, as it lacked both the political experiences of 19th century Europe and a strong middle class with liberal or moderately conservative beliefs. By 1919 Russian society was polarized between the popular classes, committed to communism and an extremely reactionary upper class, which wanted to maintain the tsarist regime. Events eventually devolved into a Revolution in October of 1919. Led by Lenin and Trotsky, the communists won control of the whole of Russia by 1925, convincing the peasants to join them. Once the Russian Civil War finished, the Communist Party of Russia established itself as the ruling organization of the country, and devoid of the political mobilization and conscience that the West enjoyed, progressively devolved into an authoritarian regime. The consolidation of a communist regime to the east of Germany also heightened the German middle class’s fear and stoked the fires of the National Socialist Party.
By 1932-33 it was clear that Europe was bound to fall into its destructive vices once again, rearmament programs picked up speed across the continent, and there were several diplomatic crises that showed that war was just around the corner. In the Netherlands, since the Great War under the influence of the German Empire, elections were scheduled in 1936. There was strong support for socialist and syndicalist parties that had ties with the Barcelona Pact, and the political environment was permeated with the suspicion that the German Empire would intervene militarily if the socialist bloc won the elections and chose to align itself with the Pact. Covertly, large amounts of weapons were smuggled into the country and given to Dutch syndicates, in preparation for unrest. When the elections came and a socialist victory was declared, Dutch nationalists, with the aid of factions of the military, took up arms. This was met by syndical militias defending the election’s results. The German army quickly moved in and, after a few days of fighting, the Netherlands was occupied. The Germans further blamed the Pact, saying that their actions were an act of aggression, and attacked the north of France.
The war lasts until 1944 and causes huge destruction. It started with the Barcelona Pact suffering defeats in France, but the entry of the USSR into the fray, and Anglo-American support (including South America), especially overseas and industrially, the Pact persevered and the Central, fascist powers were defeated.
The experience of the war was traumatic for the whole world, and it involved people from all continents. Genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and massacres were committed, especially by the German Army and the NSP’s armed organs. Its conclusion made clear that measures had to be taken to avoid such a disaster ever happening again, although the winners did not share perspectives on social arrangements and institutions. The half-decade that followed (until 1950) was a period of détente and, for the first time, of institutionalized global cooperation. The World Forum was created as an institution to settle disputes, protect, and foster Human Rights, and organize international aid. In Europe, the founding nations of the Barcelona Pact created the Federation of European Republics, which also included Portugal, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, as an institution to overcome armed conflict in Europe, fostering the retrenchment of nationalism through a shared European political project, which rapidly took the shape of a federal state. A Concert of Europe was also signed between the Federation and the USSR, ensuring a common security vision for the continent. Finally, the Federation also reestablished the Barcelona Pact as an international alliance dealing with a range of issues, which included Argentina, Uruguay, Algeria, India after its independence among others. Mexico was informally aligned to it, but feared US hostility if it expressed it overtly.
Europe was profoundly reorganized in the aftermath of the war, following the conclusion of secret talks held in Lisbon and Odessa in the last months of the conflict. France recovered its lands in the western bank of the Rhine; the western part of Germany was occupied by the troops of the Pact (and the Federation once it was created), the same was done with Austria; Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Bulgaria remained under Soviet influence and so too did the eastern part of Germany, now called Brandenburg. The US stationed troops in Greece and Turkey in the Mediterranean, and in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in the North, where there also were British troops and bases. Diplomatic agreements to limit the number of troops near borders were also signed and, until 1951 there weren’t any tensions between the three main blocs.
By the 1950s fear of communism had taken hold of the United States and the United Kingdom, partly because of the result of the discovery of spy networks in the US. This, and disagreements about other global issues (Iran and arrangements in the Middle East) brought about a buildup of Anglo-American troops in Europe. This is considered to be the beginning of the Cold War. Talks between the Federation of European Republics and the USSR failed due to the European’s mistrust of the authoritarian Soviets, who thought that they were being used by the Americans (Europe had accepted some loans for reconstruction, and they had given the US some diplomatic support). The FER then decided to declare armed neutrality. In 1959 Western Germany ceased to be administered centrally from the FER and became a constituent state, this happened in the context of a widening rift between the FER and the USSR.
The 1960s were a time of decolonization, which brought about great tensions in the world, as social-republicanism (the term describing the ideology predominant in the FER), communism, and capitalism. The FER was able to secure friendly regimes in Algeria, liberated from French reactionaries during the war, Libya, Somalia, and Djibouti, as well as states in Western Africa that had been colonized by European states before the Great War. In Asia and the southern half of Africa, where their influence was more limited, the contentions were, with some exceptions, between soviet-sponsored communism and American-backed capitalism. Furthermore, attitudes in South America also began to change, being generally more favorable to the FER’s model of government and economy, to the chagrin of the US.
In Europe a very tense calm developed, especially since the development of nuclear weapons by all the powers of the continent. Nonetheless, investment in conventional forces remained high throughout the Cold War. An initial détente between the three blocs finished with the US-UK reaction to the apparition of communist and social-republican movements in their political and academic establishments. In addition to bolstering their military commitments in Europe and in the decolonizing world, they established the Western Security Treaty, including the US, the UK and its main settler colonies, and Scandinavia except for Finland. This had the effect of antagonizing the FER, which recognized the end of friendly relations amongst the former coalition.
During the Cold War there were alternating periods of escalation and détente, always with the backdrop of a massive war and mutually assured destruction. During the 1960s and to the end of the 70s, there were several proxy conflicts, mostly between the soviets and the Americans, although some involved, directly or indirectly, the FER too. Nevertheless, overall, fewer material resources were devoted to armaments and to the prospect of war, compared to OTL. Therefore, all involved actors were able to adapt and overcome economic crises during the second half of the Cold War with fewer effects and economic reforms, with differing degrees of success. The FER, which had embraced comprehensive decentralized economic planning at its inception adopted some market mechanisms (albeit much more regulated than in the West). In the UK, there were periods of Labor government which embraced nationalization, together with warmer relations with the FER, but in the 1990s the paradigm was abandoned with the rise of neoliberalism in the anglosphere and the abandonment of the state as the provider of services to the population. This change also produced pressure on the FER’s economy, which had to adapt to increasingly competitive global trade, to the chagrin of many. Nonetheless, the country that entered its deepest crisis was the USSR, especially in the early 2000s. The cybernetic planning system that it had adopted in the 1970s proved increasingly inadequate in dealing with the complexities of an economy. It started to rely on the FER for economic aid, which provided it to maintain socialist, of one kind or another, dominance in the European continent.
The present situation is one of oncoming change. Opposition to one-party states is rising in Eastern Europe, where the relative political and economic success of the FER cannot be effectively denied by propaganda any longer. Even liberal movements start to gain traction in these countries. The CPSU finds itself divided into different factions, those that are for liberalization and adopting the FER’s model, while others see hope in Chinese Communism.
in 1799, Napoleon dies in battle against the Royal Navy when he is on his way back from the Nile. Sieyès is able to successfully conduct his coup d’état and establish the constitution he had in mind fully. The country is more amenable to moderating constitutional arrangements, and even externally, neighboring countries, especially Spain, are relieved to find in the Grand Elector’s figure a semblance of a King. Therefore, an uneasy peace developed between on one side France, the Batavian Republic, Spain, the Italian Republic, and the German Confederation, and on the other most other absolute monarchies. The United Kingdom, seeing the moderate republic, also relaxed its foreign policy, if only in Europe.
During the first decades of the 19th century the uneasy balance remained, with the occasional outbreak of limited, short wars. Nevertheless, the ideas of the Revolution and the Enlightenment, now shored up in a stable France, spread throughout Europe, enticing the bourgeoisie and popular urban classes. Two strands of constitutional philosophies develop: French thought, normally called Republicanism, with a political view of constitutive nations, and Germanic thought, normally called Nationalism, which had an ethnic view of nations. Many absolutist monarchies saw the inevitable rise of the Enlightenment’s principles and co-opted nationalism to secure their positions. For others it became the basis of revolutions and uprisings against regimes that came to be seen as foreign Prussia, Poland, and Denmark were examples of nationalist victories. The Spanish monarchy fell victim to republicanism after a civil war broke out in 1819 when Charles IV died. France too, saw periods of intense political upheaval towards the end of the 1830s, as the ideas of democracy and popular sovereignty progressed, which came to see Sieyès constitution as too far removed from a populace that was increasingly politicized.
By the 1850s most European countries had regimes adapted to the ideas of the Enlightenment and had adopted Constitutional Monarchies and Human Rights to some degree, and tensions in the continent stopped being ideological and went back to power politics, although an East-West divide between countries aligned with French interests and those aligned with Prussia’s remained, with the occasional outbreak of limited conflict. The UK meanwhile, was content on increasingly ignoring European international relations and focused their efforts more and more on their colonies.
In the context of popular demands and contestations, socialist ideas, those of radical equality and challenging private property, developed and started to gain traction among the population. Authors such as Proudhon, Marx, and Mills became established as the intellectual guides of popular movements, which insisted, and little by little obtained democratic concessions in France and elsewhere. Sieyès constitution was progressively amended to make it more democratic and to ensure true accountability to the population, and so to were those that had been inspired by it.
The second half of the century saw the parallel rise of worker’s movements and of national movements that advocated true nation-states. Italy unified in 1867, and Germany in 1872, after a brief conflict against resisting states (which were backed by France) – which was the last continental war until the Great War. Furthermore, the industrialization that had begun in the 1830s in the coal-rich regions of Europe spread enormously, and industries developed elsewhere, together with the spread of railways. Populations flocked to the cities and education was extended to more and more people. This increased the pressure by worker’s movements, and Unions became increasingly powerful. By the 1890s, most industrialized states had to recognize their legitimacy, although class warfare and union-busting remained poignant. Nonetheless, during the same period, worker’s movements started to gain more and more representation in parliaments, although they normally used it to contest and protest the bourgeoisie, which still dominated them most of the time. At the same time, the two parallel constitutional strands kept developing, and their rivalry was increasingly visible, especially in Germany since its unification. While it had started industrialization relatively late, Germany was rapidly rising to rival France and the United Kingdom as the first industrial power of Europe. By the turn of the century, tensions were developing in Austria-Hungary, which was in a period of constitutional uncertainty due to divided support for a Republican constitution or a national one. The first was backed by the German side of the Empire and the second by the Hungarian side, which saw a political conception of the nation as a way to deal with its ethnic diversity.
In 1911 the tensions between Hungary and Austria led to a full-blown civil war, which through alliances and interests quickly pulled in states from all corners of Europe, and the Ottoman Empire. Germany, Denmark, Poland, Austria, Bulgaria and Romania were all on what has come to be called the National Axis, while the Republican Alliance was formed by the Netherlands, France, Italy, Hungary, Spain and the UK, supported by the Ottomans. Russia remained largely in the sidelines of the war. Germany, which had been preparing for such a war for some time, and which had established an enormous military apparatus, defeated the Republicans in 1916 (taking the Rhineland from France, among other concessions, especially colonial).
The defeat had tremendous political consequences in the defeated countries, most of them undergoing periods of violent social unrest, which ultimately lead to the passing of renewed constitutions which were more favorable to workers (now called the plebeian-democratic constitutions). Workers movements were mostly successful, with alliances of communists and social republicans, and social libertarians. This was especially so in France, Spain and Italy, which joined by the same republican traditions of the 19th century formalized their alignment in the Barcelona Pact of 1927. For the first time, this established transnational political, economic and defensive institutions between the three countries. While Germany saw this as a threat, it was dealing with its own internal social struggles due to a skyrocketing economy which was having embracing dealing with a new European and colonial paradigm, but that was also seeing deepening inequality between owners and workers.
The London Market Crash of 1925 caused deep recessions in many countries. It deepened the economic reforms started by the Barcelona Pact, which adopted some measures economic planning. By contrast, liberal market economies saw deep economic strife for a good part of the following decade, with millions of unemployed people. The political consequences were great, as socialist and workers movements, inspired by the actions of the Barcelona Pact gained traction amongst the unemployed, through repression and propaganda by the ruling classes. Small owners and industrialists, and elites reacted to this contestation of the system and increasingly supported fascists movements. The first to win power was the Austrian National Action Party in 1926, which gained power after a march on Vienna. It adopted productivism combined with a reinforced nationalist discourse, blaming foreign influences for the social movements which threatened social order. By 1929 a similar movement arose in Germany, where the discourse was combined with racism and virulent antisemitism (a great number of leaders in France were of Jewish ascendance). These nationalist movements combined 19th century ideas of an ethnic nation with socialist references (the German party called itself the National Socialist Party), racism, and the promise to maintain order and property secure from the “claws of the communists”. Most economic efforts of these nationalist parties focused on deepening military industry and related capabilities.
In the United Kingdom, the loss of the war was less damaging than for the continental countries, as it was able to negotiate a separate agreement with Germany which established a shipbuilding limitation and permission for German ships to access the ports of Gibraltar and Malta, as well as some limited concessions, such as the establishment of the Suez Canal as an International Zone or Legation Cities in the Chinese coast. The UK was deeply affected by the London Market Crash, but the major parties were able to maintain control over British politics after a Liberals and Labor coalition adopted limited intervention measures in the economy. Nonetheless, the political environment was tense during the period, and there were occasional outbreaks of political violence.
In the meantime, Russia had been going through an extremely tumultuous period. Even though it had not been involved in the Great War, and its industry had benefitted from supplying the landlocked Germans, its focus on exports of goods and manufactures had inflationary effects on its own economy (like otl Spain during the First World War). Furthermore, the benefits that Russian capitalists obtained during the period were mostly spent on leisure, not seeing the need to invest them into the economy. The end of the war and the rise of social movements in Western Europe meant the end of foreign investment, which slowed the economic growth it had seen since the beginning of the 20th century. This economic conundrum led to the rise of a strong popular opposition to the tsarist regime, which was seen as terribly outdated. This opposition was extremely radical and prepared to commit to violence, as it lacked both the political experiences of 19th century Europe and a strong middle class with liberal or moderately conservative beliefs. By 1919 Russian society was polarized between the popular classes, committed to communism and an extremely reactionary upper class, which wanted to maintain the tsarist regime. Events eventually devolved into a Revolution in October of 1919. Led by Lenin and Trotsky, the communists won control of the whole of Russia by 1925, convincing the peasants to join them. Once the Russian Civil War finished, the Communist Party of Russia established itself as the ruling organization of the country, and devoid of the political mobilization and conscience that the West enjoyed, progressively devolved into an authoritarian regime. The consolidation of a communist regime to the east of Germany also heightened the German middle class’s fear and stoked the fires of the National Socialist Party.
By 1932-33 it was clear that Europe was bound to fall into its destructive vices once again, rearmament programs picked up speed across the continent, and there were several diplomatic crises that showed that war was just around the corner. In the Netherlands, since the Great War under the influence of the German Empire, elections were scheduled in 1936. There was strong support for socialist and syndicalist parties that had ties with the Barcelona Pact, and the political environment was permeated with the suspicion that the German Empire would intervene militarily if the socialist bloc won the elections and chose to align itself with the Pact. Covertly, large amounts of weapons were smuggled into the country and given to Dutch syndicates, in preparation for unrest. When the elections came and a socialist victory was declared, Dutch nationalists, with the aid of factions of the military, took up arms. This was met by syndical militias defending the election’s results. The German army quickly moved in and, after a few days of fighting, the Netherlands was occupied. The Germans further blamed the Pact, saying that their actions were an act of aggression, and attacked the north of France.
The war lasts until 1944 and causes huge destruction. It started with the Barcelona Pact suffering defeats in France, but the entry of the USSR into the fray, and Anglo-American support (including South America), especially overseas and industrially, the Pact persevered and the Central, fascist powers were defeated.
The experience of the war was traumatic for the whole world, and it involved people from all continents. Genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and massacres were committed, especially by the German Army and the NSP’s armed organs. Its conclusion made clear that measures had to be taken to avoid such a disaster ever happening again, although the winners did not share perspectives on social arrangements and institutions. The half-decade that followed (until 1950) was a period of détente and, for the first time, of institutionalized global cooperation. The World Forum was created as an institution to settle disputes, protect, and foster Human Rights, and organize international aid. In Europe, the founding nations of the Barcelona Pact created the Federation of European Republics, which also included Portugal, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, as an institution to overcome armed conflict in Europe, fostering the retrenchment of nationalism through a shared European political project, which rapidly took the shape of a federal state. A Concert of Europe was also signed between the Federation and the USSR, ensuring a common security vision for the continent. Finally, the Federation also reestablished the Barcelona Pact as an international alliance dealing with a range of issues, which included Argentina, Uruguay, Algeria, India after its independence among others. Mexico was informally aligned to it, but feared US hostility if it expressed it overtly.
Europe was profoundly reorganized in the aftermath of the war, following the conclusion of secret talks held in Lisbon and Odessa in the last months of the conflict. France recovered its lands in the western bank of the Rhine; the western part of Germany was occupied by the troops of the Pact (and the Federation once it was created), the same was done with Austria; Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Bulgaria remained under Soviet influence and so too did the eastern part of Germany, now called Brandenburg. The US stationed troops in Greece and Turkey in the Mediterranean, and in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in the North, where there also were British troops and bases. Diplomatic agreements to limit the number of troops near borders were also signed and, until 1951 there weren’t any tensions between the three main blocs.
By the 1950s fear of communism had taken hold of the United States and the United Kingdom, partly because of the result of the discovery of spy networks in the US. This, and disagreements about other global issues (Iran and arrangements in the Middle East) brought about a buildup of Anglo-American troops in Europe. This is considered to be the beginning of the Cold War. Talks between the Federation of European Republics and the USSR failed due to the European’s mistrust of the authoritarian Soviets, who thought that they were being used by the Americans (Europe had accepted some loans for reconstruction, and they had given the US some diplomatic support). The FER then decided to declare armed neutrality. In 1959 Western Germany ceased to be administered centrally from the FER and became a constituent state, this happened in the context of a widening rift between the FER and the USSR.
The 1960s were a time of decolonization, which brought about great tensions in the world, as social-republicanism (the term describing the ideology predominant in the FER), communism, and capitalism. The FER was able to secure friendly regimes in Algeria, liberated from French reactionaries during the war, Libya, Somalia, and Djibouti, as well as states in Western Africa that had been colonized by European states before the Great War. In Asia and the southern half of Africa, where their influence was more limited, the contentions were, with some exceptions, between soviet-sponsored communism and American-backed capitalism. Furthermore, attitudes in South America also began to change, being generally more favorable to the FER’s model of government and economy, to the chagrin of the US.
In Europe a very tense calm developed, especially since the development of nuclear weapons by all the powers of the continent. Nonetheless, investment in conventional forces remained high throughout the Cold War. An initial détente between the three blocs finished with the US-UK reaction to the apparition of communist and social-republican movements in their political and academic establishments. In addition to bolstering their military commitments in Europe and in the decolonizing world, they established the Western Security Treaty, including the US, the UK and its main settler colonies, and Scandinavia except for Finland. This had the effect of antagonizing the FER, which recognized the end of friendly relations amongst the former coalition.
During the Cold War there were alternating periods of escalation and détente, always with the backdrop of a massive war and mutually assured destruction. During the 1960s and to the end of the 70s, there were several proxy conflicts, mostly between the soviets and the Americans, although some involved, directly or indirectly, the FER too. Nevertheless, overall, fewer material resources were devoted to armaments and to the prospect of war, compared to OTL. Therefore, all involved actors were able to adapt and overcome economic crises during the second half of the Cold War with fewer effects and economic reforms, with differing degrees of success. The FER, which had embraced comprehensive decentralized economic planning at its inception adopted some market mechanisms (albeit much more regulated than in the West). In the UK, there were periods of Labor government which embraced nationalization, together with warmer relations with the FER, but in the 1990s the paradigm was abandoned with the rise of neoliberalism in the anglosphere and the abandonment of the state as the provider of services to the population. This change also produced pressure on the FER’s economy, which had to adapt to increasingly competitive global trade, to the chagrin of many. Nonetheless, the country that entered its deepest crisis was the USSR, especially in the early 2000s. The cybernetic planning system that it had adopted in the 1970s proved increasingly inadequate in dealing with the complexities of an economy. It started to rely on the FER for economic aid, which provided it to maintain socialist, of one kind or another, dominance in the European continent.
The present situation is one of oncoming change. Opposition to one-party states is rising in Eastern Europe, where the relative political and economic success of the FER cannot be effectively denied by propaganda any longer. Even liberal movements start to gain traction in these countries. The CPSU finds itself divided into different factions, those that are for liberalization and adopting the FER’s model, while others see hope in Chinese Communism.