Red Spies in the White House: An Alternate Cold War

[Imielin]

The question here is what if Stalin wants to maximice the damage to the US

Then discrediting White is good, as it gives power to the neoliberals (but in the 1950s, just like in TL that described Morgenthau's America), liberalizes the economy and returns the country to a cycle of crises that leads to the destabilization and social disturbances.

Or it gives power to the fascists, which renders parts of the Soviet propaganda accurate. And fascist government would spend several years fighting socially undesirable persons, like socialists and trade unionists.

 

[Glory2Cabinda]

The sheer amount of research and the stunning understanding of anti-Semitism is this chapter is truly outstanding. Ulysses this timeline is truly excellent keep it coming.

 

[Józef piłsudski]

I wonder if the world will experience this in the future?

 

[Fratsup]

I do have to wonder if the Soviets are going to over-expand? While they might be the undisputed power for a time, I cannot help but believe that they are going to try to spread communism and cause a major reaction to that, or make several of their allies/puppets leave them once ideological differences start to appear.

 

[Aluma]

I think the soviets will be fine
They may end up alienating the socialist western europe after a while but that wont be anywhere close to what the US will do when it turns far right which will only push them to Russia's arms and they have successfully secured their influence over Asia through China
For now they are not only the world's hyperpower but the sole nuclear nation who'll wield it's atomic monopoly like a hammer once they lose their grip over the United States

 

[ric350]

Well, at this point the inherent rot in the Soviet social/economic policies hasn’t begun to smell yet. But as is the case with gangrene, when you can smell it, it’s too late.

ric350

 

[Cudymcar]

Well, at this point the inherent rot in the Soviet social/economic policies hasn’t begun to smell yet. But as is the case with gangrene, when you can smell it, it’s too late.

There is no reason to assume the Soviet economy develops any way close to OTL. Before 1946, Stalin had grand plans of massive economic cooperation with US. And the Soviets apparently control IMF.

 

[22000 Kevin]

Well, at this point the inherent rot in the Soviet social/economic policies hasn’t begun to smell yet. But as is the case with gangrene, when you can smell it, it’s too late.

ric350

I don't believe that TTL Soviets will be cursed with the same determinism of OTL Soviet Union.

Recreating the conditions for the OTL rot of the social/economic policies that were made under the thaw of Khrushchev and stagnation of the Brezhnev regimes will be ridiculously hard and downright impossible with the butterflies we have currently flapping now.

We already went through a massive discussion on the likelihood of the Chernobyl Disaster somehow being able to happen again despite the butterflies so I don't believe we should revisit the topic of determinism again.

And the Soviets apparently control IMF.

Honestly it's impressive yet terrifying just how much the communist have infiltrated the Western world and even the UN is compromised thanks to the help of the american communist within the White Administration.

It's going to be honestly insane to see the irrational anti-communist government in the US tearing down and destroying everything they see as being "Communist" and "Jewish" during TTL's Red Scare...

Yeah that's going to be a massive oof to the post war economic recovery and will almost certainly set back Western globalisation as we know it for decades or even longer, I still expect global containerization to happen unless the guy who invented it and patented it get killed or goes out of business.

I do wonder if we will get an Eastern bloc version of globalisation since communism will be much more worldwide, I expect someone to at least come up with the idea of containerization and standardising the transport of goods between the Socialist states of the world.

 

[Fratsup]

So this is just a switch with the US as the USSR and the Soviets as the US?

 

[Mitridates the Great]

Furthermore, the Soviet Union can take advantage of all the time it will take for Americans to rebuild after the damage done by White and (especially) his fascist successors as part of their attempts to dismantle everything they see as "communist."

We would need to have GRRM do the writing to make that "and then everything started to go wrong for the Soviet Union and suddenly everyone in the Americas and Eurasia remembered that they loved the United States and started doing everything how much was in his power to piss off the Soviets and support the Americans..."

 

[Prince Daemon Targaryen]

So many have rallied behind White, so when the allegations end up being proven... so many will have their credibility destroyed and their legacies turned to ash.

Patton '48!

 

[Mitridates the Great]

So many have rallied behind White, so when the allegations end up being proven... so many will have their credibility destroyed and their legacies turned to ash.

Patton '48!

At least here it doesn't seem like it will happen like in FOM, where the fact that the United States had The Troubles on a continental scale ceased to be credible mainly because the Dixiecrats and racists seemed so concerned with keeping the United States as strong and intact as they were. were possible. Here I can see the pro-Whites getting so desperate that they decide they'd rather burn it all down and completely destroy the country than allow the anti-Whites to 100% implement their agenda...

 

[SandroPertini98]

I’m fully expecting John Bricker’s IOTL plan to unite GOP and Dixiecrat in a single ticket to succeed and Patton getting the White House with Hoover as AG. He is succeeded by McCarthy and, after the death of the latter, new President Clare Hoffman declares drinking water illegal due public water system being a communist plot to poison Americans, instead mandating compulsory “Freedom Cola” drinking to “support our brothers of the White Rule Government in Rhodesia”.

 

[Mynock]

I’m fully expecting John Bricker’s IOTL plan to unite GOP and Dixiecrat in a single ticket to succeed and Patton getting the White House with Hoover as AG.

I've never heard about that proposal, do you have any sources on it?

 

[Mitridates the Great]

I’m fully expecting John Bricker’s IOTL plan to unite GOP and Dixiecrat in a single ticket to succeed and Patton getting the White House with Hoover as AG. He is succeeded by McCarthy and, after the death of the latter, new President Clare Hoffman declares drinking water illegal due public water system being a communist plot to poison Americans, instead mandating compulsory “Freedom Cola” drinking to “support our brothers of the White Rule Government in Rhodesia”.

I'm assuming it's a reference to some particularly bad movie, but without context it sounds too crazy.

 

[SandroPertini98]

I've never heard about that proposal, do you have any sources on it?

(Circleville Herald, 12/2/1949)
Bricker proposed that in 1949 to form a sort of of “Southern Strategy” conservative coalition ante litteram.
Same idea was repeated a year later by RNC Chairman Guy Gabriel (Decatur Herald, 3/27/1950) and two years later by Senator Karl Mundt (Raleigh News & Observer, 5/24/1951).

I'm assuming it's a reference to some particularly bad movie, but without context it sounds too crazy.

Hoffman was a prominent supporter of the water fluoridation conspiracy theory, believing that communists were poisoning Americans by infecting water with flour and vaccines to weak them and expose them to Communism. Due the paranoid delirious that would follow the “Red Harry Plot”, it’s plausible Hoffman to take measures against public water systems to “protect Americans”. The rest is obvious sarcasm.

 

[boredviewer1234]

On the direction of the Soviet Union in the future I'm expecting both a mix ''conservative revolutionaries '' and ''radical conservatives'' to be a major cliques in the future as contradictory as those terms may seem for least a decade or two.

The communist party USSR thanks to it's origin see's itself as the underdog, isolated in a world hostile to it always facing crises, enemies internal and external, always fearing for their own safety looking to both satisfy their own public and ideological aims. Calling them a insurgent state is not the worst idea and continuing a lot of practices does make sense.

By that their is a Nazi insurgency in West starved Germany brewing, the USA's going to turn crazy soon, they are still dealing with cursed soldiers from Ukraine to the Baltics, got to ''pacify'' Iran and maybe Finland. A lot of work needs to be done and continuing to the vanguard is both ''needed'' but also popular given it's how they see themselves.

Radical conservatives on the other hands see the way the wind has blown, the USSR is now one of the greatest power in the world, when the USA goes crazy the largest economy still open for almost any nation. The next logical step is building on their economic, soft and hard power the foundations of world order that is good for the USSR, their allies and ideology. This is going to be hard but well worth it, plus we know the USA is never going accept but they are not alone in this idea, for both ideological and practical.

 

[Gar48]

Patton '48!

So I guess he is going to act like his OTL self, proudly screaming the Nazis did nothing wrong.

Also I hope Wallace will somehow survive this. Maybe as a dissident in exile?

 

[Mynock]

View attachment 815656
(Circleville Herald, 12/2/1949)
Bricker proposed that in 1949 to form a sort of of “Southern Strategy” conservative coalition ante litteram.
Same idea was repeated a year later by RNC Chairman Guy Gabriel (Decatur Herald, 3/27/1950) and two years later by Senator Karl Mundt (Raleigh News & Observer, 5/24/1951).
View attachment 815659

Wow, that's like a whole interesting TL all by itself.

 

[Rufus]

Once the truth comes out, the Democratic party will probably split. The Dixiecrats might join the GOP as others have suggested, while the rest might split into (anti-communist) liberals on one hand, and old school progressives/New Dealers on the other. The latter will probably be very marginalized, until they eventually become mostly irrelevant.

However, no matter how crazy things will get in the US, imo they will always remain far ahead of the USSR economically and technologically (unless there‘s all-out civil war or something, which is unlikely). America‘s advantages are simply too great to be nullified just because a kooky government is in charge. Abundant natural resources, a large (well educated) population, world class universities and research institutions, the most fertile soil in the world, a gigantic industrial base, its protected geographic location etc. None of these advantages are going to disappear anytime soon, while the USSR has just fought a war with catastrophic losses - both in human and economic terms - from which it will take decades to recover (and that‘s ignoring the fact that they simply have a far less efficient economic system). Even if they wanted to, the Soviets simply don’t have the economic strength to do stuff like the Marshal Plan for example. Only the US (who made up like 50% of the world economy immediately after the war) is capable of pulling something like that off.

No, the US will retain its advantages, and if they feel truly beleaguered by the Soviets and go full ‚crazy‘, they might even make use of those advantages to a much greater extent ITTL than they ever did during IOTL‘s Cold War. As much as the Soviets and their allies liked to use terms like ‚militarism‘ to describe their enemies, the US has never truly been militaristic at any point in it’s history; if it had been, the Cold War would‘ve probably ended a decade or two earlier.