Bit of a lighter video from the last one. Vote on the next video here: discord.com/invite/XB7MWEemeW Support the channel here: www.patreon.com/WhatWhyHow
@@wrestlinginfodude2644The US collapses to many states and then tries to conquer them (NC and TX which second is probably a direct reference to Ukraine).
@@wojtasz3920the southern states being separated in the video is for the post Soviet aesthetic since in actuality those states would just unite to form another confederation
Ok I really like the scenario BUT I personally think Italy would have been split more evenly north and south since the red army would have a hard time trudging down the entire peninsula. Even in our timeline the British and Americans took up to Naples so the British might be able to take something similar or smaller in size. But I don’t think all of Italy will stretch communist.
Enjoyable video, you clearly realize a comprehensive alt-hist would be near-impossible so instead limit this to mirroring the cold war in reverse. The video works better that way.
Mirror alternate histories are lazy as fuck, and misrespresent the actual political context of the countries involved. If you wanna do this scenario, even having it end in the Balkanization of the United States, do it right.
whether it's an axis victory in ww2 or russian victory in the cold war, getting rid of fdr is the time traveler's #1 recommended way of making america worse.
PRESIDENTS IN THIS TIMELINE: 32: Al Smith/Democrat (1933-1941) 33: Robert A. Taft/Republican (1941-1945/49) 34: Unknown/Republican, presumably (1945/49-1953) 35: Hubert Humphrey/Democrat (1953-1957) 36: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr./Republican (1957-1961/killed) 37: Richard Nixon/Republican (1961-1980/died) 38: Spiro Agnew/Republican (1980-1982/resigned) 39: George H. W. Bush/Republican (1982-1985) 40: Jesse Jackson/Democrat (1985-1988/resigned) 41: Ted Kennedy/Democrat (1988-c. 1991) PREMIERS OF THE AMERICAN UNION 1: Ted Kennedy/Institutional Progressive (c. 1991-2000) 2: David Patraeus/Institutional Progressive (2000-Incumbent) All this out of the way, this is a pretty damn good video. Good job.
Alternate history lovers when. Hitler wins ww2 : omg yes! Slay queen! When america trips over a rock: WHAT??? That would never happen even in alternate history REEEEEE!!
I don't think Khrushchev would have implemented any profit-oriented reforms in this timeline, especially if the USSR was in a more dominant economic position and had currency hegemony they would really have no reason to. Khrushchev also wanted to lead by example of planned economy so, I don't see any reason for that
I doubt the Soviets would annex the Iranian northwestern provinces here, without the US and with Britain in a much weaker position there's really not much in the way of them staging a Socialist uprising in Iran and taking over the entire country as a puppet state, the socialist Tudeh party was actually were popular in Iran of 1940s until the Soviets destroyed them by trying to separate Azerbaijan in the 1946 crisis and the Tudeh who were unable to openly criticize the USSR lost a lot of support.
I knew right off the bat that this alternate timeline would have it own equivalent of the Russian invasion of Ukraine though I didn't know it would be in Texas of all places. Also if Texas is America's Ukraine doesn't that mean Texas in this World has it's equivalent own Chernobyl Disaster and S.T.A.L.K.E.R games.
The Fallout in this world is developed in the USSR meaning that these ATL Fallout Games take place in Retro Universe like OTL Fallout but with 50s Soviet Nostalgia instead of 50s American Culture and take note in this world Gopnik and the iconic Cheeky Breeky probably does not exist as we know it in this timeline, still contained to prison culture. As implied in my previous comment that Texas probably has it's own S.T.A.L.K.E.R games meaning that it's Cowboys and probably "Yeehaw Partner!" and the music of this Culture is obviously Country Music. Though knowing Texas' history with Mexico, These games made in the Timeline's Texas would have Loner Stalkers and some Bandits and Order members from Mexico (I don't which American Nation would Belarus) amongst they're ranks. Though also I would pretty cool to see Cowboys with Revolvers and M16s vs Mutants, plus I would love to see ATL Ssethtzeentach's review and what Texas jokes he makes.@@horatiuscocles8052
I mean tbh the scenario isn’t all that bad but I do think you need to go into more detail especially on why the transition to a centrally planned economic system caused economic collapse within the us and it’s successor states. Like was it something similar to peristorika for instance where the shock of suddenly transforming the American economy from a free market one to a planned economy caused chaos and shortages due to the shock of suddenly transitioning away from a well established economic systems and having to established the needed bureaucracy to support a centrally planned system? In all honesty I think the senario is not bad but I do think you need to go into more detail on several things in all honesty.
Here's an alternate history I wanna see around this time; what if the Cold War didn't happen? By that I mean, what if the US and the Soviet Union's rivalry was more friendly, akin to the US's current rivalry with China
What happend to the UK in this timeline? I know you mention the london pact, but I wonder how they are in europe with Americas collapse, is the UK like this timelines version of north korea?
Very good video, a suggestion for next time though can you give more representation to other alt-left ideologies like anarchists, trad-marxists(or really any flavor of non leninist communists), syndicalists etc? Would love to see how that adds to the chaos
I have a video suggestion what if the PRC collapsed in the 90s like the soviet union while the soviet union remained and china reformed into a federation while also propping up various client states like what russia as done in our timeline South ossetia abkhazia and transnistria.
i find the idea of a POD during the Great Depression pretty clever, but I don't get why you don't change anything in the USSR to prevent the Germans from pushing this far. The Soviets would clearly have had a bigger advantage if they didn't suffer as much from the war.
Double points of diversion are frowned upon in alternative histories but the USSR doing better in WW2 would have been a key thing to make this timeline much more likely
@@wildviperI feel a Trotskyist USSR would be more competent during ww2, even though Trotsky was authoritarian and had similar principles to Stalin (I’m not one of those cringey trotskyists), Trotsky would be more competent and less paranoid, and would help prepare the USSR for the upcoming war.
Damn this is a really well thought and planned video man. Kudos 🙌 I do have some questions tho, why's this video so America centric man. Ik we are all like 'oh Americas the reason the USSR collapsed', but that's not entirely true. The soviets were already suffering economic depression, were in the middle of an active war, had several independence activitists, its European allies crumbling and plain right opposition to the gov't. I think u could have included a lot more of what the soviets could have done. Yk like not starving and killng its population and implementing reforms under better leaders etc. I think u could have started back in the russian civil war and have the Soviets do a lot better and defeat the polish and the baltics, tone down on war communism, prevent schisms within the party and maybe make Stalin's rise to power a bit smoother. So that he won't be as paranoid and purge half the country and military. I think then he could have prevented famines and industrialise the union a lot quicker and effectively. While I do think ur idea of America not participating in the war entirely is interesting. America was crucial in supplying the soviets with essential war materials, in ur scenario the war lasts a longer and the soviets lose a lot more as well including Moscow and Leningrad meaning it would take a lot longer to rebuild and it would also mean that Germany would just starve. This would just result in less compliance with the soviets, well we all know what happens when a country goes against the soviets for stealing all its food and resources*cough* hungary * cough* 1956. So i was saying we could have the soviets do a lot better in the war because of 1) effective industrialisation 2) capable military commanders *RIP* Tukhachevsky and 3) american help. We could have the soviets stall the German advance a lot sooner, maybe not even letting them capture crimea or getting close to the Caucasus. We could then have the Soviets launch a counteroffensive sooner maybe in early 42? D-day could have been a lot less successful, we could have Rommel be in France and have free allowance to use the tanks stationed in Paris. This might stall the allied advance in France. And we could also have them stall in Italy, why not. Meanwhile the Russians do the same as in our timeline and reach berlin as in our timeline, while the allies get their act together in france and Italy. And before Germany surrenders, we could maybe have the Soviets could push to the Rhine or even the Wesser and Fulda, we r just letting the Soviets have more land basically. So after VE day. We have asia to focus, there nothing majorly different happens. The soviets just conquer all of Manchuria and Korea, ans maybe a bit of Hokkaido who knows. Right ww2 is over, and the soviets r in a much better position than irl. Their power stretched from the wesser to busan. The Soviets carefully stalled out against Finland to focus on the Germans, and later capitulated the Finn's, installing a pro- Soviet regime. In Yugoslavia, we r simply having Tito do worse against the germans, and having the red army do most of the heavy lifiting, making Tito more indebted to Moscow, thereby splitting the Tito-Stalin split, ik there were a lot other issues, but that was the main, hey we could even have Stalin join in on some of Tito's plans, Balkan federation anyone? So the Warsaw pact now controls all of what they had irl with also Finland, Yugoslavia, a lot more of Germany including all of Berlin, and Greece, greece? Ye we just let tito and Stalin work together in aiding the greek communists in their civil war. And hey we could also have Togliatti win the Italian elections in 48, which could entail another member. We r having the Soviets win the straits crisis, meaning soviets on the Bosporus and turkey basically turning into our timelines Finland.btw we r having FDR survive for longer, meaning a less aggressive stance agianst the Soviets. Stalin pressures the Iranian shah and gets a lot of concessions, including oil rights, independence of Mahabad and Azerbaijan, increased influence of the Tudeh party, the Americans do not involve, outraging the British who after this and Greece, distance them from the Americans. We could have the Tudeh's even overthrow the Shah in the mid 50s. So now we have had 4 crisis' go in the soviets favour- Berlin - which is self explanatory, greece, turkey and now iran. We could then have Dewey elected president in 48. I have heard he had a less aggressive foreign policy than Truman. Idk much about American presidents, im just tryna have a weaker president for America. Alr, so this means no Truman doctrine and marshall plan. So even more unrest between America and her European allies, heck, we could even have fdr refuse to work with Charles deGaulle during after the war, alienating france even more than irl, so that's two American allies pissed. Alr we could have some1 other than Adenauer lead west germany in this timeline, as he was a rlly gd leader😅. Or we could have him go all in on his refusal of the oder-nieste border, alienating him as well. So thats most of w europe pissed off at America. Stalin is definitely living longer, as there is less paranoia, less ppl purged purges and better doctors, he could live well into the late 50s. We r not getting Khrushchev after Stalin dies, tell him to piss off, we r getting my boy Georgy Malenkov in charge. He was very much like Stalin, an industrialist and somewhat aggressive in terms of foreign policy, he was also very much pro reformist, but unlike Khrushchev who rushed reform which grew unrest in eastern europe, he wanted to take it slow. So Mao and China as we have prevented Khrushchev from rising is way more favourable to the USSR, we could very well prevent the sino-soviet split from every happening. After this im not that sure, we have ensured a much stronger USSR. And combined with your weaker America, this is a recipe for an all-out victory for the soviets. Thx for reading 🥰
In the Russian Civil War we could have the Bolsheviks instead of trying to disarm the Czechoslovak legion Bolsheviks Try to help them get home safely trying to disarm the Czechoslovak legion led to them seizing control over the trans siberian railway that is the only way I could see the war going better for the Bolsheviks also maybe no war no peace never happening would also make it go better for the soviets idk
@@under6075 very much so I was studying the russian civil war, and I noticed the 2 crucial mistakes the Bolshevik made during the civil war. Which is not signing the Brest Litovsk treaty earlier and accepting the way better deal than they got irl. Including only giving up on Poland, Lithuania, and the Courland. Although I have heard in some sources that the Germans also desired Livonia, Estonia and possibly no Bolshevik influence in Finland. And as U said the disarmament of the Czechoslovak legion, as they r the sole reason the west Siberian directory were able to co-ordinate their attacks and link up with other white army elements. We could just have Trotsky be a bit cool headed as he is the one that ordered the disarmament of the legion. I believe there could be a third element, the execution of white commanders Pyotr Wrangel and Pyotr krasnov while the Bolsheviks had custody of them. As these commanders were crucial in rallying the Cossacks in South Russia and for Wrangel, just being a pure pain in the butt for the reds, as he was a very skilled commander. We could also have Denikin's volunteer army be crushed in the Don, as we could prevent the don Cossack uprising cuz we prevent German assistance for the Cossacks. So Denikin wouldn't be able to link up with them and all this combined would result in an early red victory in South Russia.
@@under6075 I have even started doing a report on this exact topic if ur interested U can give it a read. Although I must say it's nowhere near complete, and has a lot of inaccuracies. It does have a lot of wiki links in for ppl to understand. docs.google.com/document/d/1MKEJS8O4jhVUbRc48woAfkU4uL_ZGfTbOJdiZ8cMAQU/edit?usp=sharing
@@under6075 I've made a report on this exact topic, u can give it a read if ur interested. It is no way fully accurate and note that its not complete yet. docs.google.com/document/d/1MKEJS8O4jhVUbRc48woAfkU4uL_ZGfTbOJdiZ8cMAQU/edit?usp=sharing
@@lunalingo4461 I also definitly believe that removing stalins purges would make the soviets perform far better then in our timeline I've heard that there was a soviet general named taboritsky that was so skilled he was called the "red napoleon" and that the only reasons he isn't remembered today is because of stalins purges
The beginning of the scenario is a little contrived. American troops definitely helped alot in D-day but assuming the war in north Africa still went the same way I'm pretty sure the British commonwealth forces would be enough to open up a second front and at least secure France, maybe also some of Italy as well. I could see Russia taking more of Germany in a scenario like this, but overall I dont think it matters at all if the borders were the same to how they ended up IRL, I still doubt the USSR would have survived regardless. Poland, Germany, and probably Ukraine would go into full on revolution eventually, like they basically already did irl, the Balkans would still implode, china would still half starve to death and so on. I dont think a boosted economy from a Russian puppeted China/Japan would help at all, if anything a larger USSR would have a even harder time due to a more spread out bureaucracy. People just generally dont enjoy starving to death. The only way this scenario works is if somehow the USSR stopped being insanely corrupt and actually became a decent place. I could see this happening maybe if Stalin died during the German invasion and got replaced by someone actually competent. Maybe a better video would be "If the USSR wasnt a insanely corrupt hell hole ran by psychopaths"
It got distracting how hard you were trying to crowbar America's decline into the model of the USSR's right around the time Jesse Jackson became president.
A future scenario that you could cover would be what if East and West (referring to East Asia and Western Europe) swapped places, what could an East Asian dominated world be like? Which that idea has interested me.
13:08 "While gorbachev attracts foreign investors" From where? Capitalist countries? The rest of the soviet block that is already investing? Good video though
Capitalist countries like the UK and Canada and countries on the edge of the Soviet sphere like France and Sweden. www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9789264134683/ch012.xml
I like how the premise that led to the US falling(Greater USSR, Japanese Asia) resembles the world of Iron Dream though the Third Reich still existed here and how things develop is different
I think a very huge inaccuracy of this scenario is to have the southern states be independent for long since like in 1861 when they left the union for the first time they formed their own confederation. I think they would be more emboldened to form it this time around to fulfill the words of Jefferson Davis “the south will rise again”
Agreeing with the other comments, although its clear this is simply the Cold War in reverse it does give the audience a better understanding of the outcome AND the situation Russians currently face. A true Alt history would be impossible to play out and predict so I enjoyed this format.
Can you do a video on "What if Vienna fell in 1529?"? Everybody does a video on what if it fell in 1683 when the first siege is much more important and was during the ottomans peak.
A european spring occurs after a exceptionally brutal response by the soviets to repress political opposition which also causes an American spring, all coinciding with more centrist ideologies spiking in popularity
So how exactly do you figure the soviets beating germany being such a sure thing despite no lend lease from america? Seems like much more of a toss up to me.
I wonder what California is like in this and I’ll assume the Baltics since IOT they broke away early and have mostly dissociated themselves with the Soviet Union and joined NATO and the EU.
Baltics to California would be an interesting comparison. I imagine California isn't doing too bad, but it's probably experiencing all sorts of difficulties from the political transition. Probably close ties with China? Not sure.
The way you think that without lend-lease USSR would have lost way more territory is very flawed. Lend lease was a non-factor until 1943 (when soviets already turned the tides of the war) and actually started playing a role in 1944. So absence of lend-lease wouldn't change the early part of the war, but it would instead take more time (and sacrifice) to finish it. And in general, i don't like how you just mirrored what US did and imposed it on the USSR, that is very ahistorical take and an overall L
The trucks the US sent to Russia early in the war kept Russian logistics alive, without them they would have crumbled much like Germany did a couple years later for the same reason
Great video however i want to note that neo confederates are not fascist, in fact fascist neoconfederates are a small and very tiny fraction of it, right wingers are not all on the same page. Something to note with the southern states leaving they'd probably band together so they could more easily deal with northern excursions, i'd love to see a part 2 though
The idea that the Soviet Union would have conquered Europe without US help is ridiculous to me. Of course Germany bit off too much when they attacked the Soviets, and the Soviet partisan war in the Russian hinterland would have let them bleed for a long time, but eventually, Germany would have stabilized a front - whether in Belarus, Ukraine, Poland or even around Moscovia. That the premise was fumbled didn't make the scenario less enjoyable, but "Super-Soviet defeats Germany on it's own" is unrealistic.
Definitely not, because that would imply Russification which only ever happened within the Soviet Union, but not China, Korea, Cuba, or anywhere else, and there’s nothing inherently Russian about communism either, if we lost that also doesn’t mean we adopt it automatically
Russian, German, and French would definitely be more popular in diplomacy and scholarship today than otherwise (like they were back 100 years ago), but it wouldn't be just all Russian
