Alternative Soviet Union & Warsaw Pact

Inter war years 1922-1939

The new power emerging from the dust of the old Roman empire, Soviet Union replaced the old “Byzantine” threat in the minds of the western powers. The orthodoxian empire had transformed into communist empire which threatened the social structures and possessions of the bourgeois regimes. Thus the international situation and status of the new Soviet Union was equally if not even worse than it had been with the East Roman empire. This distrust between the western nations and Soviet Union aided the rise of the Fascist regimes in Germany, Italy, Turkey and Hungary.

After Soviet Union was created the remains of the old imperial lands were quickly retaken. The “white's” formed two rivalling realms, the “Mediterranean princedom” and “Roman East-Asian protectorate”. During 1922-26 all the Mediterranean islands were ceded by the Soviet Government and East Asia in 1927.

After the civil war was over, the so called “war-communism” was crippling the morale of the people and causing dissent in large proportions. Lenin decided to adopt a new economical policy know as the NEP-policy. It allowed farmers to sell their crops to the markets themselves as well as allowed limited entrepreneurship in the small sector. This policy caused a lot of dislike inside the party leadership but Lenin managed to push it trough and claimed it being a intermediate solution and necessary evil.

The agricultural production begun to grown but the heavy industry was somewhat stalling and soon the economy faced scissor-effect where the prices of consumer goods rose and agricultural products fell. Eventually Lenin agreed under heavy pressure of the fellow party members to end the NEP era in 1927. NEP was replaced with massive collectivization of the agricultural production areas and heavy emphasis of industrial expansion. This partially supported the emerging foreign policy, mainly architectures by the people's commissar of foreign affairs Lev Trotsky. It advocated world revolution, actively supporting socialist and revolutionary movements across the world. This brought Soviet union into collision with the bourgeois regimes and therefore demanded heavy emphasis on the military and naval forces.

The new economical policy brought heavy growth in the heavy industry but the collectivization caused dissent and hard resistance among the peasants and even partial famine in some areas as the agricultural production fell from the NEP era numbers. However the overall economy rapidly rose and the standard of living in the everyday soviet citizen greatly increased compared to the imperial days.

The new aggressive foreign policy was first put into test in China, where the former Guanchi area was arranged into Chinese Soviet Republic. From there the soviets actively helped the Chinese communist fighting and struggling for power against the warlords and nationalist KTM troops.
The “world revolution” however does not move so smoothly in Europe and failed attempts to get communists in power in Germany eventually paved way for Hitler's nazi party to gain power in 1933. In Italy and in Turkey, extreme right-wing regimes emerges as well which all starts to advocate strong anti-communist movements.
The increasing power and belligerence of Soviet Union also alarmed Great Britain and France which saw the emerging fascist regimes sort of “lesser evil” to contain the rising Soviet power.

In 1930 Spain transformed into republic and by the 1936 it was in the break of a civil war. Soviet Union had supported the socialist factions in Spain and when the nationalist forces begun their coup and starting the civil war, Soviet Union begun to support the republican fractions more intensively. Trotsky took the Spanish issue to his own and moved into Spain to personally to organizing the fragmented republican troops into single fighting force. Soviet Union kept sending aid to the republicans and the whole Comintern was mobilised to bring voluntary troops to fight against the nationalist.

Germany and Italy responded by helping out the nationalist troops. Italian fleet helped the nationalist and German and Italian advisors and troops begun to move into Spain. This caused trouple to Trotsky's international troops and republicans. By the end of 1937 the nationalist had gained more land and were winning. Trotsky pledged Lenin for Soviet Union to intervene officially but Lenin was reluctant. Eventually Soviet sent “voluntary” troops, including tanks and planes into Spain and Soviet fleet chased the Italian fleet out from blockading the Mediterranean ports. With the additional soviet help, the republicans finally managed to defeat the nationalists in 1939. It left the Spain being the third socialistic nation in the world but badly worn out in the eve of the second world war.

In 1935 Italy invades Somalia. Soviet Union saw this as an attempt to block the asian sea route via Red Sea and awnsers it by forcing Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie to create a parliamentary system which the socialists soon took over. Soviet troops begun to enter the land in 1936-37 and in early 1939, a soviet organised coup ceded the power out of Haile Selassie.

In Asia, the strong support for the Chinese communists manages to hamper the Kuomintang power which led Japanese to exploit the weakness of China. Japan annexes Manchuria in 1931 and set up a puppet state Machukuo. Japanese continued to pursue their plans to expand their influence in Asia and Chinese and Japanese conduct series of small incidents and skirmishes until eventually bursting into full scale war in 1937. Soviet Union sees Japanese ambitions as a risk not only to their own Sumatra and Chinese soviet republics but to the plans to spread the communism in Indonesia and rest of China.

Soviet attempts to boost up the Chinese communists actually just helps the Japanese to fight against the Kuomintang and eventually at the beginning of 1939 Most of the north east china and the north east coast is in Japanese control. In the south the communists manages to gain foothold around the Guangzhou areas. To Japan this is seen as a major obstacle for their future goals in china and in south east Asia.

World War II 1939-1945

War was looming in Europe. Germany kept growing in strength and occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia. In Soviet Union, Lenin had somewhat moved aside from the governing of the party and the country due his declining health. As Trotsky was more eager to spread socialism abroad, this paved Josif Stalin, Lenin's “right-hand” to gradually to gain more and more power since 1936. Stalin was reluctant to get tied up in Asia, were Finland and Japan were in the break of open war over Manchuria.

Throughout the summer 1939 Germany begun to ask the soviets for possibility of a non-aggression pact as Germany worried the economical catastrophe to take place in the advent of war if Britain would blockade Germany and Soviets being lenient to the west. For Stalin this suited as Britain and France were against his plans to “border re-adjustments” in eastern Europe. Germany in the other hand did not oppose Soviet Unions ambitions to get parts of Poland and Transylvania incorporated to the Soviet Union. The so called Molotov - Ribbentrop agreement was signed in August 1939.

In the following month, Germany attacked Poland and Soviet Union followed by occupating the eastern parts of Poland. The German attack however brought UK and France into the war and World War II started. After the Soviet-German NAP, Finland went on and signed a NAP with Japan. This allowed Japan to start concentrating on the southern attack plan to cede the resource-rich South-East Asian areas. In order to to eliminate the threat posed by Soviets, Japan launched simultaneous attacks on Guangzhou area and into Sumatra in November 1939.

The attack took Soviets by surprise which thought that the NAP with Germany would intimidate Japanese not to take actions against the Soviets. Japanese however were confident of their naval supremacy and counting that the soviets would not be able to support the counter attacks to retake the areas. The embarked Eastern fleet of Soviet Union was unable to defend against Japanese forces and suffered heavy losses. Japanese troops landed in Sumatra almost with out any opposition. Many local Indonesian people welcomed Japanese to free them from the soviet yoke. In China, Japanese troops landed in Hainan and into the coast of Soviet territory in Guangzhou.

Soviets answered with sending massive amount of troops into the east, both to China and into Mongolia. In Spring 1940, Soviet counter-attack started in Eastern China and in Mongolia. In the East, Soviet mainly just occupied the vast eastern areas and fought more against the local Chinese warlords and Kuomintang troops than Japanese. In Mongolia however, under the leadership of General Zhukov, the Soviets managed to invade deep into Manchukuo areas and defeat the Japanese Northern army.

Although the Soviet counter-attack was successful in the north, Japanese troops managed to stall the advance in Manchuria in June 1940. Zhukov had only the troops of Siberian military district under his command and the supply lines were getting long and the troops stretched too far from their base. Despite Zhukov's pledge for more troops, Stalin refused as the situation in Europe begun to worsen.
By the summer of 1940, Germany had conquered France and the Benelux countries and Scandinavia, Hungary, Turkey and Italy were all signing defence pacts with the Germans. War against Soviet Union was evident. Stalin ordered Zhukov to hold the line, but not to advance more into Manchuria. Soviet troops from Eastern China begun to evacuate back into the west. In Europe, After Finland occupies Lithuania in early 1940 Germany accuses Soviet Union breaking the Molotov- Ribbentrop pact. Packed up by Germany, Hungary annexes Transylvania in return and although officially Soviets agrees on it, the spirit of the NAP is being broken.

Seeing that war in Europe is closing, Stalin begun to negotiate with the Japanese for a truce in Asia. The negotiations are not successful but Japanese took them as a indication that Soviets were not eager to continue fightings in the Asia and the war turns to stale-mate “sitting war”. This entourages Japanese to start planning the next step in their aggression in South-East Asia.

Italy annexes Albania in October 1940 and launches attack on Yugoslavia. Yugoslavs' hold against Italy until the April of 1941 when Germany joins Italy and Yugoslavia is annexed. New Fascist Puppet regime is formed under the name Croatia.

In June 22nd 1941 the Axis powers attacked Soviet Union. Germany attacked from Poland with three army groups. Army group North was tasked to take out Finland via the Baltics. Army group Centre attacked towards Moscow and Army group South attacked into Ukraine and to cut out Romania and Balkans from the rest of the country. Italian, Hungarian and Croatian units attacked to Serbia and Turkey attacked in Anatolia towards Leningrad. Italian and Turkey troops also attacked in Africa towards Egypt and Ethiopia.

The attack is devastating and German's advance seems unstoppable. Hundreds of thousand soviet troops are encircled and bogged up in pockets as the German tanks manoeuvres fast and separate from the slower infantry. By the end of September, Germans have taken most of Ukraine, Belarus and cut out Romania and Balkans in the south. Italian (with German assistance) has reached the Balkan mountains and Anatolia is lost to the Turks. German attack towards Moscow is halted slightly due Hitler wanting to secure the Ukraine front first and the armoured units of the Army group centre is directed south.

In the autumn the Germans continues the advance towards Moscow and the southern Army group joins the Hungarians and rushes the Black Sea coast towards Leningrad. By November Rostov fells into the German hands and the Army group centre is nearing Moscow. Only the winter saves Moscow as the German advance is over-extended and they felt the troops being too weak to attack against the Soviet capital. In the south after heavy fightings the axis units are stopped in Trace but Leningrad is being cut out and encircled.

Stalin agrees on truce in Asia with the Japanese in the outbreak of the German attack and effectively ceding the Soviet Union's far-east regions to Japan. Japan attacks USA in 7th of December 1941 bringing the last remaining neutral superpower into the war in Allied side. Soviet Union sends its Units in Asia to west and the fleet sent to counter the Japanese is sent back to Mediterranean.

The winter of 1942 saw some Soviet counter attacks in the central front and Germans are pushed away from Moscow. In the Spring of 1942 Soviet manages to win the battle of El Alamen in Egypt with the freshly arrived troops from Spain. In Africa the Soviets begun to receive supply and assistance from the western allies and it became the sole front where Soviets and the Western Allies fought together against the Axis. In the Eastern front however the Germans are on the move when the summer comes and the Army group South advances into the Caucasus and Volga region towards Stalingrad. Rest of the fronts are mainly in stalemate. Towards the end of 1942 Germans are nearing Stalingrad where the Soviet troops manages to eventually encircle the 6th Army and forcing it to surrender in Spring 1943. This marked a turning point to the whole war as the first time Germans lost a major battle. Soviet counter advance begun and Germans retreated from Caucasus. In the Summer of 1943 Germans tried one more counter-attack at Kursk but failed to gain its objectives.

The Axis are defeated in North Africa when Tunis fell into the Allies in May 1943. The relived the African troops to be mounted against the Turks in the middle-east. While fightings raged in Kursk, the Western Allies landed in Sicily and from there to Italian mainland. This caused Mussolini to be thrown out of power and Italy to make a truce with the Allies. Germans however freed Mussolini and set up a Puppet State Italy. In the autumn Soviet Union keeps pushing the Germans away in the eastern front and launches attacks on Turkey in the south and the African units advances into Levant and Syria. The Lennigrad siege is eased with the successful landings on Anatolia and Turks are pushed away from the coastal areas and from the entrance of Leningrad.

In December 1943 a Congress is held in Tehran in Persia were the Allies met and discussed about the course of the war. Western Allies agreed to open a second front in the west to relief Soviet Pressure. Discussions of the future European division after German defeat were also discussed. British were quite worried of Soviet Unions demands on complete annexation of Turkey and after the meating they opened a new front against Turkey in January 1944 from Persia. British objectives were to cede the oil producing areas in Iraq and Saudi-Arabia from falling into Soviet hands.

After the British invasion, Turkey begun to fall apart, The Soviet advance in the eastern front managed to unite the Balkan area and Romania in April 1944 when soviets managed to capture Odessa and moved south to relief the Leningrad siege. In the Summer the advance in the eastern front continued into Poland and the Western Allies opens a new front in Northern France in June 1944. In south, a major attack was lauched against the Turks and by August 1944, whole Anatolia and Levant was in Soviet control and Syria and Arab peninsula under British control. In the end of 1944, Soviets were capturing most of Poland and Slovakia.

The following year saw the end of the World War II. Soviet troops advanced from Poland to Germany and reached Berlin in the Spring of 1945. In May 7th Germany surrenders and the war ends in Europe.

Soviet troops opens a second front in Asia against the Japanese in summer 1945 and sends its fleet to retake Sumatra and Chinese lands. With the help of Finland, Manchuria is occupied by the time of Japanese surrender in 15th of August 1945 and bringing the World War II to end.

Shipbucket

Who is online