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This is a map of an alternate history where Vladimir Lenin dies in 1923 instead of 1924, leading to Joseph Stalin being sidelined and eventually exiled while Nikolai Bukharin takes over as leader of the Soviet Union. The USSR under Bukharin continues with the New Economic Policy and Korenizatsiya, almost the exact opposite of the forced collectivization and Russification policies Stalin would pursue in our world; furthermore, Bukharin being nowhere near as paranoid and brutal as Stalin (not to mention less powerful), there's nothing like the Great Purge. Soviet industry and agriculture grow at a slower but more sustainable pace as a result, and the country sees greater foreign investment and even immigration. The country's people are not only wealthier and more numerous but (somewhat) freer: the Trotskyist disdain for bureaucracy is appeased somewhat by the institution of local democratic self-government, while on a larger scale the Russian SFSR's dominance within the union is tempered somewhat by Bukharin's strategy of playing Russia's Bolsheviks off local allies in the rest of the union's member states. Incidentally, Latinization of the Soviet Union's languages also continues

Not all is well with the world, of course. In China, the momentarily triumphant Kuomintang fragments into left and right wing factions and restarts the warlord era. The global economy collapses roughly around the same time as in our world, although in some ways it's less severe and others more. Germany also suffers horribly from the Great Depression, which propels the National Socialists and Adolf Hitler to power in an unlikely coalition with the Stalinist-influenced Communist Party of Germany. (Even in our history the KPD was more sympathetic to the Nazis than the Social Democrats, and this was before Lenin had died.) This world's NSDAP is more economically left-wing, but quickly makes concessions to capital in order to speed up remilitarization. As part of this, Hitler liquidates the KDP shortly after he attains supreme political power; the most loyal party officials are folded into the NSDAP hierarchy and the rest imprisoned or executed. That rapid remilitarization is hampered by the USSR's implacable hostility to Nazi Germany, and without Stalin's willingness to come to terms with Germany at the expense of Eastern Europe that never changes.

Nazi Germany's relationship with Italy is weaker than our history, beginning with a relative lack of German material support for the right-wing forces in the Spanish Civil War (which, combined with a more cohesive Spanish left, results in a Republican victory). Hitler also pushes for the annexation of Italy-friendly Austria more forcefully than he did in our world. While Italy still participates in the Anti-Comintern Pact, Hitler distrusts Mussolini and puts more importance in strong relationships with Romania and Yugoslavia. Japan is still a German ally, and after winning this world's equivalent of the Battle of Khalkhin Gol pushes into Mongolia and restores the Mongol Khanate as a client state. Events escalate until 1939 when Germany invades Poland, forcing Britain and France to declare war. Instead of partitioning Poland with the Soviet Union, Germany's aim is to take territories it lost in 1918 and carve more puppet states out of the rest. This goes smoother than the German high command expected thanks to the brief civil war that breaks out over whether Poland should allow Soviet military aid. The anti-Soviet faction surrenders to Germany in the hopes of a lighter peace, and Poland's forced into participating in Germany's invasion of the USSR.

Meanwhile, the Germans open a new front in the west, hoping to occupy the Low Countries, defeat France, and threaten Britain. Unfortunately for them, there was no analogue to the Mechelen incident so German invasion plans are less refined even as they have less industrial capacity than our world and a still active eastern front and partisan activity in occupied Poland and Hungary (the latter having been invaded earlier in 1940 after negotiations over border adjustments with Romania break down). Consequently, three German armies smash into the Franco-British defensive line in Belgium and are forced into World War I-esque trench warfare. At this point, Mussolini repudiates his alliance with Germany and declares Italy neutral in the new conflict; a year of negotiations with France and Britain later, he once again changes his position and sides with the Entente. By now even the United States has entered the war, although its focus is on war with Japan while Britain and France are able to hold Germany back with American material aid. Nevertheless, Hitler refuses to back down until he's assassinated in 1942 in a plot orchestrated by Franz Halder, Chief of Staff of the German High Command. The Wehrmacht takes political power and sues for peace while turning inward to eliminate the SA.

Japan takes a year and a half more to fall, but in the meantime its ongoing occupation of China (ostensibly aiding Chiang Kai-Shek's Right Kuomintang) spawns an independent leftist and nationalist insurgency led by one Mao Tse-Tung that grows to encompass most of the southern provinces by the time Japan surrenders. Mao agrees to an awkward power-sharing arrangement with the Soviet-backed but unpopular Left Kuomintang/Kuominchun alliance, which predictably falls apart a couple years later. The Soviets are unable to fully commit to another major war, even in defense of an ally against another "heir of Stalin," and the Communist Party of China sweeps into Beijing while the KMT and KMC are forced to flee into East Turkistan.

The world in 1965 is a divided one, but what those divisions are is somewhat open to interpretation. The United States is friendly to both the USSR and the UK, but less so with France due to Soviet and American support for Vietnamese revolutionaries. The UK and France, in turn, are cold towards the Soviets and cordial towards Italy, which has its own bloc of fascist states it shares with Integralist Brazil and (sometimes) Argentina. With more options to choose from and stronger colonial empires, there isn't much of a "third world" in international relations, although there are definitely states that act outside of the large power blocs for one reason or another. Serbia-Bosnia and Turkey are both unhappy with Britain, France, and Italy for various reasons but not willing to participate in international power politics, while Saudi Arabia's fine selling oil to anyone. Germany and China are international pariahs. The former is still ruled by Franz Halder and the NSDAP, and though the government was purged of its most radical members, and the systematic extermination of Jews in German territory was aborted by the Wehrmacht Coup then used to discredit the SA, Germany is still an unpleasant place to live if you're an average German and horrific if you're a Jew, Roma, or part of any other undesirable class. The Reich's relations with other great powers are cold but correct at best, hampering its economy, although it's still a somewhat significant exporter of chemicals and machinery. China, meanwhile, is pursuing a Cultural Revolution and forced rapid industrialization, and constantly threatens war with all of its neighbors. To many, though, the greatest threat to the world's future is neither of these countries but instead the cold realpolitik brinksmanship of the great powers, all of which possess some unknown amount of atomic bombs and increasingly sophisticated means to deliver them.

More than anything else, the modern world is defined by uncertainty. The Soviets just put a man around the Moon. Who knows what the future has in store?

Description

This is a map of an alternate history where Vladimir Lenin dies in 1923 instead of 1924, leading to Joseph Stalin being sidelined and eventually exiled while Nikolai Bukharin takes over as leader of the Soviet Union. The USSR under Bukharin continues with the New Economic Policy and Korenizatsiya, almost the exact opposite of the forced collectivization and Russification policies Stalin would pursue in our world; furthermore, Bukharin being nowhere near as paranoid and brutal as Stalin (not to mention less powerful), there's nothing like the Great Purge. Soviet industry and agriculture grow at a slower but more sustainable pace as a result, and the country sees greater foreign investment and even immigration. The country's people are not only wealthier and more numerous but (somewhat) freer: the Trotskyist disdain for bureaucracy is appeased somewhat by the institution of local democratic self-government, while on a larger scale the Russian SFSR's dominance within the union is tempered somewhat by Bukharin's strategy of playing Russia's Bolsheviks off local allies in the rest of the union's member states. Incidentally, Latinization of the Soviet Union's languages also continues

Not all is well with the world, of course. In China, the momentarily triumphant Kuomintang fragments into left and right wing factions and restarts the warlord era. The global economy collapses roughly around the same time as in our world, although in some ways it's less severe and others more. Germany also suffers horribly from the Great Depression, which propels the National Socialists and Adolf Hitler to power in an unlikely coalition with the Stalinist-influenced Communist Party of Germany. (Even in our history the KPD was more sympathetic to the Nazis than the Social Democrats, and this was before Lenin had died.) This world's NSDAP is more economically left-wing, but quickly makes concessions to capital in order to speed up remilitarization. As part of this, Hitler liquidates the KDP shortly after he attains supreme political power; the most loyal party officials are folded into the NSDAP hierarchy and the rest imprisoned or executed. That rapid remilitarization is hampered by the USSR's implacable hostility to Nazi Germany, and without Stalin's willingness to come to terms with Germany at the expense of Eastern Europe that never changes.

Nazi Germany's relationship with Italy is weaker than our history, beginning with a relative lack of German material support for the right-wing forces in the Spanish Civil War (which, combined with a more cohesive Spanish left, results in a Republican victory). Hitler also pushes for the annexation of Italy-friendly Austria more forcefully than he did in our world. While Italy still participates in the Anti-Comintern Pact, Hitler distrusts Mussolini and puts more importance in strong relationships with Romania and Yugoslavia. Japan is still a German ally, and after winning this world's equivalent of the Battle of Khalkhin Gol pushes into Mongolia and restores the Mongol Khanate as a client state. Events escalate until 1939 when Germany invades Poland, forcing Britain and France to declare war. Instead of partitioning Poland with the Soviet Union, Germany's aim is to take territories it lost in 1918 and carve more puppet states out of the rest. This goes smoother than the German high command expected thanks to the brief civil war that breaks out over whether Poland should allow Soviet military aid. The anti-Soviet faction surrenders to Germany in the hopes of a lighter peace, and Poland's forced into participating in Germany's invasion of the USSR.

Meanwhile, the Germans open a new front in the west, hoping to occupy the Low Countries, defeat France, and threaten Britain. Unfortunately for them, there was no analogue to the Mechelen incident so German invasion plans are less refined even as they have less industrial capacity than our world and a still active eastern front and partisan activity in occupied Poland and Hungary (the latter having been invaded earlier in 1940 after negotiations over border adjustments with Romania break down). Consequently, three German armies smash into the Franco-British defensive line in Belgium and are forced into World War I-esque trench warfare. At this point, Mussolini repudiates his alliance with Germany and declares Italy neutral in the new conflict; a year of negotiations with France and Britain later, he once again changes his position and sides with the Entente. By now even the United States has entered the war, although its focus is on war with Japan while Britain and France are able to hold Germany back with American material aid. Nevertheless, Hitler refuses to back down until he's assassinated in 1942 in a plot orchestrated by Franz Halder, Chief of Staff of the German High Command. The Wehrmacht takes political power and sues for peace while turning inward to eliminate the SA.

Japan takes a year and a half more to fall, but in the meantime its ongoing occupation of China (ostensibly aiding Chiang Kai-Shek's Right Kuomintang) spawns an independent leftist and nationalist insurgency led by one Mao Tse-Tung that grows to encompass most of the southern provinces by the time Japan surrenders. Mao agrees to an awkward power-sharing arrangement with the Soviet-backed but unpopular Left Kuomintang/Kuominchun alliance, which predictably falls apart a couple years later. The Soviets are unable to fully commit to another major war, even in defense of an ally against another "heir of Stalin," and the Communist Party of China sweeps into Beijing while the KMT and KMC are forced to flee into East Turkistan.

The world in 1965 is a divided one, but what those divisions are is somewhat open to interpretation. The United States is friendly to both the USSR and the UK, but less so with France due to Soviet and American support for Vietnamese revolutionaries. The UK and France, in turn, are cold towards the Soviets and cordial towards Italy, which has its own bloc of fascist states it shares with Integralist Brazil and (sometimes) Argentina. With more options to choose from and stronger colonial empires, there isn't much of a "third world" in international relations, although there are definitely states that act outside of the large power blocs for one reason or another. Serbia-Bosnia and Turkey are both unhappy with Britain, France, and Italy for various reasons but not willing to participate in international power politics, while Saudi Arabia's fine selling oil to anyone. Germany and China are international pariahs. The former is still ruled by Franz Halder and the NSDAP, and though the government was purged of its most radical members, and the systematic extermination of Jews in German territory was aborted by the Wehrmacht Coup then used to discredit the SA, Germany is still an unpleasant place to live if you're an average German and horrific if you're a Jew, Roma, or part of any other undesirable class. The Reich's relations with other great powers are cold but correct at best, hampering its economy, although it's still a somewhat significant exporter of chemicals and machinery. China, meanwhile, is pursuing a Cultural Revolution and forced rapid industrialization, and constantly threatens war with all of its neighbors. To many, though, the greatest threat to the world's future is neither of these countries but instead the cold realpolitik brinksmanship of the great powers, all of which possess some unknown amount of atomic bombs and increasingly sophisticated means to deliver them.

More than anything else, the modern world is defined by uncertainty. The Soviets just put a man around the Moon. Who knows what the future has in store?