SkunkyArt | KitFisto1997 - Zhongguo Feng [COMMISSION]

A newly unified China manages to ground the Japanese advance to a halt at the Yellow River, circa 1939 – just as the Second World War kicks off in Europe.

Japan is pushed out of mainland East Asia by the end of 1939, sparking a civil war, that eventually ends in a communist victory. A puppet government under the Kim dynasty is established in Korea.

The People’s Republic of China is proclaimed in early 1940, the remaining Chinese warlords join the central government shortly thereafter. The Chinese capital is moved to Xi’an.

The PRC joins the Comintern in mid-1940, assisting the USSR in the Soviet-Turkish War, which ends in Stalin gaining the Straits and a puppet socialist government coming to power in Anatolia. The Winter War goes as OTL, without Chinese support.

Operation Barbarossa starts in 1943 and goes horribly for the Germans. The Soviet Union, supported by Chinese manpower and American industry, blitzes through the German lines, ending the Second World War by late 1944 with Soviet and Chinese troops at the Rhine.

France was treated as a conquered nation by the Germans, losing Alsace-Lorraine and a great deal of its people to ethnic cleansing – especially in the region of Burgundy. Vichy France is reorganised under Chinese guidance, becoming an Occitan state that’s primarily staffed by former collaborators.

The Republicans win the Spanish Civil War, quickly falling under Soviet influence.

The French and Italian colonial empires are dismantled by both the Allies and Comintern. The sole exception to this is French Indochina, which becomes the catalyst for the Third World War (1945-6).

Sino-Japanese troops land on the West Coast and Soviet warships and bombers obliterate the Eastern Seaboard. President Truman is killed by a Soviet strike on D.C., bringing the war to an abrupt end. The Second American Civil War consumes the beleaguered nation, but communist forces under Earl Browder manage to seize control after a few months, thanks to aid from the Comintern.

A newly-socialist Canadian regime gains Alaska from the then-civil-war-ravaged US. Washington gains Baja California and all land south of the St. Lawrence as compensation.

The British Empire is completely dismantled. Soviet and Chinese troops parade through London, after having executed the civilian leadership in massive show trials. All dominions and colonies are turned into puppet regimes of either the USSR or China.

Southern France gains legitimacy, after the capitulation of the northern government. Brittany is spun off as a Soviet puppet, hosting Stalin’s nascent Atlantic Fleet. Luxembourg is annexed into Germany. The newly-socialist Dutch realise their irredentist aims, taking land from the Belgians and French.

The Mediterranean is a Chinese lake and is dominated by the Mediterranean Federation - a merger between Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily Malta and the Balearics.

Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq are invaded and are temporarily annexed into the USSR, sometime during the Third World War.

The Fourth World War is as short as the last. An early Sino-Soviet split ends in Stalin being deposed and the USSR and its puppets being reorganised along Chinese democratic ‘left-populist’ lines. Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad are nuked by the Chinese, ending the war by late 1946.

The Straits are returned to Turkey – albeit under heavy Chinese influence. Portugal is dismantled and folded into Galicia, the Estado Novo regime flees to Madeira. The Arab Peninsula is united under a loose, proto-Ba’athist government. Israel is established by Labour Zionists fleeing Stalin’s final purges, amidst the Fourth World War.

Fast-forward to 1979. The ‘Red World’ largely remains under the boot of the Chinese, but some noticeable ideological divides exist, from continent to continent.

Europe came under the sway of so-called ‘Eurocommunists’: essentially Scandinavian-style social democrats, who lean heavily on the ‘social’ part. Neutral Sweden and Finland are like this, too, but lean more on the ‘democrat’ part.
India has ‘Ghandism’, which is more-or-less like OTL Maoism. It has a large sway over the states of Sub-Saharan African, especially in Nyerere’s East African Federation and Mandela’s black supremacist Cape Commune.
The former USSR largely remains under the control of Stalinist strongmen. Even after the dissolution of the USSR and the destruction of three of its major cities, nothing has really changed.
The MENA states are under the control of Ba’athists, who lean quite heavily on their socialist roots. Saddam Hussein is currently in charge of the People’s Arab Union. Muammar Gaddafi rules over the Libyan Socialist Republic and is currently promoting the Green Book as a viable alternative to what he sees as ‘fascism lite’.
‘Chinese Socialism’ (read: OTL China – albeit with legitimate democratic institutions) is in vogue across the Asia-Pacific – even in Australasia, which maintains strict immigration quotas based on race.
Japan’s take on the Chinese model is a blend of pre-war bushido and communist thought, going as far as including ‘Red Samurai’ - essentially local commissars acting as oppressive feudal lords. Tokyo holds sway over the Pacific Ocean, acting as China’s primary ‘point man’ in SE Asia, keeping the disloyal, former Indonesian statelets in line.
The former Dutch East Indies and British Malaya are a basket case of nominally socialist states. Sukarno’s Indonesia takes up most of Sumatra and all of Java; the ‘White Rajas’ of Sarawak are under the sway of local unions; Aceh is an openly ‘Islamo-socialist’ dictatorship, blending the Communist Manifesto with the worst aspects of the Koran; and Singapore is openly capitalist, but hides it under a veneer of socialist imagery.
North America is under the sway of the United Socialist States of America, a very progressive dictatorship that has handed over large swathes of its territory to its once-bleaguered minorities – going as far as creating a ‘Homosexual Bantustan’, though it must be said that the birth rate there is utterly abysmal. Canada is under the control of crypto-fascists, who merely masquerade as ‘good socialists’.
Mexico is an American puppet and de-facto narco state, having absorbed Guatemala and Belize during the Second American Civil War. Trotsky was a major drug kingpin, until his death from a massive cocaine overdose in 1972.

The South America Confederation is the self-described ‘bastion of liberal democracy’ in theory, but a dictator’s club in practice. Pinochet-style juntas with neo-liberal policies are the order of the day. British, French and Dutch governments-in-exile operate out of their respective Caribbean and Guyanese possessions. Brazilian arms shipments and naval exercises are the only thing keeping the Portuguese government in Madeira intact. An analogue to the Cuban Missile Crisis is ongoing, thanks to the Brazilian-backed Batista regime hosting Confederation superweapons on Cuban soil.

Siam is the North Korea of this world. An isolationist, absolute monarchy reminiscent of Saudi Arabia, it is the self-proclaimed leader of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and hosts the Japanese, Manchu, Tibetan and Indochinese governments-in-exile.

Technology is reminiscent of the Red Alert games – albeit with a heavy Chinese slant in some areas (pun unintended). All the major powers have established bases on the Moon, whereas Mars remains untouched. The Eurocommunists are pursuing Atlantropa with vigour. The Russians managed to create a giant inland sea in Siberia – which may-or-may-not lead to runaway global warming in a few decades. The South Americans are investing in both generation ships and massive underground Lunar vaults, should the ongoing ‘Shadow War’ with the Reds go south.