How scary can 1920s-1930s Soviet Union be to Europe and the United States?

[naraht]

With a post 1918 POD (more or less) I'm trying to get a balance between Otl and the Extremely Reluctant Furher with both France and Germany as powers in 1940 without either being at war or expecting a war between them at any moment. In order to have *that* you would need something that would threaten *both* and the only thing I can come up with is a Soviet Union which is *everything* that the American 1920s red scare said it would be.

I'm not sure who would would be scarier than Trotsky to lead the Soviet Union, and I figure at least one other significant country in Europe needs to fall to Communism by 1935 (or come close) to get to that point. Spain and Italy would be the most likely candidates. (Having Estonia or even Romania fall doesn't seem significant enough). Think French invasion of Spain to keep the Communists from taking over.

Even if Germany isn't a Guarantor for Poland's independence, there should be significant support in Germany for keeping a non-communist Poland as a barrier (speed bump) between the Soviet Union and Berlin. (Think 2024 Polish Support for Ukraine, but with much more RealPolitick and much less pretending)

At this level of concern, Leon Blum and those in his area politically would have to choice but to either declare themselves completely Anti-Moscow or be completely out of the mainstream French Left.

Note, especially if it is Trotsky leading the Soviet Union, the timeline may have more anti-semitism Europe wide than Otl, but there should be a much stronger element of Jews are closet Communists and should be similar in both France and Germany.

Does this look workable?

 

[raharris1973]

Even if Germany isn't a Guarantor for Poland's independence, there should be significant support in Germany for keeping a non-communist Poland as a barrier (speed bump) between the Soviet Union and Berlin. (Think 2024 Polish Support for Ukraine, but with much more RealPolitick and much less pretending)

There "should" be, there "could" be, there often is, from a common AH.commer's POV, which I find pretty Cold War inflected.

But there was also in the interwar Germany, including on the right and in the Reichswehr, a significant, "let's split up Poland" contingent who sought to destroy and partition Poland, willing to see most of it go back to Russia, of any color, even Red, as long as it gave Germany back its 1914 borders.

But, I've rained enough on the parade. I will now blow the clouds away. Enough more uprisings, snubbing by Soviets, or assassinations by German Communists, and a projection of greater Soviet ambition, threat, and frightfulness - it is totally plausible that the Germans, along with the rest of the west, can come to view the USSR as people one simply can't do business with.

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

I don't know about Europe, but there are a lot of pods for expanding the Soviet threat in Asia (which would definitely be a problem for the United States and Great Britain).

- The Soviets intervened in the Afghan Civil War in the 1920s which had the potential to be a communist puppet state but chose to keep their involvement limited.
- Mongolia during the interwar years had requested to me annexed and incorporated into the Soviet Union similar to Tannu Tuva but Stalin denied their request.
- After driving the Japanese and Americans out of Siberia during the Russian Civil War, the Soviets could have kept going against Japan. OR, Soviet-Japanese border skirmishes in Manchuria that started in 1932 could have ended in a Soviet invasion of Manchuria.
- Northwest China under the Xinjiang Clique in the early 30s was under Soviet influence and could have theoretically became a Soviet puppet state, or even annexed by the Soviets since at the time most of its population wasn't Han Chinese.
- The Soviets also had interest in Iran as well.

 

[raharris1973]

- The Soviets intervened in the Afghan Civil War in the 1920s which had the potential to be a communist puppet state but chose to keep their involvement limited.

Do you think it was really plausible to have gone that far, and that, at that historic juncture, Afghanistan internally and tribal religious networks across the border in British India, and Muslim communities, lacked the money, media, community sense, international networking to get a high-powered anti-communist insurgency going? And that the Soviets had enough of a youth bulge, mercilessness, lack of news, and lack of softness, to have them and their client Communist Afghans simply smother even any momentarily sizeable Afghan rebellions or guerrilla insurgencies in blood - to the point that Communist order and real social revolution can be imposed for decades at a time?

And if the Soviets could accomplish this, the marginal cost would still be at a small enough margin that by itself it would not fatally shortchange industrial development, the military industrial complex, and eventual guarding of the Far Eastern border, and ultimately the all-important western borders?

Not saying it's impossible.

- Mongolia during the interwar years had requested to me annexed and incorporated into the Soviet Union similar to Tannu Tuva but Stalin denied their request.

Slightly scarier on paper with little real change on the ground.

Maybe it gives westerners a precedent to be relatively forgiving about Manchukuo.

- After driving the Japanese and Americans out of Siberia during the Russian Civil War, the Soviets could have kept going against Japan.

They could try, that war was not popular in Japan, but crossing over onto Sakhalin wasn't operationally feasible, and pressing on against long-standing core Japanese interests in the southern Manchurian railways and environs, and sovereign territory in Korea and the Guangdon (Kwangtung) peninsula would have been a major overreach for the young Bolsheviks, and reanimated the Japanese will to fight and counterattack.

OR, Soviet-Japanese border skirmishes in Manchuria that started in 1932 could have ended in a Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

Under circumstances of tactical command virtuosity and good luck, and some lead paint drinking by some Japanese commanders, maybe. But the Red Army neither had the practice in operational doctrines, mass, nor armament in depth in 1932, 33 or 34 to pull battlefield performances comparable to Nomonhan. The reverse would be far more likely, and Japanese feistiness and domestic moral support for aggression had increased a great deal over the previous 10-12 years, the early 1930s up until 35 and before the fighting with China are probably when Japan is placed to perform *best* against the USSR in Asia on a strictly bilateral basis, with Soviet equipment and mass advantages, and then the China distraction, whittling down Japan's relative capability from 1936 on.

- Northwest China under the Xinjiang Clique in the early 30s was under Soviet influence and could have theoretically became a Soviet puppet state, or even annexed by the Soviets since at the time most of its population wasn't Han Chinese.

Sure

- The Soviets also had interest in Iran as well.

Sure - and brief puppetude in it northwest.

 

[Don Corleone]

Earlier Holodomor, and a *pogrom targeting observant Jews but not secular ones?

 

[Kurd Gossemer]

A USSR that manages to both industrialize fast and keep a good military is already very scary to the west, but having them be able to secure their old borders such as winning the 1920's war against Poland and annexing their eastern regions and having be able to keep Bessarabia, the Baltics and Finland essentially secures Soviet Borders and makes them look aggressive and scary to the European powers, mix that in with a premier(not Stalin of course) who keeps modernizing the army and the secret services and beefing up communist movements in Africa, the Middle East and Asia and much more willing to throw their weight around in the far east and you get a USSR that is even more hated and feared than OTL

 

[Cudymcar]

The problem with a big scary USSR is that in the 1920s and early 1930s it was militarily weak and economically undeveloped. It had no modern weapons industry, because it had no heavy industry, or chemical industry, or big power plants. This kind of industrialization was impossible without capital investments, and the only source of investments was the capitalist West.
Therefore the USSR which

keeps modernizing the army and the secret services and beefing up communist movements

relying on inner resources, is a pure fantasy.