Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Founded by a movement predisposed towards terror and social engineering from the very beginning, the Soviet Union consistently ranked as one of the most repressive, most authoritarian, and—quite ironically—most unequal regimes of the twentieth century. In addition to state-sponsored mass killing and invasive, incompetent micromanagement of every aspect of its people’s lives and livelihoods, its example inspired yet more communist regimes that were arguably even worse throughout the second half of the century, being perfectly willing to tolerate (and even support) such dictatorships as North Korea, Maoist China, and the Eastern Bloc.
However, for all its gangsterism and callous excesses, even the Stalin years didn’t cause it to descend into the same spiral of madness as its unholy contemporary, Nazi Germany, or its overzealous fellow far-left regime, the Khmer Rouge. Nevertheless, there are times when I wonder if precisely that could’ve happened, had the USSR had its own equivalent to the “perfect storm” of events that propelled the mad Austrian and his cronies to power in Germany. So, with that cheery thought in mind, are there any realistic ways we could get a USSR that goes down right alongside Hitler’s Germany or Pol Pot’s Cambodia as the most monstrous regime in history? (Yes, I’m aware of Twilight of the Red Tsar over on AH.com, but am curious as to whether we can do “even better”—or, I suppose, even worse—than that.)
Achieve something on the scale of what I outlined above with a more realistic PoD, and we're golden.
Thank you in advance,
Zyobot
However, for all its gangsterism and callous excesses, even the Stalin years didn’t cause it to descend into the same spiral of madness as its unholy contemporary, Nazi Germany, or its overzealous fellow far-left regime, the Khmer Rouge. Nevertheless, there are times when I wonder if precisely that could’ve happened, had the USSR had its own equivalent to the “perfect storm” of events that propelled the mad Austrian and his cronies to power in Germany. So, with that cheery thought in mind, are there any realistic ways we could get a USSR that goes down right alongside Hitler’s Germany or Pol Pot’s Cambodia as the most monstrous regime in history? (Yes, I’m aware of Twilight of the Red Tsar over on AH.com, but am curious as to whether we can do “even better”—or, I suppose, even worse—than that.)
I once had an ASB story idea where, on the eve of World War II, a mysterious event known as "The Maddening" corrupts the Allies into becoming every bit as bad as Nazi Germany. Naturally, this "corruption" extended to Soviet Russia, too, with Stalin's paranoia shooting through the roof and his bloodthirstiness amplified to truly Hitlerian levels.
The highlights of his rule include carrying out an early Doctors' Plot, unleashing more Holodomors to completely destroy the ethnic republics, erecting "People's Guillotines" everywhere that are used non-stop, and quadrupling down on blood purges designed to whittle away the adult population and raise future generations who only know Stalin. The survivors, meanwhile, are forced through a Cultural Revolution-style erasure of Old Russia and a total militarization of Soviet society, with children raised in Sparta-inspired "youth education centers" in which they're regularly beaten, brainwashed, and culled into becoming soldiers in a "Final Revolution" to destroy capitalism forever. The result is the USSR going from a brutal, relatively isolated mega-Gulag to the bastard spawn of a Red Sparta, North Korea, and 1984's Oceania, its people giddy for a worldwide nuclear war with the West as soon as the "fascist menace" has been crushed and obliterated completely.
The highlights of his rule include carrying out an early Doctors' Plot, unleashing more Holodomors to completely destroy the ethnic republics, erecting "People's Guillotines" everywhere that are used non-stop, and quadrupling down on blood purges designed to whittle away the adult population and raise future generations who only know Stalin. The survivors, meanwhile, are forced through a Cultural Revolution-style erasure of Old Russia and a total militarization of Soviet society, with children raised in Sparta-inspired "youth education centers" in which they're regularly beaten, brainwashed, and culled into becoming soldiers in a "Final Revolution" to destroy capitalism forever. The result is the USSR going from a brutal, relatively isolated mega-Gulag to the bastard spawn of a Red Sparta, North Korea, and 1984's Oceania, its people giddy for a worldwide nuclear war with the West as soon as the "fascist menace" has been crushed and obliterated completely.
Achieve something on the scale of what I outlined above with a more realistic PoD, and we're golden.
Thank you in advance,
Zyobot
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