Soviet Collapse in 1921

Alright, here's one that used to be on here but was removed during The Purge.

Here's another map 'inspired' by a decade old AH.com scenario by the same author who did "Japan moves south in 1916". This time, I've kept the content with the changes being merely expansions of the content since it's a reupload.

 The POD he chose was that of Lenin's early death leading to the soviet union imploding in 1921 instead of 1991. Like in my other 'inspired' scenarios, I've done some tweaking but am largely extrapolating from what I see as reasonable divergences given the situation in the TL.. There are some divergences added in before the 1950s, but mainly to reduce convergence.

The original scenario left off roughly in the 1950s with a few important trends having either already happened or playing out: The emergence of a russo-chinese alliance, implied stronger movements for national liberation and Hawai'i was just put on the road towards independence. This followed  on from the USSR's early collapse, the Hohozellern restoration in Germany, the yugoslav partition, The pacific war, the spanish civil war and even an attempted coup in the United states to name a few of the many historical events that have happened in this world.

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Even though, there was no second world war or even a cold war, the last 70 years have still been quite interesting.

Russia and Germany's intense international competition of roughly 1940 to 1970 has slowly faded out due to the risks inherent in trying to seriously change the status quo combined with the fact that even with rather more mobilization of the economy and society than OTL's America, Germany simply didn't have the strength necessary to compete on par with the Russo-chinese alliance. Since both countries were at least partial democracies, albeit ones of rather divergent ideological leanings, it never got as bitter as OTL's cold war and nowadays is tepid competition.

The struggle for national liberation which really took off in the 1950s has had some mixed results. On the one hand, there are some areas such as Quebec, Hawai'i, Scotland and Puerto Rico's all being sovereign states unlike OTL. This has had effects in Africa with certain borders differing. On the other hand, without a second world war or soviet union to prompt rapid decolonization Britain and France retain more ties with much of their empires.

Sadly, Britain and France have still both declined like OTL, even if the timing was different and a few small bits and pieces here and there remained within the empire or empire-aligned. The altered timin had beneficial side effects on Nigeria and Sudan since both ended up being on their own and not tied to muslim regions in the north..

Unexpectedly, Russian appeals to national liberation have had the side effect of spawning a coalition of leftist states in the third world. Founded in the late 1960s, the Alliance of the south is an organization of various non-aligned states aimed at economic and political independence from the colonial powers of the west. Yes, these states are all leftist but they tend to be flavors even more unusual than many that existed in OTL due to the USSR's implosion before it could make it's model the dominant one. As a result, politics range from democratic India to states somewhere in between like Vietnam or unfortunately even socialist states which are more into the mindset of "Problems can be solved by shooting people" like Haiti(at least Haiti is merely only cuba bad instead of OTL's chaos). There are even halting attempts at some form of economic integration.

While the alliance has had it's ups and downs, the traditional Russo-Chinese alliance has endured over the years. Currently, it is on one of it's down phases due to the fact that China is increasingly using it's economic and political muscle on it's own. Despite the commentary by pundit types about the Inevitable Implosion of The Alliance, Peking and Moscow still cooperate extensively..

Themes of recent years include the rise of the global south, China's modernization and America's slow re-entry into world politics...

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The United States of America has traditionally followed an isolationistic path, but starting in the 1980s has begun to be more involved in world affairs. Unlike OTL where it's a hyperpower, America is considered to have the largest economy of the great powers. Economically, it is rather to the left of OTL in some respects, but this is more old left than OTL's 'new left' or progressivism. For example, there is universal healthcare and the financial sector is tightly regulated but alot of OTL's post-1950 regulations on various businesses don't exist. The higher taxes are more than counterbalanced by a weaker regulatory state, less corrupt government. No baby boom combined with a sharp turn to the left leading to the collapse of segregation has produced a rather different demographic environment and led to immigration being liberalized in the 1950s in response to labor shortages. For example, America still has 313 million people but nowadays the US is running around a third latin these days and has a spicier cuisine, spanish-only enclaves and several bilingual states -- there are a few states in the carib and Central America which have viable statehood movements.

The Republic of China is a corrupt "authoritarian democracy" under the rule of the of the "People's Conservative Party", a merger of two parties which coexisted in early republic politics and since the late 1960s have dominated china as a single unit. At least it's more PRI Mexico or 1950-90 LDP Japan or OTL Singapore than OTL's PRC in terms of level of corruption or repression. China is corrupt, capitalist and unlike OTL has more people calling for socialism. One noticable change is the lack of any campaigns to attack traditional culture. Economically, China's economy is about 50% larger than OTL's -- average incomes are around $9,000. This wealth has trasnlated into China enjoying more soft power than OTL -- there are chinese fast food chains all over the west, buddhism is the religion of those who would have gone for 'new age' spiritualism in OTL and Manhua have revolutionized comics.

Since gaining independence in the late 1970s, Korea has reluctantly returned to it's role as China's little buddy. A gradual transferrance to self-rule(first local autonomy, then in the 60s de facto dominion status and finally independence in 1978) have been counterbalanced by the lack of cold war necessity for trade combined with leftist economic policies. This means that Korea overall is doing no better than OTL's south korea economically, unfortunately.

The third major great power is the Russian Federation, a state stretching from the elbe to Vlavivostok. Compared to OTL, Russia has been quite lucky since it avoided the stalinist era and went through first a period of a corrupt semi-democracy that has by the 1950s evolved into a genuine democracy. It's politics tend towards various flavors of leftism and nationalism. This is reflected in it's demographics with such things as the Russian Federation having around 350 million people as opposed to OTL's CIS consisting of around 276 million. Russian incomes are roughly on par with Italy or Spain and there are occasional sketchy areas like the Mongolian A.R. or the caucus A.R.s. There are those russians who aren't overly pleased that China is now increasingly the lead partner in the alliance but so far, most are still willing to go along with the current system because it's what work and a few generations of russians have grown up allied with China.

Besides Russia itself, there are the other members of the Eurasian coalition. First, we have Russia's collection of allies in the balkans, all of which are functional democracies. Turkey is roughly as OTL except more secular. Iran is a nominally leftist, populist republic that is far more secular than OTL -- the government is roughly as authoritarian as 1970s yugoslavia. Turkestan has evolved from being a corrupt dictator's fiefdom to now a bureaucratic dictatorship slowly turning into an oligarcy cum sham democracy(The fact that the ruling Nationalists consistently win 90% of the polls shows they're not very good at it, though). Afghanistan is a corrupt left-wing dictatorship that's as bad as OTL yemen and has terrorism problems.

The first of the two potential contenders for the great power position is the Empire of Japan. Yes, Japan has lost Korea but it's economy continues to do well and it's avoided the megadeaths of OTL's second world war. Japan is in part responsible for the space race getting a second recent burst of attention in the 2000s due to their landing a man on the moon. Japanese popular culture is if anything even more strange and decadent than OTL, without the US occupation to affect mores. OTOH, Japanese culture is a bit less visible on the scene due to China's earlier modernization but it's still vislbe..

Germany stands as the second potential competitor. Since the Kaiser's restoration during the unstable 1930s, Germany has been a quite rightist democracy with politics ranging from near fascistic by OTL standards on the right to the center being to the right of anything in OTL's western europe. Over half of a century of pro-natalist policies and 35 years of immigration policies designed to let in sufficiently pale people willing to learn german along with no second world war mean there are 160 million germans. Germany is most notable for it's high technology, especially in the field of rocketry. After all, it was a very blonde and blue-eyed German who walked on mars in 2002.

There are of course, Germany's allies in central europe to be considered -- Bosnia, Croatia, Czechslovakia, Denmark, Hungary and The Netherlands. All of which are in a free trade area and customs union with Germany. Italy is the most important of these nations and even maintains a shrunken colonial empire as of 2012 along with an atomic arsenal of five aging german nuclear weapons which date to the 1960s. Besides those states, some right-leaning states in the global south like a richer mexico, A now thankfully liberalized brazil or a Syria that's *still* under the Assads look to Germany.

The Alliance of the south isn't a great power but still merits mention with the first tier nations and their 'allies'. Governments in this alliance are as a rule leftist and nationalist, which is interpreted quite broadly; for example there is India which is a lefty democracy, Vietnam which lacks american corpses in it's soil but otherwise resembles OTL and Haiti which is like a mini version of OTL's Cuba. Economically, these nations tend to do a ltitle better than their counterparts in OTL thanks to the lack of the soviet example, but their leftism means any gains are relatively minimal(5% in India to the 'miracle' of Haiti which goes from african standards of living in OTL to cuban standards of living).

Britain and France are the 'has been' states of this world. Yes, both retain bits and pieces of their empires along with having economic unions to try working with their post-imperial states to mixed results but both are clearly in decline. There are good outcomes like the dominion of south india which is at middle-income levels, then there are the bad like Cambodia, which has been a guerilla plagued troublespot for 50 years for France. For them, the century has not been a good one.

Hawai'i is significantly wealthier than OTL thanks to it's convenient location to be a tax shelter, combined with no longer having to put up with the Jones Act increasing shipping costs to and from Hawai'i. Think upper first world levels

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Technologically, this world is around 5 years ahead of OTL overall with synthetics, biotech and materials enjoying higher leads than that.. Thanks to extensive competition between the powers, combined with no post-WWII spoils to give the US and russia and unstoppable lead aerospace first lagged OTL into the 1970s, but then has gone ahead in two major bursts of action. Phase one in the 1970s saw a man landing on the moon, more orbital construction than OTL while phase two in the 2000s saw the first man on mars, orbital hotels, a so far unprofitable orbital factory from Mitsubishi and solar power sattelites *finally* breaking even, yet still not being profitable. Oddly enough, due to nuclear power's being developed in peaceful circumstances it's more advanced and widespread than OTL with impacts on energy demand that are giving this world a generation more before even OTL's 2000s semi-wakeup call on energy. Computer networking is merely on par with OTL, but the Intergrid has more russophone, germanophone, japanese-speaking and sinophone presence and less of an anglophone monopoly.

Politically, the lack of either a second world war or a long-lived soviet union has dome some rather strange things to the world's political environment. First and foremost are the numerous side effects of the USSR's early demise such as a more active hard left and anarchist movement in the industrialized nations and a very splintered world socialist movement. Also, rightist populism in either italian or portuguese fascism or other forms like integralism is respectable due to the lack of a second world war.

Economic policy, as a result of the lack of a long-lasting USSR and more multipolar world is rather more splintered and heterodox than OTL. There is never OTL's cold-war era dichotomy of soviet central planning vs The Free Market with welfare for bankers, or OTL's washington consensus.

A stronger and more active hard left in industrialized nations, means that copyright terms are generally shorter, ranging from 40 to 70 years depending on the nation. This has generally had positive ramification on the culture even if there have been a few... drastic embarassments like Marvel's Batman(SWEAR TO ME PETER PARKER! SWEAR TO ME, DAMN IT!). DC's Spiderman at least is a massive improvement over Marvel's version though, since their version of Peter Parker had the decency to get killed off fast and replaced with someone who wasn't a total loser.

With a different intellectual environment, postmodernism remained fringe. When this world's variant of the internet came along, as a result we are spared tens of thousands of terrible self-insert fanfics. Unfortunately, most authors just replace them with either hijacked background characters or mary sue OCs so this isn't much of a gain.