Re: D-Day 74 years on
You are thinking too late- if the Soviets stopped Germany early, like way before Moscow being threatened and Stalingrad- before we could really get into the war- their resources would have easily been enough to take all of Europe. That's what I'm talking about. Thankfully for the world, Stalin had huge purges in the 30's, which decimated his ability to wage war on a short term basis. Between that and the millions of people they lost during the war, they had no way to do anything but hold what they had for many years.
No, I'm thinking far,
far earlier, back when the Soviets are allied with Germany. Let's assume everything proceeds just as in OTL until May 1940. Say the Germans get bogged down and never make it to Paris, just as in WW1. The Western Front stagnates again. The British have time to land additional troops on the continent, France never surrenders, and gradually Germany begins to lose ground in the West.
Well, now, the Soviets have a dilemma. They've
just executed the Katyn Massacre so they are committed in Poland. They've got the Baltic States. They are still hungry to expand into Romania and Turkey but they haven't committed to the Tripartite Pact yet. Britain had betrayed Poland by not declaring war against the USSR when it invaded Poland (France did not, interestingly, because the Franco-Polish treaty was specifically against German invasion). Germany looks like a bad bet as an ally, and the Russians never intended a longterm alliance anyway since they were just buying time.
I think the Russians are in a
great negotiating position in this event. They can stab Hitler in the back with no prior negotiation with Churchill and fight the Wehrmacht in Poland rather than on Russian soil. It becomes a race to Berlin between Russia and the UK and France. Basically, it's 1944 but without the Russians devastated by Barbarossa and without the US helping the allies. Or they can hold that card and negotiate with Churchill. If Winston doesn't come through with their demands they declare neutrality and give the Germans a peaceful eastern front, allowing them to transfer all their forces west. Their demands can be modest and just concentrate on strategic advantages with regard to Central Asia. Think about what the Russians can do in the east if left without their hands tied by Germany? They lost to the Japanese early in the century and are smarting from it, and they can "liberate" Manchuria and link up with their fellow communist forces in China. World Socialism is on the march!
WW2 is limited in scope to the boundaries of WW1. The Japanese invasion of China remains an undercard bout that never links up with the main event. Maybe there are lessons learned in how to treat Germany but more likely the surrender terms are more Draconian and the Reich is broken up into independent historical states (Bavaria, Hanover, Prussia, Austria, Saxony). France and the UK survive Hitler without utter devastation and emerge still as global economic rivals of the US. The German Problem is finally solved. Russia plays the same electoral games in the Eastern European states in order to control a Warsaw Pact buffer, this time against the still strong European imperial states rather than Germany. Everybody hopes Europe can calm down again and enjoy a post-war peace like the 19th century with the German irritant removed.
To top it off, 6 million Jews don't die and we don't wind up with Israel because the West likely props up Turkey and the Arab states as a bulwark against Russian incursion into the Middle East oil fields. Maybe we even go into the Caliphate business!
