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Editor says, what if Stalin had abandoned Moscow to the Nazis? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the March 2011 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1941, on this day fortunes in the decade-long Great Patriotic War unexpectedly swung in favour of the armed Russian Partisans when a Luftwaffe Heinkel bomber operating east of Moscow scored a direct hit on the special train carrying the hopelessly incompetent Soviet leadership out of the abandoned capital.
Tipping PointThree days before the expectation that the Wehrmacht would enter the city had thrown the Capital into panic. By then not only had Stalin himself been forced to accept the view of the Muscovite population, but he had been infected by their panic, sitting at his desk in the Kremlin asking himself again and again, "What shall we do? What shall we do?".
Even though the war with Germany was no surprise to Stalin, he had no answer to this rhetorical question. Instead he signalled that all was lost by boarding a special train two days later, surely a cruel metaphor of the reversal of Soviet fortune. And a contrasting mirror image of the triumphant arrival in St Peterberg, which Stalin himself acknowledged with his bitter parting words, "Lenin left us a great legacy, and we have fucked it up".
In contrast, as the Wehrmacht occupied the major urban centres east of the Volga, Hitler was triumphant, having every reason to believe that he had defeated the Soviet Union. Although the Red Army had ceased to offer any centralised organized resistance, in the mountains of the North Caucasus and the forests of Russia, Belorussia and the Ukraine, armed partisan groups soon began to form. By the following summer the Wehrmacht would be fighting a vicious guerrilla war against a new and insiduous enemy which roamed across the terrifying vastness of German-Occupied Russia.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Oleinikov, Dmitry, and Sergei Kudryasho, "What if Hitler had defeated Russia?" May 1995)Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Stalin, Nazi, Germany, Eastern Front, Soviet Union. Editor says, The authors of this scenario write "Had the Nazi regime succeeded in its 1941-42 offensive against the Soviet Union, the Second World War would have almost certainly have been prolonged, and Germany would likely have been bombed with atomic weapons. In Russia, armed partisans would have fought a guerrilla war against the German Army."
~ Getting rid of the Soviet leadership would have almost certainly heralded the end of the Soviet experiment...but not of resistance against the Germans, who had done more than enough to bring it down on themselves.
~ Partisans tied down significant German forces, but did not alter the course of the war. With Stalin dead, Red Army generals would have taken over, and would have prosecuted the war more intelligently.
~ With the USSR gone in September 1941 the Japanese are very likely to reorient there strategy to take advantage by taking the "Northern Resource Area" which is eastern Siberia instead of attacking south into the Dutch East Indies, Philippines, and US/UK territories. No reason to attack the USA and UK when everything they need is close at hand in Siberia and opposition will be minimal at best, at least in the early stages. In Europe it becomes the UK vs Germany but so much of the German resources are tied up in Russia they won't be able to do much other than submarine warfare and limited bombing. The UK alone on the other hand will lack the resources to invade and defeat Germany. A strategic stalemate will ensue unless FDR is able to convince the USA to enter the war, and without Pearl Harbor that would be extremely difficult. FDR is going to loose a massive number of House seats in 1942 if he pushes for war with Germany triumphant and nobody actively attacking the USA. High probability is he retires in 1944 and the UK and Hitler sign a peace treaty some time between the fall of the USSR and November 1944. Both sides are exhausted and Germany is busy holding down its conquered territories.
~ At least there wouldn't be a Cold War.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
