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With their huge Indian puppet I fear Poland-Russia has the word in the bag. That's a hell of a lot of manpower. I'm not sure the yanks are up to holding off the Eurasian union.
Woah, the politics in the USA look interesting. Though I wonder how much African-Americans would live in this USA, I'm not too versed on the slavery topic within Muslim socities but maybe that could lead to less of the colonial slavery that ocurred in OTL.
Back to the end of WW2, it's nice to see Japan managed to get an easy exit from the conflict. The huge Korea looks quite interesting to be honest, makes me imagine Balhae conquering the rest of the peninsula.
I'm so excited to see more about the developments in Asia, especially if the new Indian regime will prove capable of keeping a stable country.
Enjoying it so much. ^^
I think it would be safe to say that Islamic society, going off say the ottoman example, was just as willing to employ slave labor as the OTL Europeans, except slavery was multi-racial. From what I understand, the ottoman empire were equal opportunity slavers rather like the Romans. Instead of a hard black white racially stratified system like in the US, I would be you would have a more mixed society more akin to say Brazil where there is some racial discrimination but there is more of a class system.
It would be interesting to see the creole culture that would of grown up with African, European, and Native American cultures and how they inter-acted with the muslim greater culture. It would also be fascinating to see how Islam would of developed in America as well as in the Tatar lands/Central Asia. Without having a Caliph in the OTL Ottoman empire Im sure more Sufi type movements with strong tribal/folk influences would be popular in Central Asia and American islam would be very Syncretic and with a pluralism of sects similr to the OTL protestants.
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On the other hand, America here is descended from a nation that occupied the same geographical position as the Iberian countries did historically, so it would make sense for them to still initiate the Atlantic Slave Trade. I think that slavery would still be more based on religion than race, though- I remember theorizing that 'Islamness' would occupy a similar position ttl to 'whiteness' OTL.
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one difference is that in Ottoman Empire slavery was in much more limited numbers since it was domestic slavery. In European colonies such as present day USA or Brazil it was slave society with industrial numbers of slaves. There also was a lot more conditions to set a slave free (i.e. when the owner died the slaves weren't regarded as property and set free). Also, it was uncommon but not unseen for a non-muslim to own a muslim slave. So it would be a much different society than our timeline's America in terms of the slavery past and social stratification; but I cannot think of how exactly. A mix of modern day Turkey and modern day Morocco?
In addition to being multi-racial, the slavery system of the Islamic world was pretty different to Europe's. Sure, you could become a galley slave, but slaves generally had it much easier than in the West. The Janissary corps of the Ottomans were a slave army, which ended up choosing who would become Sultan in some occasions. Vizirs could be slaves. The rulers of the Mamluks of Egypt were slave families, with the top slave so to speak at the helm.
1945-1947 – Nothing Lasts Forever
1945-1947 – Nothing Lasts Forever
In 1945, much of the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific, encompassing Europe, Africa and Asia had endured incredible levels of destruction over the course of the preceding decade. Infrastructure that had taken decades to construct had been wiped away, tens of millions of lives lost and societies completely upended in the pursuit of total war. For all parties, the focus turned to reconstruction. In Russia, there was a significant demobilisation of men, yet the armed forces remained vastly larger than they had been before the war. Huge resources were invested in rebuilding lost factories, railway lines, housing, and more. The state would take a leading role in redirecting the energies of Russian society to these ends – granting immense power to party bosses in charge of the reconstruction effort, with extensive networks of patronage developing around them. Nonetheless, taking advantage of a campaign of asset stripping in the old lands of the VSVR as well as the labour of around 2,000,000 European and Indian prisoners of war kept in the Republic to work on the reconstruction effort and access to a much larger market than its autarkic prewar economy had, the Russian economy rebounded from the horrors of war with unexpected speed and energy.
Although parties in both the east and the west were focussed on reconstruction in these immediate postwar years, tensions and the threat of war was never far away. One of the first serious flare ups that threatened an unthinkable descent into a Third World War occurred in Iceland in 1946. In the summer of that year a large popular revolt by the native Icelanders saw the island’s small Russian garrison overwhelmed and in July an independent Icelandic Republic proclaimed. The Icelanders attracted sympathy from their Norse brethren in Skotland and, naturally, the anti-Russians in New Cordoba – allowing them to quickly arm themselves with modern weaponry. However, the Russians did not sit idly by. In August an expedition was sent out to reconquer the island, with four heavily armed crack divisions. Heavy fighting around Reykjavik lasted for two weeks while the Icelandic nationalists in the interior fought on for several more months. Although the Allies had rattled their sabres in the name of Icelandic freedom, they ultimately stopped short of going to war for the small island nation.
Within the borders of the Russian Republic itself, even before the war had ended in Asia in 1945, a new wave of political terror was gripping the nation unlike anything seen since the early 1930s. This second round of purges was led by the rage of the Vozhd against those he had believed had undermined him and the war effort during the struggle against the International. Makarov was obsessed by the idea that there was a great conspiracy of traitors that had almost led Russia to destruction, and many elements within the regime took advantage of the opportunity to curry favour and personal advancement by playing into this paranoia by identifying ever more targets for retribution. There were three primary targets of these postwar purges. Firstly, the Radical Republican Party itself. Many within the regime had doubted Makarov and even organised against him during the dark days of 1941-1942, and the Vozhd personally ensured that those who did not stand alongside him during those testing times met their comeuppance. Collaborators and suspected sympathisers with the socialist invaders were also addressed. This brought suspicion across entire ethnic groups among the Republic’s western Christian periphery – with Krakowians, Lithuanians, Prussians and Carpathian Greeks believed to have been particularly guilty of collaboration. In Central Asia, the Hindu Mongols, Persians and Indians were seen in a similar light for their links, both real and imagined, to Delhi during the war. As such these areas suffered from heavy repression with community leaders arrested and executed, the military instituting a harsh occupation and tens of thousands disappearing without explanation of trace. The third prong to the purges was anti-Americanism, with those with connections or sympathies with Russia’s new enemy seen as strategic threat. This in turn led to the latest in a long series of Radical assaults on the Tatar community, with millions having family living in the United States. As ever, the Tatars faced the most brutal and intensive attacks on their community from the Russian government, terrorising the community as they had done repeatedly since the Radical seizure of power three decades before.
European colonialism had escaped the Second World War much diminished and barely intact. The Papacy had lost the better part of its once endless Asian appendages, while the Skots too were weakened. In South East Asia, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Japanese war effort in 1945 large depots of arms had been left behind by the withdrawing troops returning to the Home Islands. Much of this materiel had ended up in the hands of indigenous nationalist groups, many of whom had been formed to resist the Japanese occupation but were equally reluctant to see colonial rule re-imposed. The most effective of these groups across South East Asia shared a broadly similar ideology inspired by the far right populist nationalism of China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. The sought national revolution through independence, expulsion of the whites and dispossession of ethnic minorities in their respective countries who often occupied privileged positions of economic influence.
To the north, victory in the Second World War had radicalised China’s nationalist revolution. Since 1945 virtually the entire foreign born population had been forced out the country and their assets seized. The Papal State in particular protested these actions, as thousands of Christian missionaries and an extensive network of churches and monasteries were seized by the state without compensation, and many agents of the Church were killed in mob violence. Ethnic and religious minorities came under heavy handed censure by the state, and frequent attack from grassroots revolutionaries – with the government embarking on a programme to Sinicise these groups into Han culture. The Chinese would needle the scornful West with their support for anti-colonial movements elsewhere in Asia, yet there was one issue that animated the revolutionary Chinese masses more than anything else – Beijing. For two centuries Beijing had been the capital of the Ming Empire, the last Chinese state to successfully project itself as a unified global power. Yet, for decades now this great city had been subjected to foreign Mongol-Russian rule. For Chinese nationalists, their revolution could not be complete until the city was reclaimed and the Han people united once more. Up and down the country, mass demonstrations demanded the return of this most precious soil to its rightful masters.
The tensions between Russia and China attracted American interests to the Far East, a region long neglected by their diplomats. Any engagement with the Chinese radicals, with their extreme distrust of outsiders, was difficult, yet New Cordoba nonetheless attempted to offer a hand of friendship by support a referendum on the sovereignty of Beijing, and putting pressure on their European allies to offer their colonial subjects a path towards independence. A more welcoming partner was found in the Far East’s third great nation – Korea. While China and Japan had trade blows for the best part of a decade, Korea remained solidly neutral despite pressure from both sides. Korea was something of an unusual feature in the region as Asia’s only truly democratic nation – functioning as a liberal constitutional monarchy with a small colonial empire of its own in Taiwan and the Transamur region. With the Russians to the north and an aggressive Chinese state to the west, the Koreans were open to closer ties with America as a means of guaranteeing their independence while they, like the Chinese themselves, coveted territories under Russian domination – including areas of southern Manchuria with substantial Korean populations and the Kamchatka peninsula that was once a Korean colony and was still home to a Korean elite.
Far away from the world of day to day politics, a team of scientists led by the enigmatic Professor Moshe Leinitz, an Ashkenazi with a strained relationship with the Russian authorities, had been working on a new experimental weapon of war since the early 1940s. On January 11th 1947 they were finally able to conduct a live test of their new weapon in the dusty deserts of Central Asia. All observers were stunned. Their new atomic bomb was vastly more powerful and destructive than anything ever before seen in human history, having the potential to destroy an entire city with a single ordinance. Leinitz himself was terrified of the implications of what he had created, fearing what the Republican regime might do with such power. Within days of the test, as news reached Kiev of what had occurred, all the scientist involved in the project were placed under effective house arrest – all their movements tightly monitored and control, separated even from their own families as the Russian government sought to prevent any knowledge or information about their new secret weapon reaching the wider world.
While the development of the atom bomb was a tightly kept secret, on March 8th 1947 news arrived that would shake the world. One week before Boris Makarov, now an increasingly aged 74 year old, had travelled to the land of his birth in Pomerania from the capital after growing unwell. Whilst there he had taken a fishing trip just off the shore of the Baltic Sea, as he often had as a boy. While at sea he had suffered a massive heart attack and fallen into the water. It took more than an hour for his bodyguards to successfully recover his by then bloated and bluing body from the water. Boris Makarov was dead. For thirty two years he had appeared invincible, the master of all he had surveyed. An entire generation had no memory of life before his tyrannical dictatorship began and could not imagine a Russia without him. For the Radical ideal, he was simply irreplaceable.
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The US is still essentially a liberal democracy, but the conservative side of its politics are heavily split on race and religion - with the conservative end of the spectrum being basically democratic islamists with a strong plebian edge owing to the preponderance of working class Muslim immigrants and their descendants in their ranks.
We can see a multifaceted global conflict going on here. The Eurasian League and the Allies facing off as the two main blocks, but with a fascistic China being hostile to both parties for different reasons (the Allies for their colonialism, the Russians for the holy grail of Beijing).
Indeed, far right states basically control the majority of Asia and half of Europe at this point. We shall see what the future holds.
The are really stretched quite thin - we have potentially hostile boundaries that need garrisoned stretching from the Elbe to the Tigris to the Yellow Sea. Most of Russia's 'allies' in the Eurasian League are basically just satrapies rather than genuine partners who can aid in this effort. And who knows how the nation and its empire will be effected by the death of the big man.
so what's next is cold war turning hot, and Mustafa.. erm Mesut Bayraktar being at the helm of one of the superpowers to duke it out? Whenever I think there cannot be anything crazier than already happened, this great AAR surprises me again
We've taken our first steps into the postwar era and we have Cold War style posturing, tensions in Asia and Europe, the development of a secret weapon in Central Asia and the death of the Vozhd
. What happens now is anyone's guess!They don't quite border eachother. To the south of Grigoria (Russian North America) we have the ex-German states that stayed neutral in WW2 and two the West Danish Canada (now fully independent given the fall of the Kingdom of Denmark) who fought with the Allies through their Danish connection and are still a part of the American led alliance.
Woah, the politics in the USA look interesting. Though I wonder how much African-Americans would live in this USA, I'm not too versed on the slavery topic within Muslim socities but maybe that could lead to less of the colonial slavery that ocurred in OTL.
Back to the end of WW2, it's nice to see Japan managed to get an easy exit from the conflict. The huge Korea looks quite interesting to be honest, makes me imagine Balhae conquering the rest of the peninsula.
I'm so excited to see more about the developments in Asia, especially if the new Indian regime will prove capable of keeping a stable country.
Enjoying it so much. ^^
I discussed the American aspect in the comments below
. As for Asia, we had a look at a few more aspects of the Far East here - with Chinese-inspired far right anti-colonial movements springing up in the SE Asian colonies, China's nationalist revolution radicalising and aiming its sights on Russian-controlled Beijing (it belongs to one of our puppets), and the Americans trying to stir anti-Russian sentiment in the region and finding a receptive audience among the Koreans. Korea has been remarkably peaceful for many centuries. They were a big colonial player for a while, but after I bullied them out of Kamchatka back in the 17th century they have mostly kept to themselves for a very long time, so I thought a more democratic development made sense (and they are democratic in game as well!)
I'm saving a look at India for the next update
. Quite a poetic story - it shows the influence all those millions of emigrants that have been leaving Poland since the mid-19th century have had on the rest of the world. He may well be the country's most famous son with Makarov now dead.
And as you noted, the old man couldn't last forever and now he has gone. We will have a look at the struggle to decide where to go next in the next update
.For Boris, most certainly. We still have track left to run here
.We are not quite at the end of the story. Although we are now within a lifetime of the present day
.Combined the Eurasian League is way ahead of the Allies in terms of manpower, we are fairly close in terms of divisions (although ours are more efficiently distributed) although their naval strength gives them complete control of the seas and they have significantly more air power. In industry too, the Allies are far ahead - mostly due to America.
Don't we all!
In terms of New Andalucian society (America's predecessor) my vision is that there would still be a strong economic imperative towards slavery in the region during the colonial era (with the manpower needed for the sort of agriculture best suited to the area), and the Islamic culture of the Iberians would hardly be a dissuading influence. Africa would still make sense as the best source for these slaves, and if anything they would be even more accessible to Andalucians than OTL Europeans - with easier links to trade with Sub-Saharan Africa, where there are plenty of non-Muslims to be bought in the slave markets. As others noted, there may also have been white Christian slaves - but they would likely be harder to acquire in the same numbers. In the Islamic societies white slaves were often viewed as of a higher tier than black slaves - so some sort of racial division with black Americans on the bottom, and as the main enslaved population in the plantations of the South prior to emancipation would likely hold. What the shape of that bondage would look like could well be different.
Beyond that, whiteness is unlikely to hold the same sway as OTL America. For one, America's 19th century immigrant wave came from Tatars and Arabs - among these diverse groups Islam is clearly a more unifying factor than race. I could definitely see 'unique' forms of Islam growing up in America (and Australia for that matter) - you often see colonial societies take religion in new directions (we need only think of the OTL USA with its Great Awakenings and Evangelicalism). Then we have a unique Jewish role in American society, with Sephardim a large portion of the Andalucian population, similar numbers would have come to America and become a key part of the establishment - they are the equivalent of people coming over on the Mayflower! We didn't spend enough time looking into America through the ages to flesh its history out more over the course of the AAR, but I've always enjoyed giving little peaks of what is going on beyond our main protagonist in Poland.
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Makarov is dead. Finally. And, most probably, unfortunately as it is sure to spark internal turmoil, and - perhaps - civil war.
Well, Makarov certainly didn't die well, but I must admit I had hoped, vainly, for something more... Mussolini-style. Anyway, good riddance to garbage. May his regime die with him.
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I choose to read the fact that Makarov’s death is suspiciously similar to Robert Maxwell’s as a positive sign. Which is to say, continuing the coincidence, that the vast empire he built is surely now but weeks away from collapse.
Right?
Right?
Makarov is dead! *Insert Crab Rave meme here*
The Death of Makarov movie will be hilarious as the guards scramble to find their leader's body as his would be successors assert themselves over the country.
Russia can look forward to more purges, or a civil war. One way or another, this is going to be bloody. And no doubt many others will strive to take advantage of the situation.
I wish there was another emoji than which is more intense! Now the dictator is dead with no clear succession and there's a nuke. Craziness intensifies!
which is more intense! Now the dictator is dead with no clear succession and there's a nuke. Craziness intensifies!
Imagine the lifting scene but instead of soaked pants it's a bloated corps
I somehow missed the last few entries, but lord, what a intense ride. And yes, Makarov died too peacefully.
Those poor bastards in this world. We can only hope that Fascism isn't a functional ideology long-term, although many decades of power in Russia seem to cut against that thesis.
I will be surprised if the Indians remain far right wing in a world where their overlords also share that ideology. Hard to say you're standing up for the Indian volk by thinking and doing... exactly what your Russian masters would want.
Ironically maybe the worst case scenario for the world is Russian fascism collapses *right now,* followed by the new government pulling out of India and China. Colonialism is a terrible evil but stopping at this exact moment would hand Indian and Chinese fascism massive victories to talk about forever. Greatly increasing the likelihood that 1/3rd of humanity is stuck with fascism for a long while.
I will be surprised if the Indians remain far right wing in a world where their overlords also share that ideology. Hard to say you're standing up for the Indian volk by thinking and doing... exactly what your Russian masters would want.
Ironically maybe the worst case scenario for the world is Russian fascism collapses *right now,* followed by the new government pulling out of India and China. Colonialism is a terrible evil but stopping at this exact moment would hand Indian and Chinese fascism massive victories to talk about forever. Greatly increasing the likelihood that 1/3rd of humanity is stuck with fascism for a long while.
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