What if Communism beat Capitalism in the Cold War?
(I’m not a Communist. Don’t send me to the gulag, read this instead.)
After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Communism as an economic system has more or less been consigned to the dustbin of history. But was that really inevitable? Is Communism inherently flawed and doomed? Is there a possibility that things might have turned out radically differently?
Let’s start with the founding Augustus of the American Empire, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” — a set of massive economic stimulus packages- helped pull America out of the Great Depression, and his visionary reformation of American society, industry and resources, as well as his far-sighted statesmanship during the World War, ensured the defeat of Nazi Germany. (What if Roosevelt wasn’t around? Nazis might have conquered America. That’s a story for another day.)
In 1944, the Allies had almost won the Second World War, and Roosevelt was up for re-election. The Democratic National Convention was expected to re-nominate Henry Wallace, his then Vice President, to run with him. However, a “fire hazard” led to voting being postponed, and the next day, shockingly, the relatively unknown Harry S. Truman was nominated instead. So.. let’s say there was no fire hazard, and Wallace was nominated as expected. Assuming everything else stayed the same, President Roosevelt died suddenly 82 days later.
Historically, President Truman succeeded Roosevelt and proved to be a great statesman, inaugurated a new global order with America at its head, and pumped billions of dollars into Western Europe under the Marshall Plan, reinvigorating the capitalistic global order. What might President Wallace have done? What if America pulled out of Europe and refused to save the economies of Western Europe, and became isolationist as it did after Word War I? Wallace was known to be softer and more trusting with the Soviets.
Winston Churchill, the only other major European statesman of the day, would have tried but failed to stop the spread of Communism (he lost power in the next British election). Without the Americans, deprived and desperate European voters would have turned en masse to socialist government. Seriously weakened, the British Empire would have been powerless to stop the spread of Communism as Stalin extended his anti-imperialist influence into former colonies (including, for example, India).
Without American intervention for oil, the Arab world would be very different. The Soviets didn’t have a Jewish electorate to placate by creating Israel, as President Truman did. Without oil imperialism, the Arabs would more or less have been left to their own devices — they might not be as wealthy as they are today, but then, there probably wouldn’t have been an Arab Spring (a backlash against dictators set up by American oil interests) or a Syrian Civil War. As the Communist blanket spread, America would probably have grown more and more isolationist and paranoid, and the balance of power would have shifted to the USSR instead. If not for CIA encouragement, would global jihadism be as virulent as it is today?
Let’s say that the USSR didn’t deteriorate completely into a totalitarian police state, but stayed closer to Leninist principles. Without the insecurity of having to catch up to the West militarily or otherwise, Khrushchev (whose pointless posturing nearly brought the world to the brink of destruction during the Cuban Missile Crisis) may never have become Premier. East Germany might have become more prosperous than the West under more mature Soviet leadership. The Americans would increasingly be on the back foot, facing mounting demands to end segregation. Eventually, even America would have swung to the left — just as Russia has, in our world, become capitalist.
The Communists might eventually have won the Space Race. Keep in mind that the USSR was ahead of the US for quite a while, with Sputnik and a manned mission, until Kennedy began to pump money into NASA and the Apollo programme in the sixties, which the Americans later abandoned as electoral support for expensive moon missions faded. The Soviets, however, had no need to be profitable or popular, and a Red World could have afforded to keep investing in space exploration without worrying about fickle electoral support for funding. After all, what does the proletariat know about such grand causes? Better trust Comrade Premier to do what’s right. Or else go to the gulag (Logically, we cannot entirely rule out political punishments since Stalin himself began this infamous tradition).
By 2017, Planet Earth’s ethical framework would be very different. Perhaps in 1991, the Berlin Wall would have fallen — but Germany would be Communist, not capitalist. Technologically, we’d be behind where we are today (the competition between America and Russia was responsible for a lot of innovation — if that didn’t exist, there would have been little motivation for massive breakthroughs). Income levels would be lower. (No tech parks and IT industry in Bangalore — hmm, that’d make me very happy actually..)
Inequality may have been less, public education and healthcare would be better, and we might have a moon base. No human rights. International interventions would be to topple the bourgeoisie, not to restore democracy. Central Planning would be a lot more important than Free Trade. All people would be poor and (maybe) oppressed, not just the Third World. There’d be a lot more Red Tape (haha) but a Soviet World Union might, on balance, have been more “equal”. Though, in a truly Orwellian fashion, some comrades would be more “equal” than others.
