Emerging as the sole superpower in the world?What does "winning the Cold War" even mean?
Assuming winning the Cold War means "America gives up on capitalism, hostilities drop", the various communist states who fell in our timeline are going to stick around, so that's the first change - and if America gives up without the Communist Block becoming more democratic, you've just sounded a death bell for the concept of democracy. That's good for various right-wing dictators, they can say "look what liberal democracy did in America, you need a strong leader to protect you". The EEC huddles together and integrates further because it now really, really has to without America's backing and with everything looking very fragile.
As @Nyvis says, the USSR doesn't have the same ability to become a hyperpower like America did, so the Cold War's won but you have a whole new multipolar conflict with the USSR, China, Japan, EEC etc. (Maybe global trade contracts and you get very protectionist 'spheres of interest') Also America's still around, just like Russia was, and can come back as a player. So the USSR might not even be on top for very long.
other states turning away from capitalism could do so in a democratic manner, especially without the threat of the US hanging over their head.
Would they when any anti-democratic autocrat just saw the most well-known democracy fall down and the benevolent dictatorship of [whoever is running USSR] win?
Yes. I really don't see why not? People really overestimate the effect of "inspiration". America losing really doesn't weaken democracy. It's likely to be pretty undemocratic in its fall anyway, since you'd need a trigger for it. Meanwhile, right wing autocrats lost their main patron. Sure, within the USSR' reach, you may have a few communists who do not bother with democracy, but the USSR also had no issues backing communist parties playing the parliamentary game and were very leery of gambling on adventurists.
In fact the US losing is likely to be a great boon for democracy outside the west because you can now be democratic and left wing without being couped.
Honestly the only way I can see America collapsing is if it either goes all Rumsfeldia/Buckleymania or the country gets really divided for some reason and can’t resolve its issues through the ballot like it normally does. This would also mean that at least one side is not interested in ‘being democratic’.
Either way such a country will not exactly be viewed as a democracy by Western Europe (and the rest of the Democratic World to a lesser extent). Thus the collapse of the USA will be viewed by such countries as more of a fall of a fascism/authoritarianism.
You could make the argument that the rest of the capitalist world goes authoritarian as well, but in such a scenario the only alternative the American people would have for authoritarianism would be communism and I can’t imagine the American people accepting communism post-1950s. Thus at least Western Europe would have to remain democratic.
In such a world the rest of NATO would have automatically moved closer to the Soviet pact as imo the US would have to be seen as the lesser of the two evils to see enough pressure from the democracies of the world to actually ‘lose’. I can’t see the European nations accepting the Soviet Union as a partner without some concessions at least. A re-united Germany and some form of democracy or market liberalization in the rest of the Warsaw Pact would be the minimum. East Asia doesn’t have to be that much different. Japan and to a lesser extent South Korea are strong enough to have equal, closer to the Soviets as first among equals, relations with the Soviet Union.
Communism would probably be more popular in Africa and Latin America and communist parties would be much more relevant in the democratic world as well. In fact they could easily be the main left-wing parties in France, Italy and Spain, while being represented in parliament in the Nordic countries and places like the Netherlands and Belgium. Spain and Portugal could even be outright communist if the end of fascism in those countries goes a bit different.
Very European centered post, but I do not know nearly as much about the rest of the world. Though I do not think the Soviets could establish a hegemony like the Americans have at the moment.
Yeah, for the USSR to "win" the Cold War you would need the US to fuck up massively somehow, like for example botched Civil Rights Act leading to earlier Black militancy, and Vietnam would still need to be ending up like OTL. As a result the suburbian backlash is timed with stagflation and that for the next couple of decades the US and Europe are pushed away and the EEC and COMECON gets closer could work.
There are sociological reasons for the limited appeal of the communists in Portugal (their strongholds were mostly places with latifundia, or industrial regions where a significant part of the population migrated from those places), and increasing their appeal requires a POD so early that completely alters the economic structure of the whole country and probably changes world politics into something very different than OTL.Spain and Portugal could even be outright communist if the end of fascism in those countries goes a bit different.
There are sociological reasons for the limited appeal of the communists in Portugal (their strongholds were mostly places with latifundia, or industrial regions where a significant part of the population migrated from those places), and increasing their appeal requires a POD so early that completely alters the economic structure of the whole country and probably changes world politics into something very different than OTL.
It would be unlikely. The Socialists distrusted the communists on a good day, and actively disliked them on a normal day.Communist + vague non communist left coalition then, maybe?
I don't think it's possible because I don't think communism can succeed.
Thanks, very insightful.
Sorry. Expanding on this, though, the economic of the Soviet Union was stagnant and its military spending was far beyond its capability. I just don't see a way for them to win the Cold War.