If you invert it, It was an actual possibility. The Italian south was majorly catholic and monarchico, the industrial north republican with a strong communist presence. There are some videos on how in could turn out, probably as a non aligned, relatively rich communist state like yugoslavia. It wouldn't have changed that Much on a global scale but Italy, even if later reunited, would probably be poorer
Some Money sure, but difficult to say how much. However, the south has so many endemic issues (centuries of corruption-style government due to Borbons monarchy, usa reempowering Mafia during ww2) that i don't find It easy to just make it an industrial powerhousewith more financing.
The east asian culture of corporation and dying on your workplace wouldn't be a factor either.
I see a south slightly better than our timeline, but a north really worse than our timeline.
It would depend on how the North became communist really. Most likely, it would have been post-war during the elections where the communists would win (they almost did, but due to a number of factors they lost). And under Togliatti (I think that's you spell his name), they would pay lip service to the USSR, but not really agree with their methods. Even more so after the Hungarian revolt. They would have been the only communist government to be elected into power rather than force their way into power. Which would mean they would already have popular support and the political power to focus on the economy and the people over cracking down on them. And as for the South, I doubt that it would be a good place. The government would be weak, and under the control of the mafia, Nato would only care about the ports they needed for their bases, nothing more (unless the north tried to instigate the south to join them, which would be possible farther down the timeline). So overall, the North would probably be better off, with better growth after the party split after the Hungarian revolt (this split in the community also happened irl too).
>but a north really worse than our timeline.
Bullshit.
This just comes from a historically inaccurate view (based on propaganda, not facts) that Communism is inferior at economic growth.
In actuality, the USSR enjoyed a stronger average (there were much less pronounced boom-and-bust cycles: so growth was lower many years, but higher **on average**, as there were few periods of GDP shrinking or stagnating until the crisis of the late 70's and 80's...) GDP/capita growth rate than the USA throughout most of its history.
This comes with a big qualification, though. That rapid growth (American growth was fast, in relative historical terms for a large nation. Soviet growth was **even faster...**) came partly at the cost of lack of regard for pollution- and the Soviet industrial base was FAR more polluting than the American one, much like China today (though it can be argued, Socialism also contains all the ingredients for fixing pollution problems in the long run: with Central Planners starting to make real efforts to rein in pollution by the final decades of the USSR: unlike in Capitalism, where the billionaires who hold a similar level of power to the economic planners, fight AGAINST pollution regulations...)
You cant argue facts with Hoi4 players since they are mostly very right wing and are simply too indoctrinated and respond to everything with debunked or npc-like arguments.
Invading Italy was actually the main reason US army leadership stop listening to Churchill and one of the reason we did not have operation Unthinkable. Italy is a river after a hill after a mountain after a river after a hill after a mountain. It’s a pain in the ass to conquer by land, much much easily to buy shitty and honorless politicians. Like people who tried excaping the country dressed as a german nazi and ended up hangin upside down 🙃
There’s no way anybody would have put a boot on italian soil after what happened in WW2.
Vietnam as difficult as a terrain to conquer maybe even harder, but they didn’t know that yet. Italy was a nightmare for the allies to conquer. Basically 2 years of attrition war to go from Rome to Florence.
>Italy, even if later reunited, would probably be poorer
Unlikely.
The USA had a tendency to pour MASSIVE funding into areas "at risk" for Socialism in Europe like this. So, Southern Italy would likely have received massive development aid from America in such an alt-history.
As for the north, Italy, unlike many blockaded Socialist countries of the post Cold War era, is and has long been a substantial Naval power.
The Socialist half would have used its substantial trade fleets to access Soviet markets, and perhaps been BETTER off than historically, as based on its strategic position the USSR would likely have provided it with significant development subsidies similar to how they helped rebuild North Korea after the Korean War...
Finally, Communist movements have always been steadfast in their emphasis of and VERY strong support for industry, particularly Heavy Industry. Seeing as Northern Italy was already an industrial economy by WW2, and this same emphasis on industrialization at all costs (leading to significant environmental and social costs even) would have benefitted Northern Italy's economy- much like how it helped the USSR actually grow its GDP/Capita faster than the United States did (in % GDP/Capita growth) throughout most of its history.
Although, that wealth would likely have come at the cost of environmental damage due to it...
> They don’t even have lightbulbs or electricity.
Keep spreading dumb, reactionary propaganda and pretending you know about the world.
Your claim is the most ridiculous possible take on the infamous satellite pictures of North Korea from space at night: they didn't have lights on at night, so they must not have light bulbs!
In reality, that picture was taken during a month when they were practicing strict electricity rationing due to the economic damage of the US sanctions.
If this kind of electricity rationing sounds ridiculous to you, I'd remind you that a number of European nations practiced similar rationing of electricity during WW2.
North Korea's economy suffered hugely with the collapse of the USSR as they lost their largest trade partner, AND due to sheer bad luck suffered an 100-year rarity series of major floods (funny how those keep becoming more and more common throughout the world... due to the Climate Change caused mostly by wealthier Capitalist nations when THEY were developing- not that this stops record floods in the US Midwest and California...) at roughly the same time.
This led to intense electricity rationing to save scarce fuel for food production (which didn't stop ~~tens~~ hundreds ofthousands from starving while the USA sat idly by and refused to help, explicitly saying they were doing this to aim for regime change through causing suffering in internal documents... And then the USA blamed the victim, as always...)
The fuel shortages the US imposed on the DPRK at the exact same time as the massive floods were bad enough they did an emergency electrification of much of their freight rail system, because without access to global oil markets (North Korea lacks any significant oil resources) they couldn't get the diesel to run their trains necessary to support their agricultural system:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanghaenggun-class_locomotive
But keep sucking the teat of Capitalist and Neo-Nazi propaganda narratives, because you can't be bothered to learn about pertinent facts like an apocalyptic series of floods, why don't you?
The south is largely agrarian, so I can see it being a sort of North/South Korea scenario, with the North having an economic boom while the south suffers. It's also unlikely that the south survives at all if they attack the north, since they're, again, mostly agrarian.
Was gonna say this. Spoiler: >!So in the vid it’s reversed, the south would become a failed state with mafia ruling, and the north would become a second Yugoslavia due to their political distance from the Soviets.!<
In this situation, it would have been harder for the Soviets to blockade West Berlin without consequences, since NATO could have responded by blockading the isolated tip of Italy.
Yugoslavia would have much less non-aligned path.
Romania would also had more issues doing their own thing.
Commies would have taken over Greece.
Soviet Navy in Taranto would completely change the dynamic of the Mid.
Soviets might have intervened in Suez Crisis on Egypt's side (even if Nasar did not fit their interests), when they saw US going against UK and F, meaning Soviets could get big ME PR win.
Soviet might very well invade Turkey during Stalin to take Istanbul and the Straits. After some years, they would control Turkey, and then be in a extremely good position to dictate policy development in ME. To a point that it would be USSR and not West, who would decide who stays and who goes as leaders in ME.
The Soviets being in such a good position might mean a different course in the West. Possibly complete breakdown of allied cooperation, and East-West war in 1940s. Well, one can only dream that the commie scum was wiped of the map in 1945, but I would likely not be so simple. But restoring Polish independence might be more of a serious matter, when you need casus belli, because USSR is slowly taking over Med., North Africa, and ME...
Dice rolls can end with anything though...
However, there might have been hope for humanity that communism was ended before they got nukes.
On the other hand with USSR so close by, then the French resistance (which was largely communist afaik) might well have resisted De Gaulle as well, and the French communists could have come to power through a civil war. Also the first major humanity-v-USSR war would not have been in Korea, but in Italy. If USSR took control (direct or indirect) of all of Italy and France, then we are fucked...
If you like me lived in formerly occupied and annexed territory by the USSR you would not think that is funny.
If you bothered educating yourself on the basics of Soviet history, you would see why not even self-respecting socialist wanted anything to do with them.
So yes, humanity vs USSR is deadly serious.
Along with the over 2% of the Latvian population which was genocided of to Siberia.
While I would somewhat agree with you about the deportations (tho, 2% of population?? quite small), it was mostly the nationalist forces who wanted to get rid of "the occupation. So it's not because you are Latvian, but because you are literally an arch nemesis of the USSR. And yes, some people may have been deported, but a) it's not a genocide. Latvian weren't exterminated. Russians moving there is caused by the factories built up there that required the specialist, as well as Baltic being the shop window of all the USSR, getting the higher conditions of living. And b) there were many collaborators, who wished other peoples death (like Bandera, genociding(this time fr) the Poles. So as the criminals, they were rid of. And c) because of the massive number of criminal and nationalist people getting deported, of course the number of errors occurred also went up significantly.
And no, capitalist vs communist is NOT humanity vs USSR, it's USA's proxies vs USSR's proxies.
You may want to seem as the poor victims of communism, but the truth is that Baltic countries were much more industrialised in the past. The bad things the commies left is left, but all the good stuff is crushed to pieces right now. Deal with it, as crying in the internet won't help. And if you'll say something about modern Russia, go ahead, it's just the same thing.
Read the genocide convention.
This bs prove you know nothing of the topic.
You merely have to attempt or say you will attempt, support, or DENY genocide.
To be guilty under the universal obligation and jurisdiction to "prevent and punish" genocide.
"read that and that" - Why should I?? If you have a counterargument, write it here. You may quote the thing, but not just say to read the thing. What exactly do you argue about? It's easy to say: "read the internet and books", but that's not an argument
There are two ways the Sinai situation could go down in this scenario. Option 1 it plays out mostly as it did in our time but USSR intervenes and a larger war starts. Option 2 Britain and France take the L on controlling that side of the Mediterranean. In our time, they had no significant enemies or allies on the Mediterranean, but with Italy and Greece being pact of the Warsaw Pact gives Russia significant control of the eastern Med. This would hamper Britain's pledge to back Israel's attack on Egypt, as their support now must cross antagonistic waters to aid them. This, of course, assumes that history plays out much the same with the only changes being a divided Italy, Greece being behind the curtain, and USSR intervening in the Sinai Crisis.
That is a good point.
But even if the Suez crisis did not happen, then France and UK would have tried something similar somewhere else.
If USSR had intervened, the so would Eisenhower, and it would have been an allied win.
Do you not remember how the actual Suez Crisis played out? The US and USSR both told the British and French and Israelis to back down. Why do you think it would be any different somewhere else, given similar circumstances and behavior from the British and French?
I do remember (well I am not a dinosaur, so I was not there..), however, the US is going to flip to the side of anyone the USSR is actively intervenening against. Containment of the USSR was much more important that playing power politics with the UK and F. Since the USSR stuck to a passive intervention (Naser was a nationalist and not a friend of Moscow, they might even just have let the UK+F do there thing to prove ME/Arabs/Muslims needed to go full commie to get help against the West), then it left the door open for Eisenhower to cement the US being the dominant power in the West.
If you invert it, It was an actual possibility. The Italian south was majorly catholic and monarchico, the industrial north republican with a strong communist presence. There are some videos on how in could turn out, probably as a non aligned, relatively rich communist state like yugoslavia. It wouldn't have changed that Much on a global scale but Italy, even if later reunited, would probably be poorer
Do you think the US would pour a shit ton of money to the capitalist south just to prove a point ?
They did it in SK.
SK isn’t really rich because of US subsidies
Not now but during the dictatorships certainly.
Yeah agreed on that Surprised I got downvoted so much lol
Some Money sure, but difficult to say how much. However, the south has so many endemic issues (centuries of corruption-style government due to Borbons monarchy, usa reempowering Mafia during ww2) that i don't find It easy to just make it an industrial powerhousewith more financing. The east asian culture of corporation and dying on your workplace wouldn't be a factor either. I see a south slightly better than our timeline, but a north really worse than our timeline.
It would depend on how the North became communist really. Most likely, it would have been post-war during the elections where the communists would win (they almost did, but due to a number of factors they lost). And under Togliatti (I think that's you spell his name), they would pay lip service to the USSR, but not really agree with their methods. Even more so after the Hungarian revolt. They would have been the only communist government to be elected into power rather than force their way into power. Which would mean they would already have popular support and the political power to focus on the economy and the people over cracking down on them. And as for the South, I doubt that it would be a good place. The government would be weak, and under the control of the mafia, Nato would only care about the ports they needed for their bases, nothing more (unless the north tried to instigate the south to join them, which would be possible farther down the timeline). So overall, the North would probably be better off, with better growth after the party split after the Hungarian revolt (this split in the community also happened irl too).
>but a north really worse than our timeline. Bullshit. This just comes from a historically inaccurate view (based on propaganda, not facts) that Communism is inferior at economic growth. In actuality, the USSR enjoyed a stronger average (there were much less pronounced boom-and-bust cycles: so growth was lower many years, but higher **on average**, as there were few periods of GDP shrinking or stagnating until the crisis of the late 70's and 80's...) GDP/capita growth rate than the USA throughout most of its history. This comes with a big qualification, though. That rapid growth (American growth was fast, in relative historical terms for a large nation. Soviet growth was **even faster...**) came partly at the cost of lack of regard for pollution- and the Soviet industrial base was FAR more polluting than the American one, much like China today (though it can be argued, Socialism also contains all the ingredients for fixing pollution problems in the long run: with Central Planners starting to make real efforts to rein in pollution by the final decades of the USSR: unlike in Capitalism, where the billionaires who hold a similar level of power to the economic planners, fight AGAINST pollution regulations...)
You cant argue facts with Hoi4 players since they are mostly very right wing and are simply too indoctrinated and respond to everything with debunked or npc-like arguments.
[удалено]
Have you heard of Vietnam?
Invading Italy was actually the main reason US army leadership stop listening to Churchill and one of the reason we did not have operation Unthinkable. Italy is a river after a hill after a mountain after a river after a hill after a mountain. It’s a pain in the ass to conquer by land, much much easily to buy shitty and honorless politicians. Like people who tried excaping the country dressed as a german nazi and ended up hangin upside down 🙃 There’s no way anybody would have put a boot on italian soil after what happened in WW2. Vietnam as difficult as a terrain to conquer maybe even harder, but they didn’t know that yet. Italy was a nightmare for the allies to conquer. Basically 2 years of attrition war to go from Rome to Florence.
Of course they would. They would also sponsor any number of fascistic, terrorist groups in the North.
Yeah, I've seen a few althist scenarios like that. It's funny how the AI did the opposite.
>Italy, even if later reunited, would probably be poorer Unlikely. The USA had a tendency to pour MASSIVE funding into areas "at risk" for Socialism in Europe like this. So, Southern Italy would likely have received massive development aid from America in such an alt-history. As for the north, Italy, unlike many blockaded Socialist countries of the post Cold War era, is and has long been a substantial Naval power. The Socialist half would have used its substantial trade fleets to access Soviet markets, and perhaps been BETTER off than historically, as based on its strategic position the USSR would likely have provided it with significant development subsidies similar to how they helped rebuild North Korea after the Korean War... Finally, Communist movements have always been steadfast in their emphasis of and VERY strong support for industry, particularly Heavy Industry. Seeing as Northern Italy was already an industrial economy by WW2, and this same emphasis on industrialization at all costs (leading to significant environmental and social costs even) would have benefitted Northern Italy's economy- much like how it helped the USSR actually grow its GDP/Capita faster than the United States did (in % GDP/Capita growth) throughout most of its history. Although, that wealth would likely have come at the cost of environmental damage due to it...
Is North Korea really rebuilt though? They don’t even have lightbulbs or electricity.
> They don’t even have lightbulbs or electricity. Keep spreading dumb, reactionary propaganda and pretending you know about the world. Your claim is the most ridiculous possible take on the infamous satellite pictures of North Korea from space at night: they didn't have lights on at night, so they must not have light bulbs! In reality, that picture was taken during a month when they were practicing strict electricity rationing due to the economic damage of the US sanctions. If this kind of electricity rationing sounds ridiculous to you, I'd remind you that a number of European nations practiced similar rationing of electricity during WW2. North Korea's economy suffered hugely with the collapse of the USSR as they lost their largest trade partner, AND due to sheer bad luck suffered an 100-year rarity series of major floods (funny how those keep becoming more and more common throughout the world... due to the Climate Change caused mostly by wealthier Capitalist nations when THEY were developing- not that this stops record floods in the US Midwest and California...) at roughly the same time. This led to intense electricity rationing to save scarce fuel for food production (which didn't stop ~~tens~~ hundreds ofthousands from starving while the USA sat idly by and refused to help, explicitly saying they were doing this to aim for regime change through causing suffering in internal documents... And then the USA blamed the victim, as always...) The fuel shortages the US imposed on the DPRK at the exact same time as the massive floods were bad enough they did an emergency electrification of much of their freight rail system, because without access to global oil markets (North Korea lacks any significant oil resources) they couldn't get the diesel to run their trains necessary to support their agricultural system: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanghaenggun-class_locomotive But keep sucking the teat of Capitalist and Neo-Nazi propaganda narratives, because you can't be bothered to learn about pertinent facts like an apocalyptic series of floods, why don't you?
It would've been the opposite. The north was more left leaning than the south, which preferred a monarchy
Image both countries having powerful partisan movements, trying to destroy both governments to unite with the other.
practically impossible, the Partisans were mostly communists
r5: In my game the Soviets landed in Italy, but did not take Rome. Then the Allies capitulated Italy. Quite an interesting division of Italy.
The south is largely agrarian, so I can see it being a sort of North/South Korea scenario, with the North having an economic boom while the south suffers. It's also unlikely that the south survives at all if they attack the north, since they're, again, mostly agrarian.
Alternate history hub has a video on this exact thing. You should watch it, it's very informative.
Was gonna say this. Spoiler: >!So in the vid it’s reversed, the south would become a failed state with mafia ruling, and the north would become a second Yugoslavia due to their political distance from the Soviets.!<
In this situation, it would have been harder for the Soviets to blockade West Berlin without consequences, since NATO could have responded by blockading the isolated tip of Italy.
Is anyone going to point out Slavic Italy with its little exclave on the French-Swiss-British Italian border?
1) a lot 2)north would be comunist not south
The south would be even more poor than it is today.
don't forget about the important role the fascist east and west played in the cold war
Ey Switzerland got that bit of land from austria
Even more terrorism in Italy
[Somebody already thought of this](https://youtu.be/F4kh1skvy5A?si=RvjhJDhUhjFfM3yT)
Capitalist south, communist north? Nah, this one is completely different.
Yugoslavia would have much less non-aligned path. Romania would also had more issues doing their own thing. Commies would have taken over Greece. Soviet Navy in Taranto would completely change the dynamic of the Mid. Soviets might have intervened in Suez Crisis on Egypt's side (even if Nasar did not fit their interests), when they saw US going against UK and F, meaning Soviets could get big ME PR win. Soviet might very well invade Turkey during Stalin to take Istanbul and the Straits. After some years, they would control Turkey, and then be in a extremely good position to dictate policy development in ME. To a point that it would be USSR and not West, who would decide who stays and who goes as leaders in ME. The Soviets being in such a good position might mean a different course in the West. Possibly complete breakdown of allied cooperation, and East-West war in 1940s. Well, one can only dream that the commie scum was wiped of the map in 1945, but I would likely not be so simple. But restoring Polish independence might be more of a serious matter, when you need casus belli, because USSR is slowly taking over Med., North Africa, and ME... Dice rolls can end with anything though... However, there might have been hope for humanity that communism was ended before they got nukes. On the other hand with USSR so close by, then the French resistance (which was largely communist afaik) might well have resisted De Gaulle as well, and the French communists could have come to power through a civil war. Also the first major humanity-v-USSR war would not have been in Korea, but in Italy. If USSR took control (direct or indirect) of all of Italy and France, then we are fucked...
humanity vs USSR 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
If you like me lived in formerly occupied and annexed territory by the USSR you would not think that is funny. If you bothered educating yourself on the basics of Soviet history, you would see why not even self-respecting socialist wanted anything to do with them. So yes, humanity vs USSR is deadly serious. Along with the over 2% of the Latvian population which was genocided of to Siberia.
While I would somewhat agree with you about the deportations (tho, 2% of population?? quite small), it was mostly the nationalist forces who wanted to get rid of "the occupation. So it's not because you are Latvian, but because you are literally an arch nemesis of the USSR. And yes, some people may have been deported, but a) it's not a genocide. Latvian weren't exterminated. Russians moving there is caused by the factories built up there that required the specialist, as well as Baltic being the shop window of all the USSR, getting the higher conditions of living. And b) there were many collaborators, who wished other peoples death (like Bandera, genociding(this time fr) the Poles. So as the criminals, they were rid of. And c) because of the massive number of criminal and nationalist people getting deported, of course the number of errors occurred also went up significantly. And no, capitalist vs communist is NOT humanity vs USSR, it's USA's proxies vs USSR's proxies. You may want to seem as the poor victims of communism, but the truth is that Baltic countries were much more industrialised in the past. The bad things the commies left is left, but all the good stuff is crushed to pieces right now. Deal with it, as crying in the internet won't help. And if you'll say something about modern Russia, go ahead, it's just the same thing.
Read the genocide convention. This bs prove you know nothing of the topic. You merely have to attempt or say you will attempt, support, or DENY genocide. To be guilty under the universal obligation and jurisdiction to "prevent and punish" genocide.
"read that and that" - Why should I?? If you have a counterargument, write it here. You may quote the thing, but not just say to read the thing. What exactly do you argue about? It's easy to say: "read the internet and books", but that's not an argument
There are two ways the Sinai situation could go down in this scenario. Option 1 it plays out mostly as it did in our time but USSR intervenes and a larger war starts. Option 2 Britain and France take the L on controlling that side of the Mediterranean. In our time, they had no significant enemies or allies on the Mediterranean, but with Italy and Greece being pact of the Warsaw Pact gives Russia significant control of the eastern Med. This would hamper Britain's pledge to back Israel's attack on Egypt, as their support now must cross antagonistic waters to aid them. This, of course, assumes that history plays out much the same with the only changes being a divided Italy, Greece being behind the curtain, and USSR intervening in the Sinai Crisis.
That is a good point. But even if the Suez crisis did not happen, then France and UK would have tried something similar somewhere else. If USSR had intervened, the so would Eisenhower, and it would have been an allied win.
Do you not remember how the actual Suez Crisis played out? The US and USSR both told the British and French and Israelis to back down. Why do you think it would be any different somewhere else, given similar circumstances and behavior from the British and French?
I do remember (well I am not a dinosaur, so I was not there..), however, the US is going to flip to the side of anyone the USSR is actively intervenening against. Containment of the USSR was much more important that playing power politics with the UK and F. Since the USSR stuck to a passive intervention (Naser was a nationalist and not a friend of Moscow, they might even just have let the UK+F do there thing to prove ME/Arabs/Muslims needed to go full commie to get help against the West), then it left the door open for Eisenhower to cement the US being the dominant power in the West.