Europe - the British alternative
In the "Nazi alternative", all Hitler needs to do is avoid war with Britian and France. That will leave him free to defeat the Russians, after which he will end up dominating Europe.
In "Small changes save lives", the Britsh avoid mass bombing of German cities and win the war faster - but what would Britian need to do to end up dominating Europe ?
The problems are :-
1) USSR. Once the USSR comes into existance, it's eventual rise to 'world power status' is more or less inevitable. Stalin invaded both Poland and Finland 'on his own', and (without Hitler) would no doubt have gone on to invade the rest of eastern europe. So even without Hitler to force them to "industrialise or die", they have the resources (population, raw materials) necessary end up dominating Europe anyway. But if not USSR, then it would be :-
2) Nazi Germany. If Germany invades USSR, they either loose, leaving USSR with all of Eastern Europe and in position to dominate europe, or they win - and end up dominating Europe themselves. So, just as the USSR has to be prevented from coming into existance, the same applies to Nazi Germany ..
3) France. Finally, if there is a way to prevent USSR or Nazi Germany gaining dominance, Europe will end up in thr hands of the French !
The rise of communism and the Nazis can both be traced directly to WW1. So this is where any alternatice history has to start.
WW1 has it's roots in the desires of the Slavic peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina to leave Austria Hungary and join with Serbia. This is not 'unreasonable' by today's standards, but 100% opposed by almost everyone at the time. Where it all starts to 'go wrong' is when Serbia sponsors a Serbian-nationalist terrorist group, the "Black Hand", to achieve this goal.
In June 1914, members of the "Black Hand" assasinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. Both the Archduke and his wife are killed in Sarajevo, Bosnia (which was part of Austria-Hungary, as was Herzegovina).
This causes a crisis that spreads across Europe and soon leads to WW1. One reason why the crisis spread so fast was the political structure of many of those involved. When one man (the Tsar, the Kaiser, the Emperor) holds the power to make decisions in an instant this can be without thought for the consequences.
In Germany, it's Kaiser Wilhelm, who gives 'blank cheque support to Austria, where Emperor Franz Joseph sends an ultimatum to Serbia, which is supported by Tsarist Russia. Russian in turn is supported by France. Britian supports both Russia and France. Italy supports both Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Five weeks after the assignation, Austria-Hungary declars war on Serbia. Russia then begans to mobilize and Germany (having given the 'blank cheque' support to Austria) declars war on Russia (and, by extension, Franch and Britian).
The economic costs of WW1 bankrupt almost all of those involved. The economy of Russia and France collapses. Everyone involved (except Britian) will suffer food shortages, with Russia, Italy and Austria-Hungary approaching famine conditions and with Belgium and parts of Russia actually in famine conditions - and it's famine that leads to revolution (the famine in Ukraine later is deliberatly caused by the communists)
So, how can Britian 'manage a way out' (and end up on top) ?
Step 1 - the Royal connection.
King George V (UK) is related (cousin) to both Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.
24 May 1913, in Berlin, all 3 meet at the wedding of the Kaiser’s daughter Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia. The Tsar and Kaiser get on well and stay in touch by telegram.
29 July 29, 1914 - Czar Nicholas and Kaiser Wilhelm try to prevent war. Neither succeeed and the war ruins both their countries (and costs the Tsar his life).
In an alternative world, King George V invites both the Kaiser and Tsar to London. He manages to convince them both that a war between their two countries will lead to an economic collapse, famine and, especially Russia, inevitable revolution.
So, with the encouragement of George V, the Kaiser and Tsar foster a 'Non-aggression Pact' between their two countries.
It to be noted that, historically, Russia has NO real obligations to Serbia, only a desire to prevent it falling into the hands of Austria.
So when the assassination occurs, instead of 'ultimatums', mobilisations and declarations of war, Britain is able to host a meeting with Austria, Germany and Russia to come up with a 'final solution' to the Serbian 'problem'.
When the maps are examined, it seems that the problem is not the Serbs but the Austro-Hungarians. The Serbs have a valid case - both Bosnia and Croatia-Slavonia (governed by Austria-Hungary) are peopled by a mix of Serbs and Croats. At the same time, Transylvania is peopled by Romanians (but is also held by Austria-Hungary) and a small area in Austria (centered around Trento) is peopled largely by Italians !
However terrorism can't be allowed to succeed - Serbia will have to be "held to account" in some way. At the same time, the "pressure" caused by Austrian control of Serb nationals has to be relieved.
The three cousins (George, Wilhelm and Nicholas) decide that Serbia will have to be merged with Bosnia and Croatia-Slavonia (to form a new country 'Serbocroatia') and directly ruled by a 'Transitional Government' consisting of officials one third appointed by Britian, Germany and Russia (i.e. excluding Austria).
The existing Serb Government will be overthrown and those responsible for plotting and financing the assassination handed over to the Austrians. Britain reluctantly agrees to provide the necessary military forces (both Russia and Germany are suspicious of British 'empire building', however neither will accept the other providing troops, so it's the British or no-one).
Wilhelm takes on the task of 'selling' this to the Austrians (without German support, the Austrians could never hope to oppose the Russians, so they really have no choice).
In 1914, Russsia lacks a proper democracy (as does Germany) so there is still considerable risk of future communist revolution
So the next step for the Britsh must be to convince Russia to implement sufficient land-reforms to avoid the rise of communism without being so hard on the land-owners that the country descends into civil war (or flips into fascism).
Step 2 - Land reform.
The key to achieving any real social reform always comes down to money. If there's profit in what you want people to do, they will fall over themselves to rush in that direction - and if something costs them money, they will rush away from it even faster.
So the British invent the 'Payment in Kind' Farm Mortgage and the 'Payment in Kind' Farm Production Tax.
The Production Tax will be levied only on the owner of land that is not 'worked' by themselves and their immediate family. The Tax will be set at 50% of the land production (on average, a land-owner receives just half of everything that the their tenent farmer produces, so a 50% Tax means everything they recieved from their Tenent will go on Tax).
The 'Payment in Kind' Mortgage allows a land-owner to sell their land in exchange for a 'perpetual' Mortgage equal to 50% of whatever the land produces each year (crops, new-born livestock, fish etc). The Mortgage recieps are not taxed.
The Russian rulers are always short of cash - so Britian is able to sell them on the Farm Tax & Mortgage idea.
It doesn't take too long for large land-owners to work out how to avoid the Farm Production Tax by 'selling' their land to their tenents on a 50% Mortgage !
Since this also lets them keep their vast Country Estates and Palaces, along with it's surrounding land (which is a lot bigger than the area they can 'work' themseves, but produces very little so attracts little Tax) there is no 'armed resiatance' or decent into civil war or fascism.
Of course some land-owners piont out that the Goverment can change the Tax Law (on, say, the "50% perpetual motrages", currently taxed at zero), however far from discouraging anyone it just increaes the rush to Mortgage. They fear not possible Tax on the Mortgage, but that the entire'perpetual Mortage' system (that's allowing them to avoid the Tax) could be withdrawn !
The (ex)Land-owners are happy - they keep their incomes and estates and (as far as they are concerned) nothing has changed. However the new system means a massive change for the Tenent farmers = since they now own the land they can't just be evicted on a whim ! More to the point, peviously everything belonged to the Land-owner - now half the (new born) live-stock is theirs to sell as well !
Food production soon starts to increase - previously, the Tenent farmer received only just enough of what they produced to keep them alive - anything extra went straight to the land-owner. How half of everything extra they produce they will get to keep and sell !
Finally, the farmers now have an absolute interest in maintaining the rights of individual ownership - their land has value - individual farms can be bought and sold - so when the Communist 'intellectuals' come up with some 'collectivisation' plan it won't just be the original land-owners who will be 'up in arms' ..
Step 3 - Political reform.
At this time, Britian had a House of Commons with an elected Liberal Government (which in turn formed legislation and elected the Prime Minister), and a House of Lords which (essentially) retained only 'veto' power over 'non-tax' legislation.
Germany had a similar constitutional monarchy, however the Russian system was in chaos. They also had two houses of parliament, the State Duma (which comprised mainly of the monied classes (large- and medium-scale landowners and factory owners i.e. the "bourgeoisie"), and the State Council (made up half of civil servants chosen by the monarch and half of elected members of the upper classes). The two houses legislated together with the Emperor = and, so, so far so good. However every Party was entitled to representation in the Duma and it was the Emperor who "selected" the members of Government. The masses of the working classes (those who worked the land or (especially) the factories i.e. the "proletariat") had no voice.
When any significant number of people have no representation in Government, they become the natural 'prey' of those outside Government who wish to overthrow the status quo and take over power for themselves. To counter this, you have to take away their support - and that means by actual reforms and by convincing those supporters that they have more to loose by any revolutionary change and much to gain in the on-going reforming system.
In other words, you have to win 'hearts and minds' ...
Communism is based on hate born of envy and lies based on ignorance - specifically, the division of society into "them and us" (*them" being anyone who happens to have more than "us") and the lie that "everyone will be better off if the Government owns everything" (as we know, the more the Government has, the less any individual has - and the more the Government takes of an individuals wealth, the less wealth any individual will create).
To counter the lies, everyone needs some basic education on the nature of wealth - i.e. that wealth comes from work, so if you work together with the factory owner there will be more wealth, if you work against the factory owner there will be less wealth - and that the rule of law and property rights are the bais for the existance of individual wealth - without the (individual) right of ownership, there can be no individual wealth.
To counter the envy that leads to hate is harder. When the massess are 'poor' and the 'gap' between 'rich' and 'poor' is high Society become divided. The only way to real wealth is to be born into it and society divides into "them and us". As the poor envy the rich, it's an easy matter to convince the 'poor' that society is 'unjust' and that force is necessary for "us" to overthrow "them". Add in the lie that after the overthrow of the (current) rich, we, the current poor, will be the new rich and you have your revolution.
However if the 'gap' between rich and poor is 'blured', then there will be constant movement between the more or less rich and the more or less poor 'sections'. If the focus in society is on individuals who bcome "rich" by their own efforts (and can expect to keep the rewards of those efforts) rather than those who are born into wealth, then the grounds for your revolution evaperates.
In short, if your society has a mass 'middle class' (and not a mass in poverty) and the wealthy consists of merchants (and not Lords), then there will be no revolution.
This means you have to move the creation of wealth away from the land (farming) and into the cities (factories). In short, you need mass industrialisation. However making things in factories only creats wealth if those things can be sold (for a profit) - and to this trade is the key. The faster (or freer) the trade the better. This in turn means making it easy to transport goods - roads, railways - and easy to trade with other countries - the dismanteling of permits and customs tarrifs.
Indeed, one reason for the scramble for 'empire' was the creation of a 'free trade' block.
Britian, then the worlds biggest trading nation, takes the lead. They start by offering USA, Russia, German and Italy a 'free trade' pact - zero customs on everything (in fact, the Pact states "Except in time of war, the passage of goods directly to or from each nation is pernmitted without let or hindrance, with no requirement for any permits, with no inspection and no tax, guaranteed in perpetuity").
When only the USA 'signs up' (and the three European countries respond with a long list of goods they wish to Tax), the British simply pass a law based on the pact but with the words 'to or from each nation' replaced with 'to any part of the British Empire' - in other words a unilateral dismantling of British customs tariffs, world-wide, on everything.
The loss of customs revenue is made up by a 1% Tax on the value of goods transported by UK ships (however since this is paid by the shipping compnay owners, not the customer, and UK shipping charges are already some of the lowest in the world, it gets little attaention).
The Americans instantly realise what is about to happen - the British, already the words largest trading nation - are about to corner the world's shipping industry 'for ever'. Anyone who wants to trade with USA - and get their goods in without US Tax - only has to ship to the nearest British territory first ! The Americans soon realise that they have only one real option and announce their own 'Tarrif free imports for ever' law.
It takes the Europeans a bit longer to work out what's going to happen. The US and UK have many 'bi-laterial' zero or low Tax agreements on specific named goods with many specific other nations.
For example, UK has a bi-lateral zero tax agreement with Frence on wine (i.e. both countries can import each others wine without tax). This is to the advantage of the French, as UK produces very little wine.
However France refuses to lower the Tax on Italian, German and Austian wine (in order to 'protect' their own industry).
Now that Britian has dismantled all it's import taxes, 'all' the Italian, Austrian and German wine producers have to do is import wine into Britian - or any part of the British Empire - and not be taxed. If the British now ship the wine on to France, under the bi-lateral zero tax wine agreement between UK and France there will be no tax to pay at all !
Soon every wine producer in the world is going to be shipping to France via the nearest British territory = and it's not just wine (and not just UK). The world will soon be taking advantage of both UK and USA bi-lateral zero (and low) Tax agreements with 3rd parties. Unless the rest of the worlds shipping companies do something soon, British (and US) ships will soon be shipping just about 100% of the worlds goods.
The Italians are the first to 'wake up' when their officials receive tens of thousands of requests for permits to export to Malta (the nearest UK territory). Under intense pressure from the Italian shipping industry, they announce their own 'Tariff Free imports' law.
The French, ever wanting to remain 'in control', announce their own 'Tariff free imports' Law, however it applies to 'mainland France only' and the words 'guaranteed in perpetuity' are missing ... having fewer ships than the british, they impose a 2% Tax on goods carried.
The Germans, whilst having few overseas territories, see they can gain an advantage over the French, and copy the exact British wording in their own 'Tariff free imports' law.
Soon every country with a shipping industry follows suit.
The looses are the worlds land-locked countries. Soon they accept the inevitable and go 'Tariff Free' - if the try to maintain tariffs the 'legal' imports will shift to Tariff free markets whilst their long land borders with their Tariff Free neighbours means that smuggling will become rife. However, lacking a merchant fleet, there will be no "1% on goods carried" revenue coming in.
The result is an explosion in world trade. The price of goods goes down across the board as the cost of permits, inspections and customs duties (all 'parasitic' charges that contributed zero to wealth) are eliminated.
With increasing trade comes increasing wealth. Goods have to be manufactured and that requires workers who have to be paid and paying workers well (i.e. above 'subsistance' wage) means more demand for goods !
This is the 'Henry Ford' principle at work (he pays his workers well since he knows that the first thing they do when they have enough money is to buy a brand-new Ford motor car ... which increases demand for Ford cars which menas mnore car plants, more workers and even more demand ... in other words he turns his workforce into his customers !)
The creation of wealth can become 'self perpetuating', but ONLY if Governments can avoid imposing 'parasitic' costs on the economy (which add nothing to the creation of wealth). In todays world (late 2017) most countries have reached the point where Government imposed parasitic costs has effectivly halted wealth creation. This was the case in the 1920's - however now (unlike then) few are going hungry, although the policies of envy are starting to be heard once again. Fortunatly todays (somewhat) better educated is much harder to convince that a revolution will improve anything.
When Governments switch from 'supporting the poor' to 'oppressing the rich' they reduce wealth creation. Communism is thus the worlds ultimate "wealth destruction" system.
However, as always, there will always be some-one trying to gain power at the expense of the rest of the country. So whilst increasing trade leads to increasing wealth, we still have to address how to counter the arguments of the 'intellectuals'.
Back in the 'alternative' 1920's the likes of Trotsky and Lenin will still be pushing out their distorted views and attempting to generate sufficient envy and hatred of the existing 'ruling class' to allow them to 'take over'.
The first defense is to counter their 'ideas' with education and counter-arguments.
Whilst there is a the danger that whilst the 'intellectuals' will enter debate and listen to counter-arguments, there will alsways be those more ruthless (eg Stalin) who see a Revolution as a means of taking power for themselves and will take advantage of any 'theoretical' ideas 'in isolation' to generate the hatred required for such a revolution.
Suppression is not the answer (even today, the more a well publicised idea is denied, the more poorly educated people are likely to believe in it - see UFOs (Alien Abduction, Area 51 etc), Astrology, Crystal healing and almost anything with the ;'new age' label attached to it).
The solution is public debate and (where possible) scientific examination. When 'held up to the light' the UFO photos are all found to be fakes, the nonsense 'predictions' of Astrology are no better than chance and those who choose 'crystal healing' die sooner than those who choos to use modern medicines instead.
So we need a population that is sufficiently well educated to at least read details of the debate.
In UK, The Elementary Education Act 1880 insisted on compulsory attendance from 5 to 10 years.
The controversial (at the time) Conservative Education Act 1902 (Balfour's Act) ended the divide between schools run by the 2568 school boards and the 14,000 church schools, administered primarily by the Church of England, which educated about a third of students. Local Education Authorities were established, which were able to set local tax rates, and the school boards were disbanded. Funds were provided for denominational religious instruction in voluntary elementary schools, owned primarily by the Church of England and Roman Catholics. The law was extended in 1903 to cover London.
In 1912, school inspectors reported that only 2 per cent of young people were unable to read or write, i.e. the population was 98% literate. However, it was not until the Fisher Education Act of 1918 that secondary education was made compulsory up to age 14, so gaining an understanding of what they coud read in the newspapers was another matter.
In germany, by 1871 literacy was close to universal (100%) because of compulsory education laws dating to the 1820s and ’30s.
However, in Imperial Russia, according to the 1897 Population Census, overall literace was only 28.4%, and only 20% in rula areas. As was common at the time, literacy levels of women lagged those of men, in this case, a mere 13%. Whilst this had improved by 1917 (when the Bolshevik Party sieved power) it was still only 38% (men - females were stuck at 12.5%).
Whilst there wer some literacy schools in the towns and cities, these were run by the church and thus delivered a largely religious curriculum which emphasized the teaching of old Church Slavonic (which essentially no-one spoke). The peasantry was largely self-educated, although in the run-up to 1917 some had the opportunity to attend schools run by political dissidents !!
During the reign of Tsar Nicholas II (1894–1917) liberals did push for a universal education system, however in 1914 WW1 (and then the Communist Revolution) happened before anything could be put in place.
In an alternative world, when Tsar Nicholas comes to power in 1894 hen the Bolshevik Party came to power in 1917, they faced a crumbling empire infamous for its perceived backwardness and poor education system.When
Society has to become more 'mobile' - it has to be possibe for an individual to 'move' between the 'well off' and the 'poor'
- communism has to be stopped before consoidate the USSR into a single entity (and before Hitler forces the Red Army to "get it's act together" (fight or die) and become string enough to occupy most of Eastern Europe, absorbing the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and East Germany)
Germany - Hitler has to be prevented from terrorising the Soviets into real industrialisation (which what wins them WW2)
France - must be prevented from achievening any real influence in Europe
The Bolshevik (communist) revoeltion in Tsarist (or 'Imperial') Russia is not the issue. The revelotion is a diirect result of the mismanagement of the country that leads to the food shortages (and riots) in the cities and the defeat of the Russian Army in WW1 = so is, perhaps, inevitable.
Indeed, as a direct result of shortages caused by WW1, there are 'communist' revolutions in other countries :-
In 1918-19, Germany becomes a Republic but the communist party (SDP) avoids a civil war by implementing a democratic form of Governemnt
1918-20, Hungary becomes a Republic, however fighting continues until the destruction of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the Romanian occupation of parts of Hungary proper, including its capital Budapest in August 1919 and the Treaty of Trianon.
1919-20, the Biennio Rosso revolution in Italy is overthrown by the Fascist (blackshirt) militia and the "March on Rome" of Benito Mussolini in 1922, ledaing a Fascist Dictatorship.
The problem is the creation of the USSR (and Stalins domination) of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, the Balkans etc etc.
Communism is NOT a 'response to injustice' by the 'peasant farmers' (yes, big landowners controlled much of the productive land, however the peasant farmers were generally well fed - after all, they were (essentially) paid in food to work the land). It's the invention of the 'intelligentsia' in the Cities, who grow nothing (and create nothing - although communism is implemented by the Factory Workers), who suffer from food shortages during WW1 and come up with the 'brilliant' idea of 'dispossessing' all the farmers, 'collectivising' the land, confiscating whatever is grown and all in return for nothing. This condemns many peasant farmers to starvation (3 to 8 million in the Ukraine alone) but then why should they care ?
Dec 29 1922 is the critical date - this is when the USSR is formed by the 'merger' of the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR and when Stalin takes over. The rest is (almost) history.
Is there a way to avoid the USSR being formed ?
Well, the main reason the various communist groups 'bandded together' is for mutual defence against external intereferrence and specifically the 'counter-revolutionaries' (being armed by the western powers).
Perhaps the main 'trigger' was when, in 1920, the Poles attacked the (then independent state of) Ukraine. They were repulsed by Stalins Russian forces (who wa ted their own slice of Ukraine). When the "Peace of Riga" was signed in early 1921 it split part of the territory of both Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Soviet Russia, leaving both Belarus and Ukraine too weak to oppose Stalin.
Not only do we have to prevent the Polish invasion, but also prevent Stalin trying to grab parts of both Belarus and Ukraine (since we can't assume he actually needs the 'excuse' of the Polish invasion).