Stopping at Berlin.
So I am not good with names but I think the point that would have made the biggest ripple is, there was a person that was close with Stalin, whom was basically being groomed to take over after Stalin died. He got assassinated which opened the doors to Khrushchev coming in and kicking off the slow but eventual end to the USSR.
At least this is what my memory recalls. I just don’t know the specific details.
Had someone taken over that respected and followed Stalin and his plans for the USSR I think it would have reinforced those ideals within the party and prevented the collapse in the long run Perhaps even have prevented the sino-Soviet split. It would have prevented wars within the middle east. Cuba would be in better shape. Workers all over the world would have better conditions because Capitalism wouldn’t have been able to let its guard down. US imperialism would be drastically less impactful to the world, etc etc. Hell the US might not even have an empire. The EU would probably be more left than it is in response to being so close to such a massive collection of communism. China would probably be even farther along on their road to communism. It might even have an empowering effect on India’s communist parties and thus India may have had a revolution.
The fall of the USSR was the greatest tragedy to ever befall mankind. I believe it was the death of this one man, who’s name I can’t remember, that could be the pivotal point in causing it.
there was a person that was close with Stalin, whom was basically being groomed to take over after Stalin died
Kirov? And of fucking course burgie historians blame Stalin for that.
If we are at this topic i would get back to Yakov Sverdlov who was clearly being prepared to help and eventually take over for Lenin (especially when Lenin was shot by F. Kaplan) alas he died from the spanish flu in 1919.
I would called neither of those “mistake” though, first was hostile act and second random accident. In that venue, mistake was Stalin trusting Malenkov instead of Molotov.
maybe the creation of the film “Mean Creek” starring Josh Peck /s Fr tho my answer is Humans discovering nuclear weapons. Ik ik, it’s good for preventing escalation but I genuinely think nuclear weapons will be humanity’s downfall. Fact check me if I’m wrong but I heard that 3 or more nuclear ICBMs hitting Earth at the same time could literally pull us off balance and we could all freeze or burn to death in seconds. NO battle is worth that. The class struggle dies the second that we all do. Global capitalist interests and all the natural resources and markets and money on our planet, the things that we have fought over and died for and propagandized and coerced and did so many horrid things for as humans, it will all have been for nothing. Obviously de-nuclearization is not overnight, but people need to keep in mind that too many escalations or mistakes could lead to the end of everything we know. Vasili Arkhipov is one of the greatest people to ever exist. There was a false alarm on Soviet scanners of missiles coming their way in the height of the Cuban missile crisis, Officer Arkhipov denied the request to fire missiles back. Arkhipov likely saved a large portion of Earth’s population that day, possibly all of Earth’s inhabitants.
Fact check me if I’m wrong but I heard that 3 or more nuclear ICBMs hitting Earth at the same time could literally pull us off balance and we could all freeze or burn to death in seconds.
There were already over 2400 tests of nuclear weapons. A few more won’t make any difference.
Stolas not dying in Helluva Boss Season 2 episode 4/s
Maybe the Sino-Soviet split. It seems like it was destined to happen after Stalin died because of how shitty Khrushchev was, but still, that was an extremely harmful event for the future of humanity. Hopefully we can recover from that mistake.
There were bad things done by the Chinese side as well; it couldn’t all be chalked up to “Khruschev bad.”
China did some really stupid shit, and obviously this is a very complex issue. But I still lay most of the fault on Khruschev and his ilk.
Like what? I only learned about the cringe that Khrushchev did, what did China do
Khruschev was quite funnily not a rightist but an ultraleftist when it came to many policy decisions. This meant that although he was responsible in no small part for the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union, he was always pretty good on international questions and oversaw a period of time wherein the Soviet Union was assisting other nations in their national liberation struggles.
China, on the other hand, had a hard right-ward shift with the beginning of their approach to peaceful coexistence in 1972. Nixon’s visit was a pivotal moment wherein one can see China’s foreign policy flipping from support for the international communist movement to actively aiding and abetting the imperial project so as to keep the U.S. and NATO off of their ass. It worked, of course, however it is difficult not to look back in hindsight regarding China’s congratulations to Pinochet or their support for Marcos against the communist rebellion, or even worse their misadventures in Afrika, and not think of them as absolutely fucking things up in their own way.
It was less “peaceful coexistence” and more “anything to spite the revisionist USSR”, including selling arms to fascists and compradors in Afrika and Asia while the USSR was busy arming communists and trying to spread world revolution that way.
I support China’s current approach to peace of course, now that there exists no alternative, and maybe history will exonerate the Chinese state of crimes committed during that period… but from what I am aware of, they were most certainly crimes - crimes against the global communist movement, even.
