Rise and Shine - An Alternate Space Race

[Qalqulserut]

“Today is a great day for the Soviet people. The Reaction-Engine Research Center will be instrumental in our great effort to find ever more efficient and faster methods of transportation. To find methods so that we may one day, be among the stars as well. It will be a long time before that is within our ability. This is merely just the beginning, the first step out of many steps. In finding new technologies for weaponry to further the world revolution, here RENIT will be instrumental too. Without it, our future existence will almost be certainly in peril; let alone the thought of spreading the fires of revolution among the world! It is mankind’s time to rise. To rise and shine among the stars.”
- Mikhail Tukhachevsky, on the day of the creation of the Soviet space agency, 1933

---

This is the start of a TL with plenty of cursed events, observations, and hijinks along the way. I'm not aiming for perfect accuracy here - I went with a PoD that would cause a ton of butterflies some of which I'll almost certainly miss. Regardless, I hope the result will be fun for y'all.

It's been a lot of work with lots of conversations on the ToughSF discord server. I give my thanks to e of pi, Kirk, and many others on the server.

Mercury ICBM, 1957. Credit: Kirk, using Kerbal Space Program​

 

[Qalqulserut]

Wernher von Braun could see the car to the port waiting outside his home. He turned and looked up to his father, and said:

“Why do we have to move to America?”

His father looked back down at young Wernher and said:

“It’s not safe for us here anymore. We’re going to wait out this Communist revolt. The brave god-fearing men of Germany will quash it, I’m sure of it. And then we’ll return.”

Wernher von Braun or his family never did return to Germany. The People's Republic of Germany was established after the conclusion of the August Revolution in 1921, and the von Brauns, being a noble family, were barred from returning, nor did they want to. The von Brauns moved to San Francisco in California. There, in 1926 Wernher was able to get his hands on a copy of “Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen” (published 1923); or “By Rocket into Planetary Space”. This sparked his lifelong love for rocketry.

In 1930, Wernher von Braun attended the California Institute of Technology, where he would come to be involved with the GALCIT Research Group. In 1935, he would graduate with a doctorate in physics. Wernher found the activities of his peers – Parsons and Forman as “excessive, rowdy”, though he was good friends with Frank Malina. Wernher von Braun remained with the GALCIT Group even after its disintegration in 1938 over communism. In 1940, the JATO program that GALCIT proposed, while considered and accepted, however, was stopped in its tracks by the FBI. Wernher left the group, and also distanced himself away from the three others, concerned by their communism.

With the Pacific War raging on though, there was even more demand for a JATO program. The paralysis that GALCIT was ailing with began to dissolve. The FBI restrictions soon cleared up, and although they’d be monitored heavily, the JATO program was finally allowed to continue in mid-1941. JPL was founded in the Arroyo Seco in 1942, and Wernher von Braun, along with new colleagues and old, returned to work in JPL. By 1943, they had the first JATO engines ready, and the JATO rocket engines saw action in 1944. That year, Aerojet Corporation was founded. The Pacific War had ended in 1945, and JATO had enough flight time to prove that it was a useful technology.

So what was to follow the JATO? The sounding rocket, of course. The US was not the first to create the sounding rocket though. In 1944, Aerojet successfully convinced the US Army of the pressing, no, paramount need to advance in ballistic missile technology.

Why paramount?

Because the US would not be the first in the field of sounding rockets. No, they had been beaten… beaten by the French and the Soviets!

An airplane takes off with the help of a JATO, 1943​

 

[RanulfC]

Ok watched... Can't wait to see what TTL's Atlas looks like

Randy

 

[Juumanistra]

On the one hand, the whole of Europe has been lost to light of liberty.

On the other tentacle, Curtis LeMay will have a legitimate target for the armada of B-36s that the Army Air Corps wants and needs.

 

[Qalqulserut]

The August Revolution started in 1919, in a period of significant political unrest that had started after the end of World War I [1]. The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) fought a revolutionary war against the newly established Weimar government. The war was considered by many to be one of the most ferocious civil wars ever fought in Europe.

The August Revolution saw military intervention by the French and the British, though the bulk of the opposition came from France, which was also suffering its own problems. Large communist movements against intervention existed in France at that time and were being moved by the August Revolution to act. Thus, the French government had to spend precious time stabilizing its internal affairs.

Not to mention, many of the soldiers weren’t willing to fight again, as the Great War had ended only a year ago. So the French military intervention was limited; Northwest Germany saw the highest concentration of communists, which fought a protracted struggle against the Freikorps and the British soldiers.

The Communists grew more popular as the revolution raged on, in particular, because the Communists had done an effective job in depicting the Social Democrats as puppets of the right-wing in Germany [2]. One of their primary targets was Gustav Noske, Minister of Defense for the Weimar Republic. Indeed he made a good target thanks to his brutal suppression of the demonstrations in 1918.

In the end, after three years of fighting and tens of thousands of casualties, both military and civilian, the KPD toppled the Weimar government and conducted a campaign of consolidation and terror in which opponents to the revolution were purged and came to power. Karl Liebknecht became the leader of the new socialist republic. He would not be joined by Rosa Luxemburg for she had left for Poland a year ago.

The August Revolution also had related demonstrations held in much of Europe, but except for a short-lived regime in Hungary, they were suppressed or failed to gain support. In 1924 a German-backed coup d’etat toppled the Austrian government, and the Communist Party of Austria (KPO) consolidated power like the terror that swept Germany in 1922.

A flag contest was held in 1922, to decide the new flag for Germany. In the end, a modified version of the Spartacist League's flag replacing the inner red stripe with a black one was the most popular. Notable other proposals were a plain red flag, a Soviet-style flag with the emblem in the top left, and many other variations.

Flag of the People's Republic of Germany

Karl Liebknecht, the first People's Chancellor
​

---

[1] I'm assuming the KPD is more popular than OTL due to a worse post-war economic depression.
[2] One major difference from OTL is that the KPD is less inclined to a united left, which would allow them to more aggressively combat the SPD, their biggest actual enemy.

 

[Polish Eagle]

Well, Poland's screwed, being between two Communist regimes that view it as an illegitimate country.

 

[Qalqulserut]

Well, Poland's screwed, being between two Communist regimes that view it as an illegitimate country.

it's even more screwed than you think, as you'll see in the second interlude tomorrow/the day after

 

[Juumanistra]

it's even more screwed than you think, as you'll see in the second interlude tomorrow/the day after

Statements like that are just begging for references to The New Order: The Last Days of Europe.

 

[Qalqulserut]

Robert Esnault-Pelterie​

Robert Esnault-Pelterie and Jean Jacques Barre, the founding fathers of French rocketry had successfully petitioned the French War Department way back in 1930 for the creation of ballistic missiles. But their work came to an end only a few years later, when Esnault-Pelterie had already lost a few fingers to it and the French government lost interest.

That would change in 1937 though. The revolution that sprung the Action Francaise to the helm of French politics, had changed everything. Now the French were the bastion of Roman Catholicism and civilized man, surrounded on almost all sides by godless Communists. In 1938, the government noticed Esnault-Pelterie and Barre once again, and this time they had an interest. The government found a use for their rockets in strategic bombing and as a vengeance weapon. After all, the only friendly neighbors they had were good ol’ Catholic Italy, and well, unfortunately, the British in the north.

And the Eole program began in late 1938. In 1940 two very important events occurred: first, the School of Aeronautics at the University of Rome had caught wind of their program. This School of Aeronautics was headed by Gaetano Crocco, who had been experimenting with rockets since 1927 and wanted in too.

The second event was the British Union of Fascists winning the election and immediately after that, their seizure of power within the government. Later in 1941, the British government caught wind of the Eole program too, and from there, the three countries established the secret Ruby missile program. This was the forerunner of the Allied Launcher Development Organization, and later the Allied Space Agency.

In 1942, the Eole program successfully launched their first sounding rocket, the EA-42 Eole, and by 1947 they would launch the first ballistic missile, in the world too, the EA-47 Emeraude, followed closely by the Soviets in the same year.

What were the Soviets up to, anyway?

Well more accurately, it wasn’t just the Soviets. With the August Revolution, many German scientists worked in communist Germany. This included a fair bit of the people that would go on to establish the German Aerospace Center (DLR) – Willy Ley, Hermann Oberth, Klaus Riedel, and others. In 1931, the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion in the Soviet Union (GIRD) was founded.

In 1932, GIRD was merged with the State Gas Dynamics Laboratory of Leningrad, creating the Reaction Engine Research Center (RENIT) by, of course, Mikhail Tukhachevsky. RENIT included many of the Soviet pioneers in rocketry, and the German rocket pioneers joined RENIT, the result of which was a flourishing academic environment for rocketry.

By 1938, DLR was founded by the German portion of RENIT, though the two institutions remained fairly intertwined. RENIT had already designed many rockets for the USSR including aircraft rockets and anti-ship missiles. By late 1941 Soviet spies had learned of the Ruby missile program, and this allowed the faculty at DLR and RENIT to successfully petition for an actual missile program.

In 1943, they launched their first sounding rocket, and of course, their first ballistic missile by 1947.

EA-47 Emeraude, at an Algerian test site

EA-41 Eole

GIRD-X rocket, 1933
​

 

[Qalqulserut]

Miłosz watched as the sun rose from the horizon. He’d stayed up all night, along with many of his comrades in the 203rd Uhlan Regiment. The position they were attacking was more well-armed than they thought – they’d been shelling the village they were in for the entire night. Of course, in reality, it was just a couple of artillery pieces and a bunch of ammunition - hardly a well-armed fortress. [1]

Miłosz heard from his friend that the villagers said the Communists had won the German civil war. The regiment hadn’t had much contact with the rest of the army the past day, and the last they heard of anything about the civil war, it was that the Communists had been making victories.

Was it true? Did they really win? Many soldiers in the regiment seemed disturbed by this revelation. Miłosz went to the outskirts of the village and sat under a tree to rest - a respite from the Polish summer heat. He was watching birds flying in the air when suddenly he heard a gunshot. Perhaps it was just his sleep deprivation, and Miłosz was hearing things. But then a horse came running over the hill, with a dead body hanging off it, blood dripping from its head – gruesomely blown apart. It made a trail that stretched from the hill to the village.

So that was what the dead body was - Miłosz had been called to the village square with most of the regiment, about the body. It was a messenger from headquarters, notifying them of the German victory in the civil war. So it was true! In reality, the German civil war wouldn’t end for another 2 years. Indeed, it was a bit of trolling on the Soviets’ part. Miłosz began to think things he’d never thought he would think. What was the point of all this? They knew Piłsudski’s plan was inept. If they won, sooner or later, the Germans would come to help the Soviets and Poland would fall anyway.

Only a few days prior, the 203rd Uhlan Regiment had lost half of all its men fighting Soviet cavalry [2]. They were being shelled all night, and while the Soviets hadn’t managed to kill anybody, except for that poor messenger, though it was from a sniper he presumed. Imagine the Germans! Everyone knew their artillery was the best. A train, made by the workers of Krupp coming to bombard the village they were into rubble and dust. Miłosz had enough. He decided that he was going to leave.

And no matter if his comrades decided to stay behind. He wasn’t responsible for fools’ deaths. He talked about deserting with his closest comrades, well, closest since he’d lost his best friend in that godawful cavalry clash. They supported the plan, and when the regiment was just beginning to move out of the village, they’d get lost or something. The desertion was a major blow to the 203rd Uhlan Regiment’s morale. After those few’s daring act, others had decided to desert too. In reality, it wasn’t that much of the regiment that did desert, but to them, it was too many.

And so, on August 15, the regiment botched what was going to be a surprise attack on the Soviet 4th Army’s supply units. Without it, the 4th Army’s two radio towers continued to broadcast unimpeded, and they received orders from Tukhachevsky to move southwards. The Soviets won the Battle of Ciechanów, and with it, Piłsudski’s plan fell apart. The Soviets continued to fight all the way to Warsaw, where they successfully captured the city, albeit with significant losses - the logistical issues continued to be a thorn in the side of Tukhachevsky, but the plan was to hold Warsaw for a surrender. Indeed, this was quite the blow, and the Polish government decided to surrender to the Soviets, despite Piłsudski’s vehement objections.

Most of the government went into exile, and a new pro-Soviet, communist nation came to being. The Polish People's Republic.

[1] Not OTL, I'm handwaving it as some kind of butterfly from the August Revolution or a secondary PoD if you wish.
[2] This happened OTL. To be honest, I'm not sure how they still managed to be an effective fighting force with that much loss.

 

[Qalqulserut]

Tomorrow's post will see the first real orbital LV, and also something pretty big happening in the Soviet space program.

 

[Qalqulserut]

Let's look at what the US and, further, the USSR, have been doing.

By 1945 the United States had launched its first sounding rocket, the WAC Corporal. Then those were succeeded by a menagerie of other sounding rockets, the most successful of which was the Cadet rocket, operational by late 1947. For the most part, though, the US had little knowledge of the developments in Europe. It wasn’t till 1947 that they saw the Europeans launching their first ballistic missiles, and here was the United States of America, the land of freedom and ever so a world leader, left behind by those damned European extremists!

This period in 1947, which came to be named the “Gap Scare of ‘47”, led to the creation of the Air Force Missile Division, and a program to develop ballistic missiles, as well IRBMs which were also under consideration began. Wernher von Braun left Aerojet, in search of grander aspirations and joined the Air Force Missile Division. At around the same time, Frank Malina left Aerojet Corporation too, daunted by the growing pressures of the missile industry and its weapons-oriented nature.

Finally, it was decided in AFMD that an IRBM project should be started. This missile project came to be named the Lares IRBM, a quite fitting name indeed, for Lares were Roman deities that guarded hearths and boundaries, and their father was Mercury, the god of travellers and boundaries. In 1949, the first US ballistic missile was launched and by 1953, the first Lares IRBM had been launched. They’d made decent progress in catching up, with the Soviets having launched their first IRBM by 1951 and the West Europeans in 1952.

Now, on to intercontinental aspirations.

The Soviet Union had a need for ICBMs. They didn’t have a bomber fleet that could drop nukes over the Americans willy-nilly, and to them, it appeared that the Americans very well could bomb them with nukes too. They had invented the nuke first sure, they’d used the nukes in the Pacific War too, but their stockpile still couldn’t be used to bomb the Americans. Not even the Germans made good enough bombers for that.

So naturally, RENIT was selected to develop the Soviets’ first ICBM. Sergei Korolev would be the head designer for this project. This was a matter of utmost importance, thanks to a bunch of political maneuvering by Korolev to get to the top. Korolev began with the development of the R-15, and it would be fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen. Despite the fact that liquid oxygen wasn’t particularly storable, even the most diehard storables fan in RENIT accepted that it would offer superior performance, which was important. Tanks and rocket engines hadn’t advanced enough that they could accept the loss in performance.

The Soviet brass had asked for a <300 ton ICBM with a range of at least 7,000 km. By 1952 it was clear that they couldn’t stay under 300 tons, and the final design ended up being a modest overweight, around 320 tons. In 1955 the world’s first ICBM, the R-15 was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was also capable of orbit – a 1.8 ton payload could be launched to low earth orbit. While the Soviets knew that they could launch a satellite by 1956 at least, a new ICBM project was already started during the testing period of the R-15, thanks to a new propellant discovered by the Americans in 1955.

Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, or UDMH for short.

It offered enough performance, and thanks to the ever-improving performance of rocket engine and tank design, the R-16 as it was called by RENIT could launch the same payload as the R-15 while only weighing as much as half - 141 tons! Unlike Korolev's R-15, this R-16 was instead developed by the storables faction of RENIT.

With the R-16, also came Korolev’s demise. He’d been brash, arrogant, and stubborn. The others at RENIT tolerated him only because of the power that he gained, but with how poorly performing the R-15 seemed compared to the R-16, the others at RENIT took the opportunity to speak out against Korolev. It seemed enough to convince the guys at the top, and later in 1957 Korolev resigned rather than be demoted to being just a designer. Mikhail Tikhonravov, being the most uncontroversial choice for a successor, became head of RENIT.

R-15. Credit: Kirk, using Kerbal Space Program

R-16. From me, using Blender​

 

[Qalqulserut]

 

[Qalqulserut]

The Treaty of Versailles continued to anger much of Germany, including the new revolutionary government. As it were, they considered themselves to be in an untenable position - France held them by the balls that were the Rhineland, and the reparation payments were widely perceived as unfair. The two countries were in a hostile stalemate as Germany refused to pay reparations and France refused to cease their occupation of the Rhineland.

But in 1924, the Allied Reparations Committee gave the task to Charles G. Dawes to rectify the issue. Through the investigations of the Dawes committee, a plan was proposed later that year in order to solve the issue once and for all. The Dawes Plan was accepted, ending the international crisis.

In 1927, the French had been looking into building a series of military fortifications in order to prevent an invasion by Germany – the Maginot Line. France entered into negotiations with the Belgians in building the Meuse-Argonne portion of the line. Belgium wanted French financial support in order to resolve its economic issues (among many other things, the government had been expanding welfare programs in order to appease the working class, which put the country under more financial burden) and for building the portion; France was apprehensive about this. Negotiations seemed to be working out though, but by 1928 the Great Depression had hit Europe. [1]

Thus, the Meuse-Argonne line was abandoned. But the French government was still worried about the chance of a German invasion and with the Great Depression, communism’s popularity was on the rise. Belgium reaffirmed its neutrality later on, and so with that France had decided: a coup would be the best course of action.

In 1930, the Belgian military and some conservative politicians with the backing of France staged a coup and kicked out the Labor government in power – citing “economic mismanagement” and “outdated foreign policy”. This had been unpopular with the Belgians though, supporters of democracy as they were. It did have some success with the conservatives though.

But the coup proved to be a bad idea later on – among those who hated the new government, were the communists. The new government immediately banned communism and other ideologies it perceived as far left. Despite that, however, the communists exploded in popularity soon after the coup, and by 1931 unions were calling for general strikes; especially scathing was an intelligence leak, revealing France as the backer of the coup. The Germans capitalized on this, and the unrest erupted into a full counterrevolution, led by Communists with liberals as well.

France staged a military intervention in Belgium, and the army proved to be of little resistance. The counterrevolutionaries were quickly quashed too, and the country fell under occupation. In 1933, the French decided on annexing Wallonia. This would get them the geopolitical benefits they wanted, while handily avoiding having to deal with the Flemish, who were the most incendiary among the counterrevolutionaries.

The partition included Wallonia proper, and the city of Brussels. The remnant of Belgium in Flanders, soon passed a popular referendum to join the Netherlands, thanks to their Dutch-dominated population. Speaking of the Netherlands – in the midst of the French invasion of Belgium, they’d decided to form an alliance with Germany, out of fear of French invasion in the name of completing its geopolitical wish list. The Netherlands quickly gained a population of Communist sympathizers with the Flemish annexation though, and the Communists became the third-largest party of the Netherlands. To say the backlash was panicked and frenzied is an understatement.

Naturally, the country erupted into a civil war, although the Communists used this to great effect, portraying the Conservatives as people who would undermine the stability of the country just so that they could remain in power. The social democrats hemorrhaged supporters, and in 1935 the Dutch civil war resolved itself, with the Communists in control of the country.

Meanwhile, two things happened in France. One, in 1937 after a hardline conservative shift that had started since the August Revolution, the Integralist movement took power in a coup. Two, France successfully built the Maginot Line in Wallonia, and indeed extended it all the way to the sea, while quashing opposition in Wallonia. Another advantage to Belgium’s partial annexation was that France would inherit its colonial possessions – such as the Belgian Congo.

The Lower Countries after 1933​

[1] A year earlier than OTL.

 

[Qalqulserut]

It looked like the R-16 would be ready by 1958. As far the Soviets knew, there was no other launcher that could compete with the R-16 just yet, only that ICBM of the United States could… Four years after the conclusion of the Ruby program, the Allied Launcher Development Organization was established (1956). Its primary purpose was to develop an orbital launch vehicle with enough capacity for most satellites, for the benefit of the "Allied Nations": the French Republic, the United Kingdom, and the Kingdom of Italy.

And so ALDO hadn’t even worked on anything that could put even just a kilogram into orbit. The Soviets' spies knew they were working on something weird, a Project Zaphiel, but they couldn’t find details on that. Most likely it was just a decoy program for their spies, the Soviets figured.

Let's look at the US ICBM project. The project had taken to calling their new missile “Mercury”, fitting as it succeeds the Lares IRBM program. The Mercury ICBM could launch a 4-ton warhead with a range of over 8,500 km. And importantly, it could launch 400 kilograms into LEO. Puny compared to the R-15 and R-16, but nonetheless, it was the US’s first orbital rocket.

Mercury didn’t launch until 1957 though, and the first Mercury launches were marred by failures. The Soviets finished testing the R-16, and by 1958 they had an operational R-16.

So it's time for that part of the century where we look at launching satellites.

By 1956, the Soviets had finished the design for their first satellite, which would be called Sputnik 1, although it'd be referred to by its designers as ISZ-1 or Object D. For the world's first satellite, it was shockingly heavy – it weighed 1.3 tons and had many scientific experiments. Sputnik 1's development went by smoothly despite its size. Included on the satellite were instruments for measuring atmospheric pressure and composition, Geiger counters, electromagnetic fields, and micrometeoroids.

Meanwhile, the US satellite, Explorer-1 weighed 140 kilograms and it too had plenty of scientific experiments, in fact, other than the instruments for measuring composition and pressure, Explorer-1 and Sputnik 1 had essentially the same scientific payload.

Both the US and the Soviets were racing to grab the title of “first satellite in orbit”. There’s even an anecdote, that there was an R-15 always on the launch pad during the year 1958, and at any moment it could be quickly loaded with Sputnik 1 in case the Soviets heard that the US was going to launch Explorer-1 before them. Who knows, with the secrecy that the Soviet space program was under, it might have been true.

And then on March 12, 1958, the Soviet Union became the first country to launch a satellite into orbit. That day at Baikonur Cosmodrome, the R-16 was declared operational a month prior and after tumultuous February weather, the winter turned to spring that day. It was a few degrees above freezing and there was just a light drizzle.

It was followed closely by the Americans on April 4. Explorer-1 confirmed discoveries from Sputnik 1, about a belt of charged radiation around the Earth, later known as the "Størmer Belts". President Douglas MacArthur attended the launch, but the fact that they’d been beaten by the Soviets; it really stung, and the public became paranoid of a technological gap – the Sputnik Scare, as it came to be called.

Later that year, the entire world was shocked… again. On October 7, 1958, the French, British, and Italians collectively became the first countries to send a man into space, albeit on a suborbital trajectory.

Sputnik 1

Explorer 1

R-16 carrying Sputnik-1 launching​

 

[Qalqulserut]

 

[Qalqulserut]

Ok watched... Can't wait to see what TTL's Atlas looks like

Randy

Now you finally get to see what Atlas is like ITTL.

 

[Qalqulserut]

The effects of the August Revolution in the Soviet Union were massive. With it, the Socialism In One Country doctrine was seriously undermined, and the Left Opposition gained more support. Stalin’s power base was undermined, and in 1927 the United Left Opposition successfully won the battle for control of the Soviet Union. Stalin and Bukharin, along with their allies were expelled from the Soviet Union. Grigory Zinoviev became Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, succeeding Alexei Rykov.

In 1930, a new Soviet constitution was introduced, reforming the powers of many of the top positions. In particular, the General Secretary lost its ability to assign positions within the party - it transformed to become more of a representative of the Council’s decisions. The General Secretary also became more analogous to the position of Speaker in other countries. Those were all thanks to lessons learned in the Right-Left struggle.

The Zinovievists had been gradually losing power, especially to the Decemists. Zinoviev's influence and power over the Council was waning. In 1945, a new soviet Constitution which reflected much of the demands of the Decemists was written, banning what it called “permanent factionalism” and abolished the position of the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars. There no longer was a head of government, and with that, the Decemists guaranteed power remained decentralized even at the top.

Okay so, what was “permanent factionalism”? It was the Decemists’ interpretation of Lenin’s dislike for factionalism – here they thought that while factions in a debate were indeed good in the Council, it was when they continued to persist after a debate for a particular decision, that the Decemists argued that it no longer benefitted the Council. This was what democratic centralism was all about, they claimed.

The 1945 Constitution was hailed by communists within and outside of the Soviet Union as the “most democratic constitution imaginable”. For many anticommunists though, it contributed to the general paranoia about communism. Now the Soviet Union no longer had a discernible face representing it. The closest thing might have been a Soviet diplomat. It was rather faceless, a factor in the "Monolithic Communism" terror, as it had been dubbed by foreign policy pundits.

Even before that, paranoia had been at an all-time high too. This was because of the massive political upheaval that swept Eastern Europe – Albania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia all became communist republics in a related series of revolutions and coups from 1935 to 1938. Indeed, it was one of the major factors that led to Greece’s and Britain’s fascist revolutions in 1936 and 1940 respectively.

The Soviet Union seemed to be on the track to falling into its bureaucratic trappings again. But then, in the fifties, of all things, it was China that came along to save them. With the ascension of Chairman Mao to the leadership of China after the 1948 civil war, his growing influence inspired students across academic institutions in the Soviet Union to establish Maoist student groups. Though, actual Maoists in the Union that weren't young students were little more than a rare sight.

However, aspects of Maoism found wide support. Particularly the policy of "mass line"; it became a very important point in political discourse then. Student groups became the primary means of struggle against corruption; the struggle against the ossifying bureaucracy. And those groups would unravel the web of corruption and political scheming that had weighed down the Soviet Union for two decades by now.

After the Great Leap Forward and the other failings of Maoism became apparent, most outright Maoist student groups and organizations were dissolved, and the membership of non-Maoist though influenced organizations grew. Before the GLF, Mao Zedong Thought had been finding its way to the top of the Soviet government; after the GLF, it would remain only to be a non-dominant current of thought within the Council of People's Commissars.

[1]
Grigory Zinoviev, the third and last Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union
Term: 1927-1945
Born 23 September 1883, died 2 May 1955

Maoist student group congregating together to read the Little Red Book, 1964
​

[1] Used and modified with permission from the Hearts of Iron 4 Calm Before the Storm mod. Before y'all persecute me, I don't really support Hearts of Iron 4 and it was a waste of money ha

 

[Qalqulserut]

What were the British, French, and Italians doing?

So Project Zaphiel wasn’t a decoy program after all. Indeed, by 1957 the Soviets had figured it out, but they couldn’t get a capsule built in that short of a time, let alone man-rate it. All they could do was watch.

---

It was a rather warm, bordering on uncomfortably hot, morning in Algeria. Esnault-Pelterie watched as the priests marched in a column towards the Ruby rocket in their robes. He thought about how hot it must’ve been for them in those robes.

The priests blessed the rocket with prayers and sprinkled holy water on the rocket, and then they turned, marching back to where they came from.

It was strange to Esnault-Pelterie. He'd never seen the Catholic Church bless anything before. Now that they were launching a man into space, things were undoubtedly more important than a test of France’s latest vengeance weapon, and this occasion showed it with the extra time taken to bless the rocket.

An hour later, the rocket lifted off, and all went well. Auguste Mottet, the first man in space peered out the window of his Zaphiel capsule. Then there was a roar as the engines fired; the rocket shuddered and his capsule vibrated like a racing car speeding down a road was passing by.

He looked as the ground moved away, the launch site in the Algerian desert shrinking and shrinking until it became a tiny pinprick in an ocean of beige. The sky got thinner and thinner until he could see the black of outer space. There was a harsh glare from the sun. Afterward, the capsule reached its apogee, 150 kilometers from the ground.

He saw as the capsule began to re-enter the atmosphere, and bright flames were rushing across his window; for a moment the flames grew so thick that they became opaque. Then it died down, and he could see the Earth again.

He landed around 2,800 kilometers downrange. The trajectory had taken him over the Mediterranean, France, and the Irish Sea before splashing down in the North Channel. British ships waiting nearby recovered Mottet.

One of the recovery divers asked Mottet how the flight was.

He responded, in a French accent: “It was incredible. To see the earth below me, in its astounding size… now I know only God could have made such a thing.”

---

Mottet returned to France a national hero, and the Project Zaphiel program continued throughout the year and into 1959, stopped by the Spring of Francafrique. Some in the company of Esnault-Pelterie even considered making a company that could handle suborbital flights for civilians, with a fee. That never came to be, for security reasons of course.

After all, who would let a bunch of civilians operate a ballistic missile, especially one that was still in use as a strategic asset?

A Catholic priest blesses one of the Ruby missiles, France (1960)

Photo taken by Auguste Mottet, soon before apogee​

 

[Qalqulserut]

[1]

[1] It was in the British's interests to support Japan in the Sino-Japanese War, but the US entry and the evolution of the war into the Pacific War killed any form of British aid to Japan.