Which is more likley - a Communist Denmark or a Communist Greece ?

stodge

I put up the question about a Communist Denmark on here many moons ago. Basically, the Red Army were about four hours from getting into Jutland when they met British forces near Lubeck on May 2nd 1945. The British had been aided in their advance beyond the Elbe by the activities of Blumentritt, who, on hearing of the death of Hitler, had ordered his men to offer no resistance to the western allies advancing from the Elbe.

This enabled the British to reach the Baltic coast and enter Denmark just in front of the Russians. However, a different German commander might have tried to hold up the British and thus it is the Red Army that seizes Lubeck and starts the advance into Schleswig-Holstein. The Russians fight their way into Denmark and occupy Copenhagen before the general surrender at Rheims.

There was of course almost no Communist political presence in Denmark in 1945 but that could have changed rapidly with the Red Army in occupation and would Stalin have readily given up such a valuable conquest with its access to the North Sea and the Atlantic ?

As for Greece, Stalin officially claimed no interest in controlling the country but the British were concerned by the swift Soviet advance in the Balkans. Indeed, the British landed in the south of the country to ensure they maintained a post-war presence but ELAS was pro-Communist. Could ELAS have invited the Red Army in to the north of the country in September 1944 leaving Greece perhaps partitioned between a Communist north and a pro-western south as were Korea and Vietnam ?
 

Delvestius

Banned
Both possibilities were unlikely, do to various reasons, such as Greek history/nationalism and location for Denmark. If I had to say on of the other though, I'd probably say Greece, but It'd only be communist in conquest, and would probably have some of the most revolts and freedom fighters in all of Europe. WWII proved that to us.
 

corditeman

Definitely Greece...

...Communism was already established and kept fighting for forty years.

The Danes are an independent lot. I doubt they'd allow the Russians to stay. And the Swedes, Norwegians and Germans, would not let Stalin stay. The nearest you could get would be an Austria - no, not even that, for the Danes were allies and neither the UK nor the USA would permit it. Do you really want to raise the legendary spirit of 'Holger Danske' (Ogier the Dane) again?
 

Shevek23

The Soviets occupied Austria OTL, but they didn't give it the takeover treatment--I think Stalin would know better than to try that in someplace as far west and lacking in war-guilt as Denmark.

Greece OTOH--you seem to be assuming that Communist activity= Stalin's will. Not true. The Greek Communists were quite active after the war--the British actually had to impose a peace favorable to their conservative faction, and were losing their grip when they invited Truman to take over for them, which was pretty much the origin of both the Marshall Plan and NATO. Meanwhile Stalin had been trying quite actively behind the scenes to get the Greek Communists to back off and stop upsetting the capitalist powers, who he saw as very dangerously powerful compared to the Soviet position. Didn't entirely work--Communists overseas obeyed Stalin when it suited them and grabbed at opportunities they judged ripe even when it upset their nominal leader in the Kremlin. This is how Leninist regimes such as Mao's China, Ho's Vietnam, and eventually Castro's Cuba came into being--despite the intentions and advice of the Kremlin, not because of it. Castro's movement originally had no members of the Cuban Communist party and that party held itself aloof from his adventure--it was only years after he took power that there was a merger, and when it happened it was Castro's people who were dominant and many top Communists would up being purged.

Meanwhile Tito in Yugoslavia was simultaneously a loyal and willing acolyte of the Stalinist machine and an independently-minded leader of his country, and when in the very late 40s and early 50s these interests were clearly diverging, Tito chose to take his country his own way. (Had he knuckled under to Stalin, he would have personally wound up dead of course).

In Eastern Europe generally, few or none of those countries but Yugoslavia would have actually become Communist without a Red Army occupation (Tito had very largely liberated Yugoslavia on their own and was in a position to require the Red Army to merely transit through rather than remain in occupation there) but in all of them there were strong domestic factions that were on the whole in support of some kind of socialist reformation of their societies. Where that combination was lacking, as in Austria, and also factoring in the pressure of Western attitudes about what is far enough west to make it their turf rather than the Russian sphere of interest, Stalin and company did indeed back out.

For Communism to triumph at least briefly in Greece, all that was required was for all foreign powers (including Stalin) to back off and do nothing, because Stalin as much as the Westerners was trying to stop them. Whether a left-wing independent takeover of Greece would have shortly thereafter lost its grip or consolidated it would have been largely up to the character of the Greek revolutionaries--but looking at the track record of such Leninist or quasi-Leninist movements as the Viet Minh or Castro's group, it seems likely to me they'd have hung on and it would take massive belated Western efforts to dislodge them.

This is why Churchill moved to pre-empt them, why Stalin figured the Greek situation could blow up in his face, and why Truman did step into the breach.
 

stodge

Neutral Denmark...

Had the Red Army moved into Denmark in 1945, I think the likely outcome is not a Communist Denmark but a neutral Denmark.

The Swedes were keen to see Scandinavia removed (as they saw it) from the Cold war and argued for a "neutral Scandinavia". Had the Red Army been in situ in 1945, I think that (as happened in Austria), the price of withdrawal would have been neutrality.

It seems unlikely that had Denmark become neutral, Norway would have joined NATO so the outcome is what Sweden wanted.
 
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