YMMV / The Death of Russia

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • The idea of a "National Salvation Front" consisting of an alliance of the far-left and the far-right almost sounds silly, as they'd be more likely to exchange gunfire in the streets rather than words in the legislature. Except that the National Salvation Front was a real force in post-Soviet Russia, the exact kind of alliance as its depicted who backed the 1993 coup against Yeltsin in our world only to be banned in the aftermath.
  • "Dedovshchina" or Rule of the Grandfathers is the system within the Russian Army that sees the brutal hazing and abuse (physical and sexual) of younger conscripts by older troops. It sounds like something straight out of propaganda but it's actually an all too real practice.
  • Anatoly Fomenko, the Education Minister for the Republic of the Russians, is able to make something he calls the "New Chronology" the official history of Russia and have it taught in schools for what good it's worth by 1995.^{(Long story short)} New chronology dictates stated that the entirety of global history had been an invention of the Vatican and Western governments to minimize Russia’s influence, including the histories of the Arabs and China. Accordingly, Genghis Khan, Christopher Columbus and almost all important Medieval figures were actually Russians of the ‘Russian Horde Empire’. Christ was actually crucified in the Twelfth Century in Turkey, the Crusades and Trojan Wars were the same event, Jerusalem was actually Constantinople, Christians came first and Jews came second as a breakaway religion for merchants, the Hagia Sophia was the Temple of Solomon, and that there had actually been a thriving Russian empire in the Americas up until 1776 that had been more prosperous than even the 13 Colonies.. If you read the note, it sounds like complete batshit made up to make the Fascists look even more insane, but NOPE, it's a real crackpot theory that Fomenko actually wrote seven volumes of in our world.
  • The Communists renaming Volgograd back to Stalingrad may seem like a way to illustrate how devoted they are to the legacy of Stalin's legacy in a cartoonish manner, yet it was an actual proposal entertained by no less than Konstantin Chernenko during his brief tenure as General-Secretary.
• Broken Base: While nowhere near as internally divisive on AH.com as the author's last timeline, as readers native to the site consider this timeline a fascinating and bleak look into how bad things could have gotten in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union if everything had gone wrong, most leftist leaning readers primarily on Sufficient Velocity.com along with a fair chunk of those already extremely critical of the author's last timeline find the timeline to be gratuitous murder porn written to make the Russians suffer as much as possible.
• Complete Monster: Alexander Barkashov and Aleksandr Dugin are the true power behind the Nashist movement. After Alexander Nevzorov's Nashists seize control of Petrograd, Dugin would influence Nevzorov's politics in an increasingly ultranationalist direction while Barkashov exerts greater influence within the Nashist government. Under Barkashov's influence, the Nashists would instigate multiple genocides in the areas they control using chemical weapons, set up rape camps for captured women, and hold the Finns and Karelians in Karelia as hostages in exchange for food. Inspired by The Turner Diaries, Barkashov's most horrific action was Plan Zass, a plan to use nukes to both destroy the Stalinists and wipe out all non-Slavs from Russia. This plan was supported enthusiastically by Dugin under the belief that it would pave the return of the Hyperboreans to Russia and the start of the "Final War" against the West. Plan Zass would see the deaths of 35 million Russians and the complete eradication of entire ethnic groups. When NATO intervenes in Russia in the aftermath of Plan Zass, Barkashov would launch nukes at NATO in an effort to drag the world down with him.
• No Endor Holocaust: The effects of the 4/10 nuclear exchange would in reality have terrible consequences for the entire world, not just Russia. While the author claims that the Russian missiles only targeted NATO military installations, the vast majority of those installations are positioned very close to populated areas, which would naturally lead to collateral damage from the explosions and fallout. On top of that, the smoke and ash created by the burning cities in Russia and the NATO countries would be enough to block sunlight from reaching Earth's surface, leading to a nuclear winter that would kill millions if not billions from falling temperatures and famine. The story states that a "Nuclear Autumn" occurred, and humanity lives on.
• Spiritual Successor: To fellow AlternateHistory.com timeline Twilight Of The Red Tsar. Both involve a communist Russia (or pseudo-communist in this case) collapse into a civil war with all manner of atrocities committed during the conflict and the preceding years beforehand.

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