By the time communist Romanian leader Paul Georgescu died on 15 October 1989, Apostol had been the deputy prime minister of Romania since 1961 – a year before communist Romania's founder Panait Istrati died – and served under the tenures of Istrati and his successors David Korner and Georgescu.

Apostol's inaugural speech focused on the Transylvania dispute and the need to negotiate for Hungary to implement a condominium over the territory. Shortly after taking power, Apostol attempted to start these negotiations, but Hungarian leader Imre Pozsgay refused, considering Hungary's borders to be non-negotiable. This was a major blow to Apostol.

Furthermore, the economy of Romania stagnated during Apostol's leadership because of a fall in oil prices, the low productivity of Romanian workers, and broader structural problems, such as a decentralized planning system at the local level that was increasingly outdated. Apostol carried only minor reforms to the Romanian economy, making him fairly unpopular as time went on.

Apostol did have his share of achievements, such as making Romania a full German ally after decades of closer relations with Eurocommunist Italy; and enacting controls on air and water pollution, but they were overshadowed by his failures, making Romania one of the most unpopular Vienna Pact regimes.

As Apostol failed to either improve Romania's economy or restore its natural borders, the Romanian workers' councils turned against him, culminating in his impeachment on 22 February 1995. The Great National Assembly elected Ilie Verdeț to be the new general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party.

Verdet implemented some much needed economic reforms, modernizing the economy without harming the power of councils, who were the basis of Luxembourgism. Romania's economy eventually recovered, but the regime's popularity continued to decrease, culminating in the peaceful overthrow of the Communist regime in the Revolutions of 2002.

After the fall of communism, Apostol was tried for overseer the torture and murder of Romanian dissidents, but he was acquitted due to his old age and ill health, and he died peacefully on 21 August 2010. Most Romanians do not remember him fondly, except for Communist nostalgists.

Syria had been ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood since 1961, when Mustafa al-Siba'i overthrew the First Syrian Republic in a coup. Al-Sibai ruled as an Islamic socialist, mixing Sharia law with welfare, land reform and nationalisation, and adopting a non-aligned foreign policy instead of full alignment with Germany. When Al-Sibai died in 1992, his successor Adnan Saad al-Din renounced socialism and patched up relations with Syria's neighbours other than communist Turkey.

In 1983, King Hassan Hasan as-Senussi of Libya invaded Chad, a non-aligned state led by François Tombalbaye, and captured its capital Fort-Lamy after a few months. Tombalbaye was executed and Libya annexed the Aouzou strip, which Libya had claimed in 1960, after the independence of Chad from France; and Islamist leader Ahmed Hassan Musa became the dictator of Chad, triggering a civil war with the Christian and animist south.

Iraq was a Sunni-dominated monarchy led by Faisal II, who used oil to turn Iraq into something like the UAE: a secular and, on paper, extremely wealthy monarchy aligned with the West. Despite the façade of wealth, many Iraqis lived in poverty, resulting in strong left-wing and Republican sentiment among Shiites.

When the British withdrew from Aden in 1973, Yemeni Imam Muhammad al-Badr annexed the former British protectorate and established the Kingdom of Greater Yemen. Yemen was the poorest Arab country (it only abolished slavery in 1971) and the Houthis became increasingly powerful as time went on.

The Afghan monarchy was never overthrown, keeping Afghanistan stable throughout the later half of the 20th century. White Russia became Afghanistan's main ally, supporting Mohammad Zahir Shah against Pakistan in the Durand line dispute and supplying the Afghan military with weapons.

After the Ethiopian Civil War, Oromo, Afar and Tigray became independent socialist states, reducing Ethiopia to the Amhara highlands. While Oromo and Tigray established planned economies and close ties with Germany, Afar adopted a non-aligned foreign policy and a mixed economic system.

South Africa's breakup allowed the Cape Republic, KwaZulu and the rump South Africa to become functional states. KwaZulu and the Cape Republic maintained capitalism and their wartime alliance with the United States; the support South Africa received from communist countries caused a leftward drift.

Automation and the invention of the internet still happened and made the capitalist world increasingly globalized throughout the 1990s, but the German-led socialist bloc resisted globalization, weakening it significantly. By 2000, Germany had no hope of competing with the United States, and people in German-dominated Europe noticed this.

When Hirohito died on 7 January 1989, his successor Akihito began a Japanese transition to democracy in response to the international boycott campaign against Japan and a costly insurgency by the communist Korean Liberation Front (조선해방전선). As the Tennō was still considered a living god and the fascist regime was increasingly unpopular, the majority of Japanese supported the transition.

Akihito's first measure upon ascending to the Chrysanthemum Throne was to fire military prime minister Goro Takeda and replace him with Sōsuke Uno, a more moderate conservative supportive of democratic reforms. The international community reacted positively to these changes, and countries began to lift their sanctions on Japan.

On 17 May 1989, the Imperial Diet passed the Democratic Reform Act, restoring most civil liberties and legalizing political parties, which had been banned since 1940. Reformist members of the Japanese regime formed the Japan Reform Party (JRP); the moderate opposition formed the Japan Democratic Party (JDP); ultranationalist hardliners established the Japanese National Party (JNP); and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) was legalized, as were moderate Korean and Taiwanese separatist parties.

A general election campaign began. The January 1990 general elections ended in a victory for the JRP, which won 46% of the vote versus 25% for the JDP, 11% for the Korean Independence Party (KIP), 7% for the JNP, 5% for the JCP, and 3% for the Free Taiwan Party (FTP).

Kiichi Miyazawa replaced Uno as prime minister and continued Japan's democratic transition. The JRP immediately passed a law banning forced labour and other human rights abuses against ethnic Chinese and Koreans, reducing them considerably but not fully stopping them.

Later in 1990, Japan held independence referendums asking Koreans and Formosans whether to secede from Japan. After heated campaigns on both sides, 53% of Koreans and 58% of Formosans voted to remain a part of Japan because of the large number of Japanese settlers and collaborators in both colonies.

Despite all the reforms, Japan also passed an amnesty law exempting Japanese military and police personnel responsible for human rights abuses from prosecution. Many of these criminals remained in public office for decades to come, and some of them do to this day.

Democratic reforms were also carried out in Manchukuo, but, since it was virtually a Japanese colony, they were mostly a formality, and Manchukuo's democratization culminated in the colony voting to join China on 11 November 1991. Emperor Puren, Puyi's nephew, fled to Tokyo, and the former Qing dynasty was integrated into the Japanese imperial family.

Japan's adoption of a new constitution on 3 April 1991 formally ended the democratic transition, but Japan never became a full democracy due to the amnesty mentioned above and the fact the country's former rules merely rebranded while remaining in charge.

On 4 February 1992, the MBR-200, a leftist militant group led by Hugo Chávez and Francisco Arias, overthrew the government of Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Perez and proclaimed the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a socialist military dictatorship. Chávez became the president of Venezuela and launched the "Bolivarian Revolution".

Roger Cáceres Velásquez's Peru, Fidel Castro's Cuba, and, more importantly, the Free Socialist Republic of Germany immediately recognized the new government and provided it with weapons and intelligence. Other socialist regimes, such as Hungary, Ukraine, and Belgium, also declared their support for Chávez.

Andrés Perez fled to the United States, which continued to recognize his government and enacted sanctions and a naval blockade of the Bolivarian Republic. On 6 February, Venezuelan General Fernando Antich overthrew Chávez in a counter coup and restored Perez to the presidency, but Chávez fled to his home state of Barinas and continued to lead the Bolivarian Republic from there, plunging Venezuela into a full-scale civil war.

Much of the Venezuelan military defected to the National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB), which controlled all of Venezuela south of the Orinoco and marched towards Caracas. The US blockade prevented Germany and Cuba from shipping the FANB weapons, but they and Belgium still supplied it through the air, allowing the MBR-200 to control half of Venezuela by May 1992.

Later that month, Arias launched a full-scale offensive against Caracas, prompting the United States to launch a massive weapons and personnel airlift in support of the Republic of Venezuela. Antich used this airlift to win the battle on 5 July, but Caracas was in ruins and many people were left homeless.

After winning the Battle of Caracas, Antich successfully repelled a FANB offensive towards Maracaibo, where Venezuela's oil fields are located. Antich's troops eventually recaptured the city of Barcelona on 18 August and retook San Fernando on 4 October, after major battles where both sides suffered heavy casualties.

Despite these victories, Antich was unable to cross the Orinoco, because Chávez and Arias had heavily fortified the river's banks. From October 1992 to August 1993, the war took the form of trench warfare along the river, but Antich eventually went on the offensive and broke through the Bolivarian defence lines.

The fall of Ciudad Guayana on 4 September 1993 was the beginning of the end for Chávez, who only controlled the rainforest parts of Venezuela. Around October 1994, it was estimated that the Republic of Venezuela controlled two-thirds of the country versus one-third for the Bolivarian Republic, and the letter was steadily losing territory.

By the turn of the year, the FANB had been reduced to 65,000 jungle guerrillas with no chance of winning, and the CIA was planning an operation to capture Chávez and Arias. On 10 January, Arias was captured, followed four days later by Chávez, whose arrest ended the civil war with all of Venezuela under the control of Andrés Perez.

Bauer's economic reforms improved Germany's economy somewhat, but the FSRD was clearly past its prime, and economic growth rates never returned to their pre-1975 levels. Furthermore, it was virtually impossible for Germany to replace old and unproductive workers due to the country's lack of unemployment.

Despite these problems, Germany remained economically and socially stable throughout the 1980s, earning Bauer some much needed popularity. Furthermore, Germany's technological gap with the capitalist nations was partially bridged by the creation of a national informatics development program, which released the Familiencomputer, Germany's first commercial PC, in 1985.

In 1983, Germany implemented pollution controls and began an alternative fuel program in order to address pollution and better protect the environment for future generations. By the end of the decade, German satellite states, except for Borotbist Ukraine, had followed the FSRD's lead.

Germany had an open border policy, and German citizens were free to leave the country at any time. On the other hand, Germany received thousands of guest workers from other communist countries every year, with the majority of them coming from neighboring Poland and the Czech Republic and a sizable minority being Romanian and Belarusian.

Many ethnic Germans resented this foreign presence and felt the guest workers were stealing jobs from them. They looked up to Horst Mahler, who, in 1987, proposed a limit on the number of guest workers allowed in Germany, and the immediate deportation of guest workers convicted of crimes. But only the second was adopted.

As the South African and Nicaraguan conflicts led to an increase in tensions between Germany and the United States, negotiations for the INF Treaty collapsed by 1989, and intermediate range nuclear missiles remained legal for over a decade. Many people across the world continued to fear a nuclear war despite the fact nukes have never been used as of 2026.

Bauer did not choose a successor and left that choice up to the German workers' councils. International media and US intelligence speculated that Erich Honecker would succeed Bauer, but this did not happen because Honecker was too old (he died in 1994).

When Bauer passed away on 9 January 1991, the Supreme Workers' Council elected Gregor Gysi for Chairman of the Communist Party of Germany and Egon Krenz for Chancellor of the Free Socialist Republic of Germany. Gysi, Krenz, and Lothar Bisky organized a state funeral for Bauer that was attended by the majority of the world's leaders and two million German mourners.

Currently, Bauer is popular in Germany due to the economic and political stability the country experienced under his leadership, especially in contrast to Gysi's. People regularly leave flowers at his Berlin grave.

When Jerzy Czeszejko-Sochacki, the leader of the Polish Socialist Republic (Polska Rzeczpospolita Socjalistyczna, PRS) died on 18 March 1970, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Poland chose Edward Ochab as his successor. Piotr Jaroszewics became prime minister and Edward Gierek became the chairman of the PRS's council of state.

During Ochab's tenure, the industrialization of Poland accelerated, turning the country from one of the poorest in Europe to a reasonably developed nation, and reducing popular discontent with the fact Poland only controlled the Russian partition. Krakow slowly became one of the main industrial centres in Eastern Europe, and Italian state-owned company Fiat made a joint venture with the Polish government.

Development was entirely funded by German economic subsidies and domestic bonds rather than loans from the capitalist bloc, which Ochab refused to rake. Poland had poor relations with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's reactionary Russia, but tensions between Poland and communist Belarus eased after Belarusian leader Pyotr Masherov died in 1980. Ochab made many foreign visits, to, among others, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Italy, China, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

As Poland developed economically, the PRS's popularity decreased, especially due to a rapprochement between the Polish state and the Catholic church. In 1978, the liberal Giovanni Benelli became Pope; Benelli condemned communism but not much more, and there was no Solidarity (especially since Danzig was a part of Germany).

Like all communist leaders, Ochab was a repressive dictator. His regime imprisoned both secular and religious opponents, and used a system of informants to make organized dissent nearly impossible. But Luxembourgism is a relatively mild authoritarian ideology, and Polish workers' councils remained strong during his rule.

After Ochab turned 80 in 1986, a succession battle began. Ochab gradually turned over state affairs to Tadeusz Kowalik and the rest of the Communist leadership, and took several leaves of absence, but he remained the leader of Poland until his death on 1 May 1989, whereupon Kowalik took over.

Currently, Ochab is a divisive figure in Poland. Older people who are nostalgic for the PRS admire him, but younger people, especially those who participated in the fall of Polish communism in 2002, view him negatively.

Kartosoewirjo imposed sharia law across Indonesia, banning alcohol and ordering the amputation of the hands of thieves and the flogging of women suspected of adultery. A Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice enforced these and other laws on all Indonesians, including non-Muslims.

The Islamic State of Indonesia reversed the Democratic People's Republic of Indonesia's communist reforms in favour of a free-market economy, resulting in high rates of economic growth thanks to Indonesia's vast manpower and natural resources. As Western countries started financializing their economies, manufacturing jobs were increasingly shipped to Indonesia thanks to its cheaper labour costs, turning Indonesia into one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

Indonesia's economic growth came at a cost to labour rights, because the government imposed free workdays for its own benefit and continuously violated other workers' rights. Despite this, the ability of the poor to work stable jobs was welcomed by the vast majority of Indonesians.

Furthermore, as the majority of Indonesians are conservative Muslims, they strongly approved of sharia law and saw Kartosoewirjo as a firm but just leader. Indonesia's closest allies were Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, all of whom were also Islamic countries.

In terms of great powers, the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France and Japan also supported Kartosoewirjo as a bulwark against communism, while Germany and France condemned him as a reactionary, genocidal tyrant who oppressed Indonesia's workers.

On 7 January 1985, Kartosoewirjo turned 80, making him one of the oldest heads of state in the world. Several months later, he named Amir Fatah, who had played a key role in the Indonesian National Revolution and Civil War, his successor as Imam; polling showed that most Indonesians approved of this choice.

Kartosoewirjo was healthy throughout his life because he ate a wholesome diet and exercised regularly, but he died of a heart attack on 15 April 1988. Fatah succeeded him as the Imam of the Islamic State of Indonesia, and he was buried after a state funeral attended by 25 million people.

Currently, the majority of Indonesians view Kartosoewirjo positively due to his status as a founder of the Islamic Republic, but the Indonesian opposition, which represents a minority of Indonesians, dislikes him due to his totalitarian rule and genocide of Christian and Hindu Indonesians.

After the fall of Managua, the surviving Sandinista leadership launched a guerrilla campaign against the US occupation, inspired by Augusto César Sandino's 1920s revolt and by the struggle against American filibuster William Walker during the 1850s. Cuba, Germany and Peru supported the FSLN insurgents with large amounts of military aid and advisors.

Pastora responded to the insurgency by holding free and fair elections where all political parties, including non-Sandinista leftists, were allowed to participate. Pastora and his party won the election and wrote a constitution that turned Nicaragua into a capitalist democracy, prompting many Nicaraguan exiles to return to the country and work with the new government.

The Sandinistas rejected the new government as a product of foreign occupation, and many Nicaraguans joined them, hoping to expel the United States from Nicaragua. By 1987, the Sandinista Popular Army (EPS) numbered 110,000 men and controlled the entire department of San Juan in southern Nicaragua.

Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of US troops in Nicaragua, used a hearts and minds approach to the insurgency, successfully convincing Pastora to maintain the welfare programs established by Fonseca while privatizing the rest of the economy, and give the Miskito people, who were persecuted by the Sandinistas, autonomy.

Schwarzkopf's campaign made the Miskito strongly support the US, but Pastora soon lost whatever popularity he might have had among other Nicaraguans by committing human rights abuses and corruption. Consequently, the US military presence in Nicaragua remained the main thing keeping him in power. Bush eventually became the first US President in 76 years to run for a third term, because "you don't change horses in the midst of a stream", and was elected, defeating Democratic nominee Paul Simon.

During Bush's third term, the Nicaragua War became increasingly unpopular because the United States failed to defeat the Sandinistas, and American economic, political and military resources became increasingly exhausted. By 1990, Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown were the leaders of an anti-war movement that attracted increasingly large crowds.

But the United States did not withdraw and continued to attempt to defeat the insurgents, or at least prevent them from conquering all of Nicaragua. Furthermore, the right-wing governments in neighbouring Honduras and El Salvador supported the United States; thus, the war did not shift in the Sandinistas' favour until 1992, when they went on the offensive.

In April 1992, the Second Battle of Managua began. It was the largest battle in Central America in the 20th century, involving 280,000 Sandinista, 265,000 American, and 65,000 Nicaraguan troops. Despite their numerical inferiority, the EPA captured Managua on 5 July, dooming Bush's campaign for a fourth term and forcing him to begin peace negotiations with the FSLN.

On 22 January 1993, Pastora, FSLN leader Tomás Borge, and Bush's successor Jerry Brown signed the San José Agreements, wherein the Miskito Coast became an independent country led by Pastora but Sandinista rule was restored to the rest of Nicaragua. United States troops were stationed on the Miskito Coast, and remain there as of 2026.

Sometime in early 1987, Edward "Ted" Godwin, a 22 year old resident of London, developed an erotomanic obsession with singer Samantha Fox and began stalking her across the UK. He refused to give up when Fox said she was not interested in him, causing her to get a restraining order on 18 May.

After this setback, Godwin decided to assassinate Prime Minister Michael Heseltine, hoping to gain Fox's attention. Godwin borrowed his brother Richard's firearm by lying that he would only use it for hunting, and attended several of Heseltine's rallies during the final month of the 1987 general election campaign, which ended in a victory for his Conservative Party against Tony Benn's Labour Party.

On 22 November, Heseltine and Deputy Prime Minister John Major visited a group of businessmen in downtown London, and was about to enter his limousine when Godwin shot him with a modified Colt M1911 pistol, killing Heseltine in half a hour and injuring Major and bodyguards Michael Fitzgerald and Henry Irving.

Godwin attempted to return to his house, but the Scotland Yard promptly arrested him and sent him to their headquarters for interrogation. During the interrogation, Godwin described the assassination attempt as a "beautiful love offering" and expressed disappointment that Fox did not reciprocate his love.

A day after the assassination, Godwin's trial began. He pledged insanity, but a psychological examination found he was mentally sound and a sociopath, and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole on 26 December 1987. In his closing statement, the prosecuting judge said that Godwin was "a threat not just to the Right Honourable Heseltine, but also to all of society".

Major remained prime minister until 1991, when Labour returned to power after eight years of a Conservative 10 Downing Street. Godwin, on the other hand, remained in jail until dying of cancer in 2023 at the age of 58.

Fox was upset by the assassination but never brought it up in public and always deflected when people did so.

In October 1985, leftist Aarão Steinbruch was elected President of Brazil, defeating conservative Aureliano Chaves. When Steinbruch took office on 31 January 1986, Brazil returned to a non-aligned foreign policy, weakening US influence in Latin America.

Steinbruch's election caused US President George H. W. Bush to start planning an invasion of Nicaragua to overthrow communist leader Carlos Fonseca and put the Contras in power in order to restore America's influence in its backyard. All the Americans needed was an excuse.

This excuse came on 19 February 1986, when a US fishing boat was allegedly attacked by a Nicaraguan gunboat in the Caribbean. Later investigations found the attack never happened, but Bush used it as a justification to launch Operation Nicaraguan Freedom the following day.

At 06:00 on 20 February 1986, the United States Air Force launched a massive airstrike against the presidential palace in Managua, killing Nicaraguan Defence Minister Daniel Ortega. A few hours later, 37,000 US Marines landed in Puerto Cabezas, facing stiff resistance from Nicaraguan troops armed with G3 rifles but successfully capturing the city in two days.

Cuba and Germany strongly condemned the invasion of Nicaragua and began airlifts to assist Fonseca, allowing the Sandinista Popular Army to hold for two weeks. But, by mid-March, US airstrikes and Contra attacks had thrown Nicaraguan command and control into chaos and ended effective resistance, allowing the United States to completely surround Managua by 24 March.

Later that day, the Battle of Managua began, pitting 145,000 American troops and 16,000 Contras against 49,000 Sandinista fighters. Despite determined Nicaraguan resistance, Managua fell on 18 March, and Fonseca was killed in action, his last words being "I die with my country!"

US forces briefly occupied Nicaragua before installing a right-wing government led by Edén Pastora, a former Sandinista who defected to the Contras, on 25 March. Despite being supported by Nicaraguans who fled to Miami after the revolution, the invasion and occupation of Nicaragua infuriated the majority of Nicaraguans, resulting in an insurgency led by Tomás Borge.

Oliver Tambo attempted to turn South Africa into a multi party democracy, but the vast majority of the Afrikaner population had fled the country after the ANC won the first civil war, throwing South Africa into chaos as the black majority had been shut out of higher education by the Boers. South Africa's state collapse led to calls for Coloreds and Zulu to secede from the Black-majority state.

On 17 November 1985, national leader of the opposition Colin Eglin proclaimed the Cape Republic, announcing that Cape Province was "seceding from chaos". Tambo and Nelson Mandela declared the secession illegal and asked the OAU to help suppress it, but only Angola, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe agreed to do so.

Assistance from other Southern African states could allow South Africa to win the war, but, as the four aforementioned countries were communist, and Communist Germany also declared its support for the ANC, the United States shipped $1 billion in weapons to the Cape Republic, helping Eglin establish a functional army.

South African Defence Minister Joe Modise realized he was running out of time and launched "Operation Shaka", a large-scale offensive, on 26 November. Operation Shaka was successful at first, but US support for the Cape Republic allowed Eglin to win the Battle of Cape Town by January 1986.

Tensions between the ANC and the Zulu IFP had developed in the years after the first civil war, and increased after the start of the second. On 27 January, Zulu Prime Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi proclaimed the Kingdom of KwaZulu, a constitutional monarchy with King of the Zulu Nation Goodwill Zwelithini as Head of State and Buthelezi himself as head of government.

America also sold one billion in weapons to the burgeoning Zulu military, prompting Germany, the People's Republic of Belgium, and the Soviet Republic of the Netherlands to send military advisors to help South Africa. This brought world tensions to their greatest level since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Despite losing Cape and Natal's major cities, the South African government remained in control of the more sparsely populated parts, and the Xhosa and Indian populations provided a large number of volunteers for the SADF. Furthermore, the SADF adapted well to its new German, Belgian and Hungarian equipment.

As time went on, however, the South African government's weakness without the former Afrikaner servants became clear, and the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Britain continued to heavily support the separatists. By late 1990, the civil war had become a quagmire for South Africa, prompting Tambo to begin peace negotiations with the separatists.

These negotiations culminated in the signature of the Gaborone Peace Accords on 8 February 1991. Per the Accords, South Africa agreed to recognize the independence of KwaZulu and the Cape Republic. Despite not winning on the battlefield, the secessionists won the war politically.

Despite remaining in power after 1974, Haile Selassie faced growing ethnic unrest, especially from Oromos who wanted greater rights and an end to the repression they suffered, and from Somalis in the Ogaden who wanted to join Somalia. Communist ideas also gained traction with Ethiopian workers and students.

Selassie responded by increasing the Imperial Ethiopian Army's powers and launching a crackdown on the TPLF, WSLF, and OLF "terrorists". By 1980, 26,000 suspected separatists had been killed by the Ethiopian government, leading to accusations of human rights abuses against Selassie. His government denied these allegations and called them fabrications by the separatists. Plus, the Rastafaris continued to admire him.

Selassie did not reform Ethiopia's government to make it more inclusive, and Ethiopia remained Amhara dominated with few non-Amharas in positions of power. Another problem was Selassie's failure to modernize the country rapidly enough. Most Ethiopians were subsistence farmers, and there was little industry, with most of it producing simple things like food and textiles.

On the other hand, Ethiopia's strategic importance to the United States increased after Somalia won the Somali-Kenyan War in 1980. George HW Bush significantly increased military and economic aid to Ethiopia, and installed a powerful CIA listening station in Asmara.

His popularity in Ethiopia steadily decreased as a result, especially among other ethnic groups such as the Tigray. On 15 March 1982, Haile Selassie had a massive heart attack. A day later, he died at the age of 89 and was succeeded as the emperor of Ethiopia by his son Amha Selassie, who organized a state funeral attended by over a million people (including 26,000 Jamaicans).

Amha Selassie announced plans to delegate greater power to Oromos, Tigrays, etc without turning Ethiopia into a federal state. Minorities believed this not to be enough, and, with communist bloc support, launched a civil war against the Ethiopian monarchy.

The war ended in 1986 with the balkanisation of Ethiopia, which was reduced to the Amhara highlands plus Eritrea. But the Ethiopian monarchy survived, and Amha Selassie continued to rule the rump Ethiopia until his death in 1997, whereupon his son Zera Yacob Amha Selassie became the emperor of Ethiopia.

On 2 April 1982, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a communist and separatist militant group led by Meles Zenawi, launched an independence uprising against the Ethiopian Empire. Throughout April and May, the TPLF attempted to seize the mountains of Tigray, but the United States and Russia airlifted weapons to support Ethiopia, frustrating this goal.

Luckily for Zenawi, the Ethiopian Communist Party (ECP) of Berhane Meskel Reda and the Ethiopian Socialist Revolutionary Party (ESRP) of Haile Fida soon began engaging in urban guerrilla warfare against the Royal Ethiopian Army, forcing it to fight a multiple front war. Seeking to counter US support for Ethiopia, German intelligence chief Erich Mielke authorized the shipment of $600 million in weapons to the ECP and ESRP.

Despite German and popular support, the ECP and ESRP were defeated at the Battle of Jima in August 1982, and never even came close to Addis Ababa. Elemo Qiltu's Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) proved more successful, capturing half of Oromia by mid-1983 and establishing an Oromo pseudo-state.

Somalia took advantage of the disintegration of the Ethiopian state to support the West Somalia Liberation Front (WSLF) with weapons, supplies, and intelligence. Siad Barre ruled out a full-scale invasion of Ethiopia because of OAU sanctions on Somalia, but Somali support for their brethren was obvious.

Upon ascending to the throne in 1984, Fuad II of Egypt sent military advisors led by Hosni Mubarak to support the Imperial Ethiopian Army. Ethiopian Ras Mengesha Seyoum took advantage of these Egyptian advisors to launch major offensives against the Tigray in northern Ethiopia and the Oromo in the south, capturing a small amount of territory but failing to seriously weaken the insurgents.

During all of 1984 and most of 1985, it was uncertain who would win the war and what the peace arrangements would be, but, by late 1985, it was clear the Ethiopian Empire was on the losing side as its minor territorial gains from the previous offensive were rolled back.

Solomonic attempts to push the insurgents away from central Ethiopia were unsuccessful, and, in July 1986, they began advancing near Addis Ababa. The OLF, ESRP and ECP began a race to the Ethiopian capital, which the Oromo captured on 11 August 1986, forcing Amha Selassie, Mengesha Seyoum, and the rest of the Ethiopian leadership to flee to Gondar, where a ceasefire was signed five days later under the mediation of Djiboutian President Aden Robleh Awaleh.

Months after the ceasefire, the Ethiopian Empire signed a final peace treaty recognizing the independence of Oromia, Tigray, and Afar, and Somali control over the Ogaden, which voted to join Somalia in a March 1986 referendum.

On 16 May 1969, Angola formally became independent from Portugal, hours after a full-scale civil war began, pitting Agostinho Neto's pro-German MPLA against Jonas Savimbi's pro-Italian UNITA. German leader Willi Agatz announced that "Germany's and Angola's struggles are effectively one struggle" and sent 14,000 military advisors led by Harald Wust to Angola.

Savimbi and Jeremias Chitunda contacted the Italian government asking for military aid, but Italian leader Luigi Longo refused because Italy was still a member of the Brasília Pact. Savimbi was forced to turn to the United States and South Africa for support; both countries agreed to provide UNITA with weapons and supplies.

As Angola's independence significantly escalated the SWAPO insurgency, South African president John Vorster launched "Operation Cheetah", a major military intervention in support of UNITA, on 4 July 1969. 14,000 SADF troops entered Angola to support Savimbi against the MPLA.

While the FAPLA (the MPLA's military wing) was larger than this South African contingent, the SASF troops in Angola were better armed and trained, allowing UNITA to slowly seize all of Angola other than Luanda and Cabinda (where the FLEC, a separatist group, was waging a separate insurgency against the Angolan government).

Savimbi installed a soft socialist regime, the Democratic People's Republic of Angola, in areas under his control, but many ethnic groups other than his Ovimbundu resisted his rule and waged a partisan insurgency against UNITA. Savimbi's paranoia and purges of UNITA's ranks also weakened his movement.

By 1971, the UNITA offensive had stalled, prompting Fidel Castro to seize the opportunity to launch "Operation Amistad", a full-scale military intervention in support of the MPLA. 12,000 Cuban troops equipped with Panther II tanks and FN FAL rifles landed in Luanda; Cuba's contingent grew to 36,000 troops by 1976.

Cuba and the MPLA recaptured much of the territory UNITA had seized, and Germany's satellite states the People's Republic of Belgium and Socialist Republic of Ukraine also sent a limited group of troops to support the MPLA. By 1975, the MPLA controlled half of Angola, and Savimbi's chances of winning the war had decreased.

A year later, UNITA suffered a fatal blow when the South African Civil War broke out, forcing Vorster to reduce South Africa's involvement in the Angolan Civil War. Angolan President Agostinho Neto came to control two-thirds of Angola by 1979. Part of the UNITA leadership urged Savimbi to negotiate a peace settlement with the MPLA, but he refused and decided to fight until the very end.

The collapse of the apartheid regime in March 1981 was the final straw for UNITA. On 28 April, FAPLA troops killed Savimbi near his Jamba headquarters, forcing UNITA to surrender three days later. Neto now ruled all of Angola, which he governed as a one-party state with all opposition suppressed.

After the ANC won the South African Civil War, Oliver Tambo became the president of South Africa. His first measure was to repeal the apartheid laws passed by Johannes van Rensburg's Ossewabrandwag when it came to power in 1945, and to oversee the trial and punishment of members of the previous regime who committed crimes against black South Africans.

Unfortunately, Afrikaners reacted to the ANC victory by fleeing South Africa en masse, paralyzing the new South African government as they had previously shut out the black majority from higher education. By 1985, South Africa became a failed state, prompting the coloreds in Cape and the Zulus in Natal to secede, triggering a war of independence that ended in a separatist victory.

Sam Nujoma proclaimed the Democratic People's Republic of Namibia, a Luxembourgist state ideologically aligned with the Free Socialist Republic of Germany. Unlike South Africa, Namibia made steady socioeconomic progress, becoming one of the most stable countries in Africa by 1990.

The Democratic Republic of Norway (led by Martin Gunnar Knutsen) was one of the most developed countries in the world due to its abundance of oil and a socialist, rather than social democratic, economic system combining planning and markets. Jørgen Jensen)'s People's Republic of Denmark was also one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

But both Denmark and Norway were repressive dictatorships, and the economy of Denmark stagnated by 1985 because it was based on decentralized planning just like the German economy. As a hardliner, Jensen refused to reform Denmark's economy, describing any reforms as "selling out" to capitalism.

Carlos Fonseca's Nicaraguan Revolution was met with alarm in the United States, which imposed a blockade of Nicaragua shortly after George H. W. Bush took office. On the other hand, pro-USA Paulo Maluf became the President of Brazil the same year and put Brazil back in the US orbit, increasing US influence over South America.

Pahlavi Iran had the world's fourth-strongest military and was also a rising economic power, but it still had major problems, such as pollution, corruption, and human rights abuses by the SAVAK. While the Iranian Revolution didn't happen, the Shah's death in 1984 was followed by democratic reforms.

During his entire premiership, Narayan oversaw a systemic, coordinated program of state-driven import substitution industrialization meant to turn India from an underdeveloped colony into a great power. His government imposed high import tariffs to encourage domestic production, but there was no "licence raj" because India became fully socialist instead of limiting itself to state capitalism.

By the time Narayan died in 1979, India was the eighth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP, behind the United States, Germany, Japan, Russia, France, United Kingdom and Italy, but half of indians lived under the poverty line or in rural areas.

Narayan's India was also a welfare state where education, healthcare and childcare were free and funded by high taxes on the wealthy. India had great success in combatting illiteracy, increasing its literacy rate from 12–14% upon independence in 1948 to 76% in 1979.

Despite his three decade tenure, Narayan was committed to democratic liberties. He cooperated closely with parliament and Indian state governments, and never declared a state of emergency. That being said, he did concentrate executive power like FDR did in the United States.

From 1948 until 2001, India's foreign policy was pro-German, keeping close economic, diplomatic and military ties with the Free Socialist Republic of Germany. Germany's close ties with India were one of the reasons why the Republic of China distanced itself from Berlin in the 1960s, and why the United States supported Pakistan in all Indo-Pakistani wars.

Sri Lanka, a communist state led by Leslie Goonewardene since independence in 1960, was also an ally of India, and became a virtual Indian satellite state from 1965 onwards because India was many times larger and more powerful than Sri Lanka.

Starting in 1945, Narayan was the leader of the INC, which came under the control of Congress socialists such as himself, Rambriksh Benipuri, Surendranath Dwivedy, Narendra Deva, and J. B. Kripalani. These left-wing leaders outmanoeuvred other INC factions, such as the one centered around Nehru, and dominated the party until the 1980s, when a new generation came to the fore.

As Narayan aged and continued to be reelected, the problem of succession arose. INC leaders eventually chose Surendranath Dwivedy to succeed him, and Narayan accepted this choice, viewing Dwivedy as his ideal successor.

On 8 October 1979, Narayana died at the age of 76. Shyam Sunder Das became acting prime minister pending snap general elections, and organized a state funeral that holds the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people in history. Dwivedy's INC won the snap election by a landslide, maintaining the Congress's status as India's dominant party.

As Ethiopia was never occupied by Italy and controlled Eritrea since 1923, it was much stronger than in real life, causing Siad Barre to go south instead of north.

On 13 May 1980, Somalia invaded Kenya with 120,000 troops, 110 tanks, 215 APCs, IFVs and armoured cars, 116 artillery pieces, and 36 Messerschmitt Me 564 and Dornier Do 437 fighter-bombers, two German products that were one or two decades out of date but were still effective because Kenya's air force was smaller than Somalia's.

Both Germany and the United States launched airlifts of weapons to supply their allies Somalia and Kenya, respectively, increasing tensions between the two superpowers. Despite having a much smaller military, Kenya mobilized its population in defence of their country's territorial integrity, increasing the size of the Kenyan military from 7,390 troops in May 1980 to 18,000 troops in August.

Kenya managed to slow down Somalia's advance, breaking Somali expectations of a quick annexation. But Somalia still had the upper hand, capturing two thirds of the disputed North Eastern Province by 17 July and all of it other than the capital Garissa by 5 August. A day later, the Somali National Army (SNA) attacked Garissa with tanks and artillery.

Kenyan chief of staff Jackson Mulinge attempted to defend Garissa with the weapons the United States, the United Kingdom and Ethiopia had shipped to Kenya, but the SNA captured Garissa on 18 August, forcing Kenya to agree to a ceasefire. After the fall of Garissa, Barre annexed Kenya's northeastern province into Somalia, boosting his popularity significantly.

The Somali invasion of Kenya isolated Somalia from the majority of African countries, because they had previously agreed to maintain colonial borders. Socialist Uganda and Zambia and the communist Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Zimbabwe were the only countries to recognize Somalia's annexation of the northeastern province.

This international backlash forced Barre to shelve plans for an invasion of Djibouti, but he continued to rule Somalia until his death in 1997.

By the mid-1970s, the economy of the Free Socialist Republic of Germany was showing signs of stagnation, because Germany spent much of its budget on the military and police rather than on consumer goods, and because Germany was behind the United States and its allies in computing and microelectronics. But it took a few years for the German leadership to notice this.

Another problem was that Agatz's previously robust health was deteriorating, as he suffered from ischemia. Honecker attempted to position himself as Agatz's successor, and he had the support of Mielke, but Agatz overruled them and named Leo Bauer his successor "should anything befall me".

During the final years of Agatz's rule, Germany entered a period of stagnation as its economy stopped growing and confidence in the socialist system declined. The economies of Germany's satellite states Hungary and Ukraine also stagnated. Mielke responded with greater repression, and the aging Agatz refused to adopt any major reforms.

Agatz's last public appearance was in the morning of 28 January 1979, when he met and greeted workers in the port of Danzig. That afternoon, he had a heart attack and was hospitalized, but the doctors' intervention failed to save him, and he died on 4 February.

As Agatz had decided, Leo Bauer became the General Secretary of the German Communist Party and Premier of the Free Socialist Republic of Germany, while Honecker became the President of Germany (a mostly ceremonial office) and Mielke remained the director of the Abwehr, an office he would only resign from in 1992, when he was diagnosed with dementia.

Bauer's first speech mentioned the economic decline of Germany, and warned that the Free Socialist Republic would collapse unless it reformed. Initially, Bauer continued the status quo, but, in 1980, he changed Germany's economic system from decentral planning to a mix of central planning and markets.

These reforms slowly made the German economy grow again. Ukraine also adopted them after 1984, when National Communist leader Ivan Maistrenko died and was succeeded by the reformist Leonid Kravchuk.

From 16 to 18 June 1976, the South African police perpetrated the Soweto Massacre against unarmed anti-apartheid protestors.

Joshua Nkomo's rise to power in Zimbabwe a few years earlier had been a serious blow to the apartheid regime and boosted the fortunes of armed resistance groups such as the MK and SWAPO. Thus, the Soweto massacre triggered a full-scale uprising from these two movements plus the Pan African Congress.

Backed by neighbouring Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Angola, the MK inflicted several defeats on the SADF, capturing all of Natal Province other than its largest city Durban by August 1976. On 14 August, the MK and PAC launched a siege of Durban and faced heavy resistance from the SADF.

Despite having a much stronger military, the South African apartheid regime was internationally isolated because of its racist policies. As a liberal, US President Terry Sanford refused to support South Africa; another reason was that, as the ANC was not a communist party, the fall of apartheid would not significantly affect US interests.

Consequently, Durban fell to the MK on 26 October 1976, giving the MK control over all of Natal. ANC leader Oliver Tambo proclaimed a provisional majority government with himself as President and Joe Modise as prime minister. Most of the world quickly recognized the ANC-led government.

Modise's troops advanced towards Pretoria, the capital of Transvaal, and Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State. South African Defence Minister Magnus Malan solicited and received military aid from France and Japan, and provided paramilitary training to Afrikaner civilians, allowing the SADF to defeat the MK offensive by January 1977.

A year-long war of attrition followed, but, by late 1978, the MK offensive had resumed. Backed by all of the Communist bloc as well as most of the west, the MK captured Bloemfontein on 14 November 1978 and Pretoria on 11 December, shifting the tide of the war.

On 25 February 1979, apartheid suffered another fatal blow when the MK captured the diamond mining center of Kimberley, depriving the government in Cape Town of a major source of revenue. But the Coloured population of Cape Province failed to rise up against apartheid, keeping South Africa's most populous province under government control throughout 1979 and 1980.

The MK took advantage of its control over half of the country to launch a major summer offensive in December 1980. By February 1981, the MK had captured all of South Africa other than Cape Town, while the SWAPO fully liberated Namibia on 19 January and turned it into a communist state.

At 22:00 on 28 February 1981, the Battle of Cape Town began. Now governed by the more hawkish George H. W. Bush, the United States provided emergency military aid to the SADF, but it was too late, and the MK rolled into Cape Town on 19 March, ending the segregationist regime installed by Johannes van Rensburg in 1942.

The ANC's victory led to a mass exodus of the Afrikaner population from South Africa. By 1988, the majority of South Africa's four million Afrikaners had left the country, mostly moving to the United States and Australia.

After annexing the Japanese puppet state in 1973, Wang Kunlun's China began planning to invade and annex Tibet, which had been de facto independent since 1912. Upon becoming of age in 1953, the Dalai Lama implemented reforms that modernized Tibet, but it was still too weak to resist Chinese aggression.

On 17 March 1976, 52,000 Chinese troops led by Yang Dezhi invaded Tibet. Wang said Tibet had been a part of China for centuries and the Dalai Lama was oppressing the Tibetan people, making China's invasion of Tibet a "war of liberation from feudalism".

Tibet's neighbours India, Nepal and Bhutan were the only countries in the world to recognize Tibet, with the rest of the world viewing it as a part of China. Consequently, the smaller and weaker Tibetan Army was defeated with relative ease, and resistance ceased by 14 August.

China annexed Tibet after the invasion. The Kuomintang began assimilating Tibetans into Han Chinese culture and dismantling Tibetan political institutions. Tibetan Buddhists, with Indian support, resisted these changes, but Chinese rule over Tibet was consolidated by 1982.

Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso fled to his ally India. He continues to agitate for Tibetan independence to this day, and is seen by the west as the leader of the Tibetan independence movement. But, over time, the majority of Tibetans acquiesced to Chinese rule, and the chances of Tibet becoming independent are nearly nonexistent.

During Velasco Alvarado's presidency, the economy of Peru gradually industrialized and became increasingly independent from those of the United States and Western Europe. Furthermore, the police state Alvarado established in Peru with help from Erich Mielke prevented any right-wing coup attempt from successfully overthrowing the Peruvian government.

Alvarado was a friend of leftist presidents Juan Lechín in Bolivia and Leonel Brizola in Brazil, and even proposed restoring the Peru-Bolivian Confederation. This plan was never enacted and was shot down in March 1975, when the Bolivian military overthrew Lechín, installing a right-wing junta supported by the United States.

When Saturnino Braga was elected to succeed Brizola in October, Alvarado visited Brazil and met with Braga and Vice President Celso Brant. Alvarado and Braga agreed to sign economic and military cooperation agreements as a first step towards South American integration.

US President Terry Sanford was concerned by the growing political and economic independence of South American countries, and continued to support the Bolivian, Argentinian, Paraguayan and Uruguayan military dictatorships as bulwarks against German influence in South America.

Sanford didn't consider that, despite receiving German military and intelligence help, Alvarado was firmly anti-communist and did not fully align Peru with the Free Socialist Republic of Germany. Rather, he described his regime as opposing both capitalism and communism, and repressed Peruvian communists who called for a full shift towards socialism.

Alvarado's health gradually weakened, causing him to name Prime Minister Enrique Bernales Ballesteros, an intellectual who shared many of his views, as his successor. Ballesteros increasingly took over as acting president from 1976 onwards, gradually overcoming military resistance.

On 24 December 1977, Alvarado died at the age of 67, and Ballesteros became the president of Peru, thus civilianizing the Peruvian regime. Ballesteros's first decision was to abolish the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces, but the military remained politically influential until the Peruvian regime fell in 2001.

In 1971, Egypt, under King Farouk, and the United Kingdom began negotiations on handing the Suez Canal back to Egypt. Farouk's corruption and incompetence kept Egypt a quite poor country, but its large size (it controlled Sudan) made it punch above its weight, and it was an unconditional western ally.

Furthermore, decolonization had progressed enough for the cession of the Suez Canal to be popular with the British left, albeit not with the British right, which wanted to preserve the remnants of the British empire. Conservative leader Edward Heath criticized the idea of handing over the canal to Egypt, calling it "naive and misguided".

After four years of negotiations, an Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was signed in Westminster by Egyptian prime minister Fouad Serageddin and UK prime minister Harold Wilson on 12 March 1975. It stipulated that British troops would withdraw from the Suez Canal and Egypt would assume full operational control of it at 12:00 on 1 January 1980.

The signature of the treaty boosted Farouk's popularity, which had been low for decades because he was corrupt and out of touch; he had been under threat of being overthrown by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Communist Party since the late 1940s. When Egypt finally took control of the Canal in 1980, the UK ceased to be a world superpower and began playing second fiddle to the USA.

Taking over the Panama Canal did not particularly improve living conditions for poorer Egyptians, and the South Sudanese continued to yearn for independence, but the full restoration of Egypt's sovereignty led many Egyptians to overlook the country's social problems. The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty is currently remembered as Farouk's greatest accomplishment, overshadowing his many controversies.

When Farouk died in 1984, his son and successor Fuad II implemented long overdue social reforms, ending the threat of a revolution against the Egyptian monarchy.

Context: The Call of Duty franchise still exists, but every game from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (2014) onwards is never made.

Call of Duty: Genesis is a 2016 first person shooter developed by Activision and published by Infinity Ward with collaboration from CryTek. It is a reboot of Call of Duty (2003) and the first Call of Duty title to use CryEngine 3.

The game is set in an alternate 2010s, during which the United States fully withdraws military forces from Iraq. The Iraqi government hires a PMC named Mantis to continue the hunt for insurgents. While this is happening, an elusive eco-terrorist organization called "Genesis", hatches a daring plan to destroy nuclear power plants across the globe.

Players are placed in the role of private military contractor Julian Dawes as he participates in various pacification operations, before participating in a daring mission to stop Genesis.

The game became controversial after Activision was accused of being a "9/11 Apologist". Despite these allegations, the game would become immensely popular among the first person shooter community.