What would a British "leftist" revolutionary movement look like?

So occasionally we get WIs about Britain falling to Bolsheviks after WW1, or some other radical-left revolution happening during the convulsions of the 20s and 30s. Generally, the discussion finds that any real revolution doesn't make much sense in the British context.

Lately I've been wondering if that is because previous discussions have focused on foreign ideologies, and not looked at what a revolutionary movement suited to the British character and dilemmas would look like.

For example, Bolshevism really requires a large landless peasantry to be viable and a revolution led by factory workers would need factory workers who weren't aware of how dependent British manufacturing was on foreign exports. Any revolutionary movement would need to draw support from the massive British middle class.

So what do people think a revolutionary ideology that could succeed in Britain before 1950 would look like?

My own thoughts:

*Needs the support of the middle class, so probably would have more in common with Fascism than Bolshevism.
*Probably needs Cromwellian iconography and to explicitly reject internationalism in favour of some variety of nationalist leftism.
*Needs to be at least pro-Empire, if not pro-Free Trade.
*Needs to celebrate at least some part of business - either large or small.
*May need to embrace individualism? Not sure on this one.

And can anyone think of an ideology that would be successful in Britain and in the Dominions and/or the colonies?

Of course, even the right ideology would need the right conditions to succeed. Like the middle class being seriously short of food, which I am not aware of coming close to happening in OTL.

fasquardon

Have you seen Bayonets Won't Cut Coal, by Lord Brisbane? It's a very plausible-seeming look at a British socialist revolution.

I'm also not confident that a British revolutionary-socialist movement would need to gain the support of the middle classes. The Russian revolutionary-socialist movement relied on a minority of urban workers under a system deeply biased against the peasant majority.

I think that a British revolutionary-socialist movement would likely be based around the existing trade unions. If it took an authoritarian turn there might well be some kind of one-party state monopolising positions of leadership in trade unions, but nonetheless, even an authoritarian British socialist state would rule through trade unions, not through a centralised bureaucracy. It would be likelier to look syndicalist than communist. In a more pleasant scenario it could even be genuinely democratic-socialist, with the nation governed by a National Federation of Trade Unions acting as a legislative and voting for its leader to be the leader of the country, as a socialist parliamentary democracy—albeit disenfranchising anyone who didn't agree with socialism.

Personally I am inclined to think that, as any such revolution would be resisted by a large proportion of the population through force of arms, in a civil war environment there would develop a secret police aimed at getting rid of dissenters, so an at least semi-authoritarian state, where anyone speaking out against the state or the revolution would disappear in the middle of the night, is more likely than not.

Have you read Fight And Be Right? I won't do spoilers, but while it may not at first read like an answer to your question, it is one. A very good one.

Physical force chartism rolls 6s while the Tories don't turn liberal?

Perfidious Albion said:

Have you seen Bayonets Won't Cut Coal, by Lord Brisbane? It's a very plausible-seeming look at a British socialist revolution.

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I didn't find the TL terribly convincing. Mainly because what I read of it did not address the issues of trade and commerce in a way that I thought was realistic - or in enough depth.

Meadow said:

Have you read Fight And Be Right? I won't do spoilers, but while it may not at first read like an answer to your question, it is one. A very good one.

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Yeah, it looked interesting. I didn't find the style of writing EdT used in this one terribly pleasant, so I didn't read far enough to get to the bits you are speaking of.

Perfidious Albion said:

I'm also not confident that a British revolutionary-socialist movement would need to gain the support of the middle classes. The Russian revolutionary-socialist movement relied on a minority of urban workers under a system deeply biased against the peasant majority.

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In 1914, the middle class was 20% of the British population - I have a hard time seeing a revolution overthrowing the interests of such a large middle class, hence why I feel the middle classes would need to have some of their interests advanced by the revolution. Maybe I could be overestimating them of course...

Perfidious Albion said:

I think that a British revolutionary-socialist movement would likely be based around the existing trade unions. If it took an authoritarian turn there might well be some kind of one-party state monopolising positions of leadership in trade unions, but nonetheless, even an authoritarian British socialist state would rule through trade unions, not through a centralised bureaucracy. It would be likelier to look syndicalist than communist.

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Hmm. Was the British trade union movement fairly ideologically uniform in the first half of the last century?

Certainly the idea of a syndicalist revolution is a fun one - it's not an ideology that we explore enough I think.

fasquardon

Dunno about in the 50s, but I suspect a modern one would look like this:





Seriously though, this is an interesting topic.

fasquardon said:

Hmm. Was the British trade union movement fairly ideologically uniform in the first half of the last century?

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Not completely. But, the majority of Presidents, General Secretaries, members of the TUC General Council, etc. were moderates. Very few believed in revolutionary politics and even A.J. Cook (seen by many as Britain's Lenin-in-waiting) was willing to compromise with the government and the mine owners in the 1920s. After Fred Bramley's death in 1925, the "Lefts" were pretty much shunned/kept on a tight leash. The rise of "Rights" like Ernest Bevin and Walter Citrine effectively kept the radicals out of the mainstream and out of the reach of power.

A lot of those divides within the trade union movement were born with the coming of World War One, when the labour movement was split between promoting the war and co-operating with the government or denouncing the war and advocating for its swift end. The latter group was a minority and its followers remained in obscurity (unless you changed your opinions on the cause of the labour movement and its relationship to patriotism, like Ramsay MacDonald and Ernest Bevin). The former group of patriots and "class-collaborators" were in the majority, allowing members of the Labour Party to serve in the war government. This group would always hold the majority of power in the trade union movement.

Though, that doesn't mean that it couldn't have been different. In a world where the labour movement stood firmly against the war, then Britain's trade unions would inevitably turn to industrial action (as advocated at the time and demonstrated in Russia) to bring about the war's end. This could have sufficiently radicalised the labour movement, increasing the authoritarianism of the government, and in turn leading to a revolutionary situation.

I'd imagine that any British revolution would be some variety of Syndicalist as an outgrowth of the already important trade union movement. There's probably more room in Britain for Marxism DeLeonism than there ever was in America in otl.

How about this for a scenario:

Call it: "for want of a harvest".

PoD: the harvests in the UK during the 1917 and 1918 are very poor.

As a result, imports need to be increased sharply. Even so, it's not enough. Britain and her allies can just about feed the troops on the front, but the civilian population of Britain itself is reduced to starvation (as in, the middle classes are maybe 50-100 calories short of a healthy daily intake, working class is worse, upper class eating sufficiently but feeling the pinch of high food prices - not enough to kill many outright, but enough to kill in combination with months of hard war work and enough to piss alot of people off). Battles go much as OTL, with Britain going deeper into debt to the US to fund the war effort and buy food to keep everything from melting down at home. USA enters war on schedule and Germany defeated roughly on schedule.

Troops come home to find Britain in miserable state, their sufficient war-rations being replaced by insufficient civilian rations if they find work and thin broth from soup kitchens if they can't (and many can't). Ex-soldiers inject a thread of militancy into the by now powerful trade union movement that has been leading the protests to food, war and inequality. The government gets more heavy handed as rage builds and fear of Bolshevism grows.

The food situation starts to improve, but too late, discontent is still near boiling point, people are sick, half starved and desperate and the hope that a sufficient food supply brings makes the prospect of a new "war famine" all the more fearsome.

Eventually, Ireland reaches breaking point, with the IRA redoubling its efforts there and rumors flying in Great Britain that the army will be going over to Ireland in force (the rumors of course are untrue, the Government being well aware of the risks of sending over war-weary regulars to fight). On top of the demoralization of months of breaking strikes by former comrades, the army is close to mutiny. The public, getting wind of the recruitment drive for Black-and-Tans and fearing that the new "war in Ireland" will result in less food as everything is spent supporting an army over in Ireland. The Unions fear that the Black-and-Tans being recruited will in fact not be used on Ireland, but used closer to home to purge the working class with fire and blood.

Around this time, the treaty of Versailles is signed. The more desperate British position has resulted in a harsher treaty, with more reparations demanded of Germany. Unfortunately, this backfires on the British as the increased exactions from Germany, particularly in coal, drives down the prices British exports can command. Further, since Germany has less money to pay for imports, her trade with Britain crashes. Unemployment starts climbing in the factories and the coal mines.

Ironically, the people blame the government for not being MORE harsh on Germany, rumors circulate of Lloyd-George being secretly pro-German.

A general strike is called in early/late 1920. It will be the start of the British Revolution.

The Black-and-Tans, with many units successfully infiltrated by Trade Unionists, are mobilized early to deal with the massive strike, just as the Unionists had feared. As many units betray the government and join the revolutionaries' march on London, the dangerously mutinous army is called upon. The army proves even more "red" than the Black-and-Tans. Fighting between loyalists and revolutionary forces breaks out across the country, but no unit retains enough cohesion to stop the march on London.

The government decides to evacuate the Royal family. Parliament itself is in anarchy, the anti-war liberals, many of whom have been radicalized by the grim years of "Lloyd George's tyranny" trying to bring down the government. However, lines between radical and loyalist MPs are not clear-cut, with some former anti-war liberals and even labour party members being loyalists and some pro-war liberals and conservatives being radicals. As such, the hasty plot cannot be kept secret. The government, fearing Syndicalist infiltrators and traitors within parliament itself, panicked soldiers are sent to "detain" certain MPs. Some resist. Some are martyred.

As the rebels draw nearer to London, Lloyd George and most of the government decides to follow the Royal family and evacuate to "preserve the Empire from Bolshevism".

Rebels take London. The radio spreads the news of Lloyd George's "callous butchery of sitting members of parliament". Loyalist morale in Great Britain and Ireland plummets. Army units regularly surrendering or switching sides. Lloyd-George government in France orders the RN to prepare a blockade of the British Isles. Mutinies spread across RN as men and even a few officers rebel at the idea of starving their own families.

The RAF is the only service not to see rebellion and disloyalty on a significant scale, with many pilots and even a few support crew managing to withdraw to France.

Major fighting on the islands stops. Upper classes escaping however they can, for fear of the coming "Bolshevist terror". IRA and Syndicalists victorious. A constitutional conference will eventually establish a "Federal Republic of Great Britain and Ireland".

___________

I think I will leave it there for now... What do people think? Plausible?

I am rather curious what relations would be like between the FRGBI and the Empire (I suspect that urban intellectuals in India would love the new Syndicalist/Sinn Fein republic, the princely states would fear greatly). And where would the remnants of the British establishment, RAF and RN set up their new center of Empire? Canada I would guess...

And what would relations with the Soviet Union be like? On the one hand, the Soviets dreamed of revolutions in the West, and here one is. On the other hand, the British Revolution is a Syndicalist one, and therefore a strong ideological opponent. I can see pragmatism pushing the FRGBI and the USSR to cooperate - I can also see ideology making them worse enemies than OTL's USSR and UK were...

And what effect would this have on leftist movements elsewhere in the world? I can see the British Revolution fueling a huge red scare. I can also see many Socialist and Syndicalist movements who disliked the Bolsheviks aligning with the FRGBI, leading to those political forces being revitalized in their struggles against Bolshevism.

fasquardon

fasquardon said:

How about this for a scenario:

Call it: "for want of a harvest".

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Very cool idea, I definitely wouldn't mind if you went through with it.

About the empire, if britain is being that heavily hit by poor harvests and the war, expect the rest of the empire to radicalize tenfold. India is probably starving, not to mention africa. I'd expect the republic to contact nationalists in india willing to cooperate, since the empire is probably going to be very heavy handed with any dissent after losing it's main base.

fasquardon said:

I think I will leave it there for now... What do people think? Plausible?

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Not in the case of Ireland - radical Irish nationalists would have no wish to be part of a British dominated 'federal' structure, republic or no, while Irish unionists were generally speaking conservative.

In fact I have difficulty imagining socialism gaining a strong hold in Ireland with any 20th century or even late 19th century PoD without being imposed from without. The Land Acts created a huge majority of socially conservative smallholders and medium sized farmers.

guinazacity said:

Very cool idea, I definitely wouldn't mind if you went through with it.

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I don't know nearly enough about the personalities of the British left in the period.

Also, I'm not very confident of the PoD - for Britain to really starve, not only does the harvest in Britain need to fail, but Britain needs to be short of port capacity/shipping to ship in enough food to keep everyone going. It may need a more general world-wide famine, which would change much more than just Britain.

guinazacity said:

About the empire, if britain is being that heavily hit by poor harvests and the war, expect the rest of the empire to radicalize tenfold. India is probably starving, not to mention africa. I'd expect the republic to contact nationalists in india willing to cooperate, since the empire is probably going to be very heavy handed with any dissent after losing it's main base.

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Why would India be starving because of localized bad weather in Britain?

And I can see the British Imperial forces being quite heavy handed - but very quickly, those forces would be dependent on what support they could get from the Dominions and the Entente allies - and I am not very confident that either groups would be very interested in helping the "white" British forces retain their Empire.

RossN said:

Not in the case of Ireland - radical Irish nationalists would have no wish to be part of a British dominated 'federal' structure, republic or no, while Irish unionists were generally speaking conservative.

In fact I have difficulty imagining socialism gaining a strong hold in Ireland with any 20th century or even late 19th century PoD without being imposed from without. The Land Acts created a huge majority of socially conservative smallholders and medium sized farmers.

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Certainly I agree that Ireland would not federate so easily with Britain, even if there was ideological sympathy between the two revolutions - I could see a longer war with counter-revolutionaries forcing the two groups to federate. Mostly I tossed it in for fun and because the socialist tendencies of the IRA at that time get too little love from AHs.

fasquardon

What sort of relations do people think a Revolutionary Britain would have with the US, France and Germany? And would a Revolutionary Britain be likely to withdraw from international finance the way the Soviet Union did?

I was struck with the idea this morning that a post-revolutionary regime might face a situation where debtors to Britain might claim that they did not owe money to the new British regime, while creditors might insist that the new regime should meet the debts of the old Britain. This got me to wondering if it might provoke the new regime to reject international finance as an evil of capitalism (more likely it would really have to do with being unable to force its own debtors to pay up). But then again, I could see the desire for a good relationship with the US meaning the new regime payed up on the American loans regardless of any other consideration.

And if a revolutionary regime did take over Great Britain itself, how likely would it be to face invasion by "white" British forces and forces from the Dominions?

fasquardon

fasquardon said:

Certainly I agree that Ireland would not federate so easily with Britain, even if there was ideological sympathy between the two revolutions - I could see a longer war with counter-revolutionaries forcing the two groups to federate. Mostly I tossed it in for fun and because the socialist tendencies of the IRA at that time get too little love from AHs.

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Probably because they weren't actually that strong.

There were left wing radicals in the IRA but there is not much evidence the rank and file held those views and certainly Sinn Fein had at least as many small c conservatives - Kevin O'Higgins, W.T Cosgrave, Ernest Blythe, Arthur Griffith, etc. As I said before I don't think an internal socialist majority is possible in Ireland with a 1900 PoD.

More importantly though federalism would require the IRA to abandon its own raison d'etre and advocate an essentially Unionist position which I just don't see happening under any circumstances whatsoever.

fasquardon said:

So occasionally we get WIs about Britain falling to Bolsheviks after WW1, or some other radical-left revolution happening during the convulsions of the 20s and 30s. Generally, the discussion finds that any real revolution doesn't make much sense in the British context.

Lately I've been wondering if that is because previous discussions have focused on foreign ideologies, and not looked at what a revolutionary movement suited to the British character and dilemmas would look like.

For example, Bolshevism really requires a large landless peasantry to be viable and a revolution led by factory workers would need factory workers who weren't aware of how dependent British manufacturing was on foreign exports. Any revolutionary movement would need to draw support from the massive British middle class.

So what do people think a revolutionary ideology that could succeed in Britain before 1950 would look like?

My own thoughts:

*Needs the support of the middle class, so probably would have more in common with Fascism than Bolshevism.
*Probably needs Cromwellian iconography and to explicitly reject internationalism in favour of some variety of nationalist leftism.
*Needs to be at least pro-Empire, if not pro-Free Trade.
*Needs to celebrate at least some part of business - either large or small.
*May need to embrace individualism? Not sure on this one.

And can anyone think of an ideology that would be successful in Britain and in the Dominions and/or the colonies?

Of course, even the right ideology would need the right conditions to succeed. Like the middle class being seriously short of food, which I am not aware of coming close to happening in OTL.

fasquardon

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A post WW1 radical leftist regime in the UK would probably lose its empire, fast. The dominions would be extremely uncomfortable with a communist-like government in London, as would America (which is a big deal for Canada since a shares a border with the US), and at this point in time Britain really has no power to enforce its will in these places, except maybe South Africa, (Australia and New Zealand are to far and Canada again has the US beside it, which would not look fondly on a communist Britain trying to impose its will on a country that borders it). Also, unless it has some sort of racial superiority angle to it it would be hard for a leftist-regime in the UK to justify British exploitation and rule of the masses of impoverished Indians (this is something that extreme right wing Fascists/Nationalists could get away with if they were in power though).

So if the UK goes communist, it probably loses a big chunk of its empire.

Didn't the IRA's opposition of remaining in the UK basically only develop as a result of the Anglo-Irish War radicalising the movement and sidelining those in favour of Home Rule/joining the Commonwealth? Before that the majority (especially among their leaders) were just trying to get Home Rule implemented properly, which the Unionists got in the way of, if my memory serves. If the IRA end up fighting a war against the loyalists (in this ATL sense and the OTL Ireland sense) alongside the revolutionaries, the two movements will be very close I imagine and may well go in for some sort of federation/confederation (with the Unionists effectively being thrown under the bus, what with having opposed the IRA and probably mostly staying loyal to the Crown ITTL's Civil War).

NamelesStatistic said:

it it would be hard for a leftist-regime in the UK to justify British exploitation and rule of the masses of impoverished Indians (this is something that extreme right wing Fascists/Nationalists could get away with if they were in power though).

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They could just adopt a modified form of the pre-war ideology - i.e. Imperialism is about "tutelage" and bringing benighted feudal peoples into the light of socialism.

Actually, given the weaknesses of a revolutionary British state, I would expect them to be very active imperialists. Britain absolutely needs trade, and if they are locked out of much of their former markets/raw material suppliers a revolutionary Britain will seek to gain new (or old) colonies and advanced satellite states.

Also, the British public were the most enthusiastic Imperialists in Europe, so any revolutionary Imperialism is likely to be popular with the people as well.

Dieu Le Roi said:

(with the Unionists effectively being thrown under the bus, what with having opposed the IRA and probably mostly staying loyal to the Crown ITTL's Civil War).

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I suspect the Unionists would be hardcore "whites". I could even see "white" exiles and allied forces landing in Northern Ireland as their first attempt to reconquer Britain from the revolutionaries.

Which does make me wonder: who could the British "whites" turn to for aid in the fight? I have a hard time seeing France intervening, they're already exhausted after WW1, their intervention in the Russian civil war, their intervention in Turkey and their war in Syria (all of which were quite unpopular). The Dominions or the Indian Empire perhaps? What about the Americans (an American intervention against "red" Britain could get VERY interesting)? Or even the Germans (I could see Freicorps men being eager to serve as mercenaries to crush socialism in Britain)?

Another thought: might a British revolution set off a new revolution within Germany itself? Might it affect the still ongoing Polish-Soviet war?

fasquardon

Spitting Image's version .

fasquardon said:

They could just adopt a modified form of the pre-war ideology - i.e. Imperialism is about "tutelage" and bringing benighted feudal peoples into the light of socialism.

Actually, given the weaknesses of a revolutionary British state, I would expect them to be very active imperialists. Britain absolutely needs trade, and if they are locked out of much of their former markets/raw material suppliers a revolutionary Britain will seek to gain new (or old) colonies and advanced satellite states.

Also, the British public were the most enthusiastic Imperialists in Europe, so any revolutionary Imperialism is likely to be popular with the people as well.



I suspect the Unionists would be hardcore "whites". I could even see "white" exiles and allied forces landing in Northern Ireland as their first attempt to reconquer Britain from the revolutionaries.

Which does make me wonder: who could the British "whites" turn to for aid in the fight? I have a hard time seeing France intervening, they're already exhausted after WW1, their intervention in the Russian civil war, their intervention in Turkey and their war in Syria (all of which were quite unpopular). The Dominions or the Indian Empire perhaps? What about the Americans (an American intervention against "red" Britain could get VERY interesting)? Or even the Germans (I could see Freicorps men being eager to serve as mercenaries to crush socialism in Britain)?

Another thought: might a British revolution set off a new revolution within Germany itself? Might it affect the still ongoing Polish-Soviet war?

fasquardon

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America probably wouldnt directly attempt to intervene by military force in any UK territory outside of the Americas (eg. even up to the eve of WW2 the US Army/Navy Joint War Plan Red strategy had no plans for fighting the British outside of North American land and waters). However if Britain underwent a revolution and a radical left-wing government emerged, the US would certainly look on that with great concern and in particular have an eye on Canada to see if the revolution spreads there. The only way I could see direct war between the UK and US because of this is if this new UK radical left wing government spread to Canada (unlikely because the Canadians will be looking to distance themselves from the UK for precisely this reason), in which case the US may go to war to secure its borders (and it will take Canada and probably Britain's Caribbean territories). In any case expect a Naval Arms race between the US and UK (which the US will almost certainly win) as the US can no longer be (relatively) sure that the Royal Navy will be a friendly force.

So some of the effects of this revolution in Britain will be: It will enter a Naval arms race with America, which it will almost certainly lose, thus ending British primacy or even parity at sea two decades earlier than in OTL. It will lose control Canada (either by the will of the Canadians themselves or possibly through US intervention, in which case the UK will also lose its Caribbean colonies as well). Overall a communist revolution in Britain is a very good way to hasten British decline.

NamelesStatistic said:

America probably wouldnt directly attempt to intervene by military force in any UK territory outside of the Americas (eg. even up to the eve of WW2 the US Army/Navy Joint War Plan Red strategy had no plans for fighting the British outside of North American land and waters). However if Britain underwent a revolution and a radical left-wing government emerged, the US would certainly look on that with great concern and in particular have an eye on Canada to see if the revolution spreads there. The only way I could see direct war between the UK and US because of this is if this new UK radical left wing government spread to Canada (unlikely because the Canadians will be looking to distance themselves from the UK for precisely this reason), in which case the US may go to war to secure its borders (and it will take Canada and probably Britain's Caribbean territories). In any case expect a Naval Arms race between the US and UK (which the US will almost certainly win) as the US can no longer be (relatively) sure that the Royal Navy will be a friendly force.

So some of the effects of this revolution in Britain will be: It will enter a Naval arms race with America, which it will almost certainly lose, thus ending British primacy or even parity at sea two decades earlier than in OTL. It will lose control Canada (either by the will of the Canadians themselves or possibly through US intervention, in which case the UK will also lose its Caribbean colonies as well). Overall a communist revolution in Britain is a very good way to hasten British decline.

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That's pretty much my instinct as well, though I think a revolutionary Britain will try their hardest to inundate America with propaganda comparing the American revolution to the new British revolution - just as monarchist Britain had a big interest on keeping on the good side of the US, revolutionary Britain would have twice as big an interest in keeping things nice. It may be more likely for the revolutionary regime to end up in a naval arms race with the Empire (I guess led by Canada, since they are by far the most industrial Dominion and have the largest white population outside the old UK) with US shipyards only participating in so much as they sell ships to the Empire and build their own ships to stay just ahead of either Britain or the Empire.

I guess there is potential to end up in a naval race with France also? I think even a Britain wrecked by revolution could still out-build the French though.

I think America becoming the prime naval power in the world a generation early could have VERY interesting effects, particularly since this is happening when the post-war isolationist backlash is at its strongest.

fasquardon