Nothing to Lose but Your Chains! / a German Revolution TL

[Teutonic_Thrash]

The flashes and clicks of the cameras played out a rapid staccato rhythm. The White House press corps was ravenous for information today, just as they had been every day since the secession was announced. Tim Meaney couldn't blame them; it was the nation's most alarming crisis since the Civil War. Even the protests and civil unrest that accompanied the West African War did not threaten the very concept of the United States as the present crisis was doing. No, what Tim Meaney disliked about this situation was that – as Press Secretary – it was down to him to relay information that was in all honesty a repetition of the administration's previous statements. Meaney stepped to the podium, cleared his throat, and was greeted with an abrupt silence. The eyes of the reporters were not silent however, for they all stared at the Press Secretary with the intensity of a bird of prey, practically screaming their intent to swoop upon him for the slightest misstep. Meaney cleared his throat gain.

"The President has prepared a statement on the current crisis. This administration is committed to reaching a peaceful conclusion to the secession of the state government of Texas. This is not an endorsement however of the actions of said government. President Wellstone was elected to serve all of the people of these United States of America, not a minority of either the left or the right. This is not a partisan issue. The acceptance of the results of free and fair elections is at the very core of our government and way of life. Thank you. Now, we have time for a few questions. Rachel?"

"Rachel Cabot, CNN. What concessions is the President willing to give to Texas?" Though he knew this question would be asked, Tim Meaney had still dreaded it. The truth was that the administration had no concessions for Texas. From the perspective of the Federated Farmer-Labor Party – that unwieldy but enduring alliance of Farmer-Laborites, Progressives, Socialists, and Communists – the Democratic government of Texas had consistently been a thorn in the eye of progressive governance, every step of the way resisting civil rights and desegregation legislation along with federal welfare programs. For a Texan Progressive campaign manager like Tim Meaney, this conflict was personal. Of course, the Press Secretary could not just admit that the administration had no intention of being conciliatory, nor could he allow his personal feeling to show. Unfortunately, producing answers off-the-cuff was a skill that Meaney was not adept at. "As I said Rachel the administration is committed to a peaceful solution which results in the readmittance of the state of Texas into the Union. John?"

"John Wedgewood, NBC. What is the President's response to reports of proposals by Texan legislators to repeal desegregation laws?" Ah, a more manageable question for Meaney to answer. "The President and his administration condemn in the most absolute terms any attempt to turn back the clock on civil rights. Any such attempts in the Texas Legislature would only demonstrate that the state government's repeated claims of 'federal infringement on states' rights' is a smokescreen to cover for racial discrimination. We are confident that any reimplementation of formal segregation would be incompatible with both the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Texas." Meaney knew it was more complex though. He had personally seen how state governments, including Texas, had skirted the law or used loopholes to engage in voter suppression of ethnic minority or working class voters. Stating that aloud at the conference though would exacerbate the crisis even more. Instead the embattled Press Secretary looked around for the next reporter. There, the newest arrival from the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia; what was her name again? "Next. Anja?"

"Anja Zgorzelska, Dziennik Telewizyjny. Why does the US government tolerate fascist insurrectionaries." A few sniggers, more angry glares, but otherwise an uncomfortable silence followed. Anja continued, "The Texans have rejected the authority of the federal government, successfully retained control of the National Guard, and are using the same justifications as last time. So, I ask, how is this not a repeat of the Civil War?" Meaney had to reassert control of the conference before the other reporters latched on to this 'Second Civil War' line of thought. Damn it Anja, he thought, I was looking for support from a fellow leftist. "Let's not jump the gun here Anja. There has so far been no violence or any signs of the state of Texas looking to escalate the situation militarily. One last question. Uh, Alan?"

"Alan Beesley, BBC. There are reports of Communist Party leaders – of whom Vice President Davis is a member – calling for support from the USREA and other socialist nations. Does the administration share that position?" Meaney internally heaved a sigh of relief; finally an easy one. "No, the President, Vice President, and the administration are in agreement that this is strictly a domestic American matter and – as always - any foreign interference will be opposed resolutely. Thank you, that's all we have time for."

---

The hotel outside Dallas could charitably be described as quaint. The only distinguishing feature was the recently-placed handwritten sign which read 'WHITES ONLY'. The journalist's eyes narrowed a fraction. The Texan government had not yet reintroduced segregation, but clearly some business owners were making the most of the changed circumstances. The journalist entered the hotel and booked a room at the reception. Single bed. Indefinite stay. When asked for identification, the journalist provided a worn South African passport in the name of Willem Kopp. The receptionist barely looked at the passport before returning it. The name was as fake as the documentation it adorned. 'Willem Kopp' had never actually been to South Africa, but his Brabantian accent could pass for South African in most of the world and thus was one of the reasons he had been assigned to this operation. The operation itself was subject to the highest levels of USREA and Comintern classification. If this was some reactionary dictatorship, for example South Africa, the risk of socialist agents being exposed was not too problematic. After all, fomenting revolution was the raison d'être of the Communist International. But infiltrating a country with an ostensibly amicable government which included fellow Communists and Socialists? That was a diplomatic incident waiting to happen. Within the American Communist Party, only their members on the Comintern's Executive Committee were aware of the operation; those members did not include Vice President Angela Davis.

Willem Kopp had a few hours to spare before the scheduled meeting with his contact. He refamiliarised himself with his cover. Willem Kopp: born in Bloemfontein; a foreign correspondent from the newspaper Volksblad, sent to Texas in 2006 to cover the story of the state's secession. The other members of his team, who should at that moment have been arriving at their own hotels in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, had their own similar cover identities. Fortunately for the operation, a major political crisis in the world's leading capitalist liberal democracy was a siren's call to international journalists. When Kopp was satisfied that he had memorised his cover, he switched on the television. Predictably every channel featured a news segment on the current crisis. Kopp sighed; there was no further information or insights beyond what he had already learned in his pre-operation briefings in Milan. The state of Texas was not happy about the Federated Farmer-Labor victory in the last election. The new government's policies were apparently federal overreach. So on and so forth. Kopp had heard it all before. Anyway, it was time. Kopp turned off the TV and left for his meeting with the contact.

Manuel Amendola was an inconspicuous-looking man, a blessing for the line of work he suddenly found himself in. He was a low-level but trusted activist for Raza Unida, the left wing Mexican-American party. Beyond his orders to provide whatever the foreign contact asked for, Amendola himself knew little of the operation to which he had been attached and meeting Willem Kopp at his auto repair ship did little to assuage Amendola's nervousness.

"How's the mileage on that Ford?" Kopp had asked in perfect Spanish.

Remembering the passcode, Amendola replied, "You're mistaken sir, it's a Chevy." With the tradecraft dispensed with, Kopp relayed his 'order': enough automatic weapons and ammunition for a team of eight; two off-road capable vehicles; and a safehouse that was within the Dallas-Fort Worth area but appropriately secluded.

"Don't worry sir I can arrange all of that for you, though the rifles may take a bit longer."

"I'm not a 'sir' Manny, I'm a comrade. When you've acquired the materiel, call this number from a payphone." And with that, Kopp was gone.

 

[Leonidas]

Nice narrative update with a look at the future. It seems like the civil rights movement has gone very differently. Angela Davis as a communist vice president is a big enough change by itself!

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Nice narrative update with a look at the future. It seems like the civil rights movement has gone very differently. Angela Davis as a communist vice president is a big enough change by itself!

In my current canon she's not the first either; Charlene Mitchell was the Communist VP to Progressive Glen Taylor, elected in 1972.

 

[Herucalmo]

Huh, so in this 2000s spy thriller Texas is like the Chechnya to America's fall of the Iron Curtain and the rollercoaster of attempted reform, political crisis, and civil conflict as like the American Gorbachev and Yelstin try to steer the ship of state?

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Huh, so in this 2000s spy thriller Texas is like the Chechnya to America's fall of the Iron Curtain and the rollercoaster of attempted reform, political crisis, and civil conflict as like the American Gorbachev and Yelstin try to steer the ship of state?

Kind of. I would describe the US of this time as a two-and-a-half-party system, where presidential power switches between the Democrats and Republicans until a major crisis hits and the Federated Farmer-Labor alliance get a chance at government. As of the moment there has been two major crises for the US: 1) the West African War, where the US (and UK) sent troops to prop up white minority governments while legal segregation still existed at home and 2) increasing tensions in the Pacific where Japan joining the Transatlantic Treaty Organisation (alternate NATO) has prompted China and Indonesia to become full member states of the USREA.
In other words, most of Europe, Asia, and Africa are either part of the socialist bloc or friendly towards it by the twenty-first century, and so the US is no longer the global superpower it once was; the conservatives are railing against that new reality and see Federated Farmer-Labor's attempts at social democratic reforms as evidence of communist infiltration.

 

[AceOfSpades]

2) increasing tensions in the Pacific where Japan joining the Transatlantic Treaty Organisation (alternate NATO) has prompted China and Indonesia to become full member states of the USREA.

Bit of a digression: Is this Imperial Japan in this case, or democratic Japan?

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Bit of a digression: Is this Imperial Japan in this case, or democratic Japan?

Still a monarchy, not yet decided on how authoritarian it is.

 

[WotanArgead]

The KPRP was strongly influenced by Rosa Luxemburg’s opposition to the bourgeois right to national self-determination and so argued for Poland’s inclusion into a socialist Russia.

It seems that the part that consisted of former members of the "Left Socialists" (like Felix Dzerzhinsky) stood on the positions of national self-determination of Poland.
Will there be a new revolution in the Baltics? Or are Latvia and Estonia lost to the revolution at this stage?

 

[Krasno]

Made an account to say awesome TL! Excited to see more

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

The Beginning of the End Part 1

On 4th October the Reichsbanner Schwartz-Rot-Gold made its move. In Baden-Baden, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, and Heidelberg the paramilitary seized control of police stations and armouries, often with little violence. In some cases the uprisings were accompanied by mass demonstrations of workers, shop keepers, and farmers. In the subsequent proclamation issued by Berthold von Deimling – the leader of the insurrection – he studiously avoided any mention of economic grievances or disparagement of the Free Socialist Republic, and instead focused on the tyranny of the Hindenburg-Kapp junta and its obvious goal of restarting the war. In this way the message of the Reichsbanner Schwartz-Rot-Gold remained inoffensive and alluring to all those in the southwest who desired peace. The junta tried to prevent von Deimling’s call from going out, but were unable to do so. The result was the collapse of the already low morale of those soldiers who had been forcibly conscripted. Desertion rates at the Bavarian and Hessian frontlines increased, with only the Freikorps and the ideologically committed members of the Heer being an effective force against the Red advance. So vital and few the loyalist soldiers were, they could not be withdrawn from the frontline to suppress von Deimling’s insurrection. The military junta was finished, the question now being for how long its leadership would keep the conflict going. Centrist politicians such as former Vice-Chancellor Friedrich von Payer of the DDP saw which direction the political currents were flowing and so openly declared their support for the Reichsbanner Schwartz-Rot-Gold’s uprising.

By the middle of October, Bavarian Rote Garde had reached Stuttgart and came into contact with the Reichsbanner. Korpsführer Max Levien was initially apprehensive of the meeting, but in the event the Reichsbanner soldiers greeted the Reds as comrades. Von Deimling travelled to Stuttgart to meet with Levien; in the subsequent negotiations it was agreed that the Reichsbanner would ally itself with the Rote Garde but remain an independent force for the time being, and that Von Deimling would endorse the Free Socialist Republic and an upcoming constitutional congress to determine the organisation of the new government. The united Reichsbanner-Rote Garde army began its campaign north towards the junta’s seat at Frankfurt, more than a match for the minor Freikorps resistance along the way. The implosion of the junta’s authority in the south was soon followed by a collapse of military discipline at the northern front; while some White soldiers fought on, most abandoned their posts. Many of these fled into the countryside and devolved into little more than bandit gangs fighting for survival and petty revenge against supporters of the new order. The more forward-thinking though retreated west into the Entente-occupied Rhineland hoping to be the spearhead of an eventual intervention by the Entente, much like their counterparts in Russia. Coincidentally, the Hindenburg-Kapp junta had also sought refuge among their former enemies shortly after the outbreak of von Deimling’s insurrection, labouring under the justifiable assumption that they would be treated better there than by their socialist countrymen. Meanwhile, Frankfurt was taken by the Reds to the adulation of the city’s working class. Excluding the disparate reactionary holdouts, the German Civil War – for all intents and purposes – was over.[1]

The time which the Council of People’s Deputies had been waiting for had finally arrived: victory. There were still the major issues of Poland and the Entente to contend with, yet the people of Germany were at last afforded a moment to catch their collective breath. In the minds of the United Front government it was the ideal opportunity to formalise the still relatively ad-hoc government. The Communist Zentrale had prepared for this moment by appointing a commission led by lawyer and People’s Deputy of Culture Paul Levi to draft a provisional constitution for the Free Socialist Republic. The USPD and the SPD had of course prepared their own – not too dissimilar – ideas for the new constitutional order. The three co-chairmen of the Council of People’s Deputies (Karl Liebknecht, Herman Paul Reisshauss, and Emil Barth) were in agreement that a new congress of councils should be convened forthwith. There were some concern in the government however over voting on such a pivotal moment in German history when some parts of the country was still under foreign occupation. A heady combination of euphoria and manic urgency overpowered such arguments though, and the date was set for 27th October.

The Fourth All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils began on time at the end of October. In all there were 631 delegates, 74 being elected by soldiers’ councils. The Communists remained in first place with 253 delegates. The SPD remained in a stable second place at 112. However this belied some dramatic realignments due to the events of the last seven months; many more workers had radicalised during the course of the revolution and consequently their voting habits had shifted to the more left wing parties. On the other hand, this loss in Social Democratic support had been compensated by gains among centrist and liberal voters caused by the seeming martyrdom of the SPD leadership in Frankfurt in defence of the constitutional order. Delegates who identified as liberals - whether they were members of the Democratic Party or not - had also experienced an increase in seats, rising to 36 and even overtaking the anarchists at 32 delegates. The liberal triumph was a testament to the significance of von Deimling’s insurrection against the junta; the general himself was present at the congress as a soldiers’ delegate. The two major items for the congress’ agenda were the ratifying of a new constitution and securing peace with the Entente.

Party​	Delegates​	% of delegates​
Communist Party of Germany​	253​	40​
Social Democratic Party of Germany​	112​	17.7​
Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany​	105​	16.6​
International Communists​	41​	6.5​
Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria​	39​	6.2​
Liberals​	36​	5.7​
Anarchists​	32​	5.1​
Independents​	13​	2​
	631​

The constitutional order came first. Levi of the KPD presented his party’s draft constitution, copies of which were distributed at the beginning of the congress. The draft owed a great deal of influence to the Soviet Russian constitution that had been adopted the previous year. The first section, concerning the Declaration of Rights of the Working Class, drew little comment as even the right wing Social Democrats would have ostensibly supported most of that section’s content. Some of the liberals and independent delegates grumbled but none were willing to go against the mass of agreement. The second section, the General Principles of the Constitution, generated more discussion. The phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” caused the most controversy; to those not educated in Marxist theory it implied a socialist power grab, thus the opposition from the liberals. In truth it was the counterpoint to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which was the prevailing status in most of the world. Opposition from some in the SPD, USPD, and SDAPÖ was based on their reformism, though how they could articulate reformism in a situation where the proletariat had already achieved power through revolutionary and military means was left unstated. As such the Communists rallied a majority in favour of the draft’s phraseology.

The second point of contention was on the question of national minorities. The draft declared itself to be against the oppression of national minorities but said nothing of their representation. The Polish majority province of Posen was still mostly occupied by Poland but there was an unspoken expectation among delegates that the situation would soon be reversed. Besides Posen, there were Poles elsewhere, Danes still, Jews, Sorbs, Frisians, and Lithuanians. The liberals and the independent Polish delegates proposed an autonomous administrative region for Posen; Chairwoman of the Executive Committee Rosa Luxemburg instead argued that true national autonomy was provided for through the mechanism of the nested council-based system of the constitution, whereby each council area had the freedom to decide its own national and cultural parameters without imposition from above. Luxemburg’s position held much popularity among the delegates, but not enough for a majority. Into the debate came the Austrian Otto Bauer who, like Luxemburg, had dedicated a great deal of time to studying the so-called national question. Bauer proposed his and colleague Karl Renner’s principle of national personal autonomy; non-territorial legislative bodies that existed alongside the council system and voted on by eligible voters wherever they lived in the country. Luxemburg and other communists who adhered to her views on the national question were sceptical, but national personal autonomy proved to be an attractive compromise. When the liberal delegates and the right-most Social Democrats realised that it was going to be the closest to a traditional parliamentary system in the new republic, they eagerly assented. With a majority secured for the Austromarxist policy, the only lingering question was for whom it applied. The Poles were a certainty and the Jewish population was also large enough to warrant representation; additionally it would be an effective way of combatting the residual anti-Semitism of the junta and the Austrian reactionaries. On the other hand there were no delegates present from Germany’s other minorities, so it was decided that the congress would consult with the communities in question before coming to a decision. The final cause for concern was the article which called for the universal arming of the proletariat. Pacifism had been a significant characteristic of the socialist and anti-war movements; the delegates agreed that a simple edit would be sufficient to ease the fears of pacifists and conscientious objectors.

The third section was entitled The Organisation of Council Power and was concerned with details of how the socialist democracy was to be constructed. The KPD’s draft constitution sough to formalise the political system as it currently existed: a socialist democracy of regularly-elected councils whereby the congress would hold supreme power. When the congress was in recess the permanent Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Deputies would be responsible for governance. Furthermore each layer of council districts in the matryoshka-like system – of which there were three – would be legislative and executive bodies in their own right. The guaranteed universal suffrage drew only scattered criticism from the ultra-leftists of the IKD and parts of the Communist Party, who instead argued that the exploiting classes should be disenfranchised – everyone else recognised that the introduction of universal suffrage throughout Germany was one of the achievements of the Weimar constitution. On the other hand, this congressional session was the last gasp of those who supported a parliamentary system. Like with the opposition to the declaration of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the liberal delegates and some among the SPD and the Austrian Social Democrats were opposed. Their protests were for naught however as even the reformists of the USPD had come to see the desirability, and perhaps the inevitability, of a conciliar republic at this point. Thus the council system won an unassailable majority of delegates.

A criticism of the council system which Levi and his commission did not account for was that for many people a republic was defined by an elected head of state. The indirect nature of the council system and its head of state – the Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils – was argued to be too far removed from the regular voter, and to be a step back from the Weimar constitution. Most communist delegates, whether KPD or IKD, were bemused at what they saw as a bourgeois attachment to a position which would not be comparable in power to its counterparts in liberal democracies. A significant amount of delegates from the other parties were in favour of a directly elected head of state though, but deadlocked on the issue without a majority for either side. Levi himself proposed a compromise: the head of state would be subject to direct popular vote, but the candidates would be nominated by the Executive Committee. Enough Communist delegates were swayed by Levi’s argument to give the motion a majority. There was brief consternation among the delegates over the apparent abolition of federalism, before it was explained that the top tier of council district – the oberbezirk – was approximately analogous with the current federal states of Germany.

[1] This may seem like rather a quick turn of events but I think it would helpful to see the civil war more as an extrapolation of the Kapp Putsch, but in the more furtive and unsettled atmosphere of 1919.

 

[Leonidas]

Interesting government setup they've got there; I wonder whether Austromarxist ideas of national personal autonomy will spread east to the other revolutionaries and have a bigger impact later on. Excited to see what happens now that peace has (mostly) been achieved!

 

[Salvador79]

I've realised this is something that tends to come up in various TLs with different successful socialist revolutions occurring around the time in which OTL's October Revolution occurred - this is also the case in @Meshakhad 's The Fire Never Dies, and in my own Feeble Constitution TL, too:
We're designing new, post-revolutionary political systems and constitutions, and one recurring motif is that, while these constitutions are decidedly and maybe even creatively different from OTL, they are feature some sort of multi-party post-revolutionary socialist democracy, in which the situation is reversed in comparison to pre-revolutionary times, in that now most parties, together comprising at least 75 % of the votes and seats / council delegates / ..., are pro-socialist or in some other way decidedly leftist, whereas liberal, conservative, progressive and otherwise bourgeois parties (of whom only the more progressive ones tend to get "let in") comprise only max. 25 % of the vote.
At the same time, the systems are mostly presented as returning, after their civil war(s) or other ruptural conversions, relatively quickly to some sort of "rule of law" and calm social relations, or at least they're not in a "permanent revolution" state of mind, and neither does there seem to be some sort of omnipresent secret police / Cheka / ... to ensure political conformity.

Now I know each TL has a different explanation for that, and each one brings up valid arguments for that, and that could be argued for this TL, too.
It's just that, viewed together, it occurred increasingly as a little strange to me.
Like, is this probably a little utopian? A degree of wishful thinking, of writerly and readerly wish fulfillment? I mean, for all those of us who are leftists and democratically minded, too, don't we all wish history had gone that way...!?! And now we're immerging ourselves into that kind of world.

In short, upon longer reflection, I have plausibility issues.
Sure, people are conformists to some degree. When the circumstances and the culture changes, they adapt. And we often vote for something we perceive as a lesser evil. And a successful revolution has upturned social relations and changed the material basis on which political preferences are built and interests derive from.
But quite so fast and so thorough?
I mean, it's not just filthy rich capitalists and KKK members and Prussian junkers and Russian aristocrats who would not embrace such a sharp leftward shift, is it?
There is a whole sizable middle class with anti-socialist leanings and culture, and then in the early 20th century there is also a peasantry, and that is a traditionally rather conservative political constituency, even if conservatism may take on very different shapes in different contexts.
What about all of them? Aren't they being a little glossed over and shoved to the narrative side in such depictions of calm post-revolutionary socialist multi-party democracy between leftist, centre-left, hard left and ultra-left parties??

 

[piratedude]

and neither does there seem to be some sort of omnipresent secret police / Cheka / ... to ensure political conformity.

Presumably in @Meshakhad 's TL the Bureau of Investigation (the proto-fbi) would fill that role, perhaps somewhat by accident while they try routing out active KKK cells

 

[xiru misionero]

don't we all wish history had gone that way...!?

And what's wrong with that, exactly?
When we write, we create a world, if i want a grimdark world, there's thousands upon thousands of timelines, not to mention multi million dollar productuons in the mainstream media.a Meanwhile only the ones you cited, plus some ten others actually try and paint a world that is better, be it socialist or not. There's a tremendous lack of optimistic media all over, what do we have that paints a better future, star trek?

 

[Crust3038]

And what's wrong with that, exactly?
When we write, we create a world, if i want a grimdark world, there's thousands upon thousands of timelines, not to mention multi million dollar productuons in the mainstream media.a Meanwhile only the ones you cited, plus some ten others actually try and paint a world that is better, be it socialist or not. There's a tremendous lack of optimistic media all over, what do we have that paints a better future, star trek?

It is child's play to create believable conflict in dystopias. Dystopias are boring. Let's move on...

It is much more difficult to create believable conflict in (material/economic) utopias (material/economic utopias being what FALC would be). You can have conflict in those setting, even conflict that doesn't use such old leftist clichés as counter-revolutionaries and reactionaries/regressives (which, tbh, can be used only in revolutionary time but not really after it).
It is just that one needs to fully flesh out the background and inner mental working and thinking of the characters (and yes, GRR Martin's approach of subjective viewpoints and mental talk would be essential here) before a conflict starts (and the conflict can run the gamut of romance drama to Outside-Context-Problem scifi investigation horror). But all this would mean that such stories couldn't ever be written wholy in a Historical Timeline/Grand Spectacle (aka Eagle Eye View) template. Viewpoint characters would form the majority of such a work.

 

[Windows95]

I mean, Salvador was pretty on point when he talked about wish-fulfillment and people who are too... "forgiving" to the opposition after the revolution. I get what he means, the liberal-bourgeois revolutions in 1780's-1840's were also unforgiving towards feudalism and corporatist monarchial states and there were massacres against the royalty and aristocrats, along with the innocents on the side; the radicals are beaten but then in the long-run, they use institutions to run, win and implement policies anyways like the dissolution of feudal/landlords, universal mass suffrage for everyone and unleashing of the capitalists using... democracy

Democratic socialism/socialist democracy in other words.

So yes.

 

[Mayukh]

What about all of them? Aren't they being a little glossed over and shoved to the narrative side in such depictions of calm post-revolutionary socialist multi-party democracy between leftist, centre-left, hard left and ultra-left parties??

Doesn't Meshakhad's tl have Calvin Coolidge run on a conservative platform under Federalist Party?

 

[Meshakhad]

I've realised this is something that tends to come up in various TLs with different successful socialist revolutions occurring around the time in which OTL's October Revolution occurred - this is also the case in @Meshakhad 's The Fire Never Dies, and in my own Feeble Constitution TL, too:
We're designing new, post-revolutionary political systems and constitutions, and one recurring motif is that, while these constitutions are decidedly and maybe even creatively different from OTL, they are feature some sort of multi-party post-revolutionary socialist democracy, in which the situation is reversed in comparison to pre-revolutionary times, in that now most parties, together comprising at least 75 % of the votes and seats / council delegates / ..., are pro-socialist or in some other way decidedly leftist, whereas liberal, conservative, progressive and otherwise bourgeois parties (of whom only the more progressive ones tend to get "let in") comprise only max. 25 % of the vote.
At the same time, the systems are mostly presented as returning, after their civil war(s) or other ruptural conversions, relatively quickly to some sort of "rule of law" and calm social relations, or at least they're not in a "permanent revolution" state of mind, and neither does there seem to be some sort of omnipresent secret police / Cheka / ... to ensure political conformity.

Now I know each TL has a different explanation for that, and each one brings up valid arguments for that, and that could be argued for this TL, too.
It's just that, viewed together, it occurred increasingly as a little strange to me.
Like, is this probably a little utopian? A degree of wishful thinking, of writerly and readerly wish fulfillment? I mean, for all those of us who are leftists and democratically minded, too, don't we all wish history had gone that way...!?! And now we're immerging ourselves into that kind of world.

There is definitely a bit of wish fulfillment.

In short, upon longer reflection, I have plausibility issues.
Sure, people are conformists to some degree. When the circumstances and the culture changes, they adapt. And we often vote for something we perceive as a lesser evil. And a successful revolution has upturned social relations and changed the material basis on which political preferences are built and interests derive from.
But quite so fast and so thorough?
I mean, it's not just filthy rich capitalists and KKK members and Prussian junkers and Russian aristocrats who would not embrace such a sharp leftward shift, is it?
There is a whole sizable middle class with anti-socialist leanings and culture, and then in the early 20th century there is also a peasantry, and that is a traditionally rather conservative political constituency, even if conservatism may take on very different shapes in different contexts.
What about all of them? Aren't they being a little glossed over and shoved to the narrative side in such depictions of calm post-revolutionary socialist multi-party democracy between leftist, centre-left, hard left and ultra-left parties??

In my TL, not only were the Socialists a major political force pre-Revolution, a lot of the rural farmers have been radicalized by the war itself, especially those who are African-American. The fact that Leon Bronstein's response to the Memphis Uprising was "give them as many guns as possible and tell that preacher leading them that he's a general now" not only won them over to socialism, but turned quite a few of them into far-left radicals that went on to vote for Bronstein (who leads the far-left Revolutionary Socialist Party).

I also have the Progressive Party, which is explicitly not socialist. They're the second largest party, making Hiram Johnson and Sam Rayburn the de facto heads of the opposition. That's where most of the middle class and more conservative farmers went. Mind you, with socialism now a reality, the Progressives are focusing on practical politics rather than trying to undo the Revolution. In the process, some of them (including Rayburn) are making peace with socialism and finding things they like about it.

Presumably in @Meshakhad 's TL the Bureau of Investigation (the proto-fbi) would fill that role, perhaps somewhat by accident while they try routing out active KKK cells

The Commissariat for Security is concerned with groups that are violent (or potentially violent) in nature. "Capitalism is good, actually" is still a mainstream political stance, just a very right-wing one. "Capitalism has its place" is a more moderate one.

Doesn't Meshakhad's tl have Calvin Coolidge run on a conservative platform under Federalist Party?

Yep (although Coolidge was the Deputy Premier candidate to Clarence Edward McCartney, a Presbyterian preacher). The Federalists are a hard-right party, but one with enough support to be considered significant. They're the ones who do want to go back to 1916.

 

[Crust3038]

I get what he means, the liberal-bourgeois revolutions in 1780's-1840's were also unforgiving towards feudalism and corporatist monarchial states and there were massacres against the royalty and aristocrats, along with the innocents on the side;

Some assume (and I do agree with them) that so-called "westerns" part (being considered the most politically economically, technologically and industrially advanced parts of the world by others, not just by itself) of the Human global civilization has moved slightly a little further along the axis of thinking through its action's consequences, than having a demographics made up of 90% of illiterate peasants. AKA: That a socialist revolution won't be as bloody or only will be as bloody as the French Revolution, which was achieved in a region under Peak Late-Stage Feudalism (Absolutism).

With its brutality, the French Revolution executed, all in all, including Jacobinite Terror, 40.000 people...lets be pessimistic, call it 50.000 if we include "died in prison". Out of a population 28 million.

That's...not that much, actually. An Advocatus Diaboli would call it 100.000, with including killing reactionaries in the field of battle in Vendeé region, for example.

Which means, for those like me who assume a thing or two about progress being a measurable variable, that a socialist revolution in a developed western country should have at the absolute worst cost the lives of ~0.35% of its population during a region under a Red Terror, If done in an advanced Late Stage Capitalistic economy like the US, UK or the Netherlands, for example.

Which paints Lenin and Stalin and the USSR in an awful way. An argument could be made that if a region starts its way towards socialism from a lower capitalistic socio-politico-economical ladder, it will be way more bloody than otherwise would have been the case and the chance for failure will be way higher as well, but it would not be entirely impossible, especially if this one region got outside help from a region with a socialism developed out of a higher capitalistic socio-politico-economical ladder. Which means that Lenin's "Spartakist/Rosa Germany or Bust" became prescient.

 

[Salvador79]

Presumably in @Meshakhad 's TL the Bureau of Investigation (the proto-fbi) would fill that role, perhaps somewhat by accident while they try routing out active KKK cells

I just realise that my alerts have not worked and I missed out on a lot of updates in the follow-up thread (The Red Colossus) - yay, binge-reading ahead!

And what's wrong with that, exactly?
When we write, we create a world, if i want a grimdark world, there's thousands upon thousands of timelines, not to mention multi million dollar productuons in the mainstream media.a Meanwhile only the ones you cited, plus some ten others actually try and paint a world that is better, be it socialist or not. There's a tremendous lack of optimistic media all over, what do we have that paints a better future, star trek?

You're right, I like a good utopian twist, too, but the greater its plausibility, the better.

Doesn't Meshakhad's tl have Calvin Coolidge run on a conservative platform under Federalist Party?

He does, I think. Yet, even the South sent Progressive (well, not Socialist, but still...) Representatives to the House, and the Federalist candidate for premier came in a distant fourth place, after 58 % for Debs, then Bronstein even to his left coming in second place, and the Progressive candidate being third.
I mean, Meshakhad does a good job painting a really bloody picture of a Civil War in which the anti-socialist side absolutely discredits itself to such ends that the triumph of Socialists who were stronger than OTL even before the Great War looks within the realm of the possible.

I'll try to come back next week with more precise thoughts on Germany here for this TL.