In the Southern Victory series the Red Rebellion is an uprising of black confederates who rose up in 1915. About 10% of the blacks in the CSA participated and they caused serious damage to the confederates in the process especially with US support. So what i'm wondering is, what would be the outcome if this rebellion somehow managed to succeed against all of the odds? Would it be an OTL style union of Socialist republics? What would have to happen to make this even possible? How would this effect the post war years?
TL-191: What if the Red Rebellion succeeded?
In my opinion, in order for the Red Rebellion to succeed, it would have to receive large amounts of continual aid from an outside benefactor, and something would have to prevent the CS from reinvading and destroying the Socialist republic set up on the CS's former soil. Maybe a socialist republic could exist for a few years in South Florida, or in Louisiana, but I think that it would be a short lived entity with little authority within its own borders. I think that conditions inside the new socialist republic would absolutely be horrible, especially for any whites caught in the area when the new republic is established, and I think that there would be a lot of ethnic killings, lawlessness, and shortages of everything imaginable. Cuba and Venezuela would probably look like a paradise in comparison.
Given its strongly ethnic character, I can see a Red Rebellion becoming locally successful in Mississippi (majority black, IIRC) and linking up with union forces advancing through Tennessee. With a steady supply of arms thereafter, the Socialist Republic can secure up to the state lines by the time the CS is beaten, as a Yankee client state.
The US, in turn, maintains it as a way to keep the CS physically divided and because it keeps Confederate anger focused first on the Black Mississippians rather than on the US.
While some of the idealists will shoot for a colorblind communist society, in practice there will be enough ethnic vengeance that eventually this would evolve into a population exchange a la Turkey and Greece IOTL, with almost all the remaining whites evacuating Mississippi and a lot of other CS blacks immigrating to take their place.
The effect is a CSA split down the middle. Texas, with Louisiana and Arkansas and Sonora and Chihuahua, might go their own way sooner, leaving a rump CS along the Atlantic coast only.
The US, in turn, maintains it as a way to keep the CS physically divided and because it keeps Confederate anger focused first on the Black Mississippians rather than on the US.
While some of the idealists will shoot for a colorblind communist society, in practice there will be enough ethnic vengeance that eventually this would evolve into a population exchange a la Turkey and Greece IOTL, with almost all the remaining whites evacuating Mississippi and a lot of other CS blacks immigrating to take their place.
The effect is a CSA split down the middle. Texas, with Louisiana and Arkansas and Sonora and Chihuahua, might go their own way sooner, leaving a rump CS along the Atlantic coast only.
You need something to get white poor support on the Reds side, which is exceedingly unlikely
I can see a Freedom Party style organization forming in the new confederate rump state possibly under the lead of Jake Featherston if he survives the war. Probably would exterminate any remaining blacks in the rump state under the justification that the reds are doing the same thing. The chance of a second great war in america is pretty much null at this point considering the absoultely torn apart state of the CSA. I doubt however that the slaughter of whites would continue for too long in the socialist republics as not only are they massively outnumbered their socialist ideals would keep them from killing many of the poorer whites. Rich people and plantation owners wouldn't be spared tho.
Not much information is given in the books but the Congaree Socialist Republic was a junta under the control of Cincinnatus with a small group of lieutenants. There really isnt enough info tho on how they worked to really compare it to stalinism or moaism.
Given the general illiteracy of most Confederate blacks, I wonder if there could even be distinct ideological currents before the war ends. Most of their literature would be stuff smuggled in from the north and reprinted in clandestine presses. The other wildcard is the impact Lincoln had on anglophone Marxist thought—they are mentioned as reading some of his work, so it’s possible they espouse a Marxist-Lincolnist doctrine with no analogue IOTL.
Both Stalinism and Maoism in large part are products of the specific Russian and Chinese historical experiences. The same will hold true in any Black Socialist Republic in TL-191. There won’t be the Gulag and forced labor and secret police obsession that characterized the USSR because they don’t have an Okhrana or Katorga system to model that on, nor the fetish for forced labor that Stalin had (Applebaum characterizes him in ‘Gulag: A History’ as self-consciously imitating Peter I’s construction of St. Petersburg with forced labor). Nor will they have the Maoist military-type rhetoric because they don’t have a Long March or extended war with Japan.
So what will Black Confederate Communism look like?
Heavy emphasis on education, because that was denied to them. Is there even a Black middle class to draw on as a revolutionary vanguard? There will be a strong program to incentivize blacks from the US and the European empires in Africa to come over. White communists too, from the US Socialist Party. Building up a skilled Black Communist class will be the main objective.
Breaking up the plantations and an aversion to cash crop exports. Can something like the Birmingham steel industry (with which the CS will not part, so Alabama won’t be part of the Socialist Republic) be built in Mississippi?
State violence: as noted, camps and secret polices are less likely than in the USSR. Rather, show trials in public squares and executions by hanging or firing squad in public. Mob violence more than Chekist precision.
Baldrick
Banned
The most likely place for an uprising is Confederate Cuba- a large black population, and it's more cut off from the Confederate Army fighting for its life in Maryland. If the US can covertly slip aid to the rebels (a la In At the Death), then I could see a rump socialist state hold out.
After the war, if it survives, it will be a third world country, isolated... its communist ideology will make it a pariah state, especially if the Tsar wins the Russian Civil War.
Conveniently, the Socialist Party will be taking over the US from 1920 to 1932, and they’ll be cutting the military budget. That means lots of surplus weapons can end up in Black Socialist hands, and the Black Socialists might get a decent stipend from the north. The War Department couldn’t even complain too badly about such a program because of the strategic advantage of cutting the CS in half.
America would become way more dominant on the north american continent in this timeline far earlier than in the normal Southern Victory path. Do you think that they might have gotten involved in the second great war in europe considering that the chance of a GW2 in north america is much more unlikely than normal?
Until the Depression hits in 1929. Then the US people will be demanding to know why the government is supporting a nascent republic instead of using that money toward the economy. Could the Black Socialists have established a fairly stable-ish republic by 1932? Decent enough chance. Will that matter once the U.S. cuts support and the CSA, which has probably been gearing for a chance to take down said republic for 15 years, attacks it from all sides? Probably not.
I think in this scenario the British might force their hand by arming Canadian rebels (as the canon Pacific War went with Japan).
One can imagine them, to use a Turtledovian parallelism, as TTL Poland. Surrounded by hostiles on both sides, narrow sea access (Free City of New Orleans?), and a psychotic, racist neighbor.
Their survival odds improve greatly if Texas, et al also break off from the CS, so their western flank is clear. Maybe they would—if Texan patriotism is strong enough, they might reason that they really don’t have all that much in common with the Whigs out east.
This state might actually push the Entente further right. A Black Socialist country is a shining example for the African subjects of the European empires to follow, so the Entente might have a real material interest in helping the CS get back on its feet to destroy them.
I'm betting agrarian socialist. Since the rural areas were the ones who rebelled successfully. So possible pol pot-tier if the more unsavory leaderships wins out.
My personal interpretation/headcannon was a behind the scenes power struggle between Upton Sinclairs Pacifist Socialists who wanted to focus on winning elections and "socialism in one country" and Eugene V. Debs Militarist socialists who wanted to Liberate The Confederate Blacks and a "permanent Revolution."
If the Great War in America ends early because the Confederacy is literally ripped in half by a black socialist uprising Debs' wing of the Socialist party might be empowered and have a less war weary population. Attempting to further Economically Isolate the remaining Confederacy might be the nicest thing on the agenda.
Regardless, North America probably doesnt have GWII and if it does it probably consists of Libertalia or Colonia or whatever the socialist Southern state is called stomping the Freedomite rump CSA into the dust with US help. The German-American alliance is even more dead than before so who knows what will happen in europe.
If the Great War in America ends early because the Confederacy is literally ripped in half by a black socialist uprising Debs' wing of the Socialist party might be empowered and have a less war weary population. Attempting to further Economically Isolate the remaining Confederacy might be the nicest thing on the agenda.
Regardless, North America probably doesnt have GWII and if it does it probably consists of Libertalia or Colonia or whatever the socialist Southern state is called stomping the Freedomite rump CSA into the dust with US help. The German-American alliance is even more dead than before so who knows what will happen in europe.