zesamofdepast
Banned
You just need to make it so that by 1960, TTL's analogue to the UK is a Marxist-Leninist state. Bonus points if they are part of the Warsaw Pact.
AHC: Turn Britain communist
- Thread starter zesamofdepast
- Start date
The most I think you're likely to get is a Soviet conquest of continental Europe(preferably including Scandinavia} prompting an officially neutral UK to pursue a Finlandization policy in regards to the Warsaw Pact as a whole.
Riain
Banned
Just throwing it out there, but is the 'night watchman state' of pre ww2 Britain a big impediment? Communistt governments are big governments that take a lot of power and responsibilities for themselves so it might be more likely that counties with a traditional big government would turn to communism as a way to run these big governments. In contrast the British government did less than others so might be less likely to turn to communism as it would have less effect there than elsewhere, they would have to build a big government in in process which is an extra step .
The British government before World War II was far from a "night watchman" state, but in any event the reason that a Communist revolution was unlikely had very little to do with the size of the government. It was simply that British workers felt their interests were served by the non-revolutionary Labour Party. In any event, there wasn't a successful Communist revolution anywhere in the 1930's. At the beginning of the 1930's the only states controlled by Communists were the USSR, Outer Mongolia, and Tuva. This was still true at the end of the 1930's (though the USSR expanded a bit at the very end of the decade as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact).
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Riain
Banned
Not a full-on ( bad term for the nwm state) nwm state but iirc it certainly did considerably less than other states in Europe as a result of its period of being a nwm state.
Here's a timeline where it happens, but involves two(!) Sealions:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/tliad-meet-the-new-boss.302538/
The problem with early PODs is that even if it succeeds, you end up with Communism being defined by London, rather than Moscow. You can have a Communist Britain, but not a Marxist-Leninist Britain.. because Lenin's less important. Post-WWII is impossible, for obvious reasons.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/tliad-meet-the-new-boss.302538/
The problem with early PODs is that even if it succeeds, you end up with Communism being defined by London, rather than Moscow. You can have a Communist Britain, but not a Marxist-Leninist Britain.. because Lenin's less important. Post-WWII is impossible, for obvious reasons.
Why in the name of all that's holy would any large, powerful government turn to Communism? That's like saying that a country with lots of tanks might be tempted to replace all of those tanks with Mad Max style rickety re-purposed semi-trucks with spikes welded on them since they are both large internal combustion driven vehicles...
Also, the people who run governments (even Communist governments) aren't known for their good relations with the working class.
It seems to me that for omnigovernments in crisis to find Communism an attractive replacement you would need both for the ATL communism to out-perform all other acceptable systems, and to have less ideological tension between the "great and the good" and the champions of Communist ideology.
fasquardon
Riain
Banned
Communism is an ideology about how to run a country and is practice is a form of 'statism' with the bereaucratic machinery of government used to run gulags, disposess clever peasants and fuck up the economy . My suggestion is that the less machinery of government that exists the less a revolutionary political party has to take hold of in the name of communism, makiing less attractive to revolutionsries. Indeed the less government there is the less opportunuty there is for incompetence in the first place to generate the revolution.
Best POD I think would be akin to Kaiserreich in that the 1926 General Strike gets nasty and is concurrent with a naval mutiny of sorts. I think a lot would have to happen however for this to result in a Communist government.
A more radical Labour party, a more unpopular monarchy, economic chaos in the early 1920s, a bloodier WW1 with a less decisive triumph, etc.
A more radical Labour party, a more unpopular monarchy, economic chaos in the early 1920s, a bloodier WW1 with a less decisive triumph, etc.
Arctofire
Banned
By the end of the First World War, Britain was in a state of decline. Despite winning the First World War, it was loosing ground economically to Germany in the area of coal, who had received aid from the Dawes Plan, and creating excess coal demand in Europe, a key resource for Britain. Even though the first Labour government had been elected in 1923, the collieries were being closed down due to lack of international demand for British coal, and hence, the British general strike of 1926 begun. Feeling utterly betrayed by Ramsay MacDonald, whom had shown great promise in his opposition to the war and leading role in the Independent Labour Party, but who was now carrying out the work of capitalism, the British workers revolted, culminating in the 1926 General Strike. 4 million workers went on strike, increasing to 12 million by the end of the month, and entirely outside of the control of the TUC, who were seen as part of the Labour government and therefore traitors.
The strikes went on for several months, and the government was left paralysed on what to do. King George V dismissed Ramsay MacDonald, believing him to be inadequate for dealing with the crisis, and instead promoting Winston Churchill to the position, and using his royal assent to bypass parliament and declare martial law. Churchill, sending in armed troops to fire on strikers, led to riots, with a state of lawlessness taking over the land.
The strike more a less held on for two years, similar to the Italian experience between 1919 and 1922. Workers occupied their factories, armed with weapons stolen from barracks, and establishing workers councils. The Communist Party, having swelled in membership to over 200,000 over the past, was posed to take power, and under the leadership of Albert Inkpin, the CPGB occupied the Houses of Parliament, to establish a Soviet Republic.
The strikes went on for several months, and the government was left paralysed on what to do. King George V dismissed Ramsay MacDonald, believing him to be inadequate for dealing with the crisis, and instead promoting Winston Churchill to the position, and using his royal assent to bypass parliament and declare martial law. Churchill, sending in armed troops to fire on strikers, led to riots, with a state of lawlessness taking over the land.
The strike more a less held on for two years, similar to the Italian experience between 1919 and 1922. Workers occupied their factories, armed with weapons stolen from barracks, and establishing workers councils. The Communist Party, having swelled in membership to over 200,000 over the past, was posed to take power, and under the leadership of Albert Inkpin, the CPGB occupied the Houses of Parliament, to establish a Soviet Republic.
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And yet, I can't think of a single time when a strong government was overthrown by Communism. But I can think of multiple cases where weak governments were overthrown. Now perhaps some of those overthrown governments had ambitions of having lots of bureaucratic machinery. But at the time their revolutions happened? Just ambitions. Not reality.
On the flip side, most of the failed revolutions have been crushed in part (in some cases in large part) due to the hostility of government employees to some rabble coming in to upset the applecart.
Ergo, I am dubious about your theory here. The closest I could see is if there were an extensive state that collapsed and left a power vacuum.
fasquardon
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