AHC: Have a socialist revolution break out in Great Britain after WW1
- Thread starter Bomster
- Start date
I have discussed this question with people and as they told me, a Revolution in Great Britian just after the First World War is hard, mainly because Britian won and they also offered concessions to the people of Britian. It was only a while after when the so called Country Fit for heroes didn't materialise did anger spread and incidents like the 1926 General Strike occur.
A good suggestion would be General Strike around 1923ish and after some botched strike breaking actions, riots break out. The Conservatives horrified enact marshal law and in the process lead to the arrest and deaths of numerous moderate Socialists, leaving the harder left folks in charge. Dissent starts brewing in the wake of the crackdown and in response a revolution occurs. That could be one idea.
Deleted member 94680
Not really, IMO. Unlike continental Europe, for reasons far more complicated than I can fathom, socialism never really gained a mass following sufficient for taking power in Britain. The Labour Party is as socialist as British politics can reasonably get, bar some extreme revision.
A defeat in an alt-WWI is more likely to force Britain further to the right than socialist-left.
Do certainly agree with this, it does depend on what happens to Britians Empire and country in the aftermath, whether it goes more Conservative or more Fascist in nature.
Although Labour winning a majority election in the 1920s in an alt German victory isn't outside the realm of possibility. Just much like having a British Revolution it's hard to do.
Everthing that has been said plus many of the leftist radical elements in GB were discredited by their overwhelming support for the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_George_Square
Have one of the English troops present panic and fire upon the crowd. This may lead to radical elements (Willie Gallacher for example) taking control of the movement and the proposed march on the Maryhill barracks may take place. If it does I think it's likely the soldiers there would join the workers in their occupation of the civic buildings of Glasgow. Once the strikers have arms it will be far harder to disperse them using non-violent methods. I have no doubt that any Glasgow 'Soviet' wouldn't last longer than a month against the full might of the British military but it would get you your revolution less than 3 months after WW1.
Have one of the English troops present panic and fire upon the crowd. This may lead to radical elements (Willie Gallacher for example) taking control of the movement and the proposed march on the Maryhill barracks may take place. If it does I think it's likely the soldiers there would join the workers in their occupation of the civic buildings of Glasgow. Once the strikers have arms it will be far harder to disperse them using non-violent methods. I have no doubt that any Glasgow 'Soviet' wouldn't last longer than a month against the full might of the British military but it would get you your revolution less than 3 months after WW1.
Pretaporter
Banned
How about if, instead of a small BEF sent into Russia to fight for the Whites after the Armistice, the entire wartime conscript army is kept mobilised and sent in against their popular will?
I can't see how that would even be contemplated without the US providing the UK with a 100% debt write-off and a shedload more money on top (so a Mothra-size US butterfly is needed on top of any British ones), but could that work for a TL, albeit an incredibly unlikely one?
I can't see how that would even be contemplated without the US providing the UK with a 100% debt write-off and a shedload more money on top (so a Mothra-size US butterfly is needed on top of any British ones), but could that work for a TL, albeit an incredibly unlikely one?
GiantMonkeyMan
Banned
I don't really like the tendency of some to concoct an infallibility of political institutions. There was a period in 1916 where the Bolshevik Party was only something like 10,000 people and in a year they controlled a country of over a hundred million. Ultimately crisis polarises society and as a result things can develop rapidly. If the economic and social crisis facing Britain during and after the war were more severe and less capably solved and the forces of the establishment and reaction fumbled as in Russia then the left could rise into the political gap. It is not inconceivable.
Deleted member 94680
Where did I say it was infallible? I said without extreme revision ie something far more than losing WWI. You need a long string of increasingly severe events to turn the pre-war non-socialist Britain into a land ripe for revolution. It simply isn’t enough to lose WWI then have Britain pitch to the Left.
OTL there were times where the conclusion of the War was far from certain, where severe defeats were inflicted and the media acknowledged as much, where the media portrayal of the War’s conduct didn’t match what the people on the Home Front knew to be happening (injured parties returning home, civilians involved in the war effort spreading rumours, etc) and yet Communist politics never gained serious ground. There were cases of the British ruling classes fumbling quite badly, OTL. Troops on the streets in Glasgow, local soldiers locked in their barracks, violence against women carrying out rent strikes, it has all the hallmarks of a revolutionary movement. Yet nothing happened. There were no fatalities, no mass support outside of Clydesdale, barely a murmur of protest in the other industrial areas of the country (AFAIK).
Your allusion to the Bolshevik party is misleading as well. There may well have been 10,000 members in a period in 1916 but in 1906 they had over 38,000 members. That and there were far more than the Bolsheviks on the hard Left (from a British viewpoint) of the political spectrum - there were the Mensheviks, the Maximalists and of course the SRs with a million members in 1917.
Party membership is a false indicator as well in a country that routinely imprisoned members of parties that ran afoul of the ruling class. There may have been only so-and-so registered members of a certain left-wing party in such a year, but how many of the people supported those parties or their goals? Far more than the paper says, I’d wager.
Of course, this is completely missing the fact that there had already been a revolution in Russia a decade before 1916 which might have queered the figures somewhat.
Grey Wolf
Donor
Perhaps the easiest thing would be for the royal family to NOT to do what they did in 1917 when they got very worried. Instead have them agree to take the Russian Imperial Family in as exiles (the Kaiser had given the order for the Baltic Fleet to let through any ship flying the Tsar's personal standard). Have them NOT anglicise their names - Windsor, Mountbatten etc. Have them not attaint the Cumberlands, Albanys fighting with the Germans.
Things were coming to a dangerous head in 1917, and not letting out this pressure valve will help them continue to build up
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
Only partially relevant, but what if the Liverpool police strike spread to other areas, allowing chaos to spread to other cities & undermining the status quo?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_police_strikes_in_1918_and_1919
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_police_strikes_in_1918_and_1919
If that achieved widespread support among the police the government would simply use the army to maintain order.
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Maybe a more exausting WW1 with no clear winners and huge losses on all sides. French and German soldier revolts happen, governments deposed. Economies down, civilians hunger. Russian Revolution. The British troops follow the German and French example.
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Deleted member 94680
All these points need to happen together, IMHO, to produce the OP’s desired result. They need to be, one after another, continued assaults on the domestic order of British life. To get to a Russian-style revolution and implementation of a Republican government, the viewpoint of a majority (or a large minority, say 40 percent-ish) of the British public needs to be radically changed (radicalised, even).
The Bolsheviks may have been a relatively small group, but a significant percentage of the public supported, or were favourable to, their aims. That simply isn’t the case in 1918 Britain.