AHC/PC/WI: Communist Revolution in Post Nazi-Victory Germany?

Self explanatory...

How likely is it that after Germany wins (or at least doesn't lose) WWII that a (preferably successful) Communist Revolution could take place? How long after Nazi victory is it the most likely?

And what are the effects?
 
Just to clarify:

It can be a movement from the inside (I'm not sure how many Nazis were Nazis in name only, I'm sure even fewer were secret communists, but still...) or from Soviet agitation, either from occupied former Soviet Republics, from a surviving but smaller and defeated U.S.S.R., or a combination of both.

The revolutionary party that comes to power can also retain anti-semitism, German nationalism, and Aryan supremacy, the only thing that has to change is the firm anti-communist stance, replaced instead with a Soviet nationalist slant.

Bonus points if what remains of the U.S.S.R. collapses earlier and a "Soviet Reich" kind of thing is the U.S.'s enemy during TTL's Cold War.
 
I have no POD in particular in mind, and am not an expect on the subject, but perhaps one of the numerous attempted assassinations of Hitler is successful during the war period, and after the in-fighting the generals are free of Hitler (and his clique's) micro-managing, allowing them to perpetuate a successful campaign, leading to the war lasting longer. With the hardships of a longer lasting war, and without the cult-like rallying figure to draw them together, towards the end of the war (after at least one Atomic bombing of German soil) a fairly serious communist revolution breaks out in and around Berlin, which is successful. After the revolutionaries have mostly finished mopping up the Soviets are invited in while the Western allies are still fighting through the fields of Northern France (or potentially the Rhine) - the soldiers on the front-line choosing to join with Germans, even communist Germans, over the 'barbaric' Western allies in the fallout (no pun intended) of the atomic bombing of Germany. The war ends with the German People's Republic in control of all or the majority of Germany. Note that this Communist Germany is not Stalinist-Leninist - for a communist uprising to work many of the features of Nazi Germany would have to be incorporated into this new GPR; anti-Semitism, for example, would still be official policy, though not to the extent of the Holocaust, which I imagine the new regime would actually show off to some extent as 'evidence of the horrors of the reactionary-fascists.'

For the bonus points; Communist Germany still has a stronger industrial sector than the USSR, and à la Yugoslavia achieves a fair degree of independence from Moscow - perhaps even creating a communist counterweight to the USSR's Warsaw Pact by allying with the aforementioned. Without the industrial heartland of Central Europe (read: Germany) to rely on the USSR is poorer than IOTL, and with the communist revolution, in his mind, turning against him the aging and paranoid Stalin continues his murderous rampage within the Soviet's ranks. The whole thing falls apart after his death, and the Germans are well positioned to pick up the pieces; already allied with Yugoslavia the Germans take over the administrative void left by the the Russians in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania, *Ukraine and *Belarus - Germany achieves her Lebensraum through means the Nazis could, would, never have imagined or approved. By the mid-1960s the new Germany is the rallying standard of communist worldwide... and the antagonist in a Cold War between their Europäische Union and the *NATO allies of the Western European states and the US (and Canada).
 
I have no POD in particular in mind, and am not an expect on the subject, but perhaps one of the numerous attempted assassinations of Hitler is successful during the war period, and after the in-fighting the generals are free of Hitler (and his clique's) micro-managing, allowing them to perpetuate a successful campaign, leading to the war lasting longer. With the hardships of a longer lasting war, and without the cult-like rallying figure to draw them together, towards the end of the war (after at least one Atomic bombing of German soil) a fairly serious communist revolution breaks out in and around Berlin, which is successful. After the revolutionaries have mostly finished mopping up the Soviets are invited in while the Western allies are still fighting through the fields of Northern France (or potentially the Rhine) - the soldiers on the front-line choosing to join with Germans, even communist Germans, over the 'barbaric' Western allies in the fallout (no pun intended) of the atomic bombing of Germany. The war ends with the German People's Republic in control of all or the majority of Germany. Note that this Communist Germany is not Stalinist-Leninist - for a communist uprising to work many of the features of Nazi Germany would have to be incorporated into this new GPR; anti-Semitism, for example, would still be official policy, though not to the extent of the Holocaust, which I imagine the new regime would actually show off to some extent as 'evidence of the horrors of the reactionary-fascists.'

For the bonus points; Communist Germany still has a stronger industrial sector than the USSR, and à la Yugoslavia achieves a fair degree of independence from Moscow - perhaps even creating a communist counterweight to the USSR's Warsaw Pact by allying with the aforementioned. Without the industrial heartland of Central Europe (read: Germany) to rely on the USSR is poorer than IOTL, and with the communist revolution, in his mind, turning against him the aging and paranoid Stalin continues his murderous rampage within the Soviet's ranks. The whole thing falls apart after his death, and the Germans are well positioned to pick up the pieces; already allied with Yugoslavia the Germans take over the administrative void left by the the Russians in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania, *Ukraine and *Belarus - Germany achieves her Lebensraum through means the Nazis could, would, never have imagined or approved. By the mid-1960s the new Germany is the rallying standard of communist worldwide... and the antagonist in a Cold War between their Europäische Union and the *NATO allies of the Western European states and the US (and Canada).

Because I love this response so much, I'm bumping this thread.

I'm wondering about the head of a Communist Reich. Who are our choices here?

Is there anybody likely to be able to rally the people like Hitler (and share his anti-semite, nationalistic viewpoint) who was a communist or could be set up as the new leader after the revolution?

Any closet commies in the Nazi government perhaps?

If someone who could be viewed as essentially a "Communist Hitler" took power after the revolution, I could see it being easier to control and even inspire the people.

The point is keep it basically the "glorious Reich" only Communist instead of vehemently anti-socialist/communist/anything resembling either.

Maybe that old Winter War POD is a good start here... :eek:

Thoughts?
 
I honestly don't think it's terribly likely.

Pretty sure the Nazis were rather skilled at eradicating the Communists elements of the German population.

And that one scenario . . . The Soviets had pretty effectively been demonized. I mean, a LOT of the German army units that surrendered to the West tended to ask if they could go fight the Soviets or something.
 
I honestly don't think it's terribly likely.

Pretty sure the Nazis were rather skilled at eradicating the Communists elements of the German population.

And that one scenario . . . The Soviets had pretty effectively been demonized. I mean, a LOT of the German army units that surrendered to the West tended to ask if they could go fight the Soviets or something.

What about an earlier POD?
 
ey ezk bee.

There's no way anything even resembling Communism is viable after the mid 1920s in Germany. Certainly not after 1933. After years of anti-Red propaganda, and years of struggle against the Soviets, you think that any group that matters in Germany is going to let the country go Communist? Or that the Wallies would let them, other than maybe a puppet of Stalin?
 
I mean, any POD that makes German Communism viable outside military conquest would butterfly away the Nazis entirely, let alone a Nazi victory. And your scenario pretty clearly stated that this would NOT be a USSR puppet state (mostly because the Germans beat the USSR).
 
How likely is it that after Germany wins (or at least doesn't lose) WWII that a (preferably successful) Communist Revolution could take place? How long after Nazi victory is it the most likely?

And what are the effects?

A Nazi Germany that doesn't lose, is a Nazi Germany that defeats the Soviet Union and forces the United Kingdom or the United Kingdom and United States into stalemate. I do not believe this to be possible due to the resilience of the Soviet state, and the excess industrial capacity and productive willingness of the Soviet worker. But, let us assume this.

How long after WWII that a Communist Revolution commences depends on your definition. If you consider Communism to the system of Bolshevik inspired party organisation, then the Communist Revolution commenced prior to Nazi victory with the Yugoslavian, Soviet and Greek partisans.

If you consider Communist Revolution to be the uprising of the self-conscious working class to abolish wage labour, the commodity, class and the state; then this is contingent on the length of time it takes for the Nazi-Junker-Syndicate economy to fail. If 1933-1937 as the period to crisis is indicative, then Nazi Germany will rapidly go into a deep crisis. Whether this can be resolved by primary accumulation from German controlled ex-Soviet and Central European territory is up in the air. I suspect that there are a couple of crises worth of special extractions available.

However, given that the Italians, French, Finns, Danes, Norwegians, Romanians, Hungarians or Bulgarians are likely to be suffering as a national community from German racialist extractions before a crisis in the German working classes' living standards; then, it is more likely that the first moment of resistance is overwhelmingly Nationalist in character. Around 1951 or 1956.

Allowing Germany's economy to retreat from Nazi politics would delay this, and revert the cycle of crisis back from a bureaucratic expenditure one towards a market / capital accumulation crisis. These have a period around seven to eleven years. This would put your crises back towards 1953-1957 / 1960-1964 respectively. Such a crisis would not be resolvable through primary accumulation without a coup towards a harder line position (in itself, a symbol of crisis). So more likely there's major strike waves, as the NSDAP didn't offer a Fordist style compromise.

Such strike waves would be closer to the 1919 composition of the German and European left than to the 1933 composition, mainly, as the Soviet Union and Comintern politics have been discredited since 1945/6.

The effects of such a system wide year of revolution (1948, 1917, etc.) would either be a socialist Europe with white states being invaded by red armies; or a white Europe with workers' bastions being reduced by nerve gas, artillery and aerial bombardment.

yours,
Sam R.
 
I mean, any POD that makes German Communism viable outside military conquest would butterfly away the Nazis entirely, let alone a Nazi victory. And your scenario pretty clearly stated that this would NOT be a USSR puppet state (mostly because the Germans beat the USSR).

I left the door open with a "or at least doesn't lose" so that the more likely "stalemate" concept could be explored. An earlier POD may be necessary, though.

I'm not sure I agree that an earlier POD would always butterfly away the Nazis, and this leads me to a convoluted clarification of the OP's intent:

I've seen various discussions on here (attempting, seemingly, to unite two of the U.S.'s greatest 20th Century enemies into one ideal "movie bad guy". I get it. The iconography itself is worth considering the plausibility of such a thing.) about a National Socialist German Worker's Party that is identical to OTL's with the exception of the Commie-hatred. While this is difficult, (maybe a more successful German Revolution, though almost ASB in and of itself, would be a good start, followed by the nationalists whose parties eventually became the Nazi Party not being anti-Communist at all while still being anti-everything-else.) it's a cool idea.

But nobody ever buys it. And for good reason.

A pro-communist Nazi Party that has the assistance of the Soviets is the usual (very stretched) outcome hoped for in those, I believe, and it is totally ASB.

However, my OP was really an attempt to create a similar situation, but create it out of the ashes of a surviving (but war ravaged) Reich, if that makes sense.

I wanted a strong communist Germany with strong Nazi overtones to replace Russia as the U.S.'s Cold War nemesis. Make sense now?
 
I've seen various discussions on here (attempting, seemingly, to unite two of the U.S.'s greatest 20th Century enemies into one ideal "movie bad guy". I get it. The iconography itself is worth considering the plausibility of such a thing.)

In 1980 neue Slowenische kunst prepares deep networks within the Serbian section of the Yugoslavian party, and subsequently the Croatian. When Slovenia departs the Federation, forcing the Croats, and authorising the Serbs, the new kind of European Fascism is run out of Ljubljiana in all three states. It is up to you how a pan-ethnic Slovenian German Speaking pro Soviet pro Stalin fascist Yugoslavia resolves its ethnic tensions, preferably by remixing 1980s pop-songs with new and horrific overtones.

about a National Socialist German Worker's Party that is identical to OTL's with the exception of the Commie-hatred. While this is difficult, (maybe a more successful German Revolution, though almost ASB in and of itself, would be a good start, followed by the nationalists whose parties eventually became the Nazi Party not being anti-Communist at all while still being anti-everything-else.) it's a cool idea.

Rule of Cool doesn't work. For the unification of the woman, jew, slav and communist inside the White German mentality (ie: the basis of all German fascisms) see Klaus Theweleit Male Fantasies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987; Polity Press, 1987. Anti-communism is as basic to the white reaction in Germany as the nation-as-blood, woman hating, homophile, uniform loving, jew fearing mentality. They form a complex. At the material level, the successful fascisms in Germany received direct and indirect support from various capitalist bases, both in the Junker and the Syndicates. German Fascism is fundamentally anti-communist.

However, my OP was really an attempt to create a similar situation, but create it out of the ashes of a surviving (but war ravaged) Reich, if that makes sense.

I wanted a strong communist Germany with strong Nazi overtones to replace Russia as the U.S.'s Cold War nemesis. Make sense now?

Not really. Look at post-Soviet Russian fascism which uses the iconography of Stalinism, but has the social content of fascism. There's a rather unique circumstance there, where the iconography has nationalist meaning, and the social content is filled up by the demand for a fascist party.

The iconography of the NSDAP, and German fascism generally, does not represent the aspirations of the German Communist movement. Actually existing socialism had a nationalist streak a mile wide, trying to reconfigure nationalism to serve the Bolshevik style party, and to reconfigure the national communist behind the Bolshevik style party controlled state. And look at what the SEP did in the DDR? Thomas Müntzer, boring suits, Goethe. A radically different social aesthetic.

A post Nazi german communist revolution is likely to revile any imagery associated with the NSDAP.

yours,
Sam R.
 
Because I love this response so much, I'm bumping this thread.

I'm wondering about the head of a Communist Reich. Who are our choices here?

Is there anybody likely to be able to rally the people like Hitler (and share his anti-semite, nationalistic viewpoint) who was a communist or could be set up as the new leader after the revolution?

Any closet commies in the Nazi government perhaps?

If someone who could be viewed as essentially a "Communist Hitler" took power after the revolution, I could see it being easier to control and even inspire the people.

The point is keep it basically the "glorious Reich" only Communist instead of vehemently anti-socialist/communist/anything resembling either.

Maybe that old Winter War POD is a good start here... :eek:

Thoughts?

Like I said when I initially posted the comment, I had no POD or chronological TL thought out. It just seemed like a possibility. Lets say the 1943 Operation Spark attempt is successful, with the POD being the timer is slightly more reliable and goes off while Hitler's plane is in-flight, killing him. After a few months of chaotic in-fighting Göring has effectively taken charge of the Nazi government, which, without Hitler's OTL constant micromanagement, fairs better in the war effort. WWII in Europe carries onward until 1946 or so, with vicious German resistance keeping both the allies and the soviets at bay even after multiple atomic bombings on German soil (lets say Berlin & Munich are glassed).

Circa mid-1946 Beppo Römer is able to lead a KDP Uprising in Berlin which is successful due to its compromise and conciliation with various anti-Nazi groups (re: Operation Valkyrie). The revolution is able to spread far and wide because, against their orders, many German soldiers refuse to leave the front-lines which would allow the 'Barbaric' and 'Decadent' Western Allies, who remember have slagged at least two major German urban/civilian centers; in addition to 'normal' firebombing campaigns (as per OTL Japan), to overrun the Fatherland.

After the revolutionaries are in charge they kiss and make-up with the Soviets, who are conditionally allowed to come in order to keep the Westerns at bay. WWII in Europe effectively ends circa early 1947 as 'Nazi Germany' no longer exists, and though some in the allies wish to launch a second war against the commies (Churchill), the rest are less inclined to do so.

The new German People's Republic is communist, but not Bolsheviks, and certainly not Lenin-Stalinists. The new power structure is more akin to Strasserism. However many, though not all, of the important characterizing traits of Nazi Germany are retained; staunch nationalism, anti-Semitism, fascist/corporatist merger of private and public spheres of the economy, etc. However these are, to a large degree, toned down; especially re: the 'Jewish Question.' The new administration highlights the inhumanity and 'waste' of the Holocaust and criticizes the extreme nationalism and xenophobia that led to it, all the while using that same nationalism and xenophobia to purge dissidents and other unwanteds; either secretly up against the wall, or sent to the USSR's gulags, or shipped out of Europe (bonus points for this Germany being largely responsible for the creation of alt-Israel).

Again, not an expert in the area, just something I've strung together after some Wikipedia skimming. Howver it could act as a general framework to work off of while doing research into the subject if you were planning to create a TL on the subject, though as more reliable and educated information was accumulated you'd have to retool the general plot as things progressed.
 
You bring up an excellent gateway...

Strasserism.

What if this was more well received by Hitler earlier and rose to greater prominence following his earlier death?

As I recall, the Strassers advocated an alliance with Russia and, uniquely, promoted the more "Socialist" portions of National Socialism as being specifically and necessarily anti-semitic.
 
Because I love this response so much, I'm bumping this thread.

I'm wondering about the head of a Communist Reich. Who are our choices here?

Is there anybody likely to be able to rally the people like Hitler (and share his anti-semite, nationalistic viewpoint) who was a communist or could be set up as the new leader after the revolution?

Any closet commies in the Nazi government perhaps?

If someone who could be viewed as essentially a "Communist Hitler" took power after the revolution, I could see it being easier to control and even inspire the people.

The point is keep it basically the "glorious Reich" only Communist instead of vehemently anti-socialist/communist/anything resembling either.

Maybe that old Winter War POD is a good start here... :eek:

Thoughts?

Possibly Goebbels? He was a socialist before he joined the Nazi Party, he was relatively intelligent, and he had enough cred with the Nazis to lead that faction without the fanaticism of Himmler or corruption of Goering. Maybe with Speer running the economy behind the scenes...?
 
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