AHC: Socialism in the USA

On of the plot points in Harry Turtledove's "How Few Remain" that I found most interesting involved the still living Abraham Lincoln becoming a Marxian Socialist who then founds a US Socialist Party. I understand that this was mainly a vehicle used by Turtledove to create the USSR vs. Third Reich analogy in the later parts of his TL-191 series though but I still find it an interesting idea. I have also read that this idea can be given some credit since the opinions of some of Lincoln's cabinet members where similar to socialist ideals. In my opinion though if any of Lincoln's cabinet members had the potential to become a socialist it was Andrew Johnson.

My challenge for you is to spread socialist ideals within the USA by whoever you can imagine, and by whatever means possible, with the movement being ultimately successful or not.
 
I have also read that this idea can be given some credit since the opinions of some of Lincoln's cabinet members where similar to socialist ideals. In my opinion though if any of Lincoln's cabinet members had the potential to become a socialist it was Andrew Johnson.
...
I'm sorry, but could you say this again with a straight face? I don't think you can equate Lincoln talking about the wonderfulness of free labor with Marxist Socialism...
 
...
I'm sorry, but could you say this again with a straight face? I don't think you can equate Lincoln talking about the wonderfulness of free labor with Marxist Socialism...
I know. It sounds far fetched to me as well but that's the reason why I'm posting about this. To hear what others have to say about the socialist set up in TL-191 and what a more realistic parallel could be.
 

d32123

Banned
As a socialist, I feel obligated to respond to this.

First of all, the idea that the United States is a completely capitalistic nation is false. Many aspects of our current economic system are socialist in nature and in origin. Now, how could we make the United States more socialist?

No Soviet Union is a nice start. Without the peril of socialists being labelled as Soviet sympathizers, you could see our ideas getting more leeway among the American public.

No Reagan would help too. Sure, he was a product of the times, but the level that he did away with the socialistic aspects of our economy and catered to the uber-rich were unprecedented since the Gilded Age.

A worse Great Depression could have led to a more encompassing New Deal, which could have in turn led to a more socialistic country.

Greater urbanization could have also led to a more socialistic country. There are plenty of ways for that to happen.
 
As a socialist, I feel obligated to respond to this.

First of all, the idea that the United States is a completely capitalistic nation is false. Many aspects of our current economic system are socialist in nature and in origin. Now, how could we make the United States more socialist?

No Soviet Union is a nice start. Without the peril of socialists being labelled as Soviet sympathizers, you could see our ideas getting more leeway among the American public.

No Reagan would help too. Sure, he was a product of the times, but the level that he did away with the socialistic aspects of our economy and catered to the uber-rich were unprecedented since the Gilded Age.

A worse Great Depression could have led to a more encompassing New Deal, which could have in turn led to a more socialistic country.

Greater urbanization could have also led to a more socialistic country. There are plenty of ways for that to happen.
Thanks, but I wated to focus on PODs that are pre-1900. In "How Few Remain" Lincoln founds a US Socialist Party around 1881 and I'd like to know if anyone can come up with other PODs that could lead to similar results around that time.
 

d32123

Banned
Thanks, but I wated to focus on PODs that are pre-1900. In "How Few Remain" Lincoln founds a US Socialist Party around 1881 and I'd like to know if anyone can come up with other PODs that could lead to similar results around that time.

I'm not too familiar with the time period, but I think that Turtledove's version was unrealistic and just an excuse to make the USA more like the USSR. Lincoln was not a socialist.
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
The issue is and always has been that the socialist left in America has always leaned more towards the libertarian socialism direction than the statist socialist one. From the very earliest utopian communes, to the earliest trade unionist movements, it was all about getting the powerful capitalist state out of people's lives and giving them the opportunity to organize along socialist lines on a local scale. The statist response to the statist capitalists ended up being the progressive movement which, contrary to modern conceptions of it, was not all that socialist.

In order to get over this you need a PoD deep in the mists of early American colonization, I think. The anarchist bent shows up so early in American political consciousness that no PoD involving one person or group of people later on is going to change things.
 
Any more ideas? Perhaps a POD such as a larger than average labor strike during the industrial revolution could change things?
 
Any more ideas? Perhaps a POD such as a larger than average labor strike during the industrial revolution could change things?

Have you by any chance read Reds? Because that gives a far better version than I could come up with.
 
To turn the US socalist I would look towards France as the example.

The French revolution was lead by the middle and working classes, the ARW was lead by the landed aristoctricy (even if they didn't have titles they where the "haves" of the population not the "have nots").

If the ARW had more leaders promoted for merit rather than the automatic assumption that money = leader then more socalist ideals would be inshrined in the constitution and early American mindset.
 
I'm also a socialist and would like to share my opinions on this matter.

Lincoln becoming a Marxist is not too unrealistic in actuality. In the beginning of the book(which I'm still reading) he makes a speech condemning southern slavery and the greed of the British/French capitalists who profit off of it.

Lincoln is clearly disgusted by this notion that a "free" Britain and France are profiting from a supposedly outlawed institution.

Now, if we tack on twenty years to Lincoln's lifespan, he could very well become a Marxist with such a clear-cut mindset against capitalist profit making.
Marx was also something of a loathed celebrity of his time; As an educated man, Lincoln could very well have immersed himself in Marx's writings sometime before 1881.


As for my thoughts on the "tainting" of socialism by the former USSR, I'd have to disagree that socialism in the USSR was as a totality, a bad thing.

Lenin's last letters, tragic as they were, pointed to his helplessness and frustrations with preventing the rise of Stalinist government. Stalin had planted spies within Lenin's midst, whom intercepted his secret letters that would have been used to condemn Stalin and the next party meeting.

Interestingly enough, Lenin's very last letter pointed to Lenin's willingness to provide total autonomy to minority nation states in the USSR. Specifically he announced that he would champion the cause of Georgian independence/total autonomy in the USSR. Stalin on the other hand was notorious for blocking all attempts by Georgian Bolsheviks to make Georgia as independent as physically possible as a federated socialist republic.

What does this all mean? It means that Lenin and his vision for Russia was betrayed.

When the last of the Lenin statues were knocked down in 1991, people blamed Lenin for their subservience to Russia.

In reality, Lenin wrote in one of his letters that the exploitative nation(Russia) should have less powers then the exploited nations(the minority nations that were part of the newly formed USSR), so as to maximize independence/autonomy. He even went as far as to say that he planned for the USSR's minority nations to have a right to break away from Russia whenever and wherever they pleased.

my two cents. :)






 
Top