Alternate history's other Cuba: an independent Newfoundland?

I've been reading a New York Times op-ed series called "Borderlines" by Frank Jacobs, and in his latest article (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/oh-no-canada/) he speculates about an alternate history where a contentious border between Newfoundland (rejecting confederation with Canada in 1948) and Canada (namely Quebec) creates a scenario where the Soviet Union exploits the issue... somehow. He was rather vague but the idea fascinates me nonetheless.

I haven't had the time to do a lot of research and I figure asking about it here might spur some interesting theories and discussion, namely; would much change at all if Newfoundland was independent? Would it embolden a Quebec seeking independence? If Quebec did leave Canada, would they eventually come to loggerheads with Newfoundland over Labrador (discussed at length in the linked article, if you need more info.)

I doubt a war would break out, of course, but the idea of Stalin taking advantage of this presents an intriguing, if admittedly weird-ish scenario that I think might be fun to speculate on. What if the Cold War had another potential flashpoint right on the North American continent? I leave the floor open to you. Timelines and general discussion are more than welcome.
 
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Highly improbable, IMO. Newfoundland's population was and is a small fraction of that of Cuba (population today is only ~500K) and the economy is heavily based on extraction (fishing; mining; recent oil production). Not very attractive, either for the Soviets, or for a people with a long history of self-government along the British line.
 
If the communists took over in France in 1945 or 1946, then maybe this would influence supporters of Quebecan independence to have more communist leanings. Quebec becomes independent and becomes a close ally of Communist France, which is itself a loose ally of the USSR.
 
In Decades of Darkness, Newfoundland has the first *communist revolution. I could see it happening, but you need a POD before the Depression I'd say.
 
If the communists took over in France in 1945 or 1946, then maybe this would influence supporters of Quebecan independence to have more communist leanings. Quebec becomes independent and becomes a close ally of Communist France, which is itself a loose ally of the USSR.

Followed promptly by a joint American-Canadian invasion and suppression of all communists from public life. Quebec was very well off economically (even more before bill 101) ,it had socialists alternatives to sap communist support (especially considering that the anglo-franco income equality and the fact that social welfare came in force before the separatist spat in the 70's), and it's seperatist tendacies were mildy cultural-lingustic, not class or political ideology. You simply won't get major changes when everyone's content on the post-war boom.
 
Followed promptly by a joint American-Canadian invasion and suppression of all communists from public life. Quebec was very well off economically (even more before bill 101) ,it had socialists alternatives to sap communist support (especially considering that the anglo-franco income equality and the fact that social welfare came in force before the separatist spat in the 70's), and it's seperatist tendacies were mildy cultural-lingustic, not class or political ideology. You simply won't get major changes when everyone's content on the post-war boom.

That last bit seems like a very good point; even if Newfoundland went independent I doubt they'd have strayed far from their roots and fall in with the Soviet camp, unless something drastic happened (such as a conflict with an independent Quebec, something I'd strongly doubt.)

Ignoring the Soviet angle for a moment, does anyone foresee any big differences to history if Newfoundland was simply independent?
 
That last bit seems like a very good point; even if Newfoundland went independent I doubt they'd have strayed far from their roots and fall in with the Soviet camp, unless something drastic happened (such as a conflict with an independent Quebec, something I'd strongly doubt.)

Ignoring the Soviet angle for a moment, does anyone foresee any big differences to history if Newfoundland was simply independent?

Why would there be? They'll still sell their fish, have the fish stocks crash, perhaps more so due to the addition of another nation in the waters and the lesser chance of cooperation due to greater numbers of countries. You'll have something along the lines of Canadian-American relations, with Newfoundland under the economic and political tutelage of Ottawa.
 
Probably the most personally left-wing politician in pre-Confederation Newfoundland was Joey Smallwood, who had spent time as a socialist acitivist in New York. And he was leader of the PRO-Canada forces.

On the anti side(the group in the ATL most favourable to the Soviets), a huge block of them were supporting closer economic ties with the USA, via trade arrangements and fishing deals. The Catholic Church, not exactly an ally of Communism, was also on the whole opposed to Confederation.

The only way I could possibly see Newfoundland going Communist is if the Mother Country across the pond had done so, maybe as a result of a pro-Bolshevik coup within the MacDonald government in the 20s/30s. Obviously, that's pretty ASB, as far as a Newfoundland-specific scenario goes.

Joey Smallwood

Newfoundland Refeerendums
 

d32123

Banned
I've always always always wanted to see a commie Newfoundland TL. Someone please write this.
 
If the communists took over in France in 1945 or 1946, then maybe this would influence supporters of Quebecan independence to have more communist leanings. Quebec becomes independent and becomes a close ally of Communist France, which is itself a loose ally of the USSR.

I think your scenario is a little like imagining that the UK going Communist would inspire Alabama to do so.

Left-wing French(as in France) infuence in pre-1960s Quebec was negligible. Remember, as a result of the Conquest in 1759, Quebec fell under British control, and totally missed out on the Revolution, Napoleon, the Third Republic, the Dreyfus upheavels, etc, and remained an ultramontaigne clerical domain.

As late as the 1950s, the Quebec government had a law on the books outlawing Communism, and was jailing Jehovah's Witnesses under flimsy legal pretexts(basically because the JWs insulted the Catholic Church). They likely would have made short work of any Paris-inspired radicals preaching left-wing revolution.
 
Quebec was very well off economically (even more before bill 101) ,it had socialists alternatives to sap communist support (especially considering that the anglo-franco income equality and the fact that social welfare came in force before the separatist spat in the 70's), and it's seperatist tendacies were mildy cultural-lingustic, not class or political ideology. You simply won't get major changes when everyone's content on the post-war boom.

And in fact, when the Canada-US FTA was voted on(well, de facto) in the '88 election, the sovereigntist and social-democratic PQ were among its biggest backers, and pretty much openly endorsed the re-election of the Conservative Mulroney as Prime Minister(Rene Levesque had already endorsed the Tories in '84). There was some minor opposition to the FTA among far-left Quebec factions, mostly FLQ-ish dead-enders, but the bulk of social-democratic support went to the FTA.

This caused a certain amount of strain between anglo-Canadian progressives, who had tended to sympathize with Quebec's aspirations, and Quebec progressives. The anglos saw the FTA as much more of a threat to Canadian culture and economic independence.
 
I've always always always wanted to see a commie Newfoundland TL. Someone please write this.

Ah, maybe if the Nazis had somehow managed to grab Nfld. during World War II. Then Stalin, after conferring with FDR, Churchill, and MacKenzie King, orders American and Canadian Communists to flood up there and fight the fascists. Roosevelt and King like the idea, because it'll get the domestic Communists out of their hair for a while, so they use their navies to sail partisans in and mop up. They figure they can wring the island back from the Soviets after the war. But Stalin has other ideas.

It would still be pretty hard for the Soviets to exert any control over their Newfoundland proxy in the postwar, geography being what it is. And the Socialist Republic Of Newfoundland would not enjoy much support from its citizens, such as the later third-world Communists did. The Soviets would probably just trade it away by 1950.
 
Ah, maybe if the Nazis had somehow managed to grab Nfld. during World War II. Then Stalin, after conferring with FDR, Churchill, and MacKenzie King, orders American and Canadian Communists to flood up there and fight the fascists. Roosevelt and King like the idea, because it'll get the domestic Communists out of their hair for a while, so they use their navies to sail partisans in and mop up. They figure they can wring the island back from the Soviets after the war. But Stalin has other ideas.

It would still be pretty hard for the Soviets to exert any control over their Newfoundland proxy in the postwar, geography being what it is. And the Socialist Republic Of Newfoundland would not enjoy much support from its citizens, such as the later third-world Communists did. The Soviets would probably just trade it away by 1950.

Ok that's even more impossible, requiring Nazi Germany to pull off Sealion , beat the Soviets and then Sealion 2.0 . Not worthy of consideration. Please read the sticky in post 1900.
 
I take your point, in spades, and offer my sincerest apologies. Consider my last post retracted, and I will submit a link on the relevant sticky.
 

Cook

Banned
Independent Newfoundland would just be the North American version of Iceland. Since Canada (including Newfoundland) has only ever elected one communist to parliament, having the Newfies go Red is a bit of a stretch to say the least.
 
Left-wing French(as in France) infuence in pre-1960s Quebec was negligible. Remember, as a result of the Conquest in 1759, Quebec fell under British control, and totally missed out on the Revolution, Napoleon, the Third Republic, the Dreyfus upheavels, etc, and remained an ultramontaigne clerical domain.

Mais French-Canadian nationalism between the Conquête and the late 19th century was pretty liberal. It wasn't all ultramontane all the time; that was only true starting in the late 19th century. Heck, there was something known as the Patriote rebellion, which was pretty liberal for its time - not France liberal, of course, but similar to 19th-century US liberal. What the Révolution tranquille did was hark back to its 19th-century liberal roots, but went into overdrive and replaced French-Canadian nationalism with Québécois nationalism and a transformation to a secular society to boot.
 
That's true, and I'm embarrassed to say I wasn't even thinking of 1837 when I composed my post. (Also embarrassed about misspelling ultramontane, but oh well).

Still, stand by the point that left-wing influences from France, especially by the 1940s, would have been pretty insignificant.
 
Still, stand by the point that left-wing influences from France, especially by the 1940s, would have been pretty insignificant.

Oh, definitely. Even if the Church is discounted, there are huge cultural differences (which were definitely more pronounced before WW2) which would make it hard to translate left-wing influences from France into a French-Canadian context. Now, left-wing influences from the US would be a different story - even more so if it's from the Franco-American community (before the Sentinelle affair, the bonds between French Canada and French America were more tight-knit, so if anyone could transmit left-wing influences from one to the other, this would be the only way). This is due in large part to sharing the same continent and, to a degree, sharing a more-or-less common historical narrative. Remember that for a good part of the 19th century, French-Canadian nationalism was pretty liberal along American classical-liberal/Hamiltonian lines. Ironically, as much as the ultramontane strains influenced French-Canadian nationalism during a good part of the 20th century, the American liberalism still continued as economic policy, right down to Le Chef himself.

Hmm, this brings up an interesting question - before the 1960s, how fertile a ground would French Canada be for Christian democracy? Say that, in OTL terms, this form is somewhere between the more conservative European tradition (influenced by distributism) - which would be true for rural areas - and the more progressive Latin American tradition (let's say influenced at first by the social gospel and, from WW2 onwards, by liberation theology) - which would work in urban areas. To the rural areas we could also add something akin to the later Antigonish Movement. It would be interesting if it were successful in Québec - perhaps based on this success, an independent Newfoundland could emulate - alongside other things, such as making St. John's less incompetent and corrupt, as well as reducing the amount of sectarianism rampant there.
 
Re: distributionism/Antigonish etc.

Weren't Pierre Trudeau and some of his Cite Libre buddies disciples of left-wing Catholic thought in the 1950s? Of course, their influence was pretty slight on the provicial level, and nothing really progressive got going in Quebec until the early 60s. I'm not sure what it would have taken to get their ideas into the corridors of power before the death of Duplessis.

Other than that, you had creditiste coming along in the late 30s, but their economic radicalism was of course bound up in crackpot conspiracy theories and anti-semitism. And they never had any significant breakthroughs until the early 60s(federal), and the early 70s(provincial), at a time when Quebec as a whole was shifting leftward in a more orthodox fashion.
 
Rather then an independent Newfoundland the USA did consider annexing it during their 1949 confederation referendum. That could be more plausible, and possibly more interesting.
 
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