Best Time for Communist Revolution (WorldWide)?

TFSmith121

Banned
Maybe, except it only actually touches his right

I think that "land bridge" is Lenin's shadow.

Maybe, except it only actually touches his right foot; his left is separate.

I thought maybe it was the broom, but it's going the wrong way.

Best,
 
The best time would be never, as I'd hate to see the misery of the OTL Communist countries extended further. As for when this might have happened, I guess right after WW1 would have been the best opportunity to seize Europe, but it was still extremely unlikely.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
They couldn't even seize Poland or Finland, however

The best time would be never, as I'd hate to see the misery of the OTL Communist countries extended further. As for when this might have happened, I guess right after WW1 would have been the best opportunity to seize Europe, but it was still extremely unlikely.

They couldn't even seize Poland or Finland, however, at the end of WW I.

Or the Baltic states...

Best,
 

Germaniac

Donor
No world wide revolution but keep world war one going as long as possible, aka keep America out of the war, and revolution is bound to happen. As someone said 1919 or never, but I don't think 1919 is add much of a stretch.

The Communists just shoot their load too soon.
 
Have America turn communist somehow. Maybe go the Kaiserreich route and have a German victory in WW1 mess with the American economy, causing a much worse Depression. In the middle of that kill FDR and any New Deal.
 
The best time would be never, as I'd hate to see the misery of the OTL Communist countries extended further. As for when this might have happened, I guess right after WW1 would have been the best opportunity to seize Europe, but it was still extremely unlikely.

Remember that OTL communism was a very Russian phenomenon and rejected by mainstream communists even before the rise of Lenin and then Stalin. Karl Kautsy who represented the orthodoxy of the time that he was called the pope of Marxism completely rejected Lenins ideas before he came to power and famously compared the USSR to the slave states of history.

And earlier revolution or one that took place elsewhere is very unlikely to have resembled the Leninist dictatorships that appeared OTL.
 
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the uprisings of 1848, when the actual manifesto was written.

Though 1919 indeed had tons of political potential for Boleshivek revolution, the 1848 upheavals occurred at arguably the worst time for capitalists.

Between child labor, horrible factory conditions, work houses, extreme poverty, land displacement, the proletariat had significantly more economic grievances at this time, than in 1919.
 

RousseauX

Donor
1848 was never a Communist revolution, not the least because most of Europe wasn't all that industrialized yet, 1848 was a liberal nationalist one.
 
A communist world state is impossible. A majority communist world is very unlilkely due to the reactions and red scares. If both the USSR and Germany have successful revolutions, the Entente will become anti-communist in response. Geopolitics work like that.

However, we can play a little with that. Assuming a longer, bloodier WWI (a dystopic scenario on itself) that ends in a stalemate, and both Germany and the USSR succeeding in revolution. France and Italy might fall to Communism after feeling betrayed from the war. or at least a left wing version. Help from the Germans would be seen as treacherous after such a war, but let's assume local communists manage to rise to power. That's at least 4 great powers; and Spain, Turkey and others may join; Spain had a large left wing movement, and Turkey had cordial relations with the USSR from what I've read. China and India will have their own local movements as OTL

The UK and US (also Japan and other nations) at this point will become extremely right-wing in fear of the Communist tide. However, with Europe controlled by various left wing regimes (of what sort will define the scenario; but it is unlikely that Germans, French and Russians will have the same interests) a world-wide depression can start. And then, it's only a matter of lighting the fuse in Britain and the US. Whetever the socialists/communist succeed by rifle or ballot will define the future: either there will be a US/UK anti-communist alliance or they will fall to the red tide too.

By then, the world will be not be controlled by a single communist state, but virtually all great powers will have communist or left wing goverments of a sort. Other nations will try to either become more left wing to fit with the new world order, or fall into reactionary right-wing dictatorships.
 
This is an entirely arbitrary assumption on your part. There is no reason to believe it will "run out" of places to go to. And any country that is the recipient of that capital will only be strengthened. Countries that are getting richer generally do not experience radical upheaval.
There are a finite number of countries in the world.

So long as the revolution continues to expand, eventually capital will run out of places to flee to.

It should also be noted that while it is easy to move money across borders, it is hard to move actual capital, and the circumstances of revolutions tend to harm the ability to move either.

A capitalist expatriate's money is only worth anything if the new host country hasn't decided to embargo or restrict trade with the country in revolution.

And on the contrary, social upheaval occurs precisely because of the context of economic development. It is not a nice process, particularly the transition away from traditional subsistence oriented economies into capitalism. It is, as a rule, a violent and murderous process, and even on the lesser scale, the dynamics of economic expansion are precisely what drive social unrest.
And again, Communists seriously shot themselves in the foot by attacking religion. There was no good reason for them to do so. In fact, one could argue that Christianity is very compatible with communist theory. Their arbitrary hatred of religion only created many more enemies for themselves.

When you have money and religion against you, you're not taking over the world.
What a typically American view of religion: a nice cozy pageantry on Sundays.

Traditional religious institutions throughout most of the world were heavily involved with the despotic power structures of the status quo. Anti-clericalism flourished precisely because of this. Zeal for religion can very quickly turn against the religious institution itself. Anti-clericalism for revolutionary movements, whether liberal revolutions like in France or Mexico, or in socialist revolutions like the Bolshevik revolution, has been a winning strategy
 
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