Bonus Revolution - New Thoughts

Faraday Cage

We've talked about the Bonus Army being a flashpoint for a revolution before, but there are serious plausibility problems with them becoming a communist revolutionary front during Hoover and seemingly little interest in seeing them as a fascist or business-oligarchy backed force during FDR. So I was thinking about a different tact.

Let's say the Bonus Army A. is compelled and able to become a large, powerful, and permanent organization and B. is successful in a coup to take control of the government rather than causing a long and drawn out Spanish style civil war. Implausible, but we're going with the low odds angle here to make a point, to examine a social experiment.

My premise to you to think on is what if the Army did not move in a socialist or fascist direction per se, but C. put the nation on a war economy as a method of dealing with the Depression and D. came under the unlikely influence of the government's technocracy advocating thinktank(s). I'm also thinking of a coup that leads to a swift change but doesn't abolish the democratic government, in a manner similar to the origin of the Fifth Republic in France.

So in a nutshell my premise is a utilitarian alternate United States in the 1930's and 40's.
 

Faraday Cage

The thirties were a time of spreading ideologies and new forms of government, so it's natural to want to examine what kinds of government and political philosophies could have been tried in the United States, which in OTL managed to weather the storm (though not without some difficulty).

And what effects might an early war-time style shift to a command economy, in order to ration and take care of the populace during the Depression, have on America's still probable eventual participation in WWII? Would the preparedness create a significant advantage or would the nation be held back by all the rapid changes over the decade?

And how might a militaristic swing in American politics become married with the new technocratic movement envisioned by thinktanks like the Technical Alliance?
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
I've been toying with these sort of ideas for some time. The bonus army, the technocratic movement, the business plot, and even Huey Long are all examples of American flirtations with totalitarianism in the 30s which never really took root.

The problem with trying to marry any of these elements is that they had very disparate aims and without forming a plausible coalition of some sort, I don't really see any of them gaining traction.

Smedley Butler was a non-interventionist, the technocrats thought they could win other countries over into a North American Technate by proving the soundness of the concept, and Huey Long was a bit of a pacifist. So you don't really have factions who would push for a war economy once in power since they'd presume they have no war to fight. If by war economy you just meant the price control system and command and control aspects of a war economy then yes.

Even so, if any of those factions actually managed to gain power, I think a coup would be more likely to be directed against them than coming from them. Think a Business Plot which actually has support.

Remember that if the Bonus Army attempted a coup they would probably come up against a right-wing equivalent of veterans funded by the Business Plot. Considering the fascist sympathies and racist beliefs held by some of the leadership of the American Legion at the time, I'm guessing it would be them or some subsidiary. And the latter group of veterans would probably be greater in number.

I'm thinking a scenario where someone more radical than FDR gets elected, like Huey Long. Long's policies are sufficiently radical to get the business community to organise behind the Business Plot. They succeed in assassinating/overthrowing him and attempt to seize power. But there is enough resistance from the American population that an insurgency begins. The insurgents could be led by Smedley Butler. During the civil war a sufficient portion of the population becomes radicalised. The popularity of totalitarian ideologies increase. Fascism isn't a homegrown ideology and it's the presumed ideology of the unpopular and losing Business Plotters. Butler's 'war is a racket' views might seem too close to Marxism and people don't want to end up like Soviet Russia, so people head for homegrown technocracy. When the Business Plotters lose, Butler or whoever else wants to step up appoints a number of technocrats to be policy advisors.

How you get a militaristic swing from there, I don't know. Maybe the civil war has created enough far-right people and there aren't purges against those who supported the Business Plot, so they become a force in American politics again. Of course, you said you didn't want a Spanish-style civil war, but I don't see how you can sufficiently radicalise American political culture otherwise.
 
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