Chances For Communist Germany if No Nazis?
- Thread starter Tripledot
- Start date
Depends on your alt-WW2. Since the Nazis were the prime instigators of the one in OTL, what causes it in your thinking?
The chances of a communist Germany are just about zero. Hitler rose to power because the elites let him, figuring him to be a good alternative to communism. At the time, the middle class did not think fascism was a bad thing, and in Germany, the elites were actively hostile to democracy. Communism would never get this elite support. It could get more support from the urban working class than it did in OTL, but, well, the German working class was hostile to the Nazis in OTL and still the Nazis won.
I'll recycle an old post of mine:
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How are the Communists going to gain power in Germany? Obviously not by free elections, as I noted at
https://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...37&postcount=9 And the conditions for a successful Communist revolution simply did not exist. Germany in the 1930's was not Russia in 1917--even apart from the obvious fact that it was not at war.
Unlike Russia in 1917 there was a strong middle class opposed to Communism and a strong reformist labor movement represented by the SPD. (The employed working class largely continued to vote for the SPD even in 1932--the Communists were mainly the party of the unemployed, and it is really hard to bring down a government with a general strike of the unemployed...) And of course the military are hardly likely to look kindly on a Communist attempt at a takeover. (In Russia in 1917, of course, the military had been largely destroyed, partly as a result of Bolshevik agitation--of the kind which appealed to war-weary Russian "peasants in uniform" but it hardly likely to undermine the Reichswehr in the 1930's.) Moreover the prospects of the KPD would probably become even weaker after 1933 as the economy improved (as it would with or without Hitler--there was a pretty general world economic recovery from 1933 to 1937).
The Communists never came close to winning control of Germany, and the reason is *not* that Hitler got support that would otherwise have gone to the KPD. in fact the NSDAP attracted few voters of the sort who would otherwise favor the KPD. "Relatively few KPD voters switched to the Nazis, despite a popular stereotype. Workers were far less likely than middle-class elements to be members of the NSDAP or to vote for the party...The massive rise in the NSDAP vote between 1930 and 1932 left the combined SPD/KPD vote more or less solid, again suggesting that previously organised workers were more immune to Nazi propaganda than many other groups in German society." https://books.google.com/books?id=deGGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA25
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How are the Communists going to gain power in Germany? Obviously not by free elections, as I noted at
https://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...37&postcount=9 And the conditions for a successful Communist revolution simply did not exist. Germany in the 1930's was not Russia in 1917--even apart from the obvious fact that it was not at war.
Unlike Russia in 1917 there was a strong middle class opposed to Communism and a strong reformist labor movement represented by the SPD. (The employed working class largely continued to vote for the SPD even in 1932--the Communists were mainly the party of the unemployed, and it is really hard to bring down a government with a general strike of the unemployed...) And of course the military are hardly likely to look kindly on a Communist attempt at a takeover. (In Russia in 1917, of course, the military had been largely destroyed, partly as a result of Bolshevik agitation--of the kind which appealed to war-weary Russian "peasants in uniform" but it hardly likely to undermine the Reichswehr in the 1930's.) Moreover the prospects of the KPD would probably become even weaker after 1933 as the economy improved (as it would with or without Hitler--there was a pretty general world economic recovery from 1933 to 1937).
The Communists never came close to winning control of Germany, and the reason is *not* that Hitler got support that would otherwise have gone to the KPD. in fact the NSDAP attracted few voters of the sort who would otherwise favor the KPD. "Relatively few KPD voters switched to the Nazis, despite a popular stereotype. Workers were far less likely than middle-class elements to be members of the NSDAP or to vote for the party...The massive rise in the NSDAP vote between 1930 and 1932 left the combined SPD/KPD vote more or less solid, again suggesting that previously organised workers were more immune to Nazi propaganda than many other groups in German society." https://books.google.com/books?id=deGGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA25
You'd really need to change the communists actions in the first months after the end of the war. If you put off the Sparticist uprising until the army is demobilized, they very well could have a chance at winning everything.
If it's just the same as OTL for them, then no. The communists were hampered by their first uprising killing all of their best leaders, and subsequently essentially being run by Commintern agents who had no idea what the German political situation was like or what would be reasonable actions. After the disastrous end to the Sparticist uprising their constant offensive policy destroyed their ability to acf effectively. Especially because they never knew how to approach the independent Social Democrats (Social Democrats who opposed World War I and tried to go a middle route, which had more in common with the communists politically, beyond a handful of points).
If it's just the same as OTL for them, then no. The communists were hampered by their first uprising killing all of their best leaders, and subsequently essentially being run by Commintern agents who had no idea what the German political situation was like or what would be reasonable actions. After the disastrous end to the Sparticist uprising their constant offensive policy destroyed their ability to acf effectively. Especially because they never knew how to approach the independent Social Democrats (Social Democrats who opposed World War I and tried to go a middle route, which had more in common with the communists politically, beyond a handful of points).
Nil. In the 15 yeas between the end of WW I and the Nazi takeover, the Communists never came close to control of Germany, and the Nazis had little to do with it. The KPD's best election result was 16.9% in November 1932, at the nadir of the Depression; in the five previous elections, they averaged just under 12%.
Although... The Nazi success came with the Depression; their vote went from 2.6% in May 1928 to 37.4% in July 1932. Much of this support was from the unemployed working class. During this period, the "Socialist" element of "National Socialism" was much more prominent. The Strasser brothers were leading figures in the party, and the SA stormtroopers were described as "beefsteaks" - Brown outside, Red inside.
Which is to say that the Nazis, who were radicals, sucked up a lot of the working-class radicalism energy. If no NSDAP, maybe a lot of that energy goes to the KPD.
Yabbut ISTM the question is not whether the Nazis won votes from the KPD, but whether the voters who abandoned the more centrist parties for Nazi radicalism in 1929-1933 might have gone Red instead. It was that bloc of voters that was decisive. They wanted Something Done about the Depression, something drastic. The Nazis offered that; so did the KPD; but not any of the other major parties. And the Nazi program, as displayed before 1933, had a lot of socialist flavor.
From 1928 to July 1932, the NSDAP gained 34.8% of the vote, while the KPD gained 3.8% (to 14.6%). The NSDAP then lost 4.3% by November, while the KPD gained another 2.3%.
Suppose the NSDAP isn't there, and the KPD gains about half of the OTL new NSDAP voters (15%). That would put them at about 30%, well ahead of the SPD. There could still be a coalition to exclude them from power, as with them and the NSDAP OTL; but what if the KPD changed tacticts and agreed to a Popular Front coalition with the SPD?
This might play out like Spain - the army would accept the election result initially, but might decide to intervene. As in OTL Spain, the army rebellion might be partial, and the German army would be much smaller relative to party militias. So the Reds and the anti-reds might control different areas and have to fight a war.
Who might intervene in this war? The USSR, but also possibly Poland, Italy, or France?
WI the rebellion ultimately failed in Germany but succeeded in Prussia, leaving Prussia as a sort of Taiwan?
The main support for the Nazis was the unemployed middle class, not the unemployed working class. They were weak in the industrial cities, like Berlin. They were strong in the rural areas and with the urban middle classes. For all their socialist pretense, they did not play to any working-class identity issues: they talked about nationalizing big business, but not about unions or strikes. This middle class was never going to vote for the KPD: to the KPD, it was the bourgeois enemy. Besides, the KPD took its orders from the USSR, whereas part of the anxiety the Nazis played to was the sense of national inferiority after the loss in WW1, especially the Treaty of Versailles.
Richard F. Hamilton in *Who Voted for Hitler?* has concluded through an analysis of election results in fourteen cities, that the NSDAP had a higher-than-average vote in districts inhabited by the upper and upper-middle classes. https://books.google.com/books?id=dcX_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA219 In fact, in some cities, such as Berlin, Hamburg, Essen, and Dortmund, such wards were the very best wards for the NSDAP in the city. It hardly seems likely that n the absence of the NSDAP such voters would turn to the KPD.
Another major source of NSDAP support was farmers (especially Protestant ones--Catholic farmers largely stuck with the Zentrum or the BVP)--again a group unlikely to go for the KPD.
The NSDAP did enjoy substantial working-class support. However, it was more in areas of artisan or cottage industry than in heavy-industrial areas like the Ruhr or large cities. "More than half of all those registered as 'workers' in the occupational census of 1925 lived in small towns or villages of under 10,000 inhabitants. Thus there existed significant potential for Nazi success without that success undermining traditional working-class support for the SPD (or the KPD), which had been largely concentrated in the big cities. " https://books.google.com/books?id=deGGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA27
In short, the NSDAP's strongest support was in segments of society unlikely to support the KPD, even if there had been no NSDAP.
Another major source of NSDAP support was farmers (especially Protestant ones--Catholic farmers largely stuck with the Zentrum or the BVP)--again a group unlikely to go for the KPD.
The NSDAP did enjoy substantial working-class support. However, it was more in areas of artisan or cottage industry than in heavy-industrial areas like the Ruhr or large cities. "More than half of all those registered as 'workers' in the occupational census of 1925 lived in small towns or villages of under 10,000 inhabitants. Thus there existed significant potential for Nazi success without that success undermining traditional working-class support for the SPD (or the KPD), which had been largely concentrated in the big cities. " https://books.google.com/books?id=deGGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA27
In short, the NSDAP's strongest support was in segments of society unlikely to support the KPD, even if there had been no NSDAP.
And then get executed by the Freikorps and the army.Those guys were hellbent for looking for a scapegoat.
Like I said. The nazis were basically secondary to them not taking power. What mattered more was the disaster that evolved for them from the Sparticist Uprising. You need to save Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebkneckt, and the other people who died then, because they represented the only real hope for the party. After they died and Eugene Levine was scapegoated for the stupidity of others their only competent leader was Clara Zetkin and debatably Ernst Thalmann (Thalmann was charismatic, but also a total stooge of the Commintern. Which never provided decent direction for the Germans).
So yeah, push back the Sparticists by a year or two, let the SPD discredit themselves and the veterans not have an easy scapegoat for their time.
Honestly, they had charismatic leaders. Rosa Luxembueg and Karl Liebkneckt are probably two of the greatest communists ever. And they were both murderws (although Karl Liebkneckt basically had a death wish with how he treated his life).
Ultimately the problem comes far more down to the political reality of the military and the naive assumption that veterans would be on their side. Make them right and the communists win.
An interesting idea.
A TL with a successsful German revolution post WWI could lead to a much earlier (than OTL) WWII as the 'anti-Communist Axis' struggle to strangle the 'Communist Allies' at birth...
Successful German revolution... I suggest a POD just prior to April 1917. Rather than the SPD splitting into two reformist parties (ie the Majority and the Independent's) there is a clear break between the reformists and the revolutionaries. This of course means finding a reason why Rosa Luxemburg would favour such an organisational break - something she consistently argued against OTL.
Setting themselves apart should see the KPD in a better position to defend the (idea of) workers and soldiers councils against the bourgeois republic, leading to dual power etc, etc. Not guaranteed... many other difficulties to overcome but it's a start. Maybe?
The belief that if not for Hitler, Germany would have gone Communist is part of a more general overestimation of the prospect of successful Communist revolutions in the 1930's. In case you didn't notice, there weren't any. In 1929 the only areas of the globe under Communist control were the USSR and its satellites Mongolia and Tuva. In 1939, they were *still* the only areas of the globe under Communist control.
Sander Voros in his memoirs *American Commissar* wrote that in the 1930's there was "but one group absolutely convinced of the impossibility of a Communist revolution in America--the members of the Communist Party." https://americancommissar.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/chapter-35/
Sander Voros in his memoirs *American Commissar* wrote that in the 1930's there was "but one group absolutely convinced of the impossibility of a Communist revolution in America--the members of the Communist Party." https://americancommissar.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/chapter-35/