Communist CSA?

Yes. The problem is an early victory is pretty much the only way to get Kentucky into the confederacy, anything else is pretty much ASB (even still a confederate Kentucky is still very unlikely) Kentucky would give the confederacy much needed industry, and be an important voice for industrialization (not to mention its massive coal reserves)

Meh, if the CSA pursues an actual strategy in the West that keeps them in control of the granaries and agricultural lands of Middle Tennessee the loss of Kentucky wouldn't hurt them *that* badly. Their best shot would have to be a plebiscite. The Confederates amazingly IRL fucked up a potential defensive war over a region the size of European Russia. It's not too difficult for them to make very good use of that....
 
Oh man I am really glad I posted this thread.

I was also imagining a surprising CSA win, one in which they receive Kentucky, and maybe also West Virginia back, minus its antenna for aesthetic reasons.

I also really like the analogy to the Spanish Civil War, which I had never though of, as well as the one to Northern Ireland.

Also, African-Confederate Anarchists is an amazing idea.

I don't think I could do two TLs at once; I'm barely completing the one but I might get around to this soon. Maybe I will create a map of this...
 
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Oh man I am really glad I posted this thread.

I was also imagining a surprising CSA win, one in which they receive Kentucky, and maybe also West Virginia back, minus its antenna for aesthetic reasons.

I also really like the analogy to the Spanish Civil War, which I had never though of, as well as the one to Northern Ireland.

Also, African-Confederate Anarchists is an amazing idea.

I don't think I could do two TLs at once; I'm barely completing the one but I might get around to this soon. Maybe I will create a map of this...

The truly interesting thing about the South pursuing the Johnston strategy from the first is the absence of Donelson-Shiloh-Vicksburg scale victories will weaken Southern Unionism, including in the border states while Confederate victories on the defensive will strengthen those pro-Confederates. The ATL Confederacy might well ask for and win a plebiscite in those regions.

An interesting POD would be if Grant, who was the only survivor of one trip across what was then Northern Colombia, dies there. One such man's death won't affect events in the broader scale any, and the absence of the best general on either side is a plus for the Confederacy. As none of the other likely candidates for being a general officer would be as willing to go at the enemy as Grant was, making them perfect pawns for that strategy.....
 
The truly interesting thing about the South pursuing the Johnston strategy from the first is the absence of Donelson-Shiloh-Vicksburg scale victories will weaken Southern Unionism, including in the border states while Confederate victories on the defensive will strengthen those pro-Confederates. The ATL Confederacy might well ask for and win a plebiscite in those regions.

An interesting POD would be if Grant, who was the only survivor of one trip across what was then Northern Colombia, dies there. One such man's death won't affect events in the broader scale any, and the absence of the best general on either side is a plus for the Confederacy. As none of the other likely candidates for being a general officer would be as willing to go at the enemy as Grant was, making them perfect pawns for that strategy.....


Yeah, it is becoming apparent that I know way too little about the ACW. Now to look up this Johnston fellow... this is why I stick to Post-1900.
 
Yeah, it is becoming apparent that I know way too little about the ACW. Now to look up this Johnston fellow... this is why I stick to Post-1900.

Joe Johnston is the one I refer to. His strategy took into account Northern politics and Confederate strengths vis-a-vis Union weaknesses much more than Lee's did (he *still* wanted the kind of headlong charge that would have ended the war in 1864 had he tried it). I mean Sherman started out with over 2:1 superiority and ended up at the Battle of Atlanta with 5:3 and nothing to show for a long maneuver campaign beyond being outside Atlanta with Johnston's army intact.

It was rather too late for that strategy, albeit......
 
Would it be possible for Confederate communism to focus on race? By that, I mean, actively discriminate against black-Confederates.
If slavery isn't abolished and blacks compete with poor whites for jobs, a white Communist movement would probably treat blacks very poorly.
 
If the CSA stays united, I think the poor whites and poor blacks could be successfully played off against each other, preventing a successful Communist movement.

OTOH, if the CSA fragments, which is very likely in nation founded on the idea that any state can leave at any time for any reason, then I can see some of the Confederate successor states going Communist. Or Fascist.
 
It sounds like there could have been a US, and the South split into a "White States of America and a "Black States of America". And if there are communists in the South does that mean we have the Missile Crisis somewhere there!? :eek:
 
Now, knowing all this, what is the possibility/plausibility/coolness level of a *Communist revolution occurring in the CSA?

I'm not a total expert on the Confederate States, but I do know quite a lot about the Russian Revolution(s) and Communism.

Firstly, Marx believed and wrote that a communist revolution would be brought forth by the urban proletariat, and not the peasantry.

The peasantry were considered to be too conservative and even reactionary by some. in fact, it wasn't until the Chinese Revolution that communists seriously considered the prospect of a peasant-based revolution.

The south was predominately rural, with a large slave population. What little heavy industry(factories) went on would most likely be run entirely on slave labor following a Confederate victory in the Civil War.

This leaves us with a rather small southern urban proletariat that would be based in very few factories until the end of Confederate slavery(if it ever ends); even then, owing to there being less major industrial centers in the south then in the north, there would still be very few "classical proletarians."

Here, we basically have a Russia-meets-the Confederacy scenario. A large rural population in conjunction with a small(er) urban population.

However, assuming racial prejudice clouds southern Marxists judgements, then I don't think that domestic, southern Marxists would focus on the exploited slave population as much, instead they would try to build up their following amongst however many exploited white proletarians there were in the south.

Northern Marxists would most likely be the main advocates of slave-based communist revolution, as we saw in How Few Remain.

Secondly, I don't believe that a southern revolution would be based around Syndicalism.

Following Lenin's publication of What Is To Be Done in 1901, the issue of higher, more centralized organizational forms became more widespread, especially in Russia.

Lenin arguably is to be considered the founding father of authoritarian-communism. Yet, at the time he was advocating what would go down in history as "Marxism-Leninism," Russia was more or less a police state, and always had been one too.

He sought to fight fire with fire. To fight the centralized state with a centralized party. It made since for Russian conditions.

Rosa Luxemburg would heavily criticize Lenin's methods of organization in Germany. She argued that "Leninism" was a strictly-Russian affair, and not akin to say, Germany, which had a more open, although still authoritarian government in charge.

It wasn't really until the Russian October Revolution of 1917(which was actually a well-timed insurrection led by hardcore Bolsheviks) that Lenin would insist that all other Marxist parties copy the "success" of Bolshevism.

Assuming that the Confederacy stays democratic, we wouldn't really see Leninism kick off in a major fashion until the Russian October Revolution happened(it easily couldn't have occurred. All it took was Lenin being left stranded, in exile in Europe during WWI).

Although Syndicalism would no doubt play a large part in southern revolutionary politics, I still believe that somewhere down the line Anarchism would play a major part too, even more so.

Anarchism, at least amongst Blacks, oppressed under the jackboot of plantation-based, and/or factory-based capitalism, would no doubt prosper amongst southern Blacks, be they free or in chains.

Anarchist ideology, when combined with slave revolts in general, would create a powerful revolutionary situation in the south, and would no doubt raise class consciousness amongst rural and urban black proletarians.

Thus, I don't believe that a communist party would bring about a successful communist revolution in the south, at least with in the time frame I am referring too(early 1900's).

It would take a southern defeat in WWI or a similar war to bring down southern capitalism. White and blacks would have to reject it in union with each other, as I don't believe that blacks could succeed in overthrowing Confederate capitalism alone, and so too could white workers not bring it down either alone as well. It would be a single united, multiracial effort.

This long post alone could easily be turned into a counter-factual essay. But I shall leave that for the future... :)
 
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