Hi guys, just to let you know I'm an avid fan of Red's, A Revolutionary Timeline, and I am really interested in trying out doing my own timeline. I would like this thread to be one that people continually add to, so we can have a collaborative approach to making this alternate history just like Jello did with Reds.
Reds fantastically highlights the issues with the American labor movement back in the late 19th-early 20th centuries. The fact of the matter is that the American left had huge potential, but it was hindered due to it's division, isolation, and poor tactics. The AFL and the IWW were deeply divided, and many syndicalists refused even to participate in elections, which held back the growth of the Socialist Party of America. If Debs and DeLeon had however merged their organisations, the history of America could be extremely different. It's a great piece not only for it's well researched content, but also the lessons that it can teach us today on how to build an effective socialist movement in the United States.
However, what I was thinking is doing a much more obvious alternate history, which is there being a communist revolution in Germany. I don't know if anybody remembers me writing a post on What if the Spartacist Revolt Succeeded?, but a lot of people highlighted some very good points on how the Spartacist Revolt was kind of like the July Days, and perhaps would have been crushed in a similar way to how the Paris Commune was. So I have revised my thoughts, and so that instead of the POD being that the 1919 uprising was successful, simply that Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebnecht escape from the Freikorps instead of being murdered like they were in our timeline.
Luxemburg and Liebnecht were highly competent figures, who had a high amount of respect amongst the German communist movement. One of the biggest issues after their death was that the KPD lacked many experienced leadership and it was uncertain who would take their places. This lead to the split between the Communist Party and the Communist Worker's Party, and the division in the Communist movement, misguided ultra leftist tactics, and lack of leadership is what led to the failure of the Red Rising the following year.
The Kapp Putsch and the response to it was absolutely groundbreaking. Virtually the entire country went on strike against military dictatorship, so that they were completely squandered. Ebert was deeply unpopular, everybody knew how he'd sent out the freikorps to murder revolutionaries. In the aftermath of the coup, the working class had had enough of boishwar government, and could see clearly the incompetency and betrayal of the SPD. The Red Rising in the Ruhr Region was a huge uprising, which had a real chance of being successful, even so much that a militia of 80,000+ men was formed in the height of the struggle. The reason for the failure was the lack of coordinated leadership, and the division in the left. The Communist Worker's Party refused to enter into reformist trade unions, and would not compete in elections, the same was true of the Free German Worker's Union. This led to isolation from the masses, who at this time were very much still supporting the USPD.
But Luxemburg had a commitment to democracy, and understood that in order for a revolution to be successful, one had to secure the support of the whole country, and this is why she rightly pointed out that the 1919 revolt would be a disaster, which it would have been even if they'd taken control of Berlin. If she had given clear leadership to the KPD, they would have followed a unified strategy and been a more attractive force to the working class, taking over from the USPD and would have easily have been able to defeat the Freikorps. Not only that, but a successful Ruhr Rising would have immediately, if coordinated effectively, been met with support in Berlin, and a most (almost all of present day borders) of Germany would have been under Red control.
No, it wouldn't have been a brief scuffle, there would have been a civil war and the French attempting to invade again. But you must remember, that after WW1, the populations of France and Britain were exhausted. Mothers had lost their sons, lovers had been separated by death, many survivors knew the horror of the trenches. In our timeline, there was extreme opposition to involvement in the Russian Civil War, especially in Britain, because nobody wanted to resume the war. If Britain and France were about to get involved in a much bigger scale war, and one which would essentially have been a resumption of WW1, there would have been such an outcry, that in order to stop revolutions in their own countries, they would have been forced to retreat. I can imagine in Britain, Labour coming to power in 1922 due to their anti war platform, and the labour right wing led by MacDonald being the capitalist's only leverage.
Therefore, despite the war being violent, it won't not as devastating as the Russian Civil War was. The majority of the German population were literate proletarians, not as easily swayed as peasants with promises of land reform, even though there was a German peasantry. It also had extremely productive and mechanised farm land, meaning famine was far less likely than it was in Russia, which literally only had 1 railway in the entire country. The worker's also would be far more educated, questioning, and equipped to run society unlike peasants, who were only interested in their own personal gain in the form of land. Through the strong will of the population, and support of Russia, who in this timeline focus more on the Polish campaign than the Caucasus, lead to both Germany and Poland becoming communist countries. This would mean bureaucracy would not form to the same extent as it did in Russia, as there would be no need to impose red control on the populace, as the communists would be able to deliver on their programme. The workers would be the masters of their own control.
By 1923, Germany would be split between the Worker's Republic of Germany, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebnecht, and the Kingdom of Prussia, which would be separated from the rest of Germany by Poland like it was in our timeline as a part of Germany, and with a strongly conservative population, would most likely have had the monarchy restored and a military dictatorship imposed.
Soviet Russia would have a major, industrialised country as their ally in this timeline. They could transport aid in the form of food to attempt to minimise the effect of famine initially. They could also have been major importer of Russian grain in exchange for machinery, helping Russia develop. I can imagine a communist democracy like Germany would encourage Russia to make reforms to it's political system after the civil war, perhaps meaning the CPSU splits into the right opposition Buhkrarinites and the left opposition Trotskyists