Communist Norway / Norwegian SSR

What do you think, in which circumstances communist Norway or even Norwegian SSR could have been born after WWII.
 
Well that's asking two different things really.

For their to be a Norwegian SSR would require it to have become a constituent Republic of the USSR, which I suppose could be possible if Soviet troops has been the ones to Liberate Norway.

For a Communist Norway, well it could be achieved through purely democratic methods, several Communist nations (I don't mean Communist states) democratically elected Communists to power, particularly in Latin America, so it could be possible that people may just decide they like Communism and vote the Communists to power.
Beyond that I guess a successful Socialist/Communist Revolution in the early twentieth century (perhaps backed by the early Soviets) would lead to a Communist Norway.
 
Norway would never have been made a part of the USSR, under any circumstances. Even Poland wasn't.

for it to become a SSR itself, maybe Finland goes communist first?
 

ninebucks

Banned
Norway would never have been made a part of the USSR, under any circumstances. Even Poland wasn't.

for it to become a SSR itself, maybe Finland goes communist first?

I wouldn't say 'never', Soviet internationalists wanted the USSR to eventually become a global government - but yeah, after Poland's independence was guaranteed, such expansionism ended.

The fall of Finland seems a good place to start. Later, the USSR invades Norway, and annexes the northern half of the country (for access to the Atlantic), and installs a puppet communist government in the south. The territory to the north is organised as the Norweigian Soviet Socialist Republic, while the south becomes a moderate *Warsaw Pact country, (if Finland is annexed as an SSR, Poland, as another former part of the Russian Empire, is less likely to be independent), due to proximity to the major Western European powers, (South Norway gets finlandised, essentially).
 
The fall of Finland seems a good place to start. Later, the USSR invades Norway, and annexes the northern half of the country (for access to the Atlantic), and installs a puppet communist government in the south. The territory to the north is organised as the Norweigian Soviet Socialist Republic, while the south becomes a moderate *Warsaw Pact country, (if Finland is annexed as an SSR, Poland, as another former part of the Russian Empire, is less likely to be independent), due to proximity to the major Western European powers, (South Norway gets finlandised, essentially).

I'd be inclined to agree with you about North Norway, but I think the Western Allies would not allow all of Norway to fall to Soviet hands. If it looks like the Red Army tries to advance south, US or British troops would start arriving in the Oslo region pretty fast. And by ship from Britain they will be faster than the Soviets overland from Finnmark.

I did not get your train of thought in the last sentence, BTW. What do having a "puppet communist government" and becoming a "modest *Warsaw Pact country" have to do with Finlandisation?
 
The Red Army would have had a tough time taking Norway. First of all, the occupation and pacification of Finland would have been bled them white. The Finns were ferocious fighters, and they didn't give up easily. After that, Festung Norwegen itself was occupied by several hundred thousand German troops during the war. And with how much enthusiasm would the Norwegians themselves have faced the prospect of "liberation" by Soviet troops? Some elements of the Norwegian Resistance might even have helped the German occupiers and Quisling's Rikshirden resist the advancing Red Army. It would have depended on what their King Haakon VII and his government-in-exile told them to do. If they could hold on and buy enough time, the Western Allies might be able to force a German surrender, and send their own troops to free Denmark and Norway, restoring the prewar monarchies there.
 
Just have the Finnish people win the class war of 1918 against the Kaiser and his Finnish puppets. Then go from there.
 

ninebucks

Banned
I'd be inclined to agree with you about North Norway, but I think the Western Allies would not allow all of Norway to fall to Soviet hands. If it looks like the Red Army tries to advance south, US or British troops would start arriving in the Oslo region pretty fast. And by ship from Britain they will be faster than the Soviets overland from Finnmark.

I did not get your train of thought in the last sentence, BTW. What do having a "puppet communist government" and becoming a "modest *Warsaw Pact country" have to do with Finlandisation?

Yeah, sorry, I wrote that last bit in a rush. I meant that while South Norway would technically be a Soviet ally, it would be a moderate ally, like how in OTL Finland was a moderate Western ally.
 
Just have the Finnish people win the class war of 1918 against the Kaiser and his Finnish puppets. Then go from there.

Not getting to join the Soviet Union is the one thing the Finnish people regret most to this day. They could have had paradise, man.
 
Not getting to join the Soviet Union is the one thing the Finnish people regret most to this day. They could have had paradise, man.

Actually it is the Finnish capitalists who have the most regrets, although this may sound ASB. It is about once in a month when "Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK)", the voice of Finnish industrial corporations, says that Finnish laws and employee rights should be modified to Eastern European level. So I guess from Finnish capitalists viewpoint it would have been better for Finland to have joined the Soviet Union back in 1918, 1939 or 1944 to ensure nicer business conditions for low-wage jobs in 2009... :D
 
Not getting to join the Soviet Union is the one thing the Finnish people regret most to this day. They could have had paradise, man.

The Finnish social-democrats never wanted to join the Soviet Union, they weren't Bolsheviks after all. In fact, they were the most staunch independentists, they resisted both the Czar and later the Kaiser, while the conservatives true to their habits gladly licked the boots of both.

In fact, the conservatives were brought into power by Russian arms in the summer of 1917. Only after the October revolution did they change their allegiance - not to Finland! - to Germany. To secure their German satellite kingdom the sons of the upper-class then proceeded to massacred tens of thousands of poor tenants and workers, the wretched and the hungry, who had only fought for their right to bread and independence.
 
The Finnish social-democrats never wanted to join the Soviet Union, they weren't Bolsheviks after all. In fact, they were the most staunch independentists, they resisted both the Czar and later the Kaiser, while the conservatives true to their habits gladly licked the boots of both.

In fact, the conservatives were brought into power by Russian arms in the summer of 1917. Only after the October revolution did they change their allegiance - not to Finland! - to Germany. To secure their German satellite kingdom the sons of the upper-class then proceeded to massacred tens of thousands of poor tenants and workers, the wretched and the hungry, who had only fought for their right to bread and independence.

Unfortunately, in none of the new states where the local communists (and the Social Democrats were quite militantly left) got their arms and other support from the Russian communists was independence established. It's especially a shame since so many of them, really impressive people, were wiped out in the purges of the 1930s.

Whether the Whites could have won the Finnish civil war without the German division that landed is a question people have argued about since, oh, 1918. They've also been arguing about whether Finland was a German puppet or an ally (WE have allies; our enemies have puppets) between April and November 1918.

You're absolutely right about the brutality of the fighting and the murder of prisoners, though of course the Whites claimed the Reds started it.

Ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the eating. By the 1930s the Finland that established itself against the will of its own people was the most democratic, stable, and least screwed-up of the new states. Well, tied with Czechoslovakia, which got set back by the triumph of its "people" in 1948.
 
Clarification: Muddy thinking in the first paragraph (some would say not just there!).

I meant where local communists prevailed, those places ended up in the USSR.
 
The Finnish social-democrats never wanted to join the Soviet Union, they weren't Bolsheviks after all. In fact, they were the most staunch independentists, they resisted both the Czar and later the Kaiser, while the conservatives true to their habits gladly licked the boots of both.

In fact, the conservatives were brought into power by Russian arms in the summer of 1917. Only after the October revolution did they change their allegiance - not to Finland! - to Germany. To secure their German satellite kingdom the sons of the upper-class then proceeded to massacred tens of thousands of poor tenants and workers, the wretched and the hungry, who had only fought for their right to bread and independence.

This view is known in Finland as the "Red Truth"; there is also a "White Truth" and both are in many ways incomplete in explaining the goings-on in Finland circa 1916-1919.

The conservative royalists were ready make Finland a German client, but by the deals the Reds were making with the Soviets, Socialist Finland would have been nearly as dependant on Petrograd/Leningrad as Royalist Finland from Germany. Maybe even more so, considering Finland's geopolitical position.

Internalizing the idea of independence was hard to both sides, necessarily: it is not like the Finns had tried being independent before... Coming from the Finnish historical background, securing the support of great foreign powers in exchange for political concessions was a logical thing to do, even if in hindsight both sides can be accused of selling out "Finland" or the Finnish people.

Both sides committed atrocities, par for the course in civil wars, and the Reds actually started outright massacres. The White Terror was more widespread and organised, but one has to also remember that a lot of the deaths at the prison camps in 1918 are as much attributable to diseases and a generally poor food situation as to actual war crimes. There is, for example, a recent study that estimates around 40% of the fatalities at the camps being caused by the Spanish Flu.

Peter Hillock said:
Whether the Whites could have won the Finnish civil war without the German division that landed is a question people have argued about since, oh, 1918. They've also been arguing about whether Finland was a German puppet or an ally (WE have allies; our enemies have puppets) between April and November 1918.

Assuming no German troops in Finland, but OTL support for the Reds by the Bolsheviks, the Whites would have still won. The Battle of Tampere broke the back of the revolution, and after that the Reds were fighting a losing battle. Quite simply, they never could form a real army while the Whites soon proved to be superior in terms of leadership and organisation.

Without the Germans, however, the war could have dragged on for months longer, the Whites slowly pushing the Reds south and east. There is no doubt that a longer war would have created more atrocities on both sides, during the war and after it. However strange it may sound, the German intervention, by facilitating the Red downfall, saved the Finns from themselves and prevented the loss of thousands of lives more. Finland never fully recovered from the Civil War. In an ATL without a German intervention recovery would have still been much, much harder.

Finland was a minor German ally on the very brink of becoming a true German puppet. The process was ongoing, and not yet finalised by the time Germany lost the war. Finland was peripheral to German interests: this gave the Finnish conservative leadership some leeway. It is hard to say how much this leeway would have continued to exist in a CP-victory scenario.


Peter Hillock said:
Ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the eating. By the 1930s the Finland that established itself against the will of its own people was the most democratic, stable, and least screwed-up of the new states. Well, tied with Czechoslovakia, which got set back by the triumph of its "people" in 1948.

It is nothing short of miraculous how well the young nation recuperated in the 20s and 30s. We owe a great debt to the moderates of the time, to the people who moved swiftly in demanding pardons for the Socialists, closing the prison camps and pushing improvements like the land reform. With a longer, more bloody civil war polarizing the people even more, Finland might have never grown up to become a stable Nordic democracy.
 
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It's true that the Reds were broking at Tampere, however with a longer war the Whites would have had a long-time turning the cities into strongholds and re-supply with weapons from Russia. I don't really know if that would be enough, but the Reds did control the industrialized parts of the nation and had stronger enthusiasm behind their cause. After all they didn't rely on conscripts nearly as much (at all?) as the whites.

One could compare to the Soviets in WW2. While their initial force were broken they could exchange space for time allowing their industrial base, large population and foreign allies to turn the tide.

Perhaps conscripted whites would even refuse to fight a bloody battle for Helsinki.
 
It's true that the Reds were broking at Tampere, however with a longer war the Whites would have had a long-time turning the cities into strongholds and re-supply with weapons from Russia. I don't really know if that would be enough, but the Reds did control the industrialized parts of the nation and had stronger enthusiasm behind their cause. After all they didn't rely on conscripts nearly as much (at all?) as the whites.

Both sides relied on conscription, for the Reds it was at start informal but later on formal. The red stronger enthusiasm for their cause is a myth, part of the Red truth DraF mentioned. Both sides had enough enthusiasm for killing is what can be proved historically. Since the Reds lost they can be seen as the more romantic side. As for the situation after the loss of Tampere the Whites controlled majority of the country's population and had vastly more powerful forces than Reds.

But as a what-if for the sad episode of Finnish civil war (Kansalaissota) it might be thought that what would have happened if the leadership of the major parties weren't complete, short sighted, bloody minded idiots and could have seen through the muddle of the moment... After all, Finnish Civil War is perhaps the only one in the world after which the publically stated goals of the rebels were fulfilled within years after the end of the conflict.
 
Ah, you're right. I was somehow assuming that Finland's population is dispersed in a way similar to Sweden's, but it's not of course. It's more evenly distributed.
 
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