Development of the US Socialist Party without WWI?

[CthulhuFhtagn]

Assume that the US doesn't join WWI*. Without the OTL backlash from opposing American involvement in the war, would the SPA continue to grow? Or would it still be destroyed by infighting and government repression during the Red Scare?

*Entente and Central Powers come to some sort of truce in 1918, Russia still collapses, France and Germany trade colonies for Alsace-Lorraine.

 

[GeographyDude]

I think it would help.

But socialism would still viewed as a type of disobedience.

 

[sciscisciortino]

It's impossible to say because this would butterfly a bunch of things:

a) how the SPA keeps together anyway with the US not involved in WWI--a Comintern split is still going to happen

b) how Russia collapses exactly and what emerges

c) how butterflied away the conservative reaction of the 1920s in America is

d) subsequently, the fortunes of the Democratic Party until the next crisis

e) what will the economy look like globally and nationally without the US in WWI?

f) are the Republicans going to keep their house in order? Is TR still going to run in '20? (keeping his son alive from not joining WWI will give him a few more years at least) Where will western Progressives go?

g) Why would there be nearly as severe a Red Scare without the war?

 

[steve_wilson]

I think the real question would be whether the early alliance of farmers with urban socialists would occur/continue/grow. Such alliances still occur, though the farmers seem to come out with right-wing stuff.

 

[David T]

Assume that the US doesn't join WWI*. Without the OTL backlash from opposing American involvement in the war, would the SPA continue to grow? Or would it still be destroyed by infighting and government repression during the Red Scare?

*Entente and Central Powers come to some sort of truce in 1918, Russia still collapses, France and Germany trade colonies for Alsace-Lorraine.

*What* Red Scare? There were two bases for the Red Scare: (1) During the war, the belief that Bolshevik Russia was in league with Germany, a nation with which the US was at war. (2) After the war, the fear of Bolshevik Russian expansionism. Neither of these will exist in a scenario where (besides Germany not being at war with the US) Germany wins the war in the East (and gets a satisfactory peace in the West--though I am very dubious that the kind of tradeoff you envision could actually be arrived at, I'll assume it will be). For in such a situation Germany will quickly crush Bolshevik Russia and replace it with a puppet government like Skoropadski's in Ukraine.

So I don't see much of a Red Scare in the US against the Socialist Party, though of course there was plenty of hatred of the IWW even before the war.

And what may be the most important consequence for the Socialist Party, the left wing will probably not split off to form a Communist Party. This split had devastating consequences for the Socialists in OTL. There would still be infighting between the left and right wings of the party, but before 1919 the two wings did manage to coexist in the same party. Without a successful (in terms of survival) Soviet Russia and the formation of the Comintern, they would probably continue to do so.

This is not to say that I expect the Socialists to become a major party. I think they reached their peak in 1912. Eventually, the desire not to "waste" one's vote becomes fatal for minor parties in the US. (Incidentally, the *immediate* effect of the US entering the war was actually to increase the votes for Socialists, because voting Socialist was sometimes the only way you could protest the war. Hence Morris Hillquit's big vote in the 1917 New York mayoralty election and Victor Berger's strong showing in the 1918 Wisconsin special election for the US Senate, even while he was under indictment. No doubt a lot of German Americans who were not Socialists voted for Berger to protest the war.)

 

[Mikestone8]

c) how butterflied away the conservative reaction of the 1920s in America is

Not a big as OTL, but probably still happens. The Republicans had been steadily recovering since 1912, with big gains in 1914 and back to virtual parity by 1916. So they may will win in 1920, though not by anything like Harding's landslide.

d) subsequently, the fortunes of the Democratic Party until the next crisis

As above. Probably out of power in 1920, but stronger than OTL, and well placed to come back if anything like the Harding scandals still happen.

f) are the Republicans going to keep their house in order? Is TR still going to run in '20? (keeping his son alive from not joining WWI will give him a few more years at least) Where will western Progressives go?

Trouble is, taking away US entry into WW1 probably also takes away the reconciliation between TR and the Regular Republicans. And given the Party's recovery since 1912, the latter don't desperately need TR - they can win without him. I'd see TTL's 1920 as rather a rerun of 1916 (though possibly going the other way this time), with the GOP picking someone just progressive enough to forestall another Bull Moose revolt, but no more. Western Progressives probably divide much as they did four years ealier, with some going back to th Republicans, but many not.

 

[sciscisciortino]

How does Germany just place a puppet government in Russia though? They're still gonna be pretty broke and exhausted with a peace in 1918.

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . Such alliances still occur, though the farmers seem to come out with right-wing stuff.

Sometimes people in general are traditionalists, including a lot of low-income persons.

But farmers often had personal experience with being treated unfairly by grain elevators, railroads, banks, etc. Certainly be open to policies involving transparency and regulation with teeth of big corporations.

So socialists could successfully advocate, not merely tentative steps or experimental steps, but genuine medium steps and then see how it works. In some cases, maybe a taxpayer-financed business to outcompete the disreputable businesses.

There was the Grange in the late 1800s. There was the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party, and similar in other states although I don't think as successfully. There was in fact a fair amount of agrarian populism.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

I don't know about the Socialist Party, but I've got a hypothesis that's been banging around in my head, wondering if a lot of the blowback against Progressivism might be chalked up to Anti-German sentiment (since so much of their proposals were based off of imitating the Bismarck welfare state).

 

[GeographyDude]

January 7, 2014

Challenging the Two Parties of Capital

A Short History of the
Minnesota Farmer-Labor
Party

by Graeme Anfinson

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/07/a-short-history-of-the-minnesota-farm-labor-party/

" . . . The main problem was the farmer section of the Association had far too much power. While it was founded with an equal farmer-labor alliance, many rural clubs had stopped paying dues and rarely participated in the internal political process. Unfortunately, due to a poor provision in the Association’s constitution, so long as farmers would show up on election day and vote, they kept their regional delegates. This made the farmers’ influence far greater than their day to day participation. . . "

So yes, there are definitely problems and issues. People are people, there's no getting around that.

 

[Mikestone8]

I don't know about the Socialist Party, but I've got a hypothesis that's been banging around in my head, wondering if a lot of the blowback against Progressivism might be chalked up to Anti-German sentiment (since so much of their proposals were based off of imitating the Bismarck welfare state).

I suppose it might accelerate the decline, but iirc the Progressive Party was already sinking fast even in the 1914 midterms, and TR's refusal to run in 1916 pretty well killed it. So the real damage is already done.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

I suppose it might accelerate the decline, but iirc the Progressive Party was already sinking fast even in the 1914 midterms, and TR's refusal to run in 1916 pretty well killed it. So the real damage is already done.

Sorry, I meant "progressive policies" not "the Progressive Party" (capitalization, my bad). The main example on my mind was the American Association of Labor Legislation (AALL) proposing a law to the state governments to, mimicking German legislation, mandate universal health insurance (which, incidentally, was supported by the AMA); WWI, I read, played a key role in this legislation's downfall.

 

[David T]

How does Germany just place a puppet government in Russia though? They're still gonna be pretty broke and exhausted with a peace in 1918.

But Russia is completely helpless. (That's why they agreed to Brest-Litovsk, after all--even while the Germans had to worry about the western front.) The old Imperial Army has disintegrated, and a Red Army has not yet been built up. To quote an old post of mine:

"Ah, you say, but what about popular resistance to the occupiers? Well, in August 1918 a Bolshevik-organized revolt against the Germans in Ukraine was a complete failure. In Poltava province, where the Bolsheviks had counted on scores of thousands of peasants to take up arms, only one hundred obeyed their call; in most other regions, there was no response at all. [1] " In the same post I note that *even with the war still going on in the West*, the Kaiser came pretty close to overthrowing the Bolsheviks, and even in rejecting intervention he was explicit that he was not "foreclosing future opportunities." https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/qSAUM1-eguw/zudQj2x2P2gJ

[1] See Richard Pipes, *The Formation of the Soviet Union*, pp. 135-6 for my source for this. https://books.google.com/books?id=smDy35onbtAC&pg=PA136