hey, all. before i get on to China for my ASB ATL, there's one thing i need to figure out (which is important for the rest of the ATL as well). i've already decided that the October Revolution doesn't take place, ultimately leading to Russia becoming a constitutional monarchy with a strong socialist movement (via the more moderate Mensheviks).
The monarchy fell with the February Revolution.
It wasn't coming back.
one important thing that i need to know for the rest of the world, though, is what the lack of a Soviet Union would have on how communism fares elsewhere in the world.
any other ideas?
"Communism-with-a-capital-C" may not even exist in the ATL. The great watchword of the Left was "Socialism". (The alternate great watchword was "Anarchism".)
As of that time, there was a spectrum of Left movements and ideologies. There were "moderate Socialists" such as the Fabians of Britain, "Social Democrats", revolutionary Socialists, anarchists and anarchosyndicalists. The latter two groups were less numerous, but prominent for their violent deeds. The phrase "bomb thrower" was not metaphorical then. Most of the overt violence was perpetrated by anarchists, but socialists also did some.
There were disputes, alliances, mergers, splits, and defections among all these groups. The Socialists were "Red"; the Anarchists "Black". All these groups were nonetheless part of the "radical" movement of the time.
Socialism was a consciously "international" movement; the "Socialist International" (which still exists) was a union for Socialist parties of all countries, including the British Labour Party and German Social Democratic Party.
OTL, the Soviet Union was the first state in which "the Revolution" had actually overthrown the old regime and come to power. As such, it became a model for Leftists elsewhere.
The original model for socialist revolution, as enunciated by Marx, was that capitalist economies would suffer increasing crises and hardships for the working class ("proletariat"), until the proletariat rose up
en masse and made the Revolution.
By 1900 or so, this model was clearly failing. Capitalism was generating greater prosperity for everyone, including the working class, which showed no signs of mass insurrection.
Lenin put forward a response to this. He argued that the Left must form a "disciplined vanguard party", which would lead the revolution. This "vanguard party" would be governed by "democratic centralism"; that is, from the top down, like a military force.
This idea appealed to some Leftists, but was rejected by most. But success spawns imitation, and the Bolshevik success was no different.
The Bolshevik regime in the USSR claimed the headship of the world socialist movement, but socialists elsewhere mostly disagreed. The result was a split in the Socialist International; those who followed the USSR formed Communist parties and became the Communist International.
The Communist Parties advocated complete socialization on the Soviet model. Ironically, the Communist Party tended to be more "orderly" than smaller and less disciplined radical parties. Communist parties participated in electoral politics - but always with the semi-tacit reservation that when the time came, they would claim total power and discard "bourgeois democracy".
OK, what happens if there is no Bolshevik Revolution. Russia becomes a republic, with a moderate social-democratic government.
There is no split of socialist parties. OTL, the usual line up was a large Socialist Party, a smaller Communist Party, and some much smaller fringe socialist parties. Some of the latter were influenced by Trotsky after his exile from the USSR. These latter extreme groups probably still exist, but the big split doesn't happen.
There is less radicalization of Socialism, and no Leninism. I suspect that Anarchism remains stronger - it seems to have declined rapidly after WW I, except in Spain. My guess is that Communism's success attracted the hard-liners and violent types that had previously become Anarchists.