French Syndicalism WI

Actually, the Worker's Federation was an influence on both Kosta and myself, yes, just applied to a different empire and less Cecil Rhodes.

Although wages would still be around, as would union ownership of industry (Not quite public, but not really private either.).

Just for curious sake, what would you call the USAR in the Reds! timeline?
 
Two points.
1. The culture of Russia is completely different from France. The former had a lot more of an authoritarian culture, which is going to affect any government, even if hard left, that comes out of the former one. This can be seen by the Soviet government adopting the same policies of the Russian Empire government, like Gulags and secret police.

2. France has a democratic tradition, Russia doesn't. The former will have a populace that will want to ensure that France stays democratic.

The culture of a country a revolution occurs in is very important to what type of society will emerge from it.

That's essentially why the Union of Britain emerged as the kind of state that it is in The People's Flag. Britain could never have turned into the USSR, so it becomes its own very British socialist republic, full of democratic quirks.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Ah, but there are no parties as what we think of as parties. Instead, one votes for whichever union one wishes to have more influence. Sure, there may be a Banker's Union (Or there may not be, unsure), but the greater part of the political process would uphold the Syndicalist system.
Hi, see my post about it needs to be authoritarian unless you think nobody wants to make a profit in France.

And how exactly are you they not going to have parties, are they going to ban all the Bourgeoisie parties?
 
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Kosta

Banned
Ol' Kosta was talking about France in the interwar period, and doing something different with it. I believe he was thinking a non-Soviet variant of communism, but I then suggested a sort of syndicalism. Whether he ends up using that or not, I'd like to examine that here.

Why did you never show me this thread??

(Oh, right, because I quit AH.Com. Nevermind, then! :eek:)

For what it's worth, I did want to adopt your idea of syndicalism. The only shame of it all is that France will probably still keep their tricolour, anyway.
 
And how exactly are you they not going to have parties, are they going to ban all the Bourgeoisie parties?

I gathered representation would be based on trade unions, not political parties. Though political parties as protest groups outside the parliamentary structure would be interesting in such a society, if only for ironic role reversal.

Though I do agree, authoritarian elements would almost undoutbedly creep in, though rule by Unions would mean it would be far from centralised and take great effort to reach Stalinist levels. Then again Nazi Germany was a messy collection of fiefs, it still pulled off plenty of totalitarian horror.
 
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