Kind of hard to have a leftist revolution when the leftist groups can't agree with each other on how society should be organized and what should be considered real socialism versus bourgeois capitalist revisionism. It's basically the Judean People's Front versus the People's Front of Judea in such circles, small as they are.
 
Kind of hard to have a leftist revolution when the leftist groups can't agree with each other on how society should be organized and what should be considered real socialism versus bourgeois capitalist revisionism. It's basically the Judean People's Front versus the People's Front of Judea in such circles, small as they are.

Im a leftist and in fact there is a lot of ideological difference. But we can agree that capitalism isn't good, and that we have to work together to archieve our goals. Thats basicly the United Front principle. And those who call everyone else revisionist are a veeeery small minority, which does not get things done because of this.
 
Or how about this:

The Soviet Union wins the propaganda war (or information war) against the US. The propaganda war was what the cold war mostly consisted of. So, what if the US discredited itself and the people of western europe stopped believing in US propaganda, instead believing in Soviet ones. Many people turn to the left, and the left turns more towards soviet-style socialism.

In the end, western capitalism is overthrown, and socialism becomes the worlds leading ideology. This would also make for a 'USSR wins cold war scenario'.

And for all that see this as too far fetched, a few things about OTL:
Many people in the 60s and 70s (not only leftists) saw the Soviet Union as the force for peace, and the US as war mongering (they had a point). Additionally, leftism was widely popular in the west, and communists like Che Guevara and Ho-Chi-Minh were the idols of the left in general. Many people (even high polliticians) wanted friendly relations with the USSR. People believed in the USSRs technological superiority (even more so before the american moon landing). And many people believed, that a planned economy was more efficient than a market economy, because of the USSRs higher GNP growth (especially during the 1967, 1973 and 1979 crises).

So its not hard to immagine a soviet edge in propaganda (especially as the soviets had major propaganda blowbacks, aswell).
 
Last edited:
All the governments? Some? If some why doesn't Portugal count?

Abolition of the value form or just a nomenklatura in power over modified capitalism ala the Soviet style economies or just a modified capitalism or just over throw? Why not Atlee?

In either case here are three potentials:

PCI and PCF don't disarm.

56 spirals into the Central European commonwealth forcing a new workers control movement in the west (and east).

Dubcek and the Czechoslovaks are permitted to continue indefinitely, leading to a new workers control movement in the west larger than the historical reaction to the crushing of the Prague spring.
 
That's only true if you totally ignored Czechoslovakia.

As I said, they had ideological differences. Some of the soviet actions (like this Czechoslovakian thing) were harshly criticized by the new left. But they were also harshly criticized by some of the Soviet Unions allies (like Romania and parts of the cuban CP). Hell, even high communist figureheads had massively different stances on things (Che Guevara supported China and the cultural revolution ; Caeucescu was a fan of Juche ; Gierek had close ties with the west ; Tito even killed hundreds of pro-soviet communists ; etc.).

China, Vietnam, Laos, Hungary and North Korea didn't even use soviet-style economic planning for the most part.

The DDR, Poland, Romania and Afghanistan only used these planning methods on part (at various stages of their history). Even the USSR itself didn't allways use 'soviet'-style planning.

The idea of a 'Soviet Empire' that makes all of its 'subject nations' completely the same when it comes to pollitics and economics, is just so ridiculous. All the nations had very specific national particularities. Of course they were under soviet pollitical, cultural and economic influence. But not more than western europe was under american influence in these fields. In fact, the pop culture of the eastern bloc had a lot more differences and particularities than the western bloc ones. Songs were mostly in their native languages (even in many of the SSRs). While in the west allmost all of this was american. In the 80s West Germany, we only had two famous german bands, and even they made many of their songs in english. Everything else on the radio was from america. Most of the movies and series on tv were from Hollywood. Im not nationalist, but this type of cultural imperialism can't be good.

So you see differences can exist, and people can still get along. And if pollitical reality starts to shape the new socialist states in western europe, along with soviet aid and cultural exchange, Czechoslovakia is very easily forgotten about.
 
With a POD no earlier than 1945, how to make leftist revolutions in the west possible? This means communists/socialists and other leftists take to the streets and actually overthrow the western capitalist states.
How about no Marshall Plan?

Without the Aid from the USA European economies post WW2 would have been massively worse than they were resulting in unrest.
 
Top